Who Wants Matt Murton?

"Your right the corners are set in Minnesota but, they have garbage for DH. Murton can DH and give the others days off."

I wouldn't say they have garbage at DH, Jason Kubel could end up being equally as good as Murton. But I do agree that Murton could be valuable as a DH at times while offering the Twins the ability to rest Cuddyer and Young if and when necessary. The problem though is that he really isn't a need for them, and it seems extremely unlikely that they would give up anything of real value.

"Why Johnson over Murton? Can Murton not play CF?"

EXACTAMUNDO!

oh inok. between u and crunchy i could make an idiot sandwich. and i am starting to think the cards r going to win this year. i predict 90 wins with a possibility of the playoffs. they have looked very good in spring training. pujols will be king this year. carp comes back midseason and its lights out cubbies.

look scribble first pujols' elbow isnt pefect but he will be fine. the media just ran with that one. the outfield ismore than fine with ankiel, duncan, ludwick, schumaker, and barton. schumaker will have a very good year u watch. the rotation definitely has problems. wainwright is awesome. i would call lohse a 3 or 4, same with piniero. looper i dont know. i sort of think he will suck this year. the rest of the rotation has competition which is good. we actually have a lot of depth, just not a lot of good pitchers. the one thing the cards have that the cubs and brewers dont have is karma. u wouldnt understand it unless u have been to the ballpark. the cards always find ways to win when they shouldnt. the cubs are the exact opposite and the brewers are still too young. the cubs absolutely have the best team on paper but paper doesnt win championships. if they can be at least .500 before carp gets back(screw mulder and clement) they can win the division. and once they get into the playoffs u never know what will happen. the 06 cards proved that.

Scribbletone,

The question posed was "Let's look at some trade possibilities. (As for what the Cubs would want in return - I'll guess a lefty reliever or just a prospect or two)."

Tim asked what team may want him and I suggested the Twins.

None of the teams listed truly have a huge need for Murton and none will give up much. The Twins may not give up much but they may give up a lefty reliever or a prospect, which is in line with the quesiton posed. In my original post I stated that the Twins owe us a PTBNL and I suggested we package Murton with the PTBNL and we should be able to get a better item from the twins, than we might from another team.

It sounds like we may get Lahey already as the PTBNL, if we cannot keep him on the 25 man. Which is a decent PTBNL, so add Murton to that... who knows, we may get a really nice prospect. Which was my whole point.

joelcards, you might not be completely crazy. The Cards have a fairly soft schedule early in the year. So if they can hang in there for a few months and their pitchers come back healthy, who knows?

I know this out of no where but did you realize every time Cubs went for a big name player they didn't get them. Well besides Fukudome they didn't really get anyone. (Which is not a bad thing)
But here for example.

Carl Crawford- Had talks for a little bit but then the Rays made him unavailable.

Kaz Matsui- Was a 3 team race between Astros, Cubs and Rockies, but then he priced himself out of Rockies range and then signed with the Astros.(Good thing he didn't sign with the Cubs because he's geting anal tissue surgery.)

Brian Roberts- *Sigh* I really don't want to talk about this anymore. I guess I will though. Had talks over 3 months about him and offered alot of players for him but the O's didn't like the Cubs deal.

Coco Crisp- Didn't really have talks for him maybe for little bit but nothing to get your hopes up.

Marlon Byrd- Had trade talks with Texas for him but Cubs wanted to trade Murton straight up for him but Rangers wanted more.

Southern Fried Cub
did you hear that LOOGY thing on a radio show in chicago?
i herd that too

"So if they can hang in there for a few months and their pitchers come back healthy, who knows?"

Notice the if...and the second half of that should have another if...

Every team can put two "if"s together and come up with a way that they could compete. The cards will not be good.

Dark, right now all we can do is have team predictions until it starts. I don't think Adun is saying any more than that. I don't think you are, either. You're right, the pen is a crapshoot year to year on teams. Those Cub pen concerns you brought up are real. Just as you can turn them around. Take Wood for instance. You say he is glass, true. He could fall apart again. You can turn it around and point out from last year and this ST (I know ST is just that...bear with me), Wood in ST has a line of W-0 L-0 3.09 ERA 11-G 1-SV 1-SVO 11.2-IP 9-H 4-R 4-ER 1-HR 0-HBP 0-W 12-SO. Wood in 2007 has a line of 1-W 1-L 3.33-ERA 22-G 0-SV 0-SVO 24.1-IP 18-R 9-R 9-ER 0-HR 0-HBP 13-W 24-SO. That is a small time frame including ST, but that is all he has since being out of the pen. You can say he might have finally found his control as no HBP and a W/SO ratio of like 3 to 1 in 36 IP. That could be looked at as promising, right?

The fact Keith Law made this prediction for a Cub team is what stands out. Maybe Adun was more amazed by a Cub positive from him that anything else. I am...

"Its just not worth a pissing match over. When one bullpen has as many, if not more, questions than another, then the entire thing should probably just be left alone… The “mine will be better” ~ “no mine will be better” (or in this case "the cards also have the best bullpen in the central” ~ “I will put down money on that not being true”) thing just wont get anywhere, that’s all…"

Agreed, then you should have just posted something like this and let it be, instead of going into your Cub bull pen thoughts...

