Sammy Sofa

I wouldn't go that far. There were ways to make this team a fringe contender in 2012 without handing out bad contracts. Go on. Which free agent contracts did you wish the Cubs had handed out this offseason? Of the biggies, CJ Wilson's deal is the easiest to defend, but that price almost certainly wasn't available to the Cubs. Reyes? Fielder? Pujols? How did you get from what I said to "Rob wants to sign 'biggies'?" I was talking about spreading the money around on marginal upgrades and making a handful of smart, low-cost trades. Targeting Edwin Jackson and one of Kuroda / Oswalt would likely be better in the short term than Wood/Volstad/Wells. Trading for Alberto Callaspo would be better than Ian Stewart, and only cost marginally more. This wasn't a 71 win team last season. There was enough room in the payroll to add players to take us to a mid 80's win team. That doesn't always put you in the playoffs, but it gives you a shot. I get why the front office decided to target a future window instead of opting to make slower yearly gains. And I don't necessarily disagree. But let's not pretend it was the only option. Right. I made no secret about my desire to see the Cubs take advantage of the big name FA market this offseason, but I certainly didn't want to see them only spending money on big names. Hell, I didn't even see it as a necessity to spend on any of the big names (Pujols, Fielder and Darvish). What I was hoping for, however, was at least a middle ground like Rob is talking about, where they both look to take a shot at competing in a weakened division in 2012 AND build for the future. It's certainly not an unrealistic expectation given the resources available to the Cubs. Again, middle ground was perfectly realistic, but the middle ground is a place dave can't process.

Absolutely ludicrous. You're stupidly conflating the desire to see the Cubs rebuild AND compete with the made-up idea that there's anyone here that thinks the Cubs didn't and don't have to rebuild. There's not a single person here that's going to argue against the general approach that Theo and co. seem to be taking with bolstering the team and farm system with cheap, young talent/reclamation projects, and to continue with that plan. The disappointment stems from seeing a huge major market club apparently not willing or, more worryingly, able to also take advantage of the financial resources they should have available to them. It was hoped that it's not, as you so desperately want everything to be, an either/or situation.

I'm making up your stance that the Cubs should go hard after Dunn, Fielder, Pujols, Wilson etc etc? That's rich. Way to stand behind your (millions of endlessly repeated) words. :lol: Yeah, I supported signing any of those players (plus Darvish and the Cubans, though I guess that doesn't fit with your "past their prime" manifesto. Of course, neither do Wilson and Fielder. And wanting Dunn was from when Dunn didn't suck and the Cubs had a completely different FO and approach. But hey, why let common sense stop you this far along?) if the Cubs had the money to do so. You've moronically twisted that to try and make it sound like I only want the Cubs to sign "past their prime" veterans as the only solution to make the team better. That's almost as stupid as your laughable argument about the necessity of suck. Please, explain why the Cubs couldn't have traded for Rizzo or moved Marshall if they had, say, signed Fielder and Wilson. And if they had the money for those guys, why couldn't they still have signed DeJesus or Maholm on the cheap deals they got? Why wouldn't they have been able to trade Zambrano for Volstad? Why wouldn't they have been able to trade for Stewart? Explain for all of us which moves this offseason prove the necessity of effectively tanking 2012 (added bonus: explain why you think I didn't want any of these moves to happen)? Unless your argument is that the necessity is based out of an asusmption of a lack of available money then you've got yourself quite the hole to dig yourself out of. No, dave, the only necessity of suck is the necessity of all of your posts to suck, and suck hard.

Ugh, you're the worst. You're such a broken down CPU it's not even funny anymore. What would you like to make up next?

Try not to be too davearm2, davearm2; I'm happy that they're building for the long term, but I'm not going to be a schmuck and pretend like all of the horrible baseball in the meantime until the promised land is reached is a good thing. It's like trying to lose 30 pounds; the end result is fantastic if successful but the journey getting there [expletive] suuuuuuuuuucks.

The time to panic is long past. Cespedes is nowhere near making or breaking this crapbucket of a team.

Nobody's panicking. My post was in response to FNDomination basically saying that the Cubs should let themselves be outbid by the Marlins.

Sweet, it's totally as easy to rebuild from being a 60-win team as it is being a, say, 77-win team.

I voted for just above last year, more because that's what I'm hoping for than what I expect, but it wouldn't surprise me at all if they were worse. They'd only have to lose 9 more games than they did last year to lose 100 next season, hence why I was "putting words in your mouth" because apparently you think such a possibility is "ridiculous." Sniping at people making picks where they lose 100 games as being "experts" and saying it's ridiculous just smacks of protesting way too much over a crappy team.

Man, the Cubs are totally going to win that not spending money trophy.

Where you derisively talked about "experts" and said it was ridiculous to think they could lose 100 games next year. Why do you think that's such a ridiculous guess?

No, it's really not.

So you think it's ridiculous that a team that's a mess like this could lose 10 more games than they did last year? I don't think that'll be happening, but your scoffing like the Cubs are some kind of sleeper pick to ideally do more than just win a few more games than last year at best seems a bit forced.

Well, yeah; he doesn't keep those things like he keeps his fish. D'uh.

BEHOLD! The fish tanks! And the home run thing! And Jose Reyes' barely holding together legs! And Jeff Loria eating a pile of babies!

The steam escaping the bodies of the dead animals he's surrounded by.

I really like the cut of the jib of this collection of scrappy young go-getters. OH GOD THIS IS HORRIBLE PLEASE SKIP TO THE HAPPY ENDING

Cartoon animal fetish.

I've already started praying to it.

Yes, he's also WeGotWood, KingKongvs.Godzilla, Conky and now this newest psycho.

Agreed. I have a lot of opinions about a lot of guys in the NFL (guys I love, guys I hate), so I have a rooting interest in a lot of games... and yet I still just can't make myself sit down for three and a half hours to watch non-Bears football. I feel similarly about that, but I don't think it's because the NFL's a crappy product. It's just because I have better things to do than watch non-Panthers games on Sundays. That's a damn dirty lie, Andrian.

First off you are wrong about getting all three. Miami event get the 3 max deals n they had purged their roster of everything but I think Mario chalmers. Iirc we could get a full max an under the max and still keep rose and Noah. An the rest of the post is wrong. NBA players like Miami for reasons other than Mickey arison, pat Riley and whoever their fan base is. Chicago cannot change climates, geographical features or club scenes to entice free agents. I think you are completely missing the reasons these guys wanna play here they wan to play. Also we have the reiging MVP, won 62 games and played a respectable ECF series against a legit great team. With our centerpiece bing 23 years old we have already eclipsed the pinnacle reached by the 80s an early 90s caves teams an I soil say our floor is to hav a 90s Knicks-like run. "You boys been doin' a bit a boozin', have ya? Suckin' back on Grandpa's old cough medicine?"

What's your pet theory on this? I have no idea, but stamping your face and shouting they're stupid!! doesn't seem to be working. I don't see any shouting in here, at all. No stamping of faces either. You do like your embellishments when it comes to this stuff. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Psychological_projection SSR isn't at the Tim Wise level of projection, but he's pretty far up there. A Tim Wise slam? You're fired.

Love the leering guy dressed for Vegas.