apete6

Everyone's still waiting on the breakout of Jose Ceda. He was a good prospect, but until he puts it together, getting an average year out of Kevin Gregg for him may not be the worst trade ever.

Tampa Bay has no choice but to spend. I believe the proposed salary floor for the next 2 seasons is 99% of the cap. If they spend well, they could have a very strong team the next few years.

Pretty much the "ideal" lineup for what the 2011 Cubs were supposed to be. It's really not a bad lineup. Frustrating that they've been so bad. Although the pitching has been much worse than the offense. First team in baseball to allow 500 runs this year. Hooray.

Out of curiosity, why? I'd prefer not to have the extra $6-7 million sitting on the payroll in 2014 when we know he won't be productive enough then to be worth the money, but he could be worth close to $10 mil the next two seasons (especially if his defense rebounds). You must have skipped the Time Value of Money discussion in Finance class.

Do you guys think Hayden Simpson and Mark Pawelek get together and go out and just get shitfaced and laugh about the money they've stolen from the Cubs? Or do you think Simpson will wait another 2 years so he doesn't feel like a bad person?

This has probably been discussed earlier in the thread, but what are peoples' interest levels in the old receivers: Burress, Moss, Ochocinco, and TO? I would take Burress with open arms, be possibly interested in TO if he's healthy, pass on Moss and Ochocinco. Obviously money would be a concern, but I can't see any of these guys making any significant money or signing more than a 1 or 2 year deal.

I'll concede a couple of those, but come on. Future 5th starters and middle relievers aren't exciting. The Cubs farm system is like the team in 2008. Solid depth, but no one who will ever be regarded as a top player in baseball. Obviously we just produced Castro, which is great, but even in the early 2000s we had Wood, Prior, and Zambrano who at least had star potential. Right now, nothing super exciting, pitching or hitting wise. Even Brett Jackson, what's his ceiling, a Marlon Byrd type career?

The lack of starting pitching in this organization is unbelievable. Every day is just a list of complete garbage.

The arguement with Soriano is pretty much that you need to ignore the money hes making. I suspect for the next few years, he'll hit between .255-.265 and OPS in the low, maybe mid .800s with 20some home runs. While those arent 18 mil/year numbers, thats production wont be cheap to replace, so as long as you have to pay him ayway, it should be for us. Of course, if we could find a sucker, Id pawn him in a heartbeat, so long as were not stuck picking up an equally bad contract attached to a worse player. What makes you think Soriano will OPS in the mid .800s? His OPS the last 3 years has been .726. .818, and .736 (so far in 2011) and he's getting older. We'll be lucky to get .750 out of him.

It amazes me how many people are begging for the day they let him go, as well as all the reports that he is as good as gone next season. If he walks, they will have to spend just as much money to get back to where they are today, let alone add another stud. Agreed. We had 1 season of decent 3B play between Santo and Aramis (Madlock) and people are ready to ship Aramis anywhere. 3B in baseball is a giant pile of crap right now. With so many other holes on this team, might as well ride Aramis as long as possible. What do you consider decent? Maybe not great, but I'd think the following were all at least decent. 1983 - Cey 658 PAs , .805 OPS, 118 OPS+ 1986 - Cey 306 PAs, .891 OPS, 138 OPS+ Lopes 191 PAs, .908 OPS, 144 OPS+ Trillo 172 PAs, .740 OPS, 99 OPS+ 1993 - Buechelle 520 PAs, .782 OPS 110 OPS+ Plus quite a few years where the 3B had OPS+ over 100. Again, I'm in no way saying these were great seasons (although the 86 team had really good output from 3B), but they weren't crap either. As a side note, in looking at B-R for these numbers, when I saw the batting stats from 1993 I was surprised they were a 4th place team, granted they did win 84 games. Then I saw their pitching stats for that season. How did they finish over .500 when their best starter was Greg Hibbard, with the 100 ERA+ and 1.340 WHiP. Their best starter!? Shouldn't pretty much every 3B in MLB have an OPS+ over 100 when accounting for all of the terrible offensive players at SS, 2B, and C, at least theoretically? Besides that 1986 platoon, which was good, the others are still pretty bad production wise for 3B, historically an above average offensive position.

