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Manny's a bigger name than any of those guys, but I don't know that Roberts and Harden are lesser names than Gonzalez. Roberts was a fairly big name back a few years ago in his prime and Harden still is. I put Gonzalez in the same boat as Justin Morneau. Put him in a bigger market, and he may well be one of the top 10 "names" in the game, at least as far as potision players go. That makes no sense. Manny became a huge name when he was in Boston "being Manny." If he stays in Cleveland, he's probably no bigger a name than Roberts or Harden. Now, he struggles to stay healthy. But "Adrian" is a big name b/c if he were in a big market, he would be a big name? How is Gonzalez different than those other guys (not a big name b/c not in a big market)? KW doesn't always get his guy. He sometimes gets guys he goes after. And sometimes those moves end up well and frequently they don't.

So this contract eats up 0 arb-eligible years? He'll be arb eligible beginning in 2013 and the Nats will control him through 2015. Do I have that right?

It's not the end of the world. TJS usually isn't a huge deal and a lot of pitchers actually comes back stronger after having it and fully recovering. Yeah, this means they won't see him next year, but next year was going to be another step in their rebuilding process anyway. This actually has a good chance of prolonging his career (and thus the money that the Nats can make off of him) and hopefully will line up nicely with when it's time to unleash Harper. this must be covered by insurance, right? so the Nationals aren't losing all of the money they're paying him for next year. Though, if you're the Nationals, while you don't want to wear him down to nothing, are you really concerned about his career when he's 30+ more than the next several years? What are the chances that he's pitching for the Nationals after this contract runs out? If he's anywhere near as good as advertised, very small, so this is pretty much the worst thing for the Nationals. It's not like a normal rookie where it's a cheap year. And if he never really comes back to 100% (or doesn't for 3-5 years), they can't even trade him for before he's a FA for nearly as much as they thought they could. I don't think there's a silver lining here for the Nats at all. He doesn't accrue service time next season right? This would extend the age at which they will lose control over him. And since they are more likely to be contenders later than next year specifically, it's not all bad. yeah, i edited. i forgot his contract ended after 2012. so if they control him after this contract runs, it wouldn't be all bad.

It's not the end of the world. TJS usually isn't a huge deal and a lot of pitchers actually comes back stronger after having it and fully recovering. Yeah, this means they won't see him next year, but next year was going to be another step in their rebuilding process anyway. This actually has a good chance of prolonging his career (and thus the money that the Nats can make off of him) and hopefully will line up nicely with when it's time to unleash Harper. this must be covered by insurance, right? so the Nationals aren't losing all of the money they're paying him for next year. Though, if you're the Nationals, while you don't want to wear him down to nothing, are you really concerned about his career when he's 30+ more than the next several years? What are the chances that he's pitching for the Nationals after this contract runs out? If he's anywhere near as good as advertised, very small, so this is pretty much the worst thing for the Nationals. It's not like a normal rookie where it's a cheap year. And if he never really comes back to 100% (or doesn't for 3-5 years), they can't even trade him for before he's a FA for nearly as much as they thought they could. I don't think there's a silver lining here for the Nats at all. ETA: will they still control him at the end of this contract (after '12)? I guess maybe this makes his next contract affordable for the Nats if he doesn't pitch again until 2012.

I just watched the replay of the injury to Strasburg. The PBP guy is saying "something happened...you can tell by the grimace on his face." And Dibble is saying "could be an elbow, could be a forearm...could be fatigue." Fatigue, Rob? Have you ever seen someone wince in the face of the severe pain of fatigue in their arm?

And why is the GM allowing a coach to make personnel decisions? it's not uncommon at all with experienced managers. not sure a first-year manager would get the same authority, but I wouldn't be shocked if Sandberg could talk Hendry out of some players.

um/osu is the 5th biggest sporting event in michigan and ohio, i'll give him that.

I'm more against him now that I was 10 minutes ago.

