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Ha, are you ending the conversation by yourself? Batting eye won't help you if you can't hit the ball for power, and I don't really see Wilkerson or Jones as having high range power. Jones does have, by far, the faster bat. Plus more speed, which again, will die out long past Wilkersons. I also severely question Wilkerson's ability to play for a team like the Cubs being coached in such a horrible system, Jones comes from a team with a quality farm system and a quality head coach. I'd trust him to be more consistant and able to handle the different surroundings that Wrigley presents. Batting eye will always help you. It helps you get on base. Wilkerson has consistently gotten on base at a clip of 100 points higher than his BA. It isn't a one year fluke. Take a look at the numbers: BA/OBP 2005: 248/351 2004: 255/374 2003: 268/380 2002: 266/370 2001: 205/304 What that tells me is even if Wilkerson becomes a 220 hitter which I doubt, he'd still get on base enough to not be a complete black hole in the line-up. On the other hand, if he's a 260 hitter, then he's likely to be on base around 370-400. Your speculation about organizations and coaching is just that speculation. That and 75 cents will get you a candy bar about anywhere in town. As to Wilkerson's power, in the three of his four full seasons he has slugged over 450. He doesn't have prodigious power, but he can hit the ball for power. In fact, he probably has as much power as JJ. Jones: 01- 276/335 02- 300/341 03- 304/333 04- 254/315 05- 249/319 While he's obviously under Wilkerson, unless he's hitting 2nd in the order, is nothing that is overwhelming towards one player or the other. Like I said, neither one has high range power. Wilkerson has a .717 career OPS in day games. So being out-OBP'd by 30-60 points every single year isn't "overwhelming?" How is that?

It's lucky for Jacque Jones that he has all that bat speed, because without it he'd be discovering hitting lows we didn't even know existed in about five years time. See, this is the same thing people do when talking about slap hitters and how they turn outs into base hits, so they're somehow more valuable. in either case, unless the skill is something they found last week, then i doesn't warrant additional consideration, as it's already in the productivity package. Just as a slap hitter's infield hits don't count twice in his batting average, Jones's quick bat doesn't suddenly make his below-average production more acceptable. And Wilkerson isn't injury-prone, so you can't turn it around and say that and be telling the truth. The fact that he was able to keep playing and be productive (moreso than Jones, certainly) while suffering fairly severe injuries is a testament to how effective he's capable of being when completely healthy.

Maybe that he's hit 25 homers once ever, hasn't hit even .255 in 3 years, is a poor base stealer, has below average power (okay home run power, but far foo few doubles and triples for a guy with his speed), and has never even come close to his career year numbers, showing a very steady and fast regression?

He only played 7 games at short, only started 5 of them. He now has 3.136 years of ML service time, meaning he is eligible for arbi for the first time. Yeah...I wasn't exactly sure how long he'd been up to the big leagues......and regardless of how many games he had at short, a statement of "he ended up playing both 2B and SS for the A's this past season" is an accurate one. However "he was signed on as the backup for Crosby on the 05 season" is not. He was signed on as the starting second baseman (to split time with Keith Ginter), Marcus Scutaro was the backup shortstop from day 1. Thanks for the correction.....please continue to serve your fellow NSBB members and continue to look for menial statements to correct them on. I guess that makes you feel "bigger". It's one thing if a stat is posted incorrectly.....but let's attempt letting the not-so-trivial tidbits slide by? OKAY? Thanks!! He was just setting the record straight, don't take things so personally. I understand where he was coming from - not setting the record straight......the same thing goes on with almost every member on here.....attempting to start a feud and patting themselves on the back after they think they "won". My point is....WHO CARES? If I posted Mark Ellis had an .obp of .390 last year, then correct THAT. Splitting time with another player at 2B DOES contstitute a role as a backup middle infielder. You know, for somebody who takes disagreements so personally, you sure don't mind sniping yourself.

I read this article with my 5th eye, so it must be true.

I think it has more to do with him not being Todd Walker.

Uh, I'm sorry? I will tackle your agument that it's not a team game - go ask Ozzie that. Go ask Ozzie what? Moreover, what does this have to do with anything? What are you tackling? And when did I say it wasn't a team game?

