goonys evil twin

I don't know about that. At least early on, I have a feeling his ego wouldn't let him just milk the club without fielding a winning team. He is an egomaniac, after all. The Donald's business history is littered with failure. He would be a terrible owner. He's not nearly as cash rich as people think, he's basically a leveraged real estate developer. I wouldn't expect him to poor anymore money into the payroll than is already there, and I wouldn't expect him to make wise decisions. He will be all about headlines and attention grabbing, with very little attention paid to smart baseball decisions.

How does that make any sense whatsoever? Since when is 4 starts a reasonable opportunity? Marshall showed progress at one point, but he's shown regression at others. That's perfectly normal. It doesn't really what he gave up in his first 4, middle 4 or last 4 starts. What matters is that he got a lot more than 4 starts, and that they were consecutive. Hill needs to start every 5 days from here on out no matter what the results are. It doesn't matter if the Cubs win or lose, so there is nothing to lose if he gets shelled repeatedly. They need to get a good judgement on the guy, and 4 starts is not enough.

Agreed. The Marlins have said they WANT to build around Dontrelle Willis and Miguel Cabrera for the foreseeable future. Rather that future is in South Florida (doubtful) or at a new location (most likely), the Marlins would be WISER to keep Dontrelle, and not run off the little fan support they do have. This is just wishful thinking on the Cardinals part, cause they are SO DESPARATE for pitching. Disagreed. They have no fan base, and they won't be paying both of these guys next year. Dontrelle mania is over. And if WS titles can't woo the crowd, Willis and Cabrera won't. If they move before next season, maybe they hold on. But I'm almost positive at least one will be traded by next season. DW can make $7-8m next year and MC could make $5-6 easily. I don't see them tying that much into 2 guys when it would pretty much match this year's entire payroll.

I don't know why it can't be a joke just because Kasper and the Trib were involved. I don't see why Smith necessarily had to have know about it. The staff are the ones who do that kind of stuff, including unpaid interns or other schmoes. It could have easily been a case of a kid denying it to stay out of trouble for costing them a guest. I don't see how anybody can think it wasn't a joke. It did not say "come and boo Dusty, but don't tell him so we can ambush him", it reportedly added a line like "you can boo him if you want". If you really wanted to cause a ruckus, you would plant some of your own people in the audience to boo, you wouldn't throw around emails to random people hoping that A) they'd keep quiet, B) they'd show up and C) they'd actually boo once they got in the studio. It would be much easier to grab a dozen interns, throw Cubs hats on them and have them boo at an opportune time. This story is a pathetic waste of time. I can't believe I've contributed to it and I'm ashamed I've played along.

George Bell He was young and unproven, but Sosa was hardly a prospect. 2+ years in the majors, 320 games, 1000 AB.

I find it weird that I am saying this to a couple of people far more into Moneyball philosophy and SABR than I am, but with Cedeno in the lineup, Jones as an everyday player is unacceptable. two guys that make way too many outs day in, day out. You could also find a platoon partner in CF. This year Jacque has a .361 OBP vs. righties. I think giving him any playing time against a left handed pitcher (except maybe Mike Remlinger) is unacceptable. If he's in CF and Abreu's in RF, it's much more acceptable. Although I'd be all for throwing in some sort of platoon. With the expense of the lineup you'd need some kids on the bench to offset the cost.

I didagree with you. I could see them thinking "what a perfect opportunity to attract some attenion. with Cubdom so worked up over Dusty, its going to be EASY to get them to show up for this in NY. We dont need to go to Chicago for this at all, there are more then enough Cub fans all over the country to get this done in NY...." I really think was their line of thinking. Why would the deny an email existed if in fact they REALLY wrote it? If the email wa fake, that would be another story and I would fully by your thoughts..... A, we don't know it was fake. The guy who is using this to promote his site is the one claiming it was not fake. B, if it was real, we don't know who sent it, who knew it was sent, or who denied it was real. What we have is a guy who is trying to bring eyeballs to his own site by acting like some sort of hero, and then repeating the story. I live here. I see Cubs fans from time to time. When I talk to them most of them are just bummed about the season, and they do not have anywhere close to the amount of disgust toward Dusty that I have. They generally buy the myth that he's a great manager and that things just haven't gone our way. And bottom line is it was a joke. They didn't go out recruting booers, they mentioned that if you wanted to boo, you could boo. Big freaking deal. Characterizing this as an attempted ambush is a joke.

