frostwyrm

Wow. So the Cubs World Series hopes rest on the who wins the classic good/evil battle between Cliff Floyd and Matt Murton. Alright then! :lol: No, but a 25 year-old player is likely still going to improve. A 34 year-old is very likely to regress. AVG OBP SLG Floyd 0.261 0.346 0.465 Murton 0.302 0.368 0.456 These are three year averages for Murton and Floyd (only MLB AB's). Who would you rather have playing? I'd rather have both guys playing, each in the appropriate situations. Murton's likely to improve, and he's also likely to be a Cub for a while. He'll get plenty of ABs, plenty of chances to improve this year, plenty of chances to contribute. I'd play Murton almost every day. He has upside whereas Floyd does not. Moreover, since Murton is likely to be a Cub for a long time, it would behoove me to develop him as quickly as possible. Otherwise, we might bring in another veteran over him. Since, you know, he doesn't have experience. Since I'd play Murton almost all the time, when would you play him? And what is the cost to the franchise since Murton's development will be stunted. And, how many outs do you sacrifice with Floyd's lesser OBP? Actually you are wrong here.....Murton is not expected to be a starting OF for the future from what I know. The two outfielders they're expecting in the future are Pie and Colvin. Once Pie comes up, he will be the CF and Soriano will move to LF. Colvin will then go to RF. This is the reason for the limited play time of Murton. In that case it's still dumb how they're handling Murton. If he were made available for trade today I'm sure he would be perceived by multiple teams as a viable everyday player with upside and his trade value would reflect that. The opportunity cost of not trading him would greatly outweigh any benefit he would bring as a one year stopgap platoon player who only starts maybe twice a week. If your scenario is correct then Murton should have already been traded.

Yeah, this is another complaint I have. If the org. was bound and determined to turn Matt Murton into a platoon player then they already had the guy who is screaming to be his platoon partner: Jacque Jones. If they really wanted to sign Floyd and platoon him then it's not hard to find somebody who can play LF and hit passably vs. LHP. How about Ryan Theriot? Or maybe bring back some cheap vet like Michael Restovich.

Nobody said Murton's the RH half of a platoon, but it's pretty obvious that's the direction things are heading towards. And since you want to disregard 2006 numbers and bench somebody based on 17 scattered PA's then bench Soriano, who's had plenty more than 17 PA's and has sucked. Who cares what he did last year? Put Theriot in CF. I agree it's goofy to look at only 26 PA's, but since people are doing it I just like to point that Floyd's 26 PA's really haven't been anything special, certainly not special enough to make me disregard Murton 650+ PA's coming into this season.

Yeah, he got 2 hits, but they were both singles, and he also got a GIDP and got picked off. Multihit game, but overall not an impressive performance.

That's nice, he's still one of the better hitters on this team. Even his outs are loud. You can't say the same for no XBH Murton and his IF dribblers. Floyd hasn't cost us a run in the field and has hustled on the basepaths, beating out a DP and taking the extra base on several occaisions. Floyd's OBP is currently 50 points higher than Murton's, so I'm not sure what you're getting at with the BA argument. So after 17 plate appearances in sporadic action Murton is a bum? Talk about a short leash. I'm basing my opinions on what he's done in the 650+ AB's prior to this season, as well as his age. I don't think it's an exaggeration to say that if Lou continues to give Murt starts only vs. LHP and sporadic PH opportunities then his Cubs career is probably already finished if Floyd can stay healthy. Even Jim Hendry is smart enough to see that Murt is more valuable as trade bait than as the RH half of a platoon.

Floyd's line is .320/.346/.400 through 26 plate appearances. That is solidly below average for a starting LF. Defensively he is mediocre at best and has no speed. He's old, fragile, and on the downside of his career. Then there's 25 year old Matt Murton, who has put up a .301/.368/.457 line through 685 MLB plate appearances. It's so classically Cub-like to go with Floyd. Besides the experience, I'm guessing it's the .320 BA that impresses. Old timey baseball dinosaurs are suckers for a high BA, even when it comes with other numbers that are below average.

Reminds me of another Cubs manager. so i guess you guys would be satisfied if murton started but we were losing?? How does the poor-fielding old dude with a .746 OPS help us win more than starting Murton would? im not saying he does, but constantly complaining about it when we're up 7 runs seems a bit dumb IMO. Bah. I complained plenty about Macias and Neifi starting in games that the Cub won. It's process, not results. Proper process makes everybdoy happier in the long run.

