neely crenshaw

i would trade wood for 2 dozen baseballs right now. i do like him. if healthy he could be a cy young candidate. the problem is he is notcheap and he is a huge question mark. his salary and question marks are a huge stumbling block for next season. we could certainly use his 12 mil to sign someone who is more consistent. if we keep wood and do not sign another stud pitcher then we are potentially looking at a rotation of z,prior,maddux,rusch and williams(with a wood injury). not terrible but we would need serious offensive and defensive upgrades to be a world series team. we would also need bullpen upgrading because you are looking hard at 3 starters that won't go deep. if we keep wood, do we have enough cash(will we spend it) to fill all our offensive holes. to me, in order to be a world series team we need a lead off man, a power guy and 2 good hitters to fill out lf,cf,rf and ss. murton could be one but then we would need a serious pounder for our other corner. we will certainly not be able to gamble on cedeno,patterson,murton and nomar(1 of them tops) . if we do, we will be looking hard at last place in the central. we could cross our fingers and hope everything works out for us but personally i am tired of that. it's time to win.....

here's my problem with the statement.. why is a black person only an american of african decent? you can not tell me that vizcaino and taverez do not have african heritage but they don't count because they are from the caribbean?! to me that's like saying that a guy isn't black because he's from indiana. it has nothing to do with where you are born but where your ancestors are from. ozzie and freddie garcia are hispanic. taverez and vizcaino are black. they may be from the islands and have hispanic blood, but most afro-american blacks have white and indian blood also, it does not change their ethinicity. it's just a convenient way to make this an argument.

i like damon and furcal. reggie sanders is solid also. we need a starter and set up guy. it's probably a dream but man ram is said to be on the block. dream 1. damon cf 2. furcal ss 3. dlee 1b 4. man ram lf 5. aram 3b 6.sanders rf 7. barrett c 8.cedeno 2b p= z, prior, wood,maddux, millwood/burnett...williams if wood fails more possible damon furcal dlee aram sanders murton walker/cedeno barrett

i think dusty and la are a match made in heaven! please....

it was nice that hendry and baker put together a crappy enough team to allow construction to start before the playoffs ended! thanks guys

fist no one does it alone. jones has been the man for the entire season(so has lee) francoer has come on and hit 300 with 14 hrs but only in 70 games before that he had kelly johnson hitting 240 with 9 jacks in 90 games. chipper hit .296 but missed 53 games. giles led the team with a .291 average!(chipper didn't qualify) rf between brian jordan and langerhans hit 250 with 11 homers! laroche between first and third hit 259 20 and 78 franco at 72 years old hit 275 9 and 42 estrada missed 57 games and hit 261 with 4hrs furcal hit 284 with 12. yes furcal and giles had decent top of the line up years but certainly they did not carry the team. helped yes. but sub 300 averages do not win pennents. with chipper out so much, andruw jones had to drive in guys. who else could? i'm sure his average was lower because if he took walks, who would hit anyone in? when chipper was out and before francoeur came up, you had laroche hitting forth? or langerhans or franco? every player on that team (save for chipper) had better stats because of jones. wouldn't gut a fastball to anyone on that roster and pitch around jones? their top pitcher won 14 games. so no one on that staff dominated. they had decent pitching but it certainly wasn't the reason they won. with that line up and staff if jones does not have an awesome year or if he got hurt..they would have finished last. compare our cubbies postiton by position and the only place they have the better player is in centerfield and shortstop. we have a better starting staff. we have a better closer.

how about don't get swept by the freakin' royals!

jones led two of the glamour stats hr-rbi. his team made the playoffs with a cast of nobodies. most of the season he was alone in the order but still put up these stats. chipper had an bad year and was hurt. the rooks played well but look at their stats. no pitcher on the staff had a great year. one guy(jones) had an awesome year and that was it. they are in the payoffs simply because of jones. he will be the mvp in a not so close vote. dlee should be player of the year but he won't be mvp, with this team his only chance would have been to win the triple crown or win 2 of them and make a run at the 3rd catagory. right or not it will be jones.

remember when the astros signed petitte and clemens? a few of us were very worried about it but most ripped the signing and basically said they were overated, over paid and over the hill? there was no way that clemens,petitte,oswalt and miller(at thetime) compared to prior,wood,z and maddux. -not even with their offense last year!

what about ty cobb? if you are talking all time his average is pushing .370!

it's hard to argue that we are better than the reds. they whipped us. the 6 games was much closer 2 weeks ago like 1-2 games and then griffey had surgery, and i'm sure they played sone different players at the end while dusty went balls out to get to .500. i'm sure the reds were not concerned about how close they were to the cubs but rather in seeing if some kids might help them next year....kinda like what the cubs should have done. we pounded pittsburgh and cincy and milwaukee beat on us... it's truly sadthat we have a 100 mil payroll and we have to argue if we were better than cincy.