Sounds to me like Maddux kidding around with a guy who was involved in his career from the beginning.

I believe he is referring to Shawn Estes in that quote. Yep. And by Baseball Prospectus's VORP stat, Shawn Estes really was the worst pitcher in all of baseball in 2003, so Sheehan's statement isn't just hyperbole. Estes sucked, and Baker sent him to the mound time after time. The #7 worst pitcher in 2003 by VORP (out of 676 players who pitched that year): Glendon Rusch. It's good to see Hendry has improved the pitching staff during his tenure. :wink: And yet some people will credit him for that late season win, when in fact, if he chose just about any other option the rest of the year, they wouldn't have needed that win.

Characterizing Abreu's production as average is unfair. You could move Jones to cf pretty easily where his production would be much great than anybody else you could find. An OF of Murton, Jones, Abreu could be pretty good next year, certainly much better than what they've had the past two years. Bobby pretty much guarantees a .400+ OBP. He won't SLG you to death, but he won't kill you there either. There is very little out there that is more attractive, with the biggest name like Carlos Lee, who is less productive but will probably get much more money. Floyd is older and less of a player. Not to mention you'd have to hope you get him in free agency, not a good bet with Hendry around. Jim may have stayed away from big money mistakes. But his biggest big money mistakes is staying away from highly productive players, like Abreu, and trying to go second rate. Spreading the money around to multipe mediocre players (Hendry's apparant plan) does not work. The Cubs need impact, and there is very little that could impact this team more than an everyday player with a .400 OBP.

I think that is a reflection of market status difference between the Cubs and Marlins. The Cubs under Hendry's watch haven't needed to trade off veterans for prospects. But he's tried it.

I would. Hendry has shown to be far better at getting trade value than he has at outright signing free agents. 90% of Hendry's major successes as a GM have been in trades. But what about trading veterans for prospects? The only success so far is Murton, but he wasn't exactly going hard after Murton, and he didn't really trade veterans for prospects. He mostly traded prospects for a veteran and had a prospect thrown in. From what I can tell, Hendry can do a decent job of trading prospects for established young players. But he couldn't pull off a Marlins deal.

Never heard anything like that before. The point is you never know. If the option is locking in production now, or hoping you can sign lesser production later, why hesitate? To save a few bucks? Hendry has never shown an ability to use the money he saves by not going after stars to efficiently fill other positions. I don't see how Pierre and Abreu relate. All this talk about Abreu declining, yet Floyd has always been worse, and he's 1.5 years older and he's much more injury prone. Abreu consistently plays full seasons, consistently puts up an OBP of .400+, is consistently better than Floyd and is younger. Heaven forbid they get in the Cardinals position. I'd much rather overspend for a really good player, then spread it around on a bunch of medioicrities. Are there more efficient ways to spend the money? Certainly. But in order to do it you needs lots of things to fall your way. Passing on Abreu because you might be able to sign Floyd in the offseason is a terrible risk. There's no upside, but plenty of downside. There's upside to Abreu, plenty of it. He could easily put up .400+ OBP the next 2 years and provide decent SLG, all while playing every day. And this team can afford him. It's not like it would be Abreu or nobody. The Cubs aren't in a position where they can just wait and see what is available. There is going to be very little talent out there this offseason. They suck at the free agency game. If you can trade for guaranteed production now, without giving up a motherload in terms of talent in return, you have to make that move.

