BigbadB

I'm sorry. I was under the impression that he would be 37, 38, and 39. That's cool. Go ahead and jump on the "Sign Giles" WGN. Honestly, I don't think we've seen the best that Giles can be. He had no one hitting around him in Pittsburgh (other than Aramis), and he played in an extreme pitchers park in SD with no real offensive threats around him. Imagine what he might do with Lee and Aramis protecting him. :wink:

The Vikings offense scored 3 points last week. Go Bears! I'm calling the upset.

Don't be baffled, it happens to others that USED to post here regularly. The funny part is all the name calling and second guessing of Hendry, people still wonder why he won't post here or answer questions on the site. My question to you is, if you were Hendry, would you? You know, i was just wondering why hendry doesn't post on this website. There are so many GMs that post on so many fan sites throughout sports, and I was wondering why hendry hasn't joined them. Keep the thread about the transaction. Leave out all the personal stuff and the sarcasm, please. I'm trying to. i don't exactly enjoy the fact that because I've hated the past two seasons and hated the signings so far this offseason (much like most of the other posters on the board), i and these other posters get attacked with the "culture of negativity" argument. I feel like people should stop attacking the posters that are being negative just for being negative and instead take a look at why they are down on the Cubs. I'd certainly like to not be pessimistic about my favorite team, but I don't see much reason not to be. $3.66 mil a year for 3 years on a semi-reliable reliever coming off of a career year, and whose best use is already provided by a player at one tenth his cost that the Cubs already have under contract, is not a good use of resources. It probably is frustrating for anyone who really likes this deal. The negativity gives the appearance that everyone is against this signing. I don't think any person here was against signing Eyre. The money and the years is what is really perplexing and causing the angst. The bullpen definitely needed to be addressed. Personally, I felt it could have been upgraded via trade. We have Patterson, Hairston, Walker, Novoa, Wuertz, Wellemeyer, Mitre, Ohman and minor leaguers galore that could be used to get a couple of really good bullpen arms from small market teams that didn't want to shell out the money to arby eligible bullpen guys. I'm very upset about the 10.5m spent so far this offseason. Mike Fontenot or Ronny Cedeno would have made decent infield back ups at the league minimum for next year rather than resign Neifi at 2.5m for 2 years. Neifi, excluding Eyre and Rusch, probably wouldn't have made me blow a gasket. Glendon Rusch as the long man at 3.5m is money not well spent either when you add in Neifi and Eyre. Mitre or Hill at league minimum is a ton of savings for a guy who basically gets a spot start or saves a starter on a bad day. Without Neifi and Eyre, it's not the worst signing in the world and didn't make me blow a gasket. Eyre is a good pick up, excluding Neifi and Rusch. I could deal with a 3.6m LOOGY if we didn't have a 3.5m swing man and a 2.5m bench guy. Ohman makes league minimum. Someone could have been brought in via trade at a much lower cost than Eyre. Eyre by himself wouldn't have made me blow a gasket. Relievers are a crap shoot to begin with. No one knows yet who will be the most effective guys in the pen next year, but when they have that good season, teams will be knocking on their doors next offseason. Most fall back to their career norms. I'm not saying we should have gone cheap with the league minimum at every one of those positions. But, when you've spent most of your available money on guys who aren't the guys who will have the most impact on the team, where will the money be when it's time to get the impact players? That 10.5m, or most of it sure would have been nice for applying to the woeful offense this offseason. I think we can pretty much forget about another starter at this point, especially if he's going to sign another free agent as a set up man. What exactly are they going to do with all of these guys (Novoa, Ohman, etc...) that no longer have jobs? You can't exactly trade them for major league talent with no room on the roster. I'm really baffled.

Makes you wonder what in the heck is Rusch and his 3mil going to do now that Eyre has been signed... Well, Hendry seems to love having that "swing" guy. Unless that means he really don't want to rely on Wood staying healthy to have 5 good starters. (not calling Rusch a good starter). I'm not responding to you just to pick on you. You bring up things that kind of boil my blood a little bit. Swing guy is another one that bugs me. When does the long man come into a game? When the starter gets hurt or if he's getting whacked around. Since the starter isn't getting hurt early in games all that often, it's really when the starter is getting beaten up. In those games, aren't you pretty much toast anyway? Why pay a guy 3m+ to save the bullpen some innings? Take a guy like Mitre who makes league minimum and see if you can get any trade value out of him in a roll like that. Rusch wasn't exactly effective as a swing guy either. He struggled when left in the rotation too long, and he didn't seem to grasp switching to pitching every other day too well, either.

