Illini Iceman

What exactly is your point? The "average person" in Arizona that you reference probably does not know where Wrigley Field is and would have no special interest in watching a football game there. This is about generating more interest in a normally ho hum Illinois / Northwestern game, not to turn it into the national must watch event of the century.

People in those "non-biased cities" would watch a game between those teams you listed no matter where it was played. The point of Illinois / Northwestern is that it would give exposure to a game that would otherwise get very little. I "guarantee" that a lot more people would tune in to Illinois / Northwestern at Wrigley (even if just for a quarter or so to see the novelty) than if it was at the home stadium for either team on ESPNU or something.

yeah, i agree. i just remember thinking the Gathright signing indicated that Pie was probably part of the Peavy deal. They have too many CF'ers as it is. I was thinking they should just trade Pie for Olson from Baltimore and keep Olson for themselves to compete for the 5th starter role if the Peavy trade never develops. Then I looked at Olson's stats from last year. Yikes was he bad. Why in the world would the Padres have been interested in him? He isn't even very young.

http://www.suntimes.com/sports/baseball/cubs/1379497,CST-SPT-cub15.article Wasn't this supposed to be done by LAST spring training? They are never going to sell this friggin' team.

I agree with him to the extent that I don't trust prospects the Braves trade away. More times than not (and I believe a pretty wide margin) they don't amount to anything. Horacio Ramirez, Andy Marte, Damian Moss, Ruben Quevedo, Joey Nation are all examples purely off the top of my head. They've been excellent at identifying young talent and getting rid of the young non-talent at premium prices. What premium price did they get for Joey Nation and Ruben Quevedo?

I agree with you about the fear of a Ramirez injury. Nothings perfect in this world, though. Get stronger in one area, get weaker in another. /shrug Also, another poster in this thread is right, and this isn't directed at anybody, but some people on this board just complain to complain. How can one honestly think Miles was only acquired due to his ability to hit left handed? It's just ridiculous. http://blatherwatch.blogs.com/photos/uncategorized/2008/07/12/old_man_yells_at_cloud8.jpg http://www.chicagotribune.com/sports/baseball/cubs/chi-15-cubs-bits-chicagojan15,0,6211292.story

I'd guess that at least 75% of the voters don't know what OPS+ is. However, they would look at Rice's .298 BA (vs .273 for Howard) and 332 more RBI's and say Rice has the better overall numbers.

The BCS has ruined college football for me. New Years Day used to be a day to set aside and watch football all day long, but now the games are stretched out over weeks and it's just too much. If the BCS ruined college football for you, you obviously weren't that big of a fan to begin with. And the BCS didn't cause the games to be spread out over weeks, television did. I don't see why anyone would care. What is the attraction of having 3 games on at the same time anyway? Wouldn't a real fan want them spread out so they could actually watch them all?

He wants more lefties in the lineup and with Soto, Soriano, Lee, Aramis and Theriot entrenched at their positions, 2b is one of the few spots where he can do that. I'm not saying I agree with it, but that is his rationale. I could be hallucinating, but I seem to remember Hendry saying this exact thing, before Derosa was traded (or was it someone attributing it to Hendry?). So I was not in the least bit surprised when he was traded. It was guaranteed. He did say that, but the extra lefty in the lineup is Bradley in LF and Fontenot at 2B instead of DeRosa in LF and Fontenot at 2B. It has nothing to do with Miles. From everything I have seen Miles was brought here to play against RH, as an insurance policy in case Fontenot can't handle the more regular playing time and to replace some of the versatility DeRosa had in his ability to play so many different positions.