Oh please. I'm sure the producers of the "Screamin'" Stephen A. Show are basking in all of the attention that they've received from all the controversy generated by a couple of podunk blogs (no offense to the bloggers, but in the grand scheme of things, your blogs - Deadspin included - qualify as podunk) and a Ted Greenstein article in the Tribune. Consider his ratings, even if only a dozen people who read that article or the blogs watch the show in the future, that could double or triple his audience. Which is why I don't understand why somebody is trying to take on the hero role of saving Dusty from an "ambush". You protect Dusty from critics (even when the likelihood of critics being around was extremely low) and sympathize with Stephan A. Smith at the same time and I just can't much support for your cause. Then why didn't they go to Chicago to do the show, where they would actually have a chance to get people to boo Dusty? why would they have to if they could get them to go to the show in NY? The point is they couldn't. The boo line wasn't going to attract Cubs fans to the show in NY. They didn't try to get people to boo, they said they could if they wanted to. That's like saying that the Tribune is inviting fans to boo at Wrigley simply by allowing them to show up and boo. Somebody is trying to make it look like the producers had this secret plan of flying in 100 Cubs fans to perform a punk'd episode on Dusty, when that isn't even close to the truth.

Amen.

The funny thing is, that show got more promotion out of this story than it ever would have if they even managed to get a couple Cubs fans to go to the taping just to boo Dusty. It's bad enough that you "saved" Dusty from possibly facing critics, but you've also given undue attention to a terrible show.

Then why didn't they go to Chicago to do the show, where they would actually have a chance to get people to boo Dusty?

If it was a joke, then they should have said it was a joke. Instead, they have denied that anyone from ESPN encouraged Cub fans to boo Dusty, and have accused Cubs blogs and Deadspin of doctoring the original EMail. I believe that they were courting the controversy. They wanted Dusty because he might soon be fired, and they wanted fans to heckle Dusty because it would look good on TV. That show has terrible ratings, so it reaks of a ratings ploy to me. All I did was write one article on the subject. I expected the whole thing to go away. It didn't. You wrote one article, then wrote another about it, then went to another board to talk about it. Doesn't seem like you are that unhappy it hasn't gone away. If they were doing the show from the Cubby Bear then your claims might have some merit. But to think that the show thought they'd get a bunch of Cubs fans heckling Dusty at a show that nobody watches is a pretty big leap. I still think it looks like a joke that you took way too seriously.

He was chubby and a terrible pitcher before he signed. I know how they operate, and it's pretty clear how hypocritical they are about things. Williams is fat, lazy and unmotivated, but Glendon is worthy of a multi-million dollar contract? Doesn't add up.

Looks like you tried to make it more dramatic than it was. They sarcastically said you can boo him if you want, in what seems pretty clear it was a joke. They did not recruit people with the intent to boo Dusty. How many Cubs fans do you really think they thought they could get to go to Times Square and boo Dusty. Something out of nothing I say.

Sir, I have no problem with the idea of Dusty being criticized by Smith. Had Dusty done the interview, I would have expected Smith to ask hard questions. Hah! Smith would have sat there and talked about how great Dusty is and how tough this must be on him.

The problem I have with it is not the fact that people would boo Dusty, it's the fact that the producers of the show were recruiting for people to boo Dusty. Sounds to me like a joke. No show is going to have audience members sit there and boo a guest.

I don't understand why people warned Dusty about this. What, is he too good of a man to have to face people who will actually be critical of him? I'm sure the show wouldn't have turned into a boofest.

http://chicago.comcastsportsnet.com/images/content/cubs/rusch518a.jpg Just a thought: The jokes about Glendon's weight stopped being funny, oh, years ago. Where's Pedro's dead horse? Is that really a joke, or a pretty good point about the hypocrisy of the Cubs? Glendon's body shape and results are every bit as indicative of motivation problems as Sisco's, or Jerome Williams'. Why did Glendon get a fat contract when those guys more or less got tossed to the curb?

I am. I'd love to see the Cards give up a ton and end up paying Willis post arbitration money based on win totals and hype.