Snobs vs. Slobs

Rumors have been flying for weeks about Florida’s A.J. Burnett. It seems that every team outside of the Devil Rays has been rumored to be in the Burnett sweepstakes at one point or another. It’s almost a definite that Burnett will be traded, because he’ll be a free agent after this season. Today on Baseball Prospectus (subscription required), Will Carrol reported that the two teams with the best shot of landing Burnett are the Red Sox and the White Sox. The White Sox have reportedly offered their top pitching prospect, Brandon “The Future” McCarthy, and their set-up man, Damaso Marte. The Red Sox have offered their top pitching prospect, Anibal Sanchez, and starting pitcher Bronson Arroyo.

While A.J. Burnett is having a very good season (3.48 ERA in 132 IP), I hardly see how he is worth giving up your top pitching prospect plus (in the Red Sox’s case) the most consistent starter on your staff or (in the White Sox’s case) the best relief pitcher on the team other than the Alien Inhabiting Dustin Hermanson’s Body. Don’t get me wrong, A.J. Burnett is a very good pitcher with electric stuff. But he doesn’t have the greatest walk rate, and (more importantly) has a long history of injury problems. Let’s compare the career numbers of A.J. Burnett to the career numbers of another power pitcher with electric stuff who also has a history of walks and injury problems:

Pitcher A:
Age: 28
Avg. Starts Per Season*: 18.4
Earned Run Average: 3.77
Strikeouts per 9 Innings: 7.87
Walks per 9 Innings: 4.00
WHIP: 1.28
OPS Allowed: .667

Pitcher B:
Age: 28
Avg. Starts Per Season: 23.4
Earned Run Average: 3.68
Strikeouts per 9 Innings: 10.41
Walks per 9 Innings: 4.37
WHIP: 1.26
OPS Allowed: .675

If you’re going to be bidding as wildly as the Soxes are for A.J. Burnett (pitcher A), then why not bid just as wildly for Kerry Wood (pitcher B)? They have very similar numbers, are the same age, and have a similar injury past (indeed, Wood has averaged 5 starts per year more over the course of his career). Of course, there’s an easy, obvious answer to that: Kerry Wood is injured right now, whereas A.J. Burnett has only been injured in the (very recent) past. Also, A.J. Burnett is a free agent after this season, and Kerry Wood is not. I use this example not to suggest that the Cubs should trade Kerry Wood, but to illustrate the pitchers’ similarities and to question the intelligence of the Soxes offering so much for Burnett.

Any GM would be wary about trading for Kerry Wood, and I don’t see why GMs aren’t just as wary about Burnett due to his recent past. Just because Burnett is okay right now doesn’t mean that he’s going to be okay next year, or later this year. In 2003, Burnett started just 4 games. In 2004, Burnett spent about 50 days last season on the DL, and only started 19 games. Kerry Wood had a full season in ‘03, started 22 games last year, and has crashed and burned this year. Burnett has started an average of 18.4 games a year during his career – that means he has spent about 40% of his career wasting away on the DL, which, believe it or not, is even more than Kerry Wood. As many players before have shown, injury-prone players tend to get injured again.

I’ll concede that Burnett has a high ceiling. If he is healthy and can keep his stuff under control (both of which he has done this year), he can be one of the best starters in the game. However, I just don’t understand why Ken Williams or Theo Epstein would be willing to give away so much to get a pitcher with so much potential for injury.

*—Rookie year ommitted; was late season call-up

It’s been a while since I’ve done an In the News, and with both Livan Hernandez and the pennant races heating up, I thought now would be a good time to do it.

After a loss to the Rockies on Wednesday, Livan Hernandez flipped out, complaining that his knee was ailing him and that he was 99.9% sure that he wasn’t going to pitch for the rest of the season. However, last night, his knee was feeling better, and that one-in-a-thousand chance won out, and now he’s not going to have surgery.

This is an odd story not just because Livan Hernandez, probably the most durable pitcher of this generation, is having knee problems, but because of the odd things that Livan said surrounding the injury. Read these excerpts from Wednesday’s article:

“’I’m not happy for three years. After the season, I’m going to tell you’ why [...]

“’It’s 99.9 percent I’m not going to pitch no more’ this season, he said. [...]

“His right knee has been a nagging problem all year, and it was drained May 16. But Hernandez said it’s not bothering him enough to affect his pitching—nor was he told to have the knee worked on.

“’It’s not the doctors. It’s me. I’m the doctor. I don’t need it, but I’m going to’ have an operation, he said.”

