Rob

Survey done. And I'd like to see the results as well, but only if NCCubFan can't.

Kelly Clarkson. No, he meant the Kelly Pickler interview... that was just a trainwreck of epic proportions.

All of these assumptions are based on Ricketts acting similarly to the Tribune in regards to payroll... meaning a slight bump for next season. If he decides to start giving us a $200,000,000 payroll, toss all this out the window. On the homefront Offer Harden arbitration. Be willing to work on a two year deal if that's what it takes to keep him here, otherwise let him walk and pocket the two draft picks. Likewise, offer Grabow arbitration... but for god's sake don't offer him a multi-year deal. Just let Gregg walk. We can realistically listen to offers on DLee, with a Fox / Hoff platoon of sorts being perfectly adequate at 1B. But if we can't get enough to justify trading him (or he isn't willing to waive his NTC) it's not a big deal. He'll be worth 2 picks after next season. In that case, we should examine the market for Fox and Hoff. Zambrano is probably overpaid, but doesn't want to trade his NTC and, more importantly, we don't have enough pitching waiting behind him to fill in. If we want to compete next season, Zambrano is a part of that. Likewise, Bradley was a disappointment, but is an excellent bet to rebound in the power department next season. He's not near enough of a problem to justify paying his contract to play elsewhere, especially considering we have no options. No, Jake Fox is not an option. He's atrocious in the field. To my knowledge there aren't any better RF on the trade market... and the only FA options likely to be better are Holliday and Bay. Unless Ricketts goes crazy with the payroll, they aren't really options. One of my biggest fears is that we pay Bradley to play elsewhere, and then sign Vlad or Abreu, who are just as bad as Fox in the field. See if Reed Johnson is willing to give us a hefty discount to stay Fukudome's platoon partner. Don't get suckered into paying him like a starter though. This is an easy place to lose some payroll if we're tight. Re-sign Chad Fox. Call him up in mid april and then put him on the 60 day DL after a week... just for some added roster flexibility for the playoffs. Looking outside the organization now Pay attention to the Figgins sweepstakes until it gets past 3/24, at which point bow the hell out. He's not worth near the money he'll be getting... and signing players whose value is so wrapped up in speed to long expensive contracts after age 30 is just a stupid idea. Our middle infield situation has a lot of options. The big move I support is making a run at Stephen Drew. I've heard the DBacks front office may be looking to rebuild next season, and this could be huge. Jose Reyes may be available as well, and would potentially be a very good pickup if we have the pieces. Check out Orlando Hudson and Akinori Iwamura as well. Ideally, we could kick the tires on some potential upgrades over Koyie Hill. Varitek, Zaun, Benji Molina, Yorvit Torrealba. But they probably want too much money to make it worthwhile.... and even if they didn't, I don't think we could trust Lou not to play these guys way too freaking much. Give Rocco Baldelli a jingle and see if he's willing to platoon with Fukudome. Bedard, Duchscherer, Escobar, Schmidt, Sheets, and Smoltz will all be available, and should all be fairly cheap. Obviously some would need to be extremely cheap to justify the investment (Schmidt would probably need to be on a minor league deal as well as extremely cheap), but they're all worth taking five minutes to find out their asking price as rehab projects. I know the urge to overspend for middle relievers will be very strong this offseason, but I'd be content to not make any moves in the pen at all if that's the case. If we really need to make some moves though, Billy Wagner and JJ Putz may be cheap enough to warrant the investment. Summation: We're locked in with most of the roster, as all the backloading contracts doesn't leave us with much to do but tweak. It sucks, but we aren't far from being a decent team.

What is everybody obsession with assigning replacements? There were a bunch of different roles filled by DeRosa. Fontenot took on some of the responsibilities, Miles took on others.

A couple years back, I started muting the 7th inning stretch and the bottom of the 7th when I'm watching home games. How freaking sad is that?

While Derrek has exceeded even my expectations, I would like to point out that I was one of approximately two people on this board who was still saying Derrek wasn't done all during that terrible start.

If I had to guess, I'd say it'll be about 7.25 mil over two years, plus incentives for games finished... just in case we need to use him as closer.

We wont trade Zambrano this season.

Here's a simple fact. We don't have many places we can upgrade. Lee, Ramirez, and Fukudome can't really be upgraded. Soriano's contract can't be moved and Cubs brass wont be willing to bench him. That leaves us with C, 2B, SS, and RF we can conceivably look at on offense. Bradley has been a bit of a disappointment, but he's been worth just a tiny bit less than we've paid him this year and he stands an excellent chance to rebound in the power department next season. But because of his personality issues, we'd haveto take on his contract in order to move him, and then we'd have to pay market value for a new OF (either in terms of money or prospects). That kind of inefficiency is stupid... akin to how everybody complains about Hendry giving guys like Neifi and Miles multimillion dollar deals over a couple years to ride the pine. Upgrading in RF should be near the very bottom of our priorities. Soto was the victim of some atrocious luck this year... and to top it off, the gems of the FA class are Ramon Hernandez, Bengie Molina, Jason Varitek, and Greg Zaun. Bring one of em in on the cheap to backup Soto? Sure. Count on any of these guys to be a starter? Hell no. We can't really upgrade at C. The middle infield is where we have options... and where there are some nice players on the market. Mark DeRosa, Chone Figgins, Orlando Hudson, Akinori Iwamura, Felipe Lopez, Marco Scutaro, and Miguel Tejada are available in FA. Speculation has Jose Reyes available on the trade market as well as JJ Hardy, Christian Guzman, Luis Castillo, and even possibly Stephen Drew. It's possible to upgrade over our league average SS and our 2B platoon that's light on OBP and defense but carries a bit of pop in their bats. That's why people are looking at Theriot. He's one of two spots we can conceivably upgrade at.

Very exciting! \:D/

Well I loved the old board theme and my first instinct was to switch immediately back to it. But now that I've had a chance to sleep on it, I think I'm gonna give Nexus a shot...

Would it help if I got drunk and harassed people? Cause I'm willing to make that sacrifice for you.

Theriot has a .337 OBP this season. He's got zero business at the top of the lineup the way his walk rate has degraded.

Don't suppose you'd be willing to share in more explicit terms?

[expletive]

Why are you arguing it is all or nothing? Nobody said that happy baseball players are guaranteed to be more productive. You could have a team filled with Miles, Neifi, Fuld, Scales type players and they could have the best time in the world and they would still be a bad team. Where on earth did you get that I was arguing it was all or nothing? My point was simple... some players react differently to different stimuli. A happy atmosphere and "good chemistry" is not necessarily the best way to get full production out of our team. Some of our players may perform worse under those circumstances.

This is an extremely naive viewpoint. Sure chemistry isn't the only factor, or likely even the main factor, for the club's problems, but to completely discount work environment and/or work politics is foolish. As a business owner, it sure helps productivity to have a staff that gets along. I think it is funny that most people think that just because a guy is a baseball player, that he is immune to the same issues that most everyone else deals with on a daily basis. Why do you think your business is anything like a major league baseball team? Because it involves people. Why do you assume it isn't? If anything the stress associated with playing professional baseball including, regular travel and nearly 6 months of working everyday with very few off days would make interpersonal relationship even more important than the average job. what makes anybody thing that happy ballplayers are more productive? Some of the best players we've ever seen in baseball are miserable jerks.

Excellent move. Rotoworld is saying we claimed him on waivers, so it doesn't even look like we gave up anything.

http://farm2.static.flickr.com/1271/586960641_b68d4b1b0b.jpg?v=0

Soriano is still our best bet for production from LF next season. That said, while I refuse to give up all hope until we're mathematically eliminated this season... I see no reason not to start giving some of our guys a chance to show what they can do. Fox especially needs some reps out there, as his D has been significantly worse than even Soriano's uninspired performance out there this season. And the extra plate appearances can't hurt... it's been interesting watching him adjust to breaking stuff. I wouldn't waste any time running Fuld out there though. Any value he brings to this team is from his glove and speed... the extra PAs wouldn't do him any good and he doesn't need the reps in the field. Hell, give Hoffpauir a few starts out there... give him a chance to get his batting line back up where it belongs and end the season on a good note.

Has Huseby regained enough velocity that we can consider moving him into the rotation? Last I heard he was working high 80s out of the pen.

Reimold is the oldest and the worst defender of the bunch... not to mention how injury prone he is. I'd unload him well before I considered any of the other three. Thankfully for the O's, they have the DH. Slide Luke Scott to 1B like they've been trying and DH Reimold.

Apparently so many people at OH were ragging on him early in the year that every time somebody mentions him now it blows up into a big "I told ya so" fight... Despite being perhaps their most interesting topic of discussion right now, there are a whopping zero open threads about him. Looks like not just Cubs fans are ridiculously short-sighted.

Only the types who have also booed Bradley and think Soto should be benched.

Bad luck isn't regression. It's bad luck. If you maintain your insistence on blaming Soto despite all the indications that he's done everything in his power to perform his job duties, that is absolutely trolling... something you've got a nice little history of already. You constantly dismiss good statistics and use bad ones to back up stupid opinions even after people politely correct you. At a certain point it passed you simply being stubborn. You're a troll.