CP_414

It looks like Brett Jackson is fine after being removed from the game yesterday. He doubled in his first at bat tonight.

Whats the word on AJ Cole? I've read he may fall to the middle of the first round.

I can only comment on my recent memory. But it seemed in 2008, every time Sheets tried to come back, his elbow hurt, or his shoulder hurt, or he had a problem with his finger. Seems like something was always happening and seems extremely injury prone if you ask me. Sure I'd love a healthy Sheets, but I don't think we'll get that. When was the last time he was fully healthy or atleast mostly healthy? Wasn't Sheets offered arbitration last year? If I remember correctly, the combination of losing a draft pick, and the possibility he might not pitch all year killed his value last off season. This would be an excellent risk to take.

There is no chance Pittsburgh would have offered 3/$12M to Grabow. Pittsburgh may have been clueless in the past, but they at least seem to have a plan now, and that doesn't fit the plan at all. They aren't giving away a high 2nd and wasting that kind of money on John Grabow. Common sense says Levine is wrong.

Hopefully Texas wins out so it'll be SEC champ vs. Texas.

Im going to go ahead and blame the officials on this one. HAHAHA. I get it. You are trying to be funny by mocking the way everyone pointed out a bunch of bs calls earlier in the game. Spot on, man. Spot on. Im more about mocking conspiracy theories, not calling out bad calls. Not that I expect you to make that distinction though. See what you want to see, buddy.

Im going to go ahead and blame the officials on this one. HAHAHA. I get it. You are trying to be funny by mocking the way everyone pointed out a bunch of bs calls earlier in the game. Spot on, man. Spot on.

Yep. Brutal.

Everyone's wrong but you... HAHA STANZI!!! Everyone else is rooting for Indiana. The refs aren't.

Everyone's wrong but you... HAHA STANZI!!!

rofl. really? Yeah, really. This officiating has been a joke and all one sided. Thank God for this Iowa QB.

BS. Big Ten wants an undefeated team.

Yeah guys, stats are for video games! Show me stat that measures heart! Milton Bradley is a nuclear terrorist. I guess he had 6 strikeout games, too. He doen't have the mindset for Chicago, even though he was excellent at Wrighley this year. That doesn't matter though, because even Ryan Theriot doesn't like him! How can anyone not get along with a guy as awesome as Ryan Theriot?????? Sam Fuld for RF in 2010!!! He seems like a great guy!

Not to mention Patterson had two productive seasons before Dusty tried to turn him into Lou Brock I'll give you the half season in 03, but what was the other season? 2004. 24 homers and plus plus defense out of a CF making almost nothing is pretty good Eh. Its a stretch to call it a productive offensive season, maybe with defense...but using defense some here who know a lot more about UZR than I, might be able to argue he would still be a productive player. His 04 was not terrible considering position, but .266/.320/.452 with an OPS+ of 95 isn't really good either. I'm no Baker fan, but I'm not going to pin Patterson's failings on him. Corey has bounced around a lot since leaving the Cubs and he just isn't very good.

Not to mention Patterson had two productive seasons before Dusty tried to turn him into Lou Brock I'll give you the half season in 03, but what was the other season?

Prior and Z both came up in 2002. They were/are great players...but we are going back 7 full seasons to find a very good player the Cubs have produced. Wells had a great season out of nowhere. I hope it continues, but we'll see. Geo had a good season and Marmol and Wuertz have been good relief pitchers most of the time. The vast majority of the guys on that list are very replacable players. In the last 5 years Boston has had Hanly Ramirez, Pedroria, John Lester, Bucholtz, Papelbon, Youkilis... The Dodgers have brought up Kemp, Billingsley, Kershaw, Broxton, Loney, traded for Either when he was a prospect, Martin... The Angels have brought up Morales, Kendrick, Aybar, Weaver, Napoli... The Mets havn't had a lot of players, but I'll take Wright and Reyes over that whole list of Cubs... These are jost a few of the teams in a similiar payroll situation as the Cubs. Maybe ther Cubs aren't the absolute worst at producing good players, but they are pretty darn bad. You don't keep someone in place because they aren't the worst person at the job, you keep them in place if they are good at their job. Hendry is not good at his job.

