TruffleShuffle

maltby and draper - red wings role players for life. i swear they were both in NHL 95 or something.

who was it on, havlat? if so, i'm glad because he had it coming.

i'm going to fill in the word "fish" where the expletive is.

i'm fairly certain that hendry is exploring options to improve the team. the guy has been, if nothing else, very dedicated to his job and not afraid to make moves. just because he isn't sending out a press release every day to say who he's looking at and what the demands are for the players he's interested in doesn't mean that he's just farting around all day.

man nolasco was horrendous again tonight... i don't know what happened to him.

i don't even think it was because of rain today. it rained almost a foot and a half in 3 days; the field is probably either underwater or a mud pit.

For all we know this could be happening. Axelrod mentions on the podcast that since December everything has been much more private. There is discussions right now but it will not be publicized. Who knows if those discussions are with the Cubs or not, but one thing Im sure of is none of know for sure what is going on behind the scenes. God knows Hendry isnt doing anything else worthwhile. i bet he's just sitting around eating donuts lololol

Maybe he wouldnt be all that good but he is out performing players who have made the jump at the same age like Miguel Cabrera and Edgar Renteria. Im not so sure Vitters would struggle that much. His bat is highly touted and sometimes a pure hitter can make the adjustment quick. This kid isnt a normal prospect he is very highly touted and other teams have done this with their uber stars and it has worked out well. Its no sure thing but it makes you wounder if Vitters could make the jump. cabrera was a year older and played a full season at high A and a half season at AA. renteria played a full season at A+, a full season at AA and a month and a half at AAA and was called up when he was 20. nobody goes straight from low A to the majors unless they're a rule 5 pick and will be spending most of their first big league year on the bench.

a thousand times, yes.

We're not getting 2003 Soriano at 2b. We're getting 2009 Soriano at 2b, with six years of wear and tear on his legs. Yeah but we don't have the 2008 Fontenot. We have the craptastic new model where everything of good was stripped and only the cheap bad is left. That doesn't mean you can start plugging guys in to important defensive positions who have absolutely, positively no business playing those positions. Why not just put Hoff at 2nd? i suspect that putting hoffpauir at 2B would cost the cubs fewer runs than putting hoffpauir in LF and soriano at 2B.

he'll i'd take nick johnson on the cubs, he sure as hell is better than derrek lee when he's healthy, which is almost never.

I agree: there is actually some funny stuff over there. But some internet meme should stay on the internet. This is about as bad as the Rickrolling parade float in last year's Macys Thanksgiving Parade. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/I_Can_Has_Cheeseburger http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/RickRoll Are you kidding? The Rick Roll float was amazing. rickrolling the mets was amazing. rickroll float, not so much.

Because it's very likely that over the next year or two, there will be many opportunities to add players with higher "surplus value" over $$ cost than Peavy. He is signed for slightly under market value, but the contract is nothing great to the team signing him for sure, merely decent-to-good value for the $$. There will be many other players available in trades and even FA, where the same $$ might improve the Cubs by more- I doubt a Peavy deal would be the best way to spend the money he'll require, UNLESS we get a GREAT deal from SD on prospects required due to Peavy's no-trade. Most of the deals I've seen (except the ridic Cub fan proposals...Pie, Cedeno, Hill! haha) are not really good enough to pull the trigger yet. I'd keep looking at lots of guys over the next month or two. The rotation is solid as is, barring a couple injuries. i tend to agree with this. plus i have concern about paying this much for starting pitching: 2010: 15M - peavy, 19M - zambrano, 13.5M - dempster, 12M - lilly (59.5M) 2011: 16M - peavy, 19M - zambrano, 14.5M - dempster (49.5M) 2012: 17M - peavy, 19M - zambrano, (15M - dempster) (51.0M) 2013: (22M - peavy), (19.25M - zambrano) (41.25M) that's a buttload of money. then they're already dedicating the following to other players: 2010: 14M - fukudome, 11M - bradley, 13M - lee, 16.75M - ARam, 19M - soriano (73.75M) 2011: 14.5M - fukudome, (12M - bradley), (14.6M - ARam,) 19M - soriano (60.1M) 2012: 16M - ARam, 19M - soriano (35M) so if all options vest/are picked up, they'd be looking at: 2010: 133.25M for 9 players (!!!!) 2011: 109.6M for 7 players 2012: 86M for 5 players that's quite a salary crunch, especially in 2010 and 2011, and if you want the cubs to make any sort of improvements - 2B, bullpen - it's best that peavy not be acquired.

depends what you mean by "suffer through." yes braun is a great hitter so he was a net positive, but most estimates suggest that he was about 25 runs worse than the average 3B - pretty much an unmitigated disaster since he played only 113 games. BP assessed his offense at 37 runs above average that season, so his net was +12 runs - decent, but certainly not what one expects from a bat like braun. the problem with moving soriano to 2B and hoffpauir to LF is that you're replacing a 2B who's close to average and a LF who's above average with two bad fielders; i'd guess that the cubs lose about 30 runs in the field. is hoffpauir 30 runs better than fontenot over the course of a full season? i tend to doubt it, unless may fontenot is the real fontenot.

i have watched deadliest catch a few times, so maybe i was lying. i don't watch any of the celebrity bullcrap or the talent competitions or 20 losers living in the same house, though.

agreed. the cubs' scouting from the mid 80s to early 2000s was surely sub-par as well, but i find it hard to believe that between the draft and latin america, they didn't find at least (by accident) a few guys who had the ability to become good major league hitters if treated properly.

sometimes the minor league team does things without the major league team in mind, hard though that may be to believe.

they did it in the draft last year too. i really think their new regime gets it.

an .830 OPS while playing half your games at dodger stadium is not meh. stop saying this, please. really, there's not that much of a difference between a guy with a .280/.370/.460 line playing for the dodgers and a guy who puts up a .290/.350/.550 line playing for the cubs, especially since bradley has generally had better on base skills than aramis. and while we're on that subject, you continue to use OPS at the be-all, end-all of offensive productivity, even though it's a terribly flawed statistic. nobody is saying that he's more valuable than ramirez; aramis is more reliable in terms of health and plays a more important defensive position. hence the reason he's making more money. how often do people have to tell you this is wrong before you stop saying it? a .290 EqA does not blow; if that blows, then probably more than 80% of major league hitters blow.

jeter at 8? lol.

to say that i have never been interested in watching a reality show would be an understatement.

ooh i should've thought of this.

i think nuggets/cavs would be good too. mostly i just think it would be funny any historically inept franchise to make it, and the cavs haven't always been horrible, but they've usually been sad. they've only won 2 division titles in 39 years.

it's always nice to see the lakers lose.

FOUL