champaignchris

Is there a team in the majors that doesn't have a problem when you get to the 6th guy out of the pen? The pen's ERA is 3.88. Good for 7th in the league... slightly above the league average of 4.02. Converted only 20 of 33 save opportunities, which isn't really good. But this may have as much to do as anything else with an offense that sometimes seems incapable of doing anything at all after the 6th inning - last in the NL with only 96 runs and a .657 OPS.

Some of Bradley's splits are just bizarre... He's hitting .170 in 94 AB in the 4th or 5th slot. Everywhere else in the lineup (mostly 3rd) and pinch-hitting, he's hitting .302 in 116 AB. Somehow, despite taking all but nine of his AB in the 3rd through 6th spot in the order, he only has 21 RBI through 84 games (71 played) of the season. $7 million right fielder, and he's on pace to hit 43 RBI? You have to go all the way back to 2007 to find a year where he hit so few. Too bad there weren't any other corner outfielders on the free agent market for Hendry to consider. (For the record, defensive liability and all, I wanted Adam Dunn.)

Inability to draft position players is hardly an issue confined to Jim Hendry: Here's a complete list of Cubs draft picks who've played 800 games in the big leagues (about 5 complete seasons) since 1988 (the first post-Dallas Green draft): D. Glanville E. Hinske C. Patterson To give some credit, Khalil Green (2001, didn't sign) is probably going to get to 800, and Ryan Theriot (2001) has a decent shot. Both were MacPhail picks. Given the standard length of time it takes a draft pick to get to the bigs, it's probably not fair to expect anyone drafted after 2001 to have played 800 games. However, no one drafted after 2001 has even played 100 games yet. Compare to Dallas Green's draft picks (1982-1987) Shawon Dunston (1982) Jeff King (1983, didn't sign) Rafael Palmeiro (1985) Mark Grace (1985) Joe Girardi (1986) Jeff Cirillo (1987, didn't sign)

And for what it's worth Kerry Wood: 9 saves, 4 blown saves, 5.68 ERA in 25 1/3 IP.

I've seen a number of comments in the press about "all" of Gregg's blown saves... Here's a pretty typical one: http://espn.go.com/chicago/columns/blog?post=4282635&name=friedell The problem is, he's only blown three saves in fourteen chances... Last night, June 2, and April 10. He's posted a 4.18 ERA, which isn't very good for a short reliever. But he had a 5.59 ERA in April, a 3.86 ERA in May, and has had a 3.27 ERA so far in June. The other options are: Guzman... hurt Marmol... three saves, three blown saves, 33 BB in 33 2/3 IP. uhhhhhhh... Ascaino? Marshall? Point is, Gregg's not very good. But he's good enough. If the Cubs hadn't just gone a whole month averaging less than three runs a game, the Cubs would be in first place about a game and a half up on the Cardinals, and no one would be blowing a gasket about this.

NO BARKING WAY!!!

Prediction time... Z goes 7 without giving up a run. Reliever, let's say... Ascaino, comes in, in the eighth gives up walk, sacrifice bunt, bloop hit for a run. Cubs can't scratch across a score. Cubs lose 1-0.

Griffey Thome Thomas McGriff Delgado Bagwell Piazza C. Jones Galarraga Guerrero The steroid era guys with the most home runs yet to have been linked to steroids. All top 50 all-time HR hitters, all between HoF locks and someone who will at least get some HoF consideration. Is there any reason to believe that they weren't on roids? 104 guys tested positive. That's, on average, three or four on each team, and that's only the ones that got caught. Is there any reason not to believe that the actual number wasn't significantly higher. Is there any way for a HoF voter to justify not voting for Sosa or McGwire and then voting for, say, Pudge Rodriguez or Jim Thome?

Through 6/16: Derosa vs. L: 54 AB 352/417/704 vs. R: 197 AB 259/330/416 Fontenot vs. L: 30 AB 133/176/233 vs. R: 152 AB 257/352/428 Bradley vs. L: 38 AB 289/372/447 vs. R: 103 AB 204/322/359 Miles v. L: 93 AB 183/224/215 v. R: 22 AB 273/304/409 So, thus far this year, DeRosa is performing decently against right handers and absolutely murdering lefties. Fontenot is performing about the same against righties, but can't hit lefties to save his life. Bradley is performing decent against lefties, but not as well as DeRosa, while looking completely lost against righties. Miles isn't horrible against righties, but is just as useless against lefties as Fontenot is, begging the question as to why he continues to get any at bats at all. The really weird thing in all this is that if the Cubs don't sign Miles and stand pat with DeRosa, it only costs them about $2.5 million, which might seem huge to you or me, or even to a small payroll team like the Pirates or Marlins, but to the Cubs and their ~$120 million roster is pocket change.

So, who now tops the list of "Most likely to have been on roids, but we don't have any actual proof yet?" Bagwell? Piazza?

Not particularly surprising. Not even really disappointing. Kind of just inevitable, really. Like when your 99 year old great aunt you haven't seen in 10 years dies. You're kind of vaguely sad, but aren't entirely sure who the flowers should be sent to.

You know, the real simple way to fix all this is to simply switch baseball to a "Winter" sport and make sure the host city has a dome. That way it's going on in the off-season and none of this is at all relevant. I mean it's not like basketball is really a "Summer" sport.

When you have, statistically speaking, the best starting pitching staff in baseball is the window really closed? The frustrating thing is that the Cubs don't need THAT much offense to win this division. Really all that needs to happen is for both Bradley and Soriano to play to their capabilities at the same time, which hasn't happened all year.

