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Right, that's comparable. IU succeeding in football, to the degree they can, would essentially have no effect on me. It's not like Notre Dame and IU are consistently battling for recruits, and it's not like I said I hope IU is gonna compete for titles. I just have a few friends who are fans, that's all. Not sure why it's such a big deal, and I certainly apologize for offending all the non-IU B1G fanboys. If IU became above average, they'd be battling Notre Dame for recruits. At least the top state kids, and maybe some solid Illinois kids. It would probably be more damaging to Notre Dame's recruiting for someone like Rutgers to get good rather than Indiana. Indiana/Illinois combined only produces 3 of 4 recruits per year for ND and most of those guys are more in Purdue territory than Indiana territory. It's pretty inconsequential.

Die in a fire, Jim Hendry. Unless we're also getting some good prospects back, why just give Zambrano away? It really depends on how much money the Cubs are giving. Just giving Z away and only eating say 3 million this year and 3 million next year could be a good deal for the Cubs. There are things to be worried about with how some of Z's numbers are trending. He'll have a decent amount of value for the Cubs next year, but if they have 15 extra million to play with they could find somebody who gets more value than Z does.

A Dempster quote from Fangraphs: There are multiple stats that would say that his peripherals are now the best of his career-even better than 2008. The chances of Dempster having a bounceback year next year are pretty high.

And Szczur with another double in the 2nd and Watkins with a home run.

I don't think Montanez fits the original point. Sneaky doesn't want to give chances to any player who was ever drafted high. He wants players who had minor league success who were top prospects before they hit the majors and struggled. Montanez didn't hit in the minors until he was old for the leagues he was playing in, and he had to switch from one of the positions that doesn't have much offense (SS) to one of the positions that requires close to the most offense (corner OF). That's not the same type of player as a guy like Maybin whatsoever.

Yeah, because I'm sure you'd be so bothered by it if the Bears won the Super Bowl and people here were gloating about it. I think he would since he's not a Bears fan.

I don't see how it's that easy to judge when to pull the plug with these guys. If they haven't been given enough time by their previous team, don't you have to give them enough at-bats to really give them a chance? Early results could just be the same adjustment period they were going through with their previous team.

Agreed. For certain teams in certain situations, these guys make a fantastic play. I'm not sure I would call it a market inefficiency though rather than some teams are in better situations to take the big risk to get the potential huge reward. The worst that can happen is that the player acquired flames out spectacularly over the course of a season and is kicked out of town, but for a contending team a player doing that can ruin a season. For teams who obviously need more talent though, it's a different story.

The downside of course is the playing time that you have to give these guys. How many guys are like Pie right now who is giving -7.5 million worth of value all by himself? It's hard to do a proper analysis without looking at all the top prospects who failed with their original team and where they are now. It's definitely a high reward play, but it might be a pretty high risk one as well.

I don't know about all time, but last year 5 out of the 17 runningbacks that gained 1,000 yards also had at least 500 yards receiving. Two others were above 450. that has to be an anomaly. Yes, an anomoly. In 2009 there were only 2 (including Chris Johnson who went for 2,000 yards rushing and 500 receiving) with no Forte. In 2008 nobody did it. The only person who did it in both 2009 and 2010 was Ray Rice. I skipped back to 2003 to see what it was like several years ago and 3 people did it that year. From looking at the lists, it seems to be that a decent number of players have done it once or twice, but they rarely do it more than that. That's partly because most runningbacks even if they are good receivers have to be in a certain type of offense to do it. Faulk did it 5 times (including a 1,000-1,000 year).

I don't know about all time, but last year 5 out of the 17 runningbacks that gained 1,000 yards also had at least 500 yards receiving. Two others were above 450.

Because winning the division shouldn't be the goal. If the goal is to win the WS, the division will come. This attitude drives me crazy. no team in the national league has the money to build a team to compete for a world series consistently. There are 2 teams in the american league that can look past the regular season year after year, but not one in the national league. this nonsense about competing for a world series would make sense if the world series title were just the best record in baseball and there were no divisions whatsoever. in baseball, you build to compete in the regular season and hope to get lucky in the playoffs. Minor nitpick-if the Phillies keep their payroll where it is, then they will have joined that group. They have the 2nd highest payroll in all of baseball this year.

