4/7 GT Cubs(Dempster) vs. Braves(Jurjens) 6:10 CST CSN+

[Wilson A2000]

They money didn't bother me as much as the years did. If it was 4 or 5 years, I'd have no issues. But he's got 5 years left on it including this one, and there is no way that he'll put up numbers even worthy of being in a ML lineup that long.

 

I see your point, but you weren't getting Soriano offering a contract for 4-5 years. I think Soriano will still have numbers worthy of starting, but worthy of starting on a bad team as the worst outfielder. Hendry betted that the Cubs would win it all in 80 or 09 and the contract wouldn't matter because the fans would be on cloud 9. Just didn't happen.

 

How could he make that sort of bet with the downside of the risk being a horrible player for 3-4 seasons? Remember they signed him coming off an under 70 win season and had a ton of holes. Signing Soriano alone wasn't putting the team over the top. It was obvious to everyone in baseball that Soriano, while a good player, was not a franchise player. Never was and never will be. People on this board were not thrilled with the signing before they even know how many years he got. So not only did they sign Soriano to a ridiculous annual salary, but they signed him to that salary until he was 38 years old. Hendry did it to make a splash and save his job. We rip on Hendry all the time for dumb moves, but Hendry had to know at the time what he was getting with Soriano, and that was a complimentary player, not a superstar. If we didn't have a GM trying to save his job, Soriano is not a Chicago Cub.

 

I thought Soriano was a superstar before he got here. He was putting up arguably superstar numbers. I thought he was going to put the Cubs over the top cause the 70 win team played a lot worse than they really were. The Cubs haven't won a WS in 103 years. Dusty overused the pitchers cause he wanted to bring a WS to Chicago. He had to gamble. So did Jim. Neither gamble worked.

Edited April 8, 2010 by Wilson A2000

[David]

or i said that your first premise is extremely flawed, at best...

 

forgive me if i don't want to count us out with potentially 4 very solid starters and an offense whose key members mostly made up a team that led the league in runs two years ago and underachieved greatly last year.

 

You say underachieved. I say age began to catch up with them.

 

 

Outside of Soriano, who can you really say that about?

 

Derrick Lee had probably his second best season... the downgrade in performance from 3B was a result of Ramirez being out two or three months.

[CubbieBum]

Sure wish I could have seen it. [expletive] my dorm/csn/dish network/mlb blackout rules/justin.tv/ustream/whoever is to blame.

Call Dish and tell them they've screwed up their blackout. they're the ones who actually perform the blackout.

 

Time Warner was screwed up for me on Opening Day and they got it fixed about 20 minutes after I called so you should call Dish.

[UMFan83]

Can we please just call up Castro. to hell with his arb clock. Im sick of this [expletive].

 

well, we gave him 11 innings, time to pull the plug.

 

No we gave him 3 seasons and 11 innings. I'm not guaranteeing that Castro is better from day 1 or anything, but for a team that seems to have a weak offense, you need someone with more range at SS. Also, Theriot's high average, no power hitting abilities were somewhat OK when the offense lead the league in OBP and runs scored, but in an offense with potentially 3-4 black holes in it (or possibly only 1 or 2) we need to start considering other options if there is a better one out there.

 

the cubs aren't good, what's the point of killing an arbitration year and rushing a guy up to the big leagues when he is, at best, a very marginal upgrade from the current shortstop over the next two months? people complain that we rushed ronny cedeno; calling castro up now would be way more silly than anything the cubs did with ronny.

 

Castro won't put us over the top, but giving up on the season on April 7th is a little premature. Especially when you consider that if you are even sniffing the race, the Cubs are probably upgrading in July. I don't care about arb years, since when do the Cubs have difficulty affording/resigning their star players when they leave their arb years. Teams like the Rays do that because they have a strict payroll. With the Cubs, if you can avoid an extra arb year, do it but it shouldn't be written in stone that it has to be that way.

[Outshined_One]

or i said that your first premise is extremely flawed, at best...

 

forgive me if i don't want to count us out with potentially 4 very solid starters and an offense whose key members mostly made up a team that led the league in runs two years ago and underachieved greatly last year.

 

You say underachieved. I say age began to catch up with them.

 

 

Outside of Soriano, who can you really say that about?

 

Derrick Lee had probably his second best season... the downgrade in performance from 3B was a result of Ramirez being out two or three months.

 

Derrick Lee sounds like an awesome combination of Derrek Lee and Derrick Rose.

[TruffleShuffle]

or i said that your first premise is extremely flawed, at best...

 

forgive me if i don't want to count us out with potentially 4 very solid starters and an offense whose key members mostly made up a team that led the league in runs two years ago and underachieved greatly last year (resulting in an 83 win season).

 

they overachieved pretty greatly in 2008 and most of the key parts are two years older.

 

the offense isn't awful but it's not good either. i don't think the cubs are bottom-of-the-barrel bad but i have a hard time seeing them be as good as the cardinals and the third best out of the braves/phillies/dodgers/rockies/giants.

[David]

the cubs aren't good, what's the point of killing an arbitration year and rushing a guy up to the big leagues when he is, at best, a very marginal upgrade from the current shortstop over the next two months? people complain that we rushed ronny cedeno; calling castro up now would be way more silly than anything the cubs did with ronny.

 

 

well, i'm glad that's that.

 

 

guess i'll tune in next year.

 

Will you people stop with this [expletive]? It's seriously old. He didn't say "don't watch" or "why are you wasting your time?" He just expressed his opinion on the ballclub. People read way too much into things around here.

 

you think you're "woe-is-me-the-cub-fan" schtick isn't a seriously old?

