I was listening to The Score this morning, and apparently Dusty sat with him a few years back to get a feel for him and walked away from the meeting basically saying he couldn’t work with or manage this guy.

I know Dusty and Lou and completely different, but I always thought Dusty was a “players manager”, interesting to hear that Dusty was turned off by him.

Seems like the Cubs have protected themselves on this one against injury and any outbursts.

Now, I hope that option does vest, because it would mean Milton’s being productive.

This is like the Andruw Jones deal except Bradley doesn’t suck.

But seriously, though, I’m almost ready to write him off.

He wasn’t just slumping in the last 3-4 months of 2008 – he was hilariously bad. He looked like an AL pitcher hitting for the first time in a 1980’s all-star game for like 200 straight at-bats.

As Kosuke showed last year, you only get to face a pitcher for the first time once. And once the book was written on him, he was unable to make even the most minor of adjustments.

I certainly hope that he shows something in the first half of 2009, or I have a feeling that the Cubs management will write him off, too.

Kosuke can do what he does best: sharp line drives and walks. Maybe there will be less pressure trying to be someone he isn’t.

I also think he just needed a new plate approach and will bounce back next year.

if Kosuke could have been a power hitter, then Lou’s appetite would have been sated.

But Kosuke was never going to be the kind of power hitter Lou wanted from the left side. So, once Kosuke was signed, we were bound to get another power hitter. Lou had that figured out 4 days into the season.

The only thing that would have “saved” us from getting MB was if we had traded for Raul Ibanez instead of getting Kosuke. And then we’d be stuck with Ibanez.

If Fukudome doesn’t hit in April and May of 2009 like he did in April and May of 2008, I have a feeling that he’ll be banished to the darkest corner of Lou’s doghouse, and we’ll never see him again.

And while his full-season OBP and walks were nice, they were just as horrific in the second half. Starting in July, his monthly OBP was .306, .293, .288.

I just don’t think he can handle major league pitching now that they have adjusted to him.

With Pie, we’re looking at 80-odd at-bats of overall poor production, coupled with absolutely destroying AAA ball for months at a time.

With Fukudome, his most recent several hundred at-bats were substantially worse than anything Pie has ever done. And Fukudome is 8 years older, and making 12-odd million more per year.

And in fact, Pie’s September (.300 / .391 / .450 in 13 games) was cause for some optimism – especially as it followed his Felix Pie Destroyer of Worlds finish at AAA, while Fukudome’s August and September were easily the worst of all regular MLB players during that time.

To say that I’m higher on Felix Pie than Kosuke Fukudome is a great understatement. One is a 24-year-old who has adjusted to and dominated every level he’s seen, but who has less than 150 total at-bats in the majors. The other is an 32-year-old enigma who flopped on a historic level in his one turn around the league, including augering in with a 200+ AB streak that was among the worst I’ve ever seen from a Cub.

ever.

Lou is not going to keep trotting Fukudome out against RH pitching if he’s putting up a .150/.280/.300 line in May. Reed can handle some of that, and Pie can handle the rest.

Dome would be traded to somewhere like Seattle, along with a giant novelty check to cover the year and a half left on his deal.

you really want to sit him agaist LH pitching? The way he can get on base, I would want him in there. Reed is a nice player to have agaist lefties, but would you start him over good-Fuku? Just asking……

but I hear Soriano does have a good outside jump shot.

They could use some rebounding.

I’d be all up in this lineup…

Soriano
Fukudome/Johnson
Bradley
Ramirez
Lee
Soto
Fontenot
Theriot
Pitcher

Way to think it through, Bernie.

Once again people just assume Bradley plays awful defense, which isn’t the case. They also assume Fukudome/Johnson aren’t good fieldes in CF when they are.

At least he admits that we widened the gap between the teams at the end of his paragraph.

I was listening to Dibble, I think, and they were talking about the Bradley signing. In doing so, they spoke about Dome and Dibble commented that Dome got into Lou’s doghouse and then said something to the effect of once you get into Lou’s doghouse, you can’t find the key because there isn’t one. That’s a large paraphrase, but that was pretty much the point of it.

Seems pretty true.

Not this again.

For the zillionth time — Hamilton was taken as a favor to the Reds. They were the only team that would take a chance on him, because they employed Johnny Narron, someone who Hamilton trusted, to watch out over him. The chance that the Cubs would have done that is zero.