TruffleShuffle

Yeah, those guys are scrubs. :lol: I must have missed the part where Clemens' career ERA was 1.46, Pettitte's was 2.72 and Oswalt's was 2.33... I guess I "incorrectly" thought that their career ERAs much higher than that. :roll:

He had a limited No trade clause, meaning he could not deny a trade to teams not on a pre-determined list. From what I understand, Kerry Wood has a universal no-trade, meaning he can turn down a trade to any team.

davemason2k from the ESPN Cubs board

Yes he's a good bargaining chip, but why trade a guy who has been a better than average pitcher in the big leagues at ages 21/22 for someone like Soriano, who doesn't address the team's main offensive flaw and is going to require a truckload of money to be resigned? If it's someone like Dunn that's another story. I won't even get into the Manny Ramirez thing because the financial issues are one big stumbling block, as well as the fact that the Red Sox absolutely will not trade him if it makes them much weaker the rest of this year.

Don't feel bad, they have no fans and their GM is an idiot. Well their GM may be an idiot, but from what I understand they were about to grab the Mets' top 2 prospects, and 2 of the Red Sox top 5-10 prospects for a closer who wasn't particularly reliable and a hitter who hasn't hit much this year. That's a hell of a steal from their perspective. Chuck LaMar does make some idiotic free agent signings - namely, all the ones that block their young guys from playing when it's obvious the team is going nowhere - but when he trades established talent he usually gets some excellent prospects in return.

Well to start with, the Mets would be giving up their top two prospects (Milledge and Petit). It could be argued that none of the guys you listed above in your list is even in the Cubs' top 10 prospects. If you wanted the deal to be somewhat comparable, put in Pie and Marshall in place of that list you have above. Then, with Cameron at least you know what you're getting - about 70 walks per year, 20-30 HRs, around an .800 OPS. With Patterson, who knows? His OBP this year was .270 and he isn't even hitting much in the minors. At this point he can't even be considered an average major league player, which at least Cameron is.

http://www.whitesoxinteractive.com/vbulletin/forumdisplay.php?s=2f2ea1ab6bf3a9ffa8fb4b9542b78b40&f=18 "Loserville - Home of the Urinal" - sounds like a bastion of intelligent thinking, if you ask me! :lol: Welcome aboard, by the way.

If Houston catches St. Louis for the division then the Cubs are hosed. I don't care how banged up the Cards are, the Cubs are not even close to being 11.5 games better than the Cards the rest of the way in. The biggest hope for the Cubs is that all those Astros pitchers who are pitching over their heads (Clemens, Wheeler, Pettitte, Oswalt) come down to earth.

I feel bad for the D-Rays... they were going to get a great return for those two guys if the deal went through.

I don't think I could go... I was born and raised just outside Philly, and I'm not sure I can attend a baseball game without booing somebody or something. :oops:

Vance my team is doing its part this week... I'm up 10-0 with 2 days left, and a pretty big lead in most of the categories! You have to get your team going against Thrillride though

Derrek has played far better than his norms this year. But his norms were far better than the norms of the players mentioned in Truffles' post. On the playing-over-their-heads scale, Lee is pretty far down from those guys. And while we may never see Derrek hit like this again, but you will almost certainly never see Rolen hit anything like did last year again, regardless of health. I guess to be fair you could say Carpenter showed flashes of brilliance in Toronto, but comparing any of the other guys on that list to Lee is rather silly. Well I agree with him, Derrek Lee is playing way over his head. But really, who else on the team is playing out their butt? ARam has better than career average numbers, but considering he put up nearly a .900 OPS at age 23, it's not all that surprising that he's as good as he is now. At least he's at the point in his career where he's supposed to be steadily improving (only 27, after all). I don't think there's anyone else. Neifi? He came back to earth. Walker, Barrett, and Hairston are all doing as well as expected. Patterson was as disappointing as Lee was surprising, and Hollandsworth is having one of the worst years of his career. Murton is going nuts and won't keep this up, but at least he's a legitimate prospect unlike that J-Rod clown. Pitching: Prior and Zambrano are actually a little worse than expected. Wood is way worse. Remlinger and Maddux have done what old guys on the Cards seem to not do - get worse. The Cubs don't have any journeymen relievers with ERAs under 3 because, well, the Cubs don't have any relievers with ERAs under 3. Or pitchers with ERAs under 3 for that matter.

