Amazing_Grace

I agree wholeheartedly, and was thinking strictly from the "win now" mentality that seems to have Hendry by the short and curlies. If we offer a package of Marshall + Izturis + EPatt + Hagerty, the O's should pony up about half of Tejada's remaining cash. They're still getting cost-effective players and have additional funds to use on mid-level free agents if need be. I think that'll be enough to keep Zambrano in the fold, and someone like Neal Cotts could fill in on the 5th starter position next year. Well, with the ownership change, next season is probably going to be a throw away season anyway, so I can definitely see the logic.

I think we should rotate everyone around the diamond on a game by game basis, just so we can get a feel of who can play what positions. For all we know, Soriano might be a great catcher, or Pie might be the second coming of Ozzie Smith at SS. :lol:

I'd consider giving up Guzman, but not Marshall.

First, Baltimore needs to decide on a direction for their organization. The past couple of years, it's been a piecemeal attempt at respectability. They either need to commit to spending (ala the 2007 Cubs) or rebuilding (ala the 2003 Indians). If it's the former, then a Z + Izturis trade for Tejada would be feasible, but not overly beneficial to the Cubs. With the way Z has pitched in his past couple of outings, Tejada's offense won't counteract Z's absence. However, if they commit to rebuilding, I would be willing to part with Marshall + EPatt + another pitching prospect for Tejada. The problem with this is that it's highly highly unlikely the Cubs can afford to both take on Tejada's contract and re-sign Zambrano. You're talking about adding 20M to a team that's already looking at a 100-105M dollar payroll next year. I just don't see the Cubs raising payroll that much in one offseason, let alone an offseason where the team is being sold. If you're talking about just trying to make the playoffs this season and to heck with next year, then your trade would make sense. However, giving up Marshall and another pitching prospect plus EPatt is going to leave a giant hole in the starting rotation next season and the Cubs won't have the money to fill it. I don't think the Cubs can afford to trade Marshall or Hill without knowing what will happen with Z. Good pitching is just way too hard to come by. Assuming we make the trade you say, and the pitching prospect is someone pretty meaningless like a Luke Hagerty, then we don't re-sign Zambrano next season, our rotation would be Hill, Lilly, Marquis, Guzman?, ????. I can't say I'm comfortable with that, Tejada or not. The other alternative is to get the O's to take on some contracts that would even out the deal money wise, say 2 of Jones/Howry/Eyre/Dempster, then it becomes possible, maybe, to get Z back next season with Tejada and you can trade them Marshall. Perhaps a Marshall, Izturis, Jones, Dempster, Veal, EPatt for Tejada and probably a couple throw ins like a Jay Gibbons or Brandon Fahey so the O's wouldn't have quite such a nightmare with their 40 man roster. If we did that, the big money crunch would come in 09, but the Cubs would probably be able to move Lilly or Marquis by that point, especially if they continue to pitch well. If the O's were willing to pay part of his salary in 08/09, it would eliminate the need to move salarys around.

I'm sure there are a few knuckleheads in our system that MacPhail is in love with. Dopirak, Harvey, and Luke Hagerty for Tejada? :lol: Doesn't the OPS drop (100 pts) YTD vs previous two years norms and the fact that he's owed $31MM over the next two season's bother anyone? I'm just not sure the cost that it would take to acquire him at this stage of his career would be a wise move to make. It's worth it as long as he plays SS. He was a bargain playing the way he has the past 2 seasons. He's still hitting .302 with a .355 OBP. His major drop has been in SLG (over 80 points), and his OPS is still over .750. There just aren't a lot of shortstops that are good or even mediocre hitters. That said, it would take a lot to get Tejada. I think you'd have to get the O's to take one of Marquis/Lilly to make the salarys work for 08 and 09. What else it would take to get him, I don't know? I imagine they will want a lot, maybe more than the Cubs have to give. If they'd take a deal of Murton, Guzman, and Lilly or Marquis, I'd probably do it. The deal also would preclude the signing of Zambrano, one would think, which raises the possibility of something like Tejada for Zambrano and Izturis. The O's need pitching in the worst way to compete in that division, and probably will have the money to re-up Zambrano. A trade like this would probably only work if the O's could reach an agreement on an extension with Z prior to the trade. The deal would basically be a wash in the payroll department, as Z/Izturis make similar to what Tejada does this year, and Z figures to cost about the same as Tejada in his new deal. The Cubs would end up spending about what they would have spent to resign Z on a per year basis, but have fewer years committed. I would definitely approve of a deal like this.

Sammy is on a one year deal, right? I could see the Cubs possibly grabbing him after the team is sold, if Hendry is fired. The new ownership might see that as a great PR move. Well my comment was that Sammy would never come back while Hendry was still the GM. I agree I could see this happening this offseason if the Cubs don't trade for another RF. If he stays cheap and the Cubs trade Jones, both of which are quite likely, then a Floyd/Sosa platoon wouldn't be a terrible option (I'm also assuming the Cubs don't plan to make Murton into a RF).

