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If they were in a 3rd party city, yes...it would be completely different. If he was 30, not 25 and wanted to win it would be completely different. If Wade and Bosh were not top 10 players in the league it would be different. So basically LeBron is a villain for not being arrogant enough to not want all the credit by being the undisputed leader. It's not like him, Wade, and Bosh are going to change what they do on the basketball court just because they are in Miami rather than some other city. It's only who the public gives credit to that will change. So LeBron's legacy is diminished, but do we really want individual players making decisions about what will be best for their legacy?

Who had him arriving in 2010? That was incredibly dumb. BA did after the 2008 season.

If LeBron, Wade, and Bosh had formed a team out in the middle of nowhere that none of them were connected to before, does that still make LeBron a villan? Or is it just the fact that he went to a city where Wade happened to be there already?

Nah. He's really young for AA and has had stretches of dominance at Peoria and Daytona. His status as a prospect took a hit this year, but to call him a bust would be quite premature. Didn't that status take a hit last year? I thought he was considered a top 40-50 guy early in his career but then after stupidly being promoted to Daytona too early and then not hitting at all for a couple months most people bumped him down lists. He dropped from 51st in 2009 to 70th in 2010. That's in large part to the fact that they thought he would be a quick mover in 2009 (they had his ETA in 2010) and by next year they moved his ETA back to 2012. Sickels had Vitters as a B+ in 09 and a B+ again in 2010 (although he said he was borderline to possibly be a B) So he dropped a little bit after last year but not much.

In the blind scouts eye of Jim Hendry they did. But they are essentially the same team, only older. Why you insist on ignoring the fact that 30 something players get worse is beyond me. Of course they get worse. But they tend to get worse slowly not fall off a cliff especially if they haven't hit 35 yet. When they do fall off a cliff, they tend to have bounceback seasons. Soriano is having one of those now and while his numbers are still not as good as at his peak which do show a decline as he gets older, it's still a lot better than 2009. Lee and Ramirez and to a small extent Theriot and Nady are experiencing that this year. None of them should be expected to hit anywhere near their peak production next year because they are all declining. But they all are somewhat likely (Ramirez the best, then Lee, Theriot, Nady) to have bounceback years. Falling off a cliff at 34/35 is hardly unprecedented. That's what Lee is doing. No although usually it involves injury,playing one of the harder positions, or lack of being in shape that causes such a swift decline. Sometimes a lack of walks will contribute to it as well or a player highly dependent upon speed. It would be highly unusual if this was not just a bad year for Lee since he doesn't really have any of those things and should be an ideal candidate to decline more gracefully.

Just in case this gets lost, I think this is the thing that most will agree on including me. I want Theriot traded tomorrow if possible. He's a bad starter or a vastly overpaid backup.

In the blind scouts eye of Jim Hendry they did. But they are essentially the same team, only older. Why you insist on ignoring the fact that 30 something players get worse is beyond me. Of course they get worse. But they tend to get worse slowly not fall off a cliff especially if they haven't hit 35 yet. When they do fall off a cliff, they tend to have bounceback seasons. Soriano is having one of those now and while his numbers are still not as good as at his peak which do show a decline as he gets older, it's still a lot better than 2009. Lee and Ramirez and to a small extent Theriot and Nady are experiencing that this year. None of them should be expected to hit anywhere near their peak production next year because they are all declining. But they all are somewhat likely (Ramirez the best, then Lee, Theriot, Nady) to have bounceback years.

23.5% of his AB's in 2007 were against left-handers. 27.5% of his AB's in 2010 were against left-handers. He was used part-time for part of 2007 but he really wasn't platooned. Playing part-time didn't prop up his numbers much and it's questionable if there is a link there at all. The 40 point drop in OPS from the first half to the second half suggests he got worse once he played every day. But regardless of how you want to characterize the difference, he's been nearly the same player. That could be although he had a dropoff in both 2008 and 2009 as well. But the fact that he's only been a little worse than his worst year doesn't mean he's likely to repeat that year again.

