Sammy Sofa

Why do you care if anyone calls Kaplan a racist?

Slave-owners loved [expletive] their slaves.

Who is talking about "betting their chips" on either player? They'd be a part of going forward, not what the team is hinging their future on. Or are you just talking about "betting" whether either will be productive enough to justify signing them?

Nobody tell dave the things that made the Red Sox clubhouse so harmonious during Theo's tenure there.

I guess, though high profile kidnappings are hardly rare.

Kidnappings in Central and South America? Holy [expletive], yes.

The only that makes sense to me is if he was completely oblivious to what was going on. At the very least he knew something "improper" occurred between Sandusky and a young boy on campus, so just that Sandusky was able to return to the campus again and again shows, to me, that his intentions were nowhere near doing the right thing. Unless you're arguing that he basically completely in the dark outside of that one occurrence it rings ridiculously hollow to try and play the "well, we don't know his intentions" card. At the very least his intentions were to continue to allow a known child abuser to use the program and the campus to facilitate interaction with young men and boys. Unless, of course, Sandusky only showed up when Joe wasn't around and everyone was nice enough to not tell him about it.

We sure as [expletive] can figure out what his intentions weren't. But who cares? Regardless of his intentions, the results were the same. Uh, I "care" because his disinterest in preventing his football program being used as a staging ground for child rape seems pretty monstrous.

We sure as [expletive] can figure out what his intentions weren't.

http://www.thesportslion.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/08/carlos-zambrano-cubs.jpg "THEY DREW FIRST BLOODS!!!!"

I have little doubt they'll spend money when they need/want to. I really don't think Theo, Hoyer and McLeod would have all come here if part of the plan was to effectively cap the Cubs payroll as it stands or barely increase it.

His intentions over the last decade+ have apparently been something other than stopping his former coach from using the school as part of his rape-spree.

You really don't think the Cubs can or will be able to swing a $150+ million payroll? Or one around $170 million? Why not? I don't know what the Ricketts family's plans are, but $170 million is a pretty large jump from what it is now, especially if they want to spend a lot in the draft. They're a family with a ton of money with a major market team that makes a ton of money. I don't think the payroll increasing between $30-$60 million is all that unlikely.

Alright, he just shot to the top of the list for me.

You really don't think the Cubs can or will be able to swing a $150+ million payroll? Or one around $170 million? Why not?

The Cubs bad contracts after this season being Alfonso Soriano. or whatever other inevitable bad free agent contracts happen. and they will. also, garza, marshall, marmol (if kept), a first baseman, a third baseman, will all get more expensive. the zambrano/dempster money will be replaced. top of the page. meh That's fine. As the team gets better and they get further away from the sale and they start developing more internal talent and, hopefully, expanded revenue they'll have the money to take the hits when everything doesn't go their way FA-wise.

Wow, first time the WBC won't be the most loathsome people at their protests?

Welcome to the board! Just FYI, siding with me is not going to help your reputation around here. I think both Pujols and Fielder are going to end up working out badly for whatever team signs them, unless, like you said, the deals end up being shorter in duration than I anticipate. The notion that the Cubs can afford to absorb a bad contract strikes me as an exceedingly poor reason to take one on, yet that's what I keep hearing. Because it's an ongoing game and you stagger the decline in production with one player by offsetting it, ideally, with other FA signings, trades and player development. Look at the Phillies and the Red Sox and the Yankees: all three teams have contracts where they will be or are now overpaying for the production they are getting in return. It's essentially impossible to avoid if you're looking to bolster your team via impact FA signings. All of you that want these magical players and contracts that somehow bypass this are expecting things that just don't happen often enough. And 2-4 years? This is what we're worried that the Cubs would get in terms of quality production from Pujols or Fielder? Somewhere here thinks it's likely they could only get TWO years of worthwhile production from these guys? Come the [expletive] on. It's like people were traumatized by the Soriano signing and the limitations of the sale and think the Cubs must tread some fragile line of financial ability going forward. Seriously, if the Cubs can indeed absorb unproductive years like the Phillies, Red Sox and Yankees why would anyone here not want them to do that? It's not like it will prevent them still signing other FA and building from within. This is a team with huge resources and they easily take the hit while still being able to be productive and build a winning team. Neither contract would cripple this team; not even close.

Holy Shecky Greene.

A well-run Cubs team can easily take the hit of a player being overpaid in the final years of his deal. Just because they can doesn't mean they should. Yeah, it kinda does. Agreed. Yup. The Cubs should be the Yankees/Red Sox of the Midwest. Wanting or expecting them to play the relative pauper when they don't need to is ridiculous. They have the resources to take chances most other teams can't and to bring in players other teams can't and to eat financial costs other teams can't while still being able to sign impact FA. They don't have to tiptoe around looking for the perfect FA signing or the perfect confluence of events like they have to squeeze blood from a stone.

The part that I find most odd is where people are acting like he's the judge, jury and executioner in state college, knows everything that happens in the town, calls all the shots. Look he's enormously popular there, but he's always been a football coach. He never got involved in local politics, generally stayed out of administrative matters and let them handle it when players got in trouble. The idea that he would have known everything about the Sandusky investigations/cover-ups is probably not accurate. If it turns out that he knew about the 1998 investigation, did the bare minimum in 2002 and knew that the whole thing was being swept under the rug, I'll be quite disappointed, but I'm not willing to make all those assumptions. This is obviously not some kind of isolated set of occurrences. This was something going on for a long time and involving a significant number of people. If you're going to pretend like he didn't know about it beyond "something inappropriate happened once or twice" for FIFTEEN YEARS then you're in some serious denial.

You need let go of what Pujols has done in the past, and focus on what he's going to do in the future. If you sign him for 9 years, and he's elite for 4 of those but only good -- and vastly overpaid -- for the other 5, it's a bad deal. The absence of an immediately-available better option doesn't justify jumping into a bad deal. A well-run Cubs team can easily take the hit of a player being overpaid in the final years of his deal.

I think I just gave some convincing reasoning right there. I'm not sure what "evidence" you expect to see compared to Maddux; you're talking about a bench coach vs. a pitching coach. What is the "evidence" he wouldn't be a good choice besides his lack of managing experience? Hell, by the standards you've set forth, how do any of the first time manager candidates possibly stack up to Maddux?

For me it's that Martinez has been the bench coach for four years for who I think is easily the best manager in baseball, and one of the best run franchises when it comes to producing both talent and teams that succeed. That's more than enough for me to want to give him a shot. I'd love to see him or Maddux get the job, but wanting Martinez shouldn't strike you as "troublesome" at all.

Why?