jersey cubs fan

It's be about 20 degrees. That's not significant from a "Bears weather" point of view, but it could be from a 52 year old QB and a dome team point of view. Favre has been a cold weather dud of late. It would be hilarious to see him lay an egg and continue the inevitable downfall of the Vikings this year.

A guy at work knows I'm dealthly afraid the Cubs will go for Melky and he's been taunting me with Leche comments. Even Yankees fans have stopped hyping the guy.

Yep, and after one year they were back to third place, 19 out of first and 11 out of the wild card despite 1 more win than the Cubs. You should seperate lusting over their talent with wishing you were in their position. The Cubs are in a fantastic position, the biggest fish in a small pond, that's much harder to fix than the level of talent.

The key word being "slowly". Indeed, one that they've been building for what... 12 years now? :) But they're on the brink right now. Their system is stacked with talent. They're not gonna win this year, but they might shock some teams in 2011. Just looking at their list young players makes me envious. Except they are still in the AL East.

I can't believe this discussion is still going. It's absurd. Hendry has done a worse job than higher payroll teams and he's done a worse job than lower payroll teams. Most teams that aren't doing a bang up job during that timeframe have switched GMs. It's absolutely absurd that anybody would even attempt to justify supporting Jim Hendry. He has been horrible.

Definitely not going to happen, he's the cubs version of kirk hinrich. Management likes him too much and wont deal him. Even if Starlin bats .500 in spring training and makes the big league club, the cubs would then shift theriot to 2nd. I dont like theriot either and i think his range and noodle arm costs us on defense but i dont see the cubs trading him away. You're right. The next problem is that while other teams may like him, what would they be willing to give up for him. Sever is right, but I also agree with where you were going with your post. No one is going to offer that much for him, because he's not going to be cheap for very long. In fact, he'd probably be a non tender candidate as early as next year. This is another Kelly Johnson type of scenario. He doesn't have to be the sole piece of a trade.

Is there any doubt the Bulls are going to fail to land a big fish free agent? Or do people still think that's going to actually happen?

The problem with that is most sources only list opening day payroll, they don't list guys you are paying to play elsewhere (a Hendry specialty), guys you acquire midseason, or midseason salary dumps. For the a while the MO of the Cubs was to go into the season with a certain level of payroll, but be willing to add aggressively in July. Then the Cubs just went balls out spending that money in November.

I thought you said stopped, and I figured he was mouthing off again. Absolutely he should be shopped. I think he might have one cost effective season left in him, then you start running out of teams where he could be useful. For a team with as many question marks in the lineup as the Cubs, they really can't afford to have such a non-productive player locked into a position year after year.

But why? If you are going to make a change, what is the point/benefit of delaying that change? Because you don't have to have someone Ron Turner or Bob Babich or Pep Hamilton or Rode Marinelli or one of the other bad coaches on this team take over in the interim. What's the point of going to one bad lame duck coach to another bad lame duck coach? I mean, if they think they can get Shanahan or Cowher easier by firing Lovie now, then I'm all for it. But short of that, I just think it's kind of pointless. The point is you can do away with all pretenses of dealing with back channel negotiations with your most wanted replacement candidates because the job is truly open. You can throw the fans a bit of a bone even if you are going to lose, and you can shake up the players a bit with 2 games to play to reiterate how important it is to play their best. That message is not getting across right now. Some guys don't even look like they are trying. Bottom line, if you are going to make a change, get the ball rolling on that change right now.

Is it me or has Altanta traded for a half dozen mediocre outfielders the past couple years? I hope this isn't a case of them acquiring Melky to spin him off to the Cubs.

That's silly, it came up much earlier, and who cares how unclear the title is? Having titles state exactly what the thread is about is boring anyway.

Top of my head, (assuming they're not talking strictly defense) they're probably right. ARod, even if he played SS for only half the decade, he was the best SS of the decade. And I thought Utley was a defensive liability.

But why? If you are going to make a change, what is the point/benefit of delaying that change?

They can be, but they are also very rare. I'd much rather have a franchise tackle than tight end. Most "next big thing" TE's just wind up as role players and/or interchangable parts. And of course Chicago doesn't even try to get Olsen the ball in the red zone.

I know you know this and it was an oversight in your list...but an upgraded OL is also a must. I've been calling for that for years now, at this point it's almost painful to repeat. Seriously, while everybody else was dying for the next great TE, I was begging for offensive line help and more than happy with Desmond Clark.

The last two weeks certainly provided more than enough reason, but I can't see that Christmas present happening just yet. Yeah...what would be the point of firing him with 2 weeks left? Let him limp along. He's getting paid well enough to ride it out. The point would be as an olive branch to the fans (Monday night could get really ugly, if not empty), and to give them an opportunity to talk to everybody that is available. I never get the "what's the point of firing midseason" sentiments. And I can't believe that about a month ago there were media members essentially laughing at the notion that Lovie needed to go. This team has been a major disappointment since the Super Bowl, the only marginal positive was the Cutler trade, and that has been all but a disaster to this point.

