inari

Good start for Iowa. Stanzi has looked outstanding.

If your married its great. You have a legit reason to lay down all day and watch football. But I'm not married. I'm in college. It gives me a legit reason to stay home from getting drunk at 7 in the morning.

I hate being sick on game days.

If that the case then it sounds like Hawpe is like a more talented version of Micah Hoffpauir, a first basemen playing the OF. So what if we had to settle with Hawpe at RF for 2010, and then move him to 1b after Lee leaves? I think it's pretty clear at this point he's not worth the effort it takes to get him.

Hawpe is no worse defensively then the lot the Cubs have trotted out there recently. Sosa (the latter years), Hollandsworth, Grieve, Burnitz, Bradley, etc, etc, etc. The only remotely close to good defensively RF the Cubs have had is now playing CF. Hawpe is pretty clearly worse than all of those guys except maybe Grieve who played roughly 4 innings in RF for us. You guys obviously didn't see that awesome play Grieve made where he was bleeding.

See who saves you from the Nazis the next time, Europe. That's really all I have to add.

Dunn is a heck of a lot better hitter than Hawpe, though.

Please God no.

What do you mean you don't "agree with it"? Why should stealing signs be against the rules? We can argue for week on this but I don't feel like it. You don't see it as anything wrong. I see it as very unsportsmanlike. It's been a part of the game forever. Masking signs is a skill and if you're not good at it you'll pay.

Shark is hilariously bad.

Absolutely misinterpreted what he was saying. My bad.

I don't think this should be overlooked. Hendry was in a similar situation with Hundley when he took the job and he turned it into two good contributors - Karros and Grudzielanek. He's also worked positive trades for guys like Jacque Jones, Neifi Perez and others who many fans didn't think had much value at all. Hendry has proven to be very good at making trades (with a few exceptions, of course). Jacque Jones was a free agent signing. And how was Neifi Perez a positive?

As I posted earlier, I'm not sure how many teams are going to be involved if they have to give up something of value and pay most of Bradley's contract. I think the "interest" in Bradley comes from the fact that the other GMs know they have all the leverage. The other GMs have seen the stories about Bradley and have read the quotes from Lou and Hendry basically stating that Bradley will be traded because nobody wants him back. When you see the low-payroll Padres are interested, you know teams are looking for a something-for-nothing deal. Actually with all the negative publicity and the national media claiming Hendry will have to eat 80% - 85% of his contract, I'm surprised there aren't 20 teams interested at this point. I've also seen teams like the Mets interested as well. If Hendry can get one or two teams like the Mets bidding against each other, how much he has to pay of Bradley's contract will likely decrease. And the fact that Bradley is probably the best corner OF on the market means that a team with a need there might be willing to give more and make more of an effort to outbid others. I don't expect anybody to pay most of Bradley's salary, but the more teams that are involved the more likely it becomes that the Cubs aren't paying 80+% of his contract. Sure the Mets are interested as long as we're willing to take Oliver Perez for Bradley. I think you dramatically underestimate how much teams will value Bradley independent of a discount that may or may not come. The discount is not the only reason there is interest.

If there's multiple teams involved, it barely even matters that Hendry wants him gone as they're going to have to bid relative to each other not relative to how much the Cubs want Bradley gone.

This guy is just about as good as Ichiro.

If as many teams are as interested in Bradley as is reported, we won't be paying 90% of his salary and getting nothing back.

Not to dig up something earlier in the thread, but it's just stunning that Mangini can really justify starting Anderson over Quinn to himself.

professional baseball is not an individual sport nor is it charitable. Maybe if the teams would congratulate each other after each game like tennis or Olympic style wrestling there would be less anomosity Baseball is really the only sport that doesn't. After every football game players shake hands, at the end of the post season series in basketball the shake hands same in hockey, in soccer they exchange jerseys. Those are all team sports right. Maybe we should just make them run laps until there is less anomosity. I guess we can agree to disagree because I will root for the Cards this time because I hate anything LA and ESPN has killed any enthusiasm for NY or Boston. Vlad and LAA well it is LA and Detroit well it's Detroit. That leaves Col. and St. Louis and after the disastrous series I got to witness in person at Col. So you're going to root for St. Louis for a completely different reason than the one that was being argued?

Downgrading at two positions and getting more expensive? Where do I sign?

Well it wouldn't count against him if you're an AL GM, but a DH doesn't help much if you're a NL GM. The fact that he's only once been a fulltime DH shouldn't really count against him. He was healthy in the field this year.

No, there's not. That OBP difference is enormous. You're looking at the stats that prove you wrong, you're just not acknowledging them.

Wins by Iowa and Michigan would set up a very interesting game next weekend. I'm pulling for both of them.

I didn't know Rowand played good defense. Here I thought he just made flashy plays and was an okay defender.

Thank you. i don't think that there's a sweeter sound in the universe than when the opponent is driving and you hear thayer scream "ball!" I prefer Ron Santo's collection of celebration noises.

Using career stats, they're not close. Using recent stats, they're even further apart. What in the world stats are you looking at?