goonys evil twin

It would be smart if they got equal or greater value in return. But the odds of getting that are very slim.

When he's playing well is the time to trade a guy who isn't going to help you in the future.

You left out the fourth, and most important group, and that's the team. They have to accept responsibility for their own performance and demand effort from their teammates. This isn't meant to defend Dusty, but a new manager won't have success if the team doesn't change. And Dusty doesn't stand a chance at changing the team.

Dusty thinks the All Star break is enough to make up the difference.

Bill Simmons is an NBA guru? Nah. Bill Simmons isn't a guru of anything other than writing Boston-centric, poorly researched articles filled with boring pop culture references and analogies. You are right about the third year thing though. I wouldn't necessarily call Bill Simmons a guru but he is fairly knowledgeable when it comes to basketball. And he hates what the Bulls are doing.

Jim Hendry and Dusty Baker for starters (and a lot of others). Baseball is littered with people who want to guarantee mediocrity and don't have the balls to risk failure in the pursuit of greatness.

You and many others have made similar accusations about me in the past. But the fact is I've been right. I know ineptitude when I see it. I'm not just look at worst case scenario. Take Ryan Harvey for instance. His entire career path has bordered on worst case scenario so far. At some point, you have to narrow the range between worst case and best case, and come up with a realistic case that fits the bill. Almost every one of these guys has disappointed immensely. No position player has shot up the rankings. None of them are flirting with best of the best status around the league. None of them are doing anything special. The excuse that all prospects are a big gamble doesn't hold any water. We aren't talking about the Cubs having the same woes as everybody else. For one, they have more resources than most other organizations. But they've been pretty much THE worst organization at developing position players for nearly 2 decades. That's not run-of-the-mill bad luck with prospects. That's a pretty clear indictment of their ability to draft, sign and develop position players. You don't have to have a negative bias against the Cubs to have a very negative view against their position playing prospects.

You support the idea of not letting Cedeno hit against lefties and then advocate letting Neifi play a lot next year if Cedeno continues to not hit lefties. Sounds like a plan designed by somebody who wants Neifi to play a lot. Neifi sucks, left handed or right handed. A small portion of his splits against LHP where he was a little better than incompetent is not nearly enough to plan, on purpose, to have Neifi get regular time. There is not justification for giving Neifi playing time. Neifi should only be a last resort. He should never play into preseasons plans as a guy who will be getting regular playing time. He's awful. His presence on this team severely limits the chances for victory, and the more he plays, the lower the chances become. Goony, are you then calling Neifi the worst player in the major leagues? That is certainly the implication of saying that playing a player severly diminishes their chance of victory. Neifi is a fine player for what he should be-a utility player to give players a day off. The people in this thread are showing his career numbers to show that if Neifi is used in this way, and only gives people days off when there is a lefty on the mound, that he is a fine bench player. Let me give you a scenario. I told you I wanted to sign a utility guy for the bench. His primary position is shortstop, a postion where our current shortstop cannot hit lefties. This utility player hits decently against lefties, with a .275 career mark, which is certainly better than our starter. He also is an excellent defender at the position. I want to sign him to only spell this shortstop and occasionally other positions only when they need a day off and only when a lefty is on the mound. Both of these conditions could easily be done. Doesn't this sound like a fine move for the bench? Are you saying you wouldn't take this player? The problem is, people have seen Neifi so misused over the last year and a half that they cannot stand to see him in the lineup at all, even though he does have a limited role that could help a ballclub. I clearly stated my complaint is with the amount of time he gets to play. But yes, he is pretty darn close to the worst player in major league baseball. Maybe some guys who have had a cup of coffee are worse, but he's probably the worst one to play as much as he did. Neifi sucks. It's a simple fact. You can field a roster with 25 better guys rather easily, and you should. But if you absolutely must have Neifi then you better pay him the minimum and let him play once every blue moon. Anything else hurts the team.

It's those darn postseason conference tournaments. They were 4-24 on the year but pulled off a major upset to win their conference and had to get an automatic bid.

Oh how I wish it were true, but of course, it's not. (and we still have plenty of other dead weight vets to pile on)

The "he hasn't forgotten how to manage" line sums up exactly what is wroong with baseball people. To them, once you do anything good in the game, you are always that good, and once you build up any sort of history, you have the credentials. Every single man who has spent any significant amount of time around the game of baseball (but only the professional game) is a "good baseball man". It's all about tenure. They are like a teacher's union. Where you don't have to be a good teacher, you just have to be hired back often enough. That's not to say there aren't any legitimately good baseball men, or any good teachers for that matter. But it takes so little to get praise in this sport it's amazing. Guys like Neifi and Rusch are great. In the NFL those guys would have been gone years ago. There's no ridiculous love affair with veterans or those who have been there. It's a what have you done for me lately sport. Baseball is a "hey you can't criticize him, he's been here a long time" sport. It's questionable whether or not Dusty ever knew how to manage. He's always known how to put on a uniform and talk about baseball. But he's had trouble filling out lineup cards, making proper changes to those cards, getting guys ready to come into games in time, pulling guys out of games in time, thinking more than 15 seconds into the future, strategizing in any way shape or form, keeping a clubhouse upbeat, positive and strictly focused on the task at hand, getting the most out of players, getting his team to the postseason, winning in the postseason, stemming the tide of bad momentum and developing young players into great players. His managerial career was propped up by the greatest hitter in the game. Without him, he's been nothing special.

