BigbadB

No kidding.

If they couldn't get the funding for a retractable roof, it might have still been a decent idea to build it without the retractable roof, but where you could add one later. Not sure how feasible that would be, but I'm guessing they freeze their butts off playing night games there in April and late September.

Many of you will be too young to remember when Pekin High School called themselves the Chinks. I believe it was changed to the Dragons in the late '70's. True story.

The Cubs definitely need pitching prospects, just that what they rec'd from Clev. wouldn't classify as anything elite or worth holding onto. That type of thinking is what led the Yankees to where they've been for the last 5 years and not something the Cubs have the capacity to do. While I would have no problem in this case of Vitters being involved for Peavy, they should factor the state of the pipeline and what blue-chip guys are being included even if that player will help the Cubs. They trade Vitters and the cubs have maybe the worst farm in the game, espec. if Samardzija does spend the year in the Cubs' pen. While I would agree with you on principle, unfortunately, that ship has already sailed. The talent pool on the farm has been getting downsized at an alarming pace. Vitters doesn't make or break the farm system. It's already broke. And with the rather poor success rate of prospects reaching the major leagues, it's a pretty scary scenario where you put all of your eggs in the Josh Vitters basket. Especially considering he was a high school draftee. While I'm not thrilled about giving up Vitters in a deal for Peavy, I wouldn't hesitate to do it. Honestly, I'm not even sure why San Diego would even want Vitters. If there is one position they are well stocked, it's 3b. If they hadn't traded Freese to St. Louis for Edmonds last offseason, Vitters would really be a head scratcher. What's more interesting about the rumored trade for Peavy. I wouldn't ever consider making that trade if the shoe was on the other foot, and I wouldn't care if the amount of players the Cubs were sending to San Diego was 8. When Jake Peavy gets traded, season ticket sales will plummet like the Hindenberg. He's the one ray of hope that Padres fans might still be willing to sacrifice a night at home for a trip to the ballpark, even on the nights Peavy isn't scheduled to pitch. Trading Peavy will be the ultimate and final slap in the face to their fanbase. Book it. Now, let's take Stevens, Gaub, Archer, Olson, Williamson, Miles, Gathright, Vizcaino, Gregg and any other guy who the Cubs have picked up this offseason (excluding Bradley) and send them off to San Diego for Jake Peavy so I can hear him sing "Go Cubs Go" some more.

The Rays got 55 HR's from their outfielders last year, and another 24 from their DH.

Whats more interesting to note is that Alderson had previously said he had a deadling of the 15th of january to announce that Peavy was off the trading block. He extended that deadline to february first which by coincidence would be after the cubs named the winning bidder. I just find it too much of a coincidence that Hendry traded for Olsen ( A player the padres wanted), Pitching Prospects from Cleveland (Which the cubs didn't need). I just dont by the fact that the cubs planned on trading derosa and marquis to just acquire bradley. But the more interesting trade has to be the Pie trade cause there was never a reported interest in olsen other than the peavy talks. You touched on many interesting points. Every one of these offseason moves smells like a Jake Peavy trade.

