CubinNY

As long as the new owners don't charge WGN a high fees I belive the Cubs will stay on for at least as much as they are on now. The question will be how much will new owners charge the WGN. When the Cubs were owned by the Wrigley family the cable industry was just getting started. Things are a lot different now. I do think Cub fans around the country should be prepared to have to pay to watch them when they are not on ESPN.

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This will be a big year for Samardzija. He's not exactly a young guy. I can't say I'm a believer. I want to see how he does.

Aaron Harrang is the ugliest player in baseball. Go Cub!

What's the price comparison? They were charging MLB prices last night. I forgot to put in the first post that I saw Lou Brock, Dave Winfield (the man is huge), and Spike Lee (the man is tiny). No Bud Selig though, what a loser. The man can't even show up to the Civil Rights game. Anyway, my wife and I had a good time. My wife too good and she's paying for it now.

Nothing brings out a mullet like a Cardinal baseball game. Albert Pujols hits the ball hard. Single in the first hit harder than the HR in the third (that landed somewhere in Kentucky). This just in, Al is good. Travis Hafner is a terrible defensive 1st baseman. Beer tastes just as good at AAA park as it does at MLB park.

Improved but not enough. I picked 3rd, I think they'll be around .500.

I don't think anyone is criticizing the Cubs for sending down Prior. I think people are trying to introduce a little sanity into the discussion. Prior is a wuss and Prior lost his confidence are pretty weak arguments. Prior lost mph on his fast ball and Prior hasn't located his pitches are much better arguments IMO. I'm glad the Cubs didn't give Prior a spot if he's not ready. I think here's the quote that Soul is referring to That definitely is criticism for sending down Prior. Also-yes, Prior lost mph on his fast ball and an inability to locate his pitches are the direct reasons why he hasn't pitched well. The thing is-what are the causes of those two things? Is it just because of the loss of arm strength due to the injuries? Is it the time off? Is it due to a lack of confidence that is causing him not to air his arm all the way out for fear of getting hurt again? I think it's a combination of all 3, and I understand why that is-I have a knee injury, and the hardest thing in coming back from it is trusting that my knee was healthy and allowing myself to go at full speed without risk of injury. With all the setbacks that Prior has had over the last year, it is likely that a similar thing is happening to him, and that is at least part of the cause for his lack of speed and command is this mental fear (the other part being that he is still rehabbing from his injuries physically as well and building arm strength). For about the 1 millionth time Confidence is result NEVER a cause. I think it's better for the ameture psychologists to keep their diagnosis to themselves. The diagnoses are completely full of nonsense, as is most of this thread.

I don't think anyone is criticizing the Cubs for sending down Prior. I think people are trying to introduce a little sanity into the discussion. Prior is a wuss and Prior lost his confidence are pretty weak arguments. Prior lost mph on his fast ball and Prior hasn't located his pitches are much better arguments IMO. I'm glad the Cubs didn't give Prior a spot if he's not ready.

I don't think this is very important news, but... Wild Rick was starting in CF for the Memphis Redbirds last night. Didn't know where to put this, move if necessary.

Because over the last 30 years we've been conditioned to believe that we are all just lucky to have a job and that unions are evil monsters who steal money and protect the incompetent. Hail Reagan! It's the same way with the draft in football. The draft protects the teams not the players. It is the draft that rewards incompetent owners. All my friends were pissed at Eli Manning for not wanting to go to the Saints. While, I was of the opinion of, more powere to him. What are you talking about? The chargers drafting Manning. Chargers not Saints, sorry.

Because over the last 30 years we've been conditioned to believe that we are all just lucky to have a job and that unions are evil monsters who steal money and protect the incompetent. Hail Reagan! It's the same way with the draft in football. The draft protects the teams not the players. It is the draft that rewards incompetent owners. All my friends were pissed at Eli Manning for not wanting to go to the Saints. While, I was of the opinion of, more powere to him.

Why don't you understand that the Owners would NEVER approve of Cuban as an owner? You are beating a dead horse. Have you polled the owners on this? While I think there might be some objections to Cuban, I doubt he has any major problems getting approved. I agree. I don't think the owners would have any trouble with Cuban owning the team. His track record with the Maverics is outstanding on the revenue side. However, I don't think Cuban is rich enough :shock: to buy the Tribune if the Cubs are not sold serarately.

