CoolHandLuke

And what quality arms did you want? Schmidt didn't take a competitive offer from the Cards, the WS champions. What makes you think he would have come to the Cubs? We weren't even a finalist for his services. He wanted to stay on the west coast. Hendry decided to pay for arms instead of trading for them. We're going to need our farm system to start producing. It can't produce if you keep trading away the cream of the crop. I'm not down with trading the likes of Pie for a #2 starter (at best) in Jennings. What FA did Hendry not get that you would have been willing to pay for? Drew? If Wood and Prior taught us anything, it's not to count on injury prone players. Not many trades have gone down this offseason. Why is that? It's not b/c Hendry is stupid or Hendry is fat or Hendry eats too many donuts, blah blah blah. So are we in agreement that he didn't really improve the rotation? The two arms he added, Lilly and Marquis, most likely aren't going to keep up the collective ERA when compared to the pitchers that were already on the team last year (some of whom are you and will improve). If you're going to spend $60 million on a pair of pitchers, they should really help you out. The OBP will see it's biggest increase with the return of a healthy Lee. Soriano, DeRossa, and Izturis won't be responsible for a significant improve to the team's OBP. At least not to the extent that they needed. Relying on mediocrity is no better than relying on good to great players with a history of injuries. Has Hendry had the resources to make better moves? Absolutely. You can speculate on who was or was not available and which teams were or were not willing to trade until you're blue in the face. But the bottom line is that at this point, Hendry really hasn't made the team that much better, in my opinion. At least your crow is going to be enjoyable. What did he say that he would have to eat crow for? He is not making any sort of illogical predictions, he is stating his opinion.

Unfortunately, something this place has had very little of this offseason! It's been hard at points to read this board when you have to wade through pages and pages of arguements that lack reason, an objective view, and have some really skewed logic. The negativity (and I can understand it a bit) on this board has been SO bad this offseason it's crazy! Despite that, this is still head and shoulders above any other forum, I just wish more people would heed jjgman21's advise above. And posts like this one ^^^^ What do they accomplish? This isn't a thread on debate tactics, its a thread on the signing of Jason Marquis. I don't like it. There is a good chance that he will not get better and you will be on the hook for 21+ over 7 years. The following young pitchers can outperform Marquis. Sean Marhsall Carlos Marmol Juan Mateo There was really no point to this signing. Just trying to remind people about what made this board great and how it seems as though it has gotten completely out of hand this year (96 loss season do tend to do stuff like this though). There are a lot of stubborn people on here and I doubt that much will change, hopefully people realize how they have been acting and try to tone it down. Now what does your post accomplish? You tell me that 3 of our young guys can outperform Marquis, fair enough, but where is your logic behind it? Tell me why they will outpitch him, otherwise your post is just as pointless as you think mine was. I can say player A will outpeform player B all I want, give me something of substance to prove that point. BTW, personally I dont really like the signing much either. Sean Marshall outperformed Jason Marquis last year. Is that not the kind of evidence you are looking for.

A lot of the posters here have a certain mindset on how they want a team built because they think its the best way to build a successful winning team. Needless to say, our GM has pretty much gameplanned completely opposite from this mindset, and as such as pretty critical. I think that the key here is that many posters have a strong opinion on what is best. Therefore when someone else doesn't do it the same way, emotion takes over. We saw it last offseason with Jones. At the beginning there was outrage but slowly the better and more moderate commetns take over. Best thing is to not judge based on initial impressions Yeah, but what is "best" in most people's minds is to pick up each and every top free agent for less than market value. It's not reasonable to start with. Not necessarily...a lot of people would be thrilled to trade for Ryan Church, a mostly unproven player with good plate discipline. Also, Soriano was regarded as the top FA for everyone, and the Cubs picked him up, and a lot of posters would have went other routes. I think what is best in most people minds is when the market forces you to overpay, then you should overpay for impact players, not average middle of the road players.

There is absolutely no way a pitcher coming off of a year as bad as Marquis' 2006 should be able to get a multi year 20+ million dollar deal. This signing is bad bad bad and I see no reason why people shouldn't be upset. He could be good, I hope he is good, but the fact is he wasn't just not good last year, he was absolutely awful. And even in his one good full year he allowed more hits than innings pitched, didnt strike out many batters, allowed too many home runs and walked too many people. I am excited for next year with all the fresh faces, but I honestly don't see this team performing very well unless they catch a lot of breaks.