The NL being down across the board offensively is a good point although the fact that the NL boasts the 2 worst offenses in the last 18 years makes the numbers look much worse for the league as a whole than they are. But even that is a 10 point drop compared to the Cubs 19 point drop and the Cubs have an increased talent level offensively where they upgraded one of their positions offensively and got deeper off the bench. And it's not like last year was some charmed year where the Cubs got great years out of their regulars (which for example 2008 mostly was).

23.5% of his AB's in 2007 were against left-handers. 27.5% of his AB's in 2010 were against left-handers. He was used part-time for part of 2007 but he really wasn't platooned. Playing part-time didn't prop up his numbers much and it's questionable if there is a link there at all. I do think he has a good chance to be better. I completely agree with you that he is not a starting 2nd baseman and shouldn't be used that way. He's a decent backup middle infielder at this point. The Cubs would be best off to get rid of him.

Why would you assume that? He's doing what he did in 2007. He's doing what his career was mostly likely pointing to until he had his peak year in 2008 that surprised many, but he fell right back to earth and he is what he is. You are talking about a bunch of 30-somethings, most with injury histories. The notion of underperforming what they "should" have done is vague. They are who they are, which isn't good. Ramirez is the only one whose level of underperformance is surprising, but he's also the one coming off the most serious injury and was injured this year (something everybody expects every season). This is an old expensive bad team. Quit trying to find excuses. Theriot is 40 points worse than his worst season out of his other 3+ years and is currently 80 points below his career average. Even accounting for regression due to age Theriot should improve. Lee has only had 2 months in the previous 3 years that were worse than his best month this year. For him to struggle this much is very, very surprising. Ramirez was miles worse than anybody could have ever expected. In fact before the last week it was hard to find a comparable in the last few years in baseball to what he was doing. Nady had a wide range of potential projections. His number is reasonable but definitely unlucky for him to be healthy enough to play but not healthy enough to be anything but terrible. He's had a questionable enough career combined with the injuries that he isn't a great bet to improve although he still has big upside compared to this year. The reason I'm even bringing this up is that I'm trying to figure out how far this team is away from contention to help decide if the Cubs should try to make upgrades to contend in 2011 or not. How unreasonable the current core's performance this year is plays a large part into that.

Ryan Theriot isn't underperforming, he's just not good. He's 30 now, and 30 year old middle infielders with scarce productivity on their resumes should be expected to suck. Lee is playing almost exactly like he did for 6 months, between 2008 and 2009, before he bounced back for what looks like his last gasp of productivity. I think it is absurd to suggest this team would improve just by bringing everybody back. It's already an old team full of players whose best days are likely way behind them. It's also absurd to suggest Soto is somehow underperforming anything. Soriano is right on best hopes for production. This team is not better than it's record. That's the same BS nonsense we hear every year when the team doesn't win enough, because everybody needs to look for excuses to cover up Jim Hendry's failures. Just stop already. It's a poorly constructed baseball team. 2009 wasn't some 95 win team that just didn't put it together. 2010 was actually predicted to be quite bad by many people. This isn't a team that is stunningly underachieving. It's not a good baseball team. Every team deals with fluctuations in individual performance. The good ones win despite those struggles. The Cubs aren't good, and their record reflects it. There's room to say that the Cubs are both not a very good baseball team and that a team who is 11 games under .500 at the break is underperforming. If the same team is brought back next year they are really, really likely to win more than 71 games which is what they are on pace to win this year. Hopefully the Cubs don't bring back the same team because there are significant improvements that can be made ( for example while Theriot would be expected to improve next year, he still will be a bad player and there could be many ways to upgrade at 2B). But if you project out player by player, it's hard to come up with a scenario where they finish near 70 wins again. Let's look at one preseason projection sorted by number of at-bats this year. From the highest number of at-bats every 50 below that I put a space to show who has gotten the majority of the at-bats. Theriot: 94 points of OPS less than projected Byrd: 37 points more Lee: 179 points less Soriano: 55 points more Ramirez: 239 points less Fukudome: 11 points less Soto: 87 points more Castro: 37 points more Colvin: 163 points more Fontenot: 3 points less Nady: 168 points less Baker: 90 points less Hill: 130 points less The fall off has been staggering. While the Cubs have had a couple surprises, the downsides have been a lot larger and with players who tend to get more at-bats than the ones to the upside.

