Monco

I'd rather keep Pie over Gathright but it looks like they've given up on him. I can't see them keeping them both. Hopefully Pie is moved for something major as opposed to dumping him for some mediocre pitching prospects.

If they get Bradley, what will the bench be? Assuming fukudome/soriano/bradley OF and Fontenot at 2nd: Johnson, Miles, Bako, Gathwright and......? I have to think that last spot will be an infielder. That's a whole bunch of no production on the bench. Prob Hoffpauir or Cedeno

They've always had a budget and they still do.Their budget went up slightly as it usually does.But,the long term contracts have escalated faster than the budget increase and Dempsters signing have pushed them to the max. In the past they've had room,now if the want to sign someone,they have to juggle money.

At least when Murphs on I get to hear baseball talk.Steve Stone,John Dewan,Jimmy Piersall will be on from time to time. Otherwise all they talk about is the Bears.

And it makes Miles' money even more inexcusable. Very good point. He's making in two years what DeRosa would make in one. I just realized that. :banghead: Yeah. I don't hate having Miles on the roster, but I hate paying him that much. I was fine with it when I heard about it - but I was thinking it'd be 1 year/$1 mil tops. Not two years/$2.5 per. Typical Hendry,overpaying for mediocrity

Escalating contracts are coming back to bite them

Look at all those lefties . . . Its been said that the lack of lefties is why they can't get past the first round...

It's better than Aaron Miles starting. Not by much! Can't wait for those games with Miles & Bako both starting too. Miles, Bako, Theriot and Joey Gathright could all be in the same starting lineup this season! :cry: Fukodome too

Fukodome was brought in at 4/48 to be the left handed middle of the order RF. He didn't hit in the post season either.

Baseball Americas take on the trade http://www.baseballamerica.com/today/majors/trade-central/2009/267390.html

We all agree that they could use another quality bat. If lefty,even better. Aaron Miles is a poor example though. He doesn't hit right handed pitching better than Theriot and fields worse. Bradley,Hermida etc. that would help. Miles platooning with Fontenot is much less production than Derosa platooning with Derosa. Our top hitters tanking in the post season has been the biggest problem. They need to step up. Getting another lefty bat without the others showing up still means an early exit.

Search through the board, this has been discussed thoroughly. The Cubs hit good RHP well in the regular season too. And of course you use the biggest copout, which is that Lou and Hendry agree with it. What about when Dusty was batting Patterson Neifi in the 1-2 spots and doing all sorts of other dumb things? We can't question him, because he has years of baseball knowledge, right? Basically you're saying we can never question anybody in charge of running a baseball team, which is really dumb considering that they make huge mistake all the time. Really weak. Piniella seems to get the benefit of the doubt alot . Lou doesn't play Pie because hes not ready /good etc. but Dusty doesn't play him because he hates young kids etc. Lilly throwing 130 pitches in a game is ok because "Lou knows his pitchers"If Dusty did that..... I don't know, I've seen a ton of hatred for Lou over not playing Pie. We had multiple threads during the season asking if Lou was better than Dusty, does Lou know what the crap he's doing, here are all the bad moves Lou's making, etc. There were also the usual "Free Pie" and "Play Pie" posts and sigs and whatnot. He took a lot of flack. And pitching Lilly for 130 pitches is a lot different than pitching a young Mark Prior or Kerry Wood that many pitches. Lou also took a lot of flack if he let Z get much over 100 pitches. He's taken plenty of flack, he's just gotten less than Dusty because he's such a better manager than Dusty. Managers seem to get too much credit when they win and too much blame when they lose.

i'm just saying, it's really weak to just say "well jim and lou say it and they know more than you" and it pretty much tells everybody that you can't defend your argument. it's a copout. so next time somebody gives juan pierre 50 million or barry zito 126 million, you can't say anything...... ecause those contracts were issues by "seasoned veteran personnel decision maker" and you're just an message board poster. the truth is that these guys make mistakes all the time, and a lot of the time you can spot the mistakes right when they happen. Seasoned veteran. How about Theo Epstein ?

Search through the board, this has been discussed thoroughly. The Cubs hit good RHP well in the regular season too. And of course you use the biggest copout, which is that Lou and Hendry agree with it. What about when Dusty was batting Patterson Neifi in the 1-2 spots and doing all sorts of other dumb things? We can't question him, because he has years of baseball knowledge, right? Basically you're saying we can never question anybody in charge of running a baseball team, which is really dumb considering that they make huge mistake all the time. Really weak. Piniella seems to get the benefit of the doubt alot . Lou doesn't play Pie because hes not ready /good etc. but Dusty doesn't play him because he hates young kids etc. Lilly throwing 130 pitches in a game is ok because "Lou knows his pitchers"If Dusty did that.....

