Magnetic Curses

Agreed. No reason NOT to have Walker at 2B for the Cubs next year, unless they really don't want him back for reasons I can't even fathom. Even if you can get one of the few 2B better, it will cost the Cubs more unjustified money, and most importantly, cost them players. agreed, if we're going to trade for someone, it might as well be abreu. a guy who plays a position we actually need to fill.

dunn strikes out too much. he doesn't bunt enough and forget about sac flies. i doubt he's very good at clutch hitting or leprechaun-catching either.

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.

dusty gets a lot of blame, true, but it's warranted. batting neifi perez at leadoff, in itself, should be enough.

it's the 98 sosa/mcgwire question. i'd do the same thing.

What about a lack of sample size? 5 innings? with how many walks? i'm sorry, my opinion may be tainted by memories of watching him throw the ball in the general direction of the plate, every time he got in the game, without having any success in the strike zone.

At this point, Kerry is not a good pitcher. He is grossly overpaid and let's hope that 2006 is his last year in a Cubs uniform. My hope is that some team next year will be stupid enough to take him off our hands. i'm wondering what you mean by this. kerry is definitely a very good pitcher. he may be a chronically injured pitcher, but you cannot say he isn't very good. if he throws 200 innings, he'll have a good year.

It's funny you say that. I'm sure Baker has suggested to Hendry that he sign Tommy John to be that lefty starter for 2006. Why get a cheap immatation? I'd be willing to take a risk on Willaimson and I think Hendry would as well. Frankly, it doesn't make much sense to pickup a guy who the team figured wouldn't be effective in 2005 unless they had future aspirations... i hope the cubs take a pass on williamson & give jvb a real shot next year. somehow dusty seemed to have forgotten about him the last 3 weeks of the season along with rich hill. imagine that.. jvb walks everyone he faces. until he can get a little control at the ML level, dusty is justified in sitting him. how do you have good control when you pitch ever 3 weeks? baker did the same thing to wellemeyer last year when he was pitching great & he hasnt been the same since. all i know is that his walk rate is ridiculous. it does not reflect a simple lack of use.

i think that if we sign lofton, there's no way that patterson's around. and giles isn't that old, he gets on base and keeps in excellent shape. don't know what the fascination with furcal is, he's a big name that was overhyped coming into the league, has a cannon for an arm but sucks defensively. his obp is largely dependent upon his BA and he'll be overpriced. and preston wilson gives me the absolute willies.

It's funny you say that. I'm sure Baker has suggested to Hendry that he sign Tommy John to be that lefty starter for 2006. Why get a cheap immatation? I'd be willing to take a risk on Willaimson and I think Hendry would as well. Frankly, it doesn't make much sense to pickup a guy who the team figured wouldn't be effective in 2005 unless they had future aspirations... i hope the cubs take a pass on williamson & give jvb a real shot next year. somehow dusty seemed to have forgotten about him the last 3 weeks of the season along with rich hill. imagine that.. jvb walks everyone he faces. until he can get a little control at the ML level, dusty is justified in sitting him.

When I mentioned Kearns or Pena, I didn't necessarily mean for RF. Giles is what we need for RF, but we need to be prepared for the possibility that he won't leave the West Coast. I wonder whether Murton, Kearns, or Pena can play CF. It couldn't be much worse defensively than Nomar in LF. Pena can play CF decently. Murton and Kearns would struggle in CF. pena is not the answer for this team.

i think "competitive" means a world series contender. it's a complete crapshoot in the playoffs anyway. unless it's brian cashman or theo epstein, i'm not taking any GM seriously if they come out and say something about winning the series. not many GMs have the monetary luxury of being able to build a team for the regular season AND the playoffs. personally, i think the cubs have the potential in their starting rotation to be able to clean up in the playoffs, though.

agreed, a much better article than his last one. this was more in-line with what he's been doing, writing about topics that other journalists aren't smart enough to pick up on.

nomar can play SS, just put him back there. foget spending anything on furcal.

