Crash

Exactly. If LF was the only position that needed filled next year I could see an argument to go out an get a LF that would be more of a sure thing instead of taking the risk with Murton. However at minimum the Cubs are going to have to get starters at LF, RF, SS, and add Bullpen help. Not to mention there is a possiblity we also need a CF. I would rather pencil Murton in to LF where I think there is a good shot he can put up .280/.350 with over 20 homers and spend our available resources on RF, SS, and pitching. Murton offers cheap production on a team that needs to fill a lot of holes. Of course it would probably take an executive order from Hendry to insure he is the full time starter.

Not nessesarily, it would depend on who else was added. True if you just add Murton and Cedeno to the current lineup the improvement wouldn't be drastic. THough I do think there would be some improvement, full seasons from Cedeno and Murton would like produce more from LF and SS than the Cubs got for the balance of '05. But if you add an impact bat to RF that would give you 3 pretty good bats in the line up (Lee, Ramirez, and RF), 2 solid bats (Walker and Barrett), then Patterson, Cedeno, and Murton. Chances are one of them would perform badly but you could probably get average production out of 1 or 2. Of course I would rather start Murton and sign Nomar to an incentive deal while keeping Cedeno as insurance and to regularly rest Nomar.

That's why I'm very interested in what Murton could yield in a trade this offseason. Maybe for once, the Cubs could trade a prospect at his peak value. I would rather the Cubs, for once, got some cheap everyday production from the farm system. If Murton is given the chance in left next season I could see him batting around .280 with an OBP around .350 to go along with 20-25 homers. Sure if we have to include Murton in a deal for a Manny like player I would do it. But the team needs at least 1 or two positions where we aren't paying a free agent level contract. Seeing as how at minimum we need starters RF, LF, and SS not to mention possibly CF at least one of those positions is going to need to be filled by a cheap alternative. Right now Murton and Cedeno seem to be the only options we have.

I can't argue with that. What I can ask is what if the Cubs pitchers say to themselves..."Oh crap, Barretts my catcher today."? How do you deal with that? Even if the pitchers thought that (which I doubt) it didn't seem to affect them in 2004. People seem to point to 2003 and Damien Miller as when the Cubs worked with a good defensive catcher that called a good game. In 2003 the Cubs pitching managed to put up a team ERA of 3.83, a WHIP of 1.32 and 8.68 K/9. This was all while throwing with a catching tandem of Miller/Bako. In 2004 the Cubs pitchers threw to the catching tandem of Barrett/Bako. Since the back up catcher was the same the only real difference was Barrett instead of Miller. THe Cubs pitching managed to put up an ERA of 3.81, a WHIP of 1.30 and 8.27 K/9. So by changing from a good defensive catcher in Miller to a supposedly poor defensive catcher in Barrett the pitchers managed to put up almost identical numbers. So this either means the pitchers were scared to death of Miller as much as they were of Barrett or that the performance of the pitchers is more dependent on the pitcher than it is the catcher they are throwing to. When it all comes down to it the fact is that a Mets team with Mike Piazza behind the plate managed to make it to the World Series. So it isn't out of the realm of possiblity that a team with a better defensive catcher in Michael Barrett can make it to the playoffs and the series.

You don't think having a player with a .306 OBP who has a majority of his at bats at the top of the order would "hinder us"? Nefi is a decent back up if he is used as a back up and when he plays he isn't put ahead of run producers. But unfortunatly he was not used in the proper way this season, something that happened to a lot of Cubs players this season.

As bad as has season has been, Patterson still has 12 HRs. Murton, over a full season should be able to hit 10. So as long as the RF hits at least 8 HRs The Cubs will be above that threshold. LF Murton 2nd Walker 1st Lee RF LH hitting new RF 3rd Ramirez SS Nomar C Barrett CF Patterson P There's one way. The advantage of having Barrett- a good hitting catcher- is that it eases the pain of having low production from somewhere else. Actually if Murton just hit home runs at the rate he so far has in the big leagues he would hit 14-17 homers over the course of a season. Seeing as how it is likely he hits for a bit more power as he adjusts to the majors and gets older, if he is given starters time I could see him as a 25 homer guy.

