cubfan

I haven't been keeping up on things very well over the holidays but won't Wood be in the bullpen to start the year?

Because Gagne has pitched in MLB to earn Free Agency. Daisuke has not. Frankly, they're lucky they get to negotiate a contract that's as good as they've been offered, instead of 3 years of < 1M indentured servitude like every other player. *sigh* he's been serving his "years of indentured servitude" in Japan. Those guys have it much worse of in terms of players rights and money than the US players do. In 2 years he would have full free agent rights there as well as here. Im sure Boston wants alot more than 2 years, why should Mats sign a long term contract for below free agent market prices when he has the option of waiting 2 more years and getting paid market value? In MLB eyes he is no different than someone drafted out of High School or college. He has zero MLB or minor league experience. Mark Prior was probably viewed as just as valuable as Daisuke when he came out of college but he was not able to demand 12+ mill a year. If he did he would have ended up in an independent league. Also, I think in life you normally do not pay what something is worth, you pay what you have to to get it. A tickle me Elmo doll does not cost that much to make but people may pay a lot for one since so many other people want it and if they don't, they will be left out. Right now Boston is the only customer in the store. Fair or not, that is the way it is and with out other competition they are in a very strong negotiating position.

A little pessamistic aren't we? I think he is stating the facts. Lilly + Marquis = 17+ Million. Why not just overpay for Zito with that $$$? Zambrano + Zito is a pretty good 1-2 punch. So you are saying you think Zito would take a 3/51 Million contract? I don't think you can ignore the length of the contracts when saying Lilly +Marquis would equal Zito.

I'm probably the only one, but I don't mind the 3/20 compared to several other contracts that have been given out this year. Marquis has more risk than Lilly but his upside would be about the same and is much cheaper. I really think this might turn out to be a case of buying low on someone after a down year instead of overpaying for someone after having a career year like Soriano and Derosa. Lilly and Marquis have similar numbers over the last few years and would not be surprised if Marquis has a solid but unspectacular year next year.

:wall: Depends on how you define "Serious players", The Royals were never serious contenders to win there division last year but it dosen't mean they didn't try. The way the Cubs have been spending money this off season, I think Hendry would have looked into Schmidt. If Schmidt had no interest in coming here then there was not much Hendry could do.

The headline is "Pujols: MVP should be from winner" I think the Philies won 2 more games than the Cards did. Pujols probably should have won the MVP but not because his team made the playoffs because they were in the weak NL central.

How would you feel if you were a lawyer and you were told at a meeting with everyone present that you suck at everything other than doing divorce cases and that is all that you are going to be able to do from now on. You will still make the same amount of money and might even work less hours. Sounds great right. I'm sure Jones has pride in doing his Job and I don't see what publicly coming out and saying anything would do. Hendry can look for a good platoon partner and when the time comes in spring training, Lou can have a private meeting with Jones and tell him. It will come out publicly at some point but it makes more since to down play it. I'm not saying that Lou is going to want to platoon Jones, but if he does, I doubt we will know until at least a suitable partner is signed Why does it have to framed that way? Using your meeting analogy, why couldn't it be presented as we're building the best team possible, matching our team to their best situation?? Everybody benefits from being with a winner, and salary is already established. Win-win instead of negativity. And, for those worried about the perception of going outside to acquire his platoon partner, I'd suggest we already have a near perfect partner in Murton. Lou could decide this in general now without ever making public mention of it, and we can add a big bat for the other corner OF slot. However you frame it or dress it up, it would still be a public statement that we are a better team with Jones playing less. Even if this happens to be true, nothing is gained by saying any thing to the public and should be kept in house.

No one has said it will be kept secret. There's a meaningful difference in perception of actively advertising it versus letting people infer it, or more importantly, letting the player handle it himself. TRYING to sabotage his trade value (whatever it may be now) is just stupid, and would only be done to placate unreasonable fans who think they own the organization or to publicly humiliate and devalue Jacques Jones, which is suicide for the organization. If they let it happen naturally, or on Jacques' terms, they can spin it any way they want- he can say he didn't like them letting Dusty go, for example, or wanted to be re-united with _______, etc. Meaningful difference? I don't see it. If there's a story on the sports page titled "Jim Hendry inquires about Craig Wilson" it won't take a rocket scientist to do the math. At that point Jacque's value wouldn't be signficantly affected by an annoucement of a platoon that everybody already knew about anyway. I could just as easily assume that Hendry must not believe in Murton and is looking into getting Wilson as insurance. Or that he is planning on trading Murton some where and is going to have Wilson start in left. Could even mean that Wilson will move to right and Jones will play center. Or it could mean nothing. A Jones platoon may be the most likely, but I would call it a meaningful difference.