From the logic in this thread, it applies to anyone that's ever played major league baseball. Yea, I think Carlos Beltran lived up to his deal. Nice blanket inference. It's been pretty clearly implied that you can't blame the player for poor performance, you blame his usage. If that's the case, then it applies to anyone. I said this before and this is the second time I'm saying it - you don't get it. Baseball isn't about 'blaming' players for anything. For example, do you really think Corey was making an active effort to suck last year? Do you think Neifi was trying to not be 6'0 250 and able to hit moonshots? Baseball more than any professional sport is a TEAM GAME. We got what we expected from both Neifi and Burnitz, that means they were not the weak link in the team chain. It's just like if a hacker is trying to penetrate your PC. He'll go to port SS, wait, thats blocked...ok lets try port RF...no, their plan is holding up there...lets try CF....hmm, here's an easy way to get in and sabotage something. The key to any successful franchise is A+ player development and scouting, whenever you get what you thought you'd get for a player - that is a success. When players go to the DL, forget how to swing a damn bat, and these are impact players, it blows a shotgun shell hole in the plans for your team. Neifi and Burnitz at least made it to work. You're explaining something that has no relevance to the above comments, and *he* doesn't get it? (Nevermind the sheer ridiculousness of claiming a game that is 80% one-on-one matchups is more of a team game than any other sport.) I'm pretty sure CP20 wasn't blaming anyone in this thread, just citing the logical fallacies that abound here. Was the last time you said this all at as irrelevant a point as this one was? And I would think if, you're going to throw around accusations, you could at LEAST keep up with who you're accusing. And I'm also trying to figure out how a player producing poorly is ever not a bad thing. Just because you have low expectations doesn't make it any less of a bad thing to have low production.

Let me then point out what is not so great about your reading comprehension skills. I repeatedly said that Neifi's presence in the lineup was the issue, not Neifi himself. I'm not blaming Neifi. I'm blaming the fact that he got 600 PA, over half of which were in the 1 or 2 hole. Can you please take the time to think about that? Neifi is fine on the bench. I said that, and I repeated it to make it very clear that I am not saying Neifi is completely worthless. If you signed Neifi to a 1 year $500,000 - $750,000 contract to be a backup middle infielder, and did whatever you could to not start him very often or let him leadoff or hit 2nd, you would be making a good decision. Perhaps a small market team would be better served finding another all glove no bat shortstop for half that price, but the Cubs can handle it. Take for instance the Dempster issue. Dempster in the rotation was a bad thing. It took a good bullpen arm out of the bullpen (putting excess pressure on lesser bullpen arms) and put a mediocre starter into the roation (when there were several similar starters who could have done the same job). Dempster starting? Bad. Dempster relieving? Good. That doesn't mean Dempster is sometimes a bad guy and sometimes a good guy. He's an unreliable mediocre starter (or worse) and a pretty good reliever. If you have him starting, and he just "does his job" your worse off than if you had him relieving, and he just "does his job". By your logic, you can't blame Burnitz for sucking in RF. He just did his job. If you look at his numbers the past couple years when he was not playing in Coors, it was pretty easy to predict what he would do in RF for the Cubs, and he did just about that. However, JB in RF and in the middle of the order did indeed severely hurt the Cubs. The Cubs got next to no production out of RF and had poor production from his spot in the order. Now, put that same guy on the bench, pay him half of what you paid him, and all of a sudden you got yourself a pretty good 4th OF. Field yourself a decent lineup with a real 3, 4, 5 and solid production out of your corner OF spots, and JB is suddenly an excellent role player. He's still the same guy. But it's the usage that matters. JB starting in RF and hitting 4th/5th? Bad. JB on the bench, occasionally starting and hitting 6th/7th? Good. Neifi's regular presence in the Cubs starting lineup, and his spot at the top of the order played a significant role in the team's failure in 2005. There is no avoiding that simple fact. Let's examine your stellar reading comprehensive skills - rewording everything I said and throwing it in your reasoning? I believe I read correctly when you stated "Neifi sucked". And that's where I'm coming from. My comprehension is just fine, thank you :wink: Can you comprehend that? So I guess you're saying he *didn't* suck? Because while he was good defensively, he was pretty poor offensively. Just because he wasn't supposed to play that much doesn't change the fact that, besides one hot month, he was awful at the plate. Just because he was "doing his job" doesn't mean it was adequate.

You still lose. Burnitz wasn't the problem either. Take a closer look at LF and CF before you point fingers at RF. You'd rather of had Sosa? I'm sorry, but I don't understand how a player performing poorly is excused because another player might have sucked more. I thought the idea was to have fewer players that suck.

