Sammy Sofa

Eh, I'm still willing to give the Ricketts time to right the ship. They've had the team for a very short while, and while I've wanted Hendry gone since '05 I can see why they didn't just rush in and clean house when they took over. I also understand why the team was largely in a holding pattern from 2010 to 2011: the FA market was not very impressive at all and the Cubs are, hopefully, in the process of seeing several young players break out. Yeah, I would have loved to have landed Gonzalez, but I really don't know if the Cubs could have swung a deal similar to what the Red Sox offered. I kind of assume that getting a really promising corner IF prospect was critical to what the Padres wanted, and the Cubs really have nobody to offer along those line besides Vitters, and personally I think someone like Rizzo would be much more appealing from that standpoint. I just don't see how they could have landed Gonzalez without a deal similar to what it took to get Garza plus Castro. I also really wanted the Cubs to get Dunn, but I'm willing to wait and see if the Cubs can land Fielder or Pujols. If they can do that (and there's no reason they shouldn't also be eying Kemp for 2013 if the Dodgers' financial woes prevent them from re-signing him) while giving guys like Vitters and Brett Jackson a really shot and not the Patterson/Pie treatment and keep making more smart signings like Byrd and Pena (yeah, I'll still stick by both right now) it'll go a long way to restoring my faith in this team. I was and am fully prepared to give the Ricketts a good 4-5 years of grace when it comes to "fixing" the team given the mess they took over.

That"s what kills me. I've never seen someone wearing a "Busch Stadium" shirt. You brought up the average fan angle before. Are we more dedicated fans just supposed to acquiesce? People are going to do what they want. If you don't want to support the product on the field then don't. Personally, I haven't been to a game since April of '09 despite living 10 minutes away from Wrigley because of my frustration with the team. I also can't think of any Cubs merchandise I've bought in that time, either. I'm not saying this to brag or boast; it's simply been my response to an underwhelming team. I'm not going to fault people who are spending their money on Cubs' gear and tickets and so on. I also can't really fault the Cubs organization for courting/"exploiting" casual fans of the Cubs/Wrigley; yeah, there's the competitive aspect, but it's also a business. If they've found an avenue that enables them to make money without having an elite team I can't really fault them for generally following that path. I don't agree with it and it frustrates me and I'll respond by closing my wallet to them, but that's just me.

Yes, we should...but we don't. And that's not going to turn around on a dime. Yeah, I agree, I'd like to see a turnover when it comes to Hendry and co. (and it should have happened already), but even when it does there's an excellent chance that things don't get better or even get worse. And the ticket prices are indicative of demand for Wrigley, not the Cubs.

"Old" doesn't automatically equal "premier." A premier team wouldn't have been so notoriously bad and cheap for 60+ years.

No. He used two hands.

Yeah, but this is a crappy team following up a crappy season and it's the weekend. That's a team we had high hopes for coming off of an awesome season.

Holy [expletive]; Soriano's HR was an absolute monster. Nice to see Garza keep on mowing them down.

Most of the people showing up to get drunk are probably planning on spending at least, what, $40? You can already usually get 6 beers out of that. If someone wants to pound back a dozen, hey, more power to 'em.

I don't know why people think this is 10 cent beer night all over again. Though with inflation, hey, maybe it is.

Your expectations seem a tad unrealistic.

Probably not. It's not like the current FO had a bad offseason between 2010 and 2011, and it's highly unlikely that a new one would have put out a drastically different product than what we're seeing now. There really hasn't been an impressive FA class since the Ricketts took over, so unless you're forseeing a different FO that somehow worked magic and put out radically different teams than what we got last year and what we have so far this year I highly doubt the end results would have been much different. And again, the numbers are way down across the board, even for the biggest teams. Given that the Ricketts just shelled out a ton of money for this team it's highly unlikely that you wouldn't still be seeing these promotions given the current economic climate of MLB. Again, I don't know, maybe you have an image of some mythical front office that somehow put together an amazing team that would negate all of this, but that doesn't seem terribly realistic.

I don't even really see how the two are comparable. Why are we supposed to flip out if they sell cheaper beer in part of the stadium? The Cubs' bread and butter when it comes to people spending money at the park for a while now has been partiers and casual fans and tourists that want to show up and hang out at Wrigley. This is a move to appeal to those demographics in a time when numbers are slumping across baseball, not just for the Cubs.

Yeah, nothing gets the average fan hotter for spending a ton of their money than firing most of the front office. Awwwwww, yeaaaaah.

That still doesn't explain what you think all of those players are. So they're all just terrible and useless?

What the [expletive] is filler.

The Cubs aren't trading Wood even if they're 30 games below .500.

Hey, Cubs win!

That's not an "unclutch" line at all, so that seems like a reach of a conclusion. And he wasn't playing on the type of Yankees teams that were 1-9 worldbeaters every year. 2003 was pretty much the only year he was on a Yankees team where you had decent OBP performances up and down the lineup so you have to ignore a lot to argue that batting leadoff for so much of his career didn't impact whether he'd hit a home run with or without guys on.

Because that's what people are saying. people are saying that he's solid (i believe you used that word) and not garbage, and to this point he has been not solid and garbage. maybe he will improve, but he's 27, so it's not too likely. I think he easily could be solid, in a "burn what you can out of a cheap reliever already in your system who has good stuff" kind of way. If he sucks, oh well, who gives a [expletive]? He was alright last year and has sucked so far this year; maybe he'll get it together, maybe he won't.

Because that's what people are saying.

Whenever he gets moved into the middle of the order, he stops hitting homers and starts sucking. At least that's my perception. I wonder if the stats back it up. I'd bet he has a much higher home run rate with no men on base, as opposed to when there are men on base. Of course, no one here believes in "clutch" so if it's true, its probably pure coincidence. Giving that he's spent most of his career hitting first in the lineup that shouldn't be too hard to understand at all. And his career numbers hitting 5th or 6th are fine.

Yes, his ML career of 33 innings.

Man, Byrd is just awful at keeping the ball off the ground so far.

Baker giving all of complaining about him against righties a hearty "[expletive] you" so far.

Soriano may not hit for average this year. But he has his batting stance back to the way it was when he was mashing the ball with the nationals its good to see. If he hits .230 with 35 homers, I'll take it. Yeah, I'll take the crappy average and uninspiring OBP so long as he's a serious power threat you can have lurking towards the end of the lineup.