I do like how we have the kid hitting .343 in the 8th hole. :roll:

actually I thought that was Clines talking to Murton.

Exactly. Murton's throw is essentially meaningless because the guy would have scored anyway. Of Course if we still had Alou in LF, he would have tried throwing home. The throw would have sailed and the run would have still scored and the runner would have moved up.

Dusty isn't going to totally bench Cedeno or Murton. He still won't play them enough but Hendry won't let him totally bench them.

Depends on if he is ever proven to have used steriods (I think he has but there is no concrete proof). If he never gets caught up in a steroid scandal I think eventually they will retire his number, if nothing else so they can get publicity for it. But if they ever prove he used performance enhancers then I doubt he gets the number retired.

I tend to think catchers taking blame for the performance of pitchers is very overrated. Does a catcher affect a pitcher? A bit but the quality of the pitcher has far more to do with the performance than a catcher "controlling the game". 2003 Cubs Pitching Staff: ERA 3.83 WHIP 1.32 2004 Cubs Pitching Staff: ERA 3.81 WHIP 1.30 2005 Cubs Pitching Staff: ERA 4.34 WHIP 1.36 In 2003 Miller caught a majority of the games. In 2004 and 2005 Barrett caught a majority of games. So if Barrett is in part responsible for the struggles of the staff in 2005 his defensive and game catching skills must have suddenly become worse from 04 to 05.

Because people dont want to admit what has become reality. Prior and Wood are not that good.....even when healthy. Last year Prior's problems were injuries (according to many). This year...injuries again. He's been healthy awhile .....and not all that good. Im not saying he's bad....but I dont think he's going to be a Clemens or a Maddux. The Cubs were banking on the rotation of Wood,Prior,Z,Maddux and whoever else to lead them to the promised land. THey firgured they could get by with mediocre offense. If the starters were great.....it might have worked. THe plan has failed. Better come up with a new idea. Banking on Wood and Prior is not going to work. Unless they admit that to themselves...we are in for a few more years of watching Wood get hurt and Prior not live up to his hype (and also probably get hurt). all i can say is, wow. Wow? Neither of them has proven to be CONSISTENTLY effective. Both are prone to control problems.....and they get hammered when it happens. Are they talented? Obviously. Prior is middle of the pack in just about everything this season.....and Wood is injured AGAIN. My point was only that to rely on these 2 guys to be supermen and take you to the series is not going to happen. "Not that good" was perhaps a bad choice of words. How about "consistently inconsistent." Prior is 18th in the NL in ERA, 11th in WHIP, in a virtual tie for the lead in K/9, 12th in K/BB, 6th in BAA, 7th in OBP against, and 14th in OPS against. If that's middle of the pack, then I'd like plenty of middle of the pack pitchers. And he has done that while having a season interrupted by a freak line drive to his elbow. In fact Prior's numbers are a little deceptive. He had two big blow up innings this year where he gave up at least 5 runs. May 1st against Houston he gave up 7 ERs in the 5th inning and on July 7th against the Braves he gave up 5 ERs in the 5th. If you subtract those 2 innings Prior's ERA goes from 3.68 to 2.90.

Given the expanded rosters in september the Bullpen will have more than enough arms to take the load of strict pitch counts on Prior or Zambrano. And trading Lawton for a minor leaguer and trying to get Kerry to have surgery is not "throwing in the towel"? Free agents are not going to shut out the Cubs because they tried to protect two or their most important players. The 5 biggest considerations for a free agent are 1. Money 2. Money 3. Money 4. Money and 5. a chance to win. Accepting reality in september and protecting your players will not affect that. (Besides which the Cubs have done this in the past. Prior's rookie season they shut him down in September after the hamstring injury. He could have come back for a few weeks but they were out of the race. Smarter heads prevailed and they just shut him down.)

