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But the $300 million in debt is spread over many years. The fact remains that our payroll is very reasonable for a big market team. Why would this be bad? If people are willing to spend upwards of $600 - 1 billion, I hardly think a 100-110 million dollar payroll would matter... 100-110 mil. is still a very big payroll for an MLB team, and really it won't be enough to to field a contender in 2008 and especially 2009, assuming Z eventually gets signed. It'll take at least $125M to make a repectable attempt at contention in 2009, and very likely a good deal more than $125M. If I'm a prospective buyer that's the type of crap that would make me walk the asking price down, not up. I don't agree at all that it is likely that it would cost a good deal more than 125 million to contend in 2009. Adding in 17 million for Z, if no contracts are jettisoned that is 89 million for Soriano, Lee, Ramirez, Lilly, Marquis, DeRosa, and Z with the .3 buyout of Blanco's contract. So that is a lineup of: C-? 1B-Lee 2B-DeRosa SS-? 3B-Ramirez LF-? CF-? RF-Soriano P-Z P-Lilly P-Marquis P-? P-? Bullpen-none Ok, let's start filling in some of the blanks. Hill should have one of the starting pitcher slots, and hopefully Murton and Pie will take the two outfield slots. Those are all at least somewhat cheap players-I think everybody in that group that I mentioned would not be free agents until at least after 2010, so none of them will even be in their last arbitration year. The other starting pitcher slot will also likely be taken by a cheap player, whoever that is by that point (the Cubs have enough of them to project at least one will make it there). So that leaves C, SS, and the bullpen, and probably 20-25 million left of that 125 million. If one of C or SS is filled by a cheap player (Cedeno?) and a few of the bullpen arms are, which shouldn't be a problem, then the payroll shouldn't have to go above 125 and quite possibly even under it in 2009, which is easily the worst year for a money crunch. That's also assuming that none of the contracts get traded, and I see it as somewhat likely that one of the group of DeRosa/Lilly/Marquis will be gone by that time. Edit: Lol, of course the Bench..forgot about them, but they don't really detract from my point. The Cubs will likely have a cheap backup C by then, Theriot (if DeRosa isn't traded), and probably one cheap backup outfielder along with 2 other veterans to fill the bench spots-so that's only going to add 3-4 million.

UGH I'll predict that Lou isn't going to like the sound of that. You said it. Now, how do the Lilly, Marquis, and Derosa contracts look? I don't like that Hendry waits until the last minute to get this stuff done. He's had all winter. I've never been a big supporter of JH, but I don't think he can take all the blame here. He's had a history of getting guys signed right before the season or shortly thereafter, and it usually works in the Cubs' favor. If he had gotten Z signed for $80m/5 years, almost everyone on this board would have been thrilled. So the fact that the Trib gets sold and that puts spending on hold shouldn't mean Hendry wasn't doing the right thing by waiting to sign Z. There is/was no reason to wait until the end of ST to get the deal worked out. I don't give two hoots about Hendry's track record. If the owners look at the current payroll and say "no more spending" the sunk costs of Lilly, Marquis, and DeRossa look bad when they could add up to or help with the costs of signing Z. The sunk cost had absolutely nothing to do with it. The ownership froze spending because the assests are in the process of being sold-the payroll could have been 90 million instead of 110 million and they still would have done the same thing. If the ownership had said no more spending because of too high of a payroll, they would have done so well before now. Which is why waiting until the last minute to get things done is not a good way to do business. Hendry and McDonough had to know something like this would happen and also had to have some knowledge of the process and how long it would take. There is no way Hendry doesn't get the blame for this if Z doesn't get signed, sorry. Hendry's doing his job using a formula that would have worked again. It might not work because of something that's absolutely not his job-the sale and its implications. It's McDonough's job to tell Hendry if something on the ownership/business side of it is going to impair negotiations. From their quotes today, it appears that McDonough did not do that-either that, or the ownership changed their mind and McDonough did not know either. Whichever it is, it's not Hendry's job to be concerned about that-Hendry has no direct contact with the Tribune company, and the only reason Hendry would ever be concerned about it is if McDonough told him that it should change how Hendry does his job-which he apparently did not do.

UGH I'll predict that Lou isn't going to like the sound of that. You said it. Now, how do the Lilly, Marquis, and Derosa contracts look? I don't like that Hendry waits until the last minute to get this stuff done. He's had all winter. I've never been a big supporter of JH, but I don't think he can take all the blame here. He's had a history of getting guys signed right before the season or shortly thereafter, and it usually works in the Cubs' favor. If he had gotten Z signed for $80m/5 years, almost everyone on this board would have been thrilled. So the fact that the Trib gets sold and that puts spending on hold shouldn't mean Hendry wasn't doing the right thing by waiting to sign Z. There is/was no reason to wait until the end of ST to get the deal worked out. I don't give two hoots about Hendry's track record. If the owners look at the current payroll and say "no more spending" the sunk costs of Lilly, Marquis, and DeRossa look bad when they could add up to or help with the costs of signing Z. The sunk cost had absolutely nothing to do with it. The ownership froze spending because the assests are in the process of being sold-the payroll could have been 90 million instead of 110 million and they still would have done the same thing. If the ownership had said no more spending because of too high of a payroll, they would have done so well before now. The end of ST thing? Well, that hurts now-and Hendry could have definitely got him done before now, but from the way he was sounding he was not informed that the process of the ownership sale would delay contract negotiations. Blame McDonough on that one.

