frostwyrm

Is that a MLB rule for the ump to yell that? Also, what compelled AJP to run? AJP is a catcher and he knows the rules and he ran while Paul thought otherwise. Yeah, I want to know if it's REQUIRED for the ump to yell that. If it's not it should be, and the 1st and 3rd base umps also need to chime in immediately if they see a dropped ball. It would actually be a good idea to have the line umps approve all strikeouts to avoid uncertainty.

You won't get ARod for spare parts. You'd have to give up at least one superstar, which means Z or ARam. If I ran the Yanks I'd demand Z.

There should be a rule for this situation requiring the ump to make a unambiguous verbal notification that the runner is live. If no such notification is issued the players should then assume a valid strikeout and a dead runner. It doesn't have to be complicated, the home plate ump can simply shout "live runner!". 1st and 3rd base umps, depending on LH or RH batter, should also be allowed to issue a visual "live runner" notification at their discretion since there really isn't time for the home plate ump to ask for help, as we saw last night.

The media is too soft on Hendry when he blames pitchers' health problems on bad luck. I wish a reporter would ask Hendry about the huge pitch counts compiled by Wood and Prior in 2003 and how it affected their longterm health and the team's chances to win in 2004 and 2005. Nobody in the media ever mentions that Prior and Wood were 1 and 2 in the majors in pitches per start in 2003 and that they were rode especially hard down the stretch. Hendry is acountable for that because he hired a brain-dead manager who was known to ignore high pitch counts to handle a young staff.

Is he open-minded about leaving NY? I can see him wanting to stay there because it is much more of a multi-lingual city than Chicago. In Chicago you pretty much hear English, Spanish, and Polish and little else. I take it you don't spend much time in Chinatown. We do have a Chinatown but it's very small, and you just don't hear Chinese on the street outside of Chinatown, whereas you are likely to hear Spanish or Polish anywhere in the city. Greektown is cool, but it's pretty small too, and you just don't hear Greek being spoken around town very often. I'm not putting down Chicago, but of all the big cities I've been in Chicago has always struck as the least cosmopolitan, which is probably part of why it feels midwestern and not like a baby New York.

Is he open-minded about leaving NY? I can see him wanting to stay there because it is much more of a multi-lingual city than Chicago. In Chicago you pretty much hear English, Spanish, and Polish and little else.

Will these guys be available? I haven't heard anything yet. I want Giles but it would be nice to have some other options, if only to leverage Giles' price downward.

EXACTLY. If you just look at season averages with men on base you are ignoring the obvious fact that hits and walks are not evenly scattered. Pitchers tend to give them up in clusters.

Too bad Catwoman(Julie Newmar version) wasn't on the island. She and I would join forces and rule the island, then the world.

Nightmare scenario of course. But in my opinion, it's not going to happen. I think Jim made it somewhat clear that he was appreciative of what Neifi did AS A FILL-IN. I do not believe he will consider Neifi for the starter, unless they fill out the rest of the roster to productivity capacity. I'm not so sure. Dusty was absolutely thrilled with Neifi's "contribution" this year and absent Furcal I'd bet Hendry would cave and give Dusty what he wants(more Neifi). Personally I don't think Furcal will be worth what he's going to get, but I'm inclined to believe one reason Hendry will get in the Furcal bidding is to avoid an ugly fight with Dusty over resigning Neifi. What is it that makes you think Hendry doesn't want these types of players like Perez and Macias, but just "gives in" to Dusty? For crying out loud, he was after Jeromy Burnitz back in 2003 when Patterson got hurt. No doubt Hendry overvalues Perez/Macias types, but I really doubt he wants Neifi as next year's opening day starter at SS. Baker, on the hand, would be perfectly comfortable with that, which is why I believe if we don't get a top-tier veteran SS Neifi probably comes back.

Nightmare scenario of course. But in my opinion, it's not going to happen. I think Jim made it somewhat clear that he was appreciative of what Neifi did AS A FILL-IN. I do not believe he will consider Neifi for the starter, unless they fill out the rest of the roster to productivity capacity. I'm not so sure. Dusty was absolutely thrilled with Neifi's "contribution" this year and absent Furcal I'd bet Hendry would cave and give Dusty what he wants(more Neifi). Personally I don't think Furcal will be worth what he's going to get, but I'm inclined to believe one reason Hendry will get in the Furcal bidding is to avoid an ugly fight with Dusty over resigning Neifi.

That is truly amazing. I can't help wondering what that lineup would look like if Dusty Baker had managed Atlanta for the last 10 years. Oh that's easy: P - Steve Avery C - Damon Berryhill 1B - Sid Bream 2B - Mark Lemke SS - Jeff Blauser 3B - Terry Pendleton LF - Ron Gant CF - Otis Nixon RF - Hank Aaron No Julio Franco?

I'm sure if we don't get some big name SS like Furcal Dusty will lobby hard to have Neifi start in 2006. Hendry seems to dislike confrontation so I think there's a good chance we'll see Neifi return.

That is truly amazing. I can't help wondering what that lineup would look like if Dusty Baker had managed Atlanta for the last 10 years.

IMHO, simply for practical reasons you have to root for the Sox if you care about the Cubs. A Sox title will make losing all the more embarassing for the Cubs next year, which is another way of saying it will motivate them to win, and it makes Baker's and Hendry's jobs less secure if they keep producing crappy results.

