Amazing_Grace

I loved Gracie as a player, but like most former players, he's not a very good baseball analyst. The closer role is perhaps the most overrated and overpaid role in baseball. Any role that can be filled by the likes of Heathcliff Slocumb, Jeff Fassero, Joe Borowski, Jose Mesa, etc., is not one that takes a ton of talent to fill. Every year it seems some washed up starter or reliever ends up shocking the baseball world with a great season as a closer. Really, the closer has an easy situation. He comes in for one inning with nobody on base and just has to be competent enough to get 3 outs.

WGN could expand its CW programming which, currently, takes a back seat to Cubs games during the season. They could find plenty of ways to make it profitable. In business, that statement begs the question "so why aren't they already doing it?" Most businesses don't like to just leave dollars on the table when there is something more profitable available. It could be argued that since the Cubs are another division of the same company, they are using WGN to boost the profitability of the Cubs, and that that benefit is larger than the profit that could be made by putting other programming on instead of the Cubs. That explanation wouldn't explain why WGN carries Sox games though. Does anyone want to argue that the Sox have more fans outside Chicago than the Cubs. I think that the situation is actually the other way around. The Trib has used the Cubs, a team that has one of the largest national fan bases in all of baseball (just look at the locations on this message board for evidence of that) to boost the profitability of WGN by selling broadcast rights at below market value to another Tribune division, thereby transferring profit from the Cubs to WGN. On a side note, what is the "CW". I have cable so I rarely watch the usual TV networks and never watch WGN except for Cub games.

argh post deleted, hit quote button not edit button /shoots self

Well, the only thing we know for sure is that the guy will have to sell either his minority interest in the Sox, or the Cubs. I don't really see any reason to hang onto the Cubs other than the fact that the team is profitable. He could either keep it and make money the way it is, or sell it and make a lot of money in a short period to shore up the rest of the company. The team would probably still be profitable without national telecasts on WGN, but maybe not as much. That said, why would WGN stop carrying the Cubs. They don't exactly have the same array of programming choices that Time/Warner does, and likely wouldn't under Zell nor whatever billionaire he sold to. If WGN could make more money on things other than baseball, why do they carry Sox games? I sincerely doubt they'll stop carrying the Cubs altogether. I can't imagine the Cubs doing worse than the endless reruns they have on every other cable station in the afternoon.

If Tomas Perez had beaten Cedeno for the 25th spot on the roster, I'd say the Cubs would be better off taking a chance with Bellhorn. At least Bellhorn didn't always suck. TWalk would be better still than Bellhorn under that scenario. Fortunately, Lou made it easy on us by cutting Perez. Now we don't have to debate the relative merits of Mark Bellhorn and Tomas Perez, said merits being scant and unimpressive. There's no question in my mind that Cedeno is a better option than Bellhorn. Walker vs. Cedeno is worth debating only because Ronny might benefit from some consistent ABs in Iowa getting all that Dusty coaching out of his system.

Yes, Lou said the plan is: 4/2 Zambrano 4/3 off 4/4 Lilly 4/5 Marquis 4/6 Hill 4/7 Zambrano 4/8 Lilly 4/9 Marquis 4/10 Hill 4/11 5th Starter 4/12 off I hope the "something about that" that Lou may do doesn't involve Hill missing a start in favor of Wade Miller.

That's hilarious. I never tire of lauging at stupid people.

Be grateful, at least you don't have to stand on concrete like factory workers or Wal-Mart employees (ask one why they don't have stools), or work outside in 90+ degree temperatures like migrant farm workers, or risk death every single day like crab fisherman, or spend all your days driving a truck seeing your family seldom or never, or cleaning up other peoples' most disgusting garbage as a sanitation worker or janitor. I trust I've made my point. People should be grateful for what they have instead of jealous of others. Move this to rants if need be. EDIT: And it's not like Kerry is trying to get hurt. He gave the Cubs a big discount on this year's contract. I do fault Hendry for relying on him and Prior so heavily for so many years prior to this season, but it's hardly fair to blame Kerry for just signing the contract Jim offered.

The Dodgers won. They got the Brewers, the FRICKIN BREWERS, to send them cash in the deal.