Really? I thought his love for the Cardinals was clearly shining through, right down to the "oh no! oh no..." when the Cards grounded into a DP. I thought it was some of both. Joe was giving a lot of love to players of both squads last night-everything was the best or most exciting on both squads-it's your typical national announcer. Joe only gives love to one person, himself. The rest is just nonsensical talk. At one point when talking about the Mets he said something like: "They'll beat the bad clubs becuase they can hit. But when they play the good clubs they'll have to pitch." What the hell does that mean? Not that I agree with it, but he means that against most of the league the Mets lineup can beat up on any average or less starter. However, a good club, especially in the playoffs will have a couple good to great pitchers that can shut them down, and the Mets weakness at starting pitcher will kill them then. That's based on the assumption that a great pitcher can shut down great hitters on a consistent basis, which I'm not sure I agree with.

Come on Izturis-that was pretty awful. Harang has been really, really good against you-you would think that would keep you from swinging at the first pitch.

They couldn't do much more that inning-Jacque could have taken the pitch he hit into play, but most of that reason for that 11 pitch inning was just that Harang was throwing pitches in the zone.

No, the one who was on Florida.

Hmmm..... sounds like your wife and mine are related. :wink: Haha. She's actually pretty cool about it. She doesn't care much for baseball, but she lets me enjoy it and actually lets me turn on the game if we're driving somewhere. God, but do I love that woman. There are women that won't let you turn on the game when you love the team? Kill me before I get married. That's going to be big fight. It becomes "Who do you love more, them or me" sometimes-the trick is to not get it to that point. Let up sometimes, make compromises to not have to watch every game live (with a DVR that's much easier), and it makes it much easier to watch plenty of games :D

National TV games are blacked out on MLBTV-this game is an ESPN 2 game.

Doesn't that prove you wrong? Those numbers are for the 2006 season-it is unknown currently what the 2007 rates are.

Really? I thought his love for the Cardinals was clearly shining through, right down to the "oh no! oh no..." when the Cards grounded into a DP. I thought it was some of both. Joe was giving a lot of love to players of both squads last night-everything was the best or most exciting on both squads-it's your typical national announcer.

Do you see that St. Louis can win the division? I don't see how their rotation could be called better than ours-maybe similar, but certainly not better (btw, I know that you have Milwaukee winning the division, just curious if you think anybody else has a chance besides them). Yeah they could. Any of the 4 teams (Milwaukee, St. Louis, Houston, Chicago maybe even the Reds) can realistically win the division. My reasons for the Cubs not winning it tend to go beyond the rotation as well, I don't think the lineup has enough patience to be as productive as people are predicting it to be. I think it will be very feast or famine like our 2004 offense. 1B: Lee, Lee. Adv: 2007 (better now then in 2004) 2B: Walker/Grudz, DeRosa Adv: 2004 3B: Ramirez, Ramirez Adv: Push SS: Gonzalez/Nomar, Izturiz Slight Adv: 2004 C: Barrett, Barrett Adv: Push RF: Sosa, Jones Adv: 2004 CF: Patterson, Soriano Adv: 2007 LF: Alou, Murton/Floyd Adv: 2004 Plus our 2004 offense was actually better then this years. Then you add the fact that our rotation was better in 2004, and you can see that 89 wins might be out of our reach. I will give you that our bullpen is much better this year and our bench is better this year as well. Remember also when comparing to 2004 that the Cubs schedule is significantly easier because their level of competition is down. If the Cubs had that 2004 ballclub in 2007, they would probably be the best team in the NL, while they weren't ever going to challenge for that in 04.

Do you see that St. Louis can win the division? I don't see how their rotation could be called better than ours-maybe similar, but certainly not better (btw, I know that you have Milwaukee winning the division, just curious if you think anybody else has a chance besides them).

True-I just wish the fans would wait to see if a player is actually horrible before expressing their displeasure and possibly driving people out of town that are quality players (in the cases of Lee and Jones for example). Also, if our booing got worse and got close to New York level this year, would a player like A-Rod want to come here?

I don't think that was managed incorrectly-that squeeze probably had a better chance of being executed successfully rather than the run scoring any other way with the hitters they had coming up-they just didn't execute it that particular time. But he did it on 1-1 thinking they wouldn't pitch out, which I knew he would do. You could see it coming from a mile away. Yeah, but the Cardinals have proven the last couple years (at least IMO) that they can get the run in most of the time even when it is the expected play. I don't necessarily like the squeeze as a normal baseball option because of the high risk, but the Cardinals are one team who usually minimize that risk and make the squeeze an option even when expected.

I don't think that was managed incorrectly-that squeeze probably had a better chance of being executed successfully rather than the run scoring any other way with the hitters they had coming up-they just didn't execute it that particular time.

He didn't say "that is the only difference"-he said "that is the difference" and then proceeded to show that Reyes has a much stronger arm than Eckstein's. What's so wrong about that? He wasn't talking about their offensive games at all.

Just wait until you look at the rotation :D

I thought he was safe at first, but from looking at it a few times, I think he was out by the slimmest of margins-I would love to see another angle to be sure, but it looks like the ball is in the glove with the runner about 1/4 step from the bag.

luckily it should be a few degrees warmer when the Cubs open at home on Monday though :D

Inning 1 out out bb bb out inning 2 bb out out out repeat I actually think Yadier could have a big offensive year. :oops: By big, I mean similar to Barrett. That's quite a bold prediction, especially considering that if Yadier can find a way to replicate his best month of the last two years (either May or June 2005, take your pick) for every month of the season, he still wouldn't be similar to Barrett.

That was from his last start-people are wondering about a possible start today that he allegedly left with more blisters.

Ok-texas picks Adam Carriker for the Titans, so Dew and the Giants are now on the clock.

Yeah, that was 2003-I remember because Prior gave up something like 3 runs there, and it was a shock just because that was like his worst outing in 10 or something like that he was running so well.

We won the first game thanks to a strong performance by Lieber and 3 RBI's by Shane Andrews. The Mets won game 2 in the 11th inning on a grand slam by Agbayani with 2 outs.