jersey cubs fan

I don't even get what the point is in trying to determine what is theoretically holding down his value. Even if it is the "attitude thing" that doesn't support any notion that Bradley's attitude actually has a negative effect on how a team plays on the field.

There really isn't any clarification needed. I said it would be nice to upgrade from Zambrano to Halladay while at the same time maintaining your net quantity of prospects, because you help the team in the short-term but maintain the longterm help that is required to replace the agining core of the team, Lee, Ramirez, Soriano, Fukudome, Lilly, Dempster. I'm not advocating for any move. I don't see anything of the sort happening. I was pointing out that Halladay is better than Zambrano, and while he's older, that's not much of a factor since Zambrano's relatively young age is offset by all the negative aspects.

Halladay is clearly the better pitcher, but we don't need to do this. We have plenty of prospects, that's not the problem. We may have the prospects, but we also need them. This team will need an influx of young talent to makeup for the inevitable decline and departure of the core of this team, which is already too old. If you can keep your overall prospect balance constant, or near constant, while upgrading your veteran pitching situation, that would be pretty nice. So are the Cubs "already too old", or do they need to "upgrade (their) veteran pitching situation" by swapping a 28YO for a 32YO? You'll get no argument from me that Halladay > Zambrano, but if you're truly concerned about the age of the team, then this is a big step in the wrong direction. It's increasing the age at one spot, but maintaining the prospects. Zambrano isn't young. He's got a lot of miles on his arm and has shown signs of serious wear and tear. Halladay has been a much more stable and effective pitcher. That's not a big step in the wrong direction at all. Halladay is better now and likely to be better for a few years. You upgrade the team, but at the same time you don't trade away prospects, or at least you don't take a significant net hit in prospects. I see no way this actually happens, but it would be a good thing for the Cubs if it could. The advantage of having prospects around to replace the older core is they are cheaper to employ, have room for upside, and presumably have a much larger window of time where they can be useful. Zambrano is already ridiculously expensive, he's shown a likelihood of already having passed his prime and settling into a lesser pitcher, and he may or may not have a lot of years ahead of him. Swapping him for Halladay doesn't really have any negative repercussions on the age of the core.

No, but they don't lose their free agents either, and very few teams do spend huge on free agency. Chicago paid heavily for Tait and Muhammed, they stepped up for Ogunleye when he was holding out, they paid Urlacher and Briggs when most teams would let one walk. The reputation is left over from the Halas era, and the end of the Ditka era, when he blamed it all on cheapness. This organization doesn't have great owners, but in a salary cap game, there's very little an owner can do to make a positive difference.

Not forever, no, but some coaches are still staying a long time. Ferentz has been at Iowa for 11 years and counting. Greg Schiano has been at Rutgers forever. How long has Mack Brown been at Texas? Pete Carroll has been there for a decade. Bowden just retired, Paterno is still at PSU. College football head coach is a fantastic longterm gig. There are only a handful of places were a lack of NC will actually doom you to being fired, and there are countless places where sustained success is good enough to keep you raking in the dough.

Chris Williams is playing left tackle is practice.

Everybody makes the claim but the evidence does not support the notion that the Bears are a cheap organization. They spend money, they spent too much money on Lovie and Angelo which is part of the problem, and they don't lose their players.

How many times do the TV cameras pan-out to see that ad? 3? 4 times per game? You don't need to pan-out to see that ad, I'd guess it's visible dozens of times in any broadcast.

A guy I know who is cheating on his wife with multiple people let me play the part of him in a text exchange with one of his ladies and it was all kinds of awesome.

It doesn't take much. They just need to have the athletic department and school keep a committment to winning. FSU can recruit every player the other teams can, there's no inherent disadvantage.

You are a bad person. In recent years I've seen them in Citi Field, Shea Stadium, Citizens Bank, the Vet, Nationals Park and PNC, and most of those games were played either in 50 degrees and rain, or 100 degrees and humidity. I've been to Petco twice, never for the Cubs yet, and both games were more enjoyable days at the ballpark than all but one PNC trip.

That is what I meant by road beef shenanigans.

So what? He's already been compensated for what he's done in the past and he's going to receive some sort of naming honor if they haven't already. You don't get guaranteed employment for life, especially not at that level of compensation and with such responsibilities. The department has an obligation to the future.

