oldstyle81

yes

Vernon Wells is a good example of why you spend now and not hope good players are still there next year

you think it will based on what? look at cincinatti and the chargers

this has the potential to be huge since he is on probation as of november 2005, his probation was for 18 months and obviously the cops are packers fans

i hate that name and i cant stand jeff joniak Why (hating Joniak)? i dont like his voice for whatever reason, he calls a good game, his voice just annoys me though.

i hate that name and i cant stand jeff joniak

CNNSi has them at 2 behind the chargers and the saints at 5 New Orleans is the flavor of the week at ESPN, they change teams every year, its nice to see they got off their knees in front of Tony Romo though They change every week! They've gone from NO to CHI to DAL to SD to DAL (again) to NO (again). What is with these guys? I like what Tuna said. "Let's put away the annointing oil for a little while." Thank you Tuna! Play the games, see who really comes out on top instead of picking favorites all the time and then biasing your coverage in favor of your picks! A novel idea. i meant week

CNNSi has them at 2 behind the chargers and the saints at 5 New Orleans is the flavor of the week at ESPN, they change teams every year, its nice to see they got off their knees in front of Tony Romo though

Red Sox sign him 52m/6 years with possible 60e scalator clause according to cnnsi

he had 90 K's in 99 innings last year, consider that some of those innings were at the start of the year where he couldnt figure out how to pitch. i dont think 240 is a far out number

a) I said that there was a chance that a lot of these players would be locked up before they ever hit FA b) I never endorsed either side of the question...I just wanted to throw out a hypothetical situation and see what people thought c) The starting crop next year looks a HELL of a lot better then this years "led" by Zito (grossly overrated), Schmidt (injuries, lost velocity, old), and Meche (still don't completely understand why he was valued so high) i wouldnt say its a hell of a lot better, you have 4 guys at or above 40 who could very well suck this year. Colon has shoulder problems, Prior and Wood are good examples of why not to bother with shoulder problems. id much rather get someone at the trade dealine and go from there instead of waiting and possibly getting nothing from the 2007 FA crop

The NL central is crap, there is no reason to wait till next year when we can take advantage of a weak division and get into the playoffs. All you need is get in to the playoffs to have a chance, just ask the Cards i like our chances throwing Zambrano and Hill out there and if Prior is anywhere close to 2003, we are going to be difficult to beat in a 7 game series.

after 99 years, whats another year. i mean whats another year of listening to people bitch about the cubs not doing anything and all the fans getting is a crap product on the field? Maybe we shouldve just given Dusty 10 million for 1 year and say we will take our chances with 2008. Your ideas are flawed as well, whos to say that a number of those players wont be resigned before then and whos to say that they will even want to sign with the cubs regaurdless of money. the starting pitching crop isint exciting, Colon, too many injuries, R Johnson, Rogers, Schilling, Smoltz, too old.

Why are they at least a .500 team. So far no one has been able to really prove that the Cubs have improved their 2 biggest problems last year much at all. Nobody can prove it, but I know for me I'm hoping Lee plays the whole year and that helps OBP a little bit. I'm also hoping Piniella doesn't have violent aversion to the concept of walks, as Dusty did. I'm of the opinion that we would have been better in the OBP department with just a little better hitting concept, even with the same players. Speed never slumps Then people wonder why OBP was so terrible when the head of the team was saying stuff like this.

especially seeing no one wouldve picked the angels in 02, Marlins in 03, the White Sox in 05 and the Cards on 06

if Hill pitches like he did the last half of 2006, there is no way they would send him down.

It only dosent have substance because it cant be put into numbers? There was a lot more than dumb loses, these were losses because they didnt care. you only have to be 4 year old to seet they didnt care about if they won or loss. it also didnt hurt that the idiot manager we had has no idea how to manage unless there is a roided up slugger on the team.

because the rest of the division have great pitching staffs right? Houston has Roy Oswalt and thats about it Cards have Carpenter and Reyes and thats about it Cincy has Harang and arroyo Pitt only had 1 pitcher with a ERA under 4 and that was Gorzelanny and he only pitched 61 innings. Milwaukee only had Sheets under 4.

And in the middle you would complain hendry didnt do enough and we run les waldrond out there to get hammered by the Cards So instead give it to a 35 year old who just got off a career year, really smart there. Im not taking last year by itself, barrett has gotten better and better in the OBP year after year, im sure you saw that when you looked up the stats, he has had a OBP of .337-.345 and .368 the past 3 years. yes they were bad but the 2006 cubs did not care, The problem with the cubs in 06 was attitude. when you have players saying we would just role over and take the beating means they dont care. of course there is no way to find this out because there are no stats but im willing to bet the cubs lost 10+ games they couldve easily won if they didnt bend over and take it. You wont have Neifi Perez making 2 errors on a sac fly or bunting for 2 outs with runners on in the 9th. the cubs are better just because we dont have Mabry and perez starting everyday

