vance_the_cubs_fan

This is true.

The only way we get back in the race is if we can go 33-11 over the last 44 games. It's possible, but I really don't think we'll do it.

The Cubs have 44 games left, spread out over 7 weeks. In my opinion, to have a shot at the wild card, they would need to go 33-11 over those seven weeks. Is it possible? Maybe, but still not likely. If the Cubs can play at that clip, it will get them to 90 wins. I think it will take at least that many to make the playoffs. Simply put, we must win 3 of every 4 we play for the rest of the way. We can't afford to lose any series. We can't split any four game series. We'll need some sweeps. That's the only way we make it. I still don't find the prospects to be too probable. To get there, we're going to have to play better than we've played all year.

All I've been hearing is that the start belongs to Rusch. I'd like to see Welly get the start, but all indications are Rusch will start.

Mr. Maybeline gets Blancowned!

Nice inning ending double play by Poo-holes.

Look at it positively. "Morris will not walk hitters." So Patterson knew he was going to get something in the strike zone and jerked it out. Not much love for Morgan, and rightfully so. But the man's not completely stupid. Yes, he is.

Corey is back!

That sucks.

Nice start for offense....let's get these runners home!

If that were the case, Pigpen would be an All-star.

Why did it have to? Other teams don't operate like that. The Braves moves in 2004 haven't impacted their ability to play well in 2005. You may think that passes for good front-office work. I'm telling you it doesn't. And I'm right, because the result is teams like the Braves win every year and we don't. The Braves weren't compromised in 2005, because for one they used their minor league system to bring in a great starter in Tim Hudson and were able to find another great starter by converting their closer. However, much of the Braves success is attributed to the contributions of players such as Jeff Francoer, Wilson Betemit, Pete Orr, and Kelly Johnson. This infusion of youth has been instrumental in the Braves success. Could the Cubs have benefited from the same youth movement? Would we have performed better with regular contributions by Matt Murton, Jason Dubois, Mike Fontenot, or Ronny Cedeno? I don't know and the fact that we don't know lies more at the feet of Baker than Hendry. Of course I agree putting the team in contention was a good choice. However, sacrificing the future for a season isn't what perennially successful clubs do. They win every season. And winning every season is a bit of luck combined with good management. This team has the talent to win. It's not as talented as the 2004 team, but I still contend that talent-wise is stronger than the 2003 team. And even good teams will have dips in their years of success. That's what I like about you Vance. You pull up all the details. I'm not as concerned about details as I am about being a successful franchise year in and year out. And that isn't happening. I'm concerned about results. If I don't see them, then blame must be assigned. Everyone else feels the same way: that's why the Dusty bashing on this board never ceases, myself included. Hendry deserves some of that blame as well. I think the details are critical when evaluating the performance of a GM and a manager. Let me illustrate with an example from my own life. I teach in a low-performing, povery-ridden school. When I first meet my students and see the test scores from the previous year, they have routinely scored in the lower third of the nation and state. It's a gloomy picture. I work hard with these students, but many refuse to do homework, have no parental support, and some even have parents who cannot read and write. Through it all, I can usually help them improve...though that improvement is often just moving them to the 40th or 45th percentile. Does this make me a lesser teacher than the one in the more affluent school whose students routinely are in the upper third of state performance? Is she a better teacher because her end results are better? Should she be compensated greater than I because of this? To answer those questions, you have to look at the details. What are we doing with our students? How hard are we working? In the same way, it's important for me to look at the details in evaluating the GM. When I do that, I find one major fault with Hendry and that is with who he has entrusted to run this team. The details show that the results have not been indicative of his performance. Why did he have to "mortgage the future" for 2004 when other successful franchises, even on less money, don't have to do that? When I say he "mortgaged" 2005, I simply mean that there wasn't going to be money to go out and plug the holes. Those remedies would have to come from within. Teams who are performing on less are doing just that. The Braves are an excellent case in point. Therefore, leftfield was entrusted to Dubois, but Dusty chose Hollandsworth. The closer was trusted to Dempster, but Dusty chose Hawkins. When Nomar went down, Cedeno should have been given opportunity, but Dusty went with Perez. There was also much about this season that could not have been forseen. Hendry could not have forseen Nomar's exploding groin. He couldn't have forseen Prior taking a ball off the elbow. He couldn't have forseen Patterson completely losing focus and becoming inept. Those factors killed what could have been a successful team. Just as Bonds not being available pretty much rendered Sabean's moves null and void in San Francisco. We have the largest payroll/budget in the NL, vance. If we can't win with that, then using the excuse that the "money wasn't there" is ridiculous. Even so, I certainly wouldn't have forgiven 2005 bad play just because we made the World Series in 2004. And rightfully we shouldn't forgive bad play. My point is that we assembled a team that should have been better in 2004 and that team and the contracts signed for the most part determined the team in 2005. Both teams, the 2004 and 2005 team, should have performed better than they did. When I see a team underperforming, I lay that at the feet of the manager, not the man assembling the teams. And yet, year after year, others make moves in each offseason, develop players each offseason, put together teams each offseason, and win each and every season. Yet we cannot. For your point to have validity, the moves that teams like the A's, Braves, Cardinals, and others would have to have a bad effect on future years. Yet it doesn't. Well, the A's missed the playoffs last season, so they experienced the same failure as the Cubs. I contend the Braves are there year after year because of the tandem team of both GM and manager, and the Cardinals missed the playoffs in 2003...same level of failure as the Cubs last season. So if the standard simply is winning seasons, the Cubs have done that the past two years and even with this year's struggle an above 500 finish isn't out of the question. I think once again, you have to look at the details. The talent assembled here is as strong as the Braves, Cardinals,and A's. What we lack is the fundamentals that are executed by those franchises. Guess where I believe the blame for that lies. Right. With manager and coaches. I don't hold Hendry blameless. He hired Dusty. For that he deserves blame. He has a chance to rectify his mistake. I only hope he acts quickly.