If you're not going to celebrate a little bit when they win, why go to the game in the first place? Plus you have fans going to Wrigley for their first/second game all the time. It's a little bit of harmless fun that has nothing to do with how they may feel about the overall season. Celebrate what? The 2nd pick in next year's draft? Maybe they need a new song...it always reminds me of the 13 game losing streak in 1985, which I think was the reason it was made. Anyone know what they do at other mlb stadiums? Celebrate the win that many spent $100 or more to watch along with the time it took to transport in for the game (some from hours away), and then sat in the moderately hot sun for 3 hours to watch. It would be rather depressing to put all that time/effort/money into it and then not have some fun. If you live in Chicago and have been to quite a few more exciting Cubs games then it might not be that fun to watch this team, but if you fit that criteria you're probably not at many of these games anyway.

If you're not going to celebrate a little bit when they win, why go to the game in the first place? Plus you have fans going to Wrigley for their first/second game all the time. It's a little bit of harmless fun that has nothing to do with how they may feel about the overall season.

All of next year's guaranteed changes. Technically, the arbitration awards aren't guaranteed, but even the Cubs aren't dumb enough to non-tender Garza and Soto. I won't guarantee I'm reading it right, but it appears that the $72 mil covers Soriano, Z, Dempster, Byrd, Marmol, Marshall, $2 mil to Silva and Aramis' buyout. That leaves Garza, Soto, Baker, Hill, Wells and DeWitt as Arb-eligible and six pre-arb guys. They appear to have seven guys either becoming FA or have some sort of option year in Aramis, Kosuke, Pena, Wood, Grabow, Samardzija and Johnson. So what will it take to bump up the arb and pre-arb guys? Would $10 mil total do it? I honestly don't know what a good guess would be. If $10 mil is enough, that leaves roughly $52 mil to spend, if they leave payroll the same. With seven spots to fill, at least 2-3 would be in-house options, 2-3 would be cheaper FA options and the rest big-name FA. Assuming nothing else happens (ie. no one is traded) it leaves this- FA - possible replacement (spot on 25 man, not necessarily spot on the field) Kosuke - B Jackson Aramis - FA? Pena - Pujols/Fielder? Wood - In-house/FA/re-sign Grabow - In-house/FA Samardzija - In-house/FA Johson - In-house A couple of those will be filled in house, just not sure by who, a couple more could be. I'd say the two most likely to be filled by bigger names is Aramis and Pena. So, the question is, given who is coming back, plus the money available, who can they get that will turn this around next year? Does Wells and Cashner recover enough to fix the starting staff? Will (as an example) Fielder/Reyes provide enough of a bump to the offense? Maybe Aramis/Kosuke get re-signed to cheaper contracts. As always, this can all change as we get through the trade deadline and the waiver deadline in Aug. The arb and pre-arb players made 14.479 million this year. Estimating arbitration awards is hard, but I would be surprised if that didn't go up by at least 5-6 million next year if the Cubs don't non-tender/trade anyone. So there's probably more in the range of 40-43 million to spend, and that doesn't include Aramis's 2 million dollar buyout if the Cubs choose not to re-sign him (or Pena's 5 million depending on if the Cubs are counting that for the 2012 payroll).

Explain how Wilson/Aramis/Prince will cost more than $60 million. Something like Wilson getting $15 million a year, Aramis being brought back for the team option and Prince inexplicably getting $30 million a year? That 60 million number doesn't count people like Garza, Soto, Baker, or Wells. The Cubs don't actually have 60 million to throw around.

Id be more comfortable with Dempster as a 3rd starter. The problem is, who is out there good enough to be better than Demp? Wilson maybe, but the likelihood is that Dempster will be our second best starting pitcher going into next season. And if his horrid start were really a fluke, that'd be fine. CJ Wilson seems to be the best guy available, unless of course anyone out there thinks we have a shot at CC. Problem is, if we do go after CJ and Fielder, it could become a very expensive endeavor, and they may need to consider moving Z or Soriano for partial salary relief. All depends on what the Ricketts are willing to spend. If the money coming off the books can be re-spent if necessary then they could easily afford both without dumping anyone. I wouldn't say easily-are you keeping Ramirez in that scenario? I don't see how you can afford all 3 unless the payroll is increased.

For football? I'd be interested.

