frostwyrm

Seeing as Chicago, New York, and Miami are the most challenging places to play, you have to tip your hat to the Sox.

Horrible offense from the corner OF positions really hurt. Other than the Cubs, I can't imagine any contender actually wanting Hollandsworth and Burnitz as opening day starters at the corners.

Yeah it does seem pretty clear there will be some vets in the mix and Murton and Cedeno will have to beat them out for everyday jobs. I wonder what Hollandsworth-type trash Hendry will dig up for this role. It better be someone cheap, because if the vets make as much money as Burnitz it will be near impossible to get them on the bench, no matter their numbers.

Decent move, not without risk, but there aren't any sure things out there at a resonable price. Dempster will be making about the same as Burnitz, who I thought was a lousy investment, so in my eyes this is improvement.

Finishing behind the Brewers is what really hurts. They have a $39M payroll for godsake.

MATT MURTON. Nobody will give us better bang for the buck in 2006, and he provides potential upside for 2007 and beyond. Spend the big bucks in RF.

Didn't Corey Patterson recently learn Baker wanted him to see a psychologist by having a reporter ask about it in an interview?

Don't the White Sox play in Chicago too? Are the Sox all clean-living family men?

I agree Dusty has handled Corey very poorly. How do you think Cox would have done it?

At this point I really doubt Corey will be here next year.

I suppose we have to use one of Neifi/Macias, but not both. Putting these bums where they get more at bats than anyone else makes it worse.

Under your test, no one could ever be PROVEN of doing anything knowingly without having some sort of device that looked into their mind. And even then I think you would have reservations about its accuracy AT THE TIME of the act. You have to infer intent from surrounding actions that the person takes. From those actions it is pretty clear that Palmeiro knowingly took steroids. Just because a liar says he didn't do something doesn't mean you have to ignore everything else and say that raises doubt. It only raises UNreasonable doubt. BTW, he likely will not be convicted of perjury because they have no evidence that he was doing it BEFORE he testified(he tested positive afterwards), NOT because they have no evidence of intent. Prosecutors across this country get juries to infer intent from far more tenious cases than this. Maybe there's something wrong with your country then. Or your lawyers. Or your juries. Or all three. That wouldn't surprise me. What evidence of intent do they have? From what surrounding actions are you infering intent? And on what evidence are you calling Palmeiro a liar? Or is this more guilty until proven innocent suppositioning? Testing positive for drugs doesn't prove that you knowningly took them, and took them to gain an unfair advantage. The accepted legal standard of proof is REASONABLE doubt, not a "you can't prove Martians didn't build the Pyramids" level of doubt.

That's a pretty good point. Well said and thought out. It makes perfect sense. All that has to be assumed is that Dusty is completely devoid of any morality, honesty or sense of self-worth. If those assumptions are accurate, I think you are dead on. I wouldn't say he's devoid of morality. He's not very bright, is subject to self-serving delusions, and is incapable of admitting to a mistake. He has a fundamental lack of humility and I suspect he actually believes most of his BS. His primary personality trait is that he views everything through the lens of his own gigantic ego.

Neifi in a hot streak or a cold streak? When hot he's not bad. When cold he is one of the worst hitters ever.

That's what I've wanted for a while now. If you have a 40 man roster and you're out of the playoffs there is no reason your franchise starters should throw more than 100 pitches.

Dempster(SP). He had 3 straight years of terrible performance as an SP before joining the Cubs.

If Choi is struggling with 15 homers, hitting .257 with a .336 OPB in about 300 ABs, I'd better never see you shower praise on Neifi Perez again. I hate those .794 OPS players. That's better than Jeromy Burnitz, who has started almost every stinkin game for the Cubs.

It's been stated many times on this board that Baker dislikes inexperience much more than youth. They often go hand in hand, but not always. Patterson had 820 ML plate appearances before Baker ever got here, so he is a different case from Murton or Dubois.

Dusty's system is foolproof. He waits until he has no choice but to play the rookie, then if the rookie sucks Dusty can say he waited because he knew the rookie wasn't ready or was just plain bad, and if the rookie performs well Dusty can claim it's because of his system. Logically it's a closed circle. Dubois and Murton were both successful examples of Dusty's system in action, failure or success of the individual players is irrelevant because any result, good or bad, validates the system.

Baker also said he started Dubois against Tim Wakefield because he thought Wakefield's knuckleball might mess up Hollandsworth's stroke. How does that jibe with Baker's stated approach of putting rookies in situations to succeed and gain confidence?

It doesn't matter whether they were awful or not. The only reason they aren't currently playing in front of Murton is because Hollandsworth and Lawton are with the Braves and Yankees, respectively. If they remained on the roster, I guarantee that Murton would not have gotten the number of ABs he currently has. I think it matters. Dusty would have wanted very much to keep them if they hadn't been totally awful, and Hendry wouldn't have had the cahones to trade them against Dusty's wishes.

Dusty is insulting our intelligence if he wants us to believe Murton wouldn't still be on the bench if Hollandsworth or Lawton had been even slightly better than awful.

Dusty likes to use rookies as garden gnomes.

I wonder if reporters make the wank-off hand motion when Dusty talks about Murton. It is difficult to imagine a better time for it.

Pretty sad when baseball professionals need advice from message board geeks like us. We should start posting specific ideas about Aramis' new fitness regimen and see if the Cubs trainers adopt them. No doubt our ideas will be as good as theirs.