I have to say Brian,...Thanks. It was not only your article...but the thread of thought it provoked...which turned into one of the best threads of the year.

For my part, I really have no clue as to what IS GOING TO HAPPEN???.

There are things I would like to see...like dump Nady immediately and let Brad Snyder show what he can do...BUT the comprehensive "Fix the Cubs" has me at a loss this year.

Mainly because Jim Hendry and Clown Kenney are still in positions of power.

To get anything done in a positive fashion...Hendry is going to have to reach far out of his comfort zone...and there is no room at all for error.

I wish the Cubs well...but they finally have stumped me.

WOW!! You guys seemed to have sucked up a lot of sawdust on this topic.

I'll Start by addressing Ron first. While the players are ultimately responsible, the blame for the current state of baseball needs to go directly to Marvin Miller. Prior to Miller's involvement with the union, the owners had a pretty good handle on things (some might say too good). Miller started the double dealing by agreeing to salary arbitration, knowing that the union had secretly filed a lawsuit for free agency. It was Miller who came up with the idea of a free agency class. The players wanted total free agency, but Miller convinced them to create classes every year. That way the contracts would continue to spiral upward. If it weren't for Miller, baseball would have the PAID AS YOU GO concept.

As for everyone else, I'll work in order:

1. Despite opinions on Castro and Colvin, each player has a strong skill to hang their hat on. For Castro, its his offense. He's shown the adility to make adjustments, which all great hitters make. It's because of his offense that there is talk he could eventually end up at third base, where his offense can continue to develop. As for Colvin, he may be the best defensive player the Cubs system has produced since Mark Grace. Although it may be out of necessity, I hope the first base experiment is short lived.

2. The catching situation is a tricky one, not made any better by the plodding of Jim Hendry. Soto has had a great bounce back year, but it may not mean much due to the lack of opportunities given to the prospects. If the Cubs knew more about the major league ability of Wellington Castillo and Robinson Chirinos, two of their top three catchers could be dangled as trade bait. The organization would still have Michael Brenly to fall back on. If anyone wants to criticize Hendry for lack of vision, here is your best opportunity.

3. Gorzelanny has developed into what exactly was expected of him, a dependable third, fourth, or fifth starter. His emergence will probably mean that the Cubs won't re-acquire Ted Lilly in the off-season.

4. The Cubs will have a lot of sorting out to do with their pitching staff. While there are a lot of quality young arms, getting them innings will be difficult. Expect a gradual sell-off of their veteran pitchers, beginning with Ryan Dempster. He's the most moveable veteran on the staff. The Cubs should then take pennies on the dollar for their higher priced pitchers.

5. Beware of high expectations. While the Cubs have a lot of promising position players, most of them are at the A or High A level. Only Bret Jackson can be a player that comes north with the team following spring training. Two other who might surprise are Ryan Flaherty and DJ LeMahieu. But both are in a similar situation that Colvin found himself in last year. They may have to wait for their time.

Very! interesting points of view.Yes the game has changed and yes not totally for the good of the game.Charlie Hustle(Pete Rose) made his mark in baseball by using all the tools available to him.He would focus(concentrate) on what ever he was doing at the time he was in the game.It mattered not if he were hitting,fielding our on the bases!Atype of player we see very little to none in todays game.

Sure he has had some flaws in his life, but put him on the field to play was like fire in a wind as he played with his all!

Isee where the blogger referred to a player being tired.You were right as you seen it.I would only add that a pitcher in a relief rolland pitching only one inning per game should have no trouble being called on every game.The rielief pitcher and the bull pen per say have become too much of todays game.We now have developed the 5-6 inning starter and pay boo-koo dollars for middle rielf and a closer!Whats wrong with that picture!!! The team roster could be reduced in the pitching staff and increased in the position playersor reduce the 25 man roster to a favorable new count and save the money you gain to sign better free agentswithout going crazy with contracts in the multi-million dollar bracket and no-trade clauses.Money draws good free agents but a good GM can minimize those dollars by putting the emphsie on bench-marksagreed on & acheieved and bonus payments on bench mark reviews.Buy the method achievements to be expected but not attained result in an agreed upon penelty barring injury influenced conditions.

Iknow it's a pipe dream or better yet cocieved by others as unachievable or is that so.MLB.owners need to set a precident by setting goals and expectations without injuries on a players performance!Penalties would be in the form a % of the agreed money as broke down by year.Thus not effecting the yraely money due for the next year unless once again goal%expectations are not achieved.That is fair and a honest hard working proffesional should face performance vs money paid.

