Aftermath

Question One:  no.

Question Two:  not sure.

there's a trade brewing, I really don't see the benefit this year.

Next year, I can see the benefit (after Dempster is gone as a free agent this winter).  But I honestly see no way Dempster comes close to matching Guzman's efforts so far in the rotation, and I don't know that Guzman will be much more effective than Dempster has been as a closer this year.

Cooler heads probably prevailed and kept Lou from throwing Guzman in there cold turkey.

the nomenclature of who's a #1 or #2 is irrelevant.  Teams very rarely matching up their supposed ace versus another team's supposed ace.  So you don't really need to number them anymore.  Order will only matter if we make the postseason, and even that is largely determined by who's most rested.

suggest otherwise.  Dempster has been a very solid closer this year.  His two bad outings were just really bad.

He used LaTroy Hawkins as a closer for more than a year after it became apparent to every other person on the planet that Hawk was NOT suited for 9th inning duties.

Hawk wasn't just a bad closer- he was one of the worst closers who has ever lasted a full season in the role. In 2004, he approached the all-time season record for blown saves while splitting time with Borowski was closer!

By 2005, Dempster was obviously the best available option. Dusty failed to recognize that, for reasons that I can't begin to fathom.

Of course, the team was quickly becoming horrendous (due to Hendry's abject refusal to fix the offense), and Dempster was also below average in the role. But whatever. We go to battle with the bullpen we have, not the bullpen we might want. And Dusty made the wrong choice with his pen until LaTroy was pried from his idiot hands.

Lou understands the mistakes that have been made in assembling this team, and the #1 mistake on his list right now is Hendry's fascination over the past 3-4 years with aging, ineffective middle relievers and failed starters.

The multi-year deals Hendry has given to pudgy middle relievers and would-be closers (Borowski, Alfonseca, and especially Eyre and Rusch, but also the non-pudgy Howry and Hawkins and Dempster) after the 2004 and 2005 seasons have never made sense, and Lou is finally able to bring some perspective to this situation.

Put simply, the guys currently in our pen are the wrong guys, and Lou can see that. We're going to be paying them insane money anyway, but now that Lou is in charge, they aren't going to be blowing games while we're paying them that insane money.

This is a weird situation for Cubs fans to be in.... I actually trust the manager. While the team is constructed poorly and is vastly overpriced, we finally have a manager who is able to run the team correctly. Lou recognizes production and failure, constructs his lineups intelligently, and consistently puts his best players in position to win close ballgames. They've failed him WAY more often than they've succeeded, but that's not Lou's fault.

This season will be frustrating, as the team is designed poorly. But there is reason for hope. Dusty was a horrendous manager - a man who consistently made poor decisions by mistake, and made counterproductive decisions intentionally, in the hopes that those decisions would payoff, making him look like an Unconventional Genius.

With Dusty finally gone, one major obstacle for the Cubs' success has been removed. Moreover, it appears that Lou is not beholden to Hendry's failed ideas of how this team should be designed (i.e., DeRosa and/or Izturis benched for Theriot, Dempster not necessarily the closer, Eyre/Howry removed from primary relief roles), and it may be the case that Lou's will be strongly influencing player/personnel decisions. This can only be an improvement.

This season will continue to be one of transition. The De-Dustification will take time. But it is happening. In the meantime, we fans must Never Forget what Dusty did to our franchise. Never speak well of him again, even in jest. Seriously.

to have a bad outing or two.

Can someone finally put an end to the Matt Murton apologizing?  I mean I understand some of you guys still believe he's a great OF waiting to happen but quite frankly, its pretty clear that he's merely average.  I've said it on here numerous times, he doesn't hit the ball consistently hard and without doing that, he's only going to be average.  Take a look at his bloopers, flares and infield hits over the past two seasons and you'll see a guy very capable of hitting only .250 with little to no power if things don't go his way.  Quit apologizing for him.  

but I don't think Zambrano will garner 2 or 3 top prospects, perhaps 1 but I don't think there's many teams out there that will give up that much for him. Most teams only have 2 or 3 really good prospects to begin with........if you were a GM, would you gut your farm system for Zambrano?

is 68-80 in save opportunities since being the closer for the Cubs, that's an 85% success rate which isnt horrendous for a closer

his numbers out of the pen:

201 IP, 3.31 ERA, 1.11 WHIP, 165 K's

he's been a serviceable reliever, and as a closer with an 85% success rate, he's been adequate

by just focusing on last year, you've ignored a very strong 2005 campaign out of the pen and to this point an adequate job out of the pen in 2007

but he was great as a closer in 2005, and he's been very solid as a closer in 2007.

Dempster debuted as a 21-year old with the Marlins in 1998.  At the ripe old age of 23, he was 14-10 with a 3.66 ERA, while throwing 226 innings and fanning 209 hitters.  Yeah, that's pretty much a middling starter.  In fact, I am sure you were saying the same thing after the 2003 season about Mark Prior.  Dempster was a phenom who got hurt, not a middling starting pitcher.  Once again, you have demonstrated how little you know about baseball, it's history, and the English language, given your example of how the word middling is defined.  

