BigbadB

When Pierre and Jones hit 1/2 in the order, I'm sure we'll be seeing the "French Connection" signs.

What? No love for Robin Yount??????? His 1982 season was a thing of beauty for a SS.

Sure, he'll need to pitch somewhere before then. 3-5 inning outings aren't recommended at the major league level. It's going to take time to build up arm strength. Maybe by midseason he'll have the stamina to give you 5 or 6 solid innings. Maybe sooner, but I wouldn't bet my life savings on it. That's all I'm saying.

Why midseason? He got thru the AFL healthy. I think he should be ready to go to start the season barring another set back. I assumed he would go to the minors first, but if he's gonna be pitching somewhere, it might as well be in Chicago. Even still, I would hope the Cubs would put him in Tennessee until the weather heats up. The fact he pitched in the AFL is one reason all by itself. How many innings do you think he can withstand after pitching so few these past few years? He hasn't pitched over 100 innings since 2002. He's one of my favorite prospects, but counting on him to give you 160+ innings as a 5th starter is just not a good idea in my mind. At least not in 2006.

I wouldn't expect Guzman to be ready for a rotation spot until midseason at the earliest. To count on him even remotely at the beginning of the season is quite a gamble. With all of Guzman's injuries, going more than 125-130 innings next year wouldn't be a good idea, IMO. He needs to be handled with kid gloves, and it's going to take awhile to build up the stamina to go 6-7 innings a game for a full major league season.

Nah, he only made 11.5m over the life of his career, and his pension probably doesn't pay him squat, like maybe not even 6 digits. :D Hendry would have taken care of him if he was still around.

By the way, Castillo was another guy who was available for Hendry to nab as a free agent. He signed a 4 year/21m deal, which is just a hair over 5m a year at the start of the 2004 season. Grudz and Walker made 4.25m in 2004.

Regarding Todd Walker: I can take him or leave him. If we leave him, all I ask is that you replace his production with equal or better production. Luis Castillo would have done it for me. Apparently, Hendry was too busy courting Rafael Furcal to notice Florida was willing to move Castillo. Luis Castillo at 6-7m >>>> Rafael Furcal at 10m+ Castillo= .293/.370 OBP career Furcal= .284/.348 OBP career Furcal's highest OBP ever was .352 in a season. Only once since 1999 has Castillo been below .352 OBP (.344) I wasn't really big on the trade for Castillo bandwagon, because the upgrade from Walker to Castillo is a minimal upgrade. 2nd base wasn't the problem last year. But, if they knew Walker was as good as gone right out of the gates, then why wasn't more attention given to Castillo?

The Tribune had absolutely no involvement with how Hendry put himself into a position to have to sign a mediocre RFer like Jacque Jones. That's all on Hendry. The Tribune has expanded it's payroll by more than 25m over the last 5 years and has become top 5 overall. The only real blame you can hand to the Tribune at this time is that they didn't fire MacPhail and/or Hendry and Dusty after the craptastic 2004 season, or the craptacular2005 season. Not just because the results weren't there, but because of the way these guys dealt with internal problems (ie. Steve Stone, Chip Caray, Sammy, Moises, Walker, Mercker, etc...) But, getting back to the real problem..... Hendry had horsey blinders on this offseason in his quest to replace Ronny Cedeno or Nomar at SS. All he saw this offseason was free agent Rafael Furcal. He totally put all of his eggs in Rafael's basket, and Rafael took his basket to Los Angeles. Hendry felt like he had a sure thing. Because of that, he had no back up plan if the Furcal thing fell through. The question of how much of an upgrade Furcal would have actually been over Nomar and/or Cedeno in comparison to a good RF over Burnitz hasn't been answered. Outfield was far and away the 2nd biggest problem this team had last year. The biggest problem of course being team OBP, especially at the top of the order. Depending on how Dusty attacks his line up card, I'm not sure there will be much improvement on OBP at the top of the order if Pierre ends up hitting about the same as he did last year, and Neifi Perez or Jacque Jones end up hitting 2nd in his line up. I really don't care one way or another about Hendry's passion to improve team defense. I'm fine with that. But, not at the expense of OBP. With the money the Cubs had available this offseason, the trade commodity (farm and parent club) they had available to use to improve the tema, and other teams interested in making trades, there are NO EXCUSES that Hendry gets a pass on. This mediocre team he has thrown together this offseason needs to finish in 1st place or grab the wild card at minimum, or he needs to be kicked to the same curb he kicked Nomar to. Trading Prior would be the last thing I let him do. In fact, I'd like to see someone stop him before he actually does it.

Trib's Cub payroll last year: 87m Diamondbacks payroll last year: 63m Cubs are already over 92m for 2006. Arizona has removed payroll (Vazquez and Glaus) and will likely remove more if they can find someone to take Green and/or Gonzalez. This disaster taking place in Chicago has very little to do with the Trib. If Hendry really wanted Tejada in 2004, I'm sure he could have made it happen. Instead of paying Tejada, they instead traded for Lee, signed LaTroy Hawkins and Greg Maddux, which is much more than what Tejada would have cost that year. They also had plenty of money to spend at the trade deadline, which is when they added payroll for a SHORTSTOP named Nomar. Tejada's contract only paid him 5m in '04. I'm sure there was a heck of a signing bonus that covered a big portion of his contract, but if Hendry REALLY wanted Tejada, he was there for the taking. Alex still had 5.5m left on his deal. True. But, he was clearly not the answer at SS. After his misplay in the NL Championship series, no one would have shed a tear if he was moved. No one would have screamed he was overpaid if he spent 2004 as a utility guy. Cubs management can make excuse after excuse for why they did or didn't do certain things. I'm cool with that. It's actually pretty easy to create an excuse that everyone can buy into. What is not excusable, is to not make the right deal when it's the right time (sign Tejada in '04), and then realize you should have made the right deal at the right time and then make the wrong deal at the wrong time later to compensate for your ignorance the first time around. Cubs management has no direction. They give the appearance of tossing a blade of grass in the air to see which way the wind is blowing as to which direction they will go, nearly on a daily basis. I don't fault the Tribune for any of these blunders, except maybe the continued faith in a management team that can't pick a direction and stick with it.