No. I think his name is Jim Anixler. I like that Ricketts is a fan, I'm sure he would put money into the team, but I worry that he is a dumb fan. Dumb Cubs fans have some awful ideas about what this team needs. He seems like the best option at this point anyway. He still sounds more like a business man that a fan which is a good thing. Then again he has to be doing something right to have that net worth. Yep, it's great that he is a fan in that he's less likely to run the franchise as a cash cow. But it is more important that he is someone with great business skills. I guess that could be said about most owners, but I would hope for something closer to what the Rays current management team did. Their experience in the hedge fund industry gave them the skills to learn about a market and recognize arbitrage opportunities - the very essence of moneyball. They put the right people in place to be talent evaluators, but adopted a more forward thinking approach to making relative value judgments about the assets they had and the ones they wanted. That and their farm system was completely stocked from many years of having very high draft picks. You would probably hate the Rays management if they were in Chicago. They really won't spend much money. Even with signing Burrell they have announced that means they will not be in the market to add any more significant outside salary for the next couple years. The current management was lucky enough to inherit a farm system with a lot of talent and was then patient enough to wait a while for it to develop. However, the management philosophy was more along the lines of keeping the payroll low and shopping in the bargain bin out of necessity than any real advanced "value judgements". When the current group of players starts getting expensive and they have to start moving them to restock the farm system and start over we will see how saavy this management group is. There were some pretty good talent evaluators in the previous regime that gave them a very good base to start from.

The reason he went nuts on the ump was, supposedly (his coach confirmed it, IIRC), the ump made some racist comments. That doesn't necessarily justify anything, but it's a whole lot more understandable than him just thinking it was a bad call. I believe he tore his ACL as his coach was restraining him. Just a freak injury. You can't really call that a freak injury when it happens to a guy who is always hurt. It's just another example of how fragile he is. Line drive off of Prior's elbow was just another example of how fragile he is? I hope you don't really think that's a good comparison, because that's pretty bad. When you get a line drive off your elbow, you expect to get hurt. That's not being fragile. Did you see the Bradley injury? He barely even got his leg twisted or anything. The vast majority of the time, that does not result in a torn ACL.... unless you're really fragile. My grandma took a worse look fall than that a couple weeks ago and she didn't tear anything I mean, come on. Comparing a line drive off the elbow to a harmless looking fall resulting in a torn ACL is pretty ridiculous. How many times does a line drive off the elbow in that same spot result in a fracture? How many time does a fall like Bradley's result in a torn ACL? I wasn't making a comparison, just pointing out ridiculous your generalization was. A more ridiculous comparison was you insinuating that your grandma is less fragile than Bradley because she didn't tear her ACL when she fell. (A fall that was worse than Bradley's!) Yes, the guy has spent a lot of time on the DL, but that doesn't mean he can't be involved in a freak injury or accident. If his grandma can OPS over .900 and is willing to take a backloaded deal it might be worth it for Hendry to at least get her in for a workout before he commits anything to Bradley.

I just knew you couldn't resist.

I think about 80% of the posts in transactions over the last 72 hours are from dextermorgan or dew. Every time I open up a thread it is like groundhog's day.

If it was all about money, we should have pursued a cheaper left handed option - such as Jeremy Hermida or Luke Scott. Then we don't downgrade at 2B. Or, we could have gone the free agent route, traded DeRosa and signed Adam Dunn. Then we don't have to worry about 70-some odd games from Hoff/Reed/Gathright when Bradley's hurt and we get very similar (if not slightly better) production. Trading DeRosa and then signing Bradley might be the worst thing Hendry could have done. The Marlins already made it clear that an offer for Hermida would have to blow them away, and MacPhail reportedy loves Scott, and we've already learned how fun it is to deal with him, especially over a player he loves. While I do like Bradley, I wouldnt have minded going after DeJesus from KC, they were trying to pawn off Teahen on us, and he wouldnt be an upgrade over anyone. He'd have been much better than Aaron Miles. :D Honestly, I'd have preferred to blow the Marlins away for Hermida than trade DeRosa for decent prospects (at best) and sign a humongous injury risk. Scott would be at the bottom of the list of what I'd like to see Hendry do, with trading DeRosa and acquiring Dunn likely at the top. The DeRosa/Dunn moves or the Hermida trade should be the direction Hendry went. Instead, he went the worst way he could have. If you love Hermidia so much you must also really like Fukudome since they pretty much were the same player last year except Fukudome being a bit better getting on base and Hermidia having slightly more power. I would like to see Hermidia actually come close to matching his 2007 production before considering "blowing away" the Marlins with an offer.