So, let’s get this straight. He’s unhappy about something that has been going on for three years, presumably something unrelated to his knee, or he would be able to talk about it during the season, the doctors are telling him he doesn’t need surgery, but he wants it anyway. Because the media loves to speculate, Ray Ratto wrote a column on ESPN.com pondering what might be really troubling Hernandez.

In the injury department, the Cubs lost Kerry Wood for the 97th time this season. The Official Cub Fan Reaction to Kerry Wood getting injured has changed from “Not again!! No Why?!” to “Oh. Well, at least we got a couple good starts out of him this time around.”

The Yankees pitching staff has been hit by a plague of injuries. First, there’s the case of Chien-Ming Wang, who will likely miss the rest of the season. Randy Johnson left Wednesday night’s game with a back problem (though the Yankees say it’s not a big deal). Pavano, Wright and Brown were all on the DL simultaneously, so the Yankees got desperate and signed Al “1.79 WHIP” Leiter and had Aaron Small start a game against Texas recently. Small had not started a MLB game since 1996. There is good-ish news for the Empire, though. Kevin Brown (5.91 ERA) is back from the DL, and Carl Pavano (4.77) is on his way back. Which I guess is good news if your lineup can score 8 runs a night. Oh, right.

As the trade deadline approaches, Jim Bowden continues to prove that he is a few beans short of a burrito. While he has managed to put together a nice pitching staff for the 2005 Nationals, and he made one good offseason signing in Jose Guillen, he also made two mind-boggling, downright moronic signings: Cristian Guzman (whose .500 OPS is only made more atrocious by the fact that a) you could see it coming a mile away and b) he’s getting paid $4 million for it) and Vinny Castilla (.726 OPS - say, did you know he led the NL in RBI last year?). Clearly, with so little production coming out of the left side of the infield, it would make perfect sense for Bowden to go out and acquire….

Preston Wilson?

Um… what?

You’d think he would have learned from Vinny Castilla about Coors-inflated numbers. The most confounding thing about this transaction is that Preston Wilson’s Coors-inflated numbers aren’t even good – he hit .258/.322/.491 with the Rockies this year.

In fairness to Jim Bowden, he is using his skill of making bizarre, even downright awful moves, to try and shore up the left side of the infield… by begging 41-year-old Nationals Special Assistant Barry Larkin to come out of retirement to play for the Nats down the stretch run. Brilliant!

It has been well-documented that the Nationals are having a great season in spite of Jim Bowden’s best efforts to put the worst team possible on the field. They have easily been the luckiest team in baseball, having a 54-42 record despite allowing more runs than they have scored. However, their true colors are finally starting to show. The Nats are 2-8 in their last 10, and have dropped to a tie with the Braves in first place in the NL East.

The Sox have designated Shingo Takatsu for assignment. Basically, the the team has 10 days to release or trade Takatsu. Kenny claims it had less to do with Takatsu himself and more to do with racist drunk Bobby Jenks:

‘’It’s more about Bobby Jenks than it is Shingo Takatsu,’’ general manager Ken Williams said. ‘’We just felt that at this time, with Ozzie being able to only work Shingo in situations that really weren’t late-game situations, that we’d be better off trying to maximize Bobby’s potential.”

I’m not huge fan of Jenks, but my hope is that he’s a very nice player. Whatever. It doesn’t really matter. Kenny had tried to trade Takatsu to Arizona or San Francisco, but neither offered any reasonable package. It’ll be interesting to see if either of those teams actually tries to grab him.

As much as I’m not in love with Jenks and I enjoy the idea of a side-arming Japanese guy in the Sox’ bullpen, I really like the way Kenny is handling this. Clearly, Takatsu’s salary ($2.5M) is a sunk cost and he’s not producing (5.97 ERA this year, with an ERA over 40 for the past week). Ozzie (to his credit) got real tired of him real quick this year. Enter Dustin Hermanson.

Takatsu did a nice job last year but the league wasn’t fooled this year. Kenny realized he had better alternatives and didn’t stick with Takatsu for nostalgia’s sake or any other stupid reason. Jenks is a better use of roster space, Luis Vizcaino is better use of roster space, nearly anyone is a better use of roster space. I’m glad the team isn’t simply looking at his salary and saying “We made an investment, we’re sticking with it!”

Takatsu’s peripherals (10.05 K/9) aren’t really horrible and there’s probably a good pitcher in there somewhere. But, a guy who couldn’t break paper with his fastball has little room for error. Giving up a 1.60 WHIP when the team average is 1.25 isn’t going to help you.

