jersey cubs fan

Huh? Most of the contracts are all off the books after 2012. You just have to sign the right FA to go along with whoever the farm system produces. Yeah, current contracts won't hold us back from being able to compete again by 2012-2013. Most are off the books by after the 2011 season and we'll have two FA classes to supplement what our farm system can't fill. The key will be making good decisions leading up to the 2012-2013 seasons. I don't know why people pretend that the contracts that run through 2012 are no big deal. The Cubs have a tremendous amount of money guaranteed in future years, much more than most teams. And those contracts absolutely do affect beyond 2012, because they affect what they can do right now, and right now is when you need to be positioning yourself for the future. You can't just wait up November 1, 2012 and say, okay, we can fix all this now. Every contract handed out affects future payroll flexibility.

Pompei did a piece about how this might be the deepest roster in years, which is meaningless because they've been mediocre for three years. There's an article today apparently about Knox and the receivers feeling like rookies again in a new system.

Bobby Jenks was originally in the Angels' organization and was waived because of underperformance and the Sox claimed him. He would qualify. Santos was originally drafted by the Diamondbacks and bounced around the minors until the Sox picked him up, traded him to the Giants and then 11 days later re-acquired by Chicago (weird). He would also qualify, though he hasn't exactly had a long resume of success to this point. I don't see how they qualify. Jenks wasn't some underutilized stud who wasn't given a chance and the White Sox stole him. Regardless, nobody needs to follow the White Sox model. The Quentin thing worked out nicely for a bit, but the team has been incredibly mediocre for a while now (although they have outperformed the Jim Hendry Cubs).

I guess I was thinking of quality of their football programs with my last post. In terms of value to a conference, Texas is alone at #1. But OU is still head and shoulders above any other team in the conference. I think you can reasonably refer to them as the top 2 in the conference. Historically OU's football program is better than Texas'. Since 1945 OU has the best winning percentage out of any football program, most wins, most weeks ranked #1, most weeks ranked in the top 5, weeks ranked #1 in the BCS, Weeks ranked in the top 5 of the BCS, and the most all-americans. OU has 7 national championships, Texas has 4 (i think) Ou has 42 conference championships, Texas has 32 OU has 142 All-americans, Texas has 129 OU has had 5 heisman winners, Texas has 2 OU has 21 players in the College hall of fame, Texas has 11 OU also has the record for most consecutive victories with 47, a record that will never be broken. But Texas brings more money to a conference because the size of their state and all the viewers in that state. So in terms of bringing money, Texas is number one. In terms of the actual football team, OU is by far number one. and the rest of the athletic department, correct?

Part of the problem is, you can't just "find out" by playing him this year. He could have a one off rookie of the year type season and still be no better than a 4th OF in the long run. I don't see the need to play him everyday. If Fukudome was already gone, fine. But letting an asset sit the bench because you want to see what Colvin may or may not be able to prove to you does not make sense. Unless there's already a deal in the works, I don't see how you can make a quality trade with him sitting everyday. You already have 2 other OF guys who are not 162 game players, why can't you just increase his playing time and see if he maintains his numbers? By benching Fukudome for Colvin you ensure that Fukudome's numbers don't continue to slide any further. In regard to Colvin, I don't think this is the year to treat him with kid gloves. The problem with playing him part time the rest of the year is that you have no idea what to expect next year or any indication of what the team's needs are in the off season. You may view Colvin as a 4th OF at best, but I'm almost certain the Cubs view him as a future starter. If that is the case, he should be out there everyday similar to Castro. Fukudome's history suggests his numbers won't necessarily continued to decline. And playing the guy regularly, but not everyday, is hardly treating him with kid gloves. Additionally, as I just said, playing him everyday will not prove either way if he's your longterm solution or not.

http://deadspin.com/5565332/extremelyin+depth-profiles-in-courage-larissa-riquelme-aka-paraguay-girlnsfw/gallery/ I find myself pulling for Paraguay.

I don't remember what they were from, but I do remember getting these stupid things when I was a kid, like at school fairs or carnivals or some nonsense. Did crappy trinket salesmen just order too many in the 80's and then hand them to south africans like we hand out the losing championship t-shirts? How exactly did they become part of their culture?

I wouldn't mind them at all if they were part of the crowd noise. Problem is, that's all you hear when watching a game, outside of the announcers. This. One of the large squares in Leuven (called "Europes biggest bar" as it's completely surrounded by bars - 35 in total, I think) is devoted to the World Cup, with screens all over the square and flags hanging from every building. I was walking there a few days ago and someone was blowing his vuvuzela. Some random guy walked up to him, snagged the thing from his mouth, folded it in two and threw it to the ground. While he was walking away, I heard a few people clapping. Vuvuzela's suck. http://www.tigersweat.com/movies/animal/anim08.jpg http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a9JYq-mXprw

Fans leaving? They showed a steady stream of fans departing. And unless there's something I'm missing, there are a whole bunch of empty bright blue seats.

