jersey cubs fan

A triple and a homer is nice says Goldstein, but where is the double and single he needs with it? :D On a side note(and it's actually very cool in a way that it is just that) but Vitters has hit damn well in his own right this fall. I'm starting to wonder if we see him start at Tennessee instead of repeating Daytona. He shouldn't even be considered for AA.

Wha, wha, what? Somanonom beach. Lou has said Soriano won't be there, he's also said he likes Fukudome near the top, but maybe not leadoff. And he wants more team speed. Yeah, I think they are looking at speedy leadoff again. Not good hitter maybe, but stereotypical leadoff hitter.

He's the left handed Asian slightly better version of Ryan Theriot. Past his prime, peaked at 28. Unsuccesful base stealer.

I think it's hilarious that everybody just assumes yuppies must be the most racist ones.

It may be a factor, it may not. I guess it would depend on how many trips they make. How long has it been since you were at the Southwest Florida International Airport? It's no longer the podunk airport it used to be. Back in 2006 a brand new state of the art 28 gate terminal was opened while the old one was torn down. Obviously not nearly the size of a major city airport like Phoenix but much more convenient and very easy to get in and out of. I was there once in the podunk days and once last year. It is pretty nice. But it's still a relatively little served airport.

Not sure how you can compare Shark to Joba. Joba was a stud who dominated in his brief minor league career and was very good in his first major league season. Shark would have been dismissed as a fraud already in Yankeeland. Hell, they've practically disowned Phil Hughes who blows Samardzija away.

They've said multiple times that Crane will be there for the foreseeable future.

That really put him in a bad spot. He really cannot answer that question without making someone within the organization angry. Yeah, that's a stupid question to ask a current player. Also, I don't really want any players thinking about any of this stuff. Coaches should emphasize good approaches at the plate and scouting evaluations of the opposition, but players don't need to be thinking about that while playing.

It would be much easier and cost effective to travel to the Dominican and Puerto Rico from SWFL than it would Phoenix. I doubt that's a factor. How frequently do they make such trips? Phoenix is closer to the Asia markets, it's also a major airport unlike Fort Myers/Southwest Florida.

If the Cubs are really planning on spending more money on scouting in the caribbean (DR, PR, Cuba at some point) wouldn't it make more sense to have your headquarters in Florida? Why? What would be the connection/benefit? Is it about players who are used to playing in heat/humidity? Is it about flights?

The Bears aren't built to thrive in those conditions. I don't think it really matters one way or the other. Arizona has weaknesses with or without the weather, and I just hope the Bears figure out how to exploit them.

In all seriousness, Blanton didn't do TOO bad as people feared he would. The Phils offense left 7 men on base, especially the one where they pulled a Cub-like in the 5th inning with runners on 2nd and 1st with no outs. no he pitched fine, and the yankees were really lucky to score their second two runs off him. there was a walk (his fault), a perfectly-placed bouncer up the middle, a perfectly-placed ground ball through the left side, and a perfectly-placed bloop single to right. The ground ball was perfectly placed because Jeter clutchingly placed it perfectly, on purpose.

He said Jim is the guy that they will go into next year with, it was a pretty clear indication that next year will determine Hendry's future. And I'm not sure what bones you want, but they took control at the end of October. There isn't a ton of stuff they can do. Do you want new asst GMs or new scouts or something? They have a new hitting coach and will have a couple new players, but Hendry/Lou/Larry and the core of the team are all under contract and coming back next year.

That's what they should do, but bye weeks stop after week 10, when Thursday night games start, which would leave only 2 of the 9 Thursday/Friday night games played by teams with that extra rest. The solution to that problem is having the byes go a little later in the season, but they don't want bye weeks when baseball and regular season college games are over and the playoffs are approaching. If they went up to the week before Thanksgiving, then at least 5 thursday matchups would involved teams on rest.

I'm not sure the competition really matters all that much in the spring. The Cubs sell-out in Arizona already. People go to games to see a spring training game, they don't care who the other team is. The people that should be worried are the other teams/towns in Arizona that lose a huge road draw when Cbus fans who can't get into Hohokam go to the other parks.

The line has been crap for a few years now. Cutler played quite well because he's quite good. You can't expect him to be perfect every game though, and you'd have to be pretty close to perfect with this line, running game and recievers, if you want to avoid subpar games like yesterday.

Sure, but there's only so much he can do if he's basically under pressure almost the entire time without much of a rushing option. The book on the OL simply seems to be "blitz to your heart's content." Fair enough. And I actually thought he played well yesterday although his stats weren't great. However, he did have three straight games with a QB rating over 100, and now three straight games with a rating below 80. It is partially the O-Line's fault, but not entirely, and I think Cutler would be the first to admit that. It's almost entirely the line's fault. He's under constant pressure and he doesn't have a single great receiver to fallback to when under pressure.

That's right, for some reason I was thinking the game against Philly was on the road.