How you view this season depends on how you view Soto and Soriano. If you thought last year was a huge aberration for both of them, then this year the players are way underperforming. Sure, there are a few overachievers that have been mentioned (Colvin and Silva are the two biggest and Gorzelanny should also be mentioned. Byrd isn't really a strong candidate as his numbers are pretty close to the last 3 before that.) But they don't match up whatsoever with the underachievers (Lee, Ramirez, Zambrano, Theriot, and possibly Baker and Nady). If Soriano and Soto are seen as overperformance, then it becomes a whole lot closer although still in underperformance territory. I'm interested to see what happens after the season. Bruce doesn't think Hendry will be fired but I think a lot of fans are assuming he will. This team is definitely not as bad as its record and should improve markedly just bringing back the same team but definitely has some big needs as well. And the fans problems of being sick with the current core might play into a larger dismantling than might be needed.

Unless they flat out say they need him to start next year, I don't see why there would be pressure, albeit increased pressure as you stated. The 40-man roster does pose a problem, but the Cubs can always drop someone from that if need be. RISP is sometimes overlooked, and it shouldn't be. RISP tends to be overlooked because it is good at measuring how valuable a player is that season but it doesn't really tell you anything about what a player will do in the future. So it's useful in determining All-Stars, MVP's, etc., and also useful in figuring out why a team might not have performed the way they should have. But a GM should see it as irrelevant because it's so random and cannot be used as reliable for figuring out what a player will do in the future. If I'm reading the rules right and Jackson would get a 4th option if he is added anytime this year or next, then bringing him up in September is not that big of a deal. There won't be much benefit and the only cost will be that the Cubs will be able to protect one less player for the Rule 5 draft.

A very good prospect at first base or second base would be what would tempt me with Dempster. I would add third base to that list, as well. Josh Vitters :( I'm not exactly writing him off. He's still young, but he obviously has a long way to go. Would be nice to have another option at that position. I'd put third base on the second tier by itself. It's definitely a bigger need than the OF, SS, C, or starting pitching. But with 2011 likely having Ramirez there and Vitters still being one of the Cubs better prospects it becomes a little less important than first or second which both have holes on the major league level next year and prospects being either farther away from the majors or nonexistent.

A very good prospect at first base or second base would be what would tempt me with Dempster. On one hand, he is a big component of the 2011-2012 teams. On the other, the Cubs have so much potential starting pitching that it would be hard not to trade him if an opportunity to fill other organizational needs comes up.

I'm very conflicted. I'm not a fan of how LeBron handled it with the TV special. But I do respect him for one thing. He said all along that he was going to choose his team by who had the best chance to win. For most athletes it's lip service but LeBron seems to have taken it to heart. He took less money and hurt his potential for an amazing legacy for a better chance to win titles. Isn't that what we want our sports stars to do?

It may not be an impossibility, but that plan is based on getting solid to good role players, or basically luck into them in the draft. The Heat will offer a 5 year 30 million dollar deal to the best role player on the market every single year. And who wouldn't want to sign with them because of the great chance of winning a championship? Their depth would continue to increase. And that is added on to the veterans that might sign on with them to win a title or the draft picks that will add some depth. Adding role players in the NBA is not difficult because of all the exceptions the NBA gives you. Teams don't need cap room to add role players. They only need cap room to add stars and Miami will have plenty of those. no team except for maybe the knicks and bulls can afford to be that far into the luxury tax. would they be deep? yes. they'd also be broke, real broke. That's hard to say. Their revenues would definitely be much higher with all the excitement. And their owner is pretty rich even as owners go. But that is a possibility.

That's true although the soft cap is pretty good for both sides so I'm not sure who would push hard enough to change it. But even if the CBA does dramatically change, that still leaves Miami with 3 stars and in pretty good shape every year. I doubt Lebron does that because of the money concerns and the image concerns. But that team would definitely be scary this year and really scary the years after that.