I hope Mr. Zero finds a new place, but Kenny did the right thing. For once.

Similar to two posts I recently put up, it’s time for a weekly look at things for you to read:

• The Sacramento Bee leads it’s baseball notes piece with a nice section on A.J. Pierzynski. The White Sox catcher is a prime example of the popular theory (one to which I subscribe) that good chemistry is only a three-game sweep away. Pierzynski was a “cancer” with the Giants, yet no one complains when the Sox are winning 70% of their games.

What makes the piece irritating is the Bee points out five contenders for the WS; The Angels, Cardinals, Red Sox, Braves and Yankees. Essentially, the five playoff teams other than the Sox. I know, if you’re doing a top five, someone has to drop off, but last time I checked (about five minutes ago) the Sox had the best record in the league. I don’t know who’d you take off, but the Sox have to be considered a contender at this point. Stranger things have happened.

• Similarly, Kevin Baxter examines the lack of respect the Sox have been getting. While it’s a pretty complimentary piece, Baxter compares the Sox with the Nationals (who aren’t for real, just check their Pythag record) and the Orioles (who aren’t even in first place). The Sox are, far and away, the best of the three and—hello?—have the best record in the game. I don’t normally play the “no respect” card, but it’s July 18. The Sox have a 12-game lead; they have the best record in MLB. The team is 30-5 against its division. This team is for real.

• Carlos Zamabano continues to entertain the hell out of me. Apparently, he went to the Real Madrid/Guadalajara Chivas soccer game Saturday and now fancies himself a soccer player. I guess he tried a goalie save with his bare hand and nearly gave Michael Barrett a coronary. In other Cub recaps, Zach Duke made the Cubs look silly Saturday. If the Cubs think themselves contenders, they’d better beat teams like Pittsburgh.

• Over at the Four-Letter’s Web site, baseball’s version of Chad Ford has a piece profiling Felix Pie. I noticed two things about this piece. The first is that Rogers isn’t a great journalist. One of the things they teach in j-school is to have at least two sources for any story. Rogers has one (West Tenn. manager Bobby Dickerson) and goes to him, over and over. Apparently, he couldn’t find one other person in the Cub organization that actually likes Pie.

The second point is something that excites me. As someone in the profession, I am excited for copy editors in Chicago who get to write headlines with Pie in it for the next little while. For example, the headline for this story is “Patterson gave Pie time to bake.” I expect some very good puns for his name from now on, especially since Pie means “foot” in Spanish. I expect to see these all sometime soon:

“Pie takes the cake”
“A sweet afternoon for Pie”
“Pie a puts his best foot forward”
“Pie kicks it into high gear”
“No Pie in the sky”

And so on. Something to look forward to, I guess.

ESPN.com is running a poll about each state. Today is Illinois.

Here’s the inherent problem with this survey: It is taken during baseball season. I understand that the Cubs are a very popular team nationwide, but in-state, the Bears should be the no. 1 team for Illinoisians. (I won’t say the Bulls even though they’ve won more championships than the rest of the teams combined in the past 35 years and had the greatest player ever to play the sport. Whatever. No one likes the NBA but me, Kelly and about 10 other guys.)

The Cubs are hugely popular (and lord knows I know the Sox aren’t even close to no. 1), but an Internet poll for ESPN.com users during baseball season is going to produce a certain result. Everyone likes the Bears; football is the most popular sport in the country. These few weeks in July are the only weeks of the year where football is on no one’s radar.

And it’s evident in the second-to-last question:

9) Favorite personality or historical figure?
Miles Davis (musician)
Walt Disney (animator)
Ernest Hemingway (author)
Charlton Heston (actor)
Quincy Jones (composer)
Bill Murray (actor)
Richard Pryor (comedian)
Ronald Reagan (president)
Oprah Winfrey (TV host)

Let’s see, you have (in order):
Arguably the greatest (or, at least, best-known) jazz trumpet player ever, a man who revolutionized film, one of America’s greatest authors, a silly actor best known as a gun-nut, a hugely successful producer, a hack actor who’s been in a ton of funny movies (who also happens to be the nation’s most visible Cub fan), the single greatest standup comedian to ever hold a mic, a recently deceased (albeit polarizing) president of the U.S. and one of the wealthiest women in the U.S.

And who’s the one everyone’s voting for? Billy stinking Murray. And it ain’t by a little. He’s leading by 30 percentage points over the next most popular figure, Ronald Reagan.

