CoolHandLuke

Isn't he a scratch golfer? He should retire from baseball and try to make money from his other love.

I would have brought in Marmol.

good start

Martin, Furcal, Laroche, Loney, Either, Kemp, Pierre, Kent is not a bad offense by any stretch. Billingsley, Penny, Kuroda, Lowe, Kershaw, Kuo is a solid rotation. I can definitely see them staying in the race, even if they do choose to try and move Lowe.

proven winner.

poor dan uggla.

I'm not in chicago all that much, so I can't give you specifics, but when I take the metra downtown I prefer taking the brown line to the belmont stop and walking to wrigley (ten-ish minute walk). It seems to be a lot less congested than the red line.

Gordon was hilarious. He kept racing ahead of the music, realizing he was ahead, pausing to let the music catch up to the next lyric, then singing too fast again, realizing he needed to pause again, etc. It was like he wanted to sing it as a fast punk rock song but the organist wasn't cooperating. I started booing him the moment he said, "Wrigley Stadium." The entire crowd followed suit in a hurry. Link! Is he the only person to get booed during the stretch? I can't think of anyone else. n/m http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NbF1_7hP1kk that kid is a moron. If you don't know who Bob Uecker is, then I don't want you as a fellow baseball fan.

Dusty would have had him sacrifice Lee to third. Gotta get that runner to third with less than two outs, dude. No, he would have had him sacrifice with the intention of having him fail to get the bunt down in order for him hit the 0-2 pitch out of the park. Ramirez's last sacrifice was in 2000. http://www.firejoemorgan.com/2008/04/vintage-dusty.html

Dusty would have had him sacrifice Lee to third. Gotta get that runner to third with less than two outs, dude. No, he would have had him sacrifice with the intention of having him fail to get the bunt down in order for him hit the 0-2 pitch out of the park.

If I were Rich, the next time i pitched for the Cubs, I would throw a fastball so wild that it went straight into the Cubs' dugout and bonked Lou in the gut.

The AJP for Nathan etc. trade would be absolutely nothing like trading Lincecum. AJP was a 26 year old catcher coming off of a very solid year for a catcher (115 ops+), Liriano was talented but super low level and I'm not sure why but he didn't even pitch 10 innings the year before the trade (I'm guessing he already had injury issues at that point in his career). Bonser seems to me like he was a meh pitching prospect. Nathan of course was a failed starter who had exactly one great year in a setup/mid relief role. Nobody could have foreseen that he would go on to be one of the best closers in the game. The bottom line is that it is easy to judge a trade in hindsight. While that trade may not have been great at the time, it wasn't nearly as bad as it's made out to be, and none of the three giants were well established players.

I didn't think he would be a disaster; I actually thought he would be decent for a 4/5.

I think you'd be surprised, guys. Let's use the contract Troy Tulowitzki got -- 6/$31M, with a $15M option on a 7th year -- after finishing second in ROY voting. That contract calls for $5.5M in year 4, $8.5M in year 5, and $10M in year 6. Now let's look at the ROY vote-getters from the year 2002. If these players had been signed to the same deal that Tulowitzki got, they'd have been paid $8.5M last year, and $10M this year. 1 Eric Hinske TOR 2 Rodrigo Lopez BAL 3 Jorge Julio BAL 4 Bobby Kielty MIN 4 John Lackey ANA 6 Josh Phelps TOR 7 Kevin Mench TEX 8 Mark Ellis OAK 8 Tony Fiore MIN 8 Dustan Mohr MIN 8 Carlos Pena TOT 1 Jason Jennings COL 2 Brad Wilkerson MON 3 Austin Kearns CIN 4 Kazuhisa Ishii LAD 5 Damian Moss ATL 6 Ryan Jensen SFG 7 Josh Fogg PIT 7 Mark Prior CHC 9 Alex Sanchez MIL 9 Jason Simontacchi STL 9 Dennis Stark COL There's not a single name on that list that you would've wanted for $8.5M last year, or $10M this year. Wrong I'd be damn happy to have Carlos Pena or John Lackey at those salaries for last year and this year.

