Zaphkiel

We'd just have to hope that poor little Sheff wouldn't be unhappy in Wrigley and start publicly whining about it. I also seem to recall that his play goes in the tank while he's sulking.

I must admit, I feel much better about our chances(if we pick up an impact bat) after this sweep of the Marlins. I was ready to write off the season after that four game sweep by the Braves, but it's possible that with Corey and Neifi no longer batting 1-2 and Murton brought up, this team actually just got good enough to contend. I'm willing to believe that if not for Dusty's obstinate determination to bat two very bad hitters at 1-2, we'd have a much better record right now.

I have Halladay, Schilling and Beckett on the DL. Somebody please help me?

That linked article was the best article on Joe Morgan EVER. I strongly recommend everyone who didn't read the whole thing to go back and do so. I laughed out loud a few times, especially at the part about Joe Buck needing to be neutered.

Because there's a chance that they'd accept a trade? Just because they have a no-trade clause doesn't mean they won't say yes when the right team approaches.

And how about he can't consistenly hit above .260, and he's not really that good on the basepaths?

Thankfully, I've reached that 'zen-like' state where I just kind of roll with the losses and simply wait to see what the Cubs do next in terms of moves. It's more like watching a live-action sociology experiment than a baseball season for me, now. This team can't catch the Cards, and unless Hendry makes some crazy-good moves at the break, it's not a WC team either. LF, CF and SS are all very, very bad positions, and the outfield is where we're supposed to get most of our production. I should also mention how, again, our over-rated pitching staff has dropped the ball in a most dramatic fashion. I could live with Neifi at SS if we even had league-average in the OF. But we don't, so here we are. And still I watch.

Why is anyone still a fan of Corey Patterson? He's 25, and at some point you've got to stop talking about potential and his '5 tools' and ask yourself if he's actually producing anything. At all. As someone else pointed out, Corey is hitting .236 and does not walk. He's totally lost. He's had five years of major league experience, and if he was going to show meaningful improvement, it would have been before now. If he were someone like Nomar or Bobby Abreu, someone with a track record of producing at a high level, then maybe there'd be cause for this extreme brand of optimism that surrounds even the most average of Cub prospects, but all we've got to look back on is a whole lot of mediocrity broken up by that 82 game stretch in 2003. Has anyone noticed that the only year that Corey has been anywhere near useful was the first half of 2003? His 2001 season was horrible, 2002 was only slightly better, 2004 was fairly dismal and in 2005, he's clearly been a serious liability. Heck, his 2003 wasn't really that amazing, and he's clearly regressed(and badly) the two seasons after that. He's been with the Cubs for ~5 years at the major league level, and he just hasn't panned out. It's time to admit that. Given what a poor baseball player Corey Patterson is, I'm constantly amazed at the level of support I find on this board for him. Honestly, I don't care what's done with him. Designate him for assignment and let someone else deal with him. We might as well do this now, as he doesn't have any trade value, and he probably never will. Barring a holy revelation from on high, I believe that Corey will be a .250 hitter, high K, low BB journeyman OF his whole career, and I'm pretty sure we don't really want to pin our hopes on him. So what if he's cheap? If all we wanted was poor production at inexpensive levels, we could have just signed Macias as our full-time 3B. Sometimes, if you want production, you have to pay for it. I'd rather pay, I dunno, Mark Kotsay $6.5 million and make it to the playoffs then pay Corey $2.8 million and sit out October, solely to have the pleasure of being frugal.