Reminds me of another Cubs manager. so i guess you guys would be satisfied if murton started but we were losing?? How does the poor-fielding old dude with a .746 OPS help us win more than starting Murton would?

Reminds me of another Cubs manager.

Does the sample size argument only work when it is directed toward Floyd? Floyd is old and past his prime. Murton has his best years ahead of him and he's already pretty solid. Don't need sample sizes to see this stuff.

Floyd is currently sporting a .746 OPS. So why is our LF of the future glued to the bench? Must be Floyd's gold glove defense.

9 games into the season and I have the same number of big league home runs as Alfonso Soriano and Derrick Lee combined. I rule.

The only positive with Sori is that even when he is sucking, he already has 5 doubles in 9 games. .595 OPS thus far. I know he'll heat up eventually but this team is digging itself a hole real fast. We kinda need Fonz now.

$136M man continues to look very ordinary.

Here's his chance to kill Matt Murton's career with the Cubs.

I hope he proves me wrong but my gut feeling is that Prior is finished. Even if he eventually does regain enough strength to pitch in the big leagues does anyone really believe he won't break down again before long? Obviously he's not a quick healer, so any future breakdown will likely be followed by another interminable recovery time. IMO Prior is not worth the aggravation unless you can get him for no more than $750K.

I've seen some short term thinking here but this is ridiculous. You're actually advocating letting a single at bat dictate who should play.

Just for the sake of making a point, let's accept that Howry was a good signing. Just by random chance if you sign 10 expensive FA relievers you are bound to get one who is actually worth the money. The sticking point is that there is no reliable way to tell which is the one. You might have to sign 7 or 8 overpriced salary sumps before you get to the right guy. Look at all the pricy relievers Hendry has gambled on before hitting paydirt with Howry. Even if Howry was the guy to get amongst the whole group, Hendry still would have been better off doing as Jocketty and not gambling on any expensive relievers. It's like drawing to an inside straight in poker. It's a fool's bet. You'll lose way more often than you win, but if you do it often enough, you will win at least once. Your "point" is only valid if this statistic is valid, which it probably isn't. Yeah, if you dump a lot of money on an aging pitcher or a flash in the pan, it's a stupid move. But if you sign a guy who's only going into his late 20s or early 30s, and has had three good years going into his free agent year, he's a pretty good bet to keep pitching well. And boy, I'm glad you're not the Cubs' GM. We'd have a salary about equal with the Pirates. If you have a reliable method to determine which relievers merit fat multi-year contracts you ought to be a GM yourself, because you've solved a puzzle nobody else has been able to crack.

Just for the sake of making a point, let's accept that Howry was a good signing. Just by random chance if you sign 10 expensive FA relievers you are bound to get one who is actually worth the money. The sticking point is that there is no reliable way to tell which is the one. You might have to sign 7 or 8 overpriced salary sumps before you get to the right guy. Look at all the pricy relievers Hendry has gambled on before hitting paydirt with Howry. Even if Howry was the guy to get amongst the whole group, Hendry still would have been better off doing as Jocketty and not gambling on any expensive relievers. It's like drawing to an inside straight in poker. It's a fool's bet. You'll lose way more often than you win, but if you do it often enough, you will win at least once.

I think a lot of the offensive problems will take care of themselves when Fonz heats up, which should be soon. He obviously won't go the whole season as an offensive black hole, which is what he's been thus far.

Great call by Lou PHing for Cesar I don't think it took a baseball genius to PH for Izzy. Kinda a no-brainer.

If he comes through Lou will keep him on the bench as a PH specialist.

Soriano is the posterboy for why you don't draft a guy onto your fantasy team who just signed a massive contract. That and he's on the wrong side of 30, just had a career year, and never was a big OBP guy. There were no illusions (at least for me) on what kind of commodity he was. Yeah I've said I believe it will be one of the worst contracts in the history of pro sports but even so he's a helluva lot better than what he's shown so far. I'm sure he'll have a few impressive hot streaks this year.

Fonzie's OPS down .558. I know he'll heat up eventually but this has been brutal so far. It's like he's still on vacation.

Fonz definitely needs to do something soon or he'll hear some boos.