Hammond got 2/4.6m after a 0.95 ERA in Atlanta, from George Steinbrenner. Enough said.

Mine (or any other mod) was the only one you need to worry about. Done. Good point brought up by Sarcastic. I do worry about going after relievers. What teams had the best relief corps last year? A guy who is great one year, can stink it up the next. Scott Hammond was insane in his only year in Atlanta (coincidence?). He hasn't come close to that level since. Nor was he anything special prior to that. Even the Yankees only gave Hammond 2.2m after a season of 0.95 ERA with Atlanta. And the Yankees only gave him 2 years. Think about that.

The Choi/Hill stuff was toeing the line. If we are done with this, let's get back to talking baseball.

Seanez only made half a million last year. Granted, a small market team.....er well, a team that pretends to be small market, but it's more than a 3m difference.

Mocking people is a good way to get a 1 way ticket out of here. Please stop.

No. If we can't afford Giles and Furcal, how do we afford Abreu and Furcal? No way will Phily trade Abreu and pay any part of his salary. They might as well keep him if they did that. Giles might end up being cheaper than Abreu. And if you are going to trade for Abreu, why not just sign Giles? You don't lose a thing in trade.

The way we are going, the other teams won't need a LOOGY when they face the Cubs. Barrett, Lee, Aramis, Murton, Cedeno make up the heart of the order. Not a lefty in the bunch. Add Mench in right and the LOOGY won't even have to make the flight to Wrigley.

We'll have to agree to disagree. I want solid pitching, but I want a major improvement in offense as well. With 100m payroll, there really is no excuse to not have both.

If they are going after Howry or Looper, does that mean they aren't bringing back Williamson?

3.6m for a LOOGY. I guess he'll need to fork out 5+ for a set up guy. This is insane. Linebrink made less than a million last year. I guarantee if you throw Novoa and a starting pitcher at SD (Pinto?), they gobble up that trade. Not that I'm advocating that trade, but we have guys that can be traded to fill holes. Why waste all that money bidding on free agents??????????

Correct me if I'm wrong, does that put at 10.5m so far on the money spent on Rusch, Perez and Eyre?

Wow. 11m? [-(

Thomas has been playing hurt since he was 27. Bad example. Bagwell has a degenerative shoulder. Bad example. Palmeiro had a .571 SLG at age 37. Bad example. Griffey posted a .576 SLG this past year, at age 35. Not to mention he's been battling injuries since he was 31. Bad example. Bonds....did you see what Bonds did at age 39? :shock: Horrible example. We aren't asking Giles to play into his 40's. He'd be 35, 36 and 37 over the life of his contract. How many people screamed to have Alou back after he turned 37 in the '04 season? Not me, but many did. He had a pretty snazzy year at 38. McGriff put up a pretty good season for the Cubs at the age of 38, offensively anyway. I left out Sosa. His skills are definitely declining. I won't deny that. There is definitely something different about Sosa's decline. I'm not going to say steroids, but there is something really weird about his decline. He started his decline at the age of 33. Giles takes care of himself. He isn't one of the oft injured guys like you mentioned above. He's in incredible shape for his age.

Yeah, I agree. IMO the huge dollar figures being bandied about for Furcal are only appropriate for players who have been kicking ass consistently for a long time. To be fair, Furcal has been more consitant than Beltran and far more than Beltre. If Renteria os worth marktet value, so is Furcal. Renteria is overpaid too. And look how his production dropped off after he signed the fat contract. Like I said, I can go on and on. I just grabbed Beltre and Beltran out of the air.

A few fans? Cub fans have been suffering since 1908. Many have died without ever knowing the feeling of winning it all, unless they are Bear fans like me. If he doesn't care, then it's high time to replace him with someone who does. A 100m payroll even tells me that The Trib cares about winning.