Well, Tomas Perez didn't make the team. Sanity triumphs so far under the reign of Piniella. Also, the conversation about Walrond has reminded me just how bad the Cubs rotation actually was last year. We had both Les Walrond AND Ryan O'Malley start multiple games.

All things considered, I'd rather see the Cubs put Cedeno at Iowa to start the year and bring back TWalk for the 25th spot on the roster. We could obviously do a lot worse, and Ronny could use some time at Iowa to get all the stuff that Dusty taught him out of his head and get ready to come back to the Cubs as the full-time SS next season. I doubt Hendry would do this, since he never seemed to like Walker much and tried very hard to trade him last year.

That was assuming injury and or poor performance by someone else that would send them to the DL or Iowa. Now that Cotts has been added, Wuertz has recovered, and Wood still has a shot to be on the active roster, there doesn't appear to be anymore room for Cherry (or Guzman). What does this mean? Has Cotts been assured a spot? It seems so. boo to that. No way Cotts should make the team. Doesn't this make three left-handers in the pen with Ohman and Eyre?

Scathing criticism sells more papers than glowing praise. Negative news and negative reporters get more attention. It's sad but true. Two of the most popular ESPN shows feature either 2 or 4 guys basically yelling at each other.

In an ideal world, I'd have liked to see Cedeno get to regain some confidence in Iowa. However, this is still better than wasting a roster spot on Tomas Perez, and given the relatively few options for another MI, it seems like this was the best we could realistically hope for.

This is a good thread. Honestly, I think putting Prior in the minors might be just the motivation he needs to do what's necessary to get healthy. If his service clock stops, that's a huge incentive to learn to workout more next offseason or put in more time on daily exercises or pitch through the aches and pains, or whatever else he needs to do to get himself fixed. We've been through this song and dance before. He's had extended ST and simulated games and all that stuff in previous years and it hasn't helped him. He's probably pitched more simulated games than real ones at this point in his career. Why should it work any better now, when it's not worked every other time the Cubs have tried it. Bottom line is this. Sooner or later Mark Prior is going to have to pitch to actual hitters and actually get them out. If he's injured with some diagnosable, medical, actual injury then he should be on the DL already and rehabbing not pitching. If he's actually completely healthy but he's just rusty or ineffective, the only remedy to that is to pitch, pitch, and pitch some more until he figures it out. I don't see any reason why pitching somewhere in the minors would make it more difficult for him. He's not rehabbing anymore from what I'm hearing. He's just pitching very badly. The remedy for injuries is surgery, rest, rehab, and the remedy for pitching badly is practice. The talent is still there, but he's been through a lot and needs to relearn to pitch. The minors is the place to do it.

Wow, how long did it take you to type that post? It's so long I didn't really want to read it all. :lol: Lol, about a half hour. I just get started on something and then I can't quit.