I don't believe in destiny. I meant destined in a talent and opportunity (which this hinders to some extent, yes, but at 23 this isn't really a worry) sense. Listen, I'm not really trying to defend the move all that much, I just think a lot of people are wearing their Edmonds hating hat when judging this move. We are currently getting slightly more than nothing production wise from cf and a few more weeks of that is worth the chance that Edmonds has something left, in my opinion. I guess it might be a stretch to assume Edmonds won't get longer than that if he struggles, but I really trust Lou's knee-jerk, reactionary managerial style to provide the correct result in this case. A) I don't believe players are destined for the majors, teams have to develop talented players and give them an opportunity to play there. When you screw around with a guy in his pre-prime and pre-arbitration years, you lose developmental time as well as cost effective time, which can lead to decisions like cutting ties with a guy prematurely. Look no further than Matt Murton for a guy that was clearly capable of producing in the majors but whose prime has been wasted by the Cubs in part due to their something left in the tank nonsense like Cliff Floyd. B) We are getting nothing out of CF because Lou is playing a guy who can't hit RHP against RHP. Yet, the Cubs are still scoring runs and winning games. They can live with getting nothing out of CF for a while because so many others are producing, that is the perfect time to let a kid work in the majors. C) Lou's knee jerk reactions occur with young guys and those who fail to make a good first impression. If Edmonds happens to run into one in a crucial spot early, he's going to get a much longer rope to hang himself with than is appropriate. I think the major difference in how we feel about this situation is that my view is attempting to work inside the framework of the Cubs ridiculous decision making. As far as part A goes, I think a club definitely can ruin a young player. However, I think more often than not talent wins out, as long as opportunities are presented. At 23, Pie will definitely receive more opportunity. Matt Murton is a bad comparison, in my opinion, as he had already shown himself to be a quality major league hitter before he was thrown under the bus. I would definitely let Pie play a majority of the games, even against lhp if I were in charge. I just know that that is looking pretty unlikely at this point, and I'd prefer the potential upside Edmonds brings (however small it is) over Johnson. I guess C is a solid point, I just hope Edmonds is given a really short leash.

I hate it when people supposedly "in the know" post anonymously on message boards, and proceed to become angry when their privileged knowledge is put into question. Why would you expect people to just accept that what you say is true? This is the internet!

Boy, would the Braves' Marketing guys love that move.

I don't believe in destiny. I meant destined in a talent and opportunity (which this hinders to some extent, yes, but at 23 this isn't really a worry) sense. Listen, I'm not really trying to defend the move all that much, I just think a lot of people are wearing their Edmonds hating hat when judging this move. We are currently getting slightly more than nothing production wise from cf and a few more weeks of that is worth the chance that Edmonds has something left, in my opinion. I guess it might be a stretch to assume Edmonds won't get longer than that if he struggles, but I really trust Lou's knee-jerk, reactionary managerial style to provide the correct result in this case.

mascara, blah blah, oogling men, [expletive]-erotic towel slaps, har har...

Career at Wrigley .254/.378/.540 Jim Hendry loves anyone who used to be good against the Cubs at Wrigley. career overall: .286/.377/.526 His line in Wrigley means next to nothing - it was just a small random slice from the entire Jim Edmonds pie. this move doesn't matter too much to me. They realize there isn't much left in the tank and if he sucks he won't be around long. The move cost almost nothing in terms of dollars, and absolutely nothing in terms of players. If somehow he resembles even like 70% of his former self he will give us a boost, so its a good low risk situation in my mind. I think a lot of people are somewhat blinded by their own personal dislike for Edmonds. And if Pie is destined to become a superstar or even a solid player, this probably won't do anything to hinder that. I just wish if we were going to get an old, angry, hated player we would just sign Barry and stick either Fuku or Sori in cf.

At least we know Lou will not tolerate a sucky batting line from Edmonds for long. What I'm afraid of is that he will have two great games right off the bat, and his suckiness won't be apparent for a while.

Lee Elia thinks you should go get a job and see what it's like to actually work like the 85% of us.

Soto has the goofiest run on the team, by far. He does this dainty, T-Rex thing with his arms that is hysterical. So you're saying that the t-rex thought Soto was badass and copied him? Someone needs to Photoshop Soto chasing the Jeep in Jurassic Park. GIS "must go faster" and take a look at the third pic. Absolutely terrifying.

Why don't you go ask them nicely to turn them down, or better yet, off? because i actually know whose room it's coming from now. I'd just rather not deal with this guy. It's th same guy i've had problems with in the past thanks to his inability to turn off an alarm clock in less than 30 minutes after it begins going BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP....I don't even want to deal with it. haha you would hate me! sometimes I foolishly set it way earlier than I need to, in order to get a nice jump-start on the day, and it ends up going off every 10 minutes for 3 hours.

Soriano!!!! So nice to see him hitting.