Don't Do What Donny Don't Does...Part Two

DO See what's up with Manny. He appears on his way out of Boston and you need to see what it would take to bring him to the North Side. TAKE A LOOK.

DON'T Go after Jacque Jones of the Twinkies. He's a decent fielder, but his bat is not welcome at Wrigley if you ask me.

DO Pursue Baltimore's BJ Ryan. Look at the numbers. Then again, we already have a closer and moving one of them to the set-up spot is easier said than done.

DON'T Keep Todd Walker. It's nice having his bat in the lineup, but he's clearly an American League second basemen. Trade Todd.

DO Strengthen your bench. No more Macias.

DON'T Give Dusty an extension. For the love of God, whatever you do, DON'T KEEP HIM HERE PAST 2006.

DO Put yourself in a position to hire Joe Girardi as manager when the timing is right. I have a thousand times more confidence in him than I do Dusty.

DON'T Spend money for the sake of spending money. Build a team.

How Did the Sox Do It?

When they made all their moves last postseason, I laughed.

They'd lost their best player in Maggs and replaced him with a decent player in Jermaine Dye.

They traded an RBI machine in Carlos Lee and in return acquired a leadoff man who hit .244 and had an OBP of .313 in 2004.

They signed a washed up El Duque to 'strengthen' their rotation.

They signed a cancerous AJ Pierzynski because no one else wanted him.

Frank Thomas was redefining his nickname as The Big Hurt.

They signed a reliever better known for his facial hair than his pitching skills in Dustin Hermanson.

They acquired a second basemen who had never set foot on a major league infield.

And this is how you build the best team in baseball?

Apparently.

Of course, the White Sox won because of their pitching. As important as defense and timely hitting are, they were carried by the arms of Buehrle, Garland, Contreras, Garcia, and El Duque. None are what you would call household names...though that will probably change now that the baseball world is bowing to the White Sox.

With a few minor exceptions, they stayed healthy all year. As a Cubs fan, I know how crucial that is.

Jose Contreras turned into Bob Gibson for the second half of the season. Did anyone see that one coming?

Podesdnik rediscovered how to leadoff and stole bases left and right...though his OBP was nothing to write home about.

Iguchi played better than anyone expected.

Dye led ALL major league right fielders in HR. What??

After the ALDS, A-Rod put on his Joe Crede body suit and played third base for the last two series.

AJ Pierzynski stopped being a horse's ass.

Basically, everything went right.

I wonder what that's like...

Cubs for sale??

Read this interesting article from the Daily Herald.

Mark Cuban?

Donald Trump?

The Sox

They won Game 1 tonight and I just have a very hard time believing they're going to lose the World Series.

The Red Sox did it last year.

It looks like the White Sox will do it this year.

It IS possible....

But when will be our year?

And I don't wanna see the Cubs just GET to the World Series. I want to see them WIN the World Series. Just GETTING there isn't good enough.

I'm very sad and very frustrated.

It should have been us....

Don't Do What Donny Don't Does...Part One

Since it appears a foregone conclusion that Dusty is coming back, I'll just move on to the player portion of this post.



DO Trade Corey Patterson and go into 2006 planning on Felix Pie being your center fielder.

DON'T Get into a bidding war with the Yankees and Red Sox for Johnny Damon. For how old he is, he's not worth the money he's going to get.

DO See what you can do about acquiring a power hitting outfielder. Brian Giles would be adequate, but allow me to get a little crazy. If Manny Ramirez wants out of Boston, make a phone call. It would take a lot to get him, but he'd be a damn nice addition to our lineup. You put Manny in left, I can live with Murton in right.

DON'T Re-sign Jeromy Burnitz. He's a hardworking, likable player who's fun to root for, but that doesn't warrant another year in a Cubs uniform in my opinion.

DO Give Derrek Lee a new contract this offseason. 5 yrs/$75 million.

DON'T Give Dusty Baker a new contract this offseason. He needs to be GONE after 2006.

DO Move Ronny Cedeno to second base. He's younger, cheaper, faster, and better defensively than Todd Walker

DON'T Re-sign Nomar. I know, the last 2 months of the season he looked good. But he also played himself into more money by performing well those last 2 months, and that's money better spend elsewhere. It was fun Nomar. Goodbye and good luck.

DO Take a long, hard look at Rafael Furcal. He's a leadoff hitter, he's very fast, he'll be 28 later this month, he's got a cannon for an arm, he stole 46 bases last year, and he scored more runs than any Cub besides Lee. Problem...he may be a bit of an ass, and we all know how well Dusty handles players like that.

DON'T Assume Matt Murton is going to put up huge offensive numbers over the span of a full season. He may, but I'm not comfortable putting all our eggs into a rookie's basket like that.

DO Look for another starting pitcher, and one who is better than Greg Maddux. AJ Burnett? Do we really need another pitcher who gets injured easily? Kevin Millwood? If we sign him at a senior citizen discount. Matt Morris? You better not overpay for that guy. A trade may be in order...

DON'T Heavily rely on Greg Maddux to give you QUALITY STARTS. Just because he's pitching 200 innings doesn't mean he's shutting people down. We all like Mad Dog, but it's time to call him what he is...an aging pitcher who's becoming less effective every year.

More to follow...

Looking back at my predictions: Pitchers

I said my predictions were optimistic, but let's see how close they were...

Pitchers

Mark Prior
Predicted: 19-7 2.65 207.2 IP
Actual: 11-7 3.67 166.2 IP

Kerry Wood
Predicted: 17-11 3.14 197.1 IP
Actual: 3-4 4.23 66.0 IP

Carlos Zambrano
Predicted: 18-9 2.55 206.1 IP
Actual: 14-6 3.26 223.1 IP

Greg Maddux
Predicted: 16-12 4.15 206.1 IP
Actual: 13-15 4.24 225.0 IP

Glendon Rusch
Predicted: 11-10 4.35 175.2 IP
Actual: 9-8 4.52 145.1 IP

I also called for Dempster to get the closer's role over JoBlow or LaTroy Hawkins...yet Dusty continued to use Hawkins as the closer. Simply stunning.

Really interesting