If Miles could do that consistently, he wouldn't be as much of a problem. But he's failed to do it pretty consistently. Career OBP .329.

Which he had never done before, and he's 34 years old. The never-ending Hendry defense: this stupid thing was made necessary by previous stupid things. Of course, the Soriano overpay was necessary because the team fell apart in 05/06 because he did such a poor job. And he had to let Baker blow out Prior's arm because he hadn't put together a good bullpen. It never ends... Call it is "never-ending Hendry defense" if you like, but since there is no time machine that allows anyone to go back and undo what has been done he has to work with the cards he has. I am not defending his overall strategy through the years, just being realistic that it was the best approach this offseason. Maybe he should have let Dempster walk and completed the Peavy deal, that would be one thing that was a possibility and could have been overall better. However, the indication is that he thought Towers was asking for too much talent so he probably decided to take the bird in the hand (Dempster), hold on to his trading chips and hope he could work something out later. However, if he let Dempster walk to Atlanta (and indications are that they were offering close to what the Cubs wound up getting him for) and then Towers decided to use that as leverage to ask for even more for Peavy then he would be in a really bad spot.

There's a crapshoot aspect to the playoffs, but making your team worse is going to reduce your chances of winning it, regardless. This reaction is just getting crazy. The Cubs let go of a closer instead of paying him 3 years at $10M a year. If people here did not have a man crush on him because his name is Kerry Wood there is no way anyone would support paying a closer that much money. They re-signed their best starter from last year but the assumption is that he will completely turn to crap this year even though he pitched at a high level for pretty much the whole season. They traded a 34 year old middle infielder coming off a career year and used that salary savings to add a significant offensive improvement in Bradley (ok, I get it, it hasn't happened yet, but it will). This is a catastrophe because Bradley will be hurt all year (this is a known fact) and DeRosa will have little or no regression. The replacement, Fontenot, actually out OPS'd DeRosa last year but there is no way that will happen again because DeRosa is a veteran and Fontenot is a young player and you have to trust the veteran, dude. Unlimited budget, they keep Wood and DeRosa and sign Bradley but welcome to the real world. The choice was DeRosa or Bradley and I think he went the right way. You can argue that he gave Soriano too much or that Fukudome was a mistake but starting where he did this offseason I think he made the right choices.

Exciting? They haven't done anything but get worse so far. What's so exciting about taking steps back? Maybe because he likes Fontenot / Bradley better than Fontenot / DeRosa. I don't consider that worse.

That they decided to arbitrarily trade him doesn't make the trade good. It made the team worse overall, so it was bad. You keep repeating this over and over as if the fact that Bradley and whoever the fifth starter will be (Gaudin/Marshall) will automatically be worse than DeRosa and Marquis. Personally I would rather have Bradley in RF and Gaudin in the rotation if it comes to that than have DeRosa in RF and Marquis in the rotation. The fact that the move potentially opens the door for the Cubs to get Peavy if everything works just right with the Padres makes me more willing to do it since without moving DeRosa and Marquis we know there definitely is not enough salary room for Bradley and Peavy. If they can't close the deal with the Padres then Hendry should have some wiggle room come the trading deadline to make a move to improve the team. There are injury risks with Bradley but when he is healthy he puts up all star caliber offensive numbers. With DeRosa there are significant regression risks considering his age and the fact he is coming off a career year but his upside is not as great. I think Hoff showed enough last year for me to think that if Lou picks his spots well he will combine with Bradley to give the Cubs a very good offensive RF. Marquis has been flamed here for 2 seasons and now that he is going to be gone it is amazing to me that suddenly people act like it is going to be a significant loss. I think the Cubs got the best they could hope from him the last two seasons and are smart to get rid of him now while there is still some value. If anything I'd say the DeRosa trade makes Peavy less likely since now we can't flip him for prospects they want later on. Hendry obviously knows better than anyone what prospects they want so if he thinks there is any chance of making the Peavy deal he must still feel that he can meet the Padres' demands with what he got from the Indians and/or what he has in house. He sends Pie to the Orioles for Olsen then sends Olsen, Vitters, Marshall, Hart, Cedeno, etc to the Padres for Peavy. Based on what has already happened we can safely assume that Towers wanted more than Hendry was willing to give so Hendry now is most likely waiting him out to see if he will cave as the season (and reality of having to pay Peavy) gets closer. But since to some degree the ball is in the Padres' court he can't wait around and not sign Bradley or he risks coming out of the offseason with neither. Therefore, he makes the move on DeRosa to make sure he has cleared enough salary then waits and sees what the Padres decide with Peavy and figures he will try to get approval from the new ownership at that time so he can pull the trigger if the Padres are willing. Clearly he thinks having Bradley makes the Cubs a better team than having DeRosa and at this moment with ownership in flux he can not get approval to have both under his salary constraints so he makes the move.

