Sammy Sofa

It's not all that odd for a new GM to go after players he liked in the past, but I do think MacPhail has gone to the extreme a bit here. At the same time, though, unless those guys are taking spots that legitimate prospects could have, it's worth a try. Pie, Montanez, Fox and Hill were all either well thought of or have one or two very good skills that make them worth a shot for a team that isn't going to contend. Give them a shot, see if they can break out, and then drop them when you start getting legit talent on the roster. I have no idea why you're lumping in Pie with all of these other rejects.

Kosuke was never going to play against left-handers this year. The only sign that he's been relegated to a backup role is the two games against right-handers that Colvin started a week ago. Since then the Cubs have only faced one right-hander and Fukudome started that game. The fact that Colvin is getting these starts against lefties despite being the worse defender tells me that he has moved ahead of Kosuke on the depth chart. Why? If Colvin wasn't starting in RF against lefties then Nady would be. Fukudome was relegated to a platoon long ago.

How could one accurately say they KNOW they are not? But yet you are saying just that. All I know is the pressure on the Cubs is a) different, and b) probably greater than that faced by a "typical" team/player. How that does or doesn't impact play is impossible to know. Common sense dictates otherwise. Baseball players on playoff teams are under enormous pressure regardless of what team they're on. It's ridiculous to think that in the split second a player has to deal with the play at hand is more likely to fail because they're playing for the Cubs and are inexplicably going to be overloaded by the pressure of playing for them more so than playing for any other team.

Playing for the Yankees brings another unique set of pressures. This is so esoteric and unquantifiable that the best we can say is that players on these teams have more on their plate than your typical Diamondback or Tiger or Marlin player would be dealing with. Whether it can be the proverbial straw that broke the camel's back is purely speculative. That's completely subjective. It could easily be argued that every team has a unique set of pressures that are compounded on a player in addition to "typical" playoff pressures. How could one accurately say that they KNOW that Cubs players are facing significant more additional pressure (to the point that it can impact their play) versus, say, a Pirates player who is under the pressure to win one for a long-suffering franchise and fan base that has had dwindling attention as years go on? My point is that players in the playoffs are facing a ton of pressure regardless of which team they're playing for. The details and the contexts change, but there's always a ton of pressure weighing down on a player no matter what team they're on.

He should hold a press conference saying how angry he is. Then make Aramis run laps for being bad No no. Being bad is fine. It's being lazy but still good that's a punishable offense. Well of course he's lazy, he's from Mexico, and he has guaranteed money next year. AND HE'S NOT AFRAID TO SHOOT ANYONE TO GET IT.

Well...ok...maybe that's worded badly, but change in front office personel and management is pretty much what I was meaning. Kenney, Hendry, Piniella, etc. A top down change. Maybe that's still coming... It's basically redundant at this point. The Ricketts hopefully realized going into this season as brand new owners that this team was basically "as is" and it was basically going to have to sink or swim as constructed. Storming in and firing everyone and then hiring a whole new front office when that front office basically can't do anything with the team in place would just be saddling them with horrendous PR without ever getting a chance to do anything of significance if the team tanked. Imagine if Ricketts had cleaned house just prior to this season: you really think the average Cubs fan would just sit back with a season like this and smile and say "aw, that's OK, new guys! You get another chance!" No, it would have just compounded the failure that this season is shaping up to be. Now they can just let Lou Walk, they can fire Hendry and whoever else after this season and paint the whole thing as a "fresh start" because they'll actually have some room to work with in terms of improving the team. Yes, they'll still have contracts like Soriano's and Z's, but hopefully Lee will be off the books and the Ricketts will have been able to recoup some of the expenses from the process of buying the team and be able to give the new front office something to work with.

The Ricketts have a business investment here. Attendance isn't going to go plunging to Pirates-like levels any time soon, and it's not like improving this team is a hopeless prospect for the indefinite future. It's just smart business to improve and attempt to further capitalize on key parts of buying the Cubs (Wrigley, advertising) so that those are in the place when the team is, ideally, improved and attendance goes up again.

Again, nobody is disputing the basic difference. What I'm pointing out is that it's tremendously unlikely that the "Cubs pressure" isn't going to weigh significantly more on a player than typical playoff pressure to the point that it impacts their play differently. Like I said, if a player is going to fold under the "pressure of being a Cub" then odds are they'd fold under the pressure of postseason play in the first place. It's like saying that someone would be able to kick ass in the playoffs when playing for the Yankees, but if they went to the Cubs then the odds of that player buckling under the pressure increases dramatically.

This guy is REALLY angry over the bathrooms.

