jersey cubs fan

Except they weren't producing good drafts.

I don't get the Barney hate. Sure I love to see more OBP, maybe some pop but he's making the league minimum, plays good defense and hits .300 I would love to get more production out of 2B but with so many other glaring issues and aging/high priced turds with this club I'm not going to hate this kid. how many times has he hit .300 during the course of a minor or major league season? hint: the answer is not greater than zero. but what SSR was not "hating" barney. utility infielders have value. people hated theriot and wanted him to go away; nobody is sying that we should get barney off the team and replace him with whoever is lying around. I think many (of the most vocal) people here are overcritical of Barney, especially in his rookie season. However, besides his defense (which is already pretty good) the only way he will really be useful as a starter is to be a good on-base guy. If he can't do that he's probably role player. Who are these most vocal people? The thing I've heard the most is essentially they don't want the Cubs to turn Barney into Theriot 2.0. That is, don't hand the guy a starting job based on a short period of competence and then get yourself committed to overpaying him because he's some scrappy fan favorite. Barney is perfectly fine as a role player, just like Theriot was perfectly fine as a role player. Don't count on him to be a dependable top of the order starter at 2B in the future. Do view him as a useful asset.

Being out for the year (or should've been out for the year) vs. the continued nagging injuries he's had in '10 and '11 are 2 different things. 2 wins a year certainly hurts at 18M, but it does mean he has some value, and if we have to eat the majority of his contract as we all assume, it makes it difficult to replace that on the free market. I think it's a mistake to assume Soriano won't get any worse going forward.

And once in a generation pitchers fail often enough that taking the sure thing college bat was still the better choice.

Hiring Dusty is an easy number 1 in my book. It was a predictable disaster that pretty much ended exactly how one would think and resulted in a lot bad things that happened along the way. And a personal nuisance of mine is drafting Prior over Teixeira. I think Hendry was in charge of the draft back then, when he was director of player development or whatever that title was. Pitchers are so much more volatile than hitters. Can't miss stud college bats are must drafts. And if you are going to adopt essentially a "rub some dirt on it" mentality to the health of your young arms, it's a no-brainer. Regardless, handing those arms over to Dusty was a travesty.

Nobody has to wonder that. It's been the built in excuse for everybody in the system. The Cubs did not lack for resources allocated to the system. Nobody was handcuffed. If they can only do their job when they have the biggest budget, that is not a good thing.

Quade having a dust up with Dempster and then going off on the umpires the way he did, along with guys like Kerry Wood following suit makes me think things won't be so quiet for very long.

A QB can survive and thrive while getting knocked around if he has top end talent at WR.

The president doesn't have to be some young guy who runs a massive overhaul. He's basically got one real important job, hire the right GM. It could be a 2-3 year committment where he hires a GM, and maybe scouting director + player development guy, and have each of them run their own department. After 2-3 years, Ricketts will have been exposed to a lot more baseball business and should be able to hire the replacement president from a bigger pool of candidates.

I wouldn't assume Ramirez would be too rich for their blood. They are a the only team in a huge market and have built a consistent winner while raising their payroll. There is a significant amount of payroll coming off their books and some of their highest paid players are very replacable. They aren't in any sort of desperation situation, but they are very hungry for offense and are not getting it.

Mark Riggins, do something for once. I was under the impression that at his best he was still an extreme slider user.

I still maintain that this would be perfectly fine, if they had more talent at RB and/or more ability on the line. But even after adding another 1st round linemen they still are very questionable at multiple positions (potentially all 5 actually), and they are steady but far from spectaculiar at RB. Without some a serious talent upgrade, they are still putting all the pressure on Cutler with very limited weapons.

Obviously Brouwer is more valuable to the 2011/12 team than a 2011 draft pick. The point is they traded him for a 1st round pick because a 1st round pick was a good get for Troy Brouwer, who may have only had a year or two left with this team. It's never only about next year's team, and in the end they aren't really missing much with him gone.

Because it's Ian Darke and he's English and those are the words he uses? Plus any American who talks about the sport feels obligated to speak British.

I figured it was because they got a first round draft pick for Troy Brouwer. But it will probably be one of the last first round picks. I think he would have had more value to us on the roster this upcoming season. The deeper the team is, the better. They already used the pick on a guy they wanted. It was about value for a replacable player, not getting rid of Brouwer.

The season itself is pretty much lost. He's had 10 IP combined in June and July with an ERA in the double digits. He'll be lucky to hit 80 innings. Maybe he can salvage it with some time in the AFL, but I don't see the problem with calling his season what it is. He's plenty young enough for it not to be a major problem in the future, but as a guy who started the year in AA and will almost certainly have to repeat the level, plus have his usage monitored closely next year, it is what it is.

He's here! He's here!

http://deadspin.com/5820622/the-100-worst-baseball-players-of-all-time-a-celebration-part-2 bad people category: Quietly very bad:

Oh I agree, I'm just saying there's plenty of examples of players that would benefit their game by learning how to lay down a damn bunt when asked to. Could benefit, there's no guarantee anybody definitely would improve their game, and the improvements that could happen would be so incredibly small so as to barely put a dent in what the entirety of their abilities says they are as a player. The Cubs suck right now and if everybody on the roster put an extra 1000 hours of work into bunting, they would still suck.

I see it being similar to 2011, which is more meh than yikes. It shouldn't destroy their chances, but they sure aren't going to carry the team to great success either.

The final is going to have huge ratings.

that was pretty 3-1

USA retake the lead on a corner kick/header from Wambach

Under the "have you considered another line of work" category