I don't think a salary cap is a realistic solution to the parity issues in baseball, for several reasons. First, of course, is the union. The NFL has the luxury of a union based on a very large number of players (I think 45 guys per NFL roster and I don't know if practice squad/NFL Europe guys may be in the union also), only a fraction of which will ever make a huge salary like Peyton Manning. In baseball, a lot of guys, even no-talent hacks like Neifi, can land many millions of dollars in contract. As a result, the union, especially the guys who have been around in the league long enough to have any impact on the game or influence in the union, are making millions on the current system and have no incentive to change it. They don't care much about the long-term future of the game since they'll be leaving it before whatever damage their union does ever impacts the game. There's also a more adversarial mentality between owners and players in MLB, and that's something that comes from a long history of hard feelings and disputes. MLB, we should remember, is far older than the NFL or NBA and has over a century worth of bitterness to get over between the two sides. The union isn't the only problem or even the largest though. The problem is, and always has been, baseball's minor league system and the problems it creates. If baseball were like the NFL, they would have no AAA, AA, or any of these. They'd draft players for their roster right out of college or HS and have to take their chances with that, as NFL and NBA teams do. In the NBA and the NFL, rookies are really rookies. There are no September callups, and a guy doesn't have to toil away in the minors for 3-6 seasons at modest pay for his chance to get to the major league stage. Guys that have talent are identified, drafted, and counted upon to make immediate contributions. The simple truth is that these leagues use another profitable league, the NCAA, to do their player development for them, and never have to deal with the costs and problems associated with these investments. The only player development investment that teams make in these leagues is in scouting. The players they draft are finished products, and if the worst teams get the highest choices and everyone spends about the same, it's pretty apparent that you'll have a reasonable amount of parity, and a bad team will be attributable to bad management, bad decisions, and bad coaching. MLB teams, on the other hand, must develop their own players because there is no profitable amateur league that plays at a level anywhere near major league baseball. I can only think of one guy that even could have played his first season out of college (Prior). As a result, each team invests millions of dollars on their player development investment. The Cubs have 6 minor league teams, with some having more and some less. Each team costs money to upkeep in the form of coaches, supplies, management, etc. Add it all up, and by the time Felix Pie gets to the majors, the Cubs have spent a LOT of money to get him there. It's no wonder then, that teams are reluctant to allow free agency right away; they have a lot of money invested in their players. If the team ultimately gets nothing out of those players, then the whole system collapses. That's the reason that players have to get 6 seasons of MLB service time before they get free agency. The longer you can keep your young star from bolting to a team with a bigger budget, the more you make on your minor league investment. It's a bit like drug companies. They spend billions to develop new drugs, and then price them ridiculously high to recoup those costs. If you could just make generic drugs 6 months after the drug came out, the investment in development is unprofitable, and before long, nobody is investing in new drug development. Baseball is the same way. If there were unrestricted free agency, the whole system would collapse. When players, who have now spent 6 years ML service time plus 3-6 in the minors, finally hit FA, they are itching for one big payday before they start to decline. FA salaries are huge because most guys that start out in the league fail somewhere from A-ball to the majors. The few guys that are successful enough to get all the way through the process are worth a huge amount of money, because a successful developed player is extraordinarily expensive requiring not just the money invested in his development, but all the failures that, statistically, accompany one success. Contrast that to basketball or football, where guys walk right out of the classroom onto the field and contribute. In these sports, a developed player is CHEAP, at least from the point of view of the team. If somebody is terrible, you just have to draft somebody else, who may or may not be any better, but there's plenty more where that came from every year so who cares. In baseball, if somebody is terrible, the random AAA guy you replace him with is probably a huge dropoff from even the terrible player. If you draft a guy as your future at SS, you still won't see that guy replacing Neifi Perez for 3 seasons at least. In baseball, a developed player, even the worst ones, are EXPENSIVE in terms of time, and money. What all this adds up to is that a salary cap/floor won't work as effectively as in other sports. The salary cap won't alter the nature of player development, or the need to see the investment in minor league systems "pay off". Teams will still not want to lose their "investements" to free agency, regardless of whether it's the Yankees or a random other team picking them off. Don't get me wrong, a salary cap would probably narrow the gap considerably in the short term. If the Yankees can't spend 200M, then they can't. Realistically though, the spending differential is soooo huge from the haves to the have nots that you'd have to have almost complete revenue sharing and a very high spending floor to go along with the cap. If, say, you had a salary cap at 100M and a floor at 50, then you'd have 10-15 teams at 90-100M and 10 or so at around 50, with very little in between. I believe about the only thing a salary cap would accomplish would be to limit the spending of two teams the BoSox and Yankees. Now, if you have a very narrow range where teams can spend, say 70-90, then you get some parity, but there would have to be a lot of revenue sharing to ensure that the small market teams could spend that much. By this point, of course we're in the realm where a lot more teams than the Yankees and BoSox stand to lose in the equation and the salary cap scenario looks less and less plausible. I think that in order to get parity in the league, you'd have to fundamentally change the player development system. Parity requires, first and foremost, that talent flows freely among the teams. In baseball, talent doesn't flow freely, because each team has spent too much on the players they have to let them go easily. They're worried about getting a good return on that investment. I think parity only comes when the owners of the teams come together for the good of the game and change the system into one that is both profitable for them in the long-term (meaning the whole league and the game is popular and successful), and also allows players greater freedom of movement earlier in their careers (which ultimately, is what they want). I think MLB as an organization should save cash, in whatever way, for a few years and allow it to build until they can simply take over the minor league system, buying whatever infrastructure is needed from the teams. They then set up the system and run it using shared revenues from all the teams, and set up a revamped, NFL style draft that drafts developed players out of the minor league system. A player would be eligible to be drafted at age 22, but would have to be kept on the ML roster or returned to the draft pool next season. In this way, the teams that spend huge money on FA's lose out, because talented rookies start going to other teams a lot more consistently. Another caveat would be a player would be eligible for arbritration after 2 seasons and FA after 3. I think the ultimate result of such a system would be a younger game, a more competitive game, and a more amicable system between owners and players. Unfortunately, this plan would require the owners to think of the league before themselves, and to employ some original thinking rather than copying the tactics of the other leagues. As we well know, these are things MLB owners are not known for.

