neely crenshaw

bottom line cub fans it's time to realize that we do not have to be happy or satiisfied with this team. the truth..hendry,MacPhail and dusty have put together the best 3 year run of cubs baseball in my life(38 years). also the truth just because it's better than we have had...does not mean it's good or that they have done a good job. the truth is also that they haven't. the cubs are 200 games below .500. the have spent more money than ever and wasted more money than anyone this side of ny. they do not have a good line up. their prized pitching staff is now in tatters, and the farm system has been severly devalued while bringing little help. it does not have to be like this and dare i say..i shouldn't! this organization is a small market...it does not have to sell off players when they get expensive. it is making money and lots of it. we don't need a yanks payroll but we derserve to have the organization fill in holes when they are evident! there is no reason we shouldn't be like the braves and win our division every year .chicago deserves this and cub fans definitely do too! my worry is that if we retool and do not really make a go of winning this thing soon, guys like prior,z,dlee are all going to look elsewhere, no matter what the money is!(see maddux:greg)_they will make millions somewhere! i 'm sure they want a chance to win. there is clearly nothing in the minors that is remotely like a z-prior combo...we had better strike while the iron is hot. mark my words they will be out of here...

not to defend neifi but why in god's name would you not tyhrow him a batting practice fastball everytime up? i am sure most pitchers just set that sucker down the middle of the plate and say hit it! he is never going to hurt you. i mean how many breaking balls does the guy see? for sure if you got to 2-0 you are sending him fat city! how can you see any pitches if the are serving you up every at bat?

isit possible that pittsburgh catches us? they are closer to us than we are to the wildcard... we are really good :shock:

he couldn't leave him in there....that would mean he would have to pitch a young guy....no need for that they are in a pennent race

well my part of my point is if you are going to suck, you may as well suck with young players that might get better! example if you send out a lefty that has a 8.00 era in his last few outings then why have it be the 50 year old vet, instead of a young guy....

rusch...counting today's fine start , is at 7.87 era for his last 5 games...no reason to give hill a chance whne you can pop a veteren in that is almost as bad. yes, hill has not been good. he has shown flashes, i would just as soon see what he had over a longer period than 21 innings....if that's the case why play cedeno? neifi is hitting .272 cedeno is only hitting .259.....better send him down to learn another pitch!

take away his fast start and he has barely been better. he will not improve, and we know what he brings! why not see what the kid can do for the rest of the season? don't like hill...let's see some other young gun.

I think we saw enough of Hill to know he wasn't ready and needed another pitch or two. 04/04 - 08/24 IP H R ER BB K HR PC BB/9 K/9 HR/9 WHIP ERA Rusch 106.7 126 54 50 43 87 10 1907 3.63 7.34 0.84 1.58 4.22 Hill 21.0 24 20 20 13 21 3 426 5.57 9.00 1.29 1.76 8.57 and the up side of rusch is.....

with aram out this line up is worse than the rockies let alone not good enough to make the playoffs! i can't wait for the hendry is a genius for not signing anyone because he knew aram would get hurt, along with everyone else so why waste the money or trade a prospect!.....kinda like the idea that it was ok not sign benetiz or percival because they got hurt this year.

can i just say that i am so pleased that we took hill out of the rotation for rusch? it is such an improvement and why would we want to see what the kid had? i mean, we need to finish .500...right

pissing away 2 seasons is more than enough. they have now basically blown their window of oppurtunity when their pitchers were cheap. the staff will cost about double what they did in 2003 and just go up from there....if keery is getting 12 mil that will be the STARTING point for z and prior as their deals end. dempster will not be cheap if retained. you can bet they won't be upping the payroll, so looks like the postion players will take a hit. we had a shot to win a series but i suspect that hendry and company have pissed away not only 2 seasons but really the only chance we had to win a series in this generation. if we would not open the check book when we were this close why do any of you think they will to remake the team? we have huge holes, about 70 mil tied up in pitching,dlee and aram..how do we upgrade anywhere and still field a team? 30mil for 16-18 players is going to be tough

i love eddie. before dempster he would have been a huge pick up. i think a move like this depends a greal deal on where they feel keery will fit next year. if he is bullpen headed then how can we pay 2 set up guys 16 mil...if one is closing then it's still costly and that means we probably let dempster go. dempster will also be due a huge increase. if we had eddie as our lefty and dempster as the main closer, i am guessing he woulf want just as much as eddie gets... if we could spend the money...wouldn't that be a heck of a way to finish a game! eddie-wood-dempster...or some combp of that! lot's of 6 inning games! we could dream