I'm all for dumping Hendry yesterday, but I have no problem with what Ricketts is doing. It's not all about 2010. The long time health of the franchise matters. They could go nuts and dump a bunch of people, but if the end result is they are going into 2010 with virtually the same team, what's the point? They are giving Hendry one season to make his roster work, and if it doesn't, they will be able to go into 2011 with a clean slate and a new regime in place and much greater understanding of who is available for the job. They can't really just pour a bunch of money into this offseason and find some magic pills to guarantee better performance for next season. Roster spots are filled and the free agent market just isn't all that meaningful. I don't get how you can accuse him of thinking everything is great. He's giving Hendry a year, and indicates Crane can keep doing his business side of the job for a while. With guaranteed contracts to Jim and almost all of the players, that really is the only realistic option. Most owners don't like showing up and giving people the axe on day one.

Play action does nothing when you can't run the ball. And it takes more time for playaction passes to develop, leaving Cutler even more vulnerable to the rush. The few times they used it on a roll out gave Cutler the most time to pass, though. And just because they weren't successful running the ball doesn't mean they didn't try, meaning it was easy for the defense to recognize run vs. pass right after the ball was snapped. Designed roll outs are a seperate issue than pure play action. The benefit of the play action is very subtle in the NFL, it can give a TE a step on a LB up the middle, however, if the defensive lineman are getting a huge push anyway it just isn't going to help. If they can get to the QB at will, they are going to get their by the time his finishes his fake handoff and turns to throw. The bootlegs worked well and I wouldn't mind seeing more of that.

Chicago opens as a 3 point favorite against the schizo Arizona Cardinals. You would think it benefits the Bears to have this game in Chicago, however, Arizona looks like they may be better on the road. They beat the previously well-respected Giants in the Meadowlands then turned around and got spanked against a bad Carolina Panthers team at home. Arizona's ride to the Super Bowl was on the road last year, and they are undefeated in away games this year, while all 3 of their losses are at home. One would think they could shred the Bears passing D, with multiple weapons and a big time QB. They are a top 10 passing offense by yards gained, but have only 11 TD to 11 INT. And their rushing offense remains dead last in the league, gaining nearly 30 fewer yards per game than the feable Bears rushing attack. Defensively they are solid, but not great, against the run, and beatable through the air. Mediocre sack and INT totals and they give up more than 7 yards per attempt to rank 20th in the league. This game is a fairly even matchup of potential first round playoff foes, with Arizona possibly becoming the de facto NFC West champion again and the Bears fighting for a wild card. Coming into the season this was a must win if the Bears were going to win the division, and now it might be a must win if they want a wild card. A loss would leave them at 4-4, and I'm not sure there are 6 wins on the schedule after this week. A win leaves 11 wins as a possibility.

Play action does nothing when you can't run the ball. And it takes more time for playaction passes to develop, leaving Cutler even more vulnerable to the rush.

Great point. That Philly D is tough. They are alright, but they aren't world beaters. They are similar to the Bears. Philly has one win against a non-incompetent team this year, the Giants, and NY has been sliding fast. The other wins are Carolina, Tampa, KC and Washington, and they lost to Oakland. They got dismantled against New Orleans. They've had a lot of turnovers, but they've also played against the worst QB's in the league.

The line stinks, but a lot of what happened yesterday was what most referrees are calling late hits in recent years. Fatboy wrapped up and dragged down Cutler well after a pass and they didn't do a thing about it, yet in the "you can't finish the tackle after the pass" era that gets called 90% of the time. It was clear those refs were just going to let everything go outside the blatant shot to the head. Also, on one replay of a sack the booth was ripping into Orlando Pace for getting mauled when nothing of the sort happened. The pressure came from up the middle, Pace kept his guy in front of him, albeit he was moving back, but since Cutler could not step up properly from the middle pressure, they blamed it on the tackles. But neither tackle got burnt on that play. This booth was horrible. Salomon Wilcots is incompetent. These guys miss stuff in live action all the time (calling something a catch when it was clearly not caught, unnecessarily naming the offensive lineman they think did the most blocking on a play during the live playbyplay call) but Wilcots couldn't even see obvious stuff on replays. They drove me nuts all day. I was not happy with the red zone play calling. Why are you doing a play action pass with only one receiver option? Why was Olsen on the sideline for so many of those plays? If you bring in 2 extra fatties to block on the end of the line it doesn't help when your middle 5 get no push at all. You either add backfield blockers or spread everybody out. An extra wide body on the end does nothing. The Bears need to go to the spread in the red zone. Their best play is the 5 yard slant to a WR or out to a TE, get 4 of Bennet, Hester, Knox, Olsen and Clark on the field in tight and run quick pass plays. And it may have been cute to have your TEs shift to the outside with WR going in the slot as a different look, but when that is your standard passing formation, you aren't going to trick the defense into a mismatch in coverage.

I'd definitely call that putting a guy on notice.