Do you remember where you were on July 31, 2004? Of course you do. The reason you remember is that was the day the Cubs acted like a real baseball organization and traded for a superstar. Not a washed up superstar, but one who was only 31 years old, played the position the Cubs were weakest at and the trade cost them pretty much nothing.

You were giddy. You had dreams of another run through the National League playoffs.

And you, and I, were wrong. Dead wrong.

From Dusty Baker’s debut until the deadline day trade for Nomar Garciaparra his Cubs were 144-122 (.541), since that day they have gone 104-98 (.514). Hardly the shot in the arm we all assumed Nomar was going to be.

Part of the problem, of course, is that while Nomar’s age might still be within the ambiguous “prime” we spoke of, his body hasn’t been. He’s played in only 77 of the 202 games, leaving shortstop in the hands of Neifi Perez, Enrique Wilson, Ramon Martinez, and Ronny Cedeno.

Nomar’s injury isn’t the only reason the Cubs have tied an anchor around their waist and gone swimming since July 31, 2004, but it’s one of the big reasons.

When the Cubs signed Nomar to a one-year, eight million dollar deal with incentives that could have earned him three million dollars more, you figured it was a great deal for the Cubs. If Nomar was healthy, he was going to return to the Hall of Fame form he played at for a decade in Boston. If he wasn’t, well, the Cubs went 144-122 with Alex Gonzalez, Rey Ordonez, Ramon Martinez and even Damian Jackson over there. It was worth the risk.

But even the worst case scenario wouldn’t have led you to believe that Nomar would play in only 34 of the Cubs’ first 144 games of 2005, right?

So here they are. The offseason approaches. Their offense is a league-wide joke, and they have to make another decision on Nomar.

You’re tempted to just cut bait. Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, shame on me, right?

But on a Cubs’ team with two excellent hitters, and not much else, can you really afford to just blithely cut ties with a guy who has hit .333 with power since coming off the DL in early August? Not only has Nomar hit, he’s voluntarily changed positions, which has helped numb the pain of losing E-ramis to the eventual muscle pull he seems to enjoy every summer.

So you look at Nomar’s numbers since his return from groin surgery (that hurts to type, much less to have), and you’re optimistic.

34 games
102 at bats
34 hits
.333 average
.369 on base
.578 slugging
.947 OPS
nine strikeouts

It’s impressive, regardless of what position he’s at.

To put his .947 OPS in perspective, if he had done that all season, it would rank him eighth in the National League and the guys in front of him are no slouches:
Derrek Lee
Albert Pujols
Andruw Jones
Miguel Cabrera
Carlos Delgado
Jason Bay
Bob Stoops Morgan Ensberg

You’ve heard of them.

It would, it seems, be nice to have a 3-4-5 next season, in some order of Derrek Lee, E-ramis and Nomar. E-ramis’ OPS puts him 11th in the National League, Lee’s is first. That’d be nice.

However. Something you can’t discout is that the .947 OPS convieniently ignores his awful start to the season. Before he got hurt in mid-April he had 51 mostly unproductive at bats. He was, presumably, healthy. Though we now know that he was struggling with an abdominal injury that they fixed during his surgery. Bad ab or not, Nomar started the year 8-51 (.157) with an OPS so bad (.404) that Neifi Perez could openly mock it.

Overall, his OPS is .765 for the season.

That’s a far piece from eighth in the NL. It’s 45th. And while it’s ahead of the $119 million man, Carlos Beltran (.759), it’s behind current and former Cubs’ outfielders Jeromy Burnitz (.768) and Matt Lawton (.777).

Is it muddy enough for you yet?

Let’s, instead of being optimistic, just be partially optimistic. Nomar was the best hitter in the Cactus League (though Hank White was named Cactus League MVP) and until Peter Gammons cursed him by picking him for NL MVP (really, he did), it looked like Nomar was going to go on a salary drive for the ages.

The only surprise in his productive return hasn’t been that he’s hitting, but that he’s hitting this well. He’s been great at the plate. So the temptation is to take another flyer on him. Given the state of the free agent class (not good), you not only could do worse if you let him go, you probably will do exactly that. Worse.

But where do you put Nomar? The temptation is to tape bubblewrap to his body and hide him in the clubhouse where he can’t get hurt. But prudence says you need to find a position for him.

Early in the year he wasn’t exactly Ozzie Smith at shortstop. His range was noticeably absent and he even had throwing problems. When he came back, his range was predictably bad, given that his groin muscle is still growing back on his pelvis (guh). His fielding percentage at short for the season is .939. That’s bad. That’s six errors in 98 chances. That’s a 30 error, plus, pace.

So he went to third base, partly because the combination of a weakened abdominal area and a Julian Tavarez plunk on the small of his back had given him back spasms, and partly because E-ramis went face down running to first base one day. It was a noble gesture. Cal Ripken Jr. only moved to third after much cajoling and an entire offseason. Alex Rodriguez did it, but he had all of spring training to learn it. Nomar just moved over about 30 feet and started playing.

He’s been…well, he’s no Steve Buchele.

Nomar’s third base fielding percentage is a tragic .867 (four errors in his first 30 chances). Over a full season, that’s what, forty errors? Maybe more?