A player with a multi- year contract could not skate and collect a large check every month and give back nothing creditable(ie;Soriano,Fulko.Aramiz,Zamb.Nady,etc.)

Simply put;PAID AS YOU GO OR NOT PAID AS SHOULD BE WHEN YOUR PERFORMANCE GOES NOWHERE.

When the reality became the reality in my mind that this Cubs team didn't have it and that Lou was done then I was thinking that this team needs to dump everyone and start over and to some extent I still agree with that. But with players like Soriano with 4 years left on his contract and Zambrano with 2 years left on his and Fukedome with 1 year left on his contract, who in their right mind would want these players? This team can't move on unless these players and add Rameriz(with 1 year left on his contract)to that bunch, are gone.

We are only looking at teams with bad contracts are the only ones that would be interested in these players and they would want to send us their bad contracts and we send them ours. So basically we will have the same team offensively. Pitching wise with Zambrano and Silva and Dempster and Gorz and Wells. That doesn't excite me at all. All of these pitchers are up and down. Some of their problems hasn't been their faults but some of them has. The bad bullpen has created most of the problems for the starters. I can think of 20 games alone that the bullpen has deprived the starters of wins and that doesn't take into effect how that effect them for their next start and the mentality of all of it. I think they are making a mistake with Cashner by not starting him. It's another Joba Chamberlain in the making. It will interesting to see what they do with him and what the results will be. So I don't see any difference for next year and what manager to bring in. I like Girardi but with basically the same team do you expect different results with the same GM. We have too many mistakes that won't go away soon. Unless Ricketts would man up and say you know what were getting rid of Z and Sori and Fuke no matter what and eat some money for the greater good and go young but call me crazy I just don't see it.

I guess the Ricketts family just needs to hire Aaron to run the organization. Then we can consistently field a triple A roster with adam dunn batting clean up.

you're comment makes a LOT of sense (sarcasm)...provided you're okay with the status quo, which has led us to 102 years without a championship thus far...so, yeah, I guess you're right, we should totally keep signing guys like Aaron Miles, Gathright, Nady, Soriano, Fukudome, Byrd, Lee, etc. to large free agent contracts that are nearly impossible to move, considering not a single one of them is considered an All-Star. But you're right, that precise approach is why we've been so successful over the years. You know, signing Jeromy Burnitz, Jacque Jones, etc., that whole type of approach worked wonders, right?

I'm pretty sure I'd be willing to bet my house that most Twins, Rays, Braves, etc. fans are more than happy with their youth versus signing aging, overpaid veterans.

For instance, the Twins, in recent years, have turned their roster over to young players such as: Mourneau, Mauer, Valencia, Young, Span, Cuddyer, Kubel, Liriano, Baker, Slowey, Duensing, etc.

The Rays have turned to: Jaso, Bartlett, Brignac, Longoria, Crawford, Upton, Zobrist, Price, Shields, Niemann, Davis, etc.

The Braves have turned to: McCann, Prado, Escobar (prior to trade), Heyward, Diaz, Hanson, Jurrjens, etc.

MAJOR parts of their lineups are made up of young players developed in their systems. At some point, you have to weigh whether or not it's worth it to keep plugging holes via free agency, or just go with your own talent. The Cubs have failed miserably at this, and yet fans just like yourself claim that it's the wrong approach to go young. Unfortunately, you fail to acknowledge the old saying, "if it ain't broke, don't fix it", meaning if it is, indeed broke, you do everything possible to fix it.

From your comment, it seems a little contradictory to me. You seem to slam not only going young, but also signing Dunn. Maybe I'm reading that wrong. But if that indeed is the point you're trying to make, then you absolutely make no sense at all, and therefore, you're trying to convey that there is nothing wrong with the team at all, because it doesn't need fixing.

This team is so broken, they're just spinning their wheels constantly over the last 2 seasons, plugging holes with veterans that aren't even projected to make a difference by everybody but management such as Hendry. They tried to sell the fan base on the fact Bradley would make all the difference when he had just come off a career year, and had averaged just about 82 games played per season. They tried to sell us on the Byrd signing, when it fact we weren't legitimately improving upon a pathetic offense from 2009, but just replacing Bradley with Byrd, who wasn't some 40+hr, 100+RBI person coming in, which it would, in fact, have taken to improve the ballclub.

