jersey cubs fan

There's a part of me that's hoping for another crappy offseason, followed by a 71-win season, followed by Ricketts firing everyone and starting over with some actual baseball minds. I know that's messed up, but I can't help it. Screw baseball minds. The Cubs organization has been littered with baseball minds, including several former GMs and other well respected baseball people. Baseball people are really stupid. They need smart people.

That's crazy. Yes, it's widely thought that it will go down. But under better economic situations it should go up every year, that would make it nearly impossible to resign anybody during the season - unless you were significantly below the cap that year. I have serious doubts about this claim. Every major media outlet is reporting deals are imminent, and if what you say is true, the only way this can happen is if the Blackhawks trade away Sharp, Buff, Huet and/or Campbell before the contracts are signed, and nobody is reporting anything about such a deal or even hinting that such a deal is close.

And the Bears primetime sruggles have all been on the road. However, Philly can throw the ball and they dominate the turnover game - the two things that have doomed the Bears this year. Philly should win this game, but hopefully they screw it up.

I don't really care about Vitters because he hasn't done crap outside of one hot month as a pro. Doesn't look at all like he's going to be a solid replacement at 3B for when Ramirez leaves.

So they are going back to the 2006/7 offseason when the plan was just to get innings eaters - potential for mediocrity be damned? They do realize the problem with this team was a lack of scoring runs, not a lack of mediocre innings pitched, right?

Why is a mediocre reliever such a high priority for this team?

A couple of posters on a Wings site said the same thing, I turns out you cannot go over next years salary cap. This may be the hold up with the signings. Just for those scoring at home if these contracts are true the Hawks will be 5 million over next years cap. That will only be for 16 players You can't go over next year's salary cap this year? But they don't even know what it will be.

That's the kind of package I was thinking of, even if we had to include another mid-level prospect. The names that were being thrown out there (Vitters, Castro, Theriot, Marmol, etc.) were too much, especially in a package of 3-4 players. They can have Theriot. He's a 30-year old middle infielder who is quite mediocre and is about to start making 7 figures.

Only a pot head would think nobody can tell that they are a pot head or that they are acting like a normal person when stoned. Hate to lay it out there, but we can tell, and most of us are cool with it. not everyone can tell...i dated a girl for quite some time and she could never tell when i was or wasn't stoned. pretty sure my boss can't tell i'm stoned right now either ;) The boss probably just assumes you're always stoned.

There might not be a large commute distance, but there's a huge time distance. Metro Phoenix traffic blows. You can drive from the gulf coast to the atlantic coast quicker than you can go from the eastern side of Phoenix to the western.

Only a pot head would think nobody can tell that they are a pot head or that they are acting like a normal person when stoned. Hate to lay it out there, but we can tell, and most of us are cool with it.

That's what my gut tells me. But otoh, there's no guarantee Castro becomes what we think he will become. Granderson is an established commodity, a good bat at a defense first position, which also happens to be a position of relative need. I would go for the bird in hand, but it could be all those years of our top prospects tanking. If I did cough him up, they wouldn't get much more. Maybe Castro/Fox/Marshall. That's my feeling as well. As mentioned above, I wouldn't want to move Castro, but since HJ Lee is in the system, I could stomach it. I could stomach trading Castro, but not for a guy as flawed as Granderson is. Stars do not become completely incompetent when facing LH pitching. He is established as a guy who cannot hit lefties. That is a very bad thing when trying to justify trading away top talent for him. If you deal your top prospects, and a guy like Castro who has rocketed up most people's lists this year, you better get back a real star, and not some limited guy like Granderson.

The problem contracts are those that pay a huge portion of the money up front and then finish with a few years of bare minimum payments, and usually take guys into their age 40 season or beyond. There's nothing wrong with a long term deal where the average cap hit at least closely proximates the yearly salary. A deal that pays Keith $6-7m early and $3-4m per toward the end of adeal that takes him to 39 shouldn't be all that much of an issue.

Doesn't he have control and consistency issues? Coupled with being considered a thrower and I'd find it very hard to believe his mechanics are all that good.

I'm sorry but that's a really weak defense. Every time a new coach takes over for a failed coach there is a carryover effect from the regime change. He's on the hot seat now because his team has lost 4 games in a year when many expected a BCS game and he doesn't have a signature impressive win. Claiming that he's currently suffering from Ty because a couple years ago he had to recruit while being on the hot seat just doesn't hold up. That's an excuse college coaches don't get. He's fired after Stanford b/c his teams haven't performed to expectations. I completely agree. He was on the hot seat (in the media if not reality) in 2007, months after taking the team to a second consecutive BCS game, b/c his predecessor tanked the program. He was on the hot seat because he lost 5 games in a row 10 months after getting absolutely destroyed in a BCS game his team had no business playing in. You make it sound like people just suddenly turned on him for no good reason.

I'm sorry but that's a really weak defense. Every time a new coach takes over for a failed coach there is a carryover effect from the regime change. He's on the hot seat now because his team has lost 4 games in a year when many expected a BCS game and he doesn't have a signature impressive win. Claiming that he's currently suffering from Ty because a couple years ago he had to recruit while being on the hot seat just doesn't hold up. That's an excuse college coaches don't get.

