Bull

Fukucopter!

With this organization you can't get anything confirmed. well played, but I think NSBB is run better than the Chicago National League Ballclub.

Is this the place to discuss 25 man roster projections or is there another thread. If the former, how do guys think it will shape up heading towards opening day. I'm in a new job with new responsibilities to learn, and have not followed as closely as I should this year. If this is being discussed elsewhere I can't find it...directions please.

The occasional "slider low and away should get him here" notwithstanding, Stone is a good color man if you need him to be the smartest man in the booth. If he was next to a good, focused, intelligent play-by-play man, it might get a little dry. Fortunately he's never been in that position.

but he was a Dandy Little Glove Man

I thought we outlawed towel jokes. Can anyone confirm??

tango put the number at 72.7%. if the guy has been healthy and in the big leagues for 2-3 years, it's probably best to use that time frame rather than 1 season or his entire career as a professional. the thing that bothers me the most about the theriot hate is that there is a lot to admire about the guy. for most of his minor league career he was regarded as someone who would likely not make an adequate utility player, let alone a starting shortstop. last year he cut way down on his FB% - which is a good idea given that he has no power and has pretty good speed - and saw more pitches, and drew more walks. he's not a great fielder by any means but he gets good reads on balls and makes accurate throws, so he's at least fashioned himself into a decent fielder. in fact, the only thing that he really DIDN'T improve last year was his baserunning, and certain people bitched constantly about that while ignoring all the things that he worked to improve. given the cubs dearth of shortstop candidates and the need for cheap production from a couple of positions on the diamond, that people would appreciate a guy who with limited physical ability who turned himself into an average starting shortstop through intelligent adjustments to his game. especially since we had plenty of opportunities to see cedeno, a guy with better tools across the board, continue to flail at breaking balls out of the zone and make careless mistakes in the field. i guess some people were so down on him after 2007, or were such big supporters of cedeno, that they look for the inadequacies of theriot's game rather than viewing him as a guy who maximizes his ability where so many other guys fail to do so. Now that we're completely off topic: I admire that Theriot has maximized his ability. That's almost the point here. He's reached his ceiling and he's still not good. There's no amount of hard work, effort, grit, doing things the right way, or any thing else that can improve his talent level. Not blaming him or bashing him, but he is what he is.

That wasn't his fault as much as it was the philosophy of the team. Perry doesn't get the credit he deserves.

Just because the Cubs got beat last year doesn't mean they weren't the team to beat. In fact, I think it means they were... and were.

Millen was better than decent, he was one of the better ones around. He's still a very good analyst. The fact that he was a horrible GM really speaks more to the difficulty of that job and how player's knowledge of the game doesn't translate to GM knowledge. Being an analyst takes 1% of the research of a GM so it really shouldn't surprise anyone that someone could be a good analyst and a terrible GM. Steve Phillips has a job because he says dumb things to get a reaction. It would be pretty boring if all they had was smart people agreeing with each other. Maybe more than that in the research department, but your point stands. The real difference is an analyst doesn't need business acumen, negotiating skills, personnel, quick trigger decision making skills. Like us the analyst can stick to the "theory"of the gm job

Adrian Gonzalez Hanley Ramirez I'm thinking it will either be SS, 2nd, CF or SP with the contracts the Cubs currently have. That narrows it down a bunch, I know. I think Hallady is a good guess if his arm doesn't fall off. Like it or not, the outfield is set for a few years.

or Cruz could've just accepted arbitration. I don't feel sorry. he took the gamble and lost. Using logic to come to a sound conclusion, while failing to find a way to tie this subject in with Aaron Miles, is grounds for dismissal around here pal! The only reason I feel sorry for Cruz is that God gave him the face of a 65 year old man at age 21. His disposition of being a middle reliever in a tight market doesn't keep me up at night. Is this really necessary? I've been here since the beginning, but other than that it didn't bother me.

At least you're not Dubois

or Cruz could've just accepted arbitration. I don't feel sorry. he took the gamble and lost.

http://l.yimg.com/a/i/us/sp/v/mlb/players_l/20080402/6154.jpg?x=65&y=85&xc=1&yc=1&wc=164&hc=215&q=100&sig=LCwAE1TFB2scz.nmPVAI3w-- You think Soriano is worth 18 million a year? I don't think you'll find many people here who believe Soriano is worth $18 million a year, especially as he gets older. IMHO, nobody is worth $18 million. obviously, nobody should be. but if someone will pay it its "worth" it. that's the point.

the key flaw in their system is it judges worth based only on FA salary. many teams can pull up guys like Kubel or Scott to be competent enough with 800+ OPS where you don't need to waste $10m on Free Agents for slightly improved production. but the FA market had been (until this year) obviously tremendously flawed, where guys like Jose Guillen can make 8 figures annually, and a team that doesn't feel they have an player in-house who can adequately play the position gets desperate enough to give out stupid contract like Jose received. that's what Bradley is being compared to. i think it's fair to say that compared to other recent FA signings we got a pretty reasonable deal. it's really the only aspect of the offseason i'm happy about. http://l.yimg.com/a/i/us/sp/v/mlb/players_l/20080402/6154.jpg?x=65&y=85&xc=1&yc=1&wc=164&hc=215&q=100&sig=LCwAE1TFB2scz.nmPVAI3w-- I don't know that anything really changed this year...at least not permanently. The market wasn't "flawed" it was a market. If people pay x for a service, then that service is worth x. If they no longer do then the market has changed, maybe even corrected itself. Maybe you're saying it was due for a correction, but a correction implies that a change was due and should therefore last. I think this year was a result of a) larger than normal supply, and b) the fear of what the economy will do to ticket and merch sales this year. (I think the "bad economy" is a self fulfilling prophecy - but that's another story) Bottom line - we've seen a temporary market correction before and in two years guys like Jose Guillen will be making 8 figures again.