Look on the free agent market buddy...Outside of Adam Dunn, there is simply no free agent that could even make the offensive impact necessary to get us back to the playoffs. Why the hell would you pay $15 million for a Carl Crawford, or likely $5 million next year for Hawpe when you could find a player in your own damn system that could contribute what they do, but they have the name only. Sure, they're not terrible players, but here's their average seasons:

Crawford-.295 avg, .336 OBP, .441 SLG, 13 hr, 77 RBI, 54 SB, and 38 walks vs 100 K's

Hawpe-.280 avg, .374 OBP, .492 SLG, 23 hr, 85 RBI, and 79 walks vs 141 K's

I'm sorry, but I'd have to think that Guyer could equal all of Crawford's stats, except for the SB, which he might be able to still come up with about 20+ at the MLB level, which isn't all that bad.

As for Brett Jackson, I'd find it hard to believe that he could hit 23 hr, 85 RBI his first season, but it's not unreasonable to think he'd be able to do that eventually, right?

The point is, why inhibit the rebuilding process by going after veteran fill-ins constantly?!? It just makes ZERO sense, especially when it hasn't worked for us...EVER!!!!!!!!!!!

LOL !!!!

So true !!

Great column Brian!

Baseball is a funny game! It can change so fast! How crazy is it that the Pirates beat the Cubs 9 out of the first 12 games this season? It really is not that crazy. If you look at some of the games that have been played in recent weeks you could see that nothing is a given in this game......Cubs sweep Washington.....Washington takes 3 out of 4 from the Cardinals.....Astros sweep the Phillies in Philadelphia in 4 games.....Philadelphia goes to San Diego and sweeps in 3 games. Glad I don't bet! It just goes to prove that in a short series that any team can come up a winner.

Was watching the game last night and heard a very interesting fact from Len and Bob: Hack Wilson in his 1930 season had 56 home runs and 191 RBI's. But he also had 18 sacrifice bunts!!! The game has changed so much and I really don't think it is being played that well any more. I absolutely hate the specialization of the game the way it is played today. Why can't anybody (even the so-called "sluggers") put down a bunt when the game is on the line. The answer I get is that certain players are paid to drive in runs, so you don't let them bunt. Same thing with closers. How many times have we seen a pitcher pitch a fantastic game for 8 innings, be pulled and the "closer" loses the game? I switched to the White Sox game last night and saw something that would have made me go mad if I was a manager....the Indians had scored 3 runs in the bottom of the 9th and had the winning run on 2nd base with no outs.....the next batter swings, yes swings, at the first pitch and grounds to short. If I was the manager I would have been in his face when he got back to the dugout for not moving the runner over to 3rd. Whatever happened to moving the runner along? Or even bunt in that situation? I really think the players (and managers) of this generation are not very smart or either they are so self-centered that they just don't care about winning games. They are just in it for their own stats. Isn't this game a team game? The main thing is to WIN EACH INDIVIDUAL GAME! I am hoping the next Cubs manager plays the game the way it should be played -- TO WIN! Sorry to be so long-winded today, but another thing that ticks me off is that a player gets "tired". What????? To play this great game? To fly in the best planes? To stay in the best hotels? To get meal money that most of us would die for? Maybe they should learn to take care of themselves better, get their rest and watch their diets. Hey, I feel a lot better now! lol GO CUBS!

Gramps,

The latest theory is that if "you go for one run, you only get one." My understanding of this is that, nowadays, players were taught in their pro. to analyze and swing more effectively against odds (the pitcher, the defensive alignment, and so on), in nothing like before; i.e. smarter baseball.

On one hand, teams are disciplined to play ways to maximize "higher run production," and the sac.bunt (which used to be called a "sacrifice hit") doesn't help there.

On the other hand, learning about pitches, pitchers (timing, their pitching mechanics--batters of my generation learned those, too) and fighting against them mean that players don't have enough time to learn the sac.bunt. Bunt is actually a skill, like running the base well, handling a groundball, or take a walk. These are separate skills.

And if the clubs don't start training early (maybe in rookie or A balls), then it'll be too late (or inefficient, or not cost-effective) to start players on those.

I don't know if these supplements what you say, or they simply lay out the truth.

While said that, I also see the pitchers having more advantage now than last year, even much more than 2008, so on, due to a wider strike zone and the commissioner's will of speeding up the game in order to wipe clean their steroid doubts.

It's foreseeable in the near future that younger players need to learn the sac. bunt and practice thousands of time in order to master such skills in a more low-run environment.

I am not advocating bunting all the time, but where one run is needed in a situation and the leadoff guy gets on....why not bunt him over to the next base giving your team a better chance to score. It has to be better than hitting into a double play or popping out.