Look, I like Murray. I like him in the Wes Anderson movies. But, last time I checked, he’s not the greatest standup comedian ever. He didn’t revolutionize the way animation was presented. He wasn’t president.

Bill Murray didn’t produce “Thriller,” he lent his voice to Osmosis Jones. He didn’t record “Kind of Blue,” he was in “What about Bob?” He didn’t write “The Sun also Rises.”

He was the voice of “Garfield” in that stupid CGI remake.

ESPN screwed up with this one.

Once again, I’m trying to keep our readers from thinking about the ESPYs...

• If you were living under a rock or something, the AL won the All-Star Game, 7-5. The AL has won eight of the last nine, tying the other. In Chicago baseball news, Derrek Lee went 1-3 with a strikeout, Aramis “Grimace” Ramirez went 1-2 with a walk, Jon Garland pitched a scorless inning, Paul Konerko’s Growing Bald Spot struck out in his only at-bat and ChiPod came in as a defensive replacement. The story of the night for Sox fans was Mark Buehrle. The Sox ace pitched two innings, striking out three (including Derrek Lee). The win was hung on him, as Miguel Tejada hit a bomb in the bottom of the second.

• ESPN.com’s Page 2 is usually entertaining, but today has a nice piece by Batgirl, the Twins’ biggest fan and most popular blogger. Not much to say about it, but it is hugely entertaining and I suggest you read it.

• The Trib has pretty standard stuff today, but two stories caught my eye in a “Wow, must be All-Star Break time” way. The first is a story on Harry Caray was named the no. 1 baseball radio voice of all time by some XM Radio survey. While I’m not a Cub fan, I have many Harry memories and watched him a great deal on WGN when I was young. If you’re looking for a good read, check out “Where’s Harry?”, Steve Stone’s book of stories about Harry. It’s very entertaining.

• The second interesting piece from the Trib is a column by Phil Rogers suggesting the Sox trade for Kenny Rogers. Despite the fact that the Sox have no real need for a starter (last time I checked, they had three of the top six AL pitchers in VORP this year), why would the Rangers trade their best pitcher? They’re in the race in the West and probably don’t want to screw with that by trading the only guy who can pitch for them. Is Rogers becoming the Chad Ford of the baseball world, proposing outlandish trades and generally being stupid? Maybe.

• On the same note of columnists with time on their hands, Phil Arvia talked to Tony LaRussa about the Sox at the game. Apparently, LaRussa wishes the Sox the best:

“Ever since I left, they’ve always made me feel like I’m still part of the family, just that I’ve moved.”

That’s easy to say, considering the worst broadcaster on TV (non-Morgan division) dropped LaRussa like a bad habit back in 1986, and since then, LaRussa has had nothing but success. Man, I’m glad Harrelson was a GM, specifically the worst GM the Sox have ever had.

• Similarly, Mike Imrem writes about steroids in his column. He says steroid use is a non-issue now, thanks to Derrek Lee’s great first half, Bobby Abreu’s HR Derby performance and the alien that’s inhabiting Brian Roberts’ body. His methodology is stupid, his column is stupid and unfortunately, a lot of people have used this reasoning recently.

• The most outlandish of the bizarre local stories saved for the All-Star break is this piece in the Sun-Times. Check out the lede:

Love Popeyes chicken, Krispy Kremes, potato chips, pepperoni pizza, peanut butter and jelly sandwiches, Snickers, Oreos and Cheeseburger Hamburger Helper? Then you have a lot of calories and carbs in common with the Chicago White Sox.

A quick analogy: The All-Star break is to beat writers as garbage time (you know, 15-3 blowouts in May) is to broadcasters. They pull out any old story to fill the time. Similarly, the Sun-Times sports section just needs to get something, anything in the paper, even if it’s a story about the eating habits of the players and the spread in the clubhouse. Luckily, games start again tomorrow.

At the risk of making people want to watch the ESPYS, it’s nice to have something to read, in lieu of a lack of game stories. So, here are some links to interesting baseball stuff on the Web:

• For fans of the Cubs, in his latest column Peter Gammons mentions that the Cubs were going to call up Felix Pie before he got hurt. He would’ve replaced Handsome Corey. I know Taft finds Pie to be a symptom of the organization’s problems (he has no strike zone judgement, he’s toolsy, etc.), but Hendry remains high on him.

• For Sox fans, Tito Francona has tapped Mark Buehrle as the AL starter for the All-Star game. In a bizarre development, Tony LaRussa hates tradition and/or history and isn’t starting Roger Clemens. Instead, he’s going with his own guy, Chris Carpenter.

