RichHillIsABeast

I'd love to see Lugo at 2B next season. A MIF of Lugo/Izturis would be ridiculous. Say what you want about Izturis's bat, dude is awesome in the field. DLee has very good range at 1B. Lugo at 2B would have great range. Izturis has outstanding range. Ramirez is average range-wise. That's a lot of balls that don't make it through the IF and really helps your pitchers out.

100M should be enough to build a solid 1-8 and pitching staff. Not when you lose two aces to injuries it isn't. OBP isn't cheap nowadays, niether is SLG. How many legit aces were traded or acquired in the past season? Those guys aren't replaceable.

See Cardinals/Mets. The Cardinals made it in a crappy division with a Cy Young candidate going once every 5 days. The Mets made it with Pedro, Glavine, Hernandez, etc. They weren't exactly pitching devoid. Z isn't even close to the pitcher Carpenter is, or Pedro for that matter.

I wonder how much the Giles collision and the line drive off the elbow hurt Prior. His mechanics definitely changed. Contrary to some ppl who claim Prior is soft, I think he pitched through pain with those injuries and it cost him. He might be broken forever, but I doubt it's Larry Rothschild's fault. I don't blame Prior either. Sometimes &*^# just happens. What other pitchers has Larry "ruined?" Wood had issues long before Larry came along.

Unless you're the NYY, pitching comes first. We lost 2 aces in Prior and Wood, for whatever reason. Aces don't come along every day. It's that simple. Without pitching, you aren't going to win unless you are ungodly ridiculously stacked 1-9 (2006 NYY for example). Offense is expensive right now. 100M won't buy us enough offense to overcome a rotation of Z and a bunch or young uns or veteran trash.

Sounds like Baker would be a good fit for Oakland. :lol:

I want Soriano for CF. He's a butcher at 2B and Murton can't play CF or RF passably well. Soriano is ML average in LF right now, after 1 season there. Scouts think he can be average in CF given time (or above average in LF). Where would you want Soriano, NA?

Good move, Hendry. No need to waste limited resources.

I believe bids are due back in *4* days, not 40. The article that said 40 was a typo. The bid process should play out quickly. Yeah, 40 seems high. :?

Bids will be submitted after Matsuzaka is officially posted (late November). 40 days later, we'll have a winner for the rights to negotiate a contract with Matsuzaka. I think the winner gets 30 days to negotiate with Matsuzaka. If there is no agreement reached, he has to pitch the next full season in Japan.

would someone please tell us poor souls w/o XM what Hendry says? :)

Out of curiosity, beyond Willis, who else does Girardi have a bad pitcher abuse track record with? Some people (not me) claim that he likes to run pitchers out there after rain delays.

Brenly has actually acknowledged OBP and pitcher abuse during his tenure. Lou has bemoaned OBP and said that baseball needs more "thinkers". If Piniella brings Chambliss and McLaren with him, this might be a good move for the offense. Where are this supposed comments Lou made? He said completely the opposite during the playoffs, constantly stressing plate discipline and the ability to work deep into counts, complaining about poor on-base players in the 2 hole, etc. If Lou thought that way awhile ago, he seems to have changed, which is a great thing! It means he's adaptable and open to new ideas.

That clip is EXACTLY why we need him here - he has the intensity we need I'm...Hoping thats a joke. A hothead manager is exactly what we dont need. We already have one ignorant hot head managing a baseball team in chicago, we dont need another. I have to disagree here. Watching Lou lose his mind will best part about next season. That may be true since the Cubs surely won't do much worth watching. And let the doom and gloom scenarios begin. One minute a manager has hardly impact on the overall team, next minute the hiring of a World Series manager means that the entrie season is lost and the Cubs will be horrible. Do any of you guys who actually listen to him on any of his recent broadcasts? Yesterday's broadcast Made the comment that Craig Monroe (and his .300 OBP) should not have been batting #2 in the batting order. Made numerous comments about the importance of working the count. (throughout the whole series). Made comments about not just giving up outs.(Regard to bunting to move a runner). He sounds like he has a pretty good idea about how to win. Further, Piniella has proven that he can win with a good team. If Hendry signs Lou, I'm sure its with the understanding that Hendry isn't going to be hoping for a good team in 3 years. The best news we could have hoped for was that the Cubs were going to be serious about winning next year, and not continue to give us fans the same old hope and "wait 'til next year" garbage. Yup. I've certainly warmed to Piniella thanks to his comments in the booth.

I think the whole "Dusty has a calming influence" thing has been debunked. The clubhouses got more chaotic the longer he stuck around. Debunked? If you say so. When was the last time the Cubs got in an in-house fight? It was all us against the world. Bradley did have problems with the fans, which Dusty wouldn't have prevented (look at Jones), but the bickering with teammates wouldn't have happened. Bradley would body slam Piniella. He ain't no Rob Dibble. No, the Cubs never punched each other in the clubhouse....that was Bonds and Kent, the 2 star players for Baker's other EX-team. Baker's Cubs just bickered with the announcers, media, fans, and smashed each others' boomboxes. I would say that calming influence has been debunked and then some. Yeah, Sosa and Bonds, the two most massive egos in the game... Any unbiased reported (read: not Baker haters) says that Baker runs a happy, hands off clubhouse, dependent on veteran leadership to do his policing. Does this mean there is an absence of conflict? Heck no. But Baker and his players don't feud. Can you say the same about Piniella? I love Bradley the player and was willing to overlook his faults as person with Baker here. With Bochy, sure. With Girardi or Piniella, no way. A rough approach won't reach Bradley. Do you seriously think Sweet Lou can handle Bradley?

I think the whole "Dusty has a calming influence" thing has been debunked. The clubhouses got more chaotic the longer he stuck around. Debunked? If you say so. When was the last time the Cubs got in an in-house fight? It was all us against the world. Bradley did have problems with the fans, which Dusty wouldn't have prevented (look at Jones), but the bickering with teammates wouldn't have happened. Bradley would body slam Piniella. He ain't no Rob Dibble.

The A's traded Ethier for him...just to put things in perspective.

Bradley and Piniella would be a match made in Hell. I really wanted Bradley this last offseason, but that's when we had Dusty, a manager who keeps his players happy through 96 loss seasons.

Sr. Miles, Are you a Bears fan? What's your favorite ballpark snack? Any word on whether or not Jones will have surgery to fix his shoulder? What do the Cubs think about Barrett's defense? Thanks! :D

Are you a Bears fan, Bruce? If you say "no," you're dead to me. j/k :lol:

He was also talking about how getting on base leads to runs. Yup. Me gusta.

Piniella also went on about how you get the best pitch to see in the AB by waiting instead of swinging away at the first pitch. He said the best baseball players can hit deep in counts. It kind of shocked me. Maybe he wouldn't be so bad. He's not a stats guy, but it doesn't seem like he's Dusty Part II either.

Those parachutes aren't meant to help you survive flying into a stationary object.

The legwork for Ramirez's contract (establishing the max $ he's worth to this team) was probably done during the season since we had advance notice of his opting out. All the Cubs have to do is exchange figures with ARam's agent. That doesn't take a lot of time. If ARam hits the open market, it'll be b/c the Cubs just wouldn't pony up the dough, not b/c Hendry and Co. were spending too much time wining and dining potential managers.

Did anyone see how horrible Z's mechanics in the WBC were? He was trying to throw everything 97+. Him playing in the VWL scares me.