Sorry, I don't pay enough attention to financial detail to remember if Neifi gets 2.5 or 3M. I just really don't care. He's the backup infielder. Meh. is he? i don't remember Hendry saying that. Hendry also said Sosa wasn't going anywhere - who goes by what he says. It's widely assumed its going to be Furcal/Cedeno or Cedeno/Walker Except he never said that. He said he was operating as though he expected Sosa to be his right fielder, not that he wasn't going anywhere. There's an enormous difference, and I don't know why so many people contend he said that he wasn't going to trade Sosa.

Actually, my point is that good bullpens rarely get built by throwing money and long-term deals at guys coming off career years. We already had Dempster, Williamson, Ohman, Wuertz for the backend of the pen. We've got either Rusch or Williams for long relief. I probably wouldn't complain about Howry if he were the only other big deal. That would give us six men in the pen and we'd be set. It's really the combination of the Eyre and Howry deals that irritates the heck out of me. It means that we're committed to those guys for far too long a time considering their overall career track records. I prefer to build a pen through exceptional scouting, player evaluation and player development, rather than trying to throw money after past performance. I think there's a very, very strong chance that one of the two three year deals ends up being an anchor in the pen and the other no more than ordinary. I think that rather than turning this into one of the elite pens, Hendry has done nothing more than make sure it will be average. I think he took the easy way out. We may say that we wanted a sure thing and so we're glad he signed guys that did well last year. But no reliever is a sure thing and we're committed to these guys even if they don't work out. Great pens like Anaheim & St. Louis have very few long-term commitments except at closer. They're built from within and astute pickups that were pretty much freely available to anyone. When non-closing relievers get expensive, they're traded or let go. Minnesota's been able to maintain a strong pen for years wth the same philosophy. Ah, what's the point. I should just let everyone be happy because we went out and committed a big chunk of payroll for "proven" guys. Hooray. I don't think there is anyway to determine whether Hendry improved the pen or not until we see how Howry and Eyre perform. However, last year Hendry did nothing all winter to improve the pen and ended up with Novoa and Bartosh. We all know how that one turned out. It is possible that Hendry is overcompensating for his lack of any moves last year, but at least he didn't just ignore the bullpen and hope for it to get better by itself. As far as $$ allocated to the bullpen, its not like this years budgeted bullpen $$ is much different than last year's. Last year you had Borowski $2M(?), Remlinger $4M, Hawkins $4M, Dempster $2M = $12M for 4 guys. This year you have Eyre $3M, Howry $4M, Dempster $5M and Williamson $2M = $14M for 4 guys. Do you think the improvements warrant an extra $2M in bullpen budget? IMO it does and the bullpen this year looks much improved. Now Dusty has two lefties that he can use any time late in the game and two righties he can use at any time. Yeah, but you've also got Rusch ($3 mil) if Williams is in the rotation, as well. That's $17 mil for 5 guys in the bullpen, and a logjam for the sixth spot. And considering that an expensive bullpen with a strong track record last year (Remlinger, Hawkins, and Borowski had all had great success in the recent past) ended up being something we desparately want to replace, it would seem that spending more money on non-dominant relievers might not be the best way to get actual improvement.

Sorry but I have to laugh :lol: What makes you think the Yankees are trading A-Rod? What exactly do you think we'd have to give up to get the AL MVP? I'm pretty sure the point of that post was that those things were NOT going to happen.

I think we should also ban inflammatory and potentially offensive words like: stinks, darn, rats, crap, and LaRussa. Anything that might allow even the slightest bit of personal expression -- let's be rid of it. Especially on a place like an Internet message board. I think there's a pretty distinct and obvious line between the two things being compared here.

Eliminate Eyre, Howry, Rusch and Neifi and there's plenty of cash for those three. Which is the point we were making in the Howry thread that you fought against. I believe you're forgetting so quickly WHO I was defending - I mentioned nothing about the Neifi or Rusch deals. I think the acquisitions of Eyre and Howry will prove to be important to our '06 season, and those two wouldn't be the difference maker for us overpaying for Furcal, Pierre AND Giles. Some of you folks on here just aren't very practical in your theories about us dumping all our cash on 2 players. This team has many more holes that need to be fixed than dumping half our cash on Giles. Now, would I like to have Giles? YOU BETCHA!! I'm just being practical and would like to see everything get addressed in the offseason. So if we're spendnig nearly 8 million on two relievers, that helps us address the other issues how? I understand that you think they will be a help, but the issue is more of whether they're worth the expenditure when there are other areas that need help more (offense out of RF/CF/SS inparticular). And when you have someone like, say, Giles, who could raise the team's OBP by 15 points just by being in the lineup, that is, to me, a much more important and valuable way to spend money than nearly the same on two good-but-not-spectacular middle relievers in their 30's.