NO! There was a lot of bitching around here about the Holla/Dubois situation even before opening day. Holla swings lefty, so we all knew he would get the bulk of the starts, and we all knew he had a decade of numbers to prove he wasn't good enough to play that much. Also, it was known that Dusty stated he wanted to use Holla in 130-140 games. I remember very well when Dusty made that statement, and nobody but ZZthorn was happy about it. Where did he go, anyway?

I don't think it's that complicated. Sign Furcal. Move Cedeno to 2B. Trade Walker for a relief pitcher. Waive goodbye to Nomar. As for the other moves: Sign Lofton. Sign Giles or trade for a corner OF - Floyd, Abreu, Burrell. Sign (Millwood, Byrd, Weaver) or trade (Zito, Hernandez, Schmidt, Vazquez) for a starting pitcher. All those moves should easily fit into Hendry's budget. I really do NOT like the idea of Cedeno as next year's 2B. His primary value is at SS, which is the hardest position to fill and has the lowest offensive expectations. If you put him at 2B his value is greatly diminished. I'd much rather trade him.

I actually had that in my sig for a while. It just struck me as hilariously stupid at the time, especially considering that Burnitz played at Coors. It's stuff like this that really makes me worry about the Cubs reported new interest in "numbers". When other teams were hiring Ivy League statisticians or Billy Beane disciples to help bring them up to date on the new ways of objective analysis, the Cubs hired Chuck Wasserstrom, a former PR or media relations guy if I'm not mistaken, to handle their number crunching and data analysis. They didn't go outside the team to hire an expert in the field, they just gave a current employee a different job. I don't know his credentials, and I'm not going to accuse him of anything, but when Hendry starts citing completely arbitrary BS stats like that one to justify making a deal, I can't help but wonder what the Cubs stat department is doing. I don't pretend to be an expert in the field myself, but I read quite a bit from people who know a lot. And nothing the Cubs have done in 6 years (about the amount of time I've paid attention to so-called sabermetric thought), leads me to believe they take it seriously. It's frightening to me that an organization with such a strong history of failure would assume they know more about their field than anybody else, and that they are too good for a new way of thinking. But that appears to be the case. The whole quote: "People just dismiss Burnitz - 'He strikes out a lot. He can't do this, he can't do that.’ If you look at it objectively, he was sixth in the game in slugging percentage of people who struck out more than 120 times. He hit .307 with men on base. He hits left-handers well. He hit .287 with men in scoring position. To me, he's not striking out at the wrong times. The analysis is being done." --Cubs GM Jim Hendry Besides the mega-goofy SLG remark, we have the good ole "clutch" argument. Funny thing is, none of those numbers are even impressive, and for a Rocky, they're actually kinda lame. There are things I like about Hendry, but his methods of statistical analysis aren't among them.

I actually had that in my sig for a while. It just struck me as hilariously stupid at the time, especially considering that Burnitz played at Coors. Thread: 3.7.05 Quote of the Day

I hope the Sox win it all. The Cubs need someone to light a fire under their asses and a Sox title would do it.

Best job for Nomar is 3B/DH. Can we sign him just for interleague games?

From today's Tribune: I especially like the highlighted part. http://chicagosports.chicagotribune.com/sports/baseball/cubs/cs-051003cubsrowcorner,1,2056111.story?coll=cs-cubs-headlines

I've given in to that type of thinking too. Our window is closing and we have to do what we have to do to get the big dog in the OF. No more Burnies, thank you. I'd also like to go cheap at SS(Cedeno) and LF(Murton) and get an expensive SP(Burnett/Millwood). We'd be on everyone's short list for the WS in 2006 if we followed this plan. I agree wholeheartedly with this plan, though, depending on how much Giles and Millwood wind up costing, the Cubs may not have to go cheap at SS, at least not league minimum cheap. They may still be able to afford Nomar. His bat would be a huge addition to the Cubs chances of winning it all. I assume we're looking at a low-base/high-incentive situation for Nomar, and if you're counting beans you have to reckon on Nomar's incentives kicking in, in which case he probably won't be very cheap at all. And do we really need his defense at SS? I can think of other needs to fill with Nomar's $$. It would be nice to have a non-terrible bench, esecially since Dusty likes to use the backups so much, and I want a respectable caretaker CF.

no, burnitz is not good enough. there are several option in this year's abyssmal FA market that would be considered significant upgrades to burnitz. as goony said, you thank burnitz for trying his best by giving him 2 mil or under to accept a job as 4th outfielder (making sure dusty knows he's coming back for that reason and that reason alone). wait, now that i think about it, you don't bring him back at all if you want murton to develop in left field. Yeah, you simply can't have a lefty-swinging veteran 4th OF with a multi-million salary if you want Murton to have a fair shot. There's no place for Burnitz on the Cubs.

I've given in to that type of thinking too. Our window is closing and we have to do what we have to do to get the big dog in the OF. No more Burnies, thank you. I'd also like to go cheap at SS(Cedeno) and LF(Murton) and get an expensive SP(Burnett/Millwood). We'd be on everyone's short list for the WS in 2006 if we followed this plan.