Things that could go wrong: Zambrano injured Lilly's 204 and 207 innings over the last two years catch up to him Harden never pitches in 2009 Dempsters 2008 was a fluke No one steps up and takes the 5th spot Bullpen sucks hard wear and tear of winterball too much for Marmol Aramis in and out of line-up all year Lee continues his downward slide Soriano is gimpy all year Bradley misses half the season Miles has a great spring -- and a rotten summer Fukudome doesn't figure it out Soto has a sophomore slump (we thought it wouldn't happen to Hill) Middle infield realizes they're no good Bench performs up to expectations. This has the potential to be very, very bad. But with a few break and good health, it could be very good.

Aren't those backloaded contracts obstructive to us fielding a more competitive team this year? Not at all! Those backloaded contracts ARE the competitive team this year. A certain level of backloading of contracts is fine. and contract 7,8,9 million in consecutive years is just natural inflation, and or the expectation of increased ability/production in the player. I know Hendry has backloaded more than this (eg Marquis) but its not like he's heavily backloading or deferring ala the D-backs.

To be fair, it was .5 RA last season, iirc. He's not going to hit every year like he did last year. true. but point still stands. It should be figured in when calculating his value. If anyone here thought his hitting was MORE valuable than his pitching, they'd be suggesting him for RF. Noone has done that. Noone is saying his hitting is more valuable.

http://www.baseball-reference.com/boxes/SDN/SDN200806020.shtml http://www.baseball-reference.com/boxes/FLO/FLO200808150.shtml http://www.baseball-reference.com/boxes/CHN/CHN200808210.shtml Three games in which Zambrano's offense contributed to a run, and the Cubs won by one. Wait, in the first game you posted he puts the Cubs behind by three because of his lack of self control, and in the second game he puts the Cubs in a 5-1 hole because of his pitching. I'd still rather have Z the good pitcher over Z the hitter. Is it your belief that Z's good hitting is detracting from his pitching? So now Zambrano's hitting doesn't count if he pitches poorly, cause he's supposed to be a good pitcher, and his hitting obviously doesn't count if he pitches well cause who cares, they were gonna win anyway? No. It's my belief that Z had an extraordinary year with the bat and it would be more comforting to know he could control games more with his arm than having to depend on his bat. Is that so odd? I'll take an order of both please. That's the point. I'd rather have his pitching than his hitting, sure. His pitching makes him very good. His hit adds a little value (according to meph -.5 RA, right). So with both he's not just very good. He's very, very good. Make sense?

Pie - imo - they waited until he was too far up the ladder to try and shorten his swing. Cory - ditto, with the added complication of being rushed Choi - could have been great, but never really recovered from his hand/wrist injury Hill - hurt his back and was never the same Prior - hard to say he didn't reach his potential. Just a damn shame that he got abused like that in his first full season Montanez - didn't have the talent to start with; bad scouting job here Cedeno - I'm not sure that this isn't what his talent level really is; needs a full-time job in mlb to find out Corey - forgotten his name so soon? - biggest problem was a torn ACL in the middle of a breakout season.

I understand that but he hires people to run it he doesn't run it for him. Yes a GM overseas it, and makes most of the final decisions. But most of the time you listen to the minor league scouts, experts that you hired and what they want to do. It's not humanily possible for one person to run a major league team, and everything that goes on with that and put together a great farm. Alot of the time you're only as good as the people you have working under you. So far Hendry has done a poor job hiring people to run the farm for him. He brought in Tim Wilkins, and things appear a little better, but not as good as it should be yet. That's kind of the definition of management. Its his job to make sure they do their job, or find someone who can. That said, I don't think scouting is the problem, (I kind of like the toolsy philosophy) but rather, player development. If you scout and draft tools, then your player development better be great.

Has Lou ever stuck to a very strict platoon (or even a strict platoon at all)? I really don't remember. And it's a sign of a bad move when you make one and end up hoping that - at best - you can match your production from last year. It's kind of inevitable for a team with 97-wins, a lot of top-notch seasons and a ton of backloaded contracts. I didn't expect the overall team to be as good this year as last, but the second base move in particular is still frustrating. DeRosa's likely production is probably the best we can hope for from the Fontenot/Miles platoon. Had we kept DeRo, we'd have a chance, at least, that he'd replicate last year. yes and no. Fontenot/Miles likely won't match DeRosa version 2008, but DeRosa 2009 won't match it either.

WHO CARES?? well since that's what he probably meant by "balanced", I'd say its pretty relevant. Well...that's my contribution to this pathetic, threadless excuse for a thread.

A gross oversimplification, but the point stands.