vance_the_cubs_fan

Smells Like Tuna selects Terry Glenn, WR.

I'd do it. That being said, the Rays wouldn't.

I would have happily taken Kottaras instead of Izturis for Maddux. I'm starting to despise Jim Hendry.

You should care. Ramirez is every bit as important as Lee, and only slightly less important than Z. Losing him immediately dooms us to being terrible again with virtually no hope of competing for at least 2 seasons. I realize this. I just don't think it justifies setting the team even farther back by trading Lee or Zambrano. The point is that if you lose ARam, you aren't fixing the team in time to be seriously competitive for the rest of Lee's window. To add to that, Z could fetch a king's ransom in a trade. If you lose Aramis, you're targeting 2009 to contend, so why not completely retool and reload? That is my point. If the Cubs lose Ramirez, I don't think there's enough there to be a contender before Zambrano becomes a free agent and could leave without compensation. I'd hate for the Cubs to lose Z or Lee, but if the Cubs are aware that contention isn't likely in 2007, then it may be time to rebuild. The Cubs already have a core of young guys, some which may develop into stars, others that may not in Murton, Pie, Marshall, Mateo, Hill, Marmol, and Guzman. If the Cubs were to rebuild, they likely good get a decent piece for Barrett and maybe a whole lot more for Zambrano. And even more if they decided to trade Lee. Furthermore trading these for top of the line prospects would free up a lot of future payroll. One other advantage of gathering prospects and playing them would be to keep the ones who look to be stars and then filling in holes with free agents when it appears we have enough talent to contend. Hopefully, the rebuilding won't take long. Look at how much talent the Marlins received in the deal for their players. What would the Mets give for Zambrano? Could a number of Angels prospects be obtained? A few teams might would like to add Barrett's bat. While I hope this doesn't become the scenario, if Ramirez leaves, it might be the best course of action available.

This is what I would do, not what I think will be done. I'm also assuming that most players under contract will be here. I'd make a trade with the Braves for Giles. All indications are that he will be moved. I'd shift Jones to CF. I'd sign Sheffield to a one year contract. I'd sign Jason Schmidt for the rotation. My line-up: 2b Giles LF Murton 1b Lee 3b Ramirez RF Sheffield C Barrett CF Jones SS Izturis SP Zambrano SP Schmidt SP Prior SP Marshall/Hill/Guzman/Mateo/Ryu/Marmol My guess is that at least one of thesix pitchers listed in the fourth spot would be dealt to get Giles. Maybe two of those guys are gone as well. The biggest question marks are Sheffield's health and whether the rookies can be effective at the bottom of the rotation. To hedge my bets, I'd try to sign a few productive bench players like DeRosa.

Javon Walker talks some smack about his old team. Link

ZZ is that you? (J/K) :lol:

If Ramirez opts out and signs elsewhere, should the Cubs enter a full rebuilding mode with the goal of contending in 2008-2009. Without Ramirez, I don't see how the Cubs can plug enough holes to contend next season. The Cubs also have players with expiring contracts like Zambrano and Barrett that would fetch a nice payday in prospects and players if the Cubs were to eye rebuilding over trying to contend in 2008-2009. Furthermore, if the Cubs dangled Derrek Lee on the trade market, how high would the offers be for him. I'm not saying this is the course I'd want to take, and it's hard to imagine a team that can afford a 95+ million dollar payroll would need to rebuild, but if the team loses Ramirez, it is something that might need to be considered.

Hendry already signed for another 2 years. No way the TRIB eats that salary. What a mess! My guess is the two years of Hendry's deal barely equals what the Cubs paid to let Wade Miller rehab. It's not nearly enough money to keep him here if the bosses determine he should be gone.

All in all, removing the draft pick compensation will likely in the long term turn out to be more beneficial to the Cubs than harmful. In this particular offseason with the impending free agency of Pierre and Ramirez, it could not be so...but the Cubs are usually active in free agency. This will lessen the blow when the Cubs sign the Howry/Eyre types like they have in the past. This will also expedite some free agent signings, as teams won't have to wait to see if another team offers arbitration before trying to sign that player. I'm more upset that this rule change is coming a year too late. It would have been nice to have those round 2-4 picks this year.

Off the nuts, I watched for IMB to pick for 4 days. Understandable.

You're paying for that guy to be available at a time he'd rather not be working or when there is a more imediate demand for the services. Ever needed a plummer on a Sunday? It's the same principle. It's also why the grave yard shifts at the hospital pay pharmacists, nurses, etc an extra 5-15 bucks more an hour. You have to make it worthwhile for these people to work when they'd rather not.

Wow...that's just rich!

