Although I admit to a bit of disappointment. I, for one, am truly looking forward to the day that every professional baseball player is contracted and has signed at least a letter of intent to play for the Yankees. God knows it will make it easier to keep up on which jersey I’m supposed to wear.
Oh, and don’t worry about the other 29 teams. I understand there are some real quality athletes playing for our prison system that would love a chance. I also understand the Brewers are THIS CLOSE to signing not only the banjo kid from “Deliverance,” but also Anson Williams…yep, that’s right! TV’s Potsy!
Oh, and for the slow-witted, YES. Sarcasm. :mad:
I’m no fan of the Cubs, but it’s nice to see a good player wooed away from the Evil Empire for a change. I bet Herr Steinbrenner fires the first person he bumps into today, and I’m lovin’ it.
Yeah, and it’s not the first time he’s shunned the evil empire…in '92 he turned down more money from the Yanks to pitch in Atlanta…guess he just doesn’t want to pitch in the American League…I hate the American Leauge.
What I want to know is how they are going to handle the rotation?
Being a Cub fan since I was three (yes, I love torturing myself), I’m very happy to see this deal finally happen. I’m just kind of curious why it took so long. The Cubs are still in need of a power-hitting lefty, but I think the pitching can off-set what we lack in firepower.
Here’s the rotation I want to see:
Prior
Wood
Maddux
Zambrano
Clement
Should be another good year, but I’m still keeping all my lucky stuff handy just in case.
I don’t know how valuable a signing this is for the Cubs. Maddux doesn’t seem to have any gas left – he could barely gasp and wheeze his way into the fifth inning of an average game. Maybe Chicago could use him as the niftiest long reliever of all time?
Maddux still throws about the same number of pitches he did when he was in his prime. It’s just that he goes deeper into counts and he was hit a little harder this last season. If you take out the 4 pisspoor starts when he was yanked early last season, he averaged 6 and a half innings a start. I don’t mean to sound like his agent or anything, but I just don’t think he is as washed up as others. He is good to have around as a mentor, too.
It was my understanding from watching TBS last season that Bobby Cox has wanted to limit Maddux’s innings that season to keep him fresh and such for the post-season. After the last few years’ disappointments, I completely understand that.
I’d set the rotation to this:
Maddux
Prior
slow pitcher (or at least someone whose biggest tool is control)
hard baller
whoever’s left.
The difference between Maddux and Prior is huge. Maddux throws 86 with a stiff wind at his back, and Prior throws 86 if he falls down before he’s wound up properly.
This might be Bobby’s biggest challenge coming up since 1991, and not many folks that year expected the Braves to do anything. I wonder if the streak is over.
Cox had a challenge since 1991? I don’t understand the attraction to Bobby - a monkey could do his job with the personnel he’s had on his teams. Any kudos that that guy gets needs to be immediately redirected to John Scheurholz the GM.
I am a braves fan, and from what I understand Bobby Cox trusted Maddux enough to let him decide when he needed to come out. He said he is one of the few pitchers that is honest about when he has had enough. I would agree that they limited the amount of pitches thrown by their better starters towards the end of the season. They had a pretty healthy lead in the east, so that made sense. Although it didn’t help.
This is definitely going to be a rebuilding year, but I read that Scheurholz tried making a wild card team. I question a couple of the moves he made, but I think he did pretty well. I think we have taken winning for granted. The fans down there deserve to have a worse team than in the past for letting Turner Field turn into South Wrigley in the postseason.
I think Maddux should be in either the #2 or #3 spot. Kind of like iampunha’s idea, but Wood and Prior are both power pitchers, so might as well break that up so hitters don’t get used to.
Maddux pitched the sixth most innings in the National League in 2003, and more than any other Atlanta pitcher. He was only 15 innings behind the league leader.
Having said that, I do agree that he is fading. He went 16-11 on a strong hitting team. This is arguably the hitters reciprocating as for many seasons Maddux was racking up big winning numbers despite weak hitting. Tellingly, his ERA (3.96) was significantly higher than in any other year since his first full season.
Anyway, I wish him the best of luck and hope he gets his 300th win this year.
Strong hitting? Perhaps, but not as strong as the hitting other pitchers got. One quick note I’d make is to point out that Henry Blaco, not the biggest bat ever to grace the majors, playes catcher when Maddux pitched. Given the year Javy Lopez had, I think that’s due more than small consideration when looking at Maddux’ numbers. I’d be interested in seeing the run support given Maddux as compared with, say, Russ Ortiz, who won 21 games.
Having said that, I agree that Maddux is fading, but I think it’s more due to hitters being more responsible; Maddux used to be in a minority among players who studied film seriously. From what I understand, this is becoming more and more the case.
Munch, look at the numbers from the year the Braves finished one game ahead of the Mets, and also look at the strike-shortened year, when the Braves would probably have finished second (if not distant) to Felipe Alou’s Expos. I’m not saying it took Providence to guide the Braves team to the postseason each year, but I’d trust Bobby before I’d trust a lot of other managers. Schuerholz, however, has proven his fortitude with more than one team. I’m merely hesitant to deflect all the praise away from Bobby.
“Perhaps”? The Braves led the NL in runs scored. In comparison, in 2002 (when Maddux went 16-6), they were only ninth. With respect to the relative level of run support, I can’t find stats on that. I agree that Maddux is likely to have had fewer runs to work with given using Blanco versus Lopez.
Wow, I’ve never heard of anyone hating an entire league before. Stover my friend, aside from the Yankees aka The Evil Empire aka The Pinstriped Menace, whom all correct thinking non-New Yorkers hate, what did my American League ever do to you? You hate the Detroit Tigers, the Angels, the Twins, both colors of Sox, the A’s, the Royals and the Indians? How can anybody hate my beloved Tribe?
You know that’s just not going to happen. It’s not because Big Stein is going to trade for Brett Boone this season. Won’t that be great? All Stars at every position…
I don’t see how this helps the Cubs, it can only hurt them. I live in a house of Braves fans and saw way too much of Maddux last season. Even they agree he has lost it. I can see paying a little extra for someone with an old (but tiny) connection to bring in fans, but this is overpaying by $16 million. They could use the money to actually get someone that will help them win games. It will go done in Cubs’ history as “yet another dumb move.”
And even if they decided to get him, they could have waiting a month and saved $5 million. It was down to just them and the (real home town) Astros and the Astros already let Maddux know they weren’t going to throw that much money away. Do the Cubs really think anyone else was going to pay that much for a has been? (Maddux’s people were really good at floating “others are interested” rumors. None of which checked out.)
And, he’s still going to miss out on all the big career milestones. Esp. playing for the Cubs.
I think you’re a little jealous, ftg. How is Maddux going to hurt the Cubs? I mean, yes, he isn’t the pitcher he was in his younger days, but he did win, what, 15 or 16 games last year. Chump pitchers don’t turn in numbers like that. You may say the Braves had much better offense than the Cubs did, and you would be right, but the Cubs are no longer some scrub team. This is now a serious World Series contender. We were five outs away last year, and have only gotten stronger. This move is going to work out just fine, ftg.