That's just plain wrong. You don't try and correct bad decisions by compounding them with more bad decisions. What? You think if we close our eyes and hope hard enough Hendry and Baker will go away? And what bad decision are we talking about? Giles isn't coming here, he never was. Sure, Brian hasn't dictated that directly to Moses to be presented to us as hard evidence on stone tablets, but the writings are on the wall. This has nothing to do with accepting mediocrity. He either wants to stay with his family or win now. It is circumstantial evidece that states this, but there is a mountain of it. What do you suggest, that Hendry put everything else aside and go full bore after Giles? I think a more sorry epitaph to the offseason would be one that tells of how Hendry focused to much on one player and missed other opportunities. Hendry wouldn't need to dedicate the entire offseason to signing Giles. All they would have had to do is court him like you are supposed to. Call him and say "Brian, you are the guy we've targeted as the guy we want on this club. If you come to Chicago, we'll give you 3 years at 14m a year to be our RF." When Giles then says, I'm not interested, Hendry can announce to the world he tried, but Giles has no interest in the Cubs and move on. Hendry has been salivating over Furcal all offseason, and he's no closer to being signed than Giles. Funny, Atlanta gave their top dollar for Furcal and it was after that he announced to the world (or to Hendry since the Cubs seem to be the only other team falling all over themselves for Furcal) that it would take 50m to get him. Atlanta wants him back and they can't go over 8m a year. Apparently, he wouldn't mind going back. If it takes 50m to convince him to not to back to Atlanta, I say go back to Atlanta, we have internal options that might be better. If not, we'll trade for one who is. There is no secret that the Cubs want Furcal. Why is the Giles thing a secret? It gives me the appearance that Hendry wants Furcal and not Giles. I think that's not thinking clearly. How do we know thaere hasn't been preliminary discussion with Giles' agent, and there didn't seem to be enough interest to justify any further effort? And if there wasn't, what does arguing here about it accomplish? For whatever reason, Hendry doesn't seem to be inclined to pursue Giles. If he isn't going after him, he isn't going after him. It may be because Giles doesn't want to come to the Cubs, or it may be because Hendry doesn't want him, or it may because of Giles demands. Regardless, the end result will likely be the same. Hendry has been incompetant recently, so none of this should be a revelation. There are other fish in the sea, and we can hope he is going after them. Obviously, we argue about this stuff because it's a message board. I'm not into the "I told you so" game that can be played when not signing Giles costs us another pennant next year. I just want to win. Sign him and move on the next hurdle. You are right. We don't know. But, we know that Hendry told Nomar don't bother, we are going a different route. We know that Walker will be on the first train out of town when the right trade comes Hendry's way. We know how badly Hendry wants Furcal. We know he is interested in Wilkerson, Bradley, Pierre and the guy Texas. We don't know what his feelings are on Giles. I'd like to know why. Until I know, I'll probably continue venting my frustration here. My apologies if it offends you.

And Furcal had a good year in his contract year. So did Adrian Beltre last year. So did Beltran last year. That list goes on and on. Giles is productive every year. Are you skipping out on compiling a list of players that compare to Giles for much less than what Giles would make that would be available for the Cubs? Compare Julio Lugo to Furcal. Look at their stats. Same guy. Lugo will make just under 5m this year and Furcal will make 10m plus for the next several years. The Cubs have so much trade commodity it's not even funny. I'm not worried about it costing players for someone in trade. At least plenty of trade commodity to land a Lugo or a Wilkerson or someone of the like.

Lofton in decline can still put up an OBP as good or better than Furcal. And he wouldn't cost anymore than 1/5th of what Furcal would cost. It's putting all your eggs in one basket to blow a tremendous amount of your available offseason money on a SS when you already have one. You no longer have any money to spend on a decent RF option.

