neely crenshaw

sorry but you can not believe that dusty has a choice of playing jones. this is the pros...how many big money rooks are forced in to lineups in all sports whether they areready or not? too many. hendry signed him to play. he is going to play. even more so when you see that dusty is not signed for next year...hendry controls that and do you really think that he(hendry) wants his star signing to be shown to be a bad signing? by platooning the guy you say...hendry screwed up and that will not happen. bottom line this is not baseball this is a business.

please tell me who is great on that list? there is difference between being great and having great talent or stuff. wood has great stuff....he has never, ever been great even when healthy for more than a start or two. a 14 game winner is not great in my book. prior- same thing he has great stuff and might end up being great. he has one great season out of 3 but that does not make him great. also we had 0 to do with him developing..that would be thanks to usc...he spent what 3 weeks in our system before coming up...don't think we did much for that one willis left us in single a ball...i think the marlins get credit for that one garland has had one year..and that was more like half a year. off the top of my head wasn't he 12-0 and then finished 18-10? it was something like that. 5 starts for marshall is a little soon to annoint him great. especially when he had a 6.oo era before facing the pirates and marlins... hill and guzman do not belong on any list of great pitchers. they end up being very good or even great but they are years from that! when i think of great, i think of hall of fame caliber pitchers. right now there is not a halll of famer on that list. i think of cy young winners. i think of 20 game winners. i think what we should ask is why can we draft very talented pitchers and we do not draft as many very talented hitters?

seriously, why rip dusty? with this current team would we win if we had sparky anderson or even connie freakin' mack? this team is put together on a bunch of bandaids and crossed fingers! we hope pierre and jones return to form from 3 years ago-not likely we hope that cedeno and murton can be all that we hope...so far so good we hope that aram,barrett and lee stay healthy and produce like the have...not so good we hope dempster is the lights out closer that he was last year. we hope that either the young kids are good in the rotation or that the bandaids on wood,prior and miller hold on...not so good so far. we are 10-0 in starts by maddux and marshall we are 4-11 in all others that can not keep up...maddux and marshall will have to drop some games and z will win some but is there anything that we have seen that will lead us to believe that guzman,rusch, or williams will do anything different? other than hope? we have no idea what type of pitching we will get from the dl(remember a supposedly healthy prior was TERRIBLE the last 3 months of last year) this looks and sounds like a 70's style june swoon where we will be 20 out by july.....

i find them an excellent thing to put me to sleep...once over the frustration it is easy to drop....and right now expectations are extremely low, so there is very little frustration!

the problem is not dusty(at least not completely) it is hendry. he signed jones to be the everyday outfielder and paid him accordingly. it is not jones fault...i certainly would have taken the pay if offered to me. much like burnitz last year, it wasn't burnitz fault last year. he had a typical jb year, the problem was that he was signed to be our stud outfielder and had to hit 4th or 5th..and if jb is your best offensive outfielder and has to hit in the middle ofthe order- YOU ARE NOT GOOD. same with jones this year if he has to play everyday andhit lefties and hit 5th...you are not good. hendry's mistake..and yes i am very sure dusty has no choice but to play him, (i am also sure dusty would anyway) but if the GM signs a guy to play everyday...he is going to play everyday especially when the GM has not extended your deal yet!

one of the reasons the bullpen blew so many leads for wood was he has to come out because of high pitch counts and can not continue. that's part his fault but the bullpen also needs to do their job. remember we started the year with 6 finger as closer...

i haven't played much major league outield but you can not dive for a ball with 2 outs and no one on...and miss it by 10 feet! that should have been a single.

a couple things one: pitching dominates early. hitting comes on as the weather heast up and pitchers start wearing down. our pitching has been evry good for the most part...BUT when hitting takes off will it be good enough to continue to hold down hitters? and will we have enough hitting when the hitters take over?questionable second: prior was really bad the last 4 months of last year. his pitch counts were up(way up) he gave up bomb after bomb. there is absolutely no way to know if he will be that pitcher(who supposedly was healthy) or the old prior. there is a good chance he will never be the stud he was in 2003. three: without rehashing this again, i certainly hope we all know better than to base our hopes on wood doing anything! bottom line is the stros went last year. can not take it away from them. everyone except pittsburgh,tampa and kc could go this year. so yes this team could go. they need a whole lot of things to break their way but it could happen. not very likely but it could happen.

a game or two over 8-10 weeks?! RI-DIC-UOLOUS! you ca not judge what is missed by this stat or that. having dlee on the field changes everyone's defense. it changes defensive plays, it changes pick offs...it will change they way our pitchers pitch. it will change very batter in the lineups job. it will change every batters pitch selection. it will change who is on base ahead of everyone hitter- which of course also changes the way you are pitched to. all of those things on top of losing his production. it will put more pressure on every hitter in the lineup- they know they have to do a little more it will put more pressure on our pitchers-they know they have to give up a little less.... if we only drop ten games back in the next 10 weeks i will be happy unless we make some sort of move.

