jjgman21

is Bowen out of options? 03 appears to be a Sept callup 04 he was bounced back and fourth and appears to have been sent down in late August (option 1) 05 never called up 06 up all year 07 up all year he should have one, if not two options left, right?

Gallagher lossses it in his fifth inning of work. He, Pigs and Prinz combine to give up a 9 spot.

woohoo!!! first post I've seen with the new handle.

the Cubs record is so different from their pythagorean for one reason and one reason only, the flukishness of the pen sucking only in close games for the first month and a half of the season. flukish because the pen was dominant in games where the difference when the pen came in was 3+ runs.

yeah, has nothing to do with how many runs were scored and allowed. what matters is how those runs were scored and allowed. it's a rarity for me, but :roll:

wazzat?

if we need a winning streak in a couple of months, someone better give their slot up to Southpaw. woot woot for Southpaw.

gotta love WGN's coverage. everytime fat boy blows a call, they put the camera right on him as if to say 'we know what's up your sleave.'

this really doesn't belong here, but I didn't want to start a new thread. props to Jacque Jones. after Aram escaped the scrum and ran to the dugout, Jacque was the first one on his tail looking to get in some more celebrating. lesser men would have walked back to the clubhouse if in his situation.

we so often mistake first pitch swinging for a bad at bat. Aram's ab was brilliant. he must have watched Cordero start most everyone out with a hanging slider. it was obvious he knew that slider was coming, and he didn't miss it.

so you can take an obvious PR quote and attempt to use it to make an argument, but then attack someone else for using one? seems reasonable. GM statements are pure PR. player statements not so much. this is not hypocrisy as the honesty behind Nomars statement is far less in doubt. if you want to make a case that Nomar's statement was more PR than honest statement, be my guest. alot of posters want to have it both ways. in other contexts, they complain that the organization does nothing but lie to the fans, then turn around and use Hendry's statements as the truth as to what he is saying just to use it as evidence that he is wishy washy or trades low or improperly values a player or skill set.

the problem with this article and this thread is it makes me do something tremendously unpalatble, write a post that is mistaken as a defense of Hendry when it is really nothing of the sort. just because something is written about a subject you feel strongly about, in this case the ineptitude of Jim Hendry, does not mean it makes a tenable argument or uses defensible facts or opinions. contrary to the myth that has been created on here, an organization rarely has anything to do with lowering the value of a player or scapegoating a player. the accusation is simply absurd. I don't even know why it's a point of discussion. a players value going down is due to the production of a player and magnification of said production by the media covering, and fanbase of, the team. Bellhorn shouldn't have been benched in favor of Lenny Harris, but that doesn't mean running him out there everyday would have increased his value in anyway. he went on to do even worse in Colorado. the one example of when this happened, and one of the players mentioned, was Sosa, and as I have had to explain a couple times in the past couple of weeks, the trade of Sosa was simply brilliant. the organization adding to the trashing of the player was exactly what was needed to get him to opt out of the auto vesting clause of his contract. it turned out to not be of much benefit, but getting out of 18M in dead weight was simply brilliant. as has been said, few teams trade high. Schuerholz has a knack for it. few others do. occassionally a GM gets lucky, but there aren't too many great examples of 'selling high' out there. saying Mulder and Hudson were traded at maximum value is an absolute joke. they were traded after the year in which their ERA+ dropped 30 and 25 points respectively. the only player discussed in my opinion that gives this theory any credence is Patterson. his flaws were obvious, but he still had very good stats as late as August of 2004, so he probably could have been dealt after that season and fetched something decent. they didn't, and he fell on his face. it's not the first time a young player didn't live up to his supposed potential. but to think he could have fetched anything other than a marginal major leaguer if he were traded earlier is nonsense. the soon to be Jacque Jones accusation is a rather silly example as well. now of course this is a Hendry created problem because the third year of the contract was ridiculous (a two year deal with the Cubs should have been plenty to keep him from a two year deal with KC). but as others have mentioned, by all accounts, Hendry did everything he could to ship Jones out in the offseason. and again, as we see at this very website, it is not the organization, but the media and the fanbase that is crucifying Jacque Jones, as if his poor production weren't enough to tell other teams that the Cubs want to get rid of him. Walker? why is he even mentioned in the article? Jim Hendry is bad and the organization still has 'fear of repeating Lou Brock' syndrome. that might not make a good article, but neither does that drivel posted on BP.

nothing changed other than a downtick in offense? now first of all, downtick? it was a 31 point drop off in OPS+, with the better part of that due to his terrible OBP. but to say nothing changed when you are a regular follower of the Cubs is just absurd. his bad defense turned absolutely terrible. kick in the bad baserunning, the fight, etc. now alot of it was bad timed plays partially due to other players, but he looked terrible on defense. much, shall we say less defensible, than in the past. whether these things were under Barrett's control or not, the fact is they happened and they involved Michael Barrett and hence circumstances with Michael Barrett changed. I absolutely loved Michael Barrett as a player with the Cubs. there were large stretches of the past couple years where he appeared to be one of the few who gave a damn. but to say nothing else changed is simply being obtuse. this is just silly. you take a statement you know is just PR and use it as evidence that Hendry is wishy washy. the author of this article does the same exact thing, only in reverse. it lays the accusation before clearly stating the known reality instead of after like you do. then two sentences later, he admits the reality... Hendry and the organization did nothing to degrade Michael Barrett. Michael Barrett built a nice pile of logs, the media and the fans, and perhaps even some of his fellow players, added gas and matches.

so what you are saying is, he sold high. your claim isn't debatable, it is simply completely untrue.

