jersey cubs fan

Which just makes it more maddening. Why is priority number 1 raising Zambrano's velocity? If that's your goal then go ahead and move every starter to the bullpen. That's just half assed reasoning to excuse an extremely dumb decision that management refuses to accept blame on.

You're right. According to this board 99% of the problems with the Cubs this year is Lou and Hendry. The blame is on Hendry. It's his crappy team that he did a crap job putting together.

They were great years. Maybe not great in terms of keeping Jim Hendry in a job, but definitely great in terms of J.R. enjoying the respective seasons. Exactly. You're both lying. 2000 was abysmal. 2001 was barely a blip. 2002 was abysmal. 2003 was great. 2004 started great, but then started to get really crappy really crappy until it all fell apart. 2005 was a huge failure. 2006 was a huge failure. 2007 was a nice little season. 2008 was great. 2009 was a big bummer. You are just flat out lying if you say the 2000s were great in terms of your Cubs fandom, or that your enjoyment of them was great.

It's nice to be able to play against mediocre teams all playoffs long.

A friend of mine has always refused to watch early season hockey because it pales in comparison to playoff hockey in terms of pace and intensity. I think every playoff game I've seen this year has paled in comparison to the pace from last night's game.

did he cut his hair?

Because it wouldn't make sense to demote him to AA? It's been mentioned they probably want to get him used to working as a reliever for a little bit before he actually pitches in the big league bullpen.

Oh absolutely that's what they do. Although I wouldn't assume one guy is going to get stuck in such a role. Marmol got moved to closer. They could find that 8th inning guy for this year, and then next year might be obsessed over finding a 5th starter, in which case they might move that guy to the rotation.

Maybe not necessary, but if the plan is to put him in the major league bullpen this summer, giving him a couple outings there in AAA couldn't hurt.

What exactly is the benefit? Doesn't this lower his trade value? It lowers his trade value in the short term, sure... But I'm actually buying Jackson as somebody who can step into the 8th inning on the big league club almost immediately. I think it actually does very little to his trade value in the short term, although it could severely limit his value if he stays in the bullpen for an extended period of time (unless he's amazing in the major league bullpen).

Because his slow running resulted in them not being able to score a run that nearly anybody else could have scored.

If giants fans are hungry for highlights, there are always much better options than an espn show.

That's incredibly ugly. It looks like an industrial park.

http://gawker.com/5540120/what-insanely-rich-person-will-move-into-this-16-million-new-jersey-mansion If you're wondering why Lebron would even consider playing in NJ and not in Manhattan. http://cache.gawkerassets.com/assets/images/7/2010/05/500x_house2big_01.jpg

I don't know about way off. Lou is going to keep his job, and you can mark down today as the day he said what he said. 2 out of 3 ain't bad.

http://deadspin.com/5541638/what-to-do-with-hanley-ramirez *that's not really what he said*

That would be absurd. That's not a regular player, that's the definition of a journeyman player. The whole point is about developing guys who are good enough to start every day and contribute positively to your team. If it takes a guy a decade to get a few seasons worth of PA, he's not a regular. The only info I have is what I got from this thread but if Girardi is a regular everyday play with 4000 PAs in 15 years how can Patterson not be with 3780 PAs in 11 years? I'm not saying Patterson is a everyday player, just that PAs in a career is probably not the best way to make the distinction. No, it's not. But the other difference is that catchers play different schedules. Most of them take one or two days off a week, most regulars don't.

I can only respond to what he wrote. And given his other comments on the subject matter, yes, I truly do believe he thinks the 2000s were literally great for the Cubs and their fans despite the fact that they failed to capitalize on what was thought of by many as a promising decade to come. But that's still subjective. The 00's can definitely be "great" for a Cubs fan, relatively speaking. It's not a right or wrong position to take. Compared to the other decades I've been a Cubs fan, I definitely found the 00's to be "great." I can't comprehend how that is possible. In 98/99/00 people were talking about a decade of dominance to come from the Cubs due to a resurgent farm system. As the decade progressed payroll just kept going up in actual figures and in comparison to the competition, yet they failed by any stretch of the imagination to capitalize on all the momentum. A 90 win season is great, and the Cubs had one of those all decade, compared to three 90 loss seasons. They had several miserable seasons. Their biggest rival won a World Series, their title starved brothers in Boston won 2, their title starved hated brother in Chicago won 1. A potential rotation for the ages fell apart in virtually no time. It was a mediocre decade with a couple bright moments. And while somebody might claim in comparison to the previous decade it was a rousing success, in comparison to expectations entering the decade they fell well short. I just don't see how anybody taking a reasonable view of the decade can claim it was great.

I can only respond to what he wrote. And given his other comments on the subject matter, yes, I truly do believe he thinks the 2000s were literally great for the Cubs and their fans despite the fact that they failed to capitalize on what was thought of by many as a promising decade to come.

Bad. Mother. F***er. Such a lazy bat toss.

i kind of feel like that about when i was at game 5 of the NLCS when the cubs went up 3-1 in the series. the stadium was all cubs fans and at the time, we thought we had basically just won the pennant and were going to the world series. i'll never forget what the place was like after the game. the tunnels were completely swarming with cubs fans just yelling and high fiving everyone that walked past. people were doing the hop/high five thing that sosa/alou/lofton did in the outfield after wins too. it was completely insane. craziest sports moment of my life, even though it ended up being meaningless. This is so angsty and stupid and just flat-out wrong. I swear, some Cubs fans don't deserve a WS. this doesn't even really make sense. are you telling me how i feel about that season? or are you saying that the horrible collapse after game 4 didn't take away any of the impact that the previous games had? I'm saying it isn't rendered meaningless by what happened in the following games. You were there, you and everyone else were elated by what was going on. I don't see why this should be something negative in your memory. It's certainly not meaningless. You were lucky to be there, in that moment. Your current evaluation of this memory is most definitely angsty, in my opinion. Reading what he wrote it's pretty clear that isn't something negative in his memory, he just added that line to the end to acknowledge the obvious.

Your mop up guys can still take mop up duty. But your 9th and 10th guys on your staff have to be counted on for something already.

I think you might be misremembering. There's no way you had championship hopes in 2000 or 2001. Nobody even thought 2003 was going to be special until June. I would bet the only seasons people went into with legit championship hopes were 2004, 2008 and 2009.

No they weren't. They were mediocre. 4 sub .500 seasons, 3 95 loss seasons and only 1 90 win season. 3 playoff appearances in 10 years despite a substantial financial advantage over the competition. The Angels, Twins and Athletics had great 2000's, the Cubs just managed to not suck as much as they did the previous decade. I like how you make this response as if someone can be wrong for enjoying the Cubs in the 00's compared to the 90's. What are you talking about? How do you get that at all? Seriously? My response was about the 2000's and how they were clearly not great. I even pointed out that the only reason somebody would pretend they were great is because they didn't suck as much as the 90's.

I would be interested in seeing something like that, but I never would have predicted it would start with an $18m starter with a multi year contract.