I could live with that OPS if he's putting up his .355 career OBP, or better yet, the .365-.367 he had in 2004, 2005 and 2006. Seconded. The team has plenty of SLG, but needs more OBP. I still think they ought to at least try Theriot at SS. If he can play SS, it's a huge boost as he can be a David Eckstein type player, no power but gets on base for the power hitters behind him.

YES! I am just continually impressed with Lou. Was Dusty really this bad? That with every Lou decision I rejoice? Yes, Dusty was really that bad. They could have brought a trained chimpanzee from the circus that would make better decisions than Dusty.

Why are we trading for Kendall, and why is a resurgent Prior the centerpiece of a deal for an aging catcher who has no value at any other position? EDIT: Oh, this was a story about Joe Nathan with Prior's name plugged in.

Lou Pinnella is not going to care about the trade as saving face, he's more concerned about fielding a team with the best players. I just can't believe he would do something like that... I believe Lou wants the best team. I'm hoping Hendry doesn't force the issue. It's interesting. Under Dusty, we kept hoping our GM would overrule our manager. Now, under Lou, we're hoping our manager will overrule our GM.

I'll have to change my signature again :lol: but I also have to concede Neifi is a better option than Tomas Perez. Neifi has had a few passable seasons offensively, while Tomas always stinks. He has value as a 25th guy that plays in unimportant situations to rest other guys and as a late inning defensive sub. Tomas is in the same class as Bynum, Ojeda, and Macias: completely totally utterly worthless to a ML team.

Why trade Jones now that Soriano has moved to CF? The whole point of trading him was to open up RF for Soriano and leave Murton in left. It is highly likely that Pie would not match Jones's numbers in terms of OBP, SLG, OPS, or anything else, in the majors this year. It is possible he wouldn't even come close. Soriano has spent all spring learning CF, not RF. Why put him in a new position 3 weeks into the spring? If you put Pie in and trade Jones, you trade offense for defense, which is generally a bad move. Pie may end up being a much better player than Jones, but it's unlikely he will be in his rookie season. If you plan on starting Floyd and Murton at the corners, who do you go with in right? Neither is exactly a great defensive player. Murton is a possibility but not Floyd. You would also be counting on Floyd to be healthy most of the year, which is unlikely, and/or playing DeRosa a lot in the outfield, meaning you'd end up playing your crap 25th guy MI a lot more than you'd want to. If the Cubs trade Jones, they'd better upgrade the offense elsewhere, and by elsewhere I do mean SS.

I don't know what you expected but that is about as bad a line as it gets. Maybe he expected him to be more like these NL East players who got at least 100 AB's: Pete Orr-.253/.277/.344 Todd Pratt-.207/.272/.341 Alfredo Amezaga-.260/.332/.332 Matt Treanor-.229/.328/.318 Reggie Abercrombie-.212/.271/.333 Lastings Milledge-.241/.310/.380 Chris Woodward-.211/.289/.311 Kazuo Matsui-.200/.235/.269 Sal Fasano-.243/.284/.386 Abraham Nunez-.211/.303/.277 Jose Guillen-.216/.276/.398 Robert Fick-.266/.324/.344 Marlon Byrd-.223/.317/.350 Damian Jackson-.198/.295/.371 Royce Clayton-.269/.315/.348 Brian Schneider-.256/.320/.329 Bernie Castro-.227/.286/.291 Remember when everyone on this board, myself included, wanted the Cubs to go after Kaz for our long-term solution at SS. Don't we all look foolish now. Not pursuing Kaz may be the best decision Hendry ever made.

Nope. Novoa for Walker sounds like a better idea. The Padres would love to move Walker's contract. I wouldn't send them anything remotely useful. I'd love this to happen, mainly just to laugh at how we got Todd Walker and Jose Ceda for Todd Walker and Roberto Novoa over a 6 month period.