Sammy Sofa

I would have loved to see Hendry and co. gone before this season, too, but let's be realistic: this season wouldn't have been much better, if at all.

I see your point, but your average fan really doesnt care much about CUBTV, Mesa, or even the farm system. While it is easy to say to hell with them, they know nothing about baseball, they are still the ones you need filling up the seats. If they do indeed decide not to make an offseason free agent splash, and go with the youth movement, it will be a loooong several years. Our system isnt the Royals or Rays that will be able to compete with it anytime soon. If this is the plan, they may as well start trading pretty much everything of value on the big league roster with the exceptions of Castro and Cashner. This means dont waste money offering arbitration to Garza. Why would investing in infrastructure and making a free agent splash be mutually exclusive options? Exactly. WSR's "either/or" musings are completely baseless.

As annoying as he is, Quade being fired or not before his contract is up at the end of next season is ultimately irrelevant.

Stop saying this like it's fact. With the money coming off the books the Cubs could very easily be competitive as early as next season. No, it's by no means a lock, but that so many people have this automatic assumption that the Cubs are going to so hopelessly suck and can do nothing about it for the next 3+ seasons is absurd.

Right. I'm not opposed to trading Z given how much money that he's owed and what he could potentially bring in either at the deadline this season or in the offseason if he continues pitching as well as he has, but to trade him to run out of town is just stupid.

Right, but it's not news to anyone in that clubhouse. Aramis Ramirez isn't going to react to Z calling them a AAA team in the media and start hittting home runs. It does no good and only possible tension and harm can come from the comments. These guys are professionals and are well aware of how bad they've been playing. But he wasn't singling anyone out (besides Theriot). He said "we" the entire team. It was an indictment of the team as a whole, as it should be since this season is a breakdown of both the players and the coaches, and yesterday was a perfect microcosm of that. I agree, guys shouldn't single out other players on their team in the media to pick a fight...and Z didn't do that. Zambrano's had plenty of examples of his temper getting the better of him and lashing out unnecessarily; this isn't one of them. This is a guy being paraded in front of the media after a tough and, quite frankly, stupid loss, and he said it like it is without singling anyone out.

Wrong. The deal for the Cubs was influenced by Sam Zell's desire that, for tax purposes, was heavy into debt. The "winner" for Zell was NOT the team that could come up with the most cash but the most financed cash. If Cuban had "won" then he would have landed on the same list--guaranteed. The Ricketts family actually just plunked tens of millions more in AZ (a good chunk of the rebuid there was actually funded by them) and are able/willing to plunk 200M into the Triangle building (if they can get commitments for Wrigley). They are NOT strapped for cash. The family sold less than 20% of their shares of Ameritrade for over $400M to purchase the club. They are, however, committed to rebuilding the team the way they have built their businesses--heavy commitments for infrastructure early on to pay dividends down the road. That has worked for Ameritrade (twice--first to invest in tele-trading and they purchased the first company to use the Internet for trades less than a year after the first online trade) and with TR's businesses (the one he owns and the one he ran prior to that). Similarly, the Ricketts are investing in the Cubs (farm system, Mesa and, eventually, the Wrigley complex and CUBTV). For decades (under, essentially, two owners) the infrastructure of the Cubs was ignored. Now the team has ownership that is investing in the club's future (and willing to invest much more). That isn't bad ownership. That is very good ownership. Excellent post.

It's not "noise and distraction." It's one thing when he's melted down in the past, but this isn't one of those times, and it's a lazy comparison to act like it is. All he did this time is lay the reality of the situation on the table.

Oh, hey, Theriot is [expletive] things up yet again.

ARGH, CRUSHED.

There's absolutely nothing unique about how he "tees off" against the Cubs.

He's only signed for 2 years regardless.

I understand it's you opinion, but I'm sorry, the bold part is a terrible reason to not dramatically improve your team, especially not for the sake of holding on to the prospects who like will have nothing close to the impact a player like Garza does. Avoiding being bad for prolonged periods of time hinges on having more players like Garza. I just am all for doing this for good hitters, we have sucked at developing them. Had we done that deal for David Wright, cool. But we have developed a lot of nice pitchers of later. I hate trading away prospects for them. Who is the front of the rotation starter we've developed? Z? Archer's ceiling is probably Garza, but with his control problems it's no guarantee he'll even approach that. Trading Hak-Ju Lee irked me a bit, but he was an A ball player. The rest of the players were filler. Dempster is getting older and Z may not be around much longer. I think the Garza trade was a pretty astute move, actually. Z, Prior, Wood And we're approaching a decade since the last of them showed up.

I understand it's you opinion, but I'm sorry, the bold part is a terrible reason to not dramatically improve your team, especially not for the sake of holding on to the prospects who like will have nothing close to the impact a player like Garza does. Avoiding being bad for prolonged periods of time hinges on having more players like Garza.

Just thinking from we were are at we need to be hoarding prospects and we gave away two pretty good ones. The Cubs don't need to be hoarding prospects; most prospects do not pan out. They need to continue improving the farm system so that you can both develop players internally and have the resources to make trades for valuable players like Garza when they're available. Eh I guess. I just wasn't a fan of the trade. I think we should be in full rebuilding mode. I understand, but "hoarding" prospects isn't automatically rebuilding. Adding a guy like Garza IS rebuilding.

Just thinking from we were are at we need to be hoarding prospects and we gave away two pretty good ones. The Cubs don't need to be hoarding prospects; most prospects do not pan out. They need to continue improving the farm system so that you can both develop players internally and have the resources to make trades for valuable players like Garza when they're available.

Incorrect. Please either do a couple minutes' worth of research or just stop posting this nonsense. In May he hit .247 w/ 5 extra base hits and 2 RBI In June hes hitting .235 w/ 2 extra base hits and 2 rbi so far what is good about a corner outfielder that has done this 3 years in a row and is making this year his 4th Because he also gets on base and plays excellent defense. Yeah, it would be nice if he had more power, but that doesn't have to be the only way he is valuable to this team. You're completely ignoring everything that he brings to the team to focus only on power and BA. His 122 OPS+ is very telling in this regard.

Why doesn't the Garza trade make any sense? He's a very, very good pitcher who is only 27 and who isn't a FA until 2014.

Why don't you just ask him out. If only he would have me.

He'll have the best year of his career in Chicago. And you will poop your pants.

Incorrect. Please either do a couple minutes' worth of research or just stop posting this nonsense.

Albert's gleeful prance to home plate is what I will be doing when the Cubs sign him.

Great outing by Zambrano, at least.

4 years of a punchin judy corner outfielder that cant even hit .270...just tired of him and many others Terrible argument. Please re-submit. I'd like to see him moved as I think he's one of our few peices that could net a decent return. I'd have zero problem if they could trade him. This guy inexplicably wants him released and think he's no good.

4 years of a punchin judy corner outfielder that cant even hit .270...just tired of him and many others Terrible argument. Please re-submit. im not argueing...he sucks and should not be in any future plans so just get rid of him and let someone else play Fine, terrible reasoning then. And no, he doesn't suck, especially not this year. You're picking a bizarre time to for this rant.