I'd be shocked if that was the case. Players are pretty smart about choosing when they dive now which makes the percentage a lot higher. Of course, that's part of the reason I don't want Soriano diving. He doesn't have the instincts out there and probably would make some dives that would make it a very poor percentage play.

Wow that is just a whole bunch of ridiculous unsubstantiated nonsense right there. I can't really substantiate it without going through all the game tape. It's not like it's something I can look through the game log and find examples from. As others have pointed out, 20-30 bases might be overstating it. I thought of a few examples from the last month or so and then tried to extrapolate that over the entire season, assuming that he has committed around the same number of mistakes each month. That might very well be a logical fallacy. I would probably adjust it a little bit down, but knowing an exact number without the game tape is impossible. We do know from fangraphs who have tracked all these things that Ramirez and Soriano have been 2 of the worst 5 baserunners in all of baseball this season though. But thanks to the stats we also know Aramis is the best 3B offensively in the NL this year. So would the elevated risk of him busting his ass out of the box every time (and being older and somewhat injury prone) be justified? I wouldn't think so. Fangraphs has his baserunning take away a full third of his offensive value this year, but I don't think hustling on outs would help that very much as I think he just has deficiencies in that area . But I haven't even seen Ramirez be that bad at not hustling either.

The only time I remember Ramirez ever having a big problem with hustling was 2006 where he got caught about 3 times admiring home balls that didn't go out. He is awfully slow and pretty terrible on the basepaths and that's maybe where he got the reputation as a bad hustler, but I don't think it's deserved.

Wow that is just a whole bunch of ridiculous unsubstantiated nonsense right there. I can't really substantiate it without going through all the game tape. It's not like it's something I can look through the game log and find examples from. As others have pointed out, 20-30 bases might be overstating it. I thought of a few examples from the last month or so and then tried to extrapolate that over the entire season, assuming that he has committed around the same number of mistakes each month. That might very well be a logical fallacy. I would probably adjust it a little bit down, but knowing an exact number without the game tape is impossible. We do know from fangraphs who have tracked all these things that Ramirez and Soriano have been 2 of the worst 5 baserunners in all of baseball this season though.

And that entire promise is probably absolutely wrong. Soriano going balls to the wall on defense would probably be a much worse fielder and would probably get injured immediately. Soriano going balls to the wall on offense really doesn't mean anything. He's a brittle old player who started playing OF in his 30's. He relied on his speed and power as a young man and doesn't have much speed left and only has some of his power left. Effort isn't the issue. Soriano having to suddenly accelerate because he's seen that ball was mishandled or because a runner is trying to take an extra base is much more likely to cause an injury than just running hard for the ball from the beginning. Even the people who want him hustling more don't necessarily want him diving/crashing into walls. The only way that I would buy that his not hustling doesn't hurt the Cubs is if you feel that his not hustling fakes runners into trying to take bases they shouldn't, and then Soriano guns them down. Other than that though, he's probably lost 20-30 bases so far this season on both sides of the ball just from lack of hustle (although I still believe his hustle issues are overstated because the way he runs it sometimes look like he's not running as hard as he actually is-but sometimes he does lollygag).

The question becomes is if that you don't hustle, do your teammates perform worse? If they do, they're not doing their jobs correctly. If they don't, then not hustling doesn't have nearly as big of an impact. Can hustling make a ballplayer better? Absolutely. Is seeing a player not hustling and knowing he could be better if he would just try harder frustrating? Sure. But hustle is just one of the components like hitting, fielding, baserunning. And it's probably not the most important component because you rarely if ever see a guy who is absolutely terrible at hustling in the majors (if a player lightly jogged after most balls for example he would be kicked out of the league very quickly). If you have two players that are close on the other skills, the hustling player will probably be better. But hustling can't make up for much greater skills in batting and fielding for example. And as TT said, when you look at the performance of a player, hustling is already taken into account. A non-hustling player will be worse than what he could be if he was hustling, but they're often still better than players with limited talent who do hustle. The hustling player has already maximized their numbers-you shouldn't give them an extra bonus on top of it.

He's really not, although most of that is how bad all LF's are. For example, look at the other LF's in the Cubs division. Braun, Gomes, Holliday, Lee, and Tabata. I'd probably take Soriano defensively over Lee, Braun, or Gomes because Soriano has at least one elite part of his defense (arm) while those three just struggle at all parts of their game. Soriano's a below average defensive outfielder, but he's a pretty average defensive LF.