AAA ball is used as an extended bench.

i don't think nomar has much value for us if he's not playing SS. i'd want him there if he comes back, i'd want walker at 2nd, with cedeno backing up both spots--and if someone goes down or is underproducing, we go to plan B. best case scenario, imo, is that we sign lofton for an insignificant amount of money, sign giles, and play murton in left. even if lofton has a drastic decline, which he probably will, he's a better leadoff hitter than anyone we've had in a long time, excluding him in 2003. i, too, think we need another starter, i don't feel comfortable with williams or rusch at #5, and i'm not going to bank on nolasco, pinto, or guzman either. i'd take a shot at millwood or burnett, then, make some alterations in the BP, with dempster staying at any cost, we couldn't get anyone more effective for the same amount of money or less.

okay, eckstein has some value, but if you'd have asked me who i'd rather have had, eckstein or nomar, it would have been nomar, no question. and i'd still rather have nomar after this year, regardless of eckstein's 2002-like campaign. i don't chalk that up to bad decision-making, at least, in the front office. Dusty has made bad decisions, i'll admit that, he would have probably had eckstein batting 8th and flailing like neifi. Walker is, was, and will be a better hitter than grudz, that was my point. as for rodriguez, he was no more valuable than hollandsworth would have been had we actually had a starting left fielder. the problem was, holla is not a starter. the poor decision-making in that regard was neglecting to sign a player with any kind of a bat to start in left. i'm not really alarmed that they didn't know who rodriguez was, a career AAA who has maximized his potential this season was not necessarily at the top of my wish list in the offseason. one could argue that if holla hadn't fouled a ball off of his shin in 2004, the cubs might have won the WC. it was a bad decision to let dusty start him, but not a bad decision to sign him after he torched us in the 2003 NLCS. i would have had no problem with holla and grieve as the 4th and 5th OF's this year. but often it seems like it's not up to hendry. hendry's worst decisions are the ones he lets dusty make. Sullymon, I think you're getting caught up in player-to-player comparisons. These comparisons, while intriguing, are off the mark. The point is, IMO, that the Cardinals have built a synergistic organization, which trickles down to a synergistic team. The team is greater than the sum of its parts. The Cubs have not learned how to do this. That's not to say that they can't or won't, but only that they have not. The Cubbies could learn alot from the hated rivals to the south, but will they??????? i don't buy the synergy thing in baseball.

okay, eckstein has some value, but if you'd have asked me who i'd rather have had, eckstein or nomar, it would have been nomar, no question. and i'd still rather have nomar after this year, regardless of eckstein's 2002-like campaign. i don't chalk that up to bad decision-making, at least, in the front office. Dusty has made bad decisions, i'll admit that, he would have probably had eckstein batting 8th and flailing like neifi. Walker is, was, and will be a better hitter than grudz, that was my point. as for rodriguez, he was no more valuable than hollandsworth would have been had we actually had a starting left fielder. the problem was, holla is not a starter. the poor decision-making in that regard was neglecting to sign a player with any kind of a bat to start in left. i'm not really alarmed that they didn't know who rodriguez was, a career AAA who has maximized his potential this season was not necessarily at the top of my wish list in the offseason. one could argue that if holla hadn't fouled a ball off of his shin in 2004, the cubs might have won the WC. it was a bad decision to let dusty start him, but not a bad decision to sign him after he torched us in the 2003 NLCS. i would have had no problem with holla and grieve as the 4th and 5th OF's this year. but often it seems like it's not up to hendry. hendry's worst decisions are the ones he lets dusty make.

