mg420

brain fart i guess. of course i ment frank not brooks. my bad.

I hope it is Patterson and prospect, not couple of prospects. Wilkerson is good but not that good. I wouldn't mind if Wilkerson at all. i was thinking of guys like welleymeyer, mitre, ryu or brownlie. i think he would well be worth cp + 2 of those type of prospects.

8 mil a year is alot for that kind of production. i think wilkerson could put up at least those #'s in wrigley and he makes less than 1/2 of jenkins. hopefully brad is available.

i think he will be going to the nationals along with a couple of pitching prospects for wilkerson. i've heard that brooks robinson is very high on patterson's tools and the trade would make sense for both teams. i would love to see wilkerson in right if the cubs trade for pierre & dont sign giles. if they sign furcal to lead off and giels for rf, wilkerson can play center.

If memory serves, both the CUBS and the Yankees offered Maddux more money than Atlanta did. In any case, it was all about Larry Himes and a lack of respect. It wasn't about the money. I recall that very well. The Cubs management at the time acted like a complete bunch of jerks towards Maddux. That's why he left. He actually called to accept the last Cubs offer, but they told him it wasn't on the table anymore, and they let him walk. Not giving him 5 years for $25 that saw him earn another 3 Cy Youngs because of him not recognizing his "position" in the bargaining process was also pretty irresponsible. It wasn't a disagreement about money. we can thank the wonderful larry himes for this. but he did get the cubs sosa from the sox so i guess that makes up for chasing one of the best pitchers in history away from the cubs. good thing they signed guzman to fill greg's shoes.

passion and fire? among other brutally violent episodes, the guy tried to choke his pregnant wife. i think you are confusing psychosis with passion. if he were not a pro baseball player they would have locked him up and thrown away the key long ago. Good point. Amazing what a guy that can play a sport well can get away with. If there is truth to this story, then I don't want him. Its one thing to fight with a teammate (or even to chuck a bottle at a guy who is probably insulting your mother). Its another thing to choke your pregnant wife. That's not ok, and I really do not care how high his OBP is. its true: http://www.dailybreeze.com/news/articles/1705006.html

passion and fire? among other brutally violent episodes, the guy tried to choke his pregnant wife. i think you are confusing psychosis with passion. if he were not a pro baseball player they would have locked him up and thrown away the key long ago.

Unfortunately, he's very very bad at it. You're just missing the point entirely. What makes you think if you were a coach and I was a FA, I would in any way want to play for you? You obviously as a coach wouldn't hold any loyalty to players, and its questionable whether your commitment is winning or sticking to your SABR for right or wrong in order to possibly come out in the end looking like a genius. No, I understand the point, and I think you're dead wrong. How do we know that everytime Neifi goes to the mound, the pitcher just wants him to get away, half the pitchers I've ever played with didn't want anyone to conference with them. Same thing in the dugout/clubhouse. Someone who is a happy guy can be perceived as annoying as they are uplifting. Again, from my own experience, and in my day I was the one trying to be the positive teammate. It's not ALL about the numbers, but when someone is as lacking as Perez, all the platitudes about him making contact and being a nice guy don't change the fact that he's horrible, and terribly undeserving of 2 years and 5 million. Now, for your hypothetical on free agency. Neifi played pretty poorly last year, so if anything he should be down my "loyalty" list. But there's what, 1 in 50 guys who won't bolt the "loyal" club for more cash when their time comes. That's what free agency is about. Money. It may sound nice to say that we're being scumbags to treat Neifi that way, but it's not like he performed amazingly and we kicked him to the curb, or we reneged on a promise. He was bad, we should've gotten rid of him, that's how the market works. And finally, it's not trying to make myself look smart, it's about building the baseball team that's most likely to win you games. SABR does NOT = Stats necessarily. It's all about finding the best way to evaluate players/teams. And signing Neifi Perez to a 2 year 5 million dollar contract, especially when you have Dusty Baker managing your team, is a very poor decision if you are trying to build a team that will win you the most games. I think Neifi was a lifesaver last year after Nomar went down the 2nd week. He hopped in and filled that role beautifully, the only knock against him was the Crusty kept throwing him in the wrong spot in the batting order. Neifi was above league average in regards to his batting avg., and his .obp was right around .300. I think those numbers, coupled with all the other positive attributes he brings to the game, justify Neifi being a very legitimate 8th man in our batting lineup. If we need to address the REAL issues, how about that lump of suckage in CF - we NEVER ended up solving that problem. My biggest worry is that we'll address RF and ignore the suckage factor in CF. At least Neifi stepped up when Nomar went down and was productive. I can't handle watching Patterson stepped up to the plate anymore - it makes my stomach turn :evil: most likey you wont have to worry about him coming to the plate for the cubs next year.

wouldnt it be lofton/jhjr? greenburg isnt on the 40 man anymore.

i'm still holding out hope that maddux will retire and williams will get the job as the # 4. maddux is either really good or really bad at this point in his career with not many keep them in the game starts. i like williams and rusch as the #4 & 5 with hill in reserve in case of injury.