That they decided to arbitrarily trade him doesn't make the trade good. It made the team worse overall, so it was bad. You keep repeating this over and over as if the fact that Bradley and whoever the fifth starter will be (Gaudin/Marshall) will automatically be worse than DeRosa and Marquis. Personally I would rather have Bradley in RF and Gaudin in the rotation if it comes to that than have DeRosa in RF and Marquis in the rotation. The fact that the move potentially opens the door for the Cubs to get Peavy if everything works just right with the Padres makes me more willing to do it since without moving DeRosa and Marquis we know there definitely is not enough salary room for Bradley and Peavy. If they can't close the deal with the Padres then Hendry should have some wiggle room come the trading deadline to make a move to improve the team. There are injury risks with Bradley but when he is healthy he puts up all star caliber offensive numbers. With DeRosa there are significant regression risks considering his age and the fact he is coming off a career year but his upside is not as great. I think Hoff showed enough last year for me to think that if Lou picks his spots well he will combine with Bradley to give the Cubs a very good offensive RF. Marquis has been flamed here for 2 seasons and now that he is going to be gone it is amazing to me that suddenly people act like it is going to be a significant loss. I think the Cubs got the best they could hope from him the last two seasons and are smart to get rid of him now while there is still some value.

except you're missing the most significant factor: milton bradley. he's pretty much a lock to miss significant time. when he goes down, it would have been derosa moving to right and Fontenot getting significant playing time in place of Bradley. now, instead of more at-bats, a bradley injury means more at-bats for much less attractive options Hendy needs Hoff and Pie to produce. Between those two and Fontenot he is counting on his farm system big time to come through.

Hendy probably feels Fontenot can take the next step and put up production similar to what he would get from DeRosa this year, so he doesn't see it as a significant downgrade. I guess the only way we are going to resolve all this difference of opinion is for Hendry to go out and get Peavy, so he may as well just get it done.

Then don't get Bradley. If you have to downgrade in one spot to moderately upgrade in another, it's not worth it. Pursue a Hermida or Scott or Sammy Sosa, but don't trade a valuable chip in order to moderately upgrade. Obviously he likes Fontenot and feels better trading DeRosa and taking a chance on Fontenot being able to make the leap from backup to starter than he feels about the chances of Fukudome or Hoff being able to put up respectable numbers in RF. I hope this all leads to Peavy, but even if it really is just a money thing I agree with the move. I would rather have Fontenot / Bradley / Fukudome at 2B/RF/CF than the alternative of DeRosa / Fukudome / Pie. It is just a bit of a shock to the system if that is the way it turns out because the Cubs have not done anything other than add payroll for the last couple years so a move like the DeRosa trade primarily to dump salary takes some getting used to. That's not the choice the Cubs would have likely gone with. The two options would have either been: Fontenot at 2nd, DeRosa at RF, Fukudome in CF or Fontenot at 2nd, Bradley+Johnson in RF (Johnson for the 40-80 games that Bradley doesn't play, Fukudome in CF Would you rather have DeRosa for 140 games in RF and Marquis in the 5th spot or Bradley for 100, Vizcaino in the bullpen, and 3 decent pitching prospects? Personally I think the Cubs are better off with the former. If the Cubs get another upgrade other than Bradley it makes more sense. But is Bradley really a more valuable RF than DeRosa this year? Plus if you kept DeRosa you could have kept an extra OF bat for the bench that could hit instead of having to pay Miles to be a backup IF (because DeRosa would essentially be your 2nd backup IF even while starting in the OF). So with DeRosa you have about the same offense over the course of the year, a better starting rotation, a better bench, and possibly a better bullpen (because it could be argued that Vizcaino hurts the pen more than helps it). Trading him should only have been done to get talent that could be used to upgrade somewhere else. Removing DeRosa's salary isn't much of a help because DeRosa was being underpaid so much. Cmon now, we are now counting the loss of Marquis from the rotation as a downgrade? And we are assuming DeRosa repeats his '08 career year but Bradley will be hurt for a significant portion? It is just as easy to say Marquis would wind up in long relief and DeRosa would wind up regressing and hurt overall RF production. Marquis was decent last year and with his loss and no other additions we have very little depth to absorb a Harden injury. And I think DeRosa will be somewhere between his 08 and 07 numbers. Gaudin, Shark, Marshall, Hart, Atkins - how much depth do you want. I would think at least one of those guys can match Marquis' production. And I "think" that Bradley will be able to play 120 games with Hoff filling in against RH pitching and holding his own as that part of the platoon. Assuming the worst does not make it the most likely outcome.