Miles will be getting most of his starts as a RH in platoon with Fontenot. The rest of the time he will just be playing off the bench. I put his stats hitting as a lefty because it was suggested he could start at short in place of Theriot vs. the D-backs facing Haren and Webb

Last year he had alot to prove. His 2006 and 2007 seasons weren't that impressive. He was being given the chance to go back to starting in 2008,which has been his preference. It was the last year of his contract and he has a career year. I hope i'm wrong but.... You're still making a huge leap without explaining why. You keep saying "career year" like it's some magic cure-all that allows a pitcher to have an Cy Young-sniffing year. I understand why the perception of the "career year" exists, but how would he have just turned it on like he did and then either totally forget all of his changes or, what? Choose to suck or be mediocre because he got paid? What is the thinking here? The why matters a lot less than whether or not the phenomenon has been observed. Right, and typically you can find or track reasons for the player's downall. Dempster made it through the year with phenomenal results after making very noticeable changes. He didn't breakdown. He didn't have to rely on luck or be saved by the defense. Obviously, repeating or exceeding last year isn't likely, but people just keep tossing out "career numbers" or "career year" like it negates what he did last year and makes a huge regression all but inevitable with little else to back up such declarative assertions. I've seen pitchers like Matt Clement and Mike Morgan make adjustments and string successful seasons together. I've seen others have a great year and then....Players are always making adjustments to fix problems. When success is achieved,the adjustments are credited, justifiably or not. Really we have to wait and see.

Miles hitting lefty ave/obp/ops: 2005 292/317/682 2006 256/310/654 2007 292/311/664 2008 317/345/752 Theriot vs. rightys: 2007 260/318/634 2008 308/379/734 Factor in Miles below average fielding at short also.

Last year he had alot to prove. His 2006 and 2007 seasons weren't that impressive. He was being given the chance to go back to starting in 2008,which has been his preference. It was the last year of his contract and he has a career year. I hope i'm wrong but.... You're still making a huge leap without explaining why. You keep saying "career year" like it's some magic cure-all that allows a pitcher to have an Cy Young-sniffing year. I understand why the perception of the "career year" exists, but how would he have just turned it on like he did and then either totally forget all of his changes or, what? Choose to suck or be mediocre because he got paid? What is the thinking here? Players don't choose to be mediocre,or be a free agent bust after they get paid,it just happens (very often).Injuries,complacency,etc. The list of players regressing after getting the big contract is huge. I never said he would go Carl Pavano,but I doubt he will pitch like last year.

That they decided to arbitrarily trade him doesn't make the trade good. It made the team worse overall, so it was bad. You keep repeating this over and over as if the fact that Bradley and whoever the fifth starter will be (Gaudin/Marshall) will automatically be worse than DeRosa and Marquis. Personally I would rather have Bradley in RF and Gaudin in the rotation if it comes to that than have DeRosa in RF and Marquis in the rotation. The fact that the move potentially opens the door for the Cubs to get Peavy if everything works just right with the Padres makes me more willing to do it since without moving DeRosa and Marquis we know there definitely is not enough salary room for Bradley and Peavy. If they can't close the deal with the Padres then Hendry should have some wiggle room come the trading deadline to make a move to improve the team. There are injury risks with Bradley but when he is healthy he puts up all star caliber offensive numbers. With DeRosa there are significant regression risks considering his age and the fact he is coming off a career year but his upside is not as great. I think Hoff showed enough last year for me to think that if Lou picks his spots well he will combine with Bradley to give the Cubs a very good offensive RF. Marquis has been flamed here for 2 seasons and now that he is going to be gone it is amazing to me that suddenly people act like it is going to be a significant loss. I think the Cubs got the best they could hope from him the last two seasons and are smart to get rid of him now while there is still some value. On Bradley/DeRosa: If Bradley were likely to be healthy for a majority of the season, I'd be cool with all of this. But the huge likelihood is that we'll have 85-90 games of Bradley and 72-77 games of Hoff/Reed/Gathright. I'm not optimistic that the latter trio will be better than keeping DeRosa and going after a cheaper RF option such as Scott, Hermida, etc. On Marquis: I was not one of those who "flamed" Marquis for two years. I argued that he was, in fact, a decent enough starter who had value unless we found somebody better to replace him. I was never, and still am not, in favor of dumping him without replacing him with someone better. And, as I've been saying, if we acquire Peavy or sign Sheets/Lowe/etc, I'll be a lot happier with the trades of DeRosa and Marquis. Otherwise, I don't expect this team to be as good. I'd rather trade for Hermida than sign Bradley. If they sign Bradley ,I'd prefer trading for Brian Roberts than Peavy. I believe its the last year of Roberts contract. The price would be lower than last year. We should be able to do it without giving up Josh Vitters. I doubt they would be able to get Hermida and Roberts without giving up Vitters.

Dempsters contract does look better than Burnetts.

Its nice he sold high,but looking at what they got,it doesn't look like they got much.

Last year he had alot to prove. His 2006 and 2007 seasons weren't that impressive. He was being given the chance to go back to starting in 2008,which has been his preference. It was the last year of his contract and he has a career year. I hope i'm wrong but....

Comcast 410

Because we don't want to waste 2.5M on a backup catcher? I doubt he would get 2.5 now. But paying over 12 million for a platoon CF isn't exactly spending wisely either.

except you're missing the most significant factor: milton bradley. he's pretty much a lock to miss significant time. when he goes down, it would have been derosa moving to right and Fontenot getting significant playing time in place of Bradley. now, instead of more at-bats, a bradley injury means more at-bats for much less attractive options Hendy needs Hoff and Pie to produce. Between those two and Fontenot he is counting on his farm system big time to come through. It looks like they've given up on Pie by signing Gathright.