Tracer Bullet

b/c what does 3 months with crap team that doesn't care tell you about a manager? All it does is give the Sandberg-lovers some evidence that Trammel won't do any good as manager. I don't think managers are sacred cows by any stretch. But the manager isn't going to improve the team in any way (in chances of making the playoffs, or in player development). And if giving Trammel the reins now would improve his chances of getting the gig full time, I'd support it. I just don't think that's true.

Really? I mean, he's inept, for sure. But he's not ruining any stud arms or stunting some great prospect's development, so he's harmless. I could manage the Cubs the rest of this season and you probably wouldn't notice much difference.

we've been so bad, we can no longer safely show crowds all of our mistakes. perfect.

JR - Hendry very likely won't be fired mid-season. So I don't think Ricketts is going to do what you really want him to do. Thus, there's no reason to want him to meddle in other stuff. I think you just want Hendry fired (as do I), but since you know that won't happen, you're just looking for anything to happen b/c you're frustrated. I can't believe you'd truly want a meddling owner.

TT's ability to be right and say it so well is uncanny. I can't believe we're really wishing for a Steinbrenner situation. We do not want a meddling owner.

but we were talking productivity, not value or ability to trade him. in the question of whether a player was productive or how productive he was, salary is not a factor.

Pretty close to a bad year, yes. If you compare his .254, 11 HR, and 54 RBI with players that are getting paid as much as he is ($12 mil/yr), especially at the outfield position, Kosuke did not play up to par. 8th best OPS for a CF in all of baseball last year. He generally compared pretty favorably to other CF in the NL last year. Is he overpaid? Sure, but the amount of money one makes doesn't decide whether a player is productive or not, and Fukudome was a productive CF in 2009. How is salary not a factor? in productivity? how is salary a factor?

I bet you wouldn't mind what kind of owner he was if he brought you a WS ring. I'll take him. saying you'd be fine with loria here makes it obvious that you know absolutely nothing about him The joy of winning the world series be sapped somewhat when I saw that piece of [expletive] holding the trophy next to Selig. And I'm not even being sarcastic. exactly. I think I'd feel worse about a WS with Loria than if we'd paid off the umpires or something.

I don't know if I'd call a .254 average with 27 RBI over the three summer months "killing" it. Wait, what? How does July and August become three months? How can someone come to the conclusion that he sucks in the summer if he's a very good player for 2 of the 3 summer months? It's not like his July and August numbers are propped up with a decent performance stretched out over relatively few PA. In July he had 103 PA and managed a .926 OPS. In August he pulled off a .904 OPS, again in 103 PA. His horrible June was over the course of 96 PA. I am simply baffled as to how anyone can come to the conclusion that he sucks in the summer based on his 2009 numbers. This tangent just gets increasingly bizarre. And now he's getting slammed for "only" having 24 RBI in July and August? What? He had 12 RBI's in each month, which is 2nd only to his April, where had 15, that people keep talking about like it was some amazing month he'd never come close to again. June, July, and August being summer months is not the point. 96 PA compared to 103 PA the other two months? Wow, that's such a BIG difference. C'mon man, I had 7 plate appearances in my own two games this past weekend. I never said Fukudome "only" has X number of RBI, as you stated. I'm saying how many he had over that span. Baseball (statistically speaking), as you should know, is based of averages and percentages. Earned-run average, batting average, winning percentage, etc. That is an average of 9 RBI per month. With about 25-30 games per month, that is pathetic for a starting position player, which he was. Lastly, I haven't been on this board enough lately, but the notion to trade or bench Fukudome in favor of Colvin is not as crazy or absurd as you make it sound. Colvin is a pure hitter, while Fukudome still has his cork-screw like swing. Fukudome is NOT the future. After his contract is up, he will NOT be back. Since you used the term "simple" in your defense, I will too. It's that simple, man. This is the MAJOR LEAGUES, where you play the future. AND Colvin is a solid player. He's a baseball player who takes advantage of his opportunity when he gets it, and when he doesn't play he stays humble and does his job accordingly. Fukudome is solid defensively, but saunters on the bench when he's not starting and is not the definition of a "baseball player". Do you ever wonder if he CARES about winning baseball games!? Stop your defense of Kosuke, your wasting your time. He's not giving anything to this team. The Cubs are 31-40. NINE games under .500. With that poor of a record, a team usually is in the need of a shakeup. Whether that is trading a guy, playing someone else, bring a kid up from the minors, etc. Kosuke is not winning us games. wow. you can argue your position, but please don't tell other posters to stop arguing theirs.

There are more days in June that aren't summer than there are that is summer. 20 days are "spring" 10 days are summer. We're not using the farmer's almanac or some arcane meteorological definition here. When people talk about summer they're including June. What people? Anyone that's gone to school, for starters. So people think summer starts June 1 b/c school gets out around then, even though many of them go into June (schools here ended last week)? that's a pretty tough argument to make.

do we still want to hire Fredi Gonzalez? http://sports.espn.go.com/mlb/news/story?id=5318111

He was a horrible pitcher that had signed a ridiculous contract. i'm starting to get the sense that media, players, and fans all sort of resent those guys. it's just a hunch though.

so we will know when the GM has failed?

