TruffleShuffle

slap in the face. They never were major leaguers, and making them a major leaguer for a day doesn't change that. They were Negro League players, and they should be proud of that.... and I'm sure many of them know in their hearts that if not for a racist policy, they'd have been major leaguers when they really were ballplayers. If you really want to make amends, give them a big bag of money. I guess banning white people from the game for a generation would also even things up.

Good idea, but Roberts has actually been very good this year, and is popular in Baltimore. They'd be mega-pissed if they traded Roberts for the worthless Jones, a guy who could've been picked up by anyone a few months ago, and a "pitching prospect." Unless that prospect is named Rich Hill, I'm guessing Baltimore would laugh and hang up.

Given that he is a converted infielder, shouldn't it help that he has less mileage on his arm? helps a little, but the bigger worry is that it's a high-effort delivery. Still, not everyone is going to have a pretty delivery.

I'm more worried about our first baseman who can't hit home runs. that is troubling, but dlee looks like he is in great shape...actually...i am going to go out on a limb here and say that in the second half of the season he is really going to start silencing the loss of power chants He is probably in great shape, but if he's lost power in his swing because of the broken wrist, he can do all the crunches and pushups he wants, it's not gonna help.

I'm more worried about our first baseman who can't hit home runs.

he doesn't have a decent third pitch, and I remember BA talking about him as a potential closer at least two or three handbooks ago. His command has always been marginal, and this can get him in more trouble - both in terms of poor performance and pitch counts - as a starter. To me, his skillset right now screams reliever. Plus Gallagher and Atkins profile as future starters, and Hill, Marshall, Lilly and Marquis should be here for at least the next three years. I like Marmol right where he is.

i wish all our players looked as terrible as aramis does

a lot of folks on this board are way too gullible. I've got some beachfront property in Arizona for you guys.

a vote for USSoccer is a vote for rex grossman

by the way, the only reason that dotel wasn't a closer is because they already had wagner. His stuff and control were certainly closer-worthy.

shhhh don't tell soriano12 that

full no trade clause too

this team is so lame. The big surprises that Lou hints at end up being elementary decisions (like fontenot at 2B and DeRosa in RF against a tough LHP), and the crazy roster moves end up being a back-of-the-bullpen guy who sits around for a couple of weeks and ends up going back down. I'm not holding my breath for them to get rid of the scrub trifecta, because that actually would be interesting.

good closer. that was easy!

fontenot plays 2B, derosa plays RF. wow, really exciting.

i don't even consider wood a member of the cubs any more

the biggest threat to the brewers is the cardinals

It was more a tactless choice of words. Nothing horribly offensive was said, nor were any curse words used. It was, however, cubs.com-esque. The mods did him a favor as otherwise this thread would have ended up two or three pages of responses that basically said "what a lousy insulting way to present your argument" in one form or another. That's what I was going to post when the thread mysteriously vanished. Props to the moderators for keeping this site free of silly name calling. But on the actual point made, I agree. Dusty would never have played Theriot, Fontenot, and would have only very reluctantly played Pie. I don't know what Murton did to piss Lou off, but whatever the reason, I don't think it's because Lou has intense favoritism for veteran players. With Dusty, we'd have had Jones and Izturis every day from opening day. Soriano would probably never have even been tried at CF, and Pagan would probably be starting at least half the games in CF, assuming that is, that Dusty wouldn't have convinced Hendry to acquire Steve Finley or Darin Erstad in the offseason. Hill and Marshall would be throwing 120 pitches when they were pitching well. We would be hearing excuses about how the weather in April, the fans booing Jones, or the injury to Prior being the reason we were losing. Need I go on? i'll repeat my point again. Lou has proven that he's not Dusty Baker, and that he can get a $100M payroll team within four games of .500. I remain underwhelmed. Three months worth W-L record is not really a terribly great way to judge a manager, in my opinion. Also, his $100M dollar team includes... Izturis making 4M, Jones making 5M, Eyre making 3.5M, Howry making 4M, Prior making 3.5M, Wood making 2M, Blanco making 2M, Wade Miller making 2M, and Dempster making 5M. That's 31M on guys that are worthless because they stink and could be replaced by almost anybody (Izturis/Eyre/Jones/Howry/Blanco), are perpetually injured and not playing (Prior/Wood/Miller), or overpaid and easily replaced (Dempster). Now, a manager with this record and a 68M payroll doesn't sound as bad. If you leave Dempster off, since he's both healthy and pitching decently, it's still only a 73M payroll team. Hendry and Dusty made this mess. Lou is trying to fix it, but three months isn't going to be long enough. every team has guys who are salary wastes due to lack of production or injuries. This team should be better than they have been. Lou's ADD method of running the team (constantly switching lineups, inane relief substitutions) isn't working out great, IMO.