That's just plain wrong. You don't try and correct bad decisions by compounding them with more bad decisions. What? You think if we close our eyes and hope hard enough Hendry and Baker will go away? And what bad decision are we talking about? Giles isn't coming here, he never was. Sure, Brian hasn't dictated that directly to Moses to be presented to us as hard evidence on stone tablets, but the writings are on the wall. This has nothing to do with accepting mediocrity. He either wants to stay with his family or win now. It is circumstantial evidece that states this, but there is a mountain of it. What do you suggest, that Hendry put everything else aside and go full bore after Giles? I think a more sorry epitaph to the offseason would be one that tells of how Hendry focused to much on one player and missed other opportunities. Hendry wouldn't need to dedicate the entire offseason to signing Giles. All they would have had to do is court him like you are supposed to. Call him and say "Brian, you are the guy we've targeted as the guy we want on this club. If you come to Chicago, we'll give you 3 years at 14m a year to be our RF." When Giles then says, I'm not interested, Hendry can announce to the world he tried, but Giles has no interest in the Cubs and move on. Hendry has been salivating over Furcal all offseason, and he's no closer to being signed than Giles. Funny, Atlanta gave their top dollar for Furcal and it was after that he announced to the world (or to Hendry since the Cubs seem to be the only other team falling all over themselves for Furcal) that it would take 50m to get him. Atlanta wants him back and they can't go over 8m a year. Apparently, he wouldn't mind going back. If it takes 50m to convince him to not to back to Atlanta, I say go back to Atlanta, we have internal options that might be better. If not, we'll trade for one who is. There is no secret that the Cubs want Furcal. Why is the Giles thing a secret? It gives me the appearance that Hendry wants Furcal and not Giles. I think that's not thinking clearly.

For all the talk about the specific oddity of Lee having so few opportunities, wasn't there a similar stat where Burnitz had the most opportunities but came through the fewest times? OBP all around is much more of a problem than OBP in the leadoff spot. Order isn't that important. What matters is overall production. The fact that the Cubs are so intent on narrowing their focus to one spot is disturbing, while the apparant willingness of a large segment of the media and fan base to applaud that focus is just bewildering. This was not a team that was a leadoff hitter away from championship. They had candidates for the spot, but chose not to use them. I refuse to justify inefficient personel moves with the "save Dusty from himself" theory. It's Jim's own fault that Dusty is here, he can't get a free pass for bad moves just because they were made in an effort to stop Dusty from screwing up too much. That is called throwing good money after bad, and it's a piss-poor management philosophy. First off, I have said the entire lineup needs to be addressed as far as OBP is concerned. Two or three times now. Having said that, not all the needs are equal. I am sorry Goony, but when you have guys like Perez and Patterson leading things off and two guys with .900+ OPS following them and you aren't scoring runs, it doesn't take a slide rule to figure out what is wrong. Lee had a OBS of 1.080, Ramirez .926, Walker .829, Barrett .824, which is decent combination of pop and OBP for the heart of the order. Burnitz's .322 OBP hurts for sure, but Neifi's .298, Hairston's .336 and Corey's .254 rotating around the top was the killer. Now adding OBP to RF and CF should be a priority, but putting people in the lineup that will get on base and Dusty will actually bat at the top is most important. I would put it this way: the need for OBP at the top is dire, the need for OBP lower in the lineup is serious. Hopefull both will be addressed, and I think they will. But if you had to choose one, OBP at the top should be it. Now I am not trying to defend Baker or Hendry, but with them in place, you have to take their stupidity into account. You can't assume players will be used in useful or innovative ways, you must assume Dusty will use players in the fashion he always has. Walker won't lead off, and Giles wouldn't be batted second. This isn't excuse making, it is reality of Baker, and until he is canned or leaves, we will just have to deal with it. I for one have accepted the reality of Hendry and Baker, and am hoping like hell Furcal gets signed and Hendry manages to trade for a good outfielder or two. Ignoring Furcal to pursue a player who we are longshots to get is pure foolishness. Furcal is available, there is a minimum of competition, he fills a need, and he is publicly open to playing in Chicago. Giles is available, there is more competition from teams he has a preference to play for, he fills a need, but has not been linked to the Cubs much at all. I say secure what we can first, then focus on the things that will take more work. To me it seems that too many people here are too focused on Brains Giles . It's like and thing not Giles related is met with derision. Guys the Cubs had last year that had a higher OBP than Furcal had last year that were capable of leading off: Walker Murton Cedeno Guys who can be traded for that would provide a comparable or better OBP at a much lower cost: Lofton Lugo Pierre Bradley Michaels (if available) Wilkerson Why put all your eggs in one basket for a guy (Furcal) who can be replaced by 1 or more of the guys listed above? Give me a list of guys we can use in place of Brian Giles and his production that we have in house or from the outside like I have above and who would come considerably cheaper. Don't forget, I'm looking for equal production. Have fun......

That list of players could build a pretty good bullpen from arby eligible players on small market teams. That's the way I'd go instead of dumping a 2 or 3 year deal in Eyre's lap.