AH..No Sammy listed. So anyone who says he 'walked out of the game' is incorrect. Case closed. There was a game that day, as the box score proved conclusively. Sosa was at the game. He walked out. That's accepted fact. You are angling for an imaginary semantic victory that isn't there. Nobody said "He walked out of a game while playing." So we've established that Sammy did not walk out while he was in the lineup but that he did leave a game that he was eligible to be brought into as a substitute at some point. Can we all move on now?

Don't sell yourself short. I'm sure you were a giant douchebag in college... ;) I figured someone would call me a giant douchebag now, so I guess this was better than it could have been. I did, but I deleted it because I didn't want another fight good call. my knuckles still haven't recovered from our last one.

oh, and brian kelly has apparently talked with nbc about the flow of the game and how it fits with his style. hopefully there won't be 4-minute commercial breaks every 15 minutes this year.

Don't sell yourself short. I'm sure you were a giant douchebag in college... ;) I figured someone would call me a giant douchebag now, so I guess this was better than it could have been.

I do think it was interesting that the original article on espn (that Neyer quotes) didn't say that all those former All-Stars that aren't on the roster, with almost no exception, aren't worth their current salaries. The Pirates still suck, but does anyone think the people they've let go in the last few years have been bad moves? Eventually you have to forgive them for trading Ramirez, etc, right?

sometimes I miss college, but then I see things like that and don't think I could handle the incredible increase in douchebaggery that's taken place in the last 10 years.

i'm not sure exactly what to believe, but that makes a lot of sense. and it's typically dangerous to draw a lot of conclusions from a year or two of financials from an organization (esp one with a long history).

Here's your whole post: I think this whole line of debate by you is out of character because you've based it all (in this thread) on your perception that Lou doesn't care. You don't normally make arguments like that and that's why I've carried the debate on. I know you have other issues with him, but found it odd that you so strongly carried on the "Lou doesn't care" point so much in this thread. I still don't get the idea that a well-run organization would have fired Lou by now. Maybe before the season, but very few organizations are going to fire a manager in the middle of an awful season knowing that he's announced he'll retire after the year. There's simply no real benefit to be gained by it and it'd be a PR black eye if the media chose to pick it up. if Lou does care, then N&G is correct and he's become a terrible manager. while he's not abusing pitchers, he's making crazy decisions. I think the whole discussion about Theriot and his complete lack of any understanding of his own team really surprised me. So I looked back at some of the links to other PCs and he really has this look about him like he just wants to be anywhere else and his comments and in-game actions, taken with his body language and age (and likely knowledge in March that this wasn't a 100-game winner), strongly suggest to me that he's just going through the motions. I wasn't a fan of his hiring, I wanted him fired at least last year, and have wanted him gone all season (in favor of letting AT take over for several months). As for my post, it was in response to your question about why firing Lou in a "meaningless season" is so important. My response was aimed at the fact that it wasn't meaningless until the last few weeks and back to June at the earliest. I think Lou deserved to be fired before it became meaningless. Mostly because I think he's now a bad manager (not sure for how long, I haven't followed his career closely), but his lack of interest is one factor that contributes to my wanting him fired.

What did you mean by this then: The only qualifier you have in there for why the Cubs are not well-run because they didn't fire Lou is because you feel like he didn't care before the season started. I've spent plenty of time in the fire lou thread and I'm fairly certain I was against his hiring and stated as much. I'm not going to identify every reason I didn't want him hired or wanted him fired in every post/thread in which he's discussed. the sentence you pulled out is taken out of any context, but the conclusion (keeping him on is not the sign of a well-run organization) assumes Lou didn't care before the season started. it's one sentence in dozens of posts I've made about the subject. parsing it to this degree is a little mind-numbing, don't you think? beyond that, it's an insane twist of my argument to suggest that I think the cubs should fire him "simply because feel like he doesn't care."