I do not see the reason that the Cubs would ever announce that they are going to platoon Jones. At least not until the platoon partner is signed. Lou should just have a meeting with Jones and tell him that is what he is planning on doing. He can do that in November if he wants to but I wouldn't expect to find out about it since I'm just a fan. At that point Jones can demand a trade and go to the press if he wants to. Just because a player wants to be traded dosen't mean it will happen either. I just don't see Lou coming out to the press and saying "I'm going to platoon Jones, I'm not sure with who yet but I'm sure we can find someone"

How would you feel if you were a lawyer and you were told at a meeting with everyone present that you suck at everything other than doing divorce cases and that is all that you are going to be able to do from now on. You will still make the same amount of money and might even work less hours. Sounds great right. I'm sure Jones has pride in doing his Job and I don't see what publicly coming out and saying anything would do. Hendry can look for a good platoon partner and when the time comes in spring training, Lou can have a private meeting with Jones and tell him. It will come out publicly at some point but it makes more since to down play it. I'm not saying that Lou is going to want to platoon Jones, but if he does, I doubt we will know until at least a suitable partner is signed

Lou coming out and publicly saying that he was going to platoon Jones would do nothing more than piss off Jones and probably some of the other players on the team. It makes no since and doesn’t accomplish anything other than hurting Jones trade value. I think several players would view it as publicly calling Jones out. Now, it would make since for Lou to tell Hendry that he may want to platoon Jones and he should look into signing someone that would be a good partner. Then Lou would have the option when the time comes. The change wouldn't be so obvious and publicly critical of Jones abilities.

http://www.suntimes.com/sports/baseball/cubs/84784,CST-SPT- cub05.article Why wouldn't "losing out" concern Hendry? If he knows who he wants go get him. Is he just going to wait and just take the last man standing? Unless it's another Baker situation and he wants one of the guys in the playoffs. No team is due to let go of any of the managers in the playoffs, and I haven't seen him mention any of the coaches that are in the playoffs... I have seen Mets third-base coach Manny Acta mentioned. I don't think that is why Hendry is dragging his feet but you never know.

A new manager in Florida would have to be compared to Girardi's season (over-achieved and in contention for the wild card). A new manager in Chicago would be hailed as a savior to reach .500 and have some sort of direction for the 2008 team. I totally agree with you that the Cubs' job is by far a better situation. The Marlins might be good for a new under-the-radar manager to give him a chance to get some experience. I think you're wrong here. I think as a fan base we don't except a .500 ballclub anymore. As a whole we want a World Series or at least the playoffs. Espically with the Sox winning it all last year and Boston the year before. Anything less is not acceptable anymore... I'll believe that when I see some empty seats at Wrigley and a non-sellout at the Cubs Convention. We invented the motto "Wait until next year." You saw it this year. The last two months you saw a ton of empty seats. You see it when players are boo(ed) on a daily basis. As long as the Cubs are at .500 they will probably be in the wild card race. I think that is all it would take for the avg fan to be happy and keep them coming to the ball park. I'm not sure about the new manager being hailed as a savior, but I think that will be enough for the organization and avg fan to be content.

It would have been horrible - but as I remember, Brant Brown was a BIG reason why we were in it that year. Didn't he have like several late inning HR's that year to win games? And he was young - what ever happened to him? It is like he was traded and then fell off the face of the earth. On December 14, 1998, Brown was sent by the Cubs to the Pirates for pitcher Jon Lieber. On December 13, 1999, Brown was sent by the Pirates to the Marlins for outfielder Bruce Aven. On June 9, 2000, Brown was sent to the Rangers from the Marlins for Chuck Smith. On that same day, he was sent to the Cubs from the Rangers for Dave Martinez. frome http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brant_Brown I guess there is a wikipedia for about everyone lol

I was watching when Kruk was on and thought either A) Kruk did not read the article or B) he is the dumbest person to ever be employed as an analyst. Then I realized that Kruk is probably to dumb to be able to read and both choices are right. I do not know the name of the guy that Kruk was talking to while on the "Hot Seat" but he seemed to be in disbelief by Kruks answer. He asked Kruk about the unnamed players that were being critical of Arod which just seemed to confuse Kruk and he just repeated his first answer.

