jersey cubs fan

you pathetic enablers

Didn't it just get a huge cash infusion from venture capitalists? It may suck but it is relevant. Relevant to whom? I'm not questioning the truth of your comment, just curious. If it weren't for people posting about how horrible it is on nsbb, I wouldn't even know it existed. To me, as far as I can gather, it's just another random site someone put up to post their ramblings. There are thousands of them. And among those thousands, it might be the biggest "random site" out there. I don't know who its audience is, but deadspin and KSK refer to it regularly.

Yeah, some people were griping about his "attitude" and "selfishness" pretty much every season he was on the Cubs and they sucked (AKA pretty much every season). "Sammy only coming through for Sammy after it was too late" was pretty common meme, especially after the home run race. Not saying it was the dominant mentality, but it wasn't hard to find/hear, either. My recollection was that Sammy was kind of all flash and no substance prior to learning how to take a walk and really blowing up in 98. But going back to his pre 98 numbers, he was regularly putting up 4+ WAR seasons. As a sidenote, I always remember a friend's dad (Mets fan in NJ) saying he was rooting for McGwire in the homerun race and all his reasoning pretty much worked as code about how it was because McGwire was white.

Didn't it just get a huge cash infusion from venture capitalists? It may suck but it is relevant.

That's a really odd list of guys you are trying to claim have received unwarranted boos. I defended Grossman to the end, but the guy crapped the bed repeatedly. He stunk and almost all of the success they had was in spite of him. Bradley was horrible and an [expletive]. Soriano was just the wrong acquisition. He's done about as well as could be reasonably expected, it's just easier to boo the player than the idiot GM. And Cutler has carried this team of late.

What the heck does that even mean? He's the starting WR in a pass happy offense, how in the hell is whatever he gives us a bonus? He has to produce.

And this catch: That looked kind of awkward. Almost like he didn't exactly dive for the ball but rather just went limp after catching it on the run. Thats an amazingly difficult catch, and he made it look easy on a full sprint. Love to see you out there attempting it, if you can get out of your computer chair :yahoo: But seriously though, what a talent. And they tried to make him a catcher. HA! ok

For the most part, Lee didn't seem to have an issue. Or Marlon Byrd. Mark Prior, however, did. I think the scapegoats tend to originate from players that aren't open with the media, as the beat writers and columnists are often the ones who start these crusades. I totally agree. But there does seem to be a recent and growing anti-Latino bent. I think it's a pale reflection of the general mood of the country. For all the fun and games we have making fun of the anti-Latino thing, there are pretty obvious reasons why these guys are targets. I love Ramirez. I love what he's done with the Cubs. But he really doesn't look like much of a tryer, and it has nothing to do with skin color. Milton Bradley was an unproductive surly prick. People freak out about body language and how athletes look. Jay Cutler gets dumped on for his body language. Reed Johnson isn't very good, but somehow he keeps producing and he looks like he tries really hard, and people love that. Todd Hundley didn't produce worth a crap and he looked like he as constantly waking up in strange hallways, which was probably the case. And people hated him. Some people still insist Ryan Dempster sucks because of some blown saves. Nobody can stand John Grabow. On the fringes there are definitely racial overtones to many statements about certain players. But by and large the perception comes from the reality of how the player acts, and that is the case in every city in America. It's hardly a Chicago thing.

I guess it depends on what you mean by poorly. 2012 will be a grace period where almost any result would be accepted by Ricketts. But if they aren't winning 85 games by 2014, I'm guessing the new guy will start to have pressure. If they go out and win 81 games every year, that would be a poor job, but he'd probably keep it for a long time. The GM's going to be judged more on the decisions they make in the short to medium term versus wins and losses. The manager will get the heat unless the new GM makes a bunch of dumb moves. Obviously if the team is sub-.500 for several years the GM would get canned but that doesn't seem likely with the amount of $$$ the Cubs have to play with. In the very short-term, sure. But the GM is going to hire that manager. And judging deals is subjective. If the team loses for 3 straight years, he should get a lot of blame. This isn't rebuilding Pittsburgh.