well...JP uses stats/probability to pick a player. it isn't a full proof method, but the likelihood of him picking a solid player over the traditional scout method is appreciably greater. it may take time before we see it, but it will happen given enough time. BASED ON WHAT?? Everyone keeps spouting off old-schoolesque cliches about Ricciardi and nobody seems to have a single shred of evidence as to why he's a better GM than Hendry. =D> I just don't get this convo. What - other than pure speculation - makes all of you think that he is a "better" GM than JH? IMO, he's shown a lack of judgment in his offseason acquisitions. Koskie is a nice player, but they already had guys to play on the corners of the IF. What they needed was some back-end bullpen help, or even another starter to take the pressure off of Halladay (Lily, who Riccardi has constatly touted, has been brutal). I prefer not to say this (b/c it almost always comes off as antaganistic), but I think some of you like this guy simply due to his former association w/ Mr. Beane. For reference purposes: Koskie in 2005: http://sports.espn.go.com/mlb/players/profile?statsId=6110 And career: http://www.baseball-reference.com/k/koskico01.shtml Jay's roster: http://sports.espn.go.com/mlb/teams/roster?team=tor Can i add not resigning Chris Carpenter to his list of bad offseason decisions. Bad, very bad. To me he is riding the coattails of beane and moneyball. EDIT: They released him and gave up on him. Chris Carpenter didn't start showing anything until he got to the cards, he was a rebuilt pitcher who wasn't all that great to begin with. if anything carpenter is a feather in dencan's cap, not a smudge on JP's resume.

my apologies, then, but it seems you're always badmouthing him.

the cards did NOT hit the ball better than the cubs, let alone "quite better", they scored more than the cubs due to a couple key factors. their starters have remained healthy, despite having a history of injury, and their bullpen is far and away superior.

yes, this is a suprisingly dull article from miles, who i expect more from. the cards are better because of eckstein, grudz, and rodriguez? not even close, rodriguez was playing at AAA for cleveland, why isn't cleveland stupid for trading him away? eckstein won't have much value after this season, nor will grudz, who has never been the hitter that walker has, never ever, not even this year. the cards have scored more runs than the cubs because of patience (hitting philosophy) and a whole heap of good luck. their pitching has stayed healthy and they have a better bullpen. the cubs could easily win 100 games if they spend wisely this offseason. they don't need to go looking for needles in hackstacks at AAA.

not much, but he had a terrible payroll to pare down and a system to cultivate. it's not like you can just change the course of a franchise in 3-4 years. So you're admitting that Ricciardi has done nothing to warrant the thoughts of him being better than Hendry. why do you hate him so much? does it bother the "old school" fan in you? it must also bother you that beane continues to be successful in oakland despite losing his 2 top starters, a move that many "smallballers" said would be his undoing because his "system" doesn't work. Find em, sully. Find the posts where I talk about how I hate these complicated and crazy stats. They're too much for my feeble brain!! Find the post where I said Beane's system doesn't work. Find some sort of evidence other than me occassionally suggesting that Beane isn't the best GM in the game, or that everyone that worked for the A's would be a great GM. Please find these things, otherwise I'd appreciate if you stopped lying repeatedly about me when the topic of Beane comes up. let me just say that whenever the topic of beane comes up, i know which stance you're going to take. and it's never pro.

That's the only thing in Burnett's favor. But how meaningful is it. After 2003 Wood was the one who looked healthy. They've gone back and forth with their problems. My point is neither is reliable, and nobody would sign Wood to a big extension today, there's no justification for giving Burnett that contract instead. but in burnett's favor, he doesn't have the history of shoulder and forearm problems that wood does. he's had TJS, but one can hardly predict with any certainty that burnett's next 2 seasons will be comparable to wood's last 2.

Why not compare him to Wood. They are the same age (AJ is 5 months older). They've each pitched in parts of 7 seasons. Wood has 1109 IP in 174 starts. He is 70-54 with a 3.67 ERA, 1286 K's, 538 BB, 856 H. Burnett has 854 IP in 131 starts. He is 49-50 with a 3.73 ERA, 753 K's, 377 BB, 719 H. AJ missed most of 2003 and a good portion of 2004. He's been on and off disabled lists with many different ailments. Wood has been the more effective pitcher throughout his career using just about any measurement. Both are injury risks, neither is particularly reliable. They are very similar. but the huge difference is that burnett is not coming off of an injury in his contract year.