jersey cubs fan

The White Sox are decent, better than the Cubs at least in terms of consistent winning, while Detroit has been a threat since they went through that disaster season, and Cleveland puts together a good team every other year. I think they compare favorably with the NL Central, which gets an extra crappy team to kick around every year.

I'd bet the Yankees are floating this to get Damon's demands back in-line with that market.

I believe they ended up in the hands of Liberty Media after all the Time Warner, TBS, Ted Turner fallout and whatnot. Unlike Turner Media, or even Tribune, Liberty Media can't have much if any reason to give a crap about the results of the Atlanta Braves.

What's wrong with him is he's not good. He's fine to fill a spot at a cheap price. He's a 7 or 8 hole hitter that a good lineup should not have anywhere near the top. His supposed offensive strength is that he gets on base, but he doesn't get on base all that frequently and is a frequently GIDP maker. He can't run the bases worth a crap, whether you are talking about his horrible base stealing or simply going base to base. He makes boneheaded moves with regularity, and yet he's praised by so many as some sort of mythical gutsy "plays the game the right way" savant. He's an okay roster filler player who has already passed his prime and didn't do all that much and will lose most of his value as he rises up the arbitration ladder. 30+ year old middle infielders have a tough time maintaining their defense as well as their offensive abilities especially if it's predicated on speed. Theriot is poised for a return to his absolutely piss poor 2007 and that's frightening. Maybe that doesn't happen this year, but odds are that given the Cubs and the way they operate, they will allow it to happen while he's under contract with the team and highly compensated. I don't hate Theriot the player as much as I hate the absolute stupid level of love the fans give him for doing very little, and I hate people who wear Affliction t-shirts.

NBA games are incredibly boring events to attend. There was more or less a packed house in MSG last night, and absolutely no 'buzz' whatsoever. And the Bulls stink. Rose and that Gibson guy look like the only two guys with interesting ability.

Her articles are all puff pieces. It's PR, not journalism. The fact that it takes effort is meaningless. She works for Cubs.com, what do you expect? I expect to ignore her pointless articles, which is what I do. But I was answering your question.

Unless nobody else could afford to trade for an expensive pitcher in 2010.

Her articles are all puff pieces. It's PR, not journalism. The fact that it takes effort is meaningless.

Squeezing the most out of the roster includes getting best value. If you can get something for him now that you can't once he starts making $5-6m, why not now? Theriot is not going to be the difference in this season. They will win if Soriano rebounds strongly, Soto doesn't suck and the pitching holds up.

I'm not sure how much it matters that a guy didn't play the entire decade at a position. Bonds hasn't played in a few years but he's still the best hitter from this decade. A guy should probably play more than a handful of games to qualify, but none of these names stand out as somebody who hasn't played enough to qualify. I just find it hard to believe that Utley is the best defensive 2B this decade has seen. If he is, then he's worth a bazillion times more than I already thought.

Seriously, you don't even care about trying now. Not sure what this is supposed to mean. I'm not advocating that the Cubs should be run like the Marlins. No but you are intentionally acting like a moron by pretending others are. The problem is the Cubs are no better than the Marlins, when they should be much, much better.

I have literally never heard of this guy He pitched a no-hitter for the Netherlands against Panama in the first WBC. Now you're making up country names.

A lack of eye popping major league stats by age 24 does not indicate anything about a player's upside. In fact, nothing you are talking about relates to upside in anyway.

Except dealing Theriot doesn't even begin to dismantle the team. They would take an offensive hit, with a big defensive upgrade in the short-term. And it would be trading a guy at his highest price. I'm all for waiting until July 31, but my guess is they wouldn't want to make it look like they were giving up the season then (of course, it's not even a guess to say they wouldn't trade him now regardless).

Seriously, you don't even care about trying now.

I know i said that, i wouldn't say he has way more though. Pie hasn't exactly showed great potential to this point. Depends on what he does next year. No, you didn't say that. You said slighly more upside.

It doesn't matter what was important to Hendry.

Surely you can't be oblivious to the fact that in a weak division Hendry's teams have averaged less than 84 wins per year, more or less in line with the Florida Marlins and well below the pace of many similarly financed teams (including those with less resources). He's had more than enough time and has done a poor job, there's no argument to the contrary.

Deadspin would be their competition more than ESPN.

I would be genuinely surprised by a return of Wood (that's what she said). DeRosa can be sold as the super utility guy again, platooning with Fukudome in RF, getting time at 2B and 3B. And he could be cheap depending on where this market goes. I don't see a Wood trade working, and since his contract is tied to games finished and the Cubs are likely to be sticking with Marmol as closer, there could be issues.

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I'm still shocked he gave a 30 year Soriano an 8 year deal. Yeah, I remember being pissy about the length of the deal too. I remember them reasoning it out, saying that Soriano was in such good shape that he'd be fine in the latter parts of the deal. In the end, he was the first guy we had signed that was considered the "top" guy on the market and I was pretty stoked about it, at first. Mainly because it seemed like we were committed to winning for the first time since salaries had escalated. I wish that we had went with Carlos Lee instead NOW and wasn't sure which was the better option then either actually. But, it's neither here, nor there really. Right now, it's obviously looking like a horrible contract and Hendry was the one who signed him and has to bear the brunt of it. It was obviously a horrible contract the day he signed it. Soriano was overhyped because of his Yankee pedrigree and meaningless 40/40 reputation. He was only the top outfielder available and the Cubs were absolutely desperate for outfielders. And even then Barry Bonds was obviously a better option since he could be had short-term. I was resigned to the fact that they pretty much needed to go with Soriano or Lee out of their own pathetic desperation and poor planning, but it was obvious Soriano didn't have longterm productivity coming his way.

I think they'll make moves but not a big splash. I wouldn't predict a splash either. Although if they did it wouldn't surprise me. They've had mostly negative PR this offseason and still need to sell tickets in February in a down economy. I'm just thinking they add some names that they can figure out a way to sell. Somebody like Mark DeRosa isn't a big splash, but he's a name that could be sold.

It would be so apropos if the Cubs decided to outbid the Nationals for a set-up man because they weren't able to offer him the closer's role.

I don't see the Cubs moving people, I see them sticking with what they got, adding some marginal shmoe, and trying to win the division with 85-88 wins, which is entirely possible given the competition. I do expect them to do something before February to actually add excitement for the ticket buyers. I thought there was a chance that could have been the dumping of Bradley and hiring of Sandberg, but now that Bradley has gone about as bad as expected and they aren't getting any substantial positive buzz out of it, there will have to be some sort of name added to make that theory work.