Amazing_Grace

Boo for Bonds. In my mind, he's a cheater just like McGwire and all the other pitchers and sluggers that juiced. The fact that he seems to have done it for personal records that he wouldn't have even needed to make the HOF easily just makes it worse. Add to that his tendency to promote himself in a very tacky way, and the fact he has long had a reputation for being a bad teammate and not very nice to fans, and you have a guy who is perhaps the very worst kind of person to break a record held by one of the classiest individuals in baseball. Bonds doesn't belong in the same record book, stadium, or discussion as Hank Aaron. I'm glad Aaron won't be there to watch Bonds break the record. His silence speaks louder than the worst of Barry's whining. It will be a travesty that one of baseball's most hallowed records will be held by a cheater, and I hope it doesn't happen at Wrigley, though if it does, I'm sure Barry will get the boos he so richly deserves.

This really shouldn't be terribly surprising to anyone. Guzman has been injured much of his minor league career. A lot of people originally had him projected to make the majors in 2004 I believe, but his arm problems prevented that and delayed him significantly. I don't think it makes much difference pitching out of the pen or the rotation from an injury standpoint, unless of course he's used *very* sparingly in the pen I could see some advantage.

Sadly I had already considered Hendry doing something like this. And thankfully there's a great chance this is Hendry's last year. But if the sale takes time to go through, that will delay the overhaul, potentially leaving Hendry in charge of decision making during the free agency period. don't do this to me, goony. just stop. i'm going to have nightmares about this. Hunter is just the perfect Hendry-type player. Yuck I think it's really really unlikely that the Cubs sign any FAs this offseason with the future of the team up in the air. It just doesn't happen. The first priority this offseason will be selling the team and getting new ownership in place, while maintaining the status quo. Hendry won't be given the green light to hand out any long-term deals without the prospective new owner's OK, for fear of losing a potential buyer and/or lowering the sale price. Hendry might even be fired at season's end in favor of a lame-duck placeholder if management believes he'll do something that would make it harder to sell the team. I would not worry about Hunter getting a 6 year deal this offseason from us.

Pretty swimmingly, since Zito is a Giant. Whoops. That was a major brain fart.

Would the Mets really be stupid enough to tie up in excess of 30M per year for several years on two starting pitchers? We can see how well Zito has worked out so far.

Sunnydoo obviously hasn't voted yet. Ohman still has zero votes.

Finley should do the fans of all MLB teams a favor and retire. No one wants to see an aged center fielder stinking it up for several million when there are plenty of crummy players at AAA who will stink just as badly for league minimum. If Hendry's trying to move Jones to free up space for Pie, he probably isn't interested in Finley.

2nd rate among first baseman. Ranking anywhere from 20-9 among qualified 1B in OPS. 200 OPS points off the leaders. That is 2nd rate. You're far too generous if you think that's an elite 1B. Defense matters to bud! defense at 1b doesn't matter that much. bud. Ha ok how so? if it's that important, why is it the place to put fat, unathletic guys who don't have another position? it's clearly the easiest defensive position to play. First base is definitely the easiest position to play at an average level. Anybody can be stuck there, take throws, and not be terrible there, which is why several would be DH's end up playing at first. However, Lee adds a lot of value defensively over a guy who is just average there. From being one of the best at picking balls out of the dirt, the long stretch that helps the ball get there slightly faster for close plays at first, and the ability to stop balls on either side of him from getting through, especially potential doubles down the line adds up to a pretty good addition of value. So the difference between an average first baseman and a replacement level first baseman defensively is probably the smallest of any of the positions (and therefore just about anybody can play there), but the difference between elite and average can be quite a bit. Actually, the first baseman is involved in more plays than any position on the field other than catcher (all those throws to first), so his defense impacts a greater percent of plays than traditional "defensive" positions. The reason you see so many bad defensive players at 1b is probably because it doesn't require a lot of speed so it tends to be where big fat guys that can hit but can't run get put.

They also have more teams than any other division, so they SHOULD have the most wins. The fact that they have the most teams, but only the second most wins, says that they ARE bad. Actually, this was sarcasm. I know the NLC has an extra team. If you took the top 4 teams out of every division to make them all have the same number of teams, the NLC has the fewest wins, and it's not close.