But his performance at third isn’t important. Really, it’s not. The Cubs aren’t going to launch E-ramis, given his age and the fact he can mash and the fact that he’s got a nice, not too expensive contract. What’s important about Nomar’s willingness to change positions on the fly is that it happened at all.

The logical place for Nomar to go is the outfield. He’s never been an orthodox shortstop. He throws sidearmed and on the run, but he’s got a cannon. He’s got an arm that might not rival Rafael Furcal or the ghost of Shawon Dunston, but it’s not that far off. When he was healthy, he had extraordinary range chasing pop-ups. Nomar’s an athlete. A great athlete.

It would take him about half a spring training to learn to play the outfield well enough to do it every day. It would take much of the wear and tear off his body, and though there’s always the danger of him running through the ivy and the bricks and dying, that’s a risk the Cubs should be willing to take.

In his always lame “Ask Paul” column last week, Paul Sullivan quickly dismissed the idea of Nomar moving from shortstop to the outfield because he said Nomar is “too young.”

Too young? How many years does Paul think Nomar has left? If it’s less than ten (and it’s five less than that, at the most), he’s nowhere near too young.

Robin Yount is in the Hall of Fame and how old was he when he scrapped shortstop altogether and moved to center field?

I’ll tell you. He was 29.

Yount, of course, was 18 when he broke in with the Brewers so he played plenty of games at short. But he made a seamless transition to the outfield. The reason? He was still athletic enough to do it.

Ernie Banks was 30 the last time he played shortstop for the Cubs.

If given his choice, of course Nomar wants to play shortstop. It’s part of his identity. He’s not just a great hitter. His value has always been enhanced by the fact that he puts up those numbers at shortstop. But his body has already told him it’s time to find a less demanding home.

In the offseason, several teams will offer Nomar a chance to play second base for them. That seems the most logical place to move a shortstop when he starts to slow down. But given the nature of his injuries (achilles, back, groin), he’s probably better suited to avoid the twisting and jumping that are even more necessary at second than they are at short.

If you sign Nomar to play second, you’re going to be sending his checks to a physical rehab facility for much of the season again.

Nomar is a career .321 hitter with a career OPS of .914, which for a shortstop is sick. But it’s pretty darn sick for an outfielder, too. Of course he’s in his declining years. But he’s going to be able to hit a lot longer than he’s going to be able to play infield.

If you look at the Cubs’ roster right now, they have five guys (leaving Ronny Cedeno out of the discussion for a second) who project to be above average hitters in 2006. Lee, Ramirez, Nomar, Michael Barrett and Matt Murton.

Murton’s a story for another day, given the shoddy, downright criminal treatment he receives from Dusty Baker. Here’s a guy who is perceived to be a Judy, slap hitting outfielder ill-suited for a corner outfield spot, yet he somehow has “slapped” his way to a .545 slugging percentage and a .961 OPS. The kid can hit. He’s hit at every level he’s ever been at and presumably, he’s at the highest level right now.

So what is a reasonable long-term plan for the Cubs regarding Nomar?

They should bring Nomar to spring training with the idea that he’s got another chance to win the shortstop position.

Oh god man, are you daft?

The reason is simple. If he’s able to recover some of his lost range through the continued healing and strengthening of his groin (and really, who doesn’t enjoy giving their groin a workout?), the position at which he has the most value at is shortstop. A .914 (his career) OPS is worth more at short than it is in the outfield. Simply put, not too many shortstops can do that. While the Matt Murtons of the world can do it in left. That doesn’t mean it’s not good, it just means if you had your choice of Nomar at short or in left, you’d take short.

Now, however, you have to be realistic about it. If he shows up at spring training and every hard hit grounder between short and third is being thrown back to the infield by the leftfielder, well, then that leftfielder should be Nomar. You want him to be able to handle the defensive aspects of the position. If he can’t? Then he can’t play the position anymore, regardless of how well he can hit.

So midway through spring training you have to make a determination. Is he a shortstop or an outfielder? Now, Dusty Baker cannot be trusted with this decision, since he’d put Nomar on a gurney and have him play short that way if he could. (And he’d have Neifi play second and lead off.) But no matter who makes the decision, somebody has to.

What do you pay him? You pay him basically what you were prepared to pay him this year. Eight million bucks with incentives. However, if you’re up front with him about potentially moving him to the outfield, you’ll have to give him a two-year deal. The only way it makes sense for Nomar to sign a one year deal is if he thinks he can somehow put together one healthy year at short and then trick some dopes into giving him one last three year deal. But if he agrees to a potential outfield move, you give him a second year.

If another team offers him three years to move to second? Well, you tell Nomar to go sign it. And you hope they are the Cardinals. (But they’ll be the Mets.)

In the meantime, I have one more suggestion for the Cubs. If they want a centerfielder to bat lefthanded and hit .218 with a stupefying .255 on base average, all they have to do is ask Murton to bat lefty the rest of the year. There’s no way he would do worse than Corey’s doing right now.

In fact, has anybody ever wondered if Corey might be hitting from the wrong side? He throws righthanded. Maybe he ought to be batting that way, too?