Magnetic Curses

The question is, were they willing to do this a month ago? This seems like a move purely out of desperation and most teams aren't this desperate in July. Still a gosh awful trade for San Diego but I'm not sure this was available to Hendry. well, then hendry should have hung on to maddux until a decent prospect became available.

I like it. Can you imagine all of the "Aramis doesn't hustle" crowd dealing with Andruw? Talk about exploding heads... I know. The thing is that Jones is so fluid that it looks like he isn't hustling when he is, IMO. Did you see his catch last night? I did indeed. I would be incredibly happy with Jones in CF at Wrigley. It was an idea that I brought up a month or so ago with my dad and he flipped. His first argument was, exactly, "that guy has no hustle at all! He doesn't even try unless he hits one of the park!" Some people... If you get Andruw and keep ARam (and assumin we do nothing else to improve the everyday team, which is unlikely, IMO), you have a lineup that potentially looks something like this: Murt Izturis Lee A. Jones ARam Barrett J. Jones Cedeno Not great, but not horrendous, especially in our League. If you then bolster the starting staff with Schmidt and another, B-level starter, that's not a bad team, and likely good enough to at least win the WC. make no mistake about it, that's bad. any lineup with cedeno and izturis in it is bad. jones would make it slightly better, but izturis batting second is asking for disaster. ship cedeno off with marshall and howry for freel and then it gets better. how about jacques jones + cash for brady clark and a prospect? clark freel lee aram a. jones barrett murton izturis much better.

assuming ramirez doesn't opt-out, hendry must absolutely throw all the money he can at schmidt and zito. anything else can be acquired via trade.

not necessarily. pujols and bonds both walk a lot and don't strike out much. I agree wholeheartedly with your last sentence. I just don't think the focus of improving the cubs offense should be putting the ball in play less - that's not the problem. in fact, I think how frequently a player ks should be more or less ignored in light of other more pertinent statistics. nor was that suggested by me. i don't simply want players who put the ball in play less, i want players who put it in play more effectively. the problem i have is with the cubs' philosophy of "just put the ball in play"-or total plate aggression. the object should not be to just put the ball in play, the object should be to put it in play well when it is put in play. a result may be less balls put in play or more strikeouts...that's life. i think hendry and dusty have proven overwhelingly that simply reducing strikeouts does not lead to increasing run production.

few and far between are the players who have high OBP's and few strikeouts. strikeouts are an example of a symptom, a symptom of working deep into counts and taking questionable pitches that some umpires will ring you up on. i don't believ in protecting the plate with 2 strikes, it's stupid, especially with a full count. you have a better chance of getting to first base by letting a close pitch go and betting that the ump will call it a ball, inducing a walk, then you do by slapping at it. players who don't strikeout but walk a lot are called hall of fame players, guys who just aren't that common. shrink the strike zone, make the pitcher throw the pitch to you, rather than you swinging at his pitch. you will have a better OBP, a better SLG, and probably be a much more effective player. albert pujols and vlad guerrero are examples of good bad-pitch hitters, there aren't many of them, and you certainly can't field a team full of them. give me a regular old strikeout artist that walks 80-100 times per year, and hits above .450 SLGing and i'll score runs.

one of the key existing problems with the cubs is somewhat hard to see because it's not conventional, this would also be a problem with any team. the first problem is that the pitching is terrible, that much we can see. the second problem is where hendry's organizational philosophy comes in. our hitters put the ball in play too much. that's the problem and it's part of our philosphy, much like billy beane's organizational philosphy is based on IsoD. hendry thinks that putting the ball in play more than any other team will amount to runs when this couldn't be further from the truth. putting bad pitches into play has ruined our season. this year's cubs have proven that strikeouts aren't the worst kind of outs one can make, 1-2 pitch bounce-outs are. hendry's philosphy of aggression at the plate is very similar to dusty's philosphy, which has made them such a great and terrible pair. hendry doesn't want to fire dusty, as dusty comes as close to following hendry's ideals in baseball as any manager jim can find. thusly, hendry will find any way to retain dusty, i don't think he'll be able to justify it, and don't believe it will happen, but even now hendry is searching for an excuse. too many balls in play make for a very bad team. there's simply not enough line drives or bases on balls. no hitters on base and no extra base hits. not a good philosophy to follow.