My guess is that this host heard a rumor about Griffey going to Chicago, and he mistaken assumed the Cubs, and made up the rest himself. I've heard plenty about him going to the Sox, and zilch about the Cubs. I'm certainly willing to be proven wrong, but I really think we'll see Hendry go more for a Tejada than a Griffey. I hope you're right.

If Zambrano ever blew out his arm and couldn't pitch, I wholeheartedly believe he would end up back in baseball as a 1b,3b,DH. He probably should hit 6th in our lineup the way it is now...

It's time to seriously worry about the Brewers a month ago.

Michael Jordan did not punch Danny Ferry. he never punched any Piston, he never punched any Knick, he never punched anyone on the Heat. he never punched anyone. no matter how hard they hit him, no matter how many times they hammered him in mid-air, and trashed talked about it afterwords, he didn't punch them back, no matter how many times it was deserved. you know what he did? he had Stan Livingston and Will Purdue and Scott Williams take care of the dirty work for him. don't sit there and tell me that adult human males are incapable of showing restraint in that situation and that in so doing it was keeping the teams best interest in mind. I don't blame Lee for throwing a punch, but the insinuations that it was uncontrollable or good for the team or the right thing to do or morally superior to others actions are just insane. at some point someone has to be the 'mature baseball professional.' Soriano has to at the very least be a little more discrete in his celebration. Peavy has to shut his punk mouth. the Pads manager has to tell his team to suck it up and get payback on the field, not in the papers or with beanballs. Chris Young has to not be Peavys puppet and just go about the business of winning baseball games, not evening scores and being a punk when he does so. and Derrick Lee has to take it like a man, go to first, and get his revenge with his play. if any one of these idiots just acted like a 'mature professional' it wouldn't have gotten as far as it did. of all people, the one who wasn't a total fricken idiot is David Wells, who said he didn't even see Soriano's dance and he'd have to file it away. that's how you handle it. you wait until the next time you face the perpetrator, and even the score personally, either through getting him out and showing him up, or with a harmless beanball at the hip. I dont disagree with what you say about Peavy or Wells, but as it has been pointed out already, Jordan DID throw punches. It's just a fact that sometimes, when you feel you have been so wronged (or in this case, your safety has been endangered), there is no way you can expect any man to think about 'the team.' Lee did what anybody would do in that situation. Was it right? No, but you can't fault him for snapping at that moment. you're missing the point. the point is there were literally hundreds of times where Jordan was brought to the point of anger like Derrick Lee, and literally hundreds of times he did not throw a punch he wanted to throw. quit saying 'anybody would do it' when Jordan is only one of hundreds of millions of people on the face of the earth who have repeatedly shown the ability to restrain themselves. we are talking about voluntary actions that take volition and aforethought. maybe in your gangsta rap ferry tale world the compulsion to be violent is involuntary, but it's not in the real world. Is the gangsta rap ferry a new ride at Disney? Anyway, Lee probably also has also been upset a lot as well and not snapped. I am not so sure about "literally hundreds of times" as I watched a lot of Bulls basketball during the Jordan era and don't remember it being a nightly problem. But I will leave it at "a bunch of times" and get your point. People have given examples of times when MJ did "lose it" and now there is ONE example of Lee doing the same. Therefore, the fact that there were many times that MJ did not do it does not make him any better than Lee since he has snapped at least as many times (once) as Lee has so far in his career. Maybe the gangsta rap ferry is like a ferry boat across a river somewhere where they play nothing but rap music and there's a rapper up in the wheelhouse doing that record scratchy thing....:-k I'm having trouble getting my head around that one too.

We have a 13 man staff already.... Don't we need to get rid of some of the relief pitchers we have before we trade for another one. Getting Gagne wouldn't be a bad move if it didn't cost a lot. I don't think a closer is going to make the difference in getting the team to the playoffs, though.

Griffey has 18 home runs. He's not an expensive version of Floyd. Well, OK, it was hyperbole, but he's got an injury history that looks almost as bad as Wood's and Prior's, and he's 38. You'd be gambling that he is good enough to help you get into the postseason this year and if he wasn't, you'd have given up Marshall for basically nothing. He's also making 12.5M next year so if you didn't get the Reds to take on Jones at least, the payroll implications would be bad.

Before anyone says it, Sammy would never come back to Chicago while the man who traded him is still GM. Not....gonna....happen. He probably will be traded though. The Angels perhaps, as their outfield is very bad outside of Guerrero (lol at the Angels for signing GMJr. at that price). Basically it will be the same teams the Cubs are trying to trade Jones to.