I also heard on Sunday that when a team scores the first run of a game it wins games at a 70% clip. That is impressive to me and it is probably something I would do in the early spring games when the wind is howling in and the chances for a long ball are dim. Leyland did that years ago and was successful with it.

I am not going to believe that they don't have time to practice bunting....it is part of their job!! They are more concerned with fraternizing with the other team in the time they have before games or trying to hit batting practice fastballs out of the park during batting practice.

I like when Brenly says "See the ball, hit the ball". I have seen way too many players take a third strike fastball right down the middle because they were guessing curve ball. These are major leaguers!! I thought it was always taught to be ready for a fastball on any pitch and adjust to the curveball.

These are all little things that can be done to improve a team, but most of them are not being done. Maybe it is because of the steroid syndrome, but I think it would be much better to get back to the basics and fundamentals of the game. I think the motto of the game should be: "Play the game the right way and play to win today, don't worry about tomorrow!".

Gramps,

Practicing and learning one skill is not about one or two hours of drill. It's about getting into a routine and repeat the "mechanics" so you get it right. Same with bunting. Players need to learn that since their minor days, or else, like said, it's not cost-effective to teach them. Clubs are better off getting the best out of their existing abilities (albeit bunting, our topic in question).

The muscle memory requires tens of thousands of practice to get one right. To response to the fastball/curveball, taking the pitch thing... the science is 0.4 seconds. That's how much time a batter has to react to a pitcher. Not saying there's an excuse for not protecting the plate, but just saying the guessing is a vital part for a Major League batter to survive, too, because 0.4 sec. is not enough, even for Formula One drivers.

As for going for a winning run on bunt... 2007 game 163, the Padres plays at Coors Field; extra inning, the 13th, I believe.

It was a bad day for both starting pitchers (Fogg and Peavy). Peavy labored 6 or 7 innings and SD was down by 3 runs. They tied it. And in the 13th, with one man on base, manager Bud Black did not issue a bunt.

A 2-run homer. They lead the game. If Trevor Hoffman didn't blow the save, it might be the Padres who might play in the World Series against the Red Sox.

Just saying, there're a lot of ways to create winning runs. For the pros, it depends on what they have and what they believe.

I agree that they should be trained in the minor leagues, high school, college, wherever to learn to bunt, but I refuse to believe that a major leaguer could not pick up the nuances of bunting in a short amount of time.

Found the gamelog:

http://www.baseball-reference.com/boxes/COL/COL200710010.shtml

I' guess my memory's not bad...

I also recalled a Sports Science episode when they tested a NASCAR driver. The guy can react to 0.5 a second, and 0.25, but failed at 0.125.

Logical guess says average Formula One drivers CAN see pitches a lot better. But they would not have the muscle memory to swing well and hands-eye coordination to move bats for contact (reacting moves to pitches), due to their lack of training time there.

OBP Question:

How is it possible for a player's OBP to be lower than a BA? OBP is at-bats divided by hits plus walks. BA is simply at-bats divided by hits.

This has been bugging me all season. I thought there was a printing error in Zambrano's OBP/BA, but his OBP has been lower than his BA all season. Can someone please explain?

OBP is divided by plate appearances (includes sac bunt, sac fly, walk, intentional walk, hits, and hit-by-pitch).

A BA (batting avg.) is divided by at-bats (not including sac bunt, sac fly, walk, intentional walk, and hit-by-pitch).

Different denominators.

Steven, first sorry for just now publishing your comment. I just saw it.

As for your question, while sac bunt or a sac fly does not count against a player's batting average, it does count against a player's OBP.

I'm not trying to hammer you on what you said, but merely wanted to comment a little more, and expound upon it:

1. Castro seems to be the real deal, but Colvin?!? Are you kidding me? While he might be a solid back-up, etc., I'm starting to think he's the second coming of Hoffpauir or Fox circa 2009. Colvin's line: .258 avg, .317 OBP, .510 SLG, 314 AB's, 54 runs, 81 hits, 16 doubles, 3 triples, 19 hr, 49 RBI, 5 SB, 26 walks, 91 K's

**Colvin, if anything, looks like the lefty version of the second coming of Soriano (circa Cubs career, but NOT young Soriano)

2. This is VERY true...albeit offensively. He's hitting .286 avg, .401 OBP, .507 SLG, 280 AB's, 43 runs, 80 hits, 17 doubles, 15 hr, 47 RBI, 55 walks, 70 K's. That's a tremendous line for someone that's mostly been playing hurt all season. But his arm just isn't cut out for catcher at this point, and his bat isn't cut out for 1B, even though it's a fairly solid bat. Where do you put him?!? Castillo and Chirinos appear to have a better future at catcher than Soto does. Both have significant power, and both have above average defense supposedly behind the plate.

