Andy

Darwin Barney would never, ever do this against everyone. He'll continuing hitting .130 or whatever the [expletive] he's hitting now. Darwin Barney hit a walk-off homer once. Against St. Louis even.

I cannot believe how worked up people get about this stuff. I'm not swirling with anger. It's just annoying. This is Cubs/White Sox with two losing teams. No one watching the game needs to be informed of the history of the franchises

Aaaaand there it is - ESPN cramming all our misery into one mini-montage.

I'm tired of watching Junior Lake. Next one, please.

This offseason we really need to sign more players who have a good AVG with RISP while their team is trailing. I want guys who can catch the ball myself

For non ESPN watchers, they just said the Cubs have 2 wins when they trail at any point in the game. That's ridiculous.

Ok, Gordon Beckham is officially on my [expletive] list.

Typical Cubs getting shut down by a soft-tossing lefty (posts from 2006)

I was reading chatter earlier that Detroit is talking to Watkins about trading up for him. That one doesn't make a lot of sense, and I like Watkins.

I like the idea of the pitcher batting 8th. It probably makes little difference in the long run, but IIRC there are statistics that show it can be to a team's benefit.

I certainly hope not. He's basically it for our chances at a decent catcher in the organization right now, isn't he?

No, it's just some dumbass thing they're doing recently because they haven't been scoring. They've lost 7 straight, I think. I wouldn't call that move dumb at all.

I was watching a highlight reel of this the other day and it was the Astros' broadcast. JD was the color guy. I didn't know he'd been there that long. Yeah, I saw that same clip. Felt very time warp-y.

No one is complaining about the negativity here, more the irrational and hyperbolic posts from Kyle and Andy. There are legitimate gripes with this organization that you, goony and many others have posted. There were hyperbolic posts in this thread, but it wasn't coming from me. It was coming from folks like bukie. Heck, I hadn't even jumped in until he brought my name into it out of nowhere. My post said that it [expletive] sucks the highlight of our season is going to be a 2 out of 3 series from STL. That may or may not be correct (and I sure hope it's not), but there was another post on that same page saying to cut Schierholtz for a Make-A-Wish kid. Irrationality and hyperbole tend to find their way into the game thread. Then bukie started calling me a damned moron and a thickhead, and away we went.

With Cardinal pixie dust, all things are possible. His OPS is nearly .800 despite a .226 BABIP. So once that normalizes he figures to be an MVP candidate.

I voted no. I think the Cubs would be less bad, but I don't think they'd be a viable contender unless Cuban had come in and bought all the big fish FAs.

http://29.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_lmy70miWI21qa9fb5o1_500.gif

Why is this the new thing now? The fact that the Rays got good in 2008 didn't make the previous 10 years of garbage baseball any less garbage-y. If the Astros get good with their merry band of prospects, it won't change the fact that they played [expletive] teams for like 5 years in a row on purpose. You can be aware of what the 'plan' is and still not like that you have to watch terrible teams for years waiting for it to hopefully work. [expletive], if we turn into a big market Rays, the 10 years of losing would be completely worth it. No. For every Rays, there's a Royals, which is why betting almost entirely on unknowns scares me.

Why is this the new thing now? The fact that the Rays got good in 2008 didn't make the previous 10 years of garbage baseball any less garbage-y. If the Astros get good with their merry band of prospects, it won't change the fact that they played [expletive] teams for like 5 years in a row on purpose. You can be aware of what the 'plan' is and still not like that you have to watch terrible teams for years waiting for it to hopefully work.

You just made up two narratives here. The Cubs are only trading Samardzija if the return provides more value going forward than Samardzija will. That's why he's still on the team now. Castro, Rizzo and Castillo are currently at the major league level and producing. Samardzija is pitching lights out, Hammel isn't far behind, and Arrieta and Wood are contributing positively, and the pen is actually proving to be an asset right now (once the Veres issue sorted itself out). The outfield isn't performing, even in the platoons (and the best of the bunch is on the shelf for 3 weeks), which really drags down the offense in an annoyingly glaring way despite the success from the infield across the board (including Valbuena and Bonifacio, though Bonifacio is the most likely candidate to regress quickly and has). I'm aware Castro, Rizzo and Castillo are producing, and that's great and certainly a relief after the crap years the former two put up in 2013. But I can only be so thrilled about Shark and Hammel when both will be gone in August if Shark doesn't take a nap at the deadline the Cubs successfully get the ransom they'll ask for, a ransom that will be a maybe to amount to anything. And the 3 young guys are only going to be young for so long. At some point there need to be results, and I do not like betting on unknowns. Rational or not, I've been burned repeatedly hoping for unknowns to turn into knowns for this team and I can't help but wonder if this will burn me too.

He and Barney shouldn't be seeing as much time as they are. Even if Valbuena doesn't hit lefties (and he's got reverse splits, or close anyway), he puts together much better ABs than Barney. And I don't care if it's Coghlan out there every day, somebody other than Nate would be nice. Coghlan is a terrible defensive outfielder who hasn't been a positive WAR offensive player since 2010. I'll take my chances with Nate to be honest.

Plenty of people are sick of losing. Few make up narratives and turn a blind eye to everything good happening just to have an excuse to spout off regularly. We suck donkey balls for the 3rd year in a row and are going to trade the best player on the team within 2 months, but I'm making up narratives. And most of the 'good things' you're referring to are either sucking or injured in the minors right now. Forgive me for not jumping for joy.

To be fair, you kinda always got constantly insulted on this board. Fair point.

God, quit being a damned moron, already. There have been 4 teams in the last 3 years, all small-market, who lost more games in a season than we did in 2011 and had a lower-ranked farm system than we did in 2011 who went on to make the playoffs the following year and I'm rooting for the one that decided to pitch the next 3 (and looks like 4) years. If being pissed about that is 'being a damned moron', then sign me the [expletive] up. You are denser than a pile of bricks, but hey, go all in on Kyle-level thick-headedness, then. Losing 100 games two years in a row does funny things to people. Funny how the people who aren't sick of this [expletive] don't get constantly insulted on this board.

God, quit being a damned moron, already. There have been 4 teams in the last 3 years, all small-market, who lost more games in a season than we did in 2011 and had a lower-ranked farm system than we did in 2011 who went on to make the playoffs the following year and I'm rooting for the one that decided to pitch the next 3 (and looks like 4) years. If being pissed about that is 'being a damned moron', then sign me the [expletive] up.