What I don't understand is why the Cubs are interested in Griffey at all. At this point in his career, he's not much more than an more expensive version of Floyd, and he's another left handed OF when we have 2 that play that position already. Haven't we learned our lesson about trading good young players for old players who used to be good but can't stay healthy anymore.

Only if the Reds take Jones and one of our bad reliever contracts, all of the contract, would I do this deal. Even then, I wouldn't give them more than Murton or Guzman as a prospect. I wouldn't give them Marshall. We'd be doing them a favor by taking Griffey off their hands. No way do you trade a young pitcher doing as well as Marshall is for an aging outfielder.

I'm really hoping they give Soto a good long look at catcher this year. Being able to go cheap at a couple positions (I'm thinking C, CF, and 2b or SS), will help the Cubs in the coming seasons when payroll gets crunched in 09, 10, and with the sale, there aren't going to be any big FA signings this offseason so if the team gets better, it will have to come from guys coming up through the system.

Does anyone know when the suspensions will be announced. I'm guessing Lee and Young get 6 games each, and Peavy gets 2.

This is not a link to the postgame interviews..... ....... :lol:

Nope, the best thing to do is trade Jones and pay as much of his deal as you have to to get it done. My logic is as follows: 1.) Right now Jones is of very little, if any, value to this team over the long or short term 2.) The value of players is not absolute and fixed, but rather relative to the needs of the team and the other personnel in the organization, therefore teams place differing amounts of value on players. 3.) The money in Jones's contract will be paid by the Cubs organization if he is not traded, whether he plays or not, therefore his salary is incidental to the question. The question the Cubs ought to be asking is this. Can I trade Jones to a team and have them pick up any amount of his contract, and if so, is the value of having Jones on the team greater or less than the value of the money I will have saved? If the value of the money is greater than Jones value to the team, then he should be traded. Jones long-term value to the team is very low considering that we can move Soriano to right or teach Murton over the long term. His short term value is even less because of Floyd, and the fact Theriot and Fontenot have played well enough to allow DeRosa to play RF fairly often. So, if a team takes even 2M of Jones's 6M next year, then the Cubs are better off, because they've turned something that was worth less than 2M to them, and gotten something more valuable, 2M, in return. Somebody would pay Jones 2M as a fourth outfielder, particularly if they think, as they well might, a change of scenery could bring him back to his .750ish OPS form. I believe ultimately he will be traded, if only to save some small amount of cash, because his value to the Cubs organization right now is probably close to zero.

It's possible that he's going down to the minors to learn to play RF. If that's the case, maybe he comes back when the Cubs people think he's ready. If he isn't going to play RF, he needs to be traded while he still has some value left, and the Cubs need to get a legitimate right fielder. Jacque Jones just isn't going to cut it over the short or long term, and I'm not betting on Floyd staying healthy and productive all year.

If I was about to be hit by a guy bigger and stronger than me, I'd probably change my tune real quick too.

:pig: I think Jones will be dealt. Hendry found a way to deal Hundley when he was forced into it by fans and media pressure. The Cubs will pay most of his salary next season, but the fans hate him, he hates the fans, the media criticizes him, he whines about playing time, his average is below .250 and falling like a rock, where have we heard this before? I'm sort of hoping he blows up in some interview and calls the fans a bunch of idiots or something of the sort to force Hendry's hand even sooner. As things stand now, I think Hendry is waiting around hoping for a lot of other team's outfielders to get hurt, and will keep waiting till near the deadline.

As bad as the Soriano contract is, it's nowhere near as awful as Pierre's. Soriano will be at least a very good if not a great player over the first few years of his deal, and a decent but not spectacular player the last few (think Moises Alou). Pierre won't be good ever.

I'm shocked that sunnydoo didn't put Corey Patterson, so I'll say it. Corey Patterson There aren't many baseball guys that are "famous" when they are drafted to begin with, so you kind of have to go with guys that flopped at the ML level. Football and basketball have lots more. Speaking as a Rams fan, the biggest bust we've had was Lawrence Phillips.

I think this is pretty much what Lou is thinking. Getting DeRosa in right keeps Jones out of the lineup (how useless is Jones with Floyd playing well) and both Jones/Floyd out of the lineup against LHP. I would bet we'll still see a lot more of Izturis than we would prefer, but the fact he's not starting everyday is at least something. I don't think Fontenot plays SS, although for some reason Iowa's roster lists him as one. http://www.minorleaguebaseball.com/milb/stats/stats.jsp?t=t_ibp&cid=451&stn=true&sid=t451 Are there any Cubs fans in Iowa that watch the Iowa team and could fill us in on whether Fontenot can play SS and how much? You know, I am really surprised to be saying this, but I really hope Floyd stays healthy just to keep Jones out of the lineup.