It amazes me how many people are begging for the day they let him go, as well as all the reports that he is as good as gone next season. If he walks, they will have to spend just as much money to get back to where they are today, let alone add another stud. Agreed. We had 1 season of decent 3B play between Santo and Aramis (Madlock) and people are ready to ship Aramis anywhere. 3B in baseball is a giant pile of crap right now. With so many other holes on this team, might as well ride Aramis as long as possible.

Before today's game, Aramis had the 24th highest OPS in baseball as well as 30th in wOBA, and 47th highest WAR. Might want to just go ahead and pick up that option and then consider hammering out a longer term extension or trading him. In the offseason, Aramis might consider waiving his NTC and he would still be a very attractive trade chip. If not, another typical Aramis season wouldn't be the worst part about the 2012 Cubs.

For as much as the Cubs thought they were set in the 7th/8th/9th with Marshall, Wood, and Marmol, those guys have sucked about as much as everyone else on the team this year. Marshall has obviously been the best, but that was a part of the team that no one was really concerned with before the year and hasn't necessarily been a strength. Disappointing.

How about a list instead of a personal attack?

And Sosa's OPS is inflated due to his 2007 when he wouldn't have been under contract to us, while Fontenot's is deflated based on his numbers with the Giants. Plus the nonzero chance Crawford can become a 5th OF. Trashing him to the media by the entire front office and dugout staff certainly didn't help his trade value, however. If they would have just kept that whole thing quiet, maybe they could have gotten slightly more than Fontenot and Hairston.

Can't believe I forgot about the Pierre trade. That was probably 2nd on the list. Just terrible. Maddux for Izturis was pretty bad too and should have been mentioned. And, yes, the Sandberg and Hamilton things were jokes. Although it would have been nice to see Ryno as the sacrificial lamb this year just to shut all of the meatballs up or just make their focus solely on Hendry as they would have never believed that Ryno could possibly do anything wrong.

1. Signing Milton Bradley 2. Signing Alfonso Soriano 3. Overpaying mediocre players (Grabow, Neifi, Rusch, etc...) 4. NOT signing Beltran or Tejada 5. Allowing Lou Piniella and Dusty Baker to kill the careers of Patterson, Pie, Murton, & R. Hill 6. Meeting Koyie Hill 7. Trading Gorzellany for nothing and cutting Silva 8. Not allowing Ryne Sandberg to prove he was a bad manager 9. General mismanagement of young bullpen arms (letting Wuertz and Aardsma go for 0) 10. Not having the foresight to draft Josh Hamilton in Rule 5 draft. Could be in depending on your view: Zambrano extension, Jacque Jones, Nomar, Kosuke, throwing Sosa under the bus, thus killing his trade value Future: Giving up Hak Ju Lee Other: Basically drafting like crap for the past 8 years Outside of the draft, Hendry has actually been decent, but a few high profile errors have killed his term as a GM and hamstrung the Cubs for a 3-5 year window starting in 2009. If the Cubs could have finished the job that he laid the groundwork for in either 03, 04, 07, or especially 08, he would have been a God in this town. Instead, he sucks like the rest of them. See you later, Jimbo.

Every day I wonder why that damn saw couldn't have just finished the job.

How bad are Doug Davis and the Giants offense if Marcos freaking Mateo is shutting them down over 4 innings?

Marmol and Barney for Rasmus and Miller. Done.

Well, that guarantees him about 75% of the playing time going forward.

Cubs might need an entire new bullpen after today. Hahaha. On pace to only give up 54 runs today.

Glad I'm going to the night game so I don't have to watch Koyie Hill play. That's a win already.

I'd gladly take that line over the next 3 years. I doubt Pujols/Fielder will be worth 12-15 million more than that. 3/30 for Pena vs. 5/100 for Fielder. Discuss.

Who knows how accurate any of that is, but I like just about everything in there. Especially the part regarding Ricketts "eating money" in trades. And the part about wanting to look at the advanced metrics, not "scoff" at them.