TruffleShuffle

i can't say that irritable bowel syndrome is something i'd ever like to experience.

one run might be enough

little league teams use more common sense on the basepaths... somebody has to be held accountable for this garbage

and that game eventually what was cost us the wild card...hit him! hit him! I have an idea, let's be the first one to hit someone! Somehow I think Hawkins was probably more at fault and should draw the wrath of Cub fans rather than Diaz. Everybody pins all the blame on Hawkins, but people forget that Dempster started the 9th and then walked two guys after getting an out. With a three run lead, that's completely inexcuseable. And then everyone's hero, Kent Mercker, gave up a 11th inning homer to a guy who'd never hit one in the bigs before.

I don't blame Diaz; I blame the incompetence of Dumpster and Hawkins.

Soriano, Lilly, Marquis and Dempster are the only "top" talent signed via free agency. Exactly. Should the Cubs system be faulted for trading for top talent using their farm rather than keeping them? I say that if you can develop a prospect so that they are traded for an impact player that should still be considered a success of the farm system. With that in mind, the Cubs as a direct result of their farm system have their two best hitters (Lee and Ramirez), their starting CF (Pie) and their starter at SS/2B (Theriot-he's getting enough at-bats to be a starter even without a set position), their top 2 starting pitchers (Z and Hill), their 5th starter (Marshall), and two setup men, a LOOGY, and a long man (Wuertz, Marmol, Ohman, Gallagher). That's a pretty decent collection of players that was put together through the work of the farm. The Cubs didn't trade "top talent." Choi has been a bust, and his star had dimmed a bit when they dealt him to Florida. Hill and Bruback were hardly premium prospects either. Let's be honest, neither of those deals were totally about the quality of the players involved. The deals were largely made for financial reasons. So taking that into consideration, the real contribution of the farm system to the position players on the big-league club right now is a talented but unproven CF and a SS/2B who doesn't have enough bat to warrant playing every day. That's not getting the job done, not even close.

Soriano, Lilly, Marquis and Dempster are the only "top" talent signed via free agency. okay, but Lee and ARam were acquired in large part as salary dumps, and then signed to large contracts later. They certainly weren't the young, cheap, pre-arbitration talent that the Cubs have been so inept at developing.

daytona and tennessee rained out... slow night for the cubs minor league system

i wanted no part of him. The combination of previous elbow troubles plus the PAPs racked up under Dusty and Felipe Alou made him a questionable sign. Here's the PC list for a string of games he pitched in 2004: 110, 123, 122, 144, 111, 115, 106, 119, 123, 133, 115, 118, 116, 127, 125, 114, 123, 128, 114, 120, 115 there's a string of 21 games in which he threw at least 110 pitches in all but one game. It's no surprise that he needs shoulder surgery; the real surprise is that he made it until this year before seriously breaking down. Considering the problems that the Cubs have had with the abused arms of Wood and Prior, I was surprised that so many posters on this board were gung-ho for signing him.

i miss tree's phantastic photoshopping

he needs to be turned into a ROOGY

The Cubs organization never viewed Harris as a SS. Why? They buy into the traditional baseball wisdom (or stupidity is more like it), that SS is a defense first position. They'll trade hundreds of points of OPS for a marginal defensive upgrade. Besides Izturis, we've had Alex Gonzalez and Neifi Perez when we could have put guys like Theriot and Brendan Harris at that position. I hope the new ownership fires Hendry about 5 nanoseconds after buying the team. You mean the Theriot with a 692 minor league OPS and a 669 OPS this year?

something (.356 BABIP) tells me he's going to fall off some

On the broadcast today, they mentioned that 10 players on the team are from their own system. and the Cubs have 8 or 9 EDIT: 10 actually, assuming none of these guys came over in a trade that I don't remember: Gallagher Hill Marmol Marshall Ohman Wuertz Zambrano K Hill Theriot Pie The difference is that a lot of the Cubs' homegrown players are just bit players - I mean, four of the players are middle relievers, one's a backup catcher. Only in starting pitching are the Cubs represented by real impact talent. Fielder is becoming one of best 1B in the game, Weeks is a solid talent at second, Hardy has become a very good SS, Hall was very good last year, Hart has a 136 OPS+, Braun 124, Jenkins 130. And they have a number of other fairly young guys (Capuano, Bush, Vargas, Turnbow) who came from outside, but were acquires in trades. Most of the Cubs' top talent has been signed via free agency. The Brewers built their team the right way, and they're seeing the benefits now. They really do deserve to win the division.

losing to the worst team in baseball is fun

or if people who knew the rules about attacking/insulting other posters actually followed said rules

perhaps posts like this: are turning people against you Yeah, MOJ is not a nobody, and posts like that aren't going to win you any support. i think he's burned enough bridges by now, no sense trying to reverse course at this point

i get more excited when i see that colvin walked than when i see that he hit a HR

Tell me this isn't real. http://i172.photobucket.com/albums/w20/CTCubsFan/col_logobanner_primary.jpg The slogan for Penn State basketballl was "Are You In?" My answer was always "no." That slogan sucks no matter how it's used.

good thing i'm going to see the altoona curve tonight... they're probably better than this bunch of losers. great work today cubs, looking forward to three more months of this crap.

lol the human white flag (eyre) is now warming up.

who cares if they got warnings? drill somebody anyway.

haha i knew that three-game winning streak was a fake rally... what a great team we have

just forfeit at this point... give the players some rest

is it wrong to hope that this one gets away from gallagher and hits cameron between the shoulderblades?