badnews

I don't give a crap about any weather almanac. I used to live in Woodbury and getting the hell out was one of the best things I've ever done. It's COLD and RAINY and MISERABLE there up until about June. I understand you must be associated with the Minneapolis Chamber of Commerce or something, but from someone who's lived there, no, the weather sucks. It is worse than Chicago. Quoting the 2008 summer, come on, that was the mildest summer in years, how about 2001, it was rotten. But my least favorite thing about the Metrodome was the pissing troughs, I hate those things. But yeah sure. I'm sure Minnesota will get to expand their payroll just like the Pirates did when they got their new stadium.

There was no consensus on Vitters, unless we're pretending like Matt Wieters doesn't exist. I know some people have a conspiracy theory that Bud Selig said the Cubs would be sold to the Moon People if they drafted Wieters. Sure. I'd like some bonus baby justification. How do you throw away that money on Chris Huseby when you could have Jordan Walden, Matt Latos, or Lars Anderson instead? I don't know, because Jim Hendry has had a stroke that has left him feeling he must draft 50% of his players from Florida and Virginia. This is the guy whose second choice after Pawelek was throwing money at Justin Bristow. As far as I can tell he's got 80% of his scouting team deployed in Virginia at all times. And who the hell heard of Huseby before we signed him? Was this like Nick Adenhart, a guy everyone heard about, who got injured? No. It was just another one of Hendry's anonymous big money buffoons from the southeast.

If you're going to say that you preferred Nick Markakis over Ryan Harvey on June 3rd, 2003 you're a lying son of a gun. Everyone thought we got a steal with Ryan Harvey. Had he not shredded his leg, it might been 50/50 between him and Young for first overall pick. He 'fell' to the Cubs with the sixth pick. Ryan Harvey himself had better tools than Delmon Young at the time. He hasn't panned out, but to criticize the Cubs for selecting Harvey (or Dopirak) is foolish. If you want to bitch about Ryan Harvey you should be bitching about the player development of the organization, not the scouting. There's a very good chance had Nick Markakis gone to the Cubs, he would have never developed into the player that he has become today. That's what many people says about a number of Cubs draft picka. No one wanted Travis Snider over Tyler Colvin at the time! If Dustin Pedroia had still been on the table (close but no cigar) you'd be saying "Grant Johnson looked awesome before he got injured and everybody thought he was going to be terrific" so on and so forth. But nobody actually thinks these things. There was no consensus on Ryan Harvey or Mark Pawelek (just being from Utah was enough for some people to throw him under the bus). Everyone was ecstatic to have Bobby Brownlie because his velocity was coming back yes it was, the mothership is returning to earth any day now.

I thought they called it THE YELLOW HAMMER

What's he going to do when he faces hitters than don't hit with the wrong end of the bat?

Remember that time when we drafted Ryan Harvey one spot ahead of Markakis because Jim Hendry is in love with no-strike-zone-discipline assclowns from Florida? THANKS DUNEDIN HIGH SCHOOL

Am I the only one who realizes every year we say the Cardinals are going to do below a certain point of expectation and every year we say "Holy Jesus, how did they get that many wins with such an ass-ugly roster?"

Excellent news. Now we're finally rid of those "Felix Pie's teh awesome defense that I am totally exaggerating can carry his piece of **** bat" posts. Plus, now the Orioles now have two toolsy stooges with no strike zone discipline who won't ever amount to much. Now all they have to do is trade with the Phillies for Greg Golson and their JOURNEY TO THE DARK SIDE WILL BE COMPLETE.

To whoever responded to my post... what is to say that Garland isn't as bad as his 2008 season? My impression is he's following the career path of Jeff Weaver and Carlos Silva. They had some okay seasons, then they became useless pretty quick.

Jon Garland sucks. He's getting on toward Steve Trachsel/Jeff Weaver territory. Is there any way I can set my preferences to block out phrases like "innings eater?"