"…The Cubs don’t have a true closer, and the guy they are using in that spot seems to be made of glass. I haven’t seen any projection sites giving an ERA under like 3.5-4 for Marmol this year ~ it is only his second year afterall and some adjustments will probably be needed. Howry is solid, but seemed to be ageing/regressing a bit; if his FB rate keeps increasing and RH keep hitting him better... (Man I hope not though, I am counting on him for Holds/WHIP in my Fantasy league :\ ) I like Wuertz, but he treads a dangerous line with that higher WHIP. Eyre is out, and it sounds as if possibly in more ways than one. After that, its pretty unsettled from what I hear. Lieber or Demptser will be there, but… Rule-5 Guy Lahey hasn’t really pitched above AA. You know I think Marshall is better suited as a pen guy, and might excel there, but he isnt in yet and still has questions. Pignatiello hasn’t really pitched in the majors yet. Harts interesting, but see Pignatiello."

All you do there is just add to the 'pissing match', as you say.

Anyway, I'm done with this topic.

It was a simple example of your bias dark, plain and simple. Obviously, no one can know. If its "not worth the pissing match", then why the hell are you even getting yourself involved in the conversation??? We all know the answer though...so don't worry.

Studio gets what I'm trying to say here. Its amazing that Law gave the Cubs props, he almost never does. And for him to say they have a chance to have the best pen in baseball, well that says a lot. The Cards bullpen has more question marks than the Cubs do, and pretty much anyone without an anti cubs bias would agree.

Marmol led the league in % of runners stranded last year

Who was 2nd? Wuertz. Howry is always reliable and a terrific set up man. Wood could get injured, but could be absolutely lights out, and you know it. ESPN fantasy expert predicts an ERA from Marmol around 2(!) by the way...which would still be regression believe it or not, because he was just that freakin good last year.

The fact is bullpens are all over the place, but anybody with any sense would say that the Cubs SHOULD be better than the Cards, and Dark, you are ignoring truth yet again if you say otherwise.

Oops, went to shut down PC and noticed I had left the second part of that post on Word… (stupid freakin type-key maikng posting being similar to jumping through hoops…)

But read what I posted again:
“Howry is solid, but seemed to be ageing/regressing a bit; if his FB rate keeps increasing and RH keep hitting him better... (Man I hope not though, I am counting on him for Holds/WHIP in my Fantasy league :\ ) I like Wuertz, but he treads a dangerous line with that higher WHIP.”
…Obviously I’m not just “going into (my) Cub bull pen thoughts...” If I was blatantly trying to bash the Cubs pen or something, then maybe I could understand ~ but that stuff was (I thought) obviously repeating what the experts say ~ much like the “Keith Law even said the Cubs could be the best in all of baseball in the pen...” sentence.

Don’t see what I did wrong, but ok man ~ sorry I guess…

Updates:
“How about lets just accept that every bullpen in baseball is a huge crapshoot, even the Padres”
…never said otherwise, and repeatedly have said just that. (well, not “just that” because I think the Pads park gives them an advantage, but otherwise “just that”)

“At this point you have to admit that the Cubs are MORE LIKELY to have a superior bullpen to the Cardinals'”
…That can be argued until the cows come home and there will never be an outcome. Hence the reason that its “best to watch and see what happens” instead of going over it. Even the best reliever in the world can have a miserable year, and vise versa ~ their playing time is too limited to allow them to counter one or two hiccups or a bad stretch.

I personally do think the Cubs have the better pen, but what difference does that make really? Does it really solve anything at all? Does it make a difference in the season? Could Joel think otherwise and relentlessly try to force his feelings down everyones throats like he generally does? Yeah, you know ~ the guy who looked like he might have finally shutut before having someone else (Adun in this case) jump to question things he said and would have almost certainly kept going at that point… Again, what I posted seemed like such a simple, logical, non-threatening thing which gave his possible arguments for him so we didn’t have to listen to it with an “its an unknown” point and that should have just ended it. Now we are in “explain everything you did/do because you might have been doing something which I don’t know if I like” mode, which is a tad sad if you ask me… If ya read what I said without prejudice, I don’t think there is much room to question it, but whatever…

Actually Dark,

Joel and I have been talked before and while we know that he is a cards fan, and I'm a cubs fan, we enjoy talking baseball. He wasn't going to get in some rant, he would have stated his opinion and backed it up with facts he believes are important, and I would have done the same thing. But I was addressing him, not your dumb as$, so please shut up and go the hell away.

"I actually didnt show a bias (never even gave my opinion) and I was just making a point of "Since bullpens as a whole are such a crapshoot year to year anyway though, well its best to watch and see what happens before making bold predictions on something so unstable…"."

Thats funny, didn't seem to say anything negative about the Cards bullpen, but had plenty to say about the Cubs, once again.

Take your obvious bias and go away. Please shut up forever.

Honestly I don't quite see the anti-Cubs bias that darkstar apparently has. I see someone stating his opinion on a Cubs team that essentially dominates the majority of discussions on this site.

I appreciate the fact that darkstar generally uses statistics to back up his arguments, something a lot of people don't do, and although I think its clear that darkstar doesn't like the Cubs, I wouldn't go as far as saying he is anti-Cubs. He just simply isn't terribly fond of Chicago's roster.