ThePenguin11

Hey Bruce, any new developments? Is Tejada still a possibility? (Wrong thread...)

First of all, I'm probably the 110th person to call Hendry an idiot on this board for choices he's made (and didn't make) in the recent past. While him not offering Nomar arbitration is a somewhat understandable move, I just don't agree with it. Second of all, an on again off again "bandwagon fan"? Excuse me? I watched baseball religiously as a kid and then picked up my interest again for the game in 2004. That makes me a bandwagon fan? Religiously watching the cubs again when they were a .500 team? hmm... So you started watching when they started winning, literally. You might even say you 'jumped on board' after the regular season in 2003 to 'ride' the success happening in the '03 playoffs. Sounds like a bandwagon jumper to me. There were plenty of reasons to be a Cub fan before Nomar joined this team. Go ahead and jump off if Nomar's the reason you're watching. But if you're truly a fan of this team, don't let that be why you're upset with Hendry. I'm one of his biggest supporters, but at the same time, I can understand when the Hendry-haters say he made a bad move by not acquiring a better CF, or for feeling the need to trade Todd Walker. Nomar made $8 Million last year and more the year before, and couldn't stay healthy for consecutive weeks. He had his chance. You can only invest so much for a guy like that. I'd be very willing to bet that Hendry offered him a token low-dollar, one-year offer to stay and that's probably when he and Nomar 'agreed to let him pursue other opportunities'. Mr. Penguin, you talk as if you seem to have me figured out or something. Even though it's not important I'm going to back up what I said because you're wrong. I watched the playoffs like everyone else did in 03, but I only watched bits and pieces of the games. I don't think I watched one of those games in full. To me at the time it was like watching any other team in the playoffs since I hadn't watched much baseball at that point in years. I wasn't sharing the excitement of true Cubs fans at the time nor did I jump on any bandwagon. If I did, I would have stayed for the ride through the beginning half of the 04 season. As for Nomar not having one consecutive healthy week with the cubs, wrong again. Let's see here.. he played every game between Aug 7th - 17th (no days off), every game between Aug 26 thru Sept 9 (sept 1 being a day off since there was no game played), and then played every game between Sept 11 and Oct 1st. I believe there's 7 days in a week, correct me if I'm wrong ;) Each of these stretches went longer than that. As what I said before, my opinion of Hendry has been low long before this Nomar decision. Nomar's departure also isn't going to change my love for the Cubs one bit. I'm just dissapointed as is any other Nomar fan. Got anything else wrong with that?[/b] Just because he played for 10 straight days, doesn't necessarily mean he was playing healthy. Guys play through injury and their performance pays for it. In Nomar's case it was the fact that he could no longer play shortstop.

First of all, I'm probably the 110th person to call Hendry an idiot on this board for choices he's made (and didn't make) in the recent past. While him not offering Nomar arbitration is a somewhat understandable move, I just don't agree with it. Second of all, an on again off again "bandwagon fan"? Excuse me? I watched baseball religiously as a kid and then picked up my interest again for the game in 2004. That makes me a bandwagon fan? Religiously watching the cubs again when they were a .500 team? hmm... So you started watching when they started winning, literally. You might even say you 'jumped on board' after the regular season in 2003 to 'ride' the success happening in the '03 playoffs. Sounds like a bandwagon jumper to me. There were plenty of reasons to be a Cub fan before Nomar joined this team. Go ahead and jump off if Nomar's the reason you're watching. But if you're truly a fan of this team, don't let that be why you're upset with Hendry. I'm one of his biggest supporters, but at the same time, I can understand when the Hendry-haters say he made a bad move by not acquiring a better CF, or for feeling the need to trade Todd Walker. Nomar made $8 Million last year and more the year before, and couldn't stay healthy for consecutive weeks. He had his chance. You can only invest so much for a guy like that. I'd be very willing to bet that Hendry offered him a token low-dollar, one-year offer to stay and that's probably when he and Nomar 'agreed to let him pursue other opportunities'.

Wow, calling out the GM for being an idiot because he didn't resign an injury risk player who he lost money on last year? Let's not forget Nomar wasn't healthy for a consecutive week with the Cubs...And you're an on-and-off the bandwagon fan to begin with? No comment.

How is that possible? Are Murton and Pierre going somewhere? Should we beat ourselves up because we didn't give up a top tier hitting prospect for the A-Hole with the high OBP?

Clemens would totally kick Burnett's... Oh, my bad. I thought you meant in a fight. I'll still take Clemens.

For the record, I'm at work too. Not everyone can summarize radio interviews while working... :wink:

Click the direct link, Miles with more after the break.

Bruce is on the Score w/ Murph right now: http://tuner1.dc1.sonixtream.com/solon/media/tuner/Tuner?aff=670thescore&useSame=true&type=IE

FYI http://tuner1.dc1.sonixtream.com/solon/media/tuner/Tuner?aff=670thescore&useSame=true&type=IE

Looks like the O's are doing some shopping. Maybe Tejada's ploy is beginning to work. I'll be a little more concerned if they put their hat in the ring for a SP. Eric Hinske - 1B - Blue Jays The Orioles have some interest in acquiring Eric Hinske, who is out of Toronto's plans following the Lyle Overbay trade. Hinske is owed about $10 million over the next two years, so the Jays would have to assume some salary in order to move him. They appeared prepared to do so. Dec. 12 - 12:17 pm et Source: Toronto Sun