Hey MadDog, how many starts do you figure Maddux has left? You think he'll get to/pass 15 wins? with 40 games left he should get at least 8 starts possibly 9 depending on off days. sunday is a big day. it's a game we should win and would put maddux at 11 wins with 7 starts left. 4-3 would get him 15 after that. let's hope the magic continues!

after 2 years of jobo, hawkins, merker, remlinger, wellmeyer, farnsworth, mitre, wuertz, fox, even go back to ole six fingers...and i do not care what they look like or how nervous i get, we have blown very few saves(1 by dempster-and we won that game) at least we feel like we have a chance to win with our closer in rather than the feeling of dread we used to have!

is there any chance burnitz will no longer be a regular? i could see holla or burnitz playing over murton today simply because oswalt is filthy! if they do they need to hit no higher than 7th probably eighth with corey the other spot. i would not be to hurt if murton played the rest of the year save for the nastiest righties....

what i want out of this offseason is for my team to make moves that let me believe we are trying to win a series! i do not want my gm to spin his lack of replacing anyone they let go by saying someone has to win the rookie of the year...and then not play the rookie i do not want him to tell me the reason he didn't get a closer is because the closer role will be competed for by guy who is immediatley thrown in the rotation. there are many ways to approach this. if we want to go young because the free agent market is lean then go young. but don't spin it. AND THEN PLAY THE YOUNG KIDS! do not fill in with burnitz's, hollas', or perez's. i would be much easier to take not reaching our goals if we had cedeno, pie, murton, dubois playing instead looking up and realizing that you have an outfield of hollandsworth,burnitz and hairston(or macias) and neifi is your everyday shortstop. these guys all have their place and some value but if you plan on winning now or in the near future they can not be your everyday guys!

i would rather see the cubs sign johnny damon. he is exactly what they need. plays hard. good defense and a true lead off hitter. the only drawback is that it might be tough to have damon and murton on the corner outfield spot. the defense would be good but not a whole lot of pop. i would think you would have to sign nomar back(which is a huge gamble) to make up for the power. damon lf- walker 2b lee 1b aram 3b nomar ss barrett c patterson cf murton rf p

maddux has thrown the ball much better than his record. he has been our second best pitcher since july.save for a bad start every so often he has been excellent. he has saved our tail over and over the last 2 years. bullpen worn out...who goes out and drops a complete z? prior? no it's maddux. need a win against the nearly unbeatable pettite...maddux throws his best game of the year. he will get his 15 wins again.with all the young studs we have...who leads us in victories..maddux. who lead us last year? maddux. who leads us in innings pitched? maddux. take a look at the stats since july. maddux had a high of 5.02era, he was 7-4. he has since only been 3-5 but should have won most of those starts. his era has dropped to 4.40. during that stretch of 3-5 he has 3.46 era. if yiu drop his one start that he gave up 6 earned in 8 innings he has dealt a 2.86 era. prior-who no wants to trade or worries about his money- has gone from 2.68 to 3.70 era. he has gone 5-3 in that stretch. his era is 4.90. take away his shut out it's 5.86! z has been stellar, except for his back problems. he has a 1.96 eraa during that stretch. so while the cubs have faltered it has been maddux and z who have been keeping them afloat at all. everbody was all over clement because he was 10-1. take a look clement 11-3 4.58 era and rising maddux 10-9 4.40 era and falling

burnitz is hitting exactly where he has the last 4 years(minus colorado)...actually better. if anyone except hendry thought he would actually hit 275 with 35hrs like he was on pace to earlier, they were kidding themselves. what he is giving us, is what he is.... .230-.250 with about 20- 25hr power. he will not ever be lance berkman or beltran..probably not even biggio.

i think she would be tough on the postgame buffett spread, though

the difference between the cubs and houston is this....houston has an awesome lineup that had underachieved as a whole then suddenly started to hit that they were capable. the cubs aside from cpatt have had hit much better than expected. it would be hard to hope burnitz,barrett,dlee and rameriz could do much more.

we need to put a decent team on the field first. our left field spot is 14 of 16 nl teams this season our cf is 28 out of 30 in the ml. our best outfielder is burnitz who is rated about 60th overall and fading fast. stability would be nice, a good team would be better....

they really need to let him play somewhere. he is just hacking! and it's not like they are feeding him fastballs, he is adjusting to nasty sliders and breaking pitches. like len said it won't be long before they start bringing in lefties just face him!

they are pinch hitting for the catcher and letting marquis hit! gotta make mahoney feel special!

how many times do you see a manager wait until after a pitcher hits to take him out? i gotta believe you let him hit....he's half their o