inari

I'd imagine the lineup will stack up like this: RF Fukudome SS Theriot 1B Lee 3B Ramirez LF Soriano CF Cameron C Soto 2B Baker Right? That's a very right handed lineup (not that I care).

Hendry is not working on a limited budget. He's working with a huge budget. It's his fault that he tied up so much money as to make it tight already while the team is still in need of upgrades. And it doesn't help that part of that budget is being spent to pay people to play elsewhere, peole he foolishly guaranteed contracts to when it was well known that the team was for sale and future payrolls were in doubt. I don't think the Cubs really have any outrageous contracts other than Soriano. And I've always believed Soriano was a desperation publicity move by the Trib in their waning days. Bad contacts given by Hendry are as follows; Zambrano, Soriano, Fukudome, Miles (ta ta), Grabow, Hawkins, Eyre, Howry, Jones, Blanco, Neifi, Burnitz, Remlinger... That's all that comes to mind.

He's also signed John Grabow to an absurd contract.

Yet when the Phils do it, the same folks are full of praise. Actually no, many of the folks have pointed out it was too much. But you don't care about facts you just want to cry about unfair treatment of the great Jim Hendry. There absolutely is a double standard at work here (both in this thread and on the board in general), and I don't mind pointing out the hypocrisy of it. http://icecreamjournal.turkeyhill.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2008/10/phils-win.jpg The Phillies don't consistently do these kinds of things, which is why that picture exists.

Are there actually rumors of us pursuing Lackey?

Why not, he's a future DH in the AL. Not being able to play the field doesn't make him a DH. He's simply not good enough of a hitter. The perception of his value around here was absurd.

To "mentor" Marmol? He's been in the big leagues since 2006. If the Cubs think he can't close because he needs a high-priced "mentor" than I hope the team gets contracted.

There's a lot of people talking about this on GRB. I'm worried it's true at this point.

That would be horrendous.

They are both guys that had significant off-the-field issues that impacted how much teams were interested in having them, are they not? Let's compare them to Josh Hamilton a few years back as well.

Maybe my memory is fuzzy, but I don't recall any injury problems with Wood when he signed the contract.

I'm not sure I can envision a scenario where a player would state he wouldn't welcome a player back.

You are correct. Looking at pure profit would be like looking at RBIs, while looking at profit margin would be like looking at OPS. Thanks for correcting me. Sorry to be nit picky. And I can't believe I spelled "know" wrong.

This kind of quote makes me laugh. When games are won or lost based on which team has a better ops, let me know. Do you think fans care about OPS when Bradley throws the ball into the stands with one out? Do they care about OPS when he turns and throws the ball over the cut off man's head allowing a runner to take an extra base? Does anyone care about OPS when Bradley fails to come through time and time again? There is nothing wrong with looking at stats, but to act like they are the only thing that matters is silly. Bill James himself has said the player's personality and ability to get along with teammates is a very important part of the evaluation process. Sometimes you just have to watch the game and realize the guy is not as good as his numbers might be. Say whatever you want, but in the month of June when Ramirez was out, Bradley had 77 plate appearances and drove in 3 runs. To say he is productive is generous. Stats are how you judge how productive a player is. If we ignore stats, what do we look at to consider a player's production? Simply saying he missed a cutoff man a few times or he made a boneheaded mistake once is not not enough to make the decision that he's not a productive player. I don't have a problem with you saying his inter-clubhouse relationships should be considered, but if you don't take stats very heavily into the equation, you don't have much to go on in evaluating players. It's like looking at Wal-Mart's profits and saying that doesn't show it's a profitable company. Technically you couldn't know if they were a profitable company simply by looking at their profits, right? I'm not good at economics, but don't you have to look at their profit margin as opposed to simply their profits? That was unnecessary.

I'm not sure how I feel about Jackson as a viable starter. I know he started off well last year, but I don't think he's all that good.

Isn't it a reasonable assumption to make that a site that has gay porn ads exclusively is targeted towards gay men, regardless of the content (which happens to be pretty much gay porn anyway)? Did Grady try to hook up with you or something? Cause that would be news to the rest of us. Did you read the thread? Do you know what a joke is? Do you how much wood would a woodchuck chuck if a woodchuck could chuck wood? You're not very good at them. I certainly got what he was going for, and jokes often sail over my head.

Where is that information coming from? I am just curious because deadspin did not really mention that detail as far as I could tell and I did not find any other links saying that. Maybe he was showing off for the ladies too? It isn't like he is the first pro athlete to take pics of himself.........in recent memory I can think of Jeff Reed and Santonio Holmes too. The information is coming from me. I've visited that site. It's awesome. And there's nothing but gay porn ads on it because almost all of the visitors are gay men.

http://deadspin.com/5414624/grady-sizemore-does-his-bit-to-increase-our-female-readership/gallery/ Lots of homoerotic material of Grady Sizemore there, so don't click if you're not curious. I don't want to start rampant speculation, but Sizemore posted a lot of pictures on a site visited almost exclusively by gay men. This could raise some questions about his sexuality (and really, it should).

I agree with you about Lee, but I don't see how you can call 2008 "the year he was recovering from injury" while leaving in his 2007.

I'm not sure it's really fair to say we've had a tough time being better than Cincinnati and Houston as of late.

To find people not willing to give up Castro you have to go as far back as... the very first reply.

seriously? Yes seriously. They waived goodbye to 2 of their biggest stars in Ordonez and Carlos Lee, and another, Frank Thomas was a non factor for nearly the entire season. The replace them with Scott Podsednik, AJ Pierzynski, and Jermaine Dye. And then they won despite a bad offense that was bad because of those moves and injuries because they had amazing years from their good and not so good pitchers alike.

Cameron will probably get less money and years than he's worth. His reputation is someone who hits not all that well, when in fact he hits very well.

I suggested this awhile ago when the rumors started about Jenks possibly being DFAed. The WS could certainly use an OF/DH with Dye and Posednick leaving and Quentin as a question mark. The discussion did bring up the Ozzie/Bradley circus, but maybe Ozzie might be the kind of manager that Bradley needs (if such a manager does exist). Would the WS go for Bradley + Berg/Stevens + $6 million for Jenks? If the WS want Fox, we can add Fox and cut the money to $4 million. I dont know if they would go for Bradley, but if Fox isnt enough, maybe they would go for Fox+Fuld, whose a younger Podsednik+one of Berg/Stevens. Maybe even Fontenot instead of Fuld. They would absolutely not go for any of those packages. Bobby Jenks can net them something decent, no matter how much he's fallen.

If the White Sox are considering non tendering him, then surely theyd rather get something in return. Fox would be a great fit for them as a DH instead of going after another old guy. I'm pretty sure Jake Fox hasn't proven enough to make anyone believe he really would be a "great fit" at DH.