It's really looking like I'll be rooting for the Braves in the NL playoffs this year.

I would say losing sucks, but I'm used to it with this team.

I agree. I'm no fan of Clemens, and before a Cardinal fan accuses me of anti-Cardinal bias, I hate the Astros as much, if not more, than I hate the Cardinals. It's just when looking at the numbers, Clemens is on an entirely different plane. Carpenter has been good, no doubt. And since around mid May, he's been almost as good as Clemens. But Clemens has just been dealing. It's almost unheard of a pitcher going an entire season with no starts where he's allowed four or more runs. Wow! When was the last time a starter finished the season with a lower ERA than what Clemens has? It's unheard of...especially pitching in the ballpark in which he plays! That makes it even more remarkable.

This debate has been raging, so I guess it's time for its own thread. Here are a few numbers: ERA: Clemens: 1.32 Carpenter: 2.25 Wins: Clemens: 11 Carpenter: 17 Losses: Clemens: 4 Carpenter: 4 WHIP: Clemens: 0.93 Carpenter: 0.98 BAA Clemens: .186 Carpenter: .212 HR Allowed Clemens: 6 Carpenter: 12 K's Clemens: 148 Carpenter: 169 A few other notes, Clemens has 14 starts where he has allowed one run or less, Carpenter has 12 such starts. On the other hand, Clemens has yet to have a start where he's allowed more than four runs while Carpenter has three such starts. Based on the huge advantage in ERA and the simple dominance Clemens has in every start (only one with four runs and none with more than that), this one seems like a no-brainer in favor of Clemens.

Also, don't forget to note that Soriano plays in a hitter's haven. The Ballpark in Arlington is a wonderful place to play if you're a hitter. Not so much if you're a pitcher.

You're thinking way too highly for this team.