By the way, excellent call on Aardsma.    

Dempster is no horrible.

But he is not great either.

The problem with Dempster is you are stuck with him at this level.  Their is no growth potential for him.

Which means the Cubs are going to be stuck with average closer.

I don't think Lou thinks this team can win it all with a just an average closer.  So he is force to roll the dice with the kids to see what he's got with them.

Guzman has been groomed his ENTIRE minor league career to be a starter, we have ZERO evidence to suggest one way or another if he can be an adequate closer

there's only a handful of "shut-down" closers in the game, and alot of times those names change from year to year. To EXPECT us to have one of them is a bit arrogant. We have an adequate option closing and an adequate 5th starter and we're now exchanging this for two unknowns (and giving Dempster's starting status an "unknown" is being polite)

W/L record for a pitcher is a poor measure of his performance, as it is entirely team-dependent.  And even those measures make him look like a bad starter, with losing records in 4 of his 6 seasons as a starter.  Here are Dempster's numbers as a starter:

1998. 54.2 IP, 7.08 ERA, 2.01 WHIP
      
1999. 147 IP, 4.71 ERA, 1.63 WHIP
      
2000. 226.1 IP, 3.66 ERA, 1.36 WHIP
      
2001. 211.1 IP, 4.94 ERA, 1.56 WHIP
      
2002. 209 IP, 5.38 ERA, 1.54 WHIP
      
2003. 115.2 IP, 6.54 ERA, 1.76 WHIP

Outside of a very solid 2000 season, he's been below average or downright terrible in every season as a starter.  And that was before he got hurt.

This is the same Corey Patterson who said he didn't need to adjust his approach or accept outside wisdown en route to striking out 150 plus times and posting a .254 on-base percentage in 2005.  Thank God he no longer is member of the Cubs.  

the people who pointed to Corey's stats early last year, which anyone could see was the product of luck (similar to his first half in 2003--his injury was the best thing that every happened to that club), to show that Dusty's managing and coaching caused Patterson to fail in Chicago?  The guy just isn't any good and will never be any good.  He's certainly had enough major league at-bats to prove it.

You never apologize when you're wrong.  Seems pretty hypocritical to me.

Also, I don't think it's fair to pass judgment that a guy "flamed out" when he went 1-2 with a double in limited time.

I don't think Fontenot is going to be more than a utility guy at best.  But to declare he'll absolutely never be anything is a bit unfair, too.

Alfonso Soriano is on pace for 21 RBIs in 2007.  That's nothing to sneeze about buckaroo.  

and Theriot will lead off with Pagan hitting 2nd.  Soriano has not been running well, and either he is dogging it a bit, or he is hurting. In San Diego, you have to cover a lot of ground, and I could see Lou going with Jones, Pagan and Floyd in the OF.

Lefty/Righty matchups are most important managerial tool in baseball.  If you start the game with four consecutive righty bats, then the other team can counter with the right-handed pitcher and you would then have to use all your lefty pinch hitters in the first inning to regain the advantage.  The same goes for relievers.  If, for instance, the opposing team has a lefty bat up in a bases-loaded jam, it is then imperative to bring in a lefty reliever even if he should happen to be the one guy the opposing batter has seen pitch almost every day for the past two years.  For similar reasons it is best to alternate your starting rotation with left and right handed pitchers so that opposing teams will be constantly off-balance as they are expecting the pitches to come in from the same angle as they did the day before.  You also want to alternate left and right handers in your defensive alignment as it is managerial suicide to have, say, three power-hitting rightys in your outfield without mixing in a Juan Pierre.  It's called "playing the percentages" and it's something that smart managers do.

at least 3 RH bats to start the game pretty much all season?  How is that different than Soriano/Theriot/Lee in terms of R/R/R?

If we had a good option to bat LH in the top of the order, I might say it's a good idea to toss him in there.  But our LH bats aren't top-of-the order material.

And DLee and Soriano can both hit RHP just fine.

I've underestimated the genius of my arch-nemesis Sue369.  This latest move of hers is a master stroke.

For Z Jones and Dempster?

I am the straw that stirs the drink.  Don't be fooled by imposters.  There's only one person on this blog that can shovel the stuff I shovel, and it is me.  

nothing like thinking out loud to make it clear that you don't know what you're doing.

Alfonso Soriano has been a bust.  What is most disappointing of all is how he swings a literally every pitch.  He makes Sam-me Sosa seem like a patient hitter for crying out loud.  I don't question the man's talent, energy or drive.   But my goodness...you expect a whole lot more for $136 million.  

brought to you by charter members of the Luvable Loser Society.  

fewer save situations..."

Ya Think???