the sport

I try not to read the inane posters, but I'll make an exception for you, since you choose to address mine. I never find it redundent to dismiss feeble justifications, as long as they keep popping up, again and again, so will I. Judging from your posts I highly doubt you read much of anything. But, you did pick a fine username, CPatt swings and misses alot, often looking silly doing so.

1) Sisco came off the IR too soon, during the chilly play-offs in '03 and developed tendonitis that lingered though most of the '04 season. His velocity was coming back in august, so yes Hendry should have seen enough to protect him on the 25 based on potential alone. 2) Worried about his 3 year clock? What a crock. Look, if he's not ready in 3 more full years of minor league ball, then you have another prospect who didn't pan out, ala Kelton. WHO CARES AT THAT POINT! You needed to guard against the possiblity that within those 3 loooong years he would once more begin to live up to his potential. And keeping the Koronko's of the world while risking Andy at 21, is just plain STUPID. But if the weight issue and maturity issue makes you feel better about this attrocity, go ahead and live up to the Cubbie fan stereotype. And if the more talented Justin Jones ever gets over his tendenitis issues I'm sure you're blind loyalty will justify his deal due to the fact that he was too skinny and too emotionally detached for such a youngster.

It is becoming increasingly clear that the Cubs peaked in '03. What should have only been the start of bigger and better things to come for the most promising (at the time) franchise in all of baseball inexplicably turned out to be the apex instead. The person solely responsible for the Sisco fiasco is responsible for this sad twist of fate as well. They are interwoven. And the man doing the weaving?

Brock for Brolio, Madlock for Mercer, and Sisco for nothing. Sure has the makings of yet another patented, historic Cubbie blunder. Oh, wait check that....it was Sisco for piece of mind, so those sensitive Cubs don't have to watch him destroy himself through overeating.

O.K., one last one. Nomah is a .266 hitter outside of Fenway over the last three years. As a matter of fact, his offensive stats over that time frame are little better than KGon's away from home, except for the SO's, of course. And his D is not as good as KGon's. In his prime, his split wasn't nearly as stark. He strikes me as a player who will not age gracefully. Bosox got a bargain contract with him, the next team will overpay. Hundley. Sosa, Alou, Maddux, Hundley, Remlinger-- all huge contracts given to players past their prime (check their stats before and after their last contracts.) Now we want another. The lefty fetish was a bit tongue and check, but look at this team, do we have a lefty at any position under 30? Hagerty at 23, is in rookie ball, with a + 4 ERA. He came to the Cubs with little experience, that TJ surgery was a particular killer developmentally for a player with his profile. And he's their only real chance at becoming a front of the rotation lefty. But, even before the injury, his stats at Mesa/Boise 2002, were a bit misleading--he gave up a ton of unearned runs and is strictly a two pitch guy. Longshot at being a 2 or 3 at the ML level. As for the rest....for various reasons, nobody outside of Cubbieland is getting really excited about Sisco (anymore) and Pinto. They will never replace the output of a Clement, where as Jones very well might have exceeded it, down the road. The rest you mentioned are your garden variety, poop tossing lefties. Potential future rotation of: Prior Wood Z Guzman Jones WOW, looked good to me. Nobody in our system has the upside to fill that spot I reserved for Jones, nearly as well, IMO. Lastly, 7 courner O.F.ers 1) Harvey 2) DuBois 3) Hoffpuair 4) Collins 5) Sing 6) Weston 7) Jackson Their is no drastic differential between Murton and any of these OFer's overall game. And you can throw Mallory, Bacon, Johnson and Valdez in with that group. Laugh all you want, but Weston and Mallory still may be latebloomers. And if Patterson gets pushed off to LF with the eventual arrival of Pie....Murton sure seems like are redundency to me. Add a Hensley Ramirez or Shoppach and maybe I'm a little more agreeable to the whole idea. Well, there you have it, bash away.

I'd like to counter with a little dose of my own version of reality. Harris' offensive potential as a middle infielder and Jones' potential as a legitimate top of the rotation, lefty stud are light years ahead of Murton's potential impact as a righty hitting, leftfielder. To mention him (we've got about 6 just like him in our orginazation, yet Minaya asked for Harris) as offsetting the lose of any of the three much tougher to fill positions we gave away is hometown wishfull thinking. And draft choices are hit and miss at any level, we traded away two big hits, in recent drafts, in Harris and Jones-- the compentation picks are highly unlikely to fully compensate. And while I'm at it, from the moment he stepped onto the mound at Mesa, Jones has been a far better prospect than either Sisco or Pinto. Ryan knew who to ask for. I'd really love to eat crow on this one, but I can't help but notice the contrast in the heavy price we had to pay for a past-his-prime player, with injury concerns with the relatively light price our rivals had to pay for players just entering their prime years in Rolen and Beltran.