I read that Kielty was still with Oakland, somewhere. I recall reading that the A's still had interest in Frank Thomas, and if they signed him, Swisher would move back to the outfield, which would make one of their other outfielders expendable, most likely Kielty.

Kielty has always interested me. But, not in a "gotta have him" sorta way, but I wonder who is actually better between the much over hyped Austin Kearns and the little known Bobby Kielty. Both looked like awesome hitters in 2002. Both have fallen off dramatically ever since.

I think there is definitely something there. Every long pass was catchable except 1 or 2. The other element that comes into play with the long pass is pass interference calls on the beaten pass defenders. I would love to see the offense completely open up the field. Maybe even work on finding a way to get Clark open a little more, also. He's become almost a non factor as a pass receiver. Rex throws a nice pass. I'm really excited about the offense now. Not sure what happened with the defense this week, but even the 1985 Bears had an off week against an NFL great in Miami.

'98: 135 games '99: 133 games '00: 103 games '01: 126 games '02: 140 games '03: 130 games '04: 135 games '05: 93 games 8 seasons averages out to 124 games per season. That means he misses, on average, roughly 38 games a year. That's nearly 24% of the season. How is missing almost a fourth of your games considered "durable?" And as already pointed out... he's 38. He was known as an injury-prone player coming into St. Louis. Call the injuries "fluke" if you want, but I don't think he's the lock you're expecting him to be. I haven't followed Sanders career all that closely. But, wouldn't a lot of those missing games be days off for a platoon situation? Just asking, cuz I really have no idea.

I took it as a heart attack. Glad it's San Fran and not the Cubs.

Nice offer, but where does Wright play? Do you then send Aramis to Baltimore for Tejada to make room for Wright at 3rd? Who replaces Prior in the rotation?

I think they have. That "4" looks like urine. Nah. A little too green. That wouldn't make sense unless they moved their practices to Zion. Apparently Urlacher, Hillenmeyer and Brendon Ayanbadejo built it. Too green is a good thing. That means they have had their recommended daily allowance of vitamins. :D

HA! And to think I was going to comment on how well the site seemed to be working this morning. :D

This response is dead on. To be completely honest, Jacque Jones as a corner outfielder production wise is not that far off from Derrek Lee pre 2005 production wise at 1b. Lee was lightning in a bottle. Can Hendry catch it twice? It's possible. Could the Cubs improve defense so well that they could provide equal offense to 2005 and still win a World Series? It's possible. If the Cubs can achieve an incredible win rate in 1 run games, anything is possible. It's also possible to go to the horse track and bet on nothing but 50-1 odd horses all day and possibly win a fortune, but the odds are there for a reason. More than anything, adding a guy like Jones to the line up doesn't completely kill the offense unless other moves parallel adding a guy like Jones. An example would be to play Neifi at SS or 2nd, bat Jones or Neifi 2nd in the order, etc.... I would answer yes to a poll that asks whether Jones was a better option than Juan Encarnacion or Preston Wilson. I cannot honestly answer yes to the question in this poll, however. If Tejada is playing SS and Walker is at 2nd and Prior and Zambrano are still in the rotation, I might consider changing my vote. The hard part in changing that vote would be the fact that Jones received 3 years, which was 2 years too long.

I trust he's coming on to put all these Prior rumors to bed.

Just like the Cubs were a perfect trade fit with Tampa, so is Boston. The problem with Boston is they are in the same division. Would Tampa deal with Boston? The 3 or even 4 player combo of Lugo, Gathright, Huff and Baez would have been a nice addition for Boston or the Cubs. Settles SS, CF, RF/1b and set up or closer. Tampa will likely come down on their demands once it's obvious no one will pony up the big package.

Clemens had arguably the best season of his career last year.

Won't the wheelchairs get stuck in the dirt?? That's what walkers are for. :D

I also stated I could go on and on and on about how bad this offseason has been. I just chose one. I'm fine if you disagree with me on this, but you won't change my mind. If you want to get technical, Jose Macias had no business being on the 25 man roster at any time in 2005, let alone still hanging onto a spot once the season was over. As far as letting go of Jermaine Van Buren for peanuts, that's my stance. Whether anyone honestly believed he had the physical make up to be a major league reliever, he had value in trade. Instead of forking out huge money for Eyre, the Cubs could have used guys like Van Buren in trade to fill a left handed bullpen spot. Van Buren was a victim of a roster crunch. He didn't necessarily have to be added to the 40 man roster, but if you are going to trade him, use him in a package for something that doesn't cost an insane amount that has every possibility to be just as effective.

Oh, I could prepare a list of just how bad this offseason has been for the Cubs that would be several pages long. Even little stupid stuff, like leaving Jose Macias on the 40 man roster while there was such a huge roster crunch. They eventually released him, but not before leaving a much better player unprotected in Rule 5 and not before trading Jermaine Van Buren for peanuts. I could go on and on, and I probably will. But as much as I agree that Houston and St. Louis hasn't done much so far this offseason, the Cubs have absolutely BOMBED.