The sooner we wake up from this daydream that Pie is ever going to be a useful player, better. I can't figure out what his appeal is supposed to be. I mean, I know the worse he is offensively the better he gets defensively supposedly, but, what's his offensive value? He's not going to hit for a high average. He's not going to walk a lot. He's not going to hit for a lot of power. His minor league career makes him look like a baserunning incompetent. Does he just stand around being toolsy? I don't get it. He sure as hell isn't Carl Crawford, at Pie's age Carl Crawford already had some real muscle. Pie's minor league numbers always seemed to project Jacque Jones with less power to me.

Brian Roberts has never in his career done anything impressive after the All-Star Break. It's always a good first half and then put 'er in cruise control for that .760 OPS. The Cubs probably need a guy who doesn't crap out toward the end.

Derek Lowe is already 35, I think the Braves made a poor move. Also, I am inherently distrustful of Braves prospects. They're rarely as good as billed. Yeah I mean Andy Marte. Yeah I mean I doubt Saltalamacchia is going to be the Johnny Bench people mentioned. And while we're at it the only thing that doesn't outright suck about Jeff Francoeur is his arm. The Braves are going nowhere. It's questionable if they can compete with the Marlins, let alone the Mets and Phillies.

AMEN He's 32, his numbers away from Texas are mediocre, and his contract is terrible. I wouldn't even take him if he were put on waivers because of that contract.

Absolutely not. And can I just mention, what is this board's obsession with stopping to pick up every piece of crap lying in the street as long as if it's for league minimum? Okay, here's a rule of thumb: if you find yourself saying "He might be worth a look at league minimum," then 90% of the time that means, no, he's not worth a look at league minimum, he's not even worth discussing. Andruw Jones is garbage. He has no skillset. He's fat, his bat speed is s-l-o-w and he no longer has any pitch recognition whatsoever. He's like 275 pounds and he hacks at **** that even a one-eyed Soriano would know to lay off. Good God, a thousand times no. This is a difficult disease to eradicate. For example, I hear in remote parts of Uzbekistan there are still people who think the old Morgan Ensberg and Richard Hidalgo are coming back. Morgan Ensberg is a particularly persistent myth, he's like Bigfoot. IT'S NOT REAL PEOPLE THAT VIDEO FOOTAGE IS JUST A GUY IN A BIGFOOT SUIT. WHOA HE JUST LOOKED AT THE CAMERA IT'S MORGAN ENSBERG I TELL YOU, I SWEAR TO YOU MORGAN ENSBERG IS OUT THERE SOMEWHERE IN THE WILDS OF HUMBOLDT COUNTY CALIFORNIA OCCASIONALLY KNOWN TO STRAY INTO NEIGHBORING TRINITY AND DEL NORTE COUNTIES BUT WE HAVE ESTABLISHED HIS HOME BASE FIRMLY AS EASTERN HUMBOLDT COUNTY. Morgan Ensberg has a Tibetan brother they called "The Yeti."

That just seems like wishcasting. Plus too many of those guys are the new Jeremy Bondermans, guys whose name value is way better than their actual pitching. Sean Marshall is better than Noah Lowry.

Other teams don't just give away their "redundant" players though.

Yeah but you followed the Cubs all of last year so you know DeRosa made a change to his swing. How do you know Miles didn't change anything? I bet Indians fans are wondering if DeRosa's season was a fluke last year too because they didn't hear anything about a step being added to his swing. I actually heard a little bit about it when DeRosa was a Ranger and then looked more into it when the Cubs signed him. I knew about DeRosa's stance change before he was a Cub, though. Yes. He worked with Jaramillo in Texas in 06 and changed the stance. So since his change he has had 3 good years, thus making his improvement in #s less 'flukey'. Flukey isnt a word but who cares. It's not even the three good years I'm looking at, because Miles hasn't had two more years after his initial career year. What I'm focusing on is that DeRosa made a pretty major change to his stance (Jaramillo's timing mechanism) and immediately had a career year. Miles had a career year completely out of the blue (unless you count the Cardinal pixie dust). The latter seems less likely to be repeatable than the former. None of that even matters. AARON MILES DOES NOT HAVE THE PHYSICAL TOOLS TO BE ANY GOOD AT ALL WHATSOEVER. That's what matters. The guy is shorter than David Eckstein, and he can't even get hit by a pitch or be obnoxious like Eckstein. A new swing isn't going to jack crap for him because he's a midget with no muscle tone.