It may not be an impossibility, but that plan is based on getting solid to good role players, or basically luck into them in the draft. The Heat will offer a 5 year 30 million dollar deal to the best role player on the market every single year. And who wouldn't want to sign with them because of the great chance of winning a championship? Their depth would continue to increase. And that is added on to the veterans that might sign on with them to win a title or the draft picks that will add some depth. Adding role players in the NBA is not difficult because of all the exceptions the NBA gives you. Teams don't need cap room to add role players. They only need cap room to add stars and Miami will have plenty of those.

IF Lebron goes to Miami, and I still have my doubts, then Wade/Bosh and James would be eating up the 90% of salary. Which means they willl have very little money to address 3 point shooting, interior defense, etc, etc, and Beasley and Chalmers don't have great trade value, but not enough to improve the team. In other words Miami would have to luck into some players to fill out the roster. James has to know this, that building a roster in Miami will be difficult and time consuming, and there is a chance that it could fail. The Bulls have a roster ready to compete now, Miami only has 2 superstars and two other players and 3 draft picks. I know all signs are pointing to Miami, but I think that is a smokescreen. within 2 years they are eating up 120% of the salary. James isn't a stupid he has to see that. Building a long-term franchise with James/Wade and Bosh is a impssibility, imo. Thus I think Miami talk is just that......talk. Not only is it not an impossibility, but Miami's way would likely be the ideal way to build a long term franchise. Their only possible problems would be in the short term not the long term.

Byrd would have one year left on his contract, and I don't see how that is a problem for Jackson at all. Byrd doesn't leave until after 2012. That's a long time with Jackson looking like he would be ready in mid 2011 or so. The Cubs could try to trade him at that point but that's of course not an easy guaranteed option. If there was a can't miss OF in this class, it might be worth it to take that risk. But there really isn't and the Cubs probably shouldn't clog the OF situation up again like that.

If Fukudome is traded, Colvin does make sense to start in 2011. He's likely to be as good as any corner OF that could be brought in on a 1 year deal. And with 2 other OF's that would still have multiple years left on their contract you don't want to bring in a 3rd with Jackson likely being so close at that point. So Colvin starts the year and you hope that one of him or Jackson can hold the position down. Now if Byrd was the one traded, that is a little bit of a different story. Then Fukudome slides back over to CF and the Cubs would probably be looking to add an impact bat in the corner OF position. Colvin plays 4th OF and Jackson replaces Fukudome either sometime during 2011 or after 2011 when his contract is up. Of course one of the best options for competing in 2011 is for the Cubs to do what they are doing now and giving all 4 outfielders AB's. Getting a big bat at 1B and Ramirez coming back would make the Cubs contenders (especially if the Cubs also settled 2B in some way). How the Cubs approach 2011 may be dependent on what they think Ramirez can do as he is the big key to that season. Whatever they do, adding in a long-term contract in either the starting rotation or the OF will likely be a mistake.

Probably for as long as he needs unless he is completely overwhelmed. They clearly want to challenge him. And right now his numbers are at least somewhat due to a terrible BABIP (.244).

I'm withholding judgment until I see where James goes. I still say Chicago is the best place for him if he wants to win. If he goes to Miami it will be James/Bosh/Wade and then a bunch of minimum salary scrubs. They'll compete, but they will have absolutely NO depth on their bench. If he goes to New York he'll get all the money and fame he wants but I'm not sure that Stoudamire/James is going to be enough to win anything. However, if he comes to Chicago he'll have James/Rose/Noah plus plenty of money to go out and get either Lee or Boozer and maybe another role player or two. Not to mention they already have Deng under contract; not that that's a huge draw, but it's more than Miami has. That's really only true for this year and somewhat next year. As time goes on, their bench will fill out and they'll likely have plenty of depth to go along with the 3 stars and that's a much better situation than any other of the cities can offer. Of course, the money is not likely to work out to let all 3 of them come in the first place.