3. If you'd said Gorzelanny solidified the rotation spot about 2 months ago, I would've said you were correct, but since about the beginning of August, he's declined considerably...enough so that Cubs management has to really be considering bringing back Ted Lilly (a thought they might not have ever had if Gorzelanny progressed well through the ENTIRE season). I believe since the middle of July or beginning of August, Gorzelanny has a 5+ERA

4. You are absolutely correct here. Even your placement in the list of Archer, McNutt, and Dolis is dead on. Some might've said that Jackson and Carpenter are up there, but I've not been impressed at all with their progress thus far.

5. No arguments here, although I'd rank Guyer higher than that. I happen to believe he's the real deal. Check this out: .339 avg, .392 OBP, .580 SLG (yes, I printed that correctly FIVE EIGHTY!!!), 345 AB's, 69 runs, 117 hits, 35 doubles, 6 triples, 12 hr, 55 RBI, 25 SB, 24 walks, 48 K's. In fact, throughout his minor league career, he hasn't struck out all that much, and his OBP hasn't been bad at all in the minors. The problem with him, has always been staying healthy. But keep in mind, that Colvin had the same issue with the TJ surgery, etc. Guyer will be 25 years old next year, which is what Colvin will be in September this year. Guyer is the better athlete of the two, and the Cubs, prior to all his injuries, considered him one of the best power prospects they had in the system. It's nice to see him start to put everything together. Ha has also been a surprise with his: .319 avg, .336 OBP, .467 SLG, 86 hits, 11 doubles, 4 triples, 7 hr, 42 RBI in just 270 AB's, and he's just 19 years old. But the most exciting player in our system might be Hak-Ju Lee, who has an incredible amount of hits for a 19 year old with 132 hits, 21 doubles, 4 triples, 1 hr, 38 RBI and 32 SB. While he might never hit for power, his combo of speed, and ability to get on base (a rarity for Cubs minor league players it seems), would serve us very well in the long-term.

I can envision a lineup like this, as soon as next season if they all produce in their winter assignments and Spring Training:

Lee-SS

Castro-2B

Dunn-1B

ARAM-3B

Colvin-RF

Guyer-LF

Jackson-CF

Castillo/Chirinos-C

Soriano, DeWitt, Soto, Byrd, Fukudome, Baker, etc. would all be trade bait. DeWitt, Soto, and Byrd would fetch us above average prospects in return, and with Fukudome's resurgence at the end of this season, it appears he would also fetch a return, without us having to pay the majority of his salary next season as it appeared we'd have to do.

For those of you that might doubt this lineup, especially with Lee..Consider this fact...Lee is a more polished hitter than Castro was at his age. Lee will be 20 years old, precisely the same age Castro started at this season. If the Cubs were smart, they'd consider this tandem right away. As much as I love Byrd, and DeWitt thus far, neither factor into our future plans, and both must go.

And while Dunn will be 31 years old next season, you simply can't ignore his line of 33 doubles, 33 hr, 88 RBI with a month left to play. You have good reason to believe he'll get to at least 40 hr, and probably about 110 RBI before this season is over. He'd provide a solid, proven, RBI presence in the middle of our lineup, which, outside of ARAM, we haven't had a consistent RBI threat like that in the middle of our lineup. Remember how inconsistent Lee was for us?!?

With Lee, Castro, Colvin, Guyer, and Jackson in our lineup, we'd have 5 guys with 20+SB potential, and in Lee and Castro, we'd have two 30+SB potential, so the speed/power combos we'd have in the lineup would make it really exciting.

But with Hendry at the helm, do you really think any of the right moves will happen?!? Heck, even though Byrd is having arguably his best season ever all around, he will be 33 years old next year, with another year to go on his contract. That will NOT be comfortable situation, and it's time to sell high. With Soriano, Ricketts just needs to bite the bullet. Watching him play the OF and at the plate, missing meatballs right down the pipe and popping them up for lazy fly outs in the OF, and looking lost, not even knowing where he hit the ball most of the time, is just downright painful to watch. If I were Ricketts, I'd let it be known to the entire league that I'd pay 75% of his remaining salary, which would make him a $4.75 million/year player over the next 4 seasons. If you think about this deal, it makes all the sense in the world. Colvin can, at the very least, duplicate his stats...we already know that. You'd have to think that between Snyder, Guyer, and Jackson, we'd be able to find at least one of them to do the same, and since you'd get them all for 3 seasons before they're eligible for arbitration, this move makes a HUGE amount of sense for the Cubs. Here's how bad Soriano really is: .259 avg, .316 OBP, 33 walks vs 105 K's, and only 106 hits in 410 AB's. With RISP, Soriano has a .270 avg, .333 OBP, and just 4 hr, 41 RBI. A majority of his home runs are solo shots, even being in the 6 hole most of this season. How pathetic is that?