What I want to know is how come the Cubs can never take a guy like Chad Cordero or Huston Street, a proven, polished college reliever who is ready to contribute at the major league level within a year? The team is pretty good now, or at least has some of the big cogs (Prior, Z, Lee, ARam)... why draft guys every year who will take 3-4 years at least to reach the major league level? Why not a lower risk, lower reward guy?

Was always a big fan of that kid... he absolutely rakes but always seems to hurt himself. Hopefully this year he's staying healthy and can turn into a good player for the M's.

Oh, I thought this was going to be a poll on bad GMs. I was going to vote 160984206 times for Ed Lynch.

Just wanted to take the time to remind some Cardinals of something: Abraham Nunez - you're a mediocre at best bum with a career line of .238/.306/.316. You're not a guy who is supposed to be putting up a line of .316/.375/.435 or whatever you'll be at after tonight. Try to understand that you suck, you've sucked every year of your career and there's no logical reason that you should have stopped sucking after proving your suckitude over 6+ major league seasons. J-Rod: You are a career minor leaguer, not even a prospect really. What the hell is up with the 1.100 OPS since you got called up!?!?!? David Eckstein - your career high in walks is 45 (in 152 games)... so how do you have 41 in 97 games now? At least the good news is that you seem to have forgotten how to draw walks over the past 10 games. Chris Carpenter - Career ERA+ of 102. Career best of 116. All of a sudden last year your ERA+ is 121 the first year off of surgery, and now you're contending for a Cy Young? Where the hell did that come from? Al Reyes - Journeyman and guy who has spent your career between AAA and the majors, with a career ERA of 3.92 and a remarkable lack of major league quality pitching up through age 32. All of a sudden you turn into a big part of a solid bullpen, with an ERA under 3 and very good peripheral numbers (39 IP, 25 H, 14 BB, 42 K) Julian Tavarez - Career ERA of 4.32. Even in years when you pitched completely out of the bullpen, you routinely put up ERAs in the upper threes and sometimes worse. The year before coming to St. Louis your ERA was 3.66. All of a sudden at age 31 you figure it all out?!?!? ERA of 2.38 last year and 2.80 this year? Why? Ray King and Randy Flores, I won't even get started on you losers. Jim Edmonds, you've been good for too many years, but I'd like to know where the increased durability, patience and power came from upon arriving in St. Louis. Is there a magical fountain of "play out your butt" somewhere near the Arch? If so, Jose Macias (you know, the guy with superior career numbers to Abraham Nunez before this season) would like to find it, as would the rest of the Cubs. If not, hopefully this post will serve as a reminder to you guys to start playing like the players you really are.

When you're ahead by more than a run you never bring the infield in with nobody out... one out I'd consider it, but bringing the infield in with no outs is opening the door for a bigger inning.

Everyone except Blanco is doing their part to prevent Prior from winning this game :cry:

Probably a Cardinal fan! How the hell is Tony Clark hitting .328 with 16 HRs in less than 200 ABs?!?!? When I last saw him his bat looked slow as hell and I was thinking I could probably get him out.

Great job offense! I note that Todd Walker's walk rate is significantly lower this year... nice to see he's finally bought into the Cub philosophy of doing everything possible not to draw a walk.

Neifi is a pioneer of suckitude. He is always blazing a trail of new and inventive ways to fail. Derrek needs a day off, IMO. Then Derrek should have hinted at that. Oh, wait. He did. Dusty has been very un-Dusty-like in that regard this year. Any other year and he would not have been riding Lee and Burnitz this hard. Hopefully once ARam gets back Derrek can get a day or two off... the Cubs' offense is pretty lousy with ARam and DLee; I'd hate to see it without both of them in the lineup.

No, Blanco thinks it's pretty funny too.

I know Muttcias is hitting .286 but he still sucks!

Looks like that Sing HR was a lot more meaningful than it looked at the time! (btw he is awesome)

Sing is 3-4 (all singles) tonight to put his average up over .300... not bad for a guy who strikes out all the time! :D Meanwhile E-Patt is 0-3, but with 2 walks and 0 strikeouts. I'm more interested in the latter two stats than his hitting, which I think he has proved more than capable at that level. His walk rate, it seems to me, has declined a bit since the beginning of the year, and now stands at 42 in 84 games. That's solid but not spectacular for a guy who profiles as a leadoff hitter. Meanwhile, his strikeout rate was fairly close to one per game, but he's been making more contact recently and he now has 69 strikeouts in 84 games. I'd like to see him cut down on that rate, but I'm encouraged by the improvement in that area as of late.