lee's never put up a .900 OPS, i just don't think he's going to be worth what is thrown at him. maybe he will be, but i'm not convinced--especially after he turned down that offer from the brewers. however, i do love miguel cabrera.

i'll take anyone who's good, and i don't know why he's perceived as a "cubs hater". cubs fans don't like him, but i don't see a reciprocation. I don't want him because he's old, fragile and in a clear decline. If they could sign him cheaply for one season, I'd have some interest, but that's about it. i'd take him for a year with a vesting option for a second, based on PA's and starts in center. that's all i'm saying.

i'll take anyone who's good, and i don't know why he's perceived as a "cubs hater". cubs fans don't like him, but i don't see a reciprocation.

He'd need to play in 35 of the last 37 games in order to make this amount of games. Try again. try again? you should try again in proving that he's somehow an injury waiting to happen, i don't see a pattern. Edmonds gets hurts once a week. and it's been a career trend in what way? Why does there need to be a career trend to be concerned about his health status for next season? You're reaching. i think it's reaching to assume he's going to take his concussion problems into next season.

you don't think there's enough perceived value in cedeno, marshall, and jones + cash? you could be right. personally, i'd be desperate to sell jones during the offseason, and i think that he has enough inflated value to be a key piece in a trade, considering we eat a lot of his salary, though. i'd throw in howry instead of cedeno if that's what it would take to get the job done, but i wouldn't absorb his contract.

if only it were. freel will be valued more for his ability to slide around on the field than his ability to not make outs. Unless he is falling into the Torii Hunter category, I dont think he will cost you a arm and a leg, due to him being on "web gems". Cedeno, Marshall, Jones, and cash for Freel is insane. If I were the Reds, and I was offered a deal like that, I would accept it in a heat beat. are you kidding me? ryan freel is an extremely cheap, extremely effective top of the order hitter who can play nearly anywhere and not hurt a team defensively. 1. cedeno never was a player that could be considered a prospect. he could be considered a "project" when taking into account that he looks completely ridiculous at the plate right now, and may never get it together long enough to even be a utility infielder in the major leagues. miguel cairo was a much bigger prospect than cedeno and he was either traded or let go twice by the cubs. 2. i'm not sure what the point in keeping marshall is. he's an optical illusion right now, some people think he looks good when he doesn't, so we should take advantage of this situation while we can. he's expendable anyway if hendry is considering bringing in a real pitching staff to surround zambrano. 3. jones is nothing special, especially at his salary. if we can nab a player with actual value as opposed to fake value to play right field, trading jones would be easy. 4. unfortunately, while freel is making 1.5 mil next season, we will not be able to make the trade without involving cash. none of the players listed are ACTUALLY worth all that much while the return would deliver us a valuable top of the order hitter with OBP (for those who choose to simply admire the game without asking for proof of value, he's fast and can play defense as well.) freel will be expensive, make no mistake about it. i doubt many here would disagree with that.

He'd need to play in 35 of the last 37 games in order to make this amount of games. Try again. try again? you should try again in proving that he's somehow an injury waiting to happen, i don't see a pattern. Edmonds gets hurts once a week. and it's been a career trend in what way?

He'd need to play in 35 of the last 37 games in order to make this amount of games. Try again. try again? you should try again in proving that he's somehow an injury waiting to happen, i don't see a pattern.

edmonds or brady clark, plz. preferably both.

i lived in seattle when dusty signed with the cubs, every baseball fan in the city was inonsoleable when they signed melvin and seemingly ignored baker. seattle's a west coast city, laid back, and knows nothing about the game--the perfect place fopr baker. and they definitely want him, i can just hear it on KJR right now.

manny is so much better than gwynn it's not funny.

if only it were. freel will be valued more for his ability to slide around on the field than his ability to not make outs.