From Bruce Miles' blog: Not knowing Theriot hasn't taken a walk in a month is pretty weird. I've wondered about Lou all season, but I don't know that the answer is he doesn't care. Frankly, I don't know what the answer is, but if he didn't care he's had plenty of opportunities to pack it in and leave and he hasn't. He may not care, but I don't think it's as obvious as you seem to and certainly not obvious enough for the Cubs to fire him simply because you feel like he doesn't care. The poor season we're having is more of a sign of how well the organization is being run than whether or not Lou is still the manager of the team. i didn't suggest this. jersey did. talk to him. oh, and he sure looks happy to be gone http://a.imageshack.us/img715/578/loupinellaisonaboatonab.jpg

even more reason to have fired him long ago (or not hired him at all).

I'd let him go in a heartbeat if someone claimed him. He usually looks like he's barely trying. Think he's gone full Roger Dorn. Gives every tough ground ball that ole' bs. Good god, I would pay a lot of money if people could no longer use Bull Durham or Major League as the basis for their inane complaints. Million dollar arm, ten cent head IMO. MEAT!!! can we quote those movies just for fun as long as we're not making inane complaints?

maybe

And what tells you that Lou doesn't give a crap anymore? I'd think the fact that his mother was sick and he still chose to stick around with the team because he thought there was a slim chance to compete is a sign that he cares and still wants to win. If you wanted Lou fired before the season or sometime previously, that's fine. But JR's main point was that Lou retiring now and not having been forced out a month ago is a sign that the Cubs are a terribly run organization and that they lack organizational control. If you didn't agree with that part, then what did you agree with? what makes you think he decided to stick around b/c he thought there was a chance the team could compete? Are you talking when he took his leave of absence a few weeks ago and then came back? what was this team competing for then? maybe he stuck around b/c likes getting paid. maybe he enjoys the camaraderie of a ML clubhouse. maybe he thought it was honorable to try to serve out the end of his contract. there could be a lot of reasons that he likes it enough to come back that still fall short of having a real passion for your job. i would have loved to have him replaced with a better manager before the season and I thought at least from very early this season that he didn't seem to care. Maybe it was the slow start or the complete tanking in June. Or Lee and Ramirez still being terrible after 2 months. But it seemed to me that he didn't have the passion that he used to have (I'm not sure he ever really had it in Chicago - I don't recall being a big fan of the hiring from the start). I don't have the quotes and links and I'm not going to dig them up. I'm sure you could flip through the fire lou thread if you really care. one example: his comment in June about not knowing that Theriot hadn't taken a walk for a month, yet he still ran him out there near the top of the lineup. that whole interaction was weird. and some/most of it is nonverbal. as for JR, I agree that they've handled Lou poorly and not firing him (or working out a way for him to retire) before now. I don't having him here now is the way a well-run organization operates. i don't agree with much of the specifics about firing him when he originally took his leave of absence. I think he should have been gone before that.

What? What are you even trying to say here? You make no sense. did you intentionally cut out the part of your post in which you suggested I wanted lou fired b/c of a lack of interest during press conferences? Cut out the part of my post? You haven't made a lick of sense here. You're rambling about the guy's passion in press conferences and how obvious it was that he mailed in this entire season and should have been sent home in February. You are making a bunch of really stupid comments. And I'm questioning them. the PCs are the public displays of his lack of desire to manage. they've been questioned here for months. i've never said you'd fire him b/c of those PCs, as you posted. It's just indicative of his lack of interest in the job. you're failure to grasp that makes you seem pretty dense.

This is a bizarre tangent. Yes, I'm sure Lou Piniella was ware of the fact that his very old mother would someday die. Now it's come to the point that his mother likely is dying and he'd rather spend his time with her ass opposed to sitting through the last 6 weeks of his contract managing a truly wretched baseball team. I'm not sure why anyone would fault him for that. it's not a tangent. it's just a question of whether you think Lou didn't have his heart in managing this team long before now. it's dumb to have a manager who doesn't care about his job out there playing a bunch of kids that you're trying to develop or evaluate for the next season. but if his mother wasn't about to die, that's exactly what would happen and I personally think it's been going on for months.

What? What are you even trying to say here? You make no sense. did you intentionally cut out the part of your post in which you suggested I wanted lou fired b/c of a lack of interest during press conferences?