CUBZ99

I think it's absurd to say Maddux is no more than a 5th starter. Have you actually looked at his numbers from last year? There pretty decent. I would be willing to bet that a fair amount of teams would take a 1.2 WHIP and a 4.2 ERA from their 3rd starter. In my opionion Maddux is a very good 4th starter. Maddux's numbers indicate he is a back-of-the-rotation innings eater. An ERA in the mid 4's is not good. I would have been so pleased to have had his option not vest, but oh well. Also, minor point to the earlier post: Unless Williams is traded, there's no way on earth Rusch can beat him out for the 5th starter's spot. If Williams does beat out Rusch, then what do you do with Rusch? He stinks out of the bullpen and his $3m year would be a waste.

From today's Suntimes: http://www.suntimes.com/output/mariotti/cst-spt-jay25.html Good read and it seems like Mariotti agrees with many on the board. On the Bullpen A Milton Bradley sighting: On the OF: On the pitching Staff: On Baker:

He had a complete meltdown performance wise. 14 Appearances, 6.1 IP, 23 ER, 4 K, 30 BB at Boise That's not a typo. Thats not horrible he only avg. 5 BB's per inning. :lol:

Actually, my point is that good bullpens rarely get built by throwing money and long-term deals at guys coming off career years. We already had Dempster, Williamson, Ohman, Wuertz for the backend of the pen. We've got either Rusch or Williams for long relief. I probably wouldn't complain about Howry if he were the only other big deal. That would give us six men in the pen and we'd be set. It's really the combination of the Eyre and Howry deals that irritates the heck out of me. It means that we're committed to those guys for far too long a time considering their overall career track records. I prefer to build a pen through exceptional scouting, player evaluation and player development, rather than trying to throw money after past performance. I think there's a very, very strong chance that one of the two three year deals ends up being an anchor in the pen and the other no more than ordinary. I think that rather than turning this into one of the elite pens, Hendry has done nothing more than make sure it will be average. I think he took the easy way out. We may say that we wanted a sure thing and so we're glad he signed guys that did well last year. But no reliever is a sure thing and we're committed to these guys even if they don't work out. Great pens like Anaheim & St. Louis have very few long-term commitments except at closer. They're built from within and astute pickups that were pretty much freely available to anyone. When non-closing relievers get expensive, they're traded or let go. Minnesota's been able to maintain a strong pen for years wth the same philosophy. Ah, what's the point. I should just let everyone be happy because we went out and committed a big chunk of payroll for "proven" guys. Hooray. I don't think there is anyway to determine whether Hendry improved the pen or not until we see how Howry and Eyre perform. However, last year Hendry did nothing all winter to improve the pen and ended up with Novoa and Bartosh. We all know how that one turned out. It is possible that Hendry is overcompensating for his lack of any moves last year, but at least he didn't just ignore the bullpen and hope for it to get better by itself. As far as $$ allocated to the bullpen, its not like this years budgeted bullpen $$ is much different than last year's. Last year you had Borowski $2M(?), Remlinger $4M, Hawkins $4M, Dempster $2M = $12M for 4 guys. This year you have Eyre $3M, Howry $4M, Dempster $5M and Williamson $2M = $14M for 4 guys. Do you think the improvements warrant an extra $2M in bullpen budget? IMO it does and the bullpen this year looks much improved. Now Dusty has two lefties that he can use any time late in the game and two righties he can use at any time.