Why would that statistic surprise you? Sure, the Bears aren't a very good team, but they aren't anywhere near the league of Rams-bad.It doesn't surprise me that a majority picked the Bears (I did myself), but 96% seems astronomically high to me for a team as bad as the Bears have been lately. In a straight pick the winner contest? Umm, that shouldn't surprise anybody. St Louis is pathetic. Chicago has been competitive in 4 of 7 losses, and arguably should have one 3-4 of those. They've been beaten bad by three teams, but all three teams are clearly better than them. They've also beatent 4 teams, including beatdowns of a couple lesser squads. Chicago is at home facing a clearly inferior opponent. 99% of people should think they will win. Whether they can cover an 8.5 point spread is another debate, but Chicago is not in the same ocean, let alone boat, of the worst teams in the league.

Tiger released a new statement, all but admitting his road beef shenanigans.

I could see them contending, I just think they are doing a horrible job of maximizing their odds. Agreed. Unless the Cards return everyone (unlikely), the Cubs will likely contend in 2010, even if they do nothing from here till spring training. In fact, doing nothing else might be the preferred route, judging by what Hendry has done so far. Depends on what you mean by nothing. Letting Harden walk and dumping Bradley leaves significant holes.

Maybe you don't know this but every team is only allowed 25 players on the roster, no matter who the starting pitcher is. They don't have to pay any extra people just because Harden is here. They are already onthe team and because they inist on a 12 man rotation usually guys just sit around being wasted resources. Given Harden extra rest and he'll give you 6-7+ innings of very good pitching. And it's easy to give a guy extra rest.

Harden was still very good when used properly this year. He's not a 5 inning pitcher either. This teams has lots of arms that can start games, they have very few that can dominate when pitching.

I could see them contending, I just think they are doing a horrible job of maximizing their odds.

True, but Ramirez doesn't typically miss half the season, or even a quarter of it. And I think a good part (well, at least some) of Soriano's suckitude had to do with the fact he was playing on a bad leg most of the season. He's not ever going to be the player he was even a couple of years ago, but I think he'll be better in 2010. He doesn't typically miss half the season, but he misses time and he was on the wrong side of 30 already. And since he's already had this shoulder injury, that's just another weak spot on his body to worry about next season. Also, while it may be impossible to plan for everything that could go wrong, having Aaron Miles as the primary backup at third base (and then having to go with Fontenot there) was a huge mistake, and unless they do something about the backup situations they will struggle again when he goes down. And now that they are expecting Wells, Marshall, Gorzo and Samardzija to account for 3 rotation spots, they won't have much to fall back on when one of the big guys inevitably gets banged up.

Soriano, ARam, and Zambrano have a history of injuries. So, saying the Cubs were over .500 with them being injured doesn't mean much, when it should have been reasonably expected that they would get injured anyway. They are a .500 team if they don't have contingency plans for when players get injured or underperform again. No team can have a contingency plan when they have the number of injuries the Cubs had. If you don't believe me ask the Mets. Last year ARam had 55% of the ABs that he averaged in the last 7 seasons, Soriano had 85% of the ABs that he averaged over the last 3 seasons when he has had "a history of injuries" (before that he played almost every game for quite a few years), and Zambrano pitched 80% of the innings he's averaged the 6 years before. Every team suffers injuries, but when they become excessive the Win-Loss stat is going to suffer. When your "regular" starting lineup is on the field 6-8 times out of 162 games, you aren't going to be a contender. In 2010, there's no reason to think ARam is going to miss half the season, Zambrano will miss 20% of his starts, Soriano will play most of the season on one leg, Dempster will break his toe hopping over the dugout railing, etc. Injury problems mount as guys get older and deal with more and more past injuries. And if there's one thing the Cubs didn't suffer from, it was a lack of Soriano on the field. When he did play, he sucked. More of that doesn't help. And the best of that group, Ramirez, is a lock to get injured again. He always has and he always will. He's going to miss time.

http://deadspin.com/5416369/chinese-crack-tiger-woods-case-with-dramatic-cgi-re+enactment

He should fight the ticket.

I don't know what's open, but it would seem to me that most big college options would be better. Cincy's had a nice couple years, but their program is fairly pathetic longterm. It really shouldn't be hard for any legit program to pull him away from there.

In my MLB 09 game I offered a 4 year deal and he took less money for 3 years in Oakland, so I had already accepted him being gone.