Cheaper maybe, but more productive? Based on what? considering that neither have been in the same ballpark with edmonds as far as production over the course of their entire careers(except for this year, and the fact that edmonds probably has at least a couple more years left at the +.850 OPS level--even forgetting that wells has been very incosnistent thus far as well. he might not be significantly more productive, but i'll say that he'll be marginally more productive. Assuming that Edmonds will be healthy for an entire season, much less 2, is probably assuming an awful lot though. when's the last time that he played in less than 137 games?

Cheaper maybe, but more productive? Based on what? considering that neither have been in the same ballpark with edmonds as far as production over the course of their entire careers(except for this year, and the fact that edmonds probably has at least a couple more years left at the +.850 OPS level--even forgetting that wells has been very incosnistent thus far as well. he might not be significantly more productive, but i'll say that he'll be marginally more productive.

i don't understand why we'd want to overpay for carlos lee or vernon wells when jim edmonds will be availabel, probably, and he'll be much cheaper and more productive over the next 2 seasons, i'll wager.

he was a DL converted to the OL last season (or was that the other way around?). he started at DL in the last game of the year, i believe.

Your giving up way too much for Freel. What happened to Howry? Is he included in the Freel trade also? That starting rotation is very injury prone. Trading for Brady Clark would make no sense. You would be giving up one of your best pitching prospects for him. Why not just re-sign Pierre? He brings more to the table than Brady Clark will. 1. no way i'm giving up too much for freel. freel is going to be expensive now given his frequent spots on web gems, cincinnati is going to want a starter and an OF who can step right in and be productive. i'm throwing cedeno in because they might want a SS, too, and i'm of no mind to let the exclusion of cedeno be a dealbreaker in a trade for freel. cedeno is of no use to us, let another team think he might be of use to them. 2. howry was initially included in a different trade, and i forgot to re-add him to the bullpen, so i fixed it. sorry. 3. injury prone? are you kidding me? a. zambrano hasn't made less than 30 starts in a full season in his entire career. b. schmidt will have averaged over 30 starts per year over the last five years after finsihing this season. c. mussina hasn't made less than 24 starts in a single season in the last 14 seasons. he's also made 30 or more starts 10 times in those 14 years, and might get to 30 again this season. d. hill is not injury prone as far as i can tell. e. prior is injury prone, but as a back of the rotation starter, he' expendable and will have less pressure to perform. he's still also exteremely talented and worth the trouble. this would be our most durable rotation in years. i don't know what you've been watching, but it's certainly not the actual numbers. 7. brady clark is more productive than juan pierre. he'll also be cheaper next season because all anyone sees with pierre is speed, it's definitely not OBP. the team i've assembled is fueled by OBP. with clark and freel hitting in front of lee, ramirez, edmonds, and barrett, there will be plenty of RBIs to go around. murton would be allowed to grow, and izturis's offense probably wouldn't hurt us very badly, with his defense helping us immensely. i've devised a way that the cubs can keep izturis, you should be excited. i haven't even mentioned the bullpen, yet. the bullpen would be lights out, the manager could bring hill along slowly and coddle prior's pitch counts. this team would score a lot of runs, the starters would throw a lot of innings, and the bullpen would hold a lot of leads. what's not to like?

what do you expect? you post a stupid article by a casual fan/writer and you get responses, some absurd, some intelligent. you might as well have posted a link to an article by an amateur hyper-religious astronomer claiming that copernicus was an idiot and that the earth, in fact, is the center of the universe while using the "epicycle" argument to back his theory up. also, dinosaurs did not exist, discuss. Its exactly the response I expected, which is why I posted it. The quote was a cursory, fairly benign statement that was meant, at least in part, in jest. I wanted to see how far people would go in overreacting to it. It was good for a laugh. this is a message board, isn't this the place to "overreact"? "overreacting" is what a message board is for.

1. sign edmonds. 2. trade cedeno, marshall, jones, and cash for ryan freel. 3. sign jason schmidt. 4. sign mike mussina, but mulder would probably be a more, hendry-esque guy. 5. trade angel guzman for brady clark. 1. brady clark 2. ryan freel 3. dlee 4. edmonds 5. ramirez 6. barrett 7. murton 8. izturis 1. zambrano 2. schmidt 3. mussina 4. prior 5. hill novoa eyre dempster howry ohman wood restovich pagan fontenot theriot branyan ???????