• Bobby Abreu won the HR Derby last night. Once again, a new record was set with 41 HR by Abreu (Why is a record set every year? Maybe MLB is doing something to the baseballs?), but it was in this bizarre format, wherein eight guys — each representing a country in the baseball World Cup thing — compete for, I don’t know, international bragging rights, maybe? I think they should do it like the dunk contest or three-point contest in the NBA; get the best guys. It doesn’t matter if they’re All-Stars. As I wrote in an e-mail to friends:

I wish they just took the top eight guys in HR in the league and let ‘em rip. You’d have to have Tejada and you’d certainly have to have Adam Dunn (even if he’s not an All-Star). I think they should do it like the 3-point contest or the dunk contest. Just get the best guys out there and let them swing.

I stand by that. Let Adam Dunn in. Let Miguel Tejada in. Shit, get Mark McGwire out of retirement if you need to. This format was ludicrous. Canada’s Jason Bay hit the same number of HR as I did last night: zero. I have a feeling he was there simply because of his nationality and that’s silly.

• On that note, Rob Neyer has a column in which he names the top ten sluggers in the game. His list is fine with me for the HR derby participants. As long as Pujols, Dunn and A-Rod are in it, all is well for me.

• With his selection to the All-Star team as the 32nd man, The ChiPod has become every feature writer’s new subject. The NY Times has a piece on him, as does the Seattle P-I and the Detroit News. While I don’t think he’s an All-Star, it’s nice to see some positive pub for a Sox guy.

• Finally, as a fan of Mike Carminati’s old “Joe Morgan Chat Days,” it’s good to see Morgan get roasted in this SF Weekly piece. It explains why so many informed outsiders (SABR/Stats analysts/whatever you want to call us) think Joe Morgan is wholly unacceptable as an announcer. He quotes Neyer, Bill James and Carminati as to why Morgan is such a bad analyst to most of us with a brain. Unfortunately, he keeps winning awards

The Chicago White Sox are 57-29, which is the best record in baseball. The Sox have the best ERA in the American League at 3.62, one of the best WHIP at 1.28.

All that goes out the window when the team plays Oakland. I used to think it was simply playing at the Coliseum, but it seems like this year, it’s everywhere.

Today, the Sox lost 9-8 in 11 innings to the Oakland Athletics, bringing the Sox’ record to 2-7 against Oakland this year. The Sox’ ERA is nearly a run higher (4.48) against Oakland as opposed to the rest of the league, while the staff’s WHIP is a bit higher (1.52). With the loss, the Sox match their longest losing streak (three games) and got swept in their second series of the year (the Indians swept the Sox earlier in the year). Luckily, the team is done with Oakland for the year.

My theory is that the Sox’ pitching staff throws strikes and Oakland does a good job at hitting strikes. Unlike, say, the Tigers, Oakland’s offensive approach is largely based on patience (sespite a 10th-ranked BA, Oakland is ranked third in the league in OBP) and the Sox had trouble with that. The Sox walked eight guys today and four yesterday. Jon Garland and co. only walked one guy Friday, but the offense stranded seven (!) runners.

The Sox go into the All-Star break, according to the BP.com odd report, with a 87.65450% chance of making the playoffs. You can’t take that away and those 57 wins aren’t going anywhere. Time for Ozzie to regroup the team and get them playing like a first-place team again.

ESPN.com’s Wayne Drehs made it his mission to track down Steve Bartman. Amazingly, he managed to do so, and told Bartman what someone should have told him a long time ago:

“I want to apologize. I want to genuinely apologize, on behalf of all Cub fans, for all the crap you’ve had to deal with. I think it could have been any one of us. And I truly wish you the best. I truly hope you’re able to move on and live a happy and prosperous life.”

Well said, Mr. Drehs.

After losing their seventh and eighth straight games last night, the Cubs shook things up by sending down Handsome Corey Patterson and Jason “Blanche” Dubois. Both players have been disappointments this season, and Patterson has been nothing short of a total catastrophe.

I’ll get to Handsome Corey in a minute, but first I want to take a look at Jason Dubois. He had a nice first two months of the season, hitting .258/.303/.516 with 5 homers in 93 at-bats. Dubois didn’t really consistently start until mid-May. After he did start consistently, he struggled, hitting just .224/.268/.403 for the month of May. Dubois’ struggles continued through June (his all-SLG, no-OBP OPS had dropped to .785 by June 19, the date that he appears to have fallen out of favor with Dusty Baker), and when Todd Hollandsworth got hot, it became apparent that he was going to get most of the starts in left field.