You know, I had no idea who Jeremy Hermida was until you posted this. I just looked him up. Hooooooooly crap.

I think power is overrated. That lineup would score runs. Runs win baseball games. I agree with that. I always look back to the "go-go" Cards of the mid-80s. The only guy who hit more than 15 Dongs on that team was the universally beloved Jack Clark. They had Oz, Coleman, McGee, Herr, etc. High-OBP team. Here is the 85' team: http://www.baseball-reference.com/teams/STL/1985.shtml[/url] But you have to take context into consideration. Even though they weren't hitting a lot of homers, they were still middle-of-the-pack in power in the league. Next to last in homers, but the difference was made up elsewhere. And I don't know if a Cubs team in 2006 sacrificing that much power in a much more powerful era could have the same success.

I like that the options are country, classical, or some form of rock. "Alternative" changes meanings every 3 years, anyway; what is it now?

Leadoff and CF was not the only problem. RF was as big a hole as CF last year. Pierre is a mediocre CF, Furcal is a 2nd tier SS, Giles is an outstanding RF. I don't want to hear about the "doesn't want to play here" BS. Players will play where they are offered money. You don't know if Giles wants to come here unless you try and convince him to come here. And if you're turned down early, don't just give up. That can't be your excuse not to go for the best. Furcal is a young playoff tested switch hitter, with speed, power, great range, a cannon arm and he's a second tier shortstop? Miggy Arod (3b) Micheal Young I mean I understand Furcal might be overpriced but 2nd tier? Goony we also don't know that Giles will sign with anyone anytime soon considering all the teams in the bidding. I'm not understanding what's confusing. You just basically named the first tier. (Peralta and Lopez could also be considered part of that tier, pending repeat performances.) Furcal is not as strong a player as them. He's the next step down, hence second tier.

Wow, trading a starting 2B with a good bat for an inconsistent reliever who isn't *that* young and won't close, AND throwing in a prospect to boot? These rumors are making me nauseous.

Batting average is fatally flawed because it excludes 1) walks--which are the responsibility of the hitter. 2) No distinction between a single and a HR. Or it could be that it's supposed to just measure hits per at-bat, and nothing more. Seriously, your arguments are getting more and more contrived.

.350 OBP is low production for a leadoff hitting CF? Give me a break. BTW SS and CF aren't traditionally power positions, so your not really sacrificing anything. .350 OBP is not the entirety of baseball performance. I didn't say "leadoff hitting CF," I said "for the position," which is CF. He had a sub-700 OPS last year. That's terrible At his best, he's been about an average performer overall. It's one thing to lack power, and another thing entirely to have SUCH a lack of power that any compromise in other areas of your game renders you relatively useless. And even if they're not "sacrificing anything" in the historical context, there are still compromises in the very real context of the 2006 Chicago Cubs. C, 1B, and 3B are the only settled positions on the team. All have above average power. Murton has a good chance of starting in left, and he appears to have average power. If Neifi or Cedeno start at second, as it appears will happen, then we have below average power at 2B. Adding below average power at both CF and SS essentially cancels out Ramirez and Lee's power, and it become imperative to get a power source out of right field. And while Furcal and Pierre have decent OBPs, neither is stellar. In Pierre's case, he's certainly not good enough at anything else to risk his OBP being subpar, as it was last year. That's why I don't want both, and I would prefer not to have Pierre.

I think Pierre is relatively low production for the position. I'd rather have Furcal. I definitely don't want both, as that's a pretty big sacrifice in power at two positions that has to be made up somewhere without enough gain in OBP to justify it (both are solid, but neither is challenging the .400 mark). And they're redundant, and expensive, to boot.

RE: the bolded part: Why couldn't it have been Furcal getting the single and then to third on somebody else's single? Pierre didn't really add anything to the equation in that scenario that couldn't be gotten elsewhere. It had been gone over a few times that the White Sox scored less this year than they did last year. Going small-ball didn't help them score more, though it may have indeed helped Iguchi. it's not so much not wanting a slap hitter. It's that if all you *do* is slap hit, then it takes a lot more to produce a run. You can talk about how nice it'll be to be able to go from first to third, but a lot of other hitters would've already been at second, third, or scored already in those situations. It benefits those cases, but those cases are not particularly numerous.

Get it right. Its a bandWGN This brings tears to my eyes. I don't think I've ever had more influence over such a large group of people before. Even if it's completely meaningless!