Following the 2003 season, we were in no need of a closer. Borowski had been performing fine in the role. Of course, he should have been calirivoyant (sp?) and realized Joe would get hurt and lose velocity. :roll: anyone worth a salt could see we needed an upgrade at closer. jobo had a nice year out of nowhere but if you weren't scared every time he took the mound, then you have no pulse. much like we all knew we needed an upgrade at short over gonz.i certainly did want to trot jobo out in the ninth with a trip to the series on the line.

i would prefer illinois native dayton moore. he is in award winning front office guy with atlanta. one of the main guys in devolping their mnr league system. i think he may have an idea of how to run this club.

yeah, he targeted set up men(and got them) when we needed a closer. genius!

we beg for obp and he provides it. but because it's walker it's not good enough. if you want to talk problems why not aram? is he above it. great offensive player but he hurts us much more tham walker. what would his d be like without lee at first. he'd be back to his 30 errors. he doesn't run hard because of his legs, he is hurt a lot. the thing is you like aram and for some reason you don't like walker. i love the fact that he(tood) will say what he feels. he rips management for not getting help at the break. guess what? so did most of us he rips dusty for the way he sets his lineup. guess what? so do we! to me, he says what i think every player on this team should say. the mangement has screwed up and needs to do something different. sometimes the truth hurts but hopefully it will help fix this team. the time for everyone to be quiet and pretend we are headed in the right direction is over! it will probably cost todd his spot with us, as i'm sure it has other places. i know that he wants to win and is pissed when people screw that up!

i know this is crazy but if we have a guy or guys that are not performing because they are out late drinking or chasing tail then do not play them. if they want to be professionals they need to be ready for a day game. they play 6 months a year and over 100 of them are night games, i am sure if you sent the message they could scale back a bit on the nitelife!

as lee corso says....not so fast my friend! 13 wins with 2 starts left. era drops again with another shutout. why is it such a bad deal that they give greg a shot at 15? what he has he done except take the ball every 5th day, pitch pretty well for a guy who was signed to be a 4-5 starter. he is making a run at winning 30 games in 2 years. it is not his fault what hendry paid him. he is certainly not the reason we haven't won. we all talk about people wanting to play for the cubs and taking a discount..well part of getting that, is doing things for players, treating them with class and not screwing them out of an option when they signed an endloaded contract based on incentives.

in this case quality starts is way over rated. a quality start is a 4.00 era and that is what prior has been giving us...but we need and expect much more. we will not get to the series with prior being a 4.00 pitcher! he has to become dominate

prior has been ok record wise but his peformance has not even what most would call "good". he has been consistent and kept us in games but since his first 3 starts(which were dominating) he has an era of well over 4. and it is well over 5 since july. his pitch count continues to look like kerry's.this has been a fairly large sample size like 22 starts so i am very worried that this is what prior will be and that we may never see the prior of 2003. he is not bad by any stretch but when you have based the fortune(and future) of a team on your big 3 pitchers, and only one is performing you are in trouble!

if he stab the umpire and pissed on a mascot he also would not be a cheater. is he a cheater because babe ruth's generation didn't lift weights? steroids were not not against the rules so he can not be a cheater. you can say it tarnishes his stats, but he did not break rules. gaylord perry is the all time leader in real cheating, yet he is glorified and in the hall of fame...how come? last, steroids or not, bonds has the shortest most technically correct swing ever. he also has an ungodly eye and unmatched patience...all of these are not effected by steroids. last, barry is still huge and barry is still dropping bombs perhaps you are over estimating how much of barry was because steroid use (or possible use).

rusch gives up a 2 out hit to morris(hitting .077)...rbi for morris. nice work

we are still playing?

unfortunately prior and harang have had pretty similar years. prior has continued to have his era rise. most people that love prior either don't realize he has a 3.70 era or that it's above 5.00 the second half of the season or think it's a phase...the truth is that right now prior is a good not great pitcher. he can be very good but does not dominate like in 2003. he has shown little to make me feel that this is going to change.

they have some control but if a defense is playing a certain way the pitcher will pitch to the defense. you cannot take an inside 95 mph fastball the other way..not even tony gwynn.

tony gwynn!!? why not just compare him to ty cobb....tony gwynn is arguably the best average hitter of our generation...i'll have to see more and puckett isn't he a 2 time mvp?