So would I, but aside from DeRosa, when has Hendry sold high on a player? Barrett comes to mind immediately.

He's also a Top Notch QB prospect. of course he is. but he's highly likely to end up getting paid millions to play baseball and that's not easy to turn down.

that kid there is a baseball player

when I said he didn't need a platoon partner, i wasn't suggesting he lead off against a LHP either, Lou.

I do not understand the Kosuke hate. He's a nice trade piece and we need to treat him like one. this seems like a great situation, really. Boston needs a good OF and can handle Kosuke's contract with no problem. I imagine they have something decent we could get in return. And they may not want to wait to see if the price comes down, since there are 2 teams ahead of them in their conference, instead of just one. Given how unlikely it is that Kosuke completely tanks for the next month, this seems like a great time for Hendry to sit and hold his cards.

If the Tigers want to take another crappy middle infielder from us, who are we to stop them? I'm starting to love Jim Leyland.

Both. Do you think that's really different than most big payroll teams? Maybe he spends more on RPs and role players than other teams, but I don't know the details of some other rosters. Seems to me like he just picks the wrong guys to go after.

Lee and Aramis are like the last guys I think of on this team in terms of having bad contracts. My point is that the teams with big payrolls tend to lock up most of their money in good players whereas the Cubs seem to love spreading it around too much overpaying for the wrong guys time and time again. by "spreading it around overpaying for the wrong guys" are you talking about wasting it on the bench (ETA: I shouldn't say bench, it's not limited to that, but role players, platoon players, etc) and RPs that combine to eat up the payroll or the Z and Soriano contracts? I don't think Hendry has a different approach than other high payroll teams. I just think he's bad at identifying truly great players (which I think he believed Soriano and Z to be, he may have also seen Lee that way after 05).

Absolutely. Ramirez is a fabulous second banana. Lee has on occasion been a star, but he's usually just an also ran in the 1B department. The really good lineups have ARod or Manny or Pujols or Utley. If you are a huge budget team, you should have one of that type of player, plus the Aramis type. you guys, you can't sign ARod or Utley AND Ramirez and Lee and still have $5m to throw at middle relievers and 2 years of Neifi Perez.

So the Cubs have an 4 good OFs, one of which could easily get sent to AAA if necessary, and Boston needs an OF. Yet the Cubs are in the position of needing to eat part of a contract to make a trade happen? I must be missing something.

And that k rate. 9/22 is obviously bad, but it's pretty hard to draw many conclusions from 22 PAs. was his K rate against LHP that bad in the minors too? Of course, I also think too many LH get platooned too early in their careers b/c it's accepted that they can't hit LHP. So maybe I'm willing to give him more rope before we come to that conclusion than I should.

penn state football, 2000-04: 26-33, 16-24 conference record, 1 bowl appearance. 2005-09: 51-13, 29-11 conference record, 5 bowl appearances people were basically throwing dirt on the psu program and saying they'd never recover until paterno retired and they brought in mostly new staff. the last five years they and ohio st have been the class of the conference. it's hard to keep great college football programs down for long. Over the last 5 years, the have been on top (he isn't stating anything other than they have turned around what a bad situation previous to that). But that is not the point he is making, the point of the comment is that teams can rebound. I've read the post, I know what it says. That's why a page or two ago I told truffle that I thought adding that PSU was among the class of the big 10 took away from his larger point. did you see that post I made? So we have the following: 1) You agree with the conclusion that he reached regarding "rebounding" programs. 2) You don't like that he threw in a comment that essentially was as "aside" to his argument. This is because he is a fan of said team, making him look like a homer. OK then. I as an Illini fan will say the following: people were basically throwing dirt on the psu program and saying they'd never recover until paterno retired and they brought in mostly new staff. the last five years they and ohio st have been the class of the conference. it's hard to keep great college football programs down for long. The five year windows he created were not an arbitrary cutoff to declare his school superior to any other school. They were created to show a valid point he had. He then simply stated tacked on a conclusion (a correct one) from the same window that was previously created. holy crap. if his primary point (which it is) is that Michigan will be back to a top program in the country in the near future b/c you can't keep a good program down, I don't agree. While UM might eventually return to contending for Big Ten titles regularly, and might even do so soon, there is little evidence now from which to conclude that. Using PSU as a comparison for UM is bad; UM is in a much much worse place now that PSU was 7-8 years ago. But making that comparison and saying PSU is among the class of the big ten makes you look crazy. OSU and OSU alone is the class of the big ten for the last 5 years and more. that point is not valid and it doesn't support a valid comparison, b/c the comparison is bad. please tell me you've been following this thread the entire time and aren't just jumping in at the end. no one needs you to re-state truffle's points nor for me to re-state mine.