Part of the problem is, you can't just "find out" by playing him this year. He could have a one off rookie of the year type season and still be no better than a 4th OF in the long run. I don't see the need to play him everyday. If Fukudome was already gone, fine. But letting an asset sit the bench because you want to see what Colvin may or may not be able to prove to you does not make sense. Unless there's already a deal in the works, I don't see how you can make a quality trade with him sitting everyday. You already have 2 other OF guys who are not 162 game players, why can't you just increase his playing time and see if he maintains his numbers?

is this a dodgers game?

Oh, so since I made you look like a moron you are changing your argument. I should have seen that one coming. To be fair, all you did was point out some rather pedestrian success.

I'm always surprised when preseason hockey starts up again. The offseason seems like nothing when you don't follow the sport much. It's also nothing when you go deep into the playoffs, but fairly long if you don't make them.

did he actually kick the ball, or just trip the guy?

As a non-soccer fan who's trying to be open to it, this is one of the biggest things for me. Entering this world cup, I had heard so much about the atmosphere and how crazy fans of countries got into it. And I'm also a bigger college football fan than NFL because of the frenzy and passion of the fans at the game being much higher (in general) than the NFL. However, with the vuvuzelas, I simply can't hear any fans at all. All I've seen is silent people dancing around. I think crowd noise and "interaction" could help me understand that it's important when two guys are kicking the ball back and forth to each other on the opposite side of the pitch. I remember reading about how cool those horns are going to be and how only stuffy unsophisticated non-soccer fans wouldn't get the cultural brilliance they define. I'm glad pretty much everybody hates them now.

From Bears website. Billed as advertised? Isn't that just saying he's advertised as advartised?

In a vacuum, no. But what really makes no sense is benching Fukudome indefinitely, or making your priority Colvin above all others. I don't care about the platoon for matchups sake as much as I don't think he should play everyday. i'm not sure what you're after here. What does a vacuum have to do with anything? And what does platooning Colving have to do with Fukudome? I'm not advocating playing Colvin as the everyday RF over Fukudome. But if the GM decides he wants to know whether Colvin can be an everyday RF, then he should play everyday (this requires a trade of Fukudome). There isn't enough evidence to establish that he needs a platoon. Alternatively, send Colvin back to AAA and let him play everyday in hopes he gets better. Play Fukudome in RF and use Nady or whomever as his platoon partner. I don't see the need of seeing him play everyday to determine if he can play everyday. All evidence suggests he can't be an everyday RF. So, play him regularly, and if by some miracle his numbers don't slip, as time goes on, play him more. But there's no need to castoff Fukudome for pennies on the dollar because you have to see how Colvin handles everyday duty. Fukudome is an asset.

I'm sure they have a separate budget for both, but at the end of the day, it's all Ricketts' money and he can rob Peter to pay Paul as much as he wants. True, but I doubt he'd lessen the payroll to hire front office guys or bring in more international signees. The more casual fans than us (the vast majority of fans) would not take kindly to that. No, but he could choose to allocate less of the increase to payroll than would otherwise happen.

They already had a guy to just fill out spreadsheets and list nonsensical stats. I'm guessing they actually put some real thought into this hire, and probably had a number of job seakers.

In a vacuum, no. But what really makes no sense is benching Fukudome indefinitely, or making your priority Colvin above all others. I don't care about the platoon for matchups sake as much as I don't think he should play everyday.

When I read fall, I was thinking some weird in-season exhibition.

I consider the end to be June 1, November is the heart of the season, and the trade deadline is the beginning.

That's great and all, and if anybody was actually discussing that sort of thing, maybe it would drown out other conversations. But bitching about the direction of a thread when the direction is still very much about the topic at hand, is kind of ridiculous. And outside of gametime, there just hasn't been much discussion about the world cup, team tactics and stretegy, and so on.

That has to be the funniest post I've read in a long time. Take a page of of Kenny Williams' book? The WS have one of the worst farm systems and he has traded all of his prospects for "young" players like Andruw Jones, Peavy, Pierre, Teahen, and Kotsay. :lol: Did you even read what he said? Williams isn't all that great at his job, but he is smart about what KCF was talking about. Carlos Quentin being the most obvious example, although injuries seem to have kept him from being useful since 2008. As long as he's taking that page, and that page only, that's fine. But I wouldn't want him even looking at the table of contents, let alone reading the whole thing.

DC cabbies were notorious for over-charging. The city had this silly zone system where the cost of the ride was based on how many zones you crossed. Well, you can imagine how this was abused. Definitely. I call out cabbies all the time both here and when I lived in DC for taking bad routes. Maybe jersey's just got bad luck. Well that was a while ago. Most cab rides I take now are either flat rate (in hoboken) or pre-negotiated from manhattan to jersey, or to airport, so it's not really an issue.