biittner77

I was going to say blimp crash but that wouldn't be right -unless the pilots and crew were Cards' fans.* *There is no such thing as a White Sox fan, there are merely people that live in the Chicago area that hate the Cubs.

I believe he is, and I believe he was last year, was he not? This year would be much more of a concern, IMO. If he plays well at AA to finish the season, there's no reason he SHOULDN'T be protected. If he was still a middle infielder they'd have to protect him. As a corner OF his numbers are not as impressive. It probably depends more on who else gets traded. Kornka and I believe Rohlicek are taking up 40 man spots. Not hard to imagine either being thrown in a trade or clearing waivers.

Couldn't Kearns play CF? With Murton in LF batting 2nd it would give the Cubs this lineup Walker Murton- good place for a singles hitter that draws walks Lee Burnitz Ramirez Kearns SS- be it Nomar, Cedeno or Perez (in that order) Barrett Not too shabby

Looking at the Rule 5 list, Pie obviously gets protected. Hill, Murton and Greenberg have already been added to the 40 man roster. Pitchers at risk: Brownlie: he's close enough to take a chance on Marshall: on talent if nothing else- I'd hope the Cubs protect him though Pignatello: because he's LH Position players: Bacon: seems like he'd be easy to hide on a 25 man roster given his speed Sing: having another good year Dopirak: too far away? Fox: haven't kept up with him This doesn't even count other guys like Ryu, Nolasco, Marmol O'Malley etal. Few of these guys by themselves bring much in return but the right package could bring a key element.

Not much new information, unfortunately. The Mike MacDougal trail went pretty cold as KC was asking for a boatload of prospects, and the Kearns talk was pretty much, just talk - nothing was close as of Saturday. I still think Hendry will address the bullpen if the Cubs have a good week between today through Sunday. Me definition of good week: 5-2 at minimum (2 of 3 from SF, and 3 of 4 from AZ). Like you and almost everybody here, I feel Hendry must address the OF situation for 2006. If Jeromy Burnitz is brought back, I want him to be the 3rd best OF in the line-up (OPS wise). If he's #1 again, then we should consider the offseason a failure. I have faith that it will be addressed. Hoops, Given the Cubs long list of Rule 5 eligibles I can't help thinking that a deal will come sooner rather than during the offseason. Particularly since Hill and Greenberg have already been added it will be a crowded 40 man roster once the injury exemptions come back.

This trade makes no sense at all. Nevin can't play 3rd. If the O's had to take Lowell in the Burnett deal why not then flip him to St. Louis for a bag of army men. It might cost them some money but who cares? Carpenter for Mora sounds more reasonable :lol:

I don't mean to appear unsympathetic but how could Greenberg be ranked #2 among Cubs Minor League OF? Unless they did the list alphabetically Pie, Harvey and Murton should have been ahead of him and probably Bacon too. Interesting to see that Fleita made it sound like he'd definitely be back with the Cubs.

It doesn't make it impossible but what it probably does is makes it at the very least extremely difficult or not worthwhile. Yes, players do approve trades but usually not until they've forced the team trading for them to pick up an expensive option. This is great for the player but it means that the team that is trading the player won't get as much in return. There have been many examples of this including Griffey Jr., Randy Johnson and our own Fred McGriff. Furthermore, when a player is dictating terms it drives his value down. That's fine if all you're trying to do is dump a bad contract. I would imagine, however, that the Cubs would expect to get some value for a player like Wood. If all they wanted to do was get rid of him they could just let him play out the last year of his contract and then not pick up his option.

I'd guess that Palmeiro plays first with Nevin and the Gladiator splitting time between DH and butchering RF.

Who do the Cubs have to sell? I'd just as soon keep the infield minus Perez but no one would want him. I'd trade any of the current OF except Murton but who'd want Hollandsworth, Macias, Gerut or Burnitz? Hairston might have some value but unless they're ready to bring Patterson back they can't afford to trade him. They could probably find a taker for Remlinger and Rusch but unless some team drastically overpays there wouldn't be much coming back so why bother?

THe Cards are where they are because they have taken advantage of the weaker teams in the division. They beat up the Pirates and especially the Reds on a regular basis. In the interest of saying something nice about the Cards I was glad to see them honor one of the few Cards I actually liked, Bob Forsch. He was a good hitter and semmed like a class act. I didn't realize he had thrown 2 no hitters before last night.