Oh come on. Z wanted to finish the 8th and I'd say he's deserved it. He should not have even have come out for the 8th inning. We had a 9 run lead in a game that means NOTHING! Why put more pitches on Zambrano's arm? Zambrano has averaged 106 pitches per start. Today he threw 108. I believe your perception of the risk involved here is considerably overestimated. Was it as risky as letting Prior pitch 131 last week? No. And sure it may be a bit paranoid. But considering how important Carlos is I would want the Cubs to be as paranoid about wear and tear as possible in what is meaningless games. Sending Carlos out for the 8th inning with a 9 run lead can produce nothing positive and only risk some big negatives.

See that would be my prefered method as well. Don't sit them down just be very careful with them. But Dusty has demonstrated that he will not do that. He let Z go well over 100 pitches with a 9 run lead today. He let Prior throw 131 pitches in a game earlier this week. He simply has not shown in his tenure with the Cubs that he will be careful with a starter, even in meaningless games. So without a manager that will protect his best pitchers does it fall to Hendry to remove them from the power of the manager? Unless Hendry can mandate to Dusty that they don't go over 95 pitches the only way to protect them is to shut them down. I agree Mark and Carlos would want to finish out the season. But just as they have to be protected against Dusty, the Cubs have to protect them from themleves. On a side note Prior did miss a few starts at the beginning of the season because of the injuries during spring training. But you are right, except for a freak play he would have pitched 95% of the year.

Hey, the better Cedeno plays now the worse Baker looks for glueing him to the bench.

Oh come on. Z wanted to finish the 8th and I'd say he's deserved it. He should not have even have come out for the 8th inning. We had a 9 run lead in a game that means NOTHING! Why put more pitches on Zambrano's arm?

Seeing as how Dusty again today let Z in for more than 100 pitches when we had a 9 run lead, should Hendry just completly shut them down to protect them? Maybe in a week or two into September so the roster expansion doesn't make it a short bench. Any success we have next season is going to be based on these two pitchers. Obviously Dusty isn't going to take the proper care with them in meaningless games. Should Hendry just put in an executive order that they sit down? There are no playoff chances and neither is going for the Cy Young. It isn't like with Derek going for a possible MVP. Shut them down and save the wear and tear.

Got to love Dusty. Even in a game we are leading 12-3 he manages to do something stupid and dangerous. I would let Z and Pior pitch on a pitch count of 100 for the next 2 weeks and then shut them down completly. No Playoff chance and No Cy Young race mean there is zero reason to pitch them by mid september.

Yeah, I didn't even make that connection because of the other obvious stupidity in his statment. He is essentially saying he doesn't want to give playing time to players because they would have too much success.

If Dusty wins the series next year I will throw him a parade... right before I give him the pink slip.

Day by day I am just getting sicker about this manager. It is one thing for a manager to help destroy a season because of poor performance (Dusty isn't the major reason the Cubs are where they are but he has done nothing to improve the situation and has actively hurt the team many times). But we now have a manager that wants to help ruin future seasons. Dusty always cries about how his rap about playing young guys is a fiction. But every time there is an opportunity to play a young player he is there with an excuse for not playing them. What is a september with no playoff chances but a testing ground for young players. If nothing else they let you rest your important vets (Lee, Ramirez, Prior, Zambrano) so you reduce the chance of major injury during meaningless games.

It doesn't matter a darn bit if the manager is firey or takes naps in the bottom of the dugout until the 7th inning. This teams problems have nothing to do with mythic concepts about "heart" or "fire" or "chemistry". This team needs a manager who can realize the relative strengths and weaknesses of the players and put them in positions to win not fail. Does he have to be some fire breather that has a stroke every three innings? Not really. And as for players with more heart. How about a few more players who get on base at a better clip. Or better pitching at the back end of the rotation and in middle relief. Teams don't win because they have heart or chemistry or fire. They win because they are talented and know how to use that talent. Heart, Chemsitry and Fire are just terms applied to teams after they win.

Kerry shouldn't be pitching. We already have a solid closer in Dempster. Is he lights out? No, but he is effective. Now it is nice that Kerry seems to be pretty good in the 7th and 8th, but every day that his surgery is put off is another day he can't be preping for next year when the games will actually count again.