The last two weeks certainly provided more than enough reason, but I can't see that Christmas present happening just yet.

I think with the right coaching staff, this receiver unit could be good. Based on what? Hester has shown that even with a joke of a system he is a solid 2. Bennet has shown he has skills and ability to contribute on a weekly basis, Aromashamalamadoo is a nice option (although Cutler has done a horrible job telegraphing his targetting of the guy). Knox can be just as good a 2 as Hester. Who knows about Iglesias. This team is a joke but all they had was a passing game earlier in the season, now Cutler has completely tanked and they have nothing. I think they need one impact receiver, and a real OC and they'd all be much more productive.

That would be nice, but I really don't think you can say this team "needs" anything. They are very good. They have 27 games until the Olympic break, and after that they can hopefully start think about getting back some of their better players. But this team is going to make the playoffs and all that really matters is they are as strong as possible then, they are doing fine as is right now.

Your excuse making is mindboggling. It's as if you really enjoy mediocre baseball teams. Since Hendry took the job, the Cubs have averaged 83.8 wins. Philly has averaged 88.4, Atlanta, who went through some payroll trimming turmoil has averaged 86.8. By the way, Florida has averaged 82.8. The Cubs have been 1 win per year better than the Marlins, but 4.6 wins per year worse than Philly. The White Sox are 85.4, same as the Dodgers. The White Sox have been relatively better than the Cubs at a greater rate than the Marlins have been relatively worse than the Cubs. The Tigers had the historically bad 2003 team and were nowhere near a top payroll team until a couple years ago. There's no argument for support of Hendry. He's done a poor job constructing mediocre baseabll teams with very high budgets. He's been given more than enough time, more than enough resources and more than enough excuses. He's used the injury excuse on multiple occasions even though he consistently builds teams without regard for players with extensive injury histories. He's used the ownership change excuse even though his payroll went up during that time while others teams dealt with ownership turmoil as well as cost cutting. He's had 2 high profile high paid managers, several high cost free agents, and a decided advantage over the most important competition, the divisional opponents, but has not done nearly enough to justify supporting his performance. If it wasn't for one friend signing him an to an extension the day before he walked out the door, and another guy handing him further extension to "maintain stability" while the team was being sold and he was free to do as he pleased, he would have been booted long ago.

This is the one area where I take some issue with the argument that the Cubs should trade Zambrano for financial reasons. While this is a substantial amount of money in real terms, I don't think the Cubs need to dump Zambrano just to clear up the space needed to be a team that spends a lot of money on the draft and in player development. The new ownership was going to divert existing resources to doing exactly that. I don't think the Cubs need to use all of the $17.875m owed to Zambrano in order to strengthen the farm system. The resources needed to do that are available to the Cubs; they just need to divert or develop those resources accordingly. Tim was basically saying you could use a portion of the savings toward that upgrade for one year, not the entire thing. I know he wasn't arguing that the Cubs should put the entirety of the $17.875m due to Zambrano to use on the farm system (although that would be a rather interesting experiment). My argument was that the Cubs didn't need to trade Zambrano and use a portion of the money saved to upgrade the farm system. My basic argument was that the Cubs don't have to trade Zambrano if they want to upgrade the farm system. No, they don't "need" to, but that money could make the investment that much more valuable. I don't think he was saying, "trade Zambrano so we can afford a better farm system". He was saying "trade Zambrano because you can get back something of value and better use that money on others players, plus maybe have a little extra leftover to throw toward the farm in the short-term."

This is the one area where I take some issue with the argument that the Cubs should trade Zambrano for financial reasons. While this is a substantial amount of money in real terms, I don't think the Cubs need to dump Zambrano just to clear up the space needed to be a team that spends a lot of money on the draft and in player development. The new ownership was going to divert existing resources to doing exactly that. I don't think the Cubs need to use all of the $17.875m owed to Zambrano in order to strengthen the farm system. The resources needed to do that are available to the Cubs; they just need to divert or develop those resources accordingly. Tim was basically saying you could use a portion of the savings toward that upgrade for one year, not the entire thing.

I don't know about him staying in Chicago or not, but bearing a major injury, he is opting out. No doubt. At the very least he can make the same amount as now but tack on a few extra years of guaranteed cash. In addition to the no-brainer move to get more money, I'm not sure how much more of this crap Aramis wants to deal with. He's still villified in some circles for being fat and lazy, for not being there when Lee went down and crap like that. He's dealt with lots of injuries in his career and probably thinks his chances for a title are dwindling. I do believe he honestly likes being a Cub, in general, but I think a potentially miserable 2010 could easily push him out the door to any number of more frequently competitive teams that could use a bat like his.

And Hendry is the one that had to hire him and give him everything he wanted even if what he wanted changed on a daily basis (which just goes along with Hendry's yearly changes so nicely).