Lefty

If the batting runs are unadjusted for position, you have a slightly above average ML performer. If Perez would bat eighth, he wouldn't be the reason we can't win. It's our OF production which is terrible, and is more easily and efficiently improved than SS. Would you rather have Furcal at SS and Preston Wilson in the outfield or Cedeno and Giles or Drew? Patterson 26 runs below average! That's a AAA player-and not a particularly good one. An outfield of Murton, Hairston and anything better than Burnitz would be an improvement of a few games. Of course Lee's regression to a mere Superman would probably counteract that. Preston Wilson is coming.

if we kept everything realisitic and just had discussions involving moves that hendry would actually consider, we'd have nothing but threads about picking up burnitz's option and giving preston wilson a 4 year contract. Word!

His 5/50 contract from last year is now 4/40. While injury-prone, he is several years younger than Giles. The Dodgers fired their GM in part because of this move. If they want to dump some salary, does anybody here want to help? We can take Bradley off their hands too.

Maybe this was covered in the first 36 pages, one of you can call me on that, but has the name of J.D. Drew come up? His 5/$50 million is now 4/40, and a GM just got fired because of him. It seems that the Dodgers might be willing to dump that salary. And we need OFs like most teams need bullpen help. We need to collect OFs and sort them out later.

ESPN reports it done.

Okay, tell us the guy you want for 2M then, and come back next season if that guy turns into nothing. There's something to be said for a degree of certainty. And eliminating Dempster's 3 run saves makes things look a lot worse than they are. Even the best closers don't nail down all the 1 run leads. Dempster was 14-16 in 1-run games this year. With 1 of the blown saves being a 2 inning appearance and one of the saves being a 2.2 inning appearance. Along with that he had 0 mult-run blown saves. Hoffman went 17-19 in 1 run games with 1 multi-run blown. Rivera 13-16, 1 multi run. Wagner 12-15, 0 multi run. Dempster was great last year for $2 million. But now you've increased his salary and I don't think he will be great again. Hendry disagrees, so let's see.

you still havent given any cheaper & better options that the cubs had prior to signing dempster. who would you have rather seen them sign than dempster? Tht's kinda' the point. You oughta be able to get someone for $2 million. That's what Dempster made last year. That's about what Hermanson made last year. There is no reason to pay premium money for a commodity. But the Cubs don't really understand this. The assumption is that Dempster will not convert 94% of his save opportunities again. And the truth is, he shouldn't get any credit for "saving" three run leads in the ninth. I'm pretty sure Hawkins never blew any of those. Anyway, Dempster will probably convert 65%-70% of his one-run leads next year. You can get that for a lot less and sign a non-commodity player.

Dempster (like Borowski) is not a lights-out closer and certainly has a tendency to worry me, but what would have happened if the Cubs low-balled Dempster and he signed with another team. Now you have to get in a bidding war over someone like Wagner that will end up costing $8-9 million per year. Is Dempster worth $5 million...... NO, but 99% of the players aren't worth what they're paid. At least it's money being paid to someone who has an important role on the team and not a bench-warmer. This isn't a discussion of whether ballplayers are worth more than firefighters. It is a baseball discussion. Dempster isn't worth $5 million because he's not that good, he is an injury risk, the Cubs could probably replace him for less and then use the extra money for something they need. who could they replace him with for less than 5 mil? with all the $ the cubs will save next year in payroll by losing nomar, burnitz & sosa's contract a few mil is not going to make much of a difference. every pitcher is an injury risk (look at what happened to foulke, gagne & benitez) and to say "he's not that good" is just a personal opinion that the facts simply dont back up. what if the dodgers or twins said the same thing about gange and nathan who had similar history's of being failed starters who were often injured? Why would you say Dempster's not good? I'll take a closer with his success rate any day of the week. The beauty of it is he isn't costing top dollar closer money. Closer "success rates" have a large random component. He's likely to be between 80 and 85 percent next year with the same peripheral stats. And if he sucks like I think he will, he may be at 75%. Enjoy.

Dempster (like Borowski) is not a lights-out closer and certainly has a tendency to worry me, but what would have happened if the Cubs low-balled Dempster and he signed with another team. Now you have to get in a bidding war over someone like Wagner that will end up costing $8-9 million per year. Is Dempster worth $5 million...... NO, but 99% of the players aren't worth what they're paid. At least it's money being paid to someone who has an important role on the team and not a bench-warmer. This isn't a discussion of whether ballplayers are worth more than firefighters. It is a baseball discussion. Dempster isn't worth $5 million because he's not that good, he is an injury risk, the Cubs could probably replace him for less and then use the extra money for something they need. who could they replace him with for less than 5 mil? with all the $ the cubs will save next year in payroll by losing nomar, burnitz & sosa's contract a few mil is not going to make much of a difference. every pitcher is an injury risk (look at what happened to foulke, gagne & benitez) and to say "he's not that good" is just a personal opinion that the facts simply dont back up. what if the dodgers or twins said the same thing about gange and nathan who had similar history's of being failed starters who were often injured? Well that's it then. Dempster would have to give us a couple of Joe Nathan seasons to make this worth it. I'll gladly be wrong if he does.

Dempster (like Borowski) is not a lights-out closer and certainly has a tendency to worry me, but what would have happened if the Cubs low-balled Dempster and he signed with another team. Now you have to get in a bidding war over someone like Wagner that will end up costing $8-9 million per year. Is Dempster worth $5 million...... NO, but 99% of the players aren't worth what they're paid. At least it's money being paid to someone who has an important role on the team and not a bench-warmer. This isn't a discussion of whether ballplayers are worth more than firefighters. It is a baseball discussion. Dempster isn't worth $5 million because he's not that good, he is an injury risk, the Cubs could probably replace him for less and then use the extra money for something they need.