NoKclemens? mmmm, hmmmm.

so he didn't suffer a career ending injury after we discussed his HOF candidacy? humph. one would have thought that after 20 years in the major leagues there was a chance his career would have come to an end in the past three weeks.

what I really like about Fontenot right now and gives me hope he can sustain some solid (not this level but still solid) production for a couple/few more weeks is there's nowhere to get him out right now. he's driven balls down both lines, to both gaps, up the middle, and sent bombs over the wall to both left and right. combine that with a good eye, and pitchers still don't know where to go to get him out. and what's great about that is once they do, he has a history of talking some walks, so that will sustain him for awhile too. just think where he would be if a few of those rockets he's sent at various thirdbasemen found their way down the line. he's been absolutely Fontastic ©

that Smokies write up sucks. was it a double that should have been an error? a pop fly that he couldn't get to? a bomb in the gap that was dove for? what do they mean by 'tipped off glove of CF?'

We got him from Baltimore for Sosa. So, 3 years later, we finally get something positive out of the Sosa trade. no, the Cubs got instant payoff when Burnitz outperformed Sosa for a few dollars less than the Cubs would have had to pay Sosa and by getting him to opt out of the rest of his contract so they weren't hung with 18M in dead weight for 2006.

Correct and yet never ever do we hear the reason for trades failing as a flat and empty "Because of [GM]." Perhaps a much longer thread title explaining Hendry's apparent original intentions and the reasons the deal broke would be more appropriate yet obviously impractical. So that's why usually we're just informed of the actualities and can read and form a conclusion ourselves. Of course the reason isn't "because of Hendry" anyway -- it's because of Hendry's decision that it wasn't helping the Cubs enough (or whatever his reasoning). Otherwise, every single thread in transactions should say "Because of Hendry" or the respective GM at the end, no? "Petrick called up because of Hendry," "Dempster to DL because of Hendry," etc. It's not that it's "wrong" so to say, it's just a little absurd. I'd say the popular opinion of Hendry (as fat, lazy, dumb and incompetent) is what helps "because of Hendry" seem like mature reasoning... I just think it's funny. I agree to people being able to decide for themselves, but I don't mind a short description either. the problem I originally had is it seemed like somebody determined it was because of Hendry on their own and therefore made that the title, even though there were varying accounts of what happened. if there is a description, "b/c of JH per Bruce." but even so, that's just Bruce's account, and while he is one of the few reputable sports journalists in town, he's not omnipotent, and didn't exactly develop the details of his inquiry and the organizations response to said inquiry. thus, we have still chosen one persons two or three word opinion on what shook down. what I don't get is Bruce obviously knows the fans are interested in what happened, and apparently knows what happened, yet we haven't seen an account of what happened. while I do understand that's the nature of the biz and discretion is often what is called for, he should know that reporting things on here isn't wise after Gallagher's call up.

where do I find a pitching staff where the #3 is a 28 y.o. with a 134 ERA+? you're really stretching. I can't stand the White Sox, or Who?, but you're selling him way short here. Rich Hill is exactly one year younger and currently has an ERA+ of 140. is he no better than a #3 at this stage of his career?

now I don't know much about him, but it seems to me that if you are going to characterize him as 'best in the minors' it means he's pretty close. thus, why trade him for another starting pitcher? just bring him up.

when I wrote my post criticizing the name of this thread, there was very little indication in this thread that Hendry was the one nixing the trade. I think that's obvious when reading people's follow up. the source of the information in the thread title is found in a different thread, hence the confusion for many of us.

this isn't mortal combat...it's the cubs bullpen. i'm not entirely sure they kno what that saying means thanks killjoy mcsmartarse.... i love saying that Motion To Make Carniby Change His Username to Killjoy McSmartarse 2nded How many times is Carniby going to have to change his name? :lol: Everyday? If the cubs sweep the rockies tommorow.... CARNIBY=KILLJOY MCSMARTARSE bumpity bump bump bump but I'd much prefer Handlebar McSkullett

no love for Colvin at all, or just noone following? total of 10 hits in this ballgame, Colvin just tied 1-1 it in the eighth with an RBI single. 2/4, 2B, K, RBI.