neely crenshaw

? does he have the right glove?

time to realize that prior may be the worst pitcher on our staff and has been since last june. dlee is not playing and may not the rest of the year. he is the best player on either team but if he does not play, he can not effect this season. he is also a shadow of his normal self because of the injury. this was about this season. also nady and bay and anyone, are probably better than jones,murton and pierre.

no one in general just the posters that feel we shoudln't get abreu because his power is down. i should have said "they" probably.

we all talk about obp and then you rip abreu because his power is down? what does he have 4000 walks this season? obp of .900? if we can add a solid defender(who can actually throw the ball) who has a obp of .400+, whouldn't that be better than a ss who has an obp of .280 with slugging of .330? yeah he costs more(which is the problem) but we pay jones, pierre, wood, neifi and glendon roughly 30 million dollars a year. i think we could spend a little more wisely.

i know we all like to think we are much better than the pirates but if we seriously look at the 2 teams- we are better at 3b,c and bullpen + z. they are better at everything else. we are lucky to be ahead of them.

take sign?......

since it's soo bad right now and not much being done here...i have to say- there is no substitute for speed.... weren't we all naive back then!

well we have 50+ games to find out!

maddux was my favorite player- i think he did a good job here...injuries just made expectations go up. if wood and prior win 18-20 each behind z's work..maddux 14-15 wins is awesome..however wood and prior haven't won 10 combine in 2 seasons making maddux our defacto no 2..so 14 wins is not awesome. that being said he was gone at the end of the season. we were not going to contend even if maddux went undefeated in the 2nd half. it is/was time for hill and guzman to finsih the year with marshall and marmol. it would be a disservice for us to put maddux in the pen so he had to be dealt. i thought if we got a decent prospect for him that would be good. to get even a border line major league player is a bonus. isturis may be good or he may be a bust..but it won't cost mush to find out. if he shows something he opens up a trade market for either he or cedeno.. we are so far down that every little bit helps, is isturis the answer...no but if it helps get someone else who is. that is much better than watching maddux pitch(great or poorly) for the next 3 months on a terrible, terrible team and then getting 0 for him. the problem is that in hendry's world this maybe the only ofensive move we need...

people are stupid. i think signing jones was a mistake, i think it blocks pie and murton. i think it was 2 much for 2 long. i think it was a chain reaction for missing out on furcal BUT i certainly do not blame jones. he did make hendry sign him and he certainly has played better than most expected. we should be sending hendry the hate mail! didn't we used to have a couple black right fielders that most people likes? billy,sammy, andre..

i certainly like the sound of a .370 obp

you know if we keep adding these guys it might be possible to put a whole team in the lineup with sub .300 obp

my guess is you have to resign pierre. we are stuck with jones. we have aram,lee and barrett. if we are to be good jones can not hit higher than 6 or7..perferably 7. barrett can not hit 2 through 5. he simply can't. he is a great hitter for a catcher but any catcher not named pudge or piazza can't be there..you must have better options if you are going to be good. we need a 2 hole hitter and a banger. we can't have izturis and cedeno..i would prefer cedeno because he has more upside but i think he will be the one to go because of that. we must fix our pitching through free agency with a stud. if not it won't matter much. i think we can make a package of young pitchers and a spare ss to get tejada(we could add murton but would like to deal him seperately).the other ss goes to 2b and hits 8th. however we must sign pitcher or we can't afford to give up a marmol or guzman. if we sign zito it's time for some of them to go. so we are now looking at a LFer who can hit 2nd. i actually wouldn't mind a rf..because to me jones needs to play left of course if we want to egt greedy get lee to play left and hit tejada 2nd but hendry won't do that. lineup pierre cf leftfielder tejada ss lee 1b aram 3b barrett c jones rf cedeno/izturis 2b pitcher we can wish but hendry's history tells he might get 1 big name on offense and one pitcher but there is no way he signs soriano and lee or trades for tejada and gets either one.

if we are going to seriously try to contend we must sign a real live stud to back z. we can not hope on a live arm or a comeback. and yes jim you will have to overpay to get your guy...but you have to do it! we will be without maddux and wood 's money. we have more than enough to sign a stud and then still get someone like wolf. i would niot mind a gamble on the second guy, as we will be overpaying for the first. we really have to start thinking that prior may never be himself again. he is no where near a no. 2 and is probably only ahead of hill right now in the rotation. we simply can not run out a 95 mil dollar payroll with 4questions on the staff and 4 questions in the field. i would like zito. that would give us: zambrano zito wolf/padilla prior/marmol marshall if you sign zito and another pitcher it is then time to package murton,hill,guzman or marmol, cedeno or isturis for some serious lineup help. it simply would not make sense to sign 2 free agents for at least 3 years probably 4 and to keep 3 prospects that are pretty much ready to go. add in that you have miller still rehabbing cheaply. that's pretty much why i don't think hendry will sign a stud unless they deal prior. perhaps we could package 2 pitchers and a ss for tejada. my guess is... we piss away all the value we have in the minors end up giving away guzman,marmol and hill(and murton and cedeno) in two years, and only sign someone like meche for too much and hope prior and miller are healthy.

also, i don't think we should be trying to get anything "good" for him. he has been decent for us...remember this team is 20 games under .500- he has the 2nd most wins. he has thrown decent, but on this team he was forced to be our #2 pitcher not 4 or 5.....with vasquez,buerhle and garcia sucking it up for the sox, i think they would love it if their #4 guy only had a 4.70 era. if maddux goes to a picher friendly park like detroit,la, san diego or seattle he would thrive and probably win his 15 games. he will not be back..if we get a class A prospect for him, it is a plus. if we keep him, he either doesn't pitch(which isn't fair to him) or he takes starts away from hill,marmol,guzman or marshall (which is who should start every game that zambrano doesn't start-unless you are looking to deal prior in the offseason, then he needs to start also) sorry but we won't get anything great for anyone unless we deal aram, or part of our bullpen. everything else will be a dump or to get anything for a player who isn't coming back! if hendry is waiting to deal walker, nevin, rusch, maddux, neifi for something good, he is much worse than i thought!