I, and Christina Kahrl from BP agree... You know, my business mentor is a huge Ayn Rand fan. He's a lot older than you are based on your moniker. I had an opportunity to spend some quality time with a noted BP author. He had a close source in the Cubs front office. To paraphrase what he said, while people in the Cubs front office are not stupid, and are certainly not stupid about baseball, at this point they have little interest in looking at baseball problems in any kind of new way. Now me talking, humans tend to hunker down when they sense a threat. The Cubs front office, unable to adapt, signed Dempster to this contract because it makes them feel safer. So they are literally Neandrethals (sp?).

What you guys fail to see is that just about all closers are failed starters. Mariano Rivera was a starter in the minors but didn't have the repertoire to start in the Majors. Dempster had a good run. But he put a lot of runners on. With normal luck he goes 29/35 instead of 33/35. Is that worth $5 million? The Cubs don't learn the right lessons. They get two great years from Borowski for about $1 million. They then sign him to a decent contract which cost them games. They got Dempster for $500,000 last year to mop up, and $2 million this year to be a miserable fifth starter, and then closer by default. Now you're gonna pay him $5 million? Dumb, dumb, dumb. The Cubs have no confidence in their ability to solve problems creatively. So instead of trying to find another Borowski, and using the Dempster money for what they cannot easily replace (Furcal, Giles or Giles), they sign Dempster to guarantee themselves mediocrity. I find myself rooting for the Sox, because I would love for them to win and stick it to the Cubs. The Cubs are a disgusting organization. But I love 'em.

why? Because he will be lousy or hurt and the Cubs will be stuck with the contract (see Remlinger, Mike).

A terrible signing. This contract will dominate this board in 2007.

The difference is that Maddux eats innings with an average performance level. That is worth something, though not what the Cubs are paying. As I've posted before, we have to look at the Maddux signing, and the resulting loss of Clement, as the Cubs' attempt to win it all in '04 at any cost. Alas, it didn't work.

I believe Guillen was the perpetrator. Sorry. I believe you are wrong. Sorry. Mea culpa, I am wrong. I will enjoy it more when the Sox are eliminated before the WS, though.

Exactly. It's not like you can choose to have a productive out or not. You choose an approach which leads to a range of outcomes with differing probabilities. I'd love to have an Adam Dunn who struck out only 100 times, still drew 100 walks, hit .320 and hit into 15-20 DPs (so would the Reds). But that's not the choice.

Actually the argument does make some sense because you can't know before the fact whether you will have a productive out or a DP. Now if you know your hitters' tendencies to pull or go the other way, or groundball vs. flyball, you can try to figure it out. But at that point you're not guessing anymore. The A's are always looking to use new information. That's what makes them different. Your plan to build a winner by hitting into force outs is very novel.

But how much time did Prior miss? He's still going to pitch 175 innings this year. Ramirez is having a terrrific year. What you fail to realize is that it is not the injuries that have kept the Cubs from leading the Wild Card. It is that even with a normal amount of injuries this is about a .500 team. Macias and Perez are your two best bench options; Hollandsworth logs 200 ABs as your starting LF; a confirmed mediocrity like Burnitz in right (batting 4th or 5th!); Weurtz making 80 appearances; Roberto Novoa is your 8th inning guy after Baker lost confidence in Wellemeyer. Those are games going out the back door that Lee, Ramirez, Prior and Zambrano won in the first place. That's a .500 team. On $100 million that is a poor return.

So Hendry is supposed to be able to forecast injuries? To some extent, yes. Injuries are part of the game. If you staff your bench with Perez and Macias, and if you staff the bullpen, which is basically a pitching bench, with the likes of Bartosh, Novoa and Remlinger, you deserve the results you get. How many games did the injuries really cost us? Perez for Nomar, maybe a couple of games. A healthy Wood for the collection of garbage, maybe another couple. It's still a .500 team. Burnitz, Hollandsworth, Maddux, etc. Like I said, I think it is fair to say that Hendry has done a bad job of allocating resources.

The Cubs are below .500 with the highest payroll in the NL. You can say that injuries were a factor, but who staffed the bench? Baker is a lousy manager, but Hendry dropped the ball.

I believe Guillen was the perpetrator. Sorry.

The last two seasons, 1.65 to be exact, the Cubs have the same record on the road as at home. Given that the average home advantage is about seven games, the inability to 'hold serve' at home cost us the Wild Card last year and has us further back than we should be this year (we are the only team in the WC mix over .500 on the road). Why is that? What about our team construction makes this happen? Is it strictly low-OBP when the wind is blowing in? Can we blame this on Dusty too?

Unfortunately Patterson's stats at Iowa look like his recent Cub stats. He's hitting .217, OBP below .300, a few HRs, and Ks in over 20% of his ABs; against AAA pitching.

Has Bruce Levine ever got anything right? Yes. Corey's demotion, for example, was first reported by Levine. Bruce was also first on the Sosa trade, the Ozzie Guillen contract extension, the trade for Gerut, the acquisition of Enrique Wilson, and the Nomar trade just off the top of my head. A better question is has he ever gotten anything wrong? A lot of people got worked up over his report that a major trade was brewing in late May. That trade didn't happen, but it wasn't because Levine made it up. The Cubs talked to the Mets and Marlins, but decided on making a smaller deal with the Giants - the Hawkins for Williams and Aardsma trade. I'm sorry Mr. Levine.