jersey cubs fan

Dempster versus Carillo. Gregg may not be the closer. I'll be asleep before the second inning.

Are you kidding? We would have to offer him arbitration and he might take it. Not worth the risk. My concern is that Hendry goes out and gets a "proven" closer further hamstringing our budget. You can pretty much guarantee they are going to throw $4-8m at somebody to be the closer. They may have gone away from giving 3year deals to middle relievers, and they may have made the prudent decision not to give Wood a longterm deal, but they still couldn't break from the mentality of needing a proven closer. And those guys aren't cheap. I'd rather Gregg accept arbitration, than have the team sign somebody else's free agent, thus losing their own picks, or trading for another guy. Although ideally he would sign elsewhere and they'd go with internal options.

Why did you ask a question if you don't care about hearing the answer?

Hopefully Caridad. Z, Dempster, Lilly, and Harden have had injury troubles this year, Gorzelanny is at 100 IP after only 57 last year, and Wells has already surpassed last year's IP by 20. There's barely any off days, so they could all use the rest, especially since there's not a whole lot distinguishing one from another. Early indications are they are focusing a bit on giving Wells the extra rest. He's being pushed back this week with Harden slotting in for Wednesday. I'm not too concerned about Gorzelanny's totals, he threw 140 last year, 260 the year before.

He hasn't actually gone through with anything yet. Lou declares lots of plans right after games, and probably less then half of them are carried through, and the rest probably last a game or two. I fully expect Gregg to pitch in normal closing save situations in the relatively near future.

There's no such thing as an exciting finish to a preseason game. The stadiums are empty and the guys who are playing are going to be cut in a couple days. I still can't believe NFL network stuck with the Detroit game until the end and missed the beginning of the Bears game, since the only thing people care about with these things are the first couple series.

I see your point. But do you think it'd be a big issue if Lance Armstrong was caught using something? Sure Armstrong has seven Tour de France wins. And Bolt is a huge athlete on the world stage right now with multiple Olympic gold medals, world records, and now a world championship with probably more to come, and he's only what, 21 years old? A big issue is different from driving people away. Cycling is also littered with drug cheats, guys go down every year, there's a niche audience and they don't really care. Would people who take cycling seriously now really stop taking it seriously if Lance tested positive?

It's questionable. At his best he's better than any other guys' best, but he's not often at his best and his injury history is a real setback.

Eh, I see it a different way. I see running, swimming, and wrestling to be the only real sports left. I consider the rest to be games. These are the only three sports that is just you and your body competing against other people and their bodies. No balls involved. No teammates to pass to when you're having a bad day. No learned skill like hitting a golfball. It's just natural ability and hard work. Just my opinion though. And it probably won't be a popular one on a baseball messageboard. But I've had this disagreement with many people before and found that it leads nowhere since people feel very differently about the sport. My whole point was that just because it's not as big here as the big four, doesn't mean that no one cares about it. And I also don't want to hijack the thread anymore. So back to Bolt. Anyone know when they're airing the 200 finals? Not as big and not even in the same discussion with them, let alone all the other big sports. But half of my point was that I find it hard to believe that finding out this guy was using something would turn people away, because A) people aren't really that into it to begin with, and B) track is littered with steroids and has been for decades and everybody knows it, so why would Bolt, who lots of people suspect cheats anyway, being caught really cause an issue?

Does Burke need to be added to the 40-man this offseason? It's his 4th year, right? He's repeating the MWL for the 3rd time and only now really putting up good numbers. I still like to think there's hope for the guy, but I feel like they will inevitably run into problems keeping him on the team.

I find this hard to believe. Maybe for the olympics, but I read not to long ago about how horrible things are for track and nobody is showing up to events. Sure, people participate, because if you run somewhere, jump or throw something you are essentially doing track. It's practice for actual sports.

So a non-Lilly rotation with those guys as the 6/7 spots would look like: Zambrano Harden Dempster Wells Gorzelanny? Marshall?

Why does it take 2 months for the owners to get together and vote? It can take weeks or months for one player to get in front of a league official to hear an appeal. You are talking about getting 30 owners together in the same place at the same time. That's why they schedule things like league owners meetings in advance. Theoretically they could just have a conference call and be done with it, but MLB has to review the deal, and the owners each probably get time to look at it. I think the fact that it's the middle of the pennant race makes it more diffcult.

People take track seriously? It's practice for real sports.

IF he could get it. That's the thing. I don't think the Nationals will pay what he wants. It'll be a shame if he doesn't sign. Not really a Nationals fan, but the kid has talent, and the only one he'd be screwing over is himself if he doesn't sign this year. He'd be taking a huge risk, but not necessarily screwing himself over. For one he could get away from Washington. Plus he could ultimately get more next year. But when you are talking about that level of money, retirement money and raise your kids and possibly their kids money, I think you have to sign.

Sandberg and Sweetness for me. One died young and the other is pretty annoying, childhood ruined for me. :cry: I loved the '86 Bears, but for some reason I was much more a fan of guys like The Fridge, Dent, Singletary and Dan Hampton over Payton. It's not like I disliked WP, but I guess to a 7-year-old he didn't seem as "large as life" as some of the other guys on that team. I definitely lost it, however, when he announced that he was sick. That one hurt. 85 Bears? I started to get into the Bears a couple years before then, when Payton was pretty much the only highlight. 1984 solidified it, and he was still amazing in 85, and really 86 as well. I liked the defense mostly, but not any one player, except for maybe Singletary.

Sandberg and Sweetness for me. One died young and the other is pretty annoying, childhood ruined for me. :cry:

I would say the bolded is what sets him apart from the worst of the worst like Baker, plus at least an acceptance that it is important to get on base by any means necessary. Plus he appears to have the ability to think more than a one bat in advance. But he tries to make things happen too much, has a ridiculous doghouse/first impressions are all that matter mentality, and obsession with righties and lefties, that makes him like most managers. All of that says to me he's not great. He's a manager, they don't win games, they can only screw things up. He does it from time to time, but is not too much of a problem.

+1 Actually it's a bunch of BS. We're supposed to be happy with this team because they won the division 2 years in a row and are 2nd now? They've had one really good year in the Hendry era. One 90+ win season. They won the division with 85 wins the year before, a win by default more than accomplishment. They should be dominating this division every year with their incredible financial advantage over the competition, but their inefficient use of those resources is a waste. You have a manager whining about stupid stuff like needing left handers and a GM who is more than happy to waste money providing those unnecessarily specific demands. And the health excuse is a bunch of garbage. Rich Harden is going to be on the DL. We knew that before he was acquired, they acknowledge it when he was acquired. The fact that they decided to stop with the preventive measures of extra rest for him this year doesn't all of a sudden make it accepable to say, "oh geez this season would be great if Harden didn't surprise us and go on the DL." And Zambrano? He has an issue every season, plus he's a pitcher with a ton of innings on his arm the past several years, he is going to miss time. Bradley is an injury machine. Ramirez gets hurt every year. The team we have is