Yea, but so is Santo right? And we all love him :D Yeah, but I don't think many of us would want Santo to be the Cubs new manager :)

Saw this and thought I would share. Writing on SI.com, Jon Heyman of Sports Illustrated suggested that the Chicago Cubs' next manager could be ... Whitey Herzog, 75. Herzog didn't exactly squash the notion he'd be interested in the job should the Cubs fire Dusty Baker. "The Cubs would be interesting if you knew those two pitchers would get up off their (rear ends) and pitch," Herzog said, speaking of Kerry Wood and Mark Prior. Herzog said the Cubs "have pretty good baseball people over there." Link If this happens I guess the new stratagy is to look what Detroit did. Bring in an old manager with past success. I guess as stratagies go it is better than the speed and def one that failed this year.

Sample size, Vance. :D Remember Mitre vs Halladay. Couldn't the same be said about Hill's minor league numbers vs. his major league numbers? A few starts over 2 years is not much of a sample size compaired to all his starts in the minors. I'm not saying that Hill will turn out to be a great major league starting pitcher just that it is to soon to tell.

I think that a trade would make since if the Cubs could get a real good 3rd base prospect back in the trade which I'm pretty sure the Dodgers have in Andy LaRoche. I just don't know how willing the Dodgers are to trade him.

Over the weekend I think it was said that the Cubs have a higher team AVG than the Mets but the Mets are first in the NL in runs scored and the Cubs are last. The Cubs are 29th in obp the Mets are 16th. The Mets are first in slg while the Cubs are 28th so SLG must be the most important stat. I think you can't look at any one stat and read to much into it so I'm just joking about SLG being the most important stat. OBP, AVG, SLG, ect all have their uses but I think they all need to be looked at together to give a true picture and trying to pick out one stat as being the most important is not going to work. I would think a team that only had players like Dave Kingman would have great SLG but would not be a very good team.

"jacque jones, aramis ramirez, sean marshall, and whatever cash it takes to make the salaries a wash to the phillies for bobby abreu. " I would think that would be enough to have the Yankees interested in a deal for Arod. Who I would much rather have than Abreu.

I predict that the Cubs will have lost 99 games with 1 game left to play. Baker will start Rusch on short rest and have Nefi bat lead off. Baker will be quoted saying that he felt that this decision gave the Cubs that best chance to win and it is not fair to the integrity of the league to start younger players when other teams are fighting for a playoff spot. "You have to put your best team on the field when the game matters for your opponent" The Cubs lose the game in a blow out and Baker is fired the next day.

Brewer fans talk up Cruz a bit, but I'm leary of 26 year old guys who have had 5 big league at bats. His AAA numbers are good this year, but the guy is in his 6th minor league season. Can he play CF, or is he strictly a corner outfielder? If he can play CF he is a little more intresting. That's my feeling as well. Cruz is a bit old for a prospect. I'd look at some other guys within the system. I'd push for Hart and then accept a lower prospect if necessary. I don't know much about Hart or what the Brewers needs are but couldn't the Cubs include a bullpen arm (Novoa?) if Maddux wasn't enough by himself to get Hart?

I have the feeling that if Jones keeps this up until the trade deadline, Hendry will think "wow, what a great signing I'm glad I have this guy locked up for 2 more years. He is going to be a big part of our 2007 season." If Jones comes back down to earth and plays like he did at the beginning of the year the Cubs will be stuck with him because no one will want him. I just have this feeling that he is going to be with the Cubs one way or another.

A well trained monkey for manager at this point... Well trained? I think this team deserves an untrained monkey that sits in the dug out and slings poop at them every time they have a 1 or 2 pitch at bat. Could be a good motivational tool.