Absolutely. It was a desperation signing. They were desperate for scoring and desperate for positive PR. Not many people realized where they were poised to go. But the reason a guy like Campbell quickly lost his value to the team is because they have players like Kane who can score.

Well the current offensive coordinator was brought in after being fired for doing a far worse job at less of a name football program. I'd be all for Weis as Bears O coordinator. Right, he's a step up from Turner, no question. But my point is, if he's fired from ND, he's not going to have a very high profile in Chicago, and if the Bears replace Turner, it's going to be as an olive branch to Chicago fans in the face of not being able to can Angelo and Smith. Would they really hire such a guy? Or would he take the job? I have my doubts about both. Also, I'm not sure Lovie and Charlie would work well together, given the talk of Weis's ego and Lovie's low key all for one one for all mentality.

Okay, earlier in his tenure, but what does that have to do with the team that is out there now?

In what way shape or form is Weis paying for Ty's laziness right now? The team is all him. He lost the Ty excuses a couple years ago, or at least he should have. The Weis as Bears OC idea isn't a bad one, but it's kind of interesting to note New England has enjoyed much greater offensive success since he left, and Brady's best years have been without him. He'd still almost be a huge upgrade just by default. Although I wonder if he'd be willing to go from major college head coach back to an NFL coordinator with no time off. I feel like he'd rather sit back and enjoy his money for a year while looking for another top job. Although I wouldn't object at all if Chicago offered him a ton of dough to help them. Although if he is dumped by ND it is going to be in part due to negative perception in the Chicago area and I'd bet the Bears would view that as a knock against bringing him in to be the olive branch to fans looking for change.

The Cubs have been more "black" than them, with Lee, Hawkins, Jones, Pierre, Bradley, Floyd the Patterson brothers and a handful of utility guys in recent years.

I think toonsterwu gave the best reasoning on this in our chat. Basically, Rhee's ranking was comparable to a draft pick/ceiling nod. When healthy, Rhee has phenomenal stuff and the right mindset/grasp for being a top-flight pitcher. He's shown flashes of that in his rehab. If he starts next season at 100%, he'd be a Top 5 prospect in this system. Whether he reaches that remains to be seen. I'm down a bit too much on LeMahieu and Watkins power-wise to rank them much higher than where I've had them. For me, using the "which would I rather trade" method of ranking prospects, it seems hard to put Flaherty or LeMahieu in the top 10. I know I would be much more upset if we lost Burke or Archer in trade than either of those guys. I agree with that.

ha ha i thought the same thing. I think it has to do with Ozzie and how he continues to bring in Latino players to the white sox. Ozzie doesn't make personel decisions, and I wouldn't even consider the White Sox all that Latino of a team. I feel like they are one of the whitest teams out there, with AJ, Konerko, Pods, Kotsay, Beckham, Getz, Nix, formerly Thome and Anderson, and then most of the pitchers. And Ozzie has been there a really long time now.

Is it possible that the previous GM signed Hossa to replace Kane? This may be a reason he was shown the door because the marketing guy that is president of the team wanted to keep Kane. I doubt Tallon's goal was to replace Kane with Hossa. He was probably replacing Havlat and Sharp if anything. Tallon's biggest bright spot on his resume up to that point was probably Kane, and he practically hung his hat on making the right decision in that draft. If Hossa over Kane was the motivation, and the reason he was shown the door, they would have just nixed the signing before it happened. I think the Campbell/Huet signings were the big ones, and his inability to move Huet last year finished him off.

Prolly, but I much rather not trade Sharp. I think you might see guys Steeg, Skille, Kopecky, Buff, and perhaps even Barker all dealt to make sure the Hawks can keep Kane/Toews/Keith/Hossa and Sharp. But getting Campbell and/or Huet off the cap would go a long way to keeping the core together for a long time. (The latter is a long shot, I know, but one can dream.) No one is taking Campbell or Huet, so that discussion is out of the question. The Hawks are going to have to let Sharp or Buff go anyway, that still isnt going to be enough to keep Keith, Kane and Toews. This is why I think the better move is to keep Keith. Hockey is a 4 line game, being too top heavy will hurt the Hawks in the long run. Especially if their defense is weakened by losing Keith. I also think Kane is a little over rated. He is a good scorer but the rest of his game is average at best. From what I've seen this year Kane has stepped up his all-around game quite a bit, and is not nearly the one dimensional cherry picking scorer people claimed he was. He's still very young and can improve. And I wouldn't count out somebody taking Huet. He's not close to the highest paid goalie, and this isn't a Campbell situation. He's only got 2 years left on his deal after this season, and aside from a slow start to this season, he's been a fairly good goalie. I'm also not sure what you mean when you say they have to let Sharp or Buff go anyway and that isn't going to help. They are signed through 2012 and 2011, respectively, and combine to account for over $7m in cap space next season alone. If you can deal both of them and get back a cheap role player, that is more than enough to fit in Keith.