Does this include last night? I guess not since it was posted before the game started. :oops: CERA is pretty worthless because the opponents are different and pitchers have different stuff on different days, the wind could be blowing in vs out and Blanco's sample is too small. I would also argue that Baker picks and chooses what opponents to hide Blanco in the lineup as opposed to Barrett who's in there against the better teams.

I believe San Diego claimed him. I don't recall what's happened to him since then. LOoks like he's now with the Orioles viewtopic.php?t=22909

He was too stubborn to not get hurt. The Cubs have been trying to turn him into a guy that doesn't get hurt but he refused to listen. Same thing with Wood.

Lost in all the Dunn speculation is the little nugget that Kearns was recalled the same day that Hendry shows up and reportedly says that Kearns is the guy he's really interested in. Might be purely coincidence but Kearns is more of a Hendry type player. OF course the price for Kearns might be more than Hendry is willing to pay.

I seriously DOUBT Junior is going to the Yanks. If there is ONE team Junior holds a grudge against it is the Yanks. I don't know how they treated his father when he was a Yankee, but Junior has stated several times, he won't ever play for the Yanks, and has used they way they treated his father as the reason why. So I highly doubt it will be Junior to the Yanks. He has maintained that anti-Yankees stance in the past (for which I greatly admire the man), but reportedly backed off those comments within the past year. In other words, when he had his choice, he chose not to play for the Yankees. Now that he's seen what languishing in last place is like he's more open minded.

You just beat me to this. He says Dunn & Kearns "aren't available." Then said the Cubs aren't likely to make any "big" trade, though a deal for someone like Byrnes is possible. Hopefully he means Ken Byrnes or Monty.

Maybe, but I doubt they'd risk Hill getting hurt just so he could make one last start for the I-Cubs.

They could always announce the trade after the game was over- in in fact there was a trade. We'll know for sure when the Iowa game starts. If Hill starts the game then this was 20 pages worth of yanked chain. If he gets pulled then apologies will be gladly handed out by me. I always thought that Mientkewicz was a fan favorite.

The difference is that you've been here long enough to have already established enough credibility to get the benefit of the doubt. That's a lot different than someone making their first post to say that they know that the most talked about trade is about to happen.

It's a gamble either way because even if he is legit, several things can happen between now and then to dissolve a deal. Remember the Bruce Levine rumor, I have every reason to believe it was true, but something happened (like Remmy getting hurt) and deal never came true and Levine looked like an idiot. Levine is legitimate media with a proven track record. Doesn't it strike you as odd that the Cubs are about to acquire the best player on the team they've been playing the last two days and none of the Chicago media that's been in town for 3 days has an inkling? Nobody really believes this will happen but enough people really want it to happen and are bored so what the heck. I'm fine with discussing the merits of a trade. I hate to see guys come on here to get peoples' hopes up, then turn around and laugh at them for their gullibility. Remember a couple of months ago some guy reported that Dunn and Graves were on a flight to Chi.? That's nothing. There was some loser on Cubs.com that faked his own death just to get attention. I couldn't believe anyone would bother doing something like that but was wrong. I've seen these rumor threads too many times to get my hopes up but on the other hand I really don't see the harm. A bunch of people waste some time thinking about this. If they had more pressing things to do they'd be doing them.

It's a gamble either way because even if he is legit, several things can happen between now and then to dissolve a deal. Remember the Bruce Levine rumor, I have every reason to believe it was true, but something happened (like Remmy getting hurt) and deal never came true and Levine looked like an idiot. Levine is legitimate media with a proven track record. Doesn't it strike you as odd that the Cubs are about to acquire the best player on the team they've been playing the last two days and none of the Chicago media that's been in town for 3 days has an inkling? Nobody really believes this will happen but enough people really want it to happen and are bored so what the heck.

Who is this Cake guy? Can he play LF?

I'd rather have a too big head than than one that was too little. Any Illini fans remember (James) Griffin from the early '80s?

If you look at their record against the NL Central, the Cards have been pretty ordinary when they're not beating up on the Reds and Pirates. The schedule works to the Cubs' advantage in that they missed the Astros ridiculous hot streak that put them back in the race. The Cubs need to do what the Cards and Astros have done: beat up on the weak teams and stay just above .500 against the good ones. The Nationals are fading, The Dodgers are imploding, The Marlins are in disarray and no one takes the Mets seriously. We could see another Cubs- Astros battle down the stretch for the WC