You have got to be kidding me. This post is the alpha and the omega. It just doesn't get any better than this, folks

I smell small Paul Sullivan's handy work all over this. Sullivan: Mark, care to give us any comments on why you were sent down? Will you ask for a trade? Prior: I'm not going down that road. I'm under their control until I'm not under their control. It's up to them whether they want me. I'm just an employee. There is nothing to report here, nothing. Prior was sent down, he's pissed as any of us would be in his situation.

I want to know how you got the scwiggly line over the n in Cedeno. Fantastic! I hope Ronny learns a little patience, just a little patience, yea, yea, yea.

Why? He is offering a hometown discount and getting more money than pitchers like Carpenter/Oswalt did. Oswalt's contract is not even close to market rate. Just because one or two guys got screwed doesn't mean the entire market will shift downwards. They're not getting screwed. Yea, getting screwed is accepting arbitration, winning, and being cut. Not getting screwed is making more than 10 million dollars a year for working one day out of five for the next five years.

What I got from AZ Phil was that Alfonso Soriano's defense in CF is going to make us miss Juan Pierre. Yeesh. And Cliff Floyd's probably should be DHing in the AL. Alfonso could play with his glove on the wrong hand and I still won't miss Slappy.

There's no way to know if Murton's performance was a coincidence or if Lou's talk helped his hitting, but it is nice to see that Lou is hands on with the players. Lou is probably the best thing to happen to Matt Murton's career since he was drafted, not that I think Lou has helped him all that much. If Dusty were still here, he'd be sitting or on the short end of a 70/30 platoon with Floyd.

I'm sure he'll be practicing the man kiss a lot too.

Hill is suspetable to the HR ball. So is Lilly. So is Marquis. This is my biggest fear for the Cubs this year.

I agree with most of your post. There are similarities. And if Dopirak emerges into a big power hitter, well, there's value somehow. And obviously he's limited to 1B/DH/PH, it's not like he has defensive potential to move. (It's not clear whether he has defensive potential to be even adequate at 1B). And obviously it's not like he needs to hit like Howard. There is a level less than MVP-caliber that is still of value. But, the real question for Dopirak revolves around how much huge power he'll ever had. "Both have hit for huge power numbers in the minors..." doesn't really seem true to me. He had one good power season, in low-A. He's consistently hit for big power in batting practice. But only at Peoria (or was it Lansing then?) did he hit for meaningful power. His Daytona season he showed only minor effective power. Producing huge power is more than a matter of being strong and able to hit batting practice bombs. It requires that you can hit the pitches with the speed and movement that real pitchers throw when they are not trying to feed you bombables, but when they are trying to avoid throwing you bombables. Dope obviously has the physical power to do that. At present, it seems that Peoria is likely to be the production exception, and that against better pitchers he'll never be able to apply his power often enough to be a value power guy. It's also obvious that last year was injury. So basically he had one good year at Peoria, and one bad year at Daytona. If he stinks again this year, 3-years-ago Peoria will be further established as the irrelevant fluke. If he produces big this year, the fact that he stunk at Daytona for a year will appear to be the who-knows-why fluke. I see this as a make-or-break year for him. Most likely it will be a break, but too soon to know.l Do you really think believe Dope was not on some sort of Performance enhancing drugs? It's difficult to even have a conversation about him because of this. I don't think steriods should even be in the conversation. Going from low A to high A is a huge change. And then from high A to AA is an even bigger jump. A jump that really never got started becuase of the broken foot. Time will tell, but this is a kid in 2004 who showed a lot of promise.

Good grief. There's never anything straightforward, is there? Probably anti-inflamatory meds for swelling.

This man is insane. Trade excess OF talent for bullpen help? That's just dumb. I was just going to post something about that comment. I think the Cubs may be trading for a SS, unless Lou and Perry can work some magic with Cedeno. I don't think Isturiz makes it until July.

Hendry has until five minutes before game time, right? He's probably in Las Vages kicking back at the craps table with Tribune money until next Sunday night/Monday morning. He won't get serious until the angina flares, then look out.