There's no reason to repeat here our back and forth in the Howry thread; suffice it to say, your comparisons were silly--as pointed out there. The stats you chose to focus on were selectively made. The logical inconsistency of your argument from one thread to another was also startling: on the one hand, you want to focus on recent performance and discount past results (Pierre), but on the other, you want to look at lifetime performance and discount recent results, even though said recent results came after career-trajectory-changing events (Eyre's ADD treatment; Howry's surgery). And to top it all off, you, one of the proudest proponents of the dangers of small sample size, then tout Ohman and Wuertz' case despite both having incredibly small sample sizes from which to observe. Hey, I don't take it with venom, in fact I take it more tongue-in-cheek; my interpretation is that you've been away for awhile and are just in the mood for some good natured arguments, and that's cool, I'm always up for that. But it doesn't change the fact that you're dead wrong, on multiple fronts of late. Actually, I and others compared Eyre's post-add results with Ohman and found them lacking. And others brought in a lot of additional stats that reinforced the point even further. But you don't seem to want to acknowledge that our side of the argument just might have some merit to it. It's very hard to avoid small sample sizes when that's all that's available. In those cases, it's all you have to go on. I'd also use Ohman's minor league numbers, but people would complain about that, so I didn't. I'm not sure where I've talked all that much about Pierre the last couple days. I think you're confusing me with someone else there. And I don't mind the back and forth, either. Hence the big smiley at the start of my post! Tim -- I still don't understand your comparisons to Ohman and Wuertz. I don't think anybody is bashing Ohman or Wuertz and I don't believe it is a bright line,either or proposition. Your argument seems to be that because the Cubs have Ohman or Wuertz is was not necessary to sign any more bullpen help. It would be like saying just because you have 1 good starting pitcher or one good pinch hitter you should do nothing. There are more than enough spots for all of them down there. With the signing of the Eyre and Howry the Cubs now have a legitimate bullpen with some depth.

I take it that in Bruce's opinion (IBO) the Pierre deal is not as close as is being reported by the Score.

So where do these two signings leave Rich Hill? Everything reported so far states that he is not available via trade. The bullpen is full and with the Eyre signing it appears that Rusch will be the #5 starter. Does Hendry view Hill as a guy that will get a chance to win a starting job out of spring training? Its not like Hill didn't completely dominate in AAA already.

The website alleging the deal is done, and then lists links to stories that say the deal is close to done, has a list of 5 other pitchers that the Marlins could choose or may choose. The five included a whose who list of Cubs pitching prospects: Guzman, Marshall, Ryu, Nolasco, and Pinto. I am hoping that Pinto is the only one out of those five. IMO it would be foolish to trade all of your top level pitching prospects for a one year rental.

I looked up Mabry's numbers and he must have had an off year last year, but overall he is not much better than Macias's, which is really saying something.

You keep holding out hope for Michaels. :lol: I admire your persistence.

Has anybody heard anything else on the Pierre deal? I would be very impressed if Hendry were able to get Pierre for a deal including Pinto and two lesser minor leaguers.

Steve Stone coming up :shock:

So we may see an outfield of Pie, Murton and Pierre this year.

Is the Howry signing official yet? Unless you assume he will fail the physical.

Can you listen on the internet?

Hendry has lots of Middle relievers to deal. Do the Cubs have to clear roster spots for Eyre and Howry prior to the Rule 5 or do they have a certain time frame to get them added? In other words, are the Three prospects likely to be from the 40 man roster i.e. Dopirak, Wellemeyer, Pinto, Ryu, etc? Would make sense if they dealt three prospects to clear the space on the forty man for 3 new additions (Pierre, Howry, Eyre.)

Why Hendry didn't want Gordon after his first go round?

Jim Hendry went into the offseason with the goal of improving the bullpen. So far he has landed the top LH setup guy available, and is rumored to be landing one of the top RH setup guys available. That is pretty impressive work IMO. Where is the complaint beside he is spending too much money? And why are we so concerned with how much the Cubs are paying Howry and Erye? Its not like he's blown the whole budget, or for that matter we have no clue what the budget is.