The fact is 2004 greatly impacted the team we have in 2005. After coming so close in 2003, Hendry made the choice, which almost all would agree was the right choice, to put the team in contention for 2004. In order to improve on the 2003 team, he 1. Traded Choi for Lee. 2. Signed Greg Maddux to be the fifth starter. 3. Signed LaTroy Hawkins to shore up the bullpen. 4. Traded Cruz and Smyth for Pratt and Lewis to give us a loogy in the pen due to injuries to Mercker and Remlinger in the Spring. 5. Traded Miller for Barrett. 6. Replaced Troy O'Leary with Todd Hollandsworth 7. Signed Todd Walker. 8. Replaced Mark Guthrie with Kent Mercker. With the exception of the trade for Pratt, I can't fault him for any of those moves. All improved the team. In addition to that, he signed Kerry Wood to a lucrative extension based on his stellar performance in the LDS. That should have set us up for a run in 2004. Once he replaced Gonzalez with Nomar, it's hard to imagine that the team didn't make the playoffs...but the injury to Borowski, the struggles with the rotation, Nomar never being fully healthy, Hawkins not living up to promise, Sosa declining rapidly...and so forth, it ended horribly. But in setting that team up for 2004, Hendry signed contracts that limited most if not all of his financial flexibility for 2005. In essence he was mortgaging 2005 for a run at 2004. For example, if he hadn't giving Maddux 9 million in 2005, we would never have had him for 2004. Lee's extension paid him more down the road, as did Wood's contract and LaTroy's contract....and so forth. Had we made it to the WS in 2004, most of us would be too happy to care that the 2005 team would have holes. But because of lack of finances, Hendry wasn't able to go out and sign a closer or a lead-off hitter. The money wasn't there. And to top it off, the closer options out there this winter haven't been any better than what we have. So, ignore what he did from 2003 to 2004, but it's part and parcel to the point. Ignoring it just so that you're rant makes more sense is pretty ridiculous. For any point to have validity it must be looked at in context and the offseason preceeding 2004 and the motivations behind those moves are very much contextual to the situation we are in today.

I'm going to once again state that Hendry's main fault has been entrusting this team to Dusty. Has all of his moves panned out? Of course not, but this team as it is has more talent than the 2003 team. Last year's team, talent-wise was head and shoulders above the 2003 team. There's no debate to that. While we've taken a dip talent wise from 2004 to 2005, Hendry has done a decent if not admirable job of improving the talent on the team. What this team has failed to do is maximize that talent. In my opinion, that falls on the coaching staff and the manager. Our GM is partially to blame there because this manager and coaching staff are in this position because of him. But to say that Hendry hasn't improved the team since 2003 is ludicrous. Even with the collapse last season, the 2004 team finished with more regular season victories than the 2003 team. That fact is easily overlooked by those that attempt to use hyperbole to make a point.

On ESPNInsider, Steve Phillips did a decent job explaining this process. Link I'll try to quote some of the highlights. Players who are claimed can be pulled back, but if you pull a player back, you have to wait thirty days before placing the player on waivers again. There's a lot more here, but this is the part that I found most interesting. So, it appears that GM's can expose seven players per day. Since any player on the 40 man would have to be exposed to waivers to be used in a trade, I can see why GM's would try to sneak a number of guys through.

I don't know what will make tomorrow worse, watching the Cubs lose or listening to the idiocy that is Joe Morgan.

I'm thinking about getting the Dopirak tee.

I'm 5' 7'' and 1/2. And yes, I make a point to mention that 1/2. Wow. Maybe you should get your picture taken next time with Eckstein. :lol: But seriously, that's a cool picture with Barrett. Did you get to talk to him at all? A little bit. And then in Atlanta, I had him autograph a copy of it. He's one of the nicest guys I've encountered.

I was honored to be able to ask the first questions. I was honored to be able to ask the most questions. I had many more too. Who says I won't add more? :D I just had to hurry and hit hte submit button to make sure I got mine in first.