This part of the conversation is stupid. Mark DeRosa always had the athletic gifts to be a good player. Aaron Miles has the "athletic gifts" to get beat up by 8th grade bullies. I don't get it, will someone explain to me how the hell Aaron Miles is going to "turn a corner?" He's a zero tool player, a shorter, less strong, 10 times slower version of Juan Pierre. I mean, are we just going to take any suck player and say they could be Mark DeRosa? Is someone under the impression this guy is speedy? Look at how much he hits the ball on the ground. Oh yeah, and before Mark DeRosa got "good" HIS DAMN CAREER OPS WASN'T UNDER .700. I have more faith in Cesar Izturis to suddenly get good than Aaron Miles. We got Aaron Miles, we somehow ended up with a second baseman who sucks more than Adam Kennedy. We ended up a guy who could be called the next worst thing to Nick Punto. I disagree with that, looking what we got. I don't see what the point of that is. He's still a guy I think is capable of putting up a .785 OPS wherever you put him.

Oh you've got to be kidding me. John Gaub and Chris Archer don't have particularly good stuff. You're just looking at their K/9. That's like saying Steve Andrade and Jermaine Van Buren have nasty stuff. I really disagree with Tim. What good has come out of this? Okay, we traded DeRosa before the bottom fell out. Uh... so? What did it net us? Those two are like Bear Bay pitchers... you remember Bear Bay, we traded him to the Indians for CLIFF FREAKIN BARTOSH. Why do the Indians trade Max Ramirez for 70 year old Kenny Lofton and we've got people in this topic going "Uh, what did you expect you were going to get for a 21 HR .857 OPS guy who can play five different positions." Some posters on here simply have no standards, period. They think any trade in which we don't lose our five best prospects for nobody is a successful trade, they've got the "expect nothing" mindset so locked in. And Aaron Miles turning into the next Mark DeRosa is laughable. Has anyone actually seen Aaron Miles in person? The dude is like 5'4 and 105 pounds. He's not even particularly fast. He brings zero to the game of baseball. This trade sucks. People who are convincing themselves John Gaub can be anything like he was in college are the same people who kept saying Bobby Brownlie's velocity was coming back. Look at all the real prospects the Indians have, what a load of crap to get this.

fuentes means fresh in english

Baseball America essentially crapped on the trade from the Cubs' perspective. Even if you don't buy DeRosa at his 2008 numbers, which no one does, how do you get not a single guy ranked in the Indians Top 15 prospects. Remember when the Indians traded an actual prospect for 4 months of Kenny Lofton? Come on now.

That career .693 OPS is badass. I also like all those steals he's got. But I can't believe we got Aaron Miles when Sean Burroughs is available. Personally, I'm disappointed the Cubs never found a way to get Tony Batista. I can't believe a guy with a batting stance that awful who managed to hit 32 home runs and 110 RBIs with an OPS+ of 80 never found his way to Wrigley.

Who cares, he's not healthy. I can tell it's the offseason again, Mephistopheles is bending over backwards for Rocco Baldelli. There's one of these topics going back like three years.

shocking that badnews has a negative take on this signing. Shocking that someone decided to try and be cute by pointing this out. Boo hoo. I don't blindly support crap like Milton Bradley and Joey Gathright. I don't buy into people lying to themselves about this 25th man on the roster pinch runner nonsense or his defense. Give me something positive to work with here and then let's see what happens, until then, you can bitch and moan about my negativity all you want, the Cubs pursue stupid avenues and I'm going to be negative. The Cubs pursue wise avenues and I will be positive. I know. Rocket science. If I'm not positive enough for you point the finger at Jim Hendry, not me.