hawkeyecub

He's got the top of the order right, and he has Murton and Cedeno both in the lineup. I can't complain about that. By the way aren't we facing 3 lefties this series? I thought it was set to be Willis, Olsen and Leiter.

I just don't think that's a good idea. I understand your reasoning for it, but there's no need for that to happen. With a $100M payroll, some inexpensive options at multiple positions and a number of players with whom we have to do something before the Rule V draft, there's no reason we can't contend for a championship next year. There are ways to improve this team outside of free agency.

Some quotes from Diamond Jaxx hitting Coach Von Joshua on Murton. (From the latest Vineline, article was written by Ron Potesta): "He drives me crazy, you don't find too many young kids who come along and want to work the way this kid works. Sometimes, I actually have to back him off and get him to accept and go with his abilities. At times, he gets a little too analytical with his approach on hitting." "He's one of the smartest young kids when it comes to recognizing what his abilities are and what the pitchers are trying to do to him. If all the young guys had his work ethic, there would be no problems."

In exchange for Zach Day and AAA OF J.J Davis. It's not official yet, the two sides have to work out money issues and Wilson must accept the deal. Rosenthal says we could still get involved if it falls through, but I think the events that have taken place since last night would suggest that he's wrong. http://www.sportingnews.com/baseball/

Which is why trading Wood or Zambrano for an elite OF bat, and then signing AJ Burnett is not too far off the beaten path strategy-wise. Execution-wise is a whole other ballgame. I'm more of the persuasion that we should take a two year plan to regroup and rebuild. There is a much better crop of players that would be available in 2007. I just don't think that's a good idea. I understand your reasoning for it, but there's no need for that to happen. With a $100M payroll, some inexpensive options at multiple positions and a number of players with whom we have to do something before the Rule V draft, there's no reason we can't contend for a championship next year.

OT, but is anyone else surprised at how much Brenly has seemed to be the voice of reason in terms of playing youth? I am. Although his analysis hasn't been as good as I thought it would be, some of his ideas and opinions have pleasently surprised me. I expected him to be a pure company man and defend Dusty for basically everything that happened. He's consistently criticized the Cubs for not being patient enough at the plate instead of just the "well you've gotta be agressive" that I expected from him. His thoughts on young players have been surprising and refreshing.

That's not the only problem. Of course offense is our main problem, but during our losing streaks this year, our pitching has been a problem also. We've given up at least 4 runs in every game over this streak. We've given up more than 4 runs in 5 of the 8 games.

Does this belong in Transactions? To answer your question though those guys in the rotation haven't pitched all that well and the bullpen hasn't helped them out. Our offense isn't that good to begin with but has really slumped. We've given up an average of 6 runs per game and our offense has only scored 2.5 runs per game.

That's really pathetic and not what this board needs. With all of the new guests coming to do Q&A's, this is exactly the kind of stuff we don't need them to see. A player is admitting he had something bothering him so you call him a "coward." Was Lee a "coward" also for talking about how his shoulder was bothering him? Even if you were being sarcastic there's no call for that. I have no reason not to believe Michael Barrett, but I'm sick of seeing Cub player who are in this seemingly "in" club not being able to get criticized, but no one cleans up on the rampant criticisms of Perez (I'm guilty), Macias (I'm guilty), Remlinger, Baker, Hendry, Hollandsworth, Wood, etc. We don't need to see a lot of what's on the board. If you've seen many of my posts you know that I try to clean up unjust criticism of Hendry, Baker, Hollandsworth, Wood and Neifi and have defended all of them on more than one occasion. I've made my positions known on all of them and remained consistent on each one. I don't view Baker any differently now than I did when we were 6 over .500 and on the winning streak. Overall he's a decent manager who gets too much blame for his shortcomings and too much praise for his strengths. Neifi is a solid defensive replacement and part-time SS who is worth the $1M we're paying him. Hollandsworth was made into a villain early in the year because of Dubois, and even though he has outperformed him, many still don't like him. Hendry had a poor offseason, and I disagree with some of his philosophies but I feel that he is still a good GM and has done some things that make me think he's capable of change. I wasn't playing favorites with Barrett by any means. I just thought it was way over the line to call him a "coward" for mentioning that his shoulder is feeling better after it had been bothering him.

Check Transactions. There's a 12 page thread regarding Corey and Dubois being sent down.