You honestly think, as it stands now (thats for wolf :wink: ) the Cubs are a 3rd place team? Yup, if that. The Cubs have done very little to address the glaring weaknesses that made them fail in 2006 (and 2005) including OBP and starting pitching in general. Neifi Perez - .266 OBP, 236 AB's with the Cubs Juan Pierre - .330 OBP, 699 AB's with the Cubs John Mabry - .283 OBP, 210 AB's with the Cubs Ronny Cedeno - .271 OBP, 534 AB's with the Cubs along with a hoarde of other players that saw significant starting in the cubs lineup, that shouldnt see any this coming year. Replace with Izturis - Career .295 OBP Soriano - Career .325 OBP Ward - Career .314 OBP DeRosa - Career .331 OBP League average OBP is around .330. I don't see how we got better OBP wise other then getting Lee's bat back in the lineup... You dont know how they got better? Before Neifi Perez - .266 OBP, 236 AB's with the Cubs Juan Pierre - .330 OBP, 699 AB's with the Cubs John Mabry - .283 OBP, 210 AB's with the Cubs Ronny Cedeno - .271 OBP, 534 AB's with the Cubs 287.5 average between the 4 After Izturis - Career .295 OBP Soriano - Career .325 OBP (not to mention his power) Ward - Career .314 OBP DeRosa - Career .331 OBP 316 average between these 4

You honestly think, as it stands now (thats for wolf :wink: ) the Cubs are a 3rd place team? Yup, if that. The Cubs have done very little to address the glaring weaknesses that made them fail in 2006 (and 2005) including OBP and starting pitching in general. if i read this i would think that the cubs havent signed anyone good, thankfully i know better Lilly and Marquis may not be Zambrano and Prior at their bests but they are better than running around the Minor League pitcher of the week out there. If the starting lineup stays healthy they will score a lot and get on base a lot especially when you dont have a [expletive] in the manager position saying walks only clog the bases How are they going to get on base a lot more? I don't see it Lilly and Marquis are not great pitchers. Lilly is ok, but a number 3-4 starter at best. We would have been better off signing Zito or Schmidt for $15-20 million and then using Marmol/marshall/guzman/prior out there for the last spot. Feel free to call me out in the season if I'm wrong, but I just don't see it and I am not going to get burned thinking the Cubs are better then they really are when the numbers don't say it. I'm not saying the Cubs havent made some bad decisions, but I just dont see how you can say they're worse off than the Brewers and Cardinals right now. Zambrano Hill Lilly Marquis Prior/Miller/Marshall is better off and less of a question mark than Carpenter Wells Reyes Wainwright ??? As far as offense goes, the Cubs have Lee, Ramirez, and Soriano that are complemented by an improving Murton, and a solid Barrett. The Cardinals have Pujols, a huge injury risk in Rolen, and a rapidly declining Edmonds that are complemented by a decent Encarnacion, and a question mark in Duncan. In my opinion, the Cubs are clearly the better team. as of right now, i dont see how anyone can say the Cardinals are any better than they were last year in terms of wins. Yes i know they won it all but there are 162 games to get there and i dont see them enjoying a central championship with 83 wins like last year.

Hill shut me up real quickly once he showed he can pitch with the Chicago Cubs the way he did with the Iowa Cubs

You honestly think, as it stands now (thats for wolf :wink: ) the Cubs are a 3rd place team? Yup, if that. The Cubs have done very little to address the glaring weaknesses that made them fail in 2006 (and 2005) including OBP and starting pitching in general. if i read this i would think that the cubs havent signed anyone good, thankfully i know better Lilly and Marquis may not be Zambrano and Prior at their bests but they are better than running around the Minor League pitcher of the week out there. If the starting lineup stays healthy they will score a lot and get on base a lot especially when you dont have a [expletive] in the manager position saying walks only clog the bases How are they going to get on base a lot more? I don't see it Lilly and Marquis are not great pitchers. Lilly is ok, but a number 3-4 starter at best. We would have been better off signing Zito or Schmidt for $15-20 million and then using Marmol/marshall/guzman/prior out there for the last spot. Feel free to call me out in the season if I'm wrong, but I just don't see it and I am not going to get burned thinking the Cubs are better then they really are when the numbers don't say it. Then if we signed Zito who would get rocked at Wrigley when the wind is blowing out or Schmidt whos arm might fall off ,you would go and complain saying Hendry shouldve known better instead of throwing 20 million at the. The cubs have added Derosa, last year at least he had a OBP of .357 i will gladly take that over Neifi Perez and his .266. Cubs have improved there. Would you rather have put Cedeno out there with his .271 OBP? Would you not have complained if Hendry didnt do something about the middle infield? The Cubs added Soriano which has a .351 OBP and scored more runs than anyone on the cubs last year. He also had a .560 Slg which is 1 percentage point below Aramis Ramirez. Id gladly take this over scrappy who kept hitting the ball to 2nd base. Now add barrett who had a OBP around 370, Lee who will have a OBP up there, Murton around 360 give or take ect. I dont see how anyone can say the cubs havent improved a lot. of course their will be injuries but who knows who will get injured and when.

You honestly think, as it stands now (thats for wolf :wink: ) the Cubs are a 3rd place team? Yup, if that. The Cubs have done very little to address the glaring weaknesses that made them fail in 2006 (and 2005) including OBP and starting pitching in general. if i read this i would think that the cubs havent signed anyone good, thankfully i know better. The biggest reason they failed in 2006 was losing lee and not having a manager who kept running perez out there Lilly and Marquis may not be Zambrano and Prior at their bests but they are better than running out the Minor League pitcher of the week. If the starting lineup stays healthy they will score a lot and get on base a lot especially when you dont have a [expletive] in the manager position saying walks only clog the bases.