it's a done deal. the bo sox got mota too: http://mlb.mlb.com/NASApp/mlb/news/article.jsp?ymd=20051124&content_id=1272191&vkey=news_mlb&fext=.jsp&c_id=mlb

what about jacob cruz? maybe the cubs will sign both of them and have 2 good lefty pinch hitters. hopefully one of them can play 3b along with lf & 1st.

if the cubs do get pierre in the rumored trade, i would rather see cedeno & walker @ ss & 2b and forget about furcal so they can go after giles for rf. if giles can be had for $40/4 i think that : pierre murton lee giles (or floyd if giles goes elsewhere) aram walker barrett cedeno looks much more balanced than: pierre furcal lee aram floyd/mench/burnitz murton barrett perez

Welly and Mitre can't be sent to AAA without clearing waivers first. (Out of options.) I don't see how we'll avoid carrying a 12-man staff for another entire season. Guess that means we'll need Macias' "versatility" again. IMO Welly and Mitre will be part of a trade to bring in a big bat. perhaps they are the 2nd & 3rd players in the pierre trade. i would guess that at least one of them will be included with pinto if the trade actullay goes through.

That is the whole point; you can what if all you want, but I would rather give up prospective talent to receive proven talent. If it bites you in the butt later, oh well, at least you took a chance. I hate hearing that Hendry won't even listen to GM's that mention Pie or Hill. WHY?!? What would it hurt to listen. I have a theory that Hendry doesn't like to deal with GMs that he thinks are smarter than him; he likes to think he took advantage of someone-jmo. Cubbie in AR from TX isnt it a GM's job to what if? it is when they dont that they arent doing their job imo. it is also my opinion that being a gm is not as easy as alot of people on this board think it is. its a complicated business not a grocery store where you can pick and choose which players you want and build the perfect team. why dont the people who blast hendry for every little thing he does quit their day jobs & make a living at roto leauge baseball if they are so superior to professional major leauge gm's?

the clement/alfo for willis trade looked good for the cubs when it happened too. i can safely say that not many cubs fans would say today that it was a good trade.

and what if beckett gets hurt or tanks in boston & hanley and/or little pedro become stars for the marlins? the marlins will look like genuises and the bo sox will look like suckers. hindsight is always 20-20. right now it looks like the bo sox won big time in that trade but only time will tell if they did or not.

i know how good boston's offense was but what about the 02 angels, the 03 marlins & the 05 sox? how did their offense compare to their pitching? i dont have the #'s but i would guess that 3 out of the 4 teams that have won the series most recently had great pitching and an average offense.

Why not Karonka? maybe because koronka is a lefty and has some trade value?

I think signing Giles makes a heck of a lot more sense than trading away your best prospect, and I have a feeling that Hendry has as much interest in trading Pie for Abreu as he does for signing Giles. That's true. But then again, Pie is only the Cubs best prospect because they are so bereft of top flight prospects after slowly falling down the list of top farm systems. He's got some pretty large flaws for all the we can't trade him for a current start talk. I'm not advocating trading Pie instead of signing Giles. I'm all about Giles. But if the GM won't open his eyes to the obviousness of signing Giles, he has to trade for an impact corner OF someway and somehow. And I'd like to see them trade prospects other than Pie to get that corner OF. But I would not let Pie and his slim chance for greatness stand in the way of making a trade, if he was a dealbreaker. He's not worth it. hendry most likely thinks he is.

Yeah, I wouldn't. Offense is so much more important than the bullpen. Why is there such blatant disregard for offense? I have a theory that it's a backlash for the increased importance that offense took on in the 90's and early 00's in many sports, and how all leagues worked to make offense more important. The decades long mantra that defense wins championships, and the insinuation that scoring and offense was far less macho than preventing scores started to take hits when teams like STL won the Super Bowl and even when the Red Sox won the WS. Much like the backlash against sabermetric ideas in baseball, and a more analytical approach to roster moves, the backlash against offense has been led by the it was so much better when crowd. Offense matters. The Cubs bad offense is the reason this team hasn't won 90 games despite being among the top payrolls the past 3 years. Bullpen improvements would be nice, but not nearly as effective at improving this team as the major upgrades needed on offense. i disagree. besides, the improving the cubs offense might be as simple as finding a good lead off man to get on before lee & aram and playing cedeno & walker @ ss & 2b. i guess we'll all have to watch and see what happens but so far hendry has put improving the pen before improving the offense. it is impossible to win with a bad bullpen while it is only difficult to win with a bad offense.

if the back's wont part with tracy without the cubs taking vazquez, i would rather they look elsewhere for their rf.

and if he signed furcal & giles without addressing the dreadful pen the cubs had last year, he would have to bolster it the same way he will the offense- via trades. i would rather see the cubs have a great pen and avereage offense than vice versa. if howry & eyre have similar years in 06 that they had in 05, i think everyone will be quite happy with the signings.

why not just go after tracy? how is his d in rf? he obviously can hit.

thats sounds so easy but who to keep & who to trade? how many guys were above willis on the list when the cubs traded him? it's always a gamble whenever a player with alot of talent is traded. hill could be the next willis or the next lance dickson (now my age is showing).