I say cut the team of dead weight, and start completely young, and allow the team to become like the Rays, where they pretty much grow up together in the big leagues. We have all the talent to do it in the minors right now, and with Castro and Colvin already at the MLB level. Get rid of Hill, Nady, Hoffpauir (already 30 yrs old), Baker, Soriano, Byrd, and Fukudome, and aside from Baker, you just got rid of six 31+yr old (ages as of next season) players. Replace them with the guys I mentioned, and when all those 30-somethings are beginning their declines, likely all next year, we'll have six 20-somethings all ready for breakout seasons at about the same time. You leave ARAM in the lineup, and bring aboard Dunn, and you have the makings of a juggernaut for seasons to come, if all these guys continue their success (which, the cases of Lee, Castro, and Jackson, based on their minor league historical stats, you have to believe they'd continue their hitting), and lesser prospects like Colvin, Guyer, and Chirinos/Castillo coming along with solid stats this year, you have to like the future, don't you?!?

Aaron:

I agree with most of what you say. I may disagree a little on Colvin. First of all he is in his first full year of MLB ball and he has batted all over the line up. Plus, if he would have been playing more in April and May (Instead of Fukudome) He would have been closing in on at-least 25 HR's. However, you are spot on with his line of production. If anything, he reminds me of Brant Brown.

I agree with you 100% on Byrd. It's too bad because the guy never takes a play off, he busts his tail all the time.

As for Adam Dunn. Can't argue with you about his offense. The guy is the premiere lefty power bat in all of baseball. But do you really want to add his defense to the worst fielding team in all of baseball?

How in the world can you compare Colvin to Soriano ?????

While I share your enthusiam about guys like Ha, Guyer, Jackson, etc, you are off base on Colvin.

He's only 25 and this is his ROOKIE year !! Hello.

1.) First off, he has 19 HR's in part-time duty against many, many tough left-handed pitchers. He has hit some HR's against some of the better lefties in the league (e.g Cliff Lee).

2.) Secondly, as you mentioned Guyer's SLG of .580 you drooled all over yourself, but I did't see you point out how impressive Colvin's SLG is at .510 against MAJOR league pitching, not AA pitching. Come on.

3.) Also, Colvin can run and play all OF positions above average. (did you see that play he made last night ?)

4.) Yes, he need to improves his K's and BB's, but again this is his rookie year. Compare his stats to the other rookies out there drawing rave reviews, and you'll see that his stats are right in the mix with all of them. Comparing him to Jake Fox is ridiculous.

And you and I will argue forever about Dunn. I just cannot stand that guy. What I don't understand is how you can love Dunn so much but if you really look at it, he's very similar to Soriano, and we all know how bad he is. Except for the fact that Dunn walks way more than Soriano, they are the same type of player.

Look at the similarities: Neither can run, neither can play defense, both strikeout a ton, both will hit around .240-.260. BOTH ARE DOGS !!!

Yes, Dunn will hit 35-40 HR's but how many come against weak middle relievers in the 6th inning when the score is 8-1 ?

The cubs have the worst defense in the league this year (they lead the league in unearned runs) and NOW you want to bring in Dunn to throw gasoline on the fire ? no, no, no.

If you don't think defense matters, than you don't understand baseball.

5 Things that are positive about this season:

1. EMERGENCE OF YOUNG POSITION PLAYERS: Castro and Colvin, who should be around for awhile as you say

2. BOUNCEBACK SEASON BY GEO SOTO: Another key player for the future

3. GORZ SOLIDIFYING SPOT IN ROTATION: Let's give Hendry props for that pickup

4. FARM SYSTEM HAS LOTS OF POWER ARMS: Archer, McNutt, Dolis, plus other good prospects like Jackson and Carpenter. We have a good pitching pipeline developing

5. FARM SYSTEM HAS SOME POSITION PLAYERS EMERGING: Brett Jackson, Lee, Ha, and maybe Guyer and Vitters