Murton Wins Cubs Batting Title

We here at the Saloon salute Thunder Matt Murton for becoming the Cubs 2006 batting champ. While Michael Barrett probably would've been the batting leader had he stayed healthy and had enough at bats, Murton's .297 was the top on the team. Hopefully his second half success translates in seeing more of Thunder Matt in left field next season and hopefully batting higher up in the lineup (2nd wouldn't be bad). In fact here's my dream lineup for next season.

Ryan Theriot - 2B
Matt Murton - LF
Vernon Wells - CF
Derrek Lee - 1B
Aramis Ramirez - 3B
Jacque Jones - RF
Michael Barrett - C
Cesar Izturis - SS

Of course the two big hurdles in achieving that is 1) Convincing A-Ram not to opt out of his contract and head to greener pastures in Anaheim or elsewhere, and 2) Drive a large enough dumptruck full of money to Vernon Wells' house.

The pitching situation is rather iffy and it'd be nice to see a few veterans signed to bolster the rotation. Right now you figure their rotation for next season would go as such: Zambrano, Hill, Prior, Marshall, Miller. Also the bullpen needs some work. Eyre and Howry are good to have but I can't imagine another year of Dempster closing like he did this year. Howry could possibly close, but he's probably better served as a setup guy. I'll be interested to see if Wood can possibly be transitioned into a closer.

That's all for now. Only 25 minutes until we learn the final fate of the Dusty Era.