Sammy Sofa

Oh lord Javy that was worse than I imagined. That was Patterson-esque at his worst. But yeah, he's always had all that waggle. a high outside curveball i dont even That was exactly how about 90% of my PA's go in The Show.

How does being right or wrong about such a statement have anything to do with being smarter or not? It's just goofy hyperbole.

And no, she doesn't count the DR.

My mother, who is bizarrely biased against the idea of players in US pro sports who aren't American, was VERY disappointed to find out that someone with the wholesome all-American name of "Junior Lake" is actually a filthy foreigner.

His teams were highly flawed because he had no interest in finding players that could get on base. The one truly good team he built (2008) was built on a bunch of career years. The good teams he built on paper (2004 specifically) were ruined by his hand-picked manager. He wasn't very good (although certainly not the worst, as some made him out to be at the time). Although it seems many on this board are suddenly pining for an 80-win juggernaut with a huge payroll. Hendry was pretty good at those. Those "bunch of career years" being the middle IF and Dempster? While not technically a career year, getting what we got out of Edmonds was obscenely lucky, FWIW. I'm still not sure what the hell that was. Also, while not really career years, we did manage to get good-for-them seasons out of pretty much everyone. [expletive], DeRosa, there's another example that could go in the "diamond in the rough discussion" (Yes, I know he had his best year the year before the Cubs signed him). Aramis was Aramis, Soriano actually had a lesser year compared to the previous few, and Lee ultimately had 3 better seasons as a Cub. How did those four have "good for them seasons?" Soto definitely kicked ass, but Fukudome was just doing what everyone had hoped/expected and was actually kind of a disappointment with the way he tapered off. Edmonds and Theriot were the only one that really blew expectations out of the water (and even Theriot just built a bit on what he had inexplicably done the year before), unless you're talking guys like Fontenot and Hoffpauir.

His teams were highly flawed because he had no interest in finding players that could get on base. That seemingly hasn't changed. Yes, that's the point; the teams he put together weren't the financially crippled, catastrophic messes that some need to make them out as to seemingly justify what's been going on under the current regime when it comes to the big league team. It's a tired excuse.

Are you kidding me? Signing players like Aaron Miles and John Grabow are indicative of a huge mess? [expletive], nobody better tell Theo and co. about that. Hendry had a typically mediocre team construction in his final years.

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Hey, DeJesus! I forgot about him; there's a good example. Or Nelson Cruz.

If you're putting 2014 in the books already, then yeah. Sweeney, Schierholtz, and Bogusevic turned Ruggiano being specific examples of guys likely to provide value covering multiple years. I think we (obviously) have wildly different expectations; to me those all seem like guys signed as obvious placeholders or who have effectively amounted to being decent bench options. Even Valbuena is largely seen "just" as the strong side of a platoon. I guess I was just hoping that they'd either target or stumble across a single player this way that turned out to be even just a serviceable everyday option. Well that line gets pretty blurry in this run environment. Do you have an example of the type of player you're referring to, specifically in the last couple years? I don't; I'm just assuming that someother teams out there have managed to signed someone that turned out to be, say, a fulltime Valbuena or thereabouts.

[expletive] OFF, BARNEY.

If you're putting 2014 in the books already, then yeah. Sweeney, Schierholtz, and Bogusevic turned Ruggiano being specific examples of guys likely to provide value covering multiple years. I think we (obviously) have wildly different expectations; to me those all seem like guys signed as obvious placeholders or who have effectively amounted to being decent bench options. Even Valbuena is largely seen "just" as the strong side of a platoon. I guess I was just hoping that they'd either target or stumble across a single player this way that turned out to be even just a serviceable everyday option.

This is the scary part. Someday when we're trying to be good, we're going to need a cheap RFer or 3b or 2b and we're going to get a Nate Schierholtz (-0.6 fWAR this year) or Ian Stewart of Brent Lillibridge, and that might just cost us a playoff spot or a division. Or maybe we'll get a Luis Valbuena. He was literally the only one I could think of. Is that really what we should be expecting over 3 seasons (yes, I'm already assuming that nobody is breaking out from the current crop of mutts)? Making decisions on moves that panned out on May 13 seems a bit silly. In past years you've had Valbuena, Sweeney, Schierholtz, Murphy, Ransom, and Bogusevic(who became Ruggiano) turn out well; and if we must judge this year already, Bonifacio goes in the plus column too. I'm wrong in my expectations that given the glut of needs on this team they would have found someone beyond Valbuena in terms of having sustained offensive success?

This is the scary part. Someday when we're trying to be good, we're going to need a cheap RFer or 3b or 2b and we're going to get a Nate Schierholtz (-0.6 fWAR this year) or Ian Stewart of Brent Lillibridge, and that might just cost us a playoff spot or a division. Or maybe we'll get a Luis Valbuena. He was literally the only one I could think of. Is that really what we should be expecting over 3 seasons (yes, I'm already assuming that nobody is breaking out from the current crop of mutts)? Guessing you're just limiting it to position players then? Well, yeah, I was trying to make it clear that I was focusing on the offense; from a pitching standpoint they've done a very good job in the regard, but the end product is EXTREMELY lopsided. I never thought we'd see them field an OF this destitute of any kind of sustainable talent this far into their tenure.

This is the scary part. Someday when we're trying to be good, we're going to need a cheap RFer or 3b or 2b and we're going to get a Nate Schierholtz (-0.6 fWAR this year) or Ian Stewart of Brent Lillibridge, and that might just cost us a playoff spot or a division. Or maybe we'll get a Luis Valbuena. He was literally the only one I could think of. Is that really what we should be expecting over 3 seasons (yes, I'm already assuming that nobody is breaking out from the current crop of mutts)?

My first thought when I saw the final score was, "Jesus Christ, they REALLY are trying to tell Samardzija that they can't afford him."

I still read his posts like he's the asthmatic kid from Malcolm in the Middle.

Right.

It's like he saw davell's obviously sarcastic "quit playing him" post, took it seriously AND that it was the general consensus of the board and then had to give us a 6-part breakdown arguing against a standpoint nobody was taking.

My main takeaway these days has been that unless we're talking about Castro or Rizzo, any offensive success on the Cubs is managing to come from a, at the very least, staggeringly flawed and unsustainable player. I thought a big plus of this FO was that they were going to be able to find diamond in the rough types and not just "OK, this person maybe will be serviceable for the better part of a season."

Oh my God, AGAIN with the "oh yeah, well Rizzo did/didn't do this, AH-HAAAAAAH!" response. Why the hell is Rizzo your metric for player success or failure? And nobody was "fired up" over Schierholtz or Valbuena last year; the former got a "wow, who expected this from Nate Schierholtz" reaction and the latter a "hey, he might be serviceable at 3B or 2B until a better option comes along."

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Who are you talking to.

"A Hendry-esque monster" is a [expletive] myth. He put together some flawed teams, but they weren't these bizarrely crippling monstrosities that people love to pretend they must have been.

That have other [expletive] in their lives. Ban hockey.