Do you have a link to the information about Hill losing his change-up before coming to the bigs? How did you come to this understanding? I'm not doubting you at all, I just like to compile evidence. So lets go on the premise that he did "lose" his change-up before joining the Cubs, what is to say that he will never get it back? He apparently had it once and it is apparently a more recent addition to his repetoire than his fastball or curve, so losing it momentarily would be more understandable than losing his curve or fastball, right? And if it did leave him right before he came up, then the real question is, what will he be able to accomplish in the bigs when he gets it back? The split you provided doesn't help explain the idea that Hill can't cut it in the bigs. Now, instead of a 24-inning sample, it is only 7 innings in which he pitched poorly. I'm glad that the anecdotal evidence and the split above don't support the theory of Hill being intimidated by coming to the show. I want him to be a fighter and mentally tough. But if what your rebuttal laid out is true, then I'm even more convinced that he is near major league ready. He put up pretty darn good numbers for the first 17 innings and then struggled for 7. And apparently he did that without the use of his change-up. And, from what I've been reading in this thread, some of the negative opinions of Hill came from watching just one game of his in which he didn't use his change-up and struggled to spot his fastball. Again, sample size? For those of you who are down on Hill, the numbers show a different story. I believe it is time to revise your opinion to include the bigger picture. You're putting words in his mouth because he never said he "lost" his changeup. By saying it "went by the wayside", I'm pretty sure he's implying that he simply stopped using it.

I'm thinking the Yomiuri Giants will outbid the Seibu Lions for his services in 2006.

i would hardly call a 88-92 mph fastball a "joke" (especially from a lefty). pettie throws about the same velocity and look what guys like kenny rodgers & jamie moyer do year after year with 83 mph fastballs. if hill can hit his spots he'll do good. if not he'll have problems just like all pitchers. velocity is majorly overrated when it comes to pitchers imo. a guy with an 85 mph fb who throws strikes & changes speeds can be a big winner in the ml's just as a guy who throws 95 but has no control will most likely get rocked. I didn't say it was a joke because of the velocity. It's a joke because it's straight and he's got no accuracy in hitting his spots. Face it, right now he's a one-trick pony. He might not be in a year or two, but he's going to be 26 years old on opening day, so he's short on time.

I'm not sold on Hill. I think that the scouting report is a little bit off on him too. Hitters are sitting on the curve ball because his fastball is a joke. I went through his best game re-watched all of his pitches and didn't even see a changeup. He will do more harm than good for a team trying to contend, while he tries to figure out how to get major league hitters out. He's got a lot of work to do to be successful at that level, and the Cubs don't have luxury of taking a beating every fifth day so he can make progress. He won't make any more progress in AAA because their are so many lifer scrubs in that league who will never make it to the bigs because they can't hit a curve ball. To be fair, he's perfect for the Orioles. They're not going anywhere and could use a guy with his potential. All told he might have a first half of 3-8 with an ERA of 5.50, but if he figures it out he could be a guy looking at 8-3 with an ERA in the 3.00's in the second half of the season. That said - they can have him if we get Tejada.

The Cubs and O's are in very different situations. The Cubs have the highest payroll in their division and already have the pitching to be a serious postseason contender. The O's aren't even close. They are the 4th best team in their division (with Tampa catching up) and that is with Miggy. Then factor in that he is asking for a trade. If they do decide to deal him it would be in their best interests to try to get 3-4 young pitchers who could have an impact on the club (while being cheap, too) for a number of years. Add in Bedard and Cabrera and they could have the pitching to contend in the AL EAst for a few years. If I'm Baltimore I would seriously consider Williams, Hill, Wuertz, and Cedeno. I would prolly take that deal if I was either team. If I'm not mistaken, Hayden Penn has a chance to be a very good ML starter as well. He wasn't great last year as a rookie, but he might be real good.

Baltimore would free up a lot of cash to go after pitching with the first deal. All the more reason to get a deal done soon, while Millwood, Morris and Washburn are still on the market.

Derrek Lee isn't raising a stink about wanting to be traded. So the situation is different. Plus, the Cubs have been much more successful than the Orioles as of late. I might actually consider trading Lee for all of them if they were close to being MLB-ready. Stockstill is probably thinking Hill and Pie are ready to go now and Pie will be ready next spring - so there's a chance it could fly if we added a veteran. I'd be willing to bet that if a Pie, Hill, Cedeno & Williams for Tejada trade went down, that Hendry would still manage to get someone else in the deal that could be useful.

Dmitri young is not an everyday player on a championship team. He needs to be a role-player off the bench = 4th outfielder.

So that's two players now that Tejada has had so many personal problems with, that they affected (supposedly) his on the field ability. Clubhouse problem? the other was Sosa? Yeah. There very well might be others, both reported and unreported, but this it two now in the recent past... I'm not sure how I feel about that. Numerous teammates in Texas hated ARod. Would that stop you from taking him? Tejada doesn't like Hernandez from his A's days and I'm pretty sure he and Sosa were good friends.

So that's two players now that Tejada has had so many personal problems with, that they affected (supposedly) his on the field ability. Clubhouse problem? No he's not. And who cares if he was. He's a saint compared to Milton Bradley - the guy that 80% of NSBB is drooling over.

i heard the same report 20 min ago. Not sure if it has any relevance to wat the cubs could be offering. It's not relevant that Stockstill scouted the young talent in our organization and might have interest in guys like Pie, Cedeno and Hill. If anything, it's possible that they might take minor league studs rather than asking for Prior or Zambrano.

Anyone listening to Baseball 365 on ESPN 1000? My brother just called to tell me that Bruce Levine said the Cubs have serious interest in Miguel Tejada and because John Stockstill just left the Cubs as a scouting director for the Orioles, his first call was to the Cubs. Did anyone else hear it?

John Franco was doing radio broadcasts during the playoffs this year as a color commentator.

I figured he'd be filing for social security by now...