We're about to be swept by the Pirates for the sixth loss in a row. Sweet!

Other teams just don't have the book on him yet.

Paging Uber.....Paging Uber......Paging Uber......

Walker used to keep a 5 o'clock shadow, but he's gone now. Barrett has had facial hair at one time or another.

Does the season reach a new low when we get swept by the Pirates?

For Dierker read the thread I linked earlier. Girardi, I have a fear would be a little too old-school for my liking. I also have my fear that Girardi could be a "control-freak" on level with Showalter. That remains to be seen. With Gonzalez, it's a little difficult to say as his views have really not been made public. He has had success as a minor league manager and has worked under Cox which are viewed as his major plusses.

Yeah, I was just watching that on the replay from that show. It was actually Bill Plaschke who said that Pujols had no chance-he gave it to Beltran because of his higher OPS than Howard has. I have no idea if he was going to use OPS why he didn't pick Pujols considering Pujols has the highest by far of any of them. By the way, for those who are scoring at home (just for entertainment value, not for their opinion as serious baseball experts) Blackistone voted for Howard, Mariotti firmly voted for Howard, Woody voted for Pujols, and Plaschke as I said above voted for Beltran (which is an ok choice) but of course said Pujols had no chance, which the host didn't agree with. Believe me, I don't listen to this show for serious analysis-but it is entertaining. I edited my above post. I was only halfway listening and then heard that. I had the wrong idiot...but that doesn't mean Blackistone isn't also an idiot.

The idiots on Around the Horn just made the case for Ryan Howard as NL MVP with one idiot (Platche) uttering the words that Pujols has "no chance." Wow...the level of stupidity on that show is boundless.

Please look into Dierker. His book was great and his blog on the Houston Chronicle site is a good read as well.

That won't get us very far either if we're running the Les Walronds of the world out there because all our good pitchers are DL'd from over use. What? How do you know that every pitcher that has seen the DL in the Dusty era has a root cause of "overuse"? That's just wild and inaccurate speculation. I recognize you can show pitcher overuse through study, but you have to back it up by showing a direct correlation to overuse and injury. Folks can make a claim that something has to be amiss in the organizational pitching approach (because of the high rate of injuries) and I would agree, but there are numerous other factors too consider. Overuse might account for a small fraction of injuries in the grand sceme of the Dusty era, but I'd argue issues with strength and conditioning and mechanics are more likely and more of concern. Additionally, the organization aggressively seeks high stuff pitchers with power, little control, and raw talent (which often means poor mechanics). Pitchers like this are bound to break-down and when you stock your system with them, what you see is what you get. Overreact much? My point was about Dierker. He's a guy who ignores pitch counts and pitcher abuse, and all I was saying was that, while his offensive philosophy is nice, a good offense won't get us far if our premiere pitchers are ridden to injury (or ineffectiveness--see Zambrano in 2003 postseason). As for Dusty...no, we can't prove that every injury was related to overuse. In fact, clearly some weren't. But it's certainly safe to say it was a factor in our two prize pitchers--Prior and Wood. And yes, Wood's mechanics were a problem from the beginning. All the more reason to be judicious in your use of him. Why pile on a huge workload to a guy who's mechanics render him injury-prone? That goes for all of our arms w/bad meachanics. You say bad mechanics are a bigger factor than overuse. I say the two go hand-in-hand. If a pitcher's mechanics are bad, then one must take care to not overpitch him. And once he learns better mechanics, one must make sure he's not left out so long that he reverts from fatigue. With Prior, it's harder to say what caused his problems, but he did see an increase of 100 ML IP from 2002 to 2003. This is a power pitcher, a K pitcher, so he probably had high pitch counts. That's a dramatic increase. I don't dispute there are other factors with both men, but pitch count and innings played a role. That's why I was among the many happy about Marshall getting that oblique injury--it shut him down for a while. This is another young arm who's seeing a dramatic increase in workload--during a lost season. At best it has no effect on him. At worst.... I'd say it is a mischaracterization to say Dierker ignores pitch counts. He's mindful of them. He has a differing philosophy in regards to the distance a pitcher should be physically able to perform. His writings seem to indicate that if a pitcher is struggling, and this isn't just in the runs scored, he's not going to leave them out there. But he thinks that a pitcher should be conditioned to throw nine innings. I'd reccomend reading his book as it is explained better there than I can do here.

Welcome! :D Actually that's not true about Girardi though. There's a lot of mixed opinions on who the next manager should be, and I would say that while Girardi would be a positive change from Dusty, there are a lot of skeptics about him as well. :raises hand:

I'd like to trade Pierre and play Jones in Cf the rest of the way to see if he handles the position ok.