I guess it depends on what you mean by poorly. 2012 will be a grace period where almost any result would be accepted by Ricketts. But if they aren't winning 85 games by 2014, I'm guessing the new guy will start to have pressure. If they go out and win 81 games every year, that would be a poor job, but he'd probably keep it for a long time.

I love the notion that you would hire a GM based on which manager you expect him to hire.

The same way John McDonough became team president(!). These guys know how to sell themselves. But Team President the way McDonough was team president was a different situation. He wasn't involved in the on-field product. Really? My understanding is that he was a direct successor to MacPhail on the Tribune org chart, and was involved in the monster contracts of the '06/'07 offseason. He sounded very much like a factor on the baseball side when he was talking about putting the Cubs in the World Series on that dreary day at the end of the 2006 season. McDonough got the job because MacPhail left just as the sale process was heating up and they weren't going to go out and hire a new guy. He was just minding the ship. Coletti moved from one team's PR department to another team's PR department and became a GM after that, which is completely different from the president's job and the way McDonough got that job.

Probably had something to do with all the knob slobbing.

And this catch: That looked kind of awkward. Almost like he didn't exactly dive for the ball but rather just went limp after catching it on the run.

Bears only getting 4 days off before this game, and another 4 more before the last game. Kind of strange. But we're 17 days away from when it counts.

I heard this too, and it's probably not so crazy to believe even if it's just a vague memory. Soccer is the next great frontier in American sports. Guys like Beane would be very interested in getting in on the proverbial ground floor. As someone who doesn't "get it" with soccer, I hope America gets bored of sports and moves onto math and science before soccer goes crazy here. Though I guess it's infinitely better than our dumbass version of football and it's 12 minutes of game time. I have no idea what the heck any of this is supposed to mean.

Depending on when the claim went through, he got past either every other team, or every other team except for the Red Sox. Not surprising there would be such limited interest in an underproductive 1B.

Does Rosenthal understand the Cubs could still sign Pena for next season as a free agent? I can understand if the Cubs don't get an offer worth taking, but to use 2012 as the reason for pulling Pena back is kind of dumb. It would be part of the reason, along with not getting anything of value in return. The fact is it's easier to keep your own free agents than acquire them from other teams. Obviously it would suck balls if the Cubs intended of going into 2012 with Pena as the 1B, but that's another issue.

He took a line drive off his pitching elbow, and then his manager left him in the game to pitch? I'm very certain he didn't stay in that game. He collided with Marcus Giles, landed on his pitching shoulder and stayed in that game. His manager abused the crap out of him, regularly using him for 110+ outings for something like 10 games in a row down the stretch when his workload went far beyond what his body was used to handling. God I hate Dusty Baker. What a scumbag.

Sure, but it's not true that you should never volunteer to pay out more money at the start than at the end. You can get the overall value of the contract lower, and can fit it into your budget better when appropriate. There are a variety of factors to take into account, including expected tax rates. If 2 teams are offering the same guy 2/50, you can front load it to make your offer more attractive. In general, yes, it's cheaper to backload. But paying more early on can make sense and you should not completely rule it out.

Why?

The Cubs are in this situation because they allowed Jim Hendry to run the damn team for too damn long (which is more than a day).

Not sure why retread is being used. Jim Bowden is a retread. Brian Cashman is not. Just because somebody already is or has been a GM doesn't make them a retread. I think he's asking if guys like Cashman and Friedman bow out of the race and the choice comes down to a Bowden or Phillips type vs. a Rick Hahn or Kim Ng. But that doesn't make sense when talking about a proven guy from a winning front office. I doubt it'll come down to such a situation, but I also doubt that Ricketts will stick to some specific criteria like that. He's looking for the best candidate overall, not one description over the other.

Not sure why retread is being used. Jim Bowden is a retread. Brian Cashman is not. Just because somebody already is or has been a GM doesn't make them a retread.

All of which is very exciting. But he's got one pre-arbitration year left and he's still a 3-WAR player if you take the most generous estimations of his defense and a 2 WAR player if you don't. Not exactly the caliber of player that makes me think "Oh man, you can't possibly afford to waste these sweet cheap pre-FA years." You don't seem to understand what the heck people are talking about when they refer to wasting his cheap years. By the time he no longer has any flaws, he'll make $20m a year.