-shouldn't hendry be out of here if he does nothing? i think we miss out if we don't move at least walker and maddux. we will not have them next year so why not get something. we also need to make decisions on pierre, jones and nevin. aram is also a possibility. he could bring some decent offers. we are bad. we are bad when healthy..we are worse injured. other than deciding if dusty cab get it done there is no reason to keep many of these guys in order to try to move up slightly in the standings. if we plan on bringing back pierre then get him signed, if not get some prospects back for him jones has done exactly what we thought he would but in my opinion keepinh him means that you can not keep pie and murton. so he is blocking the only position players we are close to developing. if we keep murton and/or pie it's hard to keep jones...you are then stuck with an outfield that won't hit 45 combined hrs. can't have that at wrigley...take a look at our home record. if we are to contend we need to more bats and 2 more starting pitchers- real ones. the pitching should be easier because we will have money from wood and maddux but we need to go after someone and sign them. do not settle for plan b or c!

hendry will go after zito..but not want to overpay. so when his 10 mil a year offer is 1.5 mil short he will rebound by trading for 6 mil a year veteren and than signing a 6 mil a year swing man..thus spending 12 mil in order to not pay 11.5 mil to zito.

might as well have a 3peat of players that the cubs/cub fans wanted to acquire become fact. after huff and kearns..abreau might as well go! and again i know we could have matched the deal by the angels! but we won't

admit failure? i don't think clinton or bush's pr firm could spin having a 100 mil payroll for 3 seasons and being 20 games under .500 as anything other than a failure..and a huge one at that!

i'm sorry but now that huff and kearns have been traded to others..it just shows how little hendry does. these are two younger guys who could seriously improve the cubs at a fairly modest price and we have had interest previously but we get nothing..and looking at what they were dealt for if we couldn't have beaten that deal..we weren't trying

why does it matter who manages? we have an aging outfield that won't hit 50 hrs, will hit around .250 as a unit and have an obp of barelt .300 our powr corner guys aram and lee will not hit 60 combined and look to hit just short of .300- not terrible but hendry needs them to hit 80hr and be well over .300 with at least 200 rbi i'm sure he was hoing for 230-240 with pierre at the top we have one starting pitcher in z, we have a rook that looks good in marshall but is still only going to win 10-12 games,prior is continuing to be awful, maddux is a #5 but on this staff is a 2. the rest of the young guys shoe promise but are a ways away. we can not compete with a staff that can only compete 1.5 times out of every 5 starts. we have the worst offense in baseball, in every catagory we have a poor staff...but the bullpen is better! let's just have the players fill out the lineup.

can we quit this? soon we will be saying if we sweep every series from now until sept 25..we'll be .500. on the last one i said we would be closer to .300 than .500(i think the date was in august) we will be lucky to finish .400. and the truly sad part is that the national league is absolutely terrible and slowly falling apart. the way everyone in the central is playing 85 wins might win it..and our front office put together the worst team in baseball for the basement price of 95 mil! damn fine work jim

perhaps we should look at our coaching staffs when our pitchers and hitters go elsewhere and do well.it seems to be happening over and over. most people knew we had to deal corey because he was not going to do it here. it's a shame that we are forced to deal prospects because our organization can't develop them. i also think the biggest beef that most people have is that we continue to devalue our own prospects and then deal for nothing or give them away. i do not mind dealing prospects- we should, we just screw them up and then dump them. seriously, what type of player could we have picked up 3 years ago for: cpatt, dubois, hill,brownlee, wellmeyer, mitre, wuertz, christenson,nolasco,guzman and we were able to steal pierre for a year. these guys were all untouchable at one time and we still have 2 of them that have no value at all(hill and wuertz) and guzman may still have a small amount of value. that is what people are pissed about!

i will say right now that we will be closer to .300 than to .500 on august 2nd!

first- i agree that i can't see hendry doing it because he would be admitting his mistake second-jones is not in his prime and will not keep up these stats...think burnitz last year third- he is being paid 6 mil per year that can be used to land some real help next year. also because of his deal and the fact that we need a lead off guy, if he stays he will block either murton or pie from playing or force a deal of one of them. we can have pie play cf but we can not have him lead off. fourth-we have a 95 mil dolar payroll. we are the worst team in the nl and arguably becoming the worst in baseball(kc is 6 behind and we started 14-9 while they were like 3-18) why pay a player 6 mil for 3 years of decent production(at best) while risking he could freefall and we would be completely stuck. he may be our best hitter in the of right now but on a sinking(sunk) ship who cares...look at the big picture. if we could get anything for wood and prior i would take that also. we are bad, and ANY room we can get to amke moves for next year is a bonus no matter how bad we might be this year. seriously, do we need to keep jones do that we can stay ahead of pittsburgh and kc..is that our goal?