There is no trading of draft picks.

So does this move mean that Izturis could be an option for the 9 hole almost half of the time?

I don't understand how counting on a pitcher who has shown the ability to throw up a 6+ era is better than counting on Prior.

Hello? Link please to confirm that I got the title changed correctly? here ya go

I'm not saying that it said that. I'm saying that if he can get a deal done where he gets Church for Marmol or Marshall then I can't see him not working something out.

What healthy pitcher will sign for less than 3 years these days? I hope we aren't done and that a trade for a better #2 option is still availabe (ie Brad Penny) but my fear is that it's not. And Lilly, Marquis and Cotts aren't exactly what I had in mind for strengthening our pitching staff. Sori OTOH I'm counting down the days before we can see him in Cubs pinstripes. The answer should be: the kind that put up a 6+ era in his most recent season.

holy wow. I give up on this team if they give that much guaranteed to a guy who put up a 6+ era.

As things are right now, I don't think I would complain with either Weiters, Price or Brackman. Weiters is who I would prefer though. It would be nice to draft a high profile, high ceiling college stud.

I can't believe that this win now version of Hendry wouldn't make that move.

Ouch....BURN Kelso, is that you? thats a burn about a burn! SECOND DEGREE BURN!!!!

This is exactly what I didn't know how to say.

Guzman Marmol Marshall My reasoning is nonexistant.

Depo doesn't seem to be a crazy scout hating robot to me. He smartly kept the guy who runs the dodgers scouting didnt he? I think he knows the value in scouts and realizes having a good scouting department is crucial. In my opinion it seems like the SABR guys understand the value of scouting, but the scouting guys refuse to acknowledge the value in statistical analysis.

What has Wagner done to make you value him more than a guy like Wuertz?

So is Soriano even an option in Center? That's where I originally thought they planned to play him, but I haven't heard anything about it for a while. Also, isn't Huff somewhat of a butcher defensively? Do we want him in right?

I just calculated the aggregate numbers of Hill and Floyd over the last two years: Floyd era: 5.97 whip: 1.57 (includes time spent in AAA(252.3ip) and the majors(80.3ip)) Hill era: 3.51 whip: 1.08 A(8ip), AA(57.5ip), AAA(165ip) and the majors(123ip) Hill has some upside too, and he has actually shown it for a prolonged period of time at the highest level. Anyways my main point has nothing to do with hill. It's that Floyd is not a good prospect anymore. If you really want to compare him to a similar Cub prospect, then compare him to Bobby Brownlie.

would you have done Hill for Garcia because thats basically what the Phils did- hill is better than both floyd and gio...and he's better than the two of them combined. i was just making the statement that as far as organizations go, KW would have asked for Hill for Garcia just as he asked for Floyd- I just dont know why everyone feels we can get players via trade without giving up value- Floyd doesn't have much value. look up his numbers. young, cheap lefty under club control for a while with alot of upside.......yeah, no value there- not trying to argue but the same description could be made of Hill- I just am constantly amazed at the over-valueing done by Cub fans concerning prospects and unproven commodities such as Hill- yes, Hill looked good for 5 starts at the end of a "play it out" year- i'm not going to annoint him a #2 and untouchable as many here have and even Hendry. Would you do a Hill+Jones for Hudson? Floyd is apparantly out of options, meaning he must stick on the 25 man roster. The only problem is he has pitched like crap wherever he has been the past two years. Compare Hill's and Floyds numbers side by side the last two years (both have bounced between AAA and the majors) and seriously tell me they have similar value. I am so sick of people still thinking of floyd as the highly rates prospect from several years ago. EDIT -btw, floyd is a rhp.

would you have done Hill for Garcia because thats basically what the Phils did- hill is better than both floyd and gio...and he's better than the two of them combined. i was just making the statement that as far as organizations go, KW would have asked for Hill for Garcia just as he asked for Floyd- I just dont know why everyone feels we can get players via trade without giving up value- Floyd doesn't have much value. look up his numbers.

Doing a favor for a gm that traded Austin Kearns and Felipe Lopez for a couple of bullpen arms could help us down the road eh?

If its a one year low salary deal and he is not guaranteed a rotation spot then I don't mind too much.

Wow, I thought Dayton Moore was going to be a great GM. Why would you be a player in this market unless you were a couple pieces away from being a winning team?