Ah, finally. The "proven veteran" phrase has arisen. Ahh....since we sucked last year we shouldve just taken our chances on more schlubs that weren't proven and never had dominant seasons like Novoa and almost every other guy in our bullpen.....that would get us really far next season. Once again, I'm tired of watching our bullpen blow game after game, and if it takes 7 mil to help that out (especially in regards to the fact we had 30 to spend), that is definitely money well spent. The point is that neither vet has "proven" to be reliably exceptional across their careers. Nor have they proven to be consistently better than what we could expect from Wuertz & Ohman in 2006. Wuertz and Ohman have only had ONE quality year in the pen apiece. Not much of a sample size to go on - I like the idea of adding two more guys who have had more than ONE quality year, giving us twice as many options for stopping runs after Prior peters out with 110 pitches in the 6th, or Rusch struggles in the 6th after he came in to relieve Wood in the 2nd. Okay. You go with your proven vets in the pen at $3.5M each. I'll go with the youngsters and have enough money left over to pay for a $6M player. Or most of Brian Giles for RF. I'm sorry, but Brian Giles alone isn't going to win the Cubs many games...he can hit 2 home runs in the first 6 innings, but when Novoa comes in and blows the lead, those Brian Giles homers means nothing. We have consisently been in the upper echelon of run scoring the last few years, and it doesn't get us anywhere. On the contrary, our bullpen has sucked big time and look where that got us..... We need to protect that dominant pitching staff in the later innings, which is something we have failed to do the last couple years. :-k Cubs Rank in MLB: 2002 2003 2004 2005 Runs Scored 22 20 16 20 Bullpen Runs 25 16 15 19 I'm not sure I can agree with your point... Take a second to examine the overall pitching and offensive stats for the 4 contenders in the AL postseason this year, and you'll obtain a clearer picture of the value of offense/pitching. Blowing over 1/3 of the money we have on one outfielder isn't going to solve the problem. lol - If you look at the stats of the AL playoff teams in other years it tells a different story. So what? Baseball is a simple game. You have to score more than the other team. Scoring runs = 50%, preventing runs = 50%. Preventing runs is split between pitching and defense. Pitching is split between starting (majority) and bullpen (minority). The bullpen is split between 6-7 guys (under Dusty). Spending $3M on a single reliever isn't the answer, either. The $10M on the OF will help a heck of a lot more. Its not like the Cubs are lacking money to spend on offense now that they "supposedly" signed Howry. The bullpen is shaping up quite nicely and Hendry still has roughly $20M and some nice trading chips to get some offense.

Ah, finally. The "proven veteran" phrase has arisen. Ahh....since we sucked last year we shouldve just taken our chances on more schlubs that weren't proven and never had dominant seasons like Novoa and almost every other guy in our bullpen.....that would get us really far next season. Once again, I'm tired of watching our bullpen blow game after game, and if it takes 7 mil to help that out (especially in regards to the fact we had 30 to spend), that is definitely money well spent. Last 3 years Eyre: 1.25 WHIP, 1.88 K/BB Howry(4 years since he missed '03): 1.13 WHIP, 2.61 K/BB 2005 Ohman: 1.29 WHIP, 1.88 K/BB Wuertz: 1.32 WHIP, 2.23 K/BB Howry is a pretty good reliever, but giving him 3 years when you aren't THAT bad off with Wuertz, Williamson, and I guess Eyre isn't smart. ESPECIALLY when you could get someone like Ryan for not much more than you're paying Eyre and Howry. We've already seen how a bullpen with Ohman and Wuertz works. I'm glad that Hendry isn't just sitting on his rump and making up excuses for not improving the bullpen. It didn't work last year and this year the pen looks to be much improved.

Unless they go with a 8-10 man bullpen this year.

Guess this would mean Hendry will target BJ Ryan and still have some money left over to pursue another middle reliever or two. Smart plan.:^o

A career .300+ hitter, .400+ OBP and 900+ OPS and you don't want him? #-o

Thanks for the report :D Sean had a great year, everyone I knew that went to a Chiefs and saw him pitch came away impressed. Do you know whether the Cubs are going to allow him to throw the Slider again? Is it something that they are worried about his mechanics or is it an organizational policy?

I can't answer the Reyes question as far as why they protected him, but if Soto is the only catcher on the 40 man roster outside of the 2 in Chicago, it would make sense to save that spot in the event Barrett or Blanco see any DL time. I thought Macias was the 3rd catcher? :lol: