Rob

didnt you have brain surgery OH SNAP!

Once again proving that not every bad player is a bad person. I am truly grateful for guys like that.

I think your use of "needs to be shot" is juvenile and should be pulled as a comment. Little wonder people look at messages boards as something populated by childish minds. sorry Rob, but you should find a different way to post your continual displeasure with the team. Maybe you should find a different team. The "needs to shot" comment is way over the edge. Oh yeah? Well I think your mom is juvenile! On a more serious note, I could have sworn I typed "in the big toe" after "needs to be shot." It was an attempt at being humorous, but finals season stress has my brain shorting out and I guess I just got sidetracked before I typed it. Rest assured, I was not seriously advocating non-funny violence on Jim Hendry. Your mother, however, remains juvenile.

If we don't even make an attempt to sign him, Hendry needs to be shot. This would be a huge upgrade to our team. Giles 2B >> DeRosa 2B DeRosa SS >>>> Izturis SS

I absolutely do not want the Cubs wasting precious resources on a "closer." The cash and talent spent to acquire somebody to do that job wouldn't be near as much of an upgrade (if at all) in the bullpen than it would be if it were spent on SS or CF. Wood Howry Eyre Dempster Ohman Wuertz That's a freaking stacked bullpen. (relievers not listed in order of talent, but in the likely hierarchy Lou sees them in... Wuertz for closer, w00t!) how is that a stacked bullpen? besides wood, it's the same pen they had last year, and it wasn't anything special. There are enough people better than Novoa that he becomes relegated to towel boy? Most of the criticisms of our pen as a whole last year came about because of guys like Rusch, Ryu, Guzman, etc... coming in in long relief and giving up a good deal of runs. The core of the pen is very solid, and if we're smart enough to keep Wuertz up all year that's just icing on the cake.

Question: If I were to completely reverse course and predict that Hill, Lilly, and Marquis would post sub 4 ERAs over 80 starts between them, but that this would be the year that Z's arm blows up Livan Hernandez style from all the abuse and he posts a high 5 ERA over his 32 starts, would that be optimistic or pessimistic?

I absolutely do not want the Cubs wasting precious resources on a "closer." The cash and talent spent to acquire somebody to do that job wouldn't be near as much of an upgrade (if at all) in the bullpen than it would be if it were spent on SS or CF. Wood Howry Eyre Dempster Ohman Wuertz That's a freaking stacked bullpen. (relievers not listed in order of talent, but in the likely hierarchy Lou sees them in... Wuertz for closer, w00t!)

Is Matsuzaka some sort of Japanese cipher for Matt Harrington?

Yeah, I touched on this and then touched off a few pages of debate on another thread, the one that speculated on Hendry having to step down. I'm in the minority around here who thinks Gary Hughes is a darn fine baseball man and evaluator of talent. I might be a little biased because I know him and have talked a lot of baseball with him. He's got a pretty cool World Series ring from helping the Marlins procure some good players. But he didn't know what "DIPS" meant, and that made him an idiot to a lot of people. I don't think anyone doubts Hughes' scouting prowess. I think what that roundtable showed was a dismissiveness and a lack of tolerance for new ways of evaluating performance. That's pretty much what I took out of it. I've got no problem with Hughes being the #1 man on the scouting side, but I'd like for a GM to be the guy who mixes the opinions from the scouting side with the stats side. Hughes just hasn't given me any indication he'd be up for that role.

If I were giving Hendry a grade, I'd give him a C-. A good chunk of that is because it appears all of these contracts are backloaded, so any incoming management group is going to have a very hard time adding any quality talent for the next 3-4 years... and if the incoming group wants to cut salary... we'd be boned. This team is essentially the team you're going to see for the next few years, barring a nice trade. And I think we can all agree this isn't exactly a powerhouse of a team.

Very good signings: Aramis Wood Miller Bad money/years but decent players: Soriano Lilly DeRosa Meh signings: Blanco Ward Horrible signings: Marquis

The impression I've gotten is that Beane is losing faith in Dan Johnson. If all things worked out, Johnson would be at first... but if he's got a chance to upgrade the OF, he'd move Swisher to first.