Even without assuming a Peavy trade, this makes the Cubs better. They got probably as much value out of Pie as they possibly could have. Now, you're probably right. But if Lou had given Pie a real shot last year, maybe we're pretty happy with our OF and don't need to sign Bradley. Maybe his 10mil goes better elsewhere. Lou bungled the situation and refused to ever give Pie a shot. Hendry did the best he could with that... I'll grant him this is about as good a trade as we were gonna get at this point. Your saying "I wouldn't have minded this trade so much" led me to believe you hated the trade. When in reality, you hated that the trade had to be made in the first place. Which are 2 different things. Also, I wouldn't blame Piniella. Hendry is the one who kept getting him crutches in case Pie didn't kill the ball. Lou went to those crutches after 2 games, but Hendry put them there in the first place. Here we go again, don't blame Lou....blame Hendry. I've posted often that one weakness of Hendry is that he lets the manager dictate to him instead of vice versa and he doesn't interfere with the manager's on-field decisions. Hendry has a long track record of pushing for youth and allowing them to play, while Lou is great with young players who produce immediately. If they don't produce immediately they are sent down or replaced with veterans that Lou has asked for. Pie's lack of playing time can be blamed on many things (lack of success, contending team, Lou's reluctance to use him, etc.), but not on Hendry or the fact that Hendry tried to obtain depth in CF (Johnson, Edmonds, etc.). While I do agree that Pie was never given the right opportunity, and was sent down quickly, we also have to understand that this team, Lou and Hendry are under a lot of of pressure to win now, especially when we dont know what the new ownership is going to bring, and Felix was just not producing, so the options were to A. keep him in there, as part of a platoon, and if he doesnt produce, he doesnt produce B. leave him on the bench and let him rot, keeping him as a pinch runner, and mayeb an at bat once a week C. send him down to Iowa. At least with Baltimore, they're in a constant building process, and will be more patient with him, as the majority of that team will be growing together. Actually, C was not an option since he was out of options. He would have been picked up off waivers pretty quickly.

According to the box score, Gooden only threw 73 pitches in the 10 innings. That's probably why nobody complained. Not saying this disproves your point, just that in that specific case it's not a big deal. How in the world do you throw only 73 pitches in 10 innings? The Astros hitters would have had to have swung at the first or second pitch just about every time up. They had 9 hits, 4 K's and 2 walks, so the minimum number of pitches based on the one double play they show in the box score would be 54. I find it hard to believe that there were only 19 other pitches in 10 innings that did not result in an out or a hit. What am I missing? It just doesn't seem possible. Especially considering Gooden was extremely good at missing bats with his pitches. Jon Lieber, I could believe. Not Gooden.

It's a nice thought, but extremely doubtful. Why would the Cubs pay Gregg to play for someone else. That wasn't a contract dumping trade the Cubs made. We sent Jose Ceda to Florida for Gregg. That's taking on payroll, not dumping. The Padres seem pretty happy to give Heath Bell the job. Mike Adams will probably battle Justin Hampson as the primary 8th inning set up man. If the Padres have some money to spend this offseason after a Peavy trade, they may want to spend it somewhere other than closer, since they won't need a closer very often in the first place. Orlando Cabrera is still available at SS. Current rumors have them looking at Omar Vizquel. Of the two, which one would you want?

It will be interesting to see how Marquis pitches in his contract year. If we get Peavy, it's a moot point. If we don't get Peavy, then I am curious on whether he outperforms whoever takes his spot in the rotation.

I'm from the only Peoria suburb that matters. Bartonville, home of future HOFer Jim Thome.

If you look at his short career in the minor leagues, he definitely looks like a pretty good prospect. Very respectable WHIP, ERA, K/9, BB/K and HR. If I had the choice of Randy Wolf or Olson, I'd take Olson. Well, I hope Hendry, the Padres and you have better insight about him than I do (which is not too hard since my effort was pretty much limited to googling his stats!) because it looks like he is ours. Ironically, he officially became a Cub not long after I made that post. Maybe Hendry values everything I say, as he should. Hey Hendry, trade for Peavy now, okay?

Brilliant. Everyone is a (bad) comedian. To actually answer the question....... who cares, just as long as he is wearing a Padres uniform by the time pitchers and catchers report. :wink:

All the moves that were supposedly necessary to make a Peavy deal have now happened. In December, the rumors were that Marquis would need to be traded to make Peavy's contract fit, DeRosa would need to be traded to bring the necessary talent to send to San Diego, and Pie would be traded to Baltimore for Olson, who would then be moved to San Diego. I'm a bit concerned about the players that we got back for DeRosa being the type of players that San Diego would want, as I would have thought that David Huff or Adam Miller would be much more attractive to the Padres.