Augie Ojeda, otherwise known as Auggie Doggie. I think his OBP never got higher than about 20 points above his AVG, which was about .220.

Hendry I have no beef with Riggleman though. He had a crappy roster most of his tenure, and did no worse than anyone has done since.

+1

Howry and Eyre in the hopes that both will suffer season ending injuries.

ha ha ha.....you're serious? think there might be a difference between the NL Central and the others? Hush you, the fact that the division has an extra team makes no difference. Counting wins to evaluate a division is every bit as valid as using RBI totals to evaluate players and win totals to determine Cy Young winners.

I want to know who the two people that picked the Pirates are? Maybe they thought this was a poll for who would be last in the division. EDIT: Oh I should pay attention. It's Derwood and RonnieWooWoo. Seriously guys the PIRATES? The NL Central isn't that bad. They have the 2nd most wins as a division in all of baseball.

I could see trading Murton as part of a package that would improve the team. He's a good player, but he does have his limitations. He probably will not hit more than 20-25 HR, and he really can only play one position well. He is still young and inexpensive, and has shown some potential, so he has a lot of value at this point. You have to trade value for value and if the Cubs could get a ML ready young C, SS, or starting pitcher with a deal that centered around Murton, I'd be all for it. There is no way I trade Murton for a middle reliever, period. There are very few closers that are consistently good year to year. Middle relief is even worse. You can have a bullpen full of 28-30 year olds that have hung around AAA for years that does great and then spend 20M on your bullpen the next year and have them tank completely (see Cubs circa 2006/2007). It's not something any team should ever trade anything of value for. You trade Jones for a pen arm, or Fontenot, or Geovany Soto, or Angel Pagan, etc. Please everyone repeat after me... Garland for Karchner...Garland for Karchner.....Garland for Karchner... until the lesson is understood.

Enough for you, but enough for Hendry? Jim got to the point where he was willing to give Neifi away. I'm not so sure he'd do the same with Jacque. Sadly, I agree. I think he could have easily dealt Jones this offseason if he'd taken a lower grade prospect. I think he overvalued Jones and thought he'd get more if he held out till someone got desperate midseason, and well....oops.

We must trade Jones, even if we pay over half his salary. He simply does not fit with any short term or long term plans anymore. Hendry should have sucked it up in the offseason and taken what was available for Jones, but now he'll have to eat the contract to trade Jones or take on a contract that's just as bad or worse from some other team.

I doubt Lou quits during the year. It would be really unusual for a manager to do something like that. I haven't minded Piniella too much as a manager. Other than the way he handles his bullpen, I don't have a huge issue with the way he does things. I suspect the entirety of the front office and perhaps most of the scouting, training, and development people, will be overhauled by the new owner. I doubt Lou sticks around for what figures to be a 2 to 3 year rebuilding phase.

It's worked out? LOL...have you checked the Cubs record lately? The Cubs aren't losing because Soriano is hitting leadoff. If he was hitting fifth, regardless of how well, we'd all be complaining about how we once again have no one with a decent OBP to leadoff. The other alternatives, Jones, DeRosa, Theriot, Izturis are not great. If Theriot had managed to keep his OBP higher, he might be a decent option, but he's down around .330 now.

For the first time in several seasons, our lead off hitter's OBP is above .340. There's a lot of things wrong with this team but Soriano at leadoff isn't one of them. If anything, it's worked out better since he's hitting pretty well and has an 80% SB success ratio but his power is way down.

It boggles my mind how Hendry managed to get decent prospects for both Perez and Walker yet couldn't do any better than Izturis for Greg Maddux.

Nah. It's such a weak division. The team that plays just slightly north of mediocrity will be playing in October. I think that team will be our boys. What are you drinking and can I have some? To be fair, he did say this before they completely fell apart. Ah, I see, this is an older thread. Thx for pointing that out.

I'm at the point right now I can't really care about Prior one way or the other. He's missing yet another season with yet another injury. There's probably only a 50/50 chance he'll ever make it back to a major league roster and he's not all that valuable. I think the Cubs have just finally realized Prior's worth is not that great. 10man is right to compare him to Dempster, a guy who was a very highly rated prospect, had a great season and then flamed out due to injuries. What's Dempster worth now, eh, and why deal with a grievance over a worthless player?

Might very well be Murton that is traded. I hope it isn't that because that also means Jones is the everyday RF.