The Cubs are 9-16 in their last 25 and playing offensive baseball about as poorly as they possibly can, and yet, they're still only 2.5 games out of the playoffs. Thus this question is probably going to be moot. That said, Harden and Gregg would be the two guys that you'd think about shipping. If you could get Lee to waive the no-trade, that'd also be good. It'd be awesome to get rid of Soriano or Bradley, and you'd have to eat a good chunk of the contract to do it, but I just don't see it happening.

This team has only scored 76 runs in their last 25 games. It's been beyond brutal. Soriano, Fontenot, Soto, Bradley, and Miles are all just horrible right now. Bringing in a bat to replace Miles in the lineup would be a good start. Giving Hill, Fox, and Hoff a few more at-bats would be another step. (Sending Fox down so we could carry 13 pitchers was pure madness.) But eventually, Soriano, Soto, and Bradley are just going to have to start hitting.

Considering that since the format changed in 1995, the playoffs have been a complete craps shoot, I'd suggest Cox's lack of WS rings probably has more to do with bad luck than anything.

Yeah, I think it was July '03. He'd just been chosen to be on the all-star team and then blew out the knee at 1B. That year was the first year that the fans got to vote for the last player on each team after the rest of the All-Stars were announced. He had either won the voting or else was leading at the time (one detail I forget is whether he was injurde after the voting was over or while it was still in progress). Patterson was injured on July 6, 2003. The Break began on July 14, 2003. How that timing works with the voting, I'm not sure. Arguably, Patterson was the best position player for the Cubs during the first half of 2003, although Sosa went on quite a tear right before the All Star break. Patterson's injury spurred the trade that brought Lofton and Ramirez to the Cubs in one of the all-time great fleecings in team history. Ramirez and Lofton to the Cubs for Matt Bruback, Jose Hernandez, and Bobby Hill. 787 games, 177 home runs, 581 rbi later, I think we got the better of the deal. It's funny to think that back in 2003, a guy who would go on to become one of the majors' most consistent players and a plus defender at 3b, was thought of as erratic and a defensive liability. Anyway, back to Patterson... He had a really good first half of 2003. Lofton had a really good second half of 2003. A lot of people thought that the Cubs should re-sign Lofton as a lead-off hitter, both because he was better at it than Patterson, and because Patterson might still be having some injury issues. The Cubs declined to offer Lofton. Patterson came back in 2004 and had a decent year, easily his best full year with the Cubs - 24 HR, 32 SB is what you're looking for out of your speedy CF. The problem came of the Cubs' insistence that Patterson become a prototypical lead-off hitter. Something he wasn't particularly suited for from a plate discipline stand-point, and something he didn't seem particularly interested in. In 2005 they (mostly Dusty Baker) tried to completely change Patterson's approach at the plate and it was a disaster. Patterson traded to the Orioles for two minor leaguers that didn't amount to much, and Juan Pierre signed. That certainly worked out well, didn't it. Funny thing is, Patterson wasn't horrible with the Orioles. It wasn't until he signed as a FA with Dusty's Reds that his career seemed to take its final nose dive.

I can say that I've never gotten a speeding ticket in all truth. It doesn't mean that I never exceed the speed limit.

The bigger question for me is when will an All Star manager appoint all his own player as bench players, and then manage it like a real game? You can't tell me that if the Phillies are still in first place come All Star break, Charlie Manual wouldn't at least seriously consider it.

That's been the general trend among users hasn't it. Especially those over 35. Slumps, strange injuries. Sometimes they outright disappear. I mean, there's a reason why they take the stuff. They wouldn't use it if it didn't work.

Wasn't Rafael Palmeiro faced with this same dilema? "How bout I start doing Viagra commercials!"

These two guys have as much proof against them as Sammy. Piazza especially. There are all sorts of stories of his bachne. You're right, and later in my post, I didn't count Sammy among the 9 out of 21 users. But, if I didn't mention anything next to his name, someone would have said something to the effect of, "Everybody knows..." It's pure conjecture at this point. Unfortunately, I think he's going to be kept out of the HoF based on pure conjecture.

Just for those who like to keep track... Here's a list of players in the top 50 career home run list who played a majority of their careers during the steroid era (1995 to 2007). The number in parenthesis is where they stand on the all-time list. (1) Barry Bonds – Confirmed steroid user (5) Ken Griffey, Jr. (6) Sammy Sosa – Widely suspected, no solid proof (8) Mark McGwire – Confirmed andro user, teammate and brother claim steroid use (10) Rafael Palmeiro – Confirmed steroid user (12) Alex Rodriguez – Confirmed steroid user (14) Jim Thome (17) Manny Ramirez – Confirmed user of steroid related drug (18) Frank Thomas (25) Gary Sheffield – Confirmed steroid user (26) Fred McGriff (30) Carlos Delgado (32) Jose Conseco – Confirmed steroid user (34) Jeff Bagwell (37) Juan Gonzalez – Almost certain user, teammate claims steroid use, drugs traced to him seized at Canadian border (38) Cal Ripken (39) Mike Piazza (42) Chipper Jones (44) Andres Galarraga (47) Jasom Giambi – Confirmed steroid user (49) Vlad Guerrero Not including Sosa (who's had no proof at all against him), that's 9 out of 21, with most of them at the top of the list.

I could see spots for Dunn, Cabrera, and Sheets on the Cubs. If they could be had for cheap, they'd be great pickups. But then, if they could be had for cheap, they wouldn't still be free agents.

Maybe I'm just older than most here. But Steve Stone, to me, was the voice of the Cubs growing up. Far more so than Harry Carry. Especially after Harry's stroke in '87, Steve carried those broadcasts and generally did a good job. Him getting run out in 2004 for basically saying about the team what anyone with eyes could see was just plain silly. I'll probably catch a few Sox games next year just to hear Steve. Also, the complete mismatching between Hawk and Stone is sure to create tons of unintentional comedy gold.