We can't just send them down, IIRC. We could, however, cut them. At that point, any team who wanted them could pick them up and only be on the hook for a prorated portion of a league minimum salary.

I can't decide which I would rather have... Russ Ortiz at 4 years and 33 mil, or Jason Marquis at 3 and 28.

In the past, the Cubs have made the mistake of relying on the health and performance of Prior and Wood to get them to the postseason. We've finally learned our lesson. This year, we're relying on Prior and Hill to make or break the pitching staff. Thank the lord we've learned from our mistakes.

If we're throwing those guys in... Veal > Gallagher > Guzman > Pawelek > Marmol > Huseby > Marshall > Ryu > Mateo

That's about best-case scenario. Best case scenario is that some legal-minded individual files a case contesting the contract on the grounds that Hendry is not of sound mind or body.

It depends on when Veal gets promoted to AAA.

yeah, this does not matter at all. Sure it does. I'm not trying to say Gordon's going to flame out Brooks Kieschnick style, but in the context of next season's offense he's far from a lock to put up great production. Look at Miguel Cabrera, his first full season of at bats(after putting up better numbers than Gordon in AA) was a little over an .800 OPS. Nothing terrible, but not that good for expected middle of the order production. I've seen Gordon. He's going to be better than Cabrera. Seriously. This kid is the real deal. Whoa there. Cabrera put up a .339/.430/.568 in the ML during his age 23 season. Gordon put up a .325/.427/.588 in AA during his age 22 season. If Gordon jumps up 2 levels and posts the exact same numbers this year, he'll be marginally better than Cabrera. Somehow, I just don't see that happening.

Really? Berroa and LaRue are black holes, Grudz isn't any good, Sweeney's coming off a subpar half season, Brown's a platoon player, and Gordon doesn't have a single MLB at bat. It's not a lock to be terrible, but it's nothing admirable really. But you want Pie to start in CF for the Cubs. I cant say I agree with anything you said right there. You can't agree with Berroa being an offensive black hole? The man batted .234/.259/.333

Well, it's a good thing none of our young arms have enough talent to be potential top-of-the-rotation guys, cause they just got blocked by Jason Freaking Marquis. Somebody at the cubs convention just needs to ask him whether he hates the cubs, or if he's just stupid.

I think his formula is very simple: wins / salary. A basic return on investment calculation. You can't leave out the fact that there's replacement level to worry about. We should be talking about Marginal Payroll / Marginal Wins (club payroll - (28 x major league minimum) / ((winning percentage - .300) x 162) AL East Club Marginal Wins Cost per Marginal Win Least Efficient Yankees 48.4 $3,832,791 Most Efficient Blue Jays 38.4 $1,634,349 AL Central Club Marginal Wins Cost per Marginal Win Least Efficient Royals 13.4 $2,846,119 Most Efficient Twins 47.4 $1,144,304 AL West Club Marginal Wins Cost per Marginal Win Least Efficient Mariners 29.4 $2,680,402 Most Efficient A's 44.4 $1,195,655 NL East Club Marginal Wins Cost per Marginal Win Least Efficient Braves 30.4 $2,664,503 Most Efficient Marlins 29.4 $198,724 NL Central Club Marginal Wins Cost per Marginal Win Least Efficient Cubs 17.4 $4,900,488 Most Efficient Reds 31.4 $1,648,201 NL West Club Marginal Wins Cost per Marginal Win Least Efficient Giants 27.7 $2,920,593 Most Efficient Padres 39.4 $1,541,628 Figures taken from Baseball Prospectus The Cubs are obviously the worst of the bunch.

I just threw up a little in my mouth. Why is that? Gary Hughes has value in being a scout. I'm surely not about to debate that. But after the comments of his that I have read, I don't want him in charge of making the decisions. Perhaps my comment was a bit over the top, as I did not mean to disparage him personally, but the things he's said would make me very scared to see what kind of a team he'd put on the field.

having a lot of high draft picks this year should help, especially with that #3 pick. Wieters/Price please I'm really praying it's Wieters.

You, sir, are a bold faced liar.