C.C.

It's official! 3/21. http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/2006/baseball/mlb/12/19/bc.bbn.cubs.marquis.ap/index.html

Who knows. Who knew the Cards where going to win the WS or the Tigers in the WS? Or the W.Sox last year? Maybe the baseball gods will bless us with a healthy Mark Prior and a team that has career years from some of it's players. We are due for some luck.

You aren't looking very far then. we tried long term, sound financial moves and blew it. right now, i want to win a series..period. i mean it would be great to be a contender for the next seasons but since in my 40 years of life i have had a team make the playoffs less than a half dozen times, what would the difference be if we won a title but then were bad for years...we have been bad for 100 years. explain to me how selling out the future for winning right now could be worse than what we have gone through? I would sell out the future for a WS next year. Hell, I would sell my soul for a WS next year! Just give me one damn WS in my lifetime. I can give a flying crap how they do it, just get it done!

why? because i'm tired of hearing the "drew's going to fail in boston because he's not their kinda guy" stuff. it's weird how people somehow think they know players. not sure how you're not doing the same thing in this case. but I think the gist of the argument is people knowing a fanbase, not a player. while generalizations tend to be dangerous, there's a history here and general sentiments do develop. I personally would love to see Drew on the Cubs. but he's not, nor is he on a rival of the Cubs. thus, I don't give a rats ass how he does. not sure why that would be a badge of honor for you. how am i doing the same thing? and i didn't say it would be a badge of honor for me. well apparently you purport to know he will handle the pressures in Boston just fine, so apparently you know the player. of course you didn't say it would be a "badge of honor." but what would you call having some irrational hope that some player on a team you presumably don't care about does well simply to show you were right on a message board? sure Drew is a fine player, but do you really have this affinity for him or do you want this odd couple of Drew and Boston to work out just for the 'badge of honor' of saying I told you so? fine...you got me. i was going to get t-shirts printed up that say "i was right about jd drew, idiots!" haven't you ever just wanted people who say stupid things to be proven wrong? that's all i'm saying. hope that's good enough for you. Right next to the "I told you idiots that I was right about Rich Hill!" Tshirts...

because there there there might be better players next year and we could possibly win in 2008 eventhough the NL central will be crap again in 2007 Then again there might not be. Fill the holes now with the best players available and reload every year with prospects and/or free agents. Put the profits into the team and not into the owners pockets. =D>

I'm curious to know how old some of you are, that you are willing to give up or lose for another year to play for 2008? As a lifelong Cubs I'm sick and tired of waiting for next year, let alone the year after that. With the Cubs money and market you play to win the WS every damn year. You should never rebuild, but reload. You never know what can happen next year. Did anyone see the Sox winning the WS in 2005 or the Cards this year? Look at our division, our starting staff matches up with anyone's. What's with the defeatist attitude?????

It's not that bad. If I remember right Bagwell and Biggio had huge backloaded deals.

They shouldn't rush Pie. Because, you know, rushing Patterson had such fantastic results. I think the situations have a chance to be quite different. Patterson had less than 1000 pro PA before his first callup. Patterson skipped high A ball. Patterson had only a partial season of AAA under his belt (and it was really bad) - and his numbers regressed as he got promoted. Patterson got the yoyo treatment, both in terms of callup, and usage. He sat the bench a lot as well. And I believe the biggest problem was that when he was drafted, they said "despite the fact that he's a fast CF, he's not a leadoff hitter, he's more of a middle of the order guy", and then they let silly old school managers try to turn him into a slappy leadoff hitter. Felix has well over 2000 pro PA. He's been in rookie ball, low A, high A, AA and AAA (with an extremely brief stop in short season ball). Felix's numbers improved at each level from low A to AA, and his AAA numbers improved as the season went along. Pie has had professional developmental people for 5 years, compared to Corey's 2.5. If the Cubs callup Pie, and hit him 7th everyday this season, with a couple rest days against really tough lefties and/or when he's in a funk, I don't think he will necessarily have teh same fate as Patterson. On top of that he's won three championships at the minor league level. What does that have to do with anything? I have no idea. Just wanted to throw it out there. Patterson won a championship in AA in 1 of his 2 full seasons in the minors. I believe Lansing was the runner up in his other full minor league season. It was just a observation. Gimme a break! I'm still drunk from last night.

Not my Brain Cell count after last nights bender. Whew!