even though we hav eplayed well, this injury highlights the mistakes of the offseason. i'm sorry but we have put together a lineup that is completely relient on aram and dlee doing what they did last year and staying healthy. having walker and mabry at first would be much easier to handle IF we had some pop in the outfield. barrett is a good offensive catcher but he(or any catcher) can not be your second best offensive threat.

when you say neifi sucks it may not be hate but it certainly isn't saying "i don't like the way dusty uses him". he does not suck at what he does. he is a back up. look around the league and tell me he is not one of the better utility/back up guys. he had a good(for him) year last year. the problem was that he had to play all the time and that dusty put him where he didn't belong. if dlee is going to be out a short time then we can make due with mabry, neifi, hairston and walker filling in. if he is out for some time we better look to make a move or bring up a bat. we can not go vey far with barrett and jones batting cleanup!

isn't there some way that we could combine our sucky lineup day with rusch pitching? that we only have to give away one game a week.

z has got to be pissed that he gets to trot out to the hill with that lineup! couldn't we wait and give barrett his day off when mabry and walker could start vs a righty? or if aram or jones came back?

i know he's a lefty but didn't mabry do a pretty good scott rolen impersonation last year? so we face milton who is a flyball pitcher and we of course put our punch and judy lineup in....and i thought yesterdays looked pretty bad

the cubs lineup certainly looks pretty horrid without aram or dlee! brings back not so fond memories of last season's crew!

i can deal with mabry for a spell. he certainly was nails in st. l filling in all over, but pie could add some interest! i doubt they do it, because if he showed he was ready, hendry would look even more silly for the 3 year deal.

i haven't been posting but i have been watching..ugh can we please petition the cubs not to pitch rusch on weekday daytime games when i can watch? it's not even a good diversion from work.

look at what florida has traded for other spare parts(to them at least) i do not think they will get a ton at the break. no one really moved last break because the offers were underwhelming. add in that everyone knew what a slow year it would be in the offseason, i can't see people dropping a ton of big time prospects for 1 player. with the pitchers that will be free agents next year why would anyone unload the farm for willis? i'd like him but we could a zito or mulder for wood's salary slot and no prospects! if they want one high level like marshall or hill (not guzman or pie) then i am all for it if they want us to replenish there system again...FORGET IT! unless we have a healthy prior and/or wood we won't be a world series contender thsi season with or without willis. now if we went after cabrera then we might go a little deeper. i would guess it would have to involve murton. jones is here for 3 years(which is who we should replace) if we are not signing pierre then we have to have pie over murton. perhaps we send murton,dopriak or hill with a youngin for cabrera. he(mig) would certainly allow cedeno to just be average offensively(.240) and play defense. -in a dream world we would have an outfield of murton, pierre and cabrera with pie waiting in the wings! but the only way someone is taking jones is if we pay him.....

I like the fact that we stayed with the lineup...i worry that will change if cedeno isn't hitting .400. although murton is not hitting and he is still in. I like the better defense. I like the bullpen. even williams was pretty nasty vs st.l I like what pierre is doing. he may not hit 330 but he is.. taking a ton of pitches. in a a 4 at bat game he is seeing around 20 pitches! last year that could be 2 times through the order.every hitter in the lineup basically sees every pitch that a pitcher has by his 2nd at bat if not his first! pierre may not be the guy he once was, but he still works a pitcher like no one the cubs have had recently! we will slump we have been getting very clutch hitting from starters and the bench...it just is impossible to do that all year. i worry we will overwork howry and eyre it will be interesting to see how we react to not hitting. will we manufacture somethings. will we win 2-1 games. will we go to vets if we struggle. these have been our undoing the last 2 years. BUT so far so good

playing to their career norms is actually over their head for several. it has been a few years since they have performed at their norms so the likely hood of them playing at their norms is a stretch. jones for one has been around .50 points below his norm... pierre has been way below hairston walker(because of injuries and splitting time) cedeno has no real norms murton has no real norms i guess if you mean aram, lee and barrett....and i would say they have to repaet last year(or at least close for lee) for us to win

i would rather see us create stabilty with a good office and staff rather the one we have. they have been here for several years and have built zero...

good thing jones plays instead of mabry...

pretty sure corey could have made the switch to right...centerfielders have a tendency to change postions during there career.

Jones sucks, but let's not overreact. If we didn't have Jones on the team Hendry could have given more money to players who deserve bigger contracts, like Neifi and Rusch... I'm fine with that, but Jones is Roberto Clemente compared to Patterson. What is this comparison based on? Well, Jones was about average at the plate last season and Corey was probably the worst OF in the major leagues, so I figure the gap between Clemente and Jones is about the same as the gap between Jones and Patterson, based on numbers. why do you think jones was average?

only one excuse= we are not very good and basically everyone(except pittsburgh) in this weak division is still better than us.