Bull

in their prime or today? I think Bonds was quicker. Sheffield's entire approach at the plate was more violent and involved more movement, but I think Bonds always had the quicker bat. Can't disagree. Bonds had the quicker bat, but I've never seen anybody with quicker wrists then Gary Sheffield. Eric Davis. Quickest hands ever.

Theo has me worried. [/irrational panic]

Also, the Royals.

Bradley's bat is obviously much better than DeRosa's, but Bradley isn't taking DeRosa's ABs. He's taking Edmonds' ABs from last year. DeRosa's ABs will be taken by Aaron Miles and whoever replaces Bradley in right when Milton gets hurt. But I do appreciate Bradley's bat - I hope he's healthy all year. Mike Fontenot says, "Hi." Fontenot will take Fontenot's at bats, and some of DeRosa's. But my bet is Miles will have more PA than Fontenot will have increased PA. That's fine...but an awful lot of Miles' at bats will be replacing Ronny Cedeno. Right on Tim. Jersey, if you do that you have to go all the way, because looking at it that way, Bradley will take some of derosa's at bats. in fact, Bradley, Fuku, Fontenot, Miles, and Gathright will take the at bats of Edmonds, Derosa, Fukudome, Fontenot, Cedeno. Bottom line is its the dispersion of the positions CF, RF, 2B. If Fukudome performs and Bradley stays healthy its a non-issue. If either do not, then it becomes an issue. Personally, all things considered I prefer the 2008 5-some over the 2009 version, but not over the projected performance of the 2008 group in 2009.

severe sophomore slump for Geovanny Soto. As in, he is bottom half of nl catchers in OPS.

No, you are absolutely not the only one. I was about the post pretty much the same thing. This is going to sound overly dramatic, but it's like my love of baseball died last October. Sure, that always happens when my teams lose like the Cubs did, and usually the excitement comes back a few months before the next season starts. Didn't happen this year. I have no interest in buying tickets. Usually by this time I have tickets lined up for several Cubs-Cards games at Busch. I haven't even looked. I attribute some of it to my mind being on hockey, but mostly I think it's that last summer was so perfect, and the way it was ruined just makes me think I'm not read for another six month investment in these guys. EDIT: But talk to me in June. Or May. Or next week. :) I am mostly on the same ship. I think most seasons you can get really excited, because each year might be the one in which everything falls into place and the team dominates all season. Well that happened last year, and it ended just as miserably as any playoff disappointment. The the symetry of the 100 year anniversary probably added to the anticipation (yeah I know this is the wrong board for sentiment like that). This year it feels more like I have to wait out a long season to see if anything positive will happen, because it's unlikely that the regular season could be anywhere near as great as last year. Having said that, I've been checking in more freqently each day we get closer to opening day. And I'm sure within a few days I'll have a seriously vested interest again. yup. that's it right there. we've seen the best Cubs team of our lifetime (last year) and the best potential team (2004). We've seen it where everything falls into place and we've seen what should have been. Nothing this year produces can compare EXCEPT playoff wins. to me, the season begins in October. Holy Crap, I sound like a Braves fan. I hate myself.

In 2003 they might have won less games, missed the playoffs, but kept Woody and Prior's arms attached to their bodies for a few more years.

yeah! a tie!

Gathright is going to make the team. As long as Miles can play short stop and 3b from time to time, Gathright might be the best thing for the team. Between he, Taguchi, and German,their bats seem to be similar. However, Gathrights amazing speed is a great asset to have and when chosing between 3 mediocre at best bats, that could be the deciding factor. If Lou was looking for a better offensive palyer, he would have gone with Fox or Snyder, depending if he wanted a lefty or a righty, but with them both out of the running, its clear hes looking for other weapons. To be honst, Im not sure any of the 3 are any better of an option than Sam Fuld, who is at that age when its time to either give him a shot or let him go to another team who he might stand a chance with. Fuld in 28 ABs .250/.364/.500 2 HR Gathright in 45 ABs .244/.358/.244 7SB So in 38 ABs .263/.404/.368 Easy there. Way too many short white guys on this roster already.

They'd be ok if we had Cal Ripken Jr at short, but since they'll actually be playing there, it is a bit of a concern. Add to the fact there's significant suspicion whether Theriot will repeat last year's performance...... Yeah, I'm scared.

It's actually 7: Wells, Hart, Johnson, Blanco, Germain, Snyder, and Taguchi. And a Mark Peel sighting on Bruce's blog. Cubsfan26 asked about the possibility of sending Gaudin down. The first reply to that was from mlp, which I'm fairly certain is Peel because the response has the detail about the waivers process that Mark had here. Was Peel Cubs2003 here?

i don't think there's a good chance of that at all. except for the broken wrist year, lee has been very durable, and ramirez has missed an average of 16 games the last 3 seasons. there's a good chance that a couple of those guys will miss significant time, but really it's pretty unlikely that lee and ramirez miss a significant chunk of the season. You're fighting the hypo. The question is whether ARam, Bradley, and Soriano are all healthy. The assumption is that Lee isn't healthy. So, in the hypo that's been presented, which assumes Lee isn't healthy, Soccer10k says we'll still be fine "if ARam, Bradley, Soriano, and Soto are healthy." I don't think it's unreasonable to expect one or more of ARam, Bradley, and Soriano to be out at the same time as our hypothetically injured Lee. ETA - I missed the ARam thing the first time through. I noticed you included his '06 season (in which he missed 5 games), but conveniently stopped short of including his first '05 campaign, in which he missed 39. In his 5 full years with the Cubs, he's missed 17, 39, 5, 30, and 13. ARam's a great player, but how much are you willing to wager that he'll play more than 145 games this year? He's had plenty of health issues, just like Bradley and Soriano. wow that's the most delicate, emotionless, logical, stick-it-to-em response I've ever seen here.

Surfing the internet is "work friendly"? Sure it is. Taking time out to surf the net every now and then helps people relax, therefore making them more productive during the rest of the day. Reasonable, but good luck selling it to your boss. As the boss, I encourage it!

http://www.fangraphs.com/wins.aspx?date=1979-05-17&team=Cubs&dh=0&season=1979

bball? really? I like the rule. makes it friendly for work.

What more does he need to build on? Theriot is cheap and gives you above average offensive production at SS. . Defense. Theriot might give you slightly above average offense for the shortstop position, but well below average defense. that's wrong. he's not well below average defensively. Nor is he slightly above average offensively. OPS+ under of 72 and 93 in his only two full seasons. They said slightly above average for the SS position. An OPS+ of 93 might be lower than the average player overall, but Theriot was 31 points better in OPS than the average major league SS last year because he was 61 points better in OBP than that average SS. Offense has to be broken down by position just as much as defense does or else the people in the harder positions (C, SS, 2B, CF) will never get their value to the team properly evaluated since 80% of the hitters at those positions are below average when compared to the league as a whole and not just their positions. I totally understand the concept...just failed to read the previous post and missed "for the shortstop position"

What more does he need to build on? Theriot is cheap and gives you above average offensive production at SS. . Defense. Theriot might give you slightly above average offense for the shortstop position, but well below average defense. that's wrong. he's not well below average defensively. Nor is he slightly above average offensively. OPS+ under of 72 and 93 in his only two full seasons.

Thanks for all your hard work Tim. From the times of a few Cubs.com refugees coming over in small wooden crafts, this has been a great place to discuss the Cubs.

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.