That's really pathetic and not what this board needs. With all of the new guests coming to do Q&A's, this is exactly the kind of stuff we don't need them to see. A player is admitting he had something bothering him so you call him a "coward." Was Lee a "coward" also for talking about how his shoulder was bothering him? Even if you were being sarcastic there's no call for that.

Bruce Miles

Yes, I'm sure Bruce is very busy but if he is lurking and has any time, his opinion would be very much appreciated. I found this quote from Baker on the ESPN.com story: "We're getting them up here to play," Baker said. "Maybe they can give us a spark." And this one from Hendry, referring to the Braves: "You don't have to look any farther than across the way to see what can happen under these circumstances," Hendry said. "It's something we have struggled with for a fairly long time." Take Baker's quote for what it's worth, but I found it surprising. It may be Hendry putting his foot down.

Yes, I'm sure Bruce is very busy but if he is lurking and has any time, his opinion would be very much appreciated. I found this quote from Baker on the ESPN.com story: "We're getting them up here to play," Baker said. "Maybe they can give us a spark." And this one from Hendry, referring to the Braves: "You don't have to look any farther than across the way to see what can happen under these circumstances," Hendry said. "It's something we have struggled with for a fairly long time." Take Baker's quote for what it's worth, but I found it surprising. It may be Hendry putting his foot down.

1 week isn't "too long to rot". For a regular player not playing in the All-Star game they get 3 days off. Adding in 4 days before that isn't going to ruin them or harm their development. Not that I'm in favor of that, but it's not like giving a player a week off to learn things at the ML level is going to hurt them.

1 week isn't "too long to rot". For a regular player not playing in the All-Star game they get 3 days off. Adding in 4 days before that isn't going to ruin them or harm their development. Not that I'm in favor of that, but it's not like giving a player a week off to learn things at the ML level is going to hurt them.

I think now we can see that Gammons was probably right on this one. Calling Greenberg up with Murton means it would likely have been Felix if he wasn't injured.

Baseball Tonight just reported that we sent Corey down.

When I saw this title I thought for sure it was going to be for Kotsay. McDougal or Affeldt? I think I'll pass.

"What a horrible pitch" - Bob Brenly

Williams is also only 23, is very inexpensive, has room to improve and as you said has already experienced success at the major league level. I think he's pitched well since coming over. He's only allowed 14 base runners in 16 innings. The home runs are what have been the problem. I think he can improve enough to avoid those a little better and be at least a solid, cheap 4-5 starter for a few years. Barrett may not be "good" but he is at least league average at catcher in my opinion. We have no one in the system beating down the door to take his place, and even average catchers are often overpriced and hard to come by. Although he wasn't patient last year, when he wasn't hitting at the bottom of the order he was much more patient, and I think he will bring his numbers back up this year. His defense has improved this year and he has some pop. Again I just don't see where we would go at catcher next year that would be an upgrade at Barrett's cost. Cedeno is a similar case. Has the last year and a half been a fluke and is he performing above his ceiling? I don't know but for a SS who has put up those numbers in AA at 21 and AAA at 22 and has looked competent in the bigs (at 22), I think I would err on the side of caution. Quality offensive shortstops are so difficult to find and the decent ones are overpriced. We really don't know what caused this increase in production. Apparently the scouts and organization saw something in 2003 that made them optimistic. Since then, he's performed very well. I don't think I want to take the chance that he's "figured it out" and watch him continue to perform somewhere else while we continue to search for a SS. He's had the tools and for the last year and a half he's had the production.

I'm not sure about this, but I'm wondering if during the season he could be put on revocable waivers? Then if someone claimed him, we could pull it back and hang on to him. I've not heard of that happening during a season, I'm just throwing it out as a possibility. It does seem like they sound fairly certain they could send him down without giving him up though, so I'm not sure.

Exactly. I hate the booing and have said all year they need to find a spot in the lineup for him and keep him there. But to blame his performance this season on that is ridiculous.

I don't think that's Corey's problem. There have been some steps in Corey's development and progression to the majors that you can question. But Corey is the only one to blame for how poorly he's performed this season. There's no excuse for him to revert to perform at a lower level than he did in 2002 as a 22 year old.

Like you, I would ideally like a mixture. However if I had my choice it would be a guy who pitched to contact, (provided he had the stuff where the contact wasn't consistent hard hit balls). With the pitchers who really pitch to avoid contact, you don't see many complete games. You see a lot of pitch counts around 115 in the 6th inning. This exposes your middle relief consistently, which is usually the weakest part of your staff. There's not much better in my opinion than seeing the occasional Lieber or Maddux 88 pitch complete games in their prime.