I would say there is definitely an additional difficulty, but I don't believe it can be all that significantly bigger than the one every playoff player deals with. Yeah, I agree. Obviously, it's going to be something on their mind since it is such a unique situation in professional sports at this point, but if a player is going to buckle under the pressure of that then they were going to buckle under the playoff pressure to begin with.

How does it make things additionally difficult? Are you saying that people believe that Cubs' players feel significantly more pressure in the playoffs (to the point it causes them to fail) than the pressure all players are under when their team is in the post-season?

The big "woulda coulda shoulda" before 2006 for me was the desire by Hendry to get both Pierre and Furcal as the 1-2 of the lineup. Pierre, eh, but Furcal would have been a nice pick-up and who knows what that would have meant for Lee since his wrist injury wouldn't have occurred.

Sure, because there's not much else they can do over the course of this season (in terms if significantly improving this team as it is currently made up).

Nobody "characterized their situation as no different than any other team." The discussion is over whether people honestly believe that players on the Cubs face what apparently amounts to crippling pressure in playoff situations simply because they play for the Cubs (as if that is the overriding factor over how the teams match up, how the team was constructed, who is injured, who is hot, etc., etc.).

Hopefully the attendance drop will start to get the Ricketts attention. Why wouldn't be the Ricketts be aware of the idea that "a winning team = more people" already?

Yeah, but that's playoff baseball pressure. That's not unique to being a Cub. It just strikes me as really ridiculous to think that players will fail or succumb to pressure because of the simple fact that they are playing for the Cubs. Again, look at the Yankees: do those players not face incredible pressure every time they make the playoffs despite how many WS their team has already won? What team DOESN'T face (at least faces significantly less than the Cubs) incredible pressure to perform in the playoffs?

I'm definitely much more optimistic that they will win it in my lifetime post-2003 than I was before. There's another thing I don't get, that more chances at making it have somehow made it less likely. And I don't think being a Cub in the post-season necessarily adds "more pressure" to a player, or at least not significantly. They're already going to be under a ton of pressure to begin with. Hell, look at the Yankees.

But it's not like the Cubs are more likely to blow situations like that BECAUSE of the basic fact that they're the Cubs. That's just ridiculous.

OK, this started off making sense, and then ended up like 30 different kinds of crazy.

I don't really see that it's possible to choose not to be a fan if you already are one. I guess that's kind of what I'm saying; it's pretty clear that the regular posters here are fans and I don't really "believe" it when they say they think or know for sure that the Cubs will never win a WS "ever again."

I never understand sentiments like this at all. If someone is convinced they'll never win another WS, then why be a fan of them? What's the point? Then it just becomes being a "fan" of misery, and I don't get that at all. I don't see why faith needs to come into the equation. I root for the Cubs because I like them. Doesn't have anything to do with whether or not I "believe" they will win. Sure, but an inherent part of rooting for a sports team is with the hope/faith/expectation/whatever that they will at some point win the whole damn thing, no matter how remote the odds. If you subtract that from the equation it seems like being a fan would then just be right up there with "oh, I like them because they have nice uniforms." I hope the Cubs win it one day, but I don't have any faith they will. I still don't get it. It's subjective, but if I ever convinced myself that they would never win a WS in my lifetime I'd stop investing so much time into them. To each their own, I guess.

I never understand sentiments like this at all. If someone is convinced they'll never win another WS, then why be a fan of them? What's the point? Then it just becomes being a "fan" of misery, and I don't get that at all. I don't see why faith needs to come into the equation. I root for the Cubs because I like them. Doesn't have anything to do with whether or not I "believe" they will win. Sure, but an inherent part of rooting for a sports team is with the hope/faith/expectation/whatever that they will at some point win the whole damn thing, no matter how remote the odds. If you subtract that from the equation it seems like being a fan would then just be right up there with "oh, I like them because they have nice uniforms."

Yeah, but that was 2006. This is 2010. This website has only existed since 2003. It's not difficult to see why there wouldn't be many posts in a game thread at this point. If this website had existed in any of the multitude of years prior to 2003 when the Cubs sucked and sucked hard you would have seen the same thing time and time again.

I never understand sentiments like this at all. If someone is convinced they'll never win another WS, then why be a fan of them? What's the point? Then it just becomes being a "fan" of misery, and I don't get that at all.

On a holiday Sunday that was beautiful out. What was there really worth talking about that would have been better than being out and enjoying the day? Or hell, even to talk about after the fact? Maybe if this team had shown any kind of consistency, sure, but as it stands they're likely to go out and score a grand total of 3 runs over the next 4 games.