This deal has all the earmarkings of becoming a longterm disaster for the Cubs. At best, they acquire yet another high-priced, declining, overrated player. Worse still, a 2 month rent-a-player. Even after the deal, the way this team is constructed, their is no gaurentee that they even make the playoffs. No gaurentee Wood and/or Prior are nearly as dominant down the stretch as they were last year. No gaurentee that Zambrano, Clement, Hawkins, and Farnsworth won't be toast by playoff time, due to over use. No gaurentee that Sosa and/or Alou won't be in another prolonged slump, as aging players are apt to do, especially as the year wears on. Also, no gaurentee, but a VERY likely scenerio, as Garciapopup (no more Fenway monster for cheap fly ball HR's and thats the Sox fans nickname for him, by the way) declines steadily--scouts predict his range will be so lacking in a few short years that he will be forced to move from SS. Many scouts also feel he will have a Boggs-like drop-off in production if he ever changes teams. No gaurentee, but VERY likely that Harris will be a better middle infielder than Nomah, in just a few years. No gaurentee, but Beltran could still develop into a very good, inexpensive late inning RP. And including Jones is proof that Hendry has a righty fetish. GAURENTEE, Jones was the ONLY lefty in the organization with the potential to be a superstar! On a Mets forum many fans are stating that they are thru with the Mets after their ill conceived dealing of Kazmir. I'm here to say that Jones has more projectability than Kazmir. Jones for Mentk.? Scary to think what that Minnesota orginazation would do with Hendry's budget. Speaking of budgets, Hendry has really built a house of cards, with all those millions tied up in old, declining players, while jettisoning a huge chunk of our inexpensive, talented future in exchange. With a payroll blouted with overpayed, old players, 2/3's of their rooster eligible either for free agency or arbitration, the Cubs will not sign their franchise first prime age FA. The Cubs have greatly diminished the likelyhood of a long run of success. Our lower level, minor league talent indicates the pipeline is clogged. We had less of it than most realize. FAR less after today. Hendry has fallen into the same trap that befalls most GM's--drunk with a little success. Many fans now giddy with praise may look back in a few short years and wonder how all those OTHER Cubs fans ever overrated Hendry so. They'll be saying how Hendry had a chance to build something really special and instead dropped the batton.

Mr. Miles, I'm about to take a shot at the most popular GM in Chicago history......St. Jim Hendry. I wish I could see it, but I'm wrestling with a few issues: 1) All long-term trades appear to be failures. Hinske-Chiasson, Willis-Clement, Choi (LH & 450K Sal.)-Lee, Cruz-Pratt/Lewis, ect. (I know he wasn't the GM for those first two deals, but it was widely reported that he orchestrated both while Asst. GM.) How many of these would you take back now? All will only look worse down the road. Furthermore, Hendry really wanted Lowell and was very hesitant about ARam's salary AND did not need to include Hill or any real prospect in the deal (the Pirates desperately wanted to avoid paying him this year, but Hendry has an annoying habit of wanting the other side happy--which he is accomplishing!) Any GM from a large market could have pulled off the Aram-Lofton and Simon deals, no genius tag needs to be attached. Same goes for the Grudz deal, simply a salary move that turned out surprisingly well. Anyway, it won't have the lasting effect of those other deals. 2) For every Walker and Hollingsworth, there is an Alfonseca (5.5 mil.) an Estes (3 mil.) a Veres (1.5 mil.) and an O'Leary. Sure Hawkins was nice, but why sign him three days before the FA compesation deadline, when Minn. had no intention of making him an offer (it was in all the local Minn. newspapers--did Hendry want to make them happy as well) ??? 3) With all those 90 plus loss seasons, Hendry's ameuter drafts, (the years he was in charge,) are vastly overrated. O.K. CPatt, 3rd overall, looks good, maybe not great, but who else? Martinez, Christensen, Kelton, Hill, ect. Want to apply the genius label that fits, apply it to Dick Stockstill (his '01, '02, and '03 drafts all look good to great.) Yes, having Stockstill replace him as minor league coordinator does have a touch of genius--Stockstill's. 4) Letting "Arm Grinder" Baker in charge all those precious, young arms, seems like tempting faith. To my lovable loser, pessimistic ears, the sound of a giant ship grinding along an ice berg must sound a lot like the fraying of elbow and shoulder ligaments. Well Bruce, where have I missed the boat?