This is an excellent trade. It's weird that the Cubs, who virtually had zero trade value with Pie, were able to get a guy with Olson's ability while at the same time, got next to nothing for DeRosa who's trade value probably couldn't have been any higher. I trust that the next move will be: Olson, Stevens, Archer, Gaub, Hill, Cedeno and Vitters for Peavy

Unless Marquis and DeRosa were necessary to make room for Peavy, I don't like either one of those deals. If we don't get Peavy, this offseason will have been a complete disaster.

Outshined One seems to be expressing some interest. I emailed Chris through the Ripken website that NC provided and Chris quickly responded. He expressed interest in keeping the team, but that will be up to Juan at this point. I like Chris and really enjoyed his participation when he was around, but he has to be fully committed, IMO, if he wants to keep the team. I told Chris it was time to send in payment in my email.

If you look at his short career in the minor leagues, he definitely looks like a pretty good prospect. Very respectable WHIP, ERA, K/9, BB/K and HR. If I had the choice of Randy Wolf or Olson, I'd take Olson.

I'll make a post in the mod forum asking if anyone would like to run a team.

I'll get mine mailed off tomorrow. Do we have a back up plan for Chris' team?

The reason I'm okay with Spears not making it is because I know he'll never possess the talent that Ty Griffin has. I fully expect Griffin to man 2nd base for the next 15 years for the Cubs. The Cubs need to hurry up and call him up. Time is a wastin'.

I'm starting to believe the new owner will have been the candidate that sold the most Tribune subscriptions in the last month.

Which would differ from their winter plans, how? They enjoy a good Charger game in the winter.

I'm holding on to the Peavy theory for dear life. 1) The Cubs need another starter 2) The Padres still need to clear payroll 3) The Cubs have made all the same moves that were rumored to happen to make a Peavy deal happen (minus a Pie deal) 4) The Padres are completely sitting on their hands right now, with monster holes on the field and in the rotation. 5) Peavy's contract extension was under the premise that the Pads would remain competitive. Not only are they no longer competitive, but the Padres seem to have backed out of their end of the deal, burning bridges with Peavy along the way 6) The Cubs need to do something with Pie, Hill and Cedeno 7) Gathright's signing spells the end for Pie, and the rumors of signing Rich Aurilia spells the end for Cedeno. I find it extremely hard to believe that Hendry would just let Pie, Hill and Cedeno walk via the waiver wire. 8) Not that the talent from the Cubs side of a Peavy deal would make the Padres all that much better, but the talent pool via free agency is dwindling. John Moores made it pretty clear that he wanted payroll reduced to 40m during this offseason. By trading Khalil Greene and letting Trevor Hoffman walk, they've managed to reduce payroll by a lot, but it's still over 40m. By moving Peavy, they can get well under the magic number and have some money to spend to improve the team. By trading Peavy, they might be able to sign Orlando Cabrera to play SS and Orlando Hudson to play 2b. By keeping Peavy, they are looking at playing Luis Rodriguez at SS and Matt Antonelli or Craig Stansbury at 2b. Before people start wondering if Luis Rodriguez is some hot prospect, let me make it clear that Rodriguez has been in AAA since 2003. Antonelli was one of their top prospects, but he had a disastrous year between AAA and the bigs last year. Here is what the Padres look like right now: LF- Chase Headley CF- Scott Hairston, Jody Gerut, Will Venable RF- Brian Giles 3b- Kevin Kouzmanoff SS- Luis Rodriguez 2b- Matt Antonelli, Edgar Gonzalez 1b- Adrian Gonzalez C- Nick Hundley, Brad Ausmus SP- Jake Peavy SP- Chris Young SP- Cha Baek SP- Josh Banks SP- Wade LeBlanc Yes, it's really THAT bad. Even with Peavy, I think they are a 110 loss team. Padres fans are already making different summer plans this year.

I don't think he's said anything but I wouldn't be surprised if he took the year off/retired after what happened to his brother. Sad story, what a shame. I missed this. what happened? If I recall correctly, Henry's brother was kidnapped in a ransom plot, but was then later shot and killed.