Then don't get Bradley. If you have to downgrade in one spot to moderately upgrade in another, it's not worth it. Pursue a Hermida or Scott or Sammy Sosa, but don't trade a valuable chip in order to moderately upgrade. Obviously he likes Fontenot and feels better trading DeRosa and taking a chance on Fontenot being able to make the leap from backup to starter than he feels about the chances of Fukudome or Hoff being able to put up respectable numbers in RF. I hope this all leads to Peavy, but even if it really is just a money thing I agree with the move. I would rather have Fontenot / Bradley / Fukudome at 2B/RF/CF than the alternative of DeRosa / Fukudome / Pie. It is just a bit of a shock to the system if that is the way it turns out because the Cubs have not done anything other than add payroll for the last couple years so a move like the DeRosa trade primarily to dump salary takes some getting used to. That's not the choice the Cubs would have likely gone with. The two options would have either been: Fontenot at 2nd, DeRosa at RF, Fukudome in CF or Fontenot at 2nd, Bradley+Johnson in RF (Johnson for the 40-80 games that Bradley doesn't play, Fukudome in CF Would you rather have DeRosa for 140 games in RF and Marquis in the 5th spot or Bradley for 100, Vizcaino in the bullpen, and 3 decent pitching prospects? Personally I think the Cubs are better off with the former. If the Cubs get another upgrade other than Bradley it makes more sense. But is Bradley really a more valuable RF than DeRosa this year? Plus if you kept DeRosa you could have kept an extra OF bat for the bench that could hit instead of having to pay Miles to be a backup IF (because DeRosa would essentially be your 2nd backup IF even while starting in the OF). So with DeRosa you have about the same offense over the course of the year, a better starting rotation, a better bench, and possibly a better bullpen (because it could be argued that Vizcaino hurts the pen more than helps it). Trading him should only have been done to get talent that could be used to upgrade somewhere else. Removing DeRosa's salary isn't much of a help because DeRosa was being underpaid so much. Cmon now, we are now counting the loss of Marquis from the rotation as a downgrade? And we are assuming DeRosa repeats his '08 career year but Bradley will be hurt for a significant portion? It is just as easy to say Marquis would wind up in long relief and DeRosa would wind up regressing and hurt overall RF production.

Entertaining the thought that a full season of DeRosa is more valuable than a half season (of less) of Bradley means we're overvaluing him? So everyone is basing it off of injury risk? I understand that you have to be concerned, especially with his history, but come on, Bradley is a hell of a player when healthy. Quit being typical glass half empty Cubs fans. Now we are only assuming a half season OR LESS from Bradley? That seems a bit pessimistic. I have also seen people saying that we will be lucky if we get as many innings out of Harden in '08 as we did in '09. Worst case scenarios are pretty popular around here these days.