[Hairyducked Idiot]

or i said that your first premise is extremely flawed, at best...

 

forgive me if i don't want to count us out with potentially 4 very solid starters and an offense whose key members mostly made up a team that led the league in runs two years ago and underachieved greatly last year.

 

You say underachieved. I say age began to catch up with them.

 

 

Outside of Soriano, who can you really say that about?

 

Derrick Lee had probably his second best season... the downgrade in performance from 3B was a result of Ramirez being out two or three months.

 

Chances of injury begin to increase with age.

[Andy]

Seems like we are constantly down 0-2. Jurrjens is plugging the strike zone.

[gflore34]

Who couldn't see this coming from 2 light years away - the obligatory low scoring one run loss, Cubs actually look like a professional baseball team, play well yet, still manage to lose - classic.

[Hairyducked Idiot]

you think you're "woe-is-me-the-cub-fan" schtick isn't a seriously old?

 

"holier than thou i don't get upset in game threads so you shouldn't" is fresh and new and interesting.

[David]

or i said that your first premise is extremely flawed, at best...

 

forgive me if i don't want to count us out with potentially 4 very solid starters and an offense whose key members mostly made up a team that led the league in runs two years ago and underachieved greatly last year (resulting in an 83 win season).

 

they overachieved pretty greatly in 2008 and most of the key parts are two years older.

 

the offense isn't awful but it's not good either. i don't think the cubs are bottom-of-the-barrel bad but i have a hard time seeing them be as good as the cardinals and the third best out of the braves/phillies/dodgers/rockies/giants.

 

 

i tend to agree, but even if you put them somewhere between 08 and 09, i'm glad to take my chances with this team and I like the starting rotation a lot (with Lilly). the offense might not be great, but it can easily be good enough.

[David]

you think you're "woe-is-me-the-cub-fan" schtick isn't a seriously old?

 

"holier than thou i don't get upset in game threads so you shouldn't" is fresh and new and interesting.

 

 

i wasn't the one making accusations of things getting old.

[Outshined_One]

Sweet AB.

[erik316wttn]

Ok, they score their leadoff walks. Let's score ours.

[Andy]

Very nice, Byrd.

[gflore34]

Soriano 6-4-3 coming up, you can feel it.

[TruffleShuffle]

Castro won't put us over the top, but giving up on the season on April 7th is a little premature. Especially when you consider that if you are even sniffing the race, the Cubs are probably upgrading in July. I don't care about arb years, since when do the Cubs have difficulty affording/resigning their star players when they leave their arb years. Teams like the Rays do that because they have a strict payroll. With the Cubs, if you can avoid an extra arb year, do it but it shouldn't be written in stone that it has to be that way.

 

my opinion about the cubs is pretty much immaterial. there's no reason to rush a 20 year old who doesn't walk and has no power to replace a guy who is adequate. wait 2 months and don't burn an arbitration year on a guy who will be getting rushed and may not even be as good as the guy currently playing shortstop. if this was mark prior or jason heyward then sure, call him up. but he's not nearly that good calling him up now may well harm his future development.

[David]

i really want to like byrd so i hope he keeps this up... guy seems cool as hell from what i've seen/heard of him.

[Hairyducked Idiot]

I hope we start out 0-14 or worse like 1997. The game threads will be so much fun.

[erik316wttn]

Why do they keep sitting on the 2-0 pitch? Geez. Swing the damn bat if it's a fastball!

[UMFan83]

They money didn't bother me as much as the years did. If it was 4 or 5 years, I'd have no issues. But he's got 5 years left on it including this one, and there is no way that he'll put up numbers even worthy of being in a ML lineup that long.

 

I see your point, but you weren't getting Soriano offering a contract for 4-5 years. I think Soriano will still have numbers worthy of starting, but worthy of starting on a bad team as the worst outfielder. Hendry betted that the Cubs would win it all in 80 or 09 and the contract wouldn't matter because the fans would be on cloud 9. Just didn't happen.

 

How could he make that sort of bet with the downside of the risk being a horrible player for 3-4 seasons? Remember they signed him coming off an under 70 win season and had a ton of holes. Signing Soriano alone wasn't putting the team over the top. It was obvious to everyone in baseball that Soriano, while a good player, was not a franchise player. Never was and never will be. People on this board were not thrilled with the signing before they even know how many years he got. So not only did they sign Soriano to a ridiculous annual salary, but they signed him to that salary until he was 38 years old. Hendry did it to make a splash and save his job. We rip on Hendry all the time for dumb moves, but Hendry had to know at the time what he was getting with Soriano, and that was a complimentary player, not a superstar. If we didn't have a GM trying to save his job, Soriano is not a Chicago Cub.

 

I thought Soriano was a superstar before he got here. He was putting up arguably superstar numbers. I thought he was going to put the Cubs over the top cause the 70 win team played a lot worse than they really were. The Cubs haven't won a WS in 103 years. Dusty overused the pitchers cause he wanted to bring a WS to Chicago. He had to gamble. So did Jim. Neither gamble worked.

 

You thought he was putting up superstar numbers before coming here? He had one season with a +.900 OPS in his career, the year before he came here when it was just .910. He was such a butcher at 2B that he was randomly thrown into LF before the 2006 season because that's where he was going to hurt the team the least there. He did two things very well, which was hit for power and stealing bases. At age 30, you can't sign someone expecting them to steal a lot of bases over the years. He was not at all a superstar, he was a very good player with significant holes to his game.

[erik316wttn]

Soriano 6-4-3 coming up, you can feel it.

 

Almost.

[OleMissCub]

umpire showing us mercy

[David]

i'm pretty sure we got lucky on that call