The problem I have with sending down Dubois is that he has proven that he can rake at AAA. Indeed, he has proven that he can rake, at least for a short time, at the major league level. After he lost the starting job on June 19, Dusty Baker basically did not give Dubois a chance to prove that he could still hit at the major league level in a part time role. After going 0-for-3 on June 19, Baker gave Dubois just 18 at-bats over the course of the next three weeks, which apparently was enough to determine that Dubois couldn’t handle the fourth outfielder role and had to be sent down. I understand that the Cubs feel they need to shake things up if they want to make a run at the wild card. But sending down a 26 year-old rookie who slugged .600 at AAA last year in favor of another rookie who has never seen a big league pitch in his life… well, I’m skeptical. That said, I’m not terribly disappointed the Cubs are sending down Dubois because the rookies the Cubs are calling up (are you sitting down?) can actually draw walks, which Dubois cannot do, and the Cubs need men on base far more than slugging right now.

While I’m a bit skeptical about sending down Dubois, Corey Patterson has looked lost at the plate since the end of May; he wasn’t showing any signs of working out his slump in the majors, so perhaps sending him down was the best move. Patterson was hitting .232/.270/.379, good for a -1.4 VORP, the worst VORP among regular NL Centerfielders. If you’re on a team that’s supposed to be contending, an everyday player with a negative VORP is going to be very problematic unless the rest of the team is raking.

At the end of May, Corey Patterson was hitting a very Corey Pattersonesque .278/.310/.459 with 10 homers. He was on pace to hit 30 homers and have a pretty nice season for an NL center fielder. Then June came along, and a giant nest of termites got into Corey’s bat supply. That must have been it, right? He hit .157/.211/.245 for the month with 7 walks and 33 strikeouts. In July’s small sample, he was even worse, going 3-for-18 (.167/.167/.278). He has not hit a home run since June 26, and and his last home run before that was May 27.

Instead of going to Iowa and getting a Ben Grieve or a Trenidad Hubbard to replace Patterson and Dubois, the Cubs are reaching down to their AA club in West Tennessee to bring up a couple of corner outfielders that are having monster seasons for the DiamondJaxx.

Their replacements will be Matt Murton, LF, 23, who was acquired in the Nomar Garciaparra deal, and Adam Greenberg, RF/CF, 24, who was drafted by the Cubs in 2002. Murton made the Florida State League All-Star Team last year, hitting .301/.372/.452 at Sarasota before getting traded. Murton and Greenberg are both speedy outfielders with decent pop (Murton moreso than Greenberg). As I mentioned earlier, both can actually draw walks. Here are their numbers so far from 2005:

Matt Murton (bats right-handed):
.342/.403/.498 in 313 ABs. 17 2B, 4 3B, 8 HR, 29 BB, 42 SO, 18 SB, 5 CS

Adam Greenberg (bats left-handed):
.275/.384/.418 in 244 ABs. 9 2B, 7 3B, 4 HR, 41 BB, 53 SO, 12 SB, 3 CS

As I look at those on-base numbers, I almost can’t believe that these guys are Cubs prospects, and that the Cubs have called them up and are going to let them play. Murton has a 0.69 BB:K ratio. Greenberg has a 0.77 BB:K ratio. There are only four Cubs players currently on the roster with ratios close to or better than that, and they are, unsurprisingly, the players with the best OBPs on the team: Todd Walker (0.86), Jerry Hairston (0.70), Aramis Ramirez (0.67) and Derrek Lee (0.66).

That’s not to say that Murton and Greenberg will keep having such good OBPs or BB:K ratios at the big league level (they almost certainly won’t), but the promotion seems to say that the Cubs have recognized that they have a problem striking out too much and not drawing enough walks (in case you were wondering, Corey Patterson had a BB:K ratio of 0.19. Jason Dubois was even worse, at 0.14). The Cubs have drawn 31 fewer walks than any other NL team (Houston) and have the worst BB:K ratio in the league, too.

Is it possible that the Cubs have finally seen the light? Are they finally realizing that along with slugging, it is necessary to get men on base before the slugging occurs? Time will tell. Hopefully Dusty Baker will give Murton and Greenberg a chance to play (read: MORE than 50 at-bats) and see if they can adjust to big league pitching. If they can, the Cubs will have a couple of outfielders who can get on base, which is something they need desperately right now. In addition, it would allow Baker to move Jerry Hairston out of center field and back to the super-utility role, which would help strengthen the bench.