Can't blame him for trading a bunch of questionable prospects for a possible ace. One of Hendry's strengths is evaluating players in his own system, and he rarely has given up anything of value in those types of trades. Hendry rarely has anything of value in his system to give up, and that is his fault. We are all excited about some of the additions to the system the last 2-3 years, but the Cubs went a long time under Hendry with a horrible farm system despite having a big market payroll to invest in prospects. The farm system has actually produced a good number of contributors the past few years, and Hendry deserves some credit for hanging on to guys like Marmol, Soto, Theriot, etc. while getting rid of guys like Eric Patterson. And that was with a horrible scouting director. I'm not a fan of a lot of the things Hendry does, but it's probably better to focus on things like Aaron Miles and his fetish for veteran middle relievers instead of his past trades (except for Juan Pierre). Please continue after the etc. If Soto (1 great year and 1 garbage year), Theriot (average at best), and Marmol (good relief pitcher) are the highlights of your farm system the last 5-6 years, your system sucks. Compare what has come out of the Cubs system the last 5-6 years against the rest of the league. When you factor how much the Cubs have to spend on talent relative to most of those teams, it is ugly. You can blame it on a bad farm director, I'll blame it on the guy who employed the bad farm director.

Can't blame him for trading a bunch of questionable prospects for a possible ace. One of Hendry's strengths is evaluating players in his own system, and he rarely has given up anything of value in those types of trades. Hendry rarely has anything of value in his system to give up, and that is his fault. We are all excited about some of the additions to the system the last 2-3 years, but the Cubs went a long time under Hendry with a horrible farm system despite having a big market payroll to invest in prospects. What book did Beane write? I'd love to read it!

Lou keeps talking about getting an RBI guy and Theo says this (speaking about JD Drew)... http://joeposnanski.com/JoeBlog/2009/10/03/theo/ “That’s not true. With RBIs, yes. Based on his skill set, he’s always going to have underwhelming RBI totals. I couldn’t care less. When you’re putting together a winning team, that honestly doesn’t matter. When you have a player who takes a ton of walks, who doesn’t put the ball in play at an above average rate, and is a certain type of hitter, he’s not going to drive in a lot of runs. Runs scored, you couldn’t be more wrong. If you look at a rate basis, J.D. scores a ton of runs. “And the reason he scores a ton of runs is because he does the single most important thing you can do in baseball as an offensive player. And that’s NOT MAKE OUTS. He doesn’t make outs. He’s always among our team leaders in on-base percentage, usually among the league leaders in on-base percentage. And he’s a really good base runner. So when he doesn’t make outs, and he gets himself on base, he scores runs — and he has some good hitters hitting behind him. Look at his runs scored on a rate basis with the Red Sox or throughout his career. It’s outstanding. “You guys can talk about RBIs if you want, I just … we ignore them in the front office … and I think we’ve built some pretty good offensive clubs. If you want to talk about RBIs at all, talk about it as a percentage of opportunity but it’s just simply not a way or something we use to evaluate offensive players.” Maybe I shouldn't have put this in the Bradley conversation because this isn't even about him, but I was just catching up here and saw yet again Lou was talking about wanting a "RBI guy."

If Seattle finishes off Texas tonight, the Cubs can clinch a protected draft pick with a loss...so there is that anyway.

http://mlb.fanhouse.com/2009/09/21/ron-washington-would-take-milton-bradley-back/ OAKLAND -- There may be only one manager whose time with Milton Bradley started and ended on a happy note, and he'd take him back. Rangers manager Ron Washington endorsed Bradley, even in the wake of his latest problems. "I wouldn't hesitate to get him," Washington said. Bradley's tenure with the Cubs is likely over after the team suspended him for the final two weeks of the season because of a pattern of problems with the fans and the media. He has passed through Cleveland, Los Angeles (Dodgers), Oakland, San Diego, Texas and now Chicago, and the only place where he apparently didn't burn any bridges was with the Rangers. Before Texas played the A's on Monday, Washington said he thought having Bradley was "awesome." "He did a great job for me," Washington said. "It wasn't my first rodeo with Milton. I knew Milton." Washington was the A's third base coach in 2006, when Bradley played in Oakland. "I aint never had a problem with Milton because I was always honest with him," Washington said. "If I didn't like what he was doing, I let him know. I didn't let anything fester with Milton. All Milton wants is people to tell him the truth, to be honest with him. He's no dummy. He knows when he's [screwing] up."

Here's my only question for those of you who keep bringing up the "clubhouse" element: Do you believe the lack of chemestry created by Bradley being here contribuited to the Cubs losing any games this season? If so, how? If not, then why do you care about the Cubs not getting along? Thanks.

Yes. Have you not seen what he has done over the last 8 years with far less money to spend? The Dodgers have a just fine payroll. He inherited a farm system that Logan White, Kim Ng, and Depo are mostly responsible for. Andruw Jones, Juan Pierre, Jason Schmidt all have god awful contracts. I'm all for replacing Hendry, but let's make it an upgrade please.

You want him to hire Ned Coletti?

Hire Sandy Alderson to replace Crane Kenny. Alderson can bring DePo with him to be the GM. Bobby V to manage.