They shouldn't rush Pie. Because, you know, rushing Patterson had such fantastic results. I think the situations have a chance to be quite different. Patterson had less than 1000 pro PA before his first callup. Patterson skipped high A ball. Patterson had only a partial season of AAA under his belt (and it was really bad) - and his numbers regressed as he got promoted. Patterson got the yoyo treatment, both in terms of callup, and usage. He sat the bench a lot as well. And I believe the biggest problem was that when he was drafted, they said "despite the fact that he's a fast CF, he's not a leadoff hitter, he's more of a middle of the order guy", and then they let silly old school managers try to turn him into a slappy leadoff hitter. Felix has well over 2000 pro PA. He's been in rookie ball, low A, high A, AA and AAA (with an extremely brief stop in short season ball). Felix's numbers improved at each level from low A to AA, and his AAA numbers improved as the season went along. Pie has had professional developmental people for 5 years, compared to Corey's 2.5. If the Cubs callup Pie, and hit him 7th everyday this season, with a couple rest days against really tough lefties and/or when he's in a funk, I don't think he will necessarily have teh same fate as Patterson. On top of that he's won three championships at the minor league level. What does that have to do with anything? I have no idea. Just wanted to throw it out there.

They shouldn't rush Pie. Because, you know, rushing Patterson had such fantastic results. I think the situations have a chance to be quite different. Patterson had less than 1000 pro PA before his first callup. Patterson skipped high A ball. Patterson had only a partial season of AAA under his belt (and it was really bad) - and his numbers regressed as he got promoted. Patterson got the yoyo treatment, both in terms of callup, and usage. He sat the bench a lot as well. And I believe the biggest problem was that when he was drafted, they said "despite the fact that he's a fast CF, he's not a leadoff hitter, he's more of a middle of the order guy", and then they let silly old school managers try to turn him into a slappy leadoff hitter. Felix has well over 2000 pro PA. He's been in rookie ball, low A, high A, AA and AAA (with an extremely brief stop in short season ball). Felix's numbers improved at each level from low A to AA, and his AAA numbers improved as the season went along. Pie has had professional developmental people for 5 years, compared to Corey's 2.5. If the Cubs callup Pie, and hit him 7th everyday this season, with a couple rest days against really tough lefties and/or when he's in a funk, I don't think he will necessarily have teh same fate as Patterson. On top of that he's won three championships at the minor league level.

Trade Crisp?

Punching Judy? She deserved it! :wink:

That is so damn funny!

I agree. Zambrano loves it here and the Cubs love to have him there. They will get it done. They haven't let a big FA walk since Maddux.

I'll always be a Kerry Wood fan. You just can't help but pull for the guy. Agreed. The bolded part is especially cool. Between that and the steep hometown discount Aramis took to resign, it's cool to see players like that on the team showing that they love playing in Chicago and for these fans. I can only hope Big Z is thinking the same thing... I think Z does. Dumping Boras is a good start. If Cubs offered him 5/75-80mill he'd take it. Heck, he'll only be 31 for his next contract.

I'm not so sure he refused anything. In fact last year it looked like he tried to change his mechanics. Wood was abused from High-School on. Good mechanics or not he was bound to get hurt.

:shock: I guess he's like Juan Pierre but not as fast and not as good a hitter? I can see what makes him so likable. :twisted: I thought Pagan was faster than Pierre by a good deal til he pulled his hammy early in the season. Seemed like that pull really dropped his speed in a hurry and he never did quite recover all the way during the season, though Pagan is faster. Pierre actually shocked me last year because he didn't seem as fast as when he was with Florida for some reason.

Zambrano, Lilly, and Hill.

I'll always be a Kerry Wood fan. You just can't help but pull for the guy.

Brutal.

Boras has absolutely no leverage in this deal, and I hope the Red Sox hold out. As long as the Red Sox are offering a decent deal I don't have any problem with them telling Matz to go back to Japan and wait 'til next year. There's no way Matz should be getting $100 million when he was only making $4.5 million last year, and the Red Sox have already forked out $51 million just to talk to the guy. The posting system has a lot of flaws, but Boras is the biggest problem in this scenario. No, the biggest problem is Matz hired Boras.

Ahhh...That makes a little more sense.

I was wondering the same thing. I thought he was supposed to be signed by Monday?

Has Marquis actually signed yet?