What about Shapiro's right hand man Antoinetti? That is who I am died hard on for next Cubs GM. he's probably good, but given that the cubs are one of the higher-profile teams in the game, i'm hoping they can get a guy who's been a GM in the past

btw i think raisin really left this open because he's still hoping for that whore-off

There are certainly a handful of guys I'd like over Jocketty - I'd take Schuerholtz, Beane, Shapiro, maybe Kevin Towers and Doug Melvin. Unfortunately, I don't see any of those guys going anywhere.

I'm giving about 90/10 odds that this is a bunch of noise over nothing, and tomorrow, next week and next month, the three bums who need to go (Izturis, Eyre, Jones) are still wasting space on this team. Nobody wants these losers, nobody's going to give up a "decent prospect" for them, and Jim Hendry isn't going to eat the bulk of their salaries to make them be gone.

that falls in the realism of "can we get anything for jones/eyre/izturis"

It was more a tactless choice of words. Nothing horribly offensive was said, nor were any curse words used. It was, however, cubs.com-esque. The mods did him a favor as otherwise this thread would have ended up two or three pages of responses that basically said "what a lousy insulting way to present your argument" in one form or another. That's what I was going to post when the thread mysteriously vanished. Props to the moderators for keeping this site free of silly name calling. But on the actual point made, I agree. Dusty would never have played Theriot, Fontenot, and would have only very reluctantly played Pie. I don't know what Murton did to piss Lou off, but whatever the reason, I don't think it's because Lou has intense favoritism for veteran players. With Dusty, we'd have had Jones and Izturis every day from opening day. Soriano would probably never have even been tried at CF, and Pagan would probably be starting at least half the games in CF, assuming that is, that Dusty wouldn't have convinced Hendry to acquire Steve Finley or Darin Erstad in the offseason. Hill and Marshall would be throwing 120 pitches when they were pitching well. We would be hearing excuses about how the weather in April, the fans booing Jones, or the injury to Prior being the reason we were losing. Need I go on? i'll repeat my point again. Lou has proven that he's not Dusty Baker, and that he can get a $100M payroll team within four games of .500. I remain underwhelmed.

No way, he'd get sued for all he's got, and possibly face jail time. It's one thing to get pissed off over a few million dollars in overpayment for a draftee, but to counteract that with screwing around with something that'll amount to hundreds of millions, if not a billion dollars, would not fly. He needs to approve the sale along with the owners, he could at least threaten not to: Q: Ryan from Houston asks: What exactly happens to teams that sign guys for over slot value? Do they get punished or something by MLB? A: Jim Callis: You can't be directly punished if you go through the mandated process. If you want to sign a guy over slot, you have to tell MLB. You have to explain why it's a good move. Then MLB, much like David Spade in those phone commericals, says "NO!" Then you say you want to do it anyway, and MLB tries to lean on your owner. Now, if you're a small-revenue owner and you're hoping Bud Selig will give you an All-Star game or some discretionary funds, you might fall in line. Otherwise, MLB can't really do much to you. bottom line, there's no excuse for a big market team that really likes a player to draft him and sign him above slot money, and then tell the commissioner's office to eff off. MLB is such a joke... yeah spending an extra half million is a bigger threat to baseball than guys like Jason Marquis getting $7M per for 3 years.