jersey cubs fan

You mean 2 minutes ago, or 5 minutes ago, or 6 minutes ago, or 6 minutes 7 seconds ago, or 9 minutes ago.............................. They are showing him a lot.

I think it may be because there's no one in the organization with authority telling Ricketts, "Hey, this guy's an idiot." Just my opinion. No "baseball man" in line for the president's role is going to come in and tell Ricketts that Hendry is an idiot. Jim Hendry is a card carrying member of the baseball man fraternity.

Sometimes I feel like people forget that Major Wright was a third round pick. He was never going to be a major impact player. Him missing time probably doesn't matter for this year.

price is getting rocked

That ball was crushed. Off the bat my initial reaction was like that ball is way gone, then the camera panned to CF and the announcers weren't even getting excited or acting like it was going out. Then I see it land on the top of that building/roof/restaurant out there. Yeah it was [expletive] pulverized. It looked more impressive on the live behind home plate look than on the replay.

Want to know why the Bears offensive line sucks almost every year and has really only managed a couple seasons of decent play? It's becasue the GM is delusional. Cohesion is worthless without talent. You aren't going to get a line playing well just through coaching and playing together every week. It's that myth that has kept Olin Kreutz the most important part of this line despite playing the least important position on the line. You can probably make an average line pretty darn good under the right circumstances, but you aren't going to make a crappy line great just by hiring a new coach. And in the age of free agency and salary caps you can't just rely on cohesion to make you good. Guys are going to leave and fresh bodies have to be resupplied constantly. The goal should not be to have the same starting 5 week after week, the goal should be to have the best 5 lineman you can find.

Cutler is skipping media session today, supposedly pushed back to Thursday or later.

They knocked 12.5 off payroll during the season? I don't think that is the case.

Whos overrating him? Hes better than Mark Anderson/Charles Grant/Other crap on our roster at DE. Brown paired with Peppers would be a definite upgrade over any of those other guys. Yeah, but it was hardly a huge mistake to get rid of him. Mark Anderson sucking and getting cut doesn't mean the Bears should have paid Alex Brown what he was getting paid for another season. In a salary cap year, sure. But unless you can replace him, which they couldn't, then it absolutely does mean you keep him.

Why are people insinuating or intimating that Simmons' rogue tweet made this trade happen?

That's a horrible reason to root for the Yankees. Everyone does not hate them. People everywhere love them. You can find Yankees crap everywhere. I agree with your assessment of Red Sox fans, and I could see rooting for the Yankees over Boston right now.

That just doesn't make any sense.

I don't see how that is true Well Cubs payroll is supposedly going to drop slightly, so we have to probably shed a little excess salary to fit Dunn in there, unless we don't plan on making a lot of other moves (bullpen, 4th-5th starter, bench guys, etc). Cubs are probably set on an OF of Soriano, Byrd, and Colvin next year and it wouldn't make sense in their minds to keep a $10 mil 4th OF. If they can save some money by getting rid of him they probably will. I'd prefer to keep him but that's how I see it playing out. He was their most productive OF this year. They may be stupid enough to pay him to play elsewhere, but there's no reason why they "might have to".

I don't see how that is true

won't be missed

So then hiring a baseball man as president isn't going to change that. Why? If you hire a President of Baseball Ops, he would have the authority to make that sort of move, in all likelihood. The bottom line for me is this: I'm not happy with the current situation of the Cubs and I want some changes. Since it doesn't appear Ricketts will be firing Hendry anytime soon, this is an option for us that can bring us something different. Would he necessarily fire Hendry? Maybe not. Would he conceivably make changes that Hendry wouldn't make? Probably so. Would they necessarily be good for the Cubs? Who knows? But, I'm willing to take the chance on something new and I really don't see how anyone could say anything differently, unless you're content on having an average baseball team with a very high payroll. So to anyone who disagrees with this statement, answer this question for me: Assuming Hendry is around through the end of his contract(2 more years) do you want to wait it out and see what state we're in once he's done at that point? That's not what I want but if I have to make that assumption than that's what we are left with. A president isn't going to change Jim Hendry.

So then hiring a baseball man as president isn't going to change that.

Of course not. And a baseball man becoming president wouldn't change my confidence one iota unless that baseball man's first order of business was canning Jim Hendry. And isn't that potentially a great reason for hiring one in the first place? No. Just fire Jim Hendry now. There's no reason to hire somebody else to fire Hendry.

Of course not. And a baseball man becoming president wouldn't change my confidence one iota unless that baseball man's first order of business was canning Jim Hendry.

Depends on the player, position and system. The Vikings are just going to tell Randy Moss to go deep, not really much to learn. Devin Hester being traded to Kansas City midseason would probably be rough.

I don't think the people in this thread (specifically TT) believe Fukudome has to go, they're just believing the idiots in charge believe it. I realize that, I'm just talking about how matter of factly people are treating it. Trib people have referenced many times how dealing Fukudome is a must, most people aren't even fighting it. They just wonder how much of his deal they have to eat.

It had to be something like insubordination, right? There's more to it than football. I don't think he's any good, but this new guy cannot be better.

I can't believe how matter of factly many people are treating the Fukudome has to go storyline. I should believe it, but I can't.

Well of course. What, did they think the league was just going to let him skate by? This is sounding so stupid. I was beginning to think the only reason they signed him was to highlight the starcaps case that is hanging over those Vikings players. This is nuts.

Then why are you asking what kind of job Hendry could have done with a baseball man as his boss? It's already been done. It's just not important, unless it's the only way to get rid of Jim Hendry (which of course it is not). The solution is getting rid of Hendry. There are plenty of non baseball men running baseball teams from the president's office. You are officially arguing with yourself. I was discussing in the hypothetical what kinds of decisions Hendry would have made in the past few offseasons if he had someone to tell him no. I theorized that it would have made more sense to have someone with knowledge of baseball in that position rather than a former legal counsel. I then said that I would appreciate someone in with that knowledge as president moving forward regardless of who is GM instead of a former legal counsel. Never once did I say that Hendry deserves to continue having his job. Never once did I say that MacPhail was a good president. But he was a president with the baseball man stamp and he failed, so why are you insisting that's what the team needs? You don't need a baseball man as president. Trusted baseball men are some of the stupidest people in the game. You need a competent GM. It really doesn't matter what line of work the president has in his history. People ridiculed McDonough for being nothing but a marketing man, but he's found success presiding over another sports team. The Yankees are run by a nothing but finance and law men, and the GM does the GM stuff.