Translated: Baker is a terrific manager only if he is loaded with talent. Except even then he's not terrific, as evidenced by his lack of postseason success (not to mention the lack of postseason appearances).

I have no idea what Dream Theater is.

You support the idea of not letting Cedeno hit against lefties and then advocate letting Neifi play a lot next year if Cedeno continues to not hit lefties. Sounds like a plan designed by somebody who wants Neifi to play a lot. Neifi sucks, left handed or right handed. A small portion of his splits against LHP where he was a little better than incompetent is not nearly enough to plan, on purpose, to have Neifi get regular time. There is not justification for giving Neifi playing time. Neifi should only be a last resort. He should never play into preseasons plans as a guy who will be getting regular playing time. He's awful. His presence on this team severely limits the chances for victory, and the more he plays, the lower the chances become.

Umm. No. A good SS should be brought in if Cedeno isn't any better than what he has shown so far. :wink: Oh, there's no doubt we'd like to see a good SS in here. I'm just saying that if we start next season with Perez and Cedeno as our two alternatives at short(a very strong possibility based on very unfortunate circumstances) then you should platoon them. Let me go on record as hoping that Perez is NOT here, but I don't think that's going to happen. No you shouldn't. Perez is a guaranteed failure from either side. Cedeno at least stands a chance of improving. What you should do is give him every opportunity this year to get over struggles. Then, decide next offseason whether to get a new SS who can start full time or field a good enough lineup around Cedeno that you can withstand struggles against LHP. There is no justification to even consider Neifi for any sort of regular duty, platoon or not. There just isn't. It's a defeatist proposition that will only guarantee failure.

I know I'm in the minority, but I don't care about this stuff. I don't care about the hall of fame either. I don't care who was better than whom, or which pitcher was best or who is the best of which era. It's not that I have no interest in the history of the game, I just have no interest in the arbitrary ranking of players, and especially the sentimental "those were the days" talk that always comes up in these debates.

Tough call. I really liked Metallica when they were good, but they have been bad for a long time now. And Phish was great, for what they were. I always enjoy their music.

This should be a prerequisite for whoever replaces Baker. The Cubs don't care about performance. They are upset that Hill broke some sort of unwritten rule by supporting his teammated. I've never heard of a player get called out that harshly be management for anything they've said to the press, let alone saying something that defends his own teammate. The Phillies were more supportive of a wife beater. The Cubs themselves were more supportive of a repeat DUI offender who never even played for them.

Forget, this is pointless.

Then you have to give Ronny the chance to change those splits. But even still, Neifi's career indicates there's absolutely no justification to keep him in a platoon, against any pitching. He sucks vs them all, and should get nothing close to regular playing duty. A short period of success vs LHP doesn't justify putting him into a platoon. A career of ineptitude should overrule any such notion. Ronny has to play vs everybody, starting right now. You can't say he isn't allowed to face lefties now, and then say he can't face lefties next year because he didn't hit them before. You have to give him a chance to work through it. Otherwise it's a self-fulfilling prophecy.

Apparantly not everybody. To hear some of these guys talk, there simply is no justification to ever fire a manager, which should mean there is no difference between a good and bad manager, which means there's no reason to even hire a manager in the first place. If what is happening to the Cubs is not reason enough for major changes in the leadership positions, then there never has been and never will be justification for firing anybody in baseball. It's not a surprise though, a large percentage of people in the game give an inordinate amount of credit to anybody else who has been in the game for a while. An inexperienced coach is firable after one bad season, a young kid should be sent down if he doesn't succeed right away, a rookie mistake by a rookie is a sign of the arrogance and ignorance of today's youth, buy any manager, player or personel man with time served in the game deserve every possible benefit of the doubt you can thrown their way.

Weather? :sunny: Weather, whatever. Sunny if we win. KC won 11 out of 16. Another reason for hope. That's not a sign for hope. What good is 11/16 when you are still just 30-54? It's just a sign that any crap team can have short bursts of decent results, but they are still very likely to remain a crap team when all is said and done.

Compare this with the money thrown at Miller in the hopes that he would regain his ability. Wade had actually shown a lot of greatness at the major league level and is still at an age where he could be helpful. The downside is you really only get 1 year to get something of value (plus whatever goodwill you build up by giving him that contract in that situation). This kid got a little more money, and it's debatable whether he has the same odds of ever being a great major league pitcher. The difference is you get more years to find out with him, but there's much less history to base your opinions on. In general, I'd rather see bets like this, hoping for stars, rather than overpaying mediocrity and especially ineptitude.

The answer to the question is no, there aren't any position players that are worth a darn. Combine the players' own weaknesses with the inept development team and you can make a ton of money betting against any of these guys doing anything good for the Cubs. There's a couple of guys who could make nice bench players, but the Cubs will just their option clocks start early, then never let them play because they are too young for such a role. And maybe 1 or 2 of these guys will actually develop into decent major leaguers, but it won't be for the Cubs. For an administration that focused so heavily on overhauling the minor league system, the Cubs have done, and continue to do a horrible job of getting any value whatsoever out of hitting prospects.

In my opinion Andy is going to leave on his own when something else comes along. Execs like moving on and up, he's been here too long. I feel that firing Baker and allowing Hendry one last managerial hire, and chance to make it work, will then expose him to being the next on the chopping block. Keeping Baker just prolongs the amount of time Hendry will have to make things work, because Baker will always take the most flack for any struggles until he is gone.