Caryatid

This is the atttitude the Cubs Front Office always has, and it bites them every time. They would always rather go for quantity over quality. He'll make $13 million for the rest of the year, or roughly equal to the salaries the Cubs are paying to: Hairston ((2.3) Perez (2.5) Rusch (2.75) Pierre (5.75) So would you rather pay $13 million for one great player, or $13.4 for four awful ones?

The Yankess have always had a bigger payroll than all of the other teams. Go back and look at their teams of the 70's that they bought, mostly from the A's Charlie Finley. The recent spree has been unprecedented. I know in the mid 90s they did not have the highest payroll, Baltimore did. And when the Yankees finally took over that ranking, they were only slightly ahead of the 2nd and 3rd highest payrolls. It wasn't until around 2000, when they went hard after guys like Mussian, Giambi and others, that their payroll skyrocketed past everybody else. While it might be unprecedented, it had to do more with giving them the best chance in the world to win more WS championships. I certainly wish the Tribune cared as much as Frankensteinbrenner did about winning, but fiscal responsibility overrules everything the Cubs do. While the Yanks might not have won a WS championship these last 6 years, they certainly have been much closer than we have ever been in those 6 years, not to mention in the past 98 years. If one gets enjoyment out of them having such a huge payroll to only come up short, good for you, but I certainly wish the Tribune handling of the Cubs and their payroll was closer to the Yanks model, than the one they currently have in place, because as you can see from the position we are in, we end up with what we have on the field. 13 winning seasons in a row speaks volumes about how they run that organization, a huge payroll is just one of the outcomes of doing this, something the Tribune never wishes to have. BCB I think my mantra from now on will be "I'd rather have a smart GM than a rich owner."

In order to get the Wild Card, the Cubs would have to catapult over 9 teams. There are other divisions, too.

Saying a team that's bad is bad is not the easy way out. Its honest. If you want to make excuses for a bad team, fine. I didn't see the Cardinals fold this bad when they lost their star third basemen, best pitcher, star center fielder, etc. They are bad. That needs to be accepted so that changes can be made so that this team improves for the foreseeable future.

If that is Dusty's strength, then the Cubs could get the exact same manager for about 4.5 million cheaper.

Since the Yankees started their crazy spending spree, they've won exactly zero titles. I'll take a World Series anyway I can get it-including if every other team simultaneously comes down with the measles.

Two games? They've won two in a row, haven't they? They can play better than that month of May showed. They just have to, period. They are in the bottom five of all of baseball in record, and last in virtually every offensive category. They're awful. End of story. If they play better than they are right now, they will be a mediocre team. Whoppee. The only thing that will get them to the point of being a true contendor is a complete overhaul.

This is not unique to the coaching staff. Everyone, from the President down to the majority of (uninformed) fans have this belief that things outside the team's control (luck/breaks/"curses") are causing the team to be this inept. What makes this worse is that by believing things are happening "to" this team, it implicitly absolves anyone in a decision-making position within the organization from responsibility for this mess. The more fans, the press, etc. buy into this, the longer this garbage is going to go on without real organizational change.

Time has already told-this is a bad team with bad players, a bad manager, and a bad GM. If they go 71-41 over the next couple months, I'll be proven wrong. More likely, though, they'll go .500 over the next couple months, Baker will be credited with "keeping the guys afloat," and he'll get an extension that dooms this team for at least 3 more years.

Well, with those two in the lineup, you can absolutely count on a whole lot less of those "W"s.

I could live with playing a Womack IF it was simply to help the team get some level of respectability before July so they could blow it up and start from scratch with a new philosophy. However, as we've all seen with crappy veteran after crappy veteran, all that's needed to get the reputation of "saving the season" is a few good games here or there, and old, bad players will be signed to long-term high dollar deals. And if anyone thinks the likelihood of seeing an infield next year devoid of Todd Walker and featuring Tony Womack is anything less than 60-40, you're deluding yourself. And that's why seeing Womack here is a bad thing.

It means bad bench players should never play because they're bad. If you're not going to play someone they shouldn't be on the team. Absolutely. Feel free to cut Womack, Perez, Hairston, Bynum, Blancoand Rusch and replace them with cheap young players who will equal their production at a quarter of the price. EDIT: Forgot about Henry Blanco. Threw him in there too.

It means bad bench players should never play because they're bad.

Of course, in a perfect world you want a guy who is fast AND gets on base at a high clip. But, if its one or the other, OBP is CLEARLY more valuable than speed. A guy with Youklis' eye and Pierre's speed would be one of the most valuable players in the league. Unfortunately, the Cubs have no one like that, and there are so few in the league that you usually have to choose between one or the other. Choosing Pierre was the wrong one.

"He rallied the team to 73 wins from a poor start" "Imagine if the Cardinals lost Pujols, Mulder, and Carpenter? Dusty's done an unbelievable job with this team-they never lost faith, stayed together throughout the rough stretch and rallied to 73 victories. This gives us a lot to look forward to next year, when we'll have Woody for a whole year, Prior will be back from his surgery after week three, and Derrek will be here for the full year. For that, Dusty has done nothing short of an amazing job and I'm proud to announce his three year, $15 million deal."

In the year after Baker left San Francisco, they won more games (103) than they had in any season he coached them, save one.

A little soon to make that judgment, don't you think? Furcal had offseason knee surgery and started off terribly, but his OBP is already about 30 points higher than Ronny's and 60 points higher than Pierre's. 5 more years and 45 million for 30 points of OBP...I think they made the right call.

I don't fault them for taking the money either, but I can hold it against them for not living up to their contracts, no matter if they were deserve in the first place. I can understand that position, and I certainly sympathize with it, esp. when someone chooses to bunt with 2 outs in the ninth inning. Then again, I think, given the salary structure that comes with a union-based contract and inept ownership throughout the league, the majority of players in major league baseball are not living up to their contracts-they're simply getting back pay for what they did three years ago.

I think the veterans have a greater responsibility to do better. They don't have the excuse of learning the new level, and their salaries require higher levels of production. . I can see that. But at the same time, I don't hold Jacque Jones for not doing what he has not been doing his whole career-hitting lefties. I also don't hold Perez, Blanco, et. al. responsible for being bad players-everybody but Hendry, apparently, knew they were bad when they were signed. They are just doing what they always do. I can't fault bad players for taking money from someone dumb enough to give it to them. I'll save my blame for the people responsible for evaluating and implementing talent.

I don't think there's any reason to deny that Murton and Cedeno have been horrible this month. I think they should be singled out in the same manner that the others have been singled out-there's nothing wrong with that. To claim that they are "leading the Cubs down the toilet" is just plain, 100% wrong. But to absolve them of responsibility or lump it in with "they're all doing bad" is no more than reverse-Dustyism: making excuses for favored players. They deserve as much individual blame as do the rest of the players.

Wellemeyer? Now you KNOW its on purpose.

Anyone else think they brought in Pinto to relieve Nolasco to make a point?

Getting smoked by the Marlins in game one. 3 hitter getting tossed against them by the guy they traded for Pierre. There's that improvement you were talking about.

Home Runs: Nolasco: 1 Pierre: 0 You knew we were giving up good prospects, but who knew the Cubs were actually getting the raw end of the deal from an offensive standpoint, too?

No, they need a guy to put them in the best places to succeed. And they need a guy above him who has an idea of how to evaluate talent. Players should get the blame when they underachieve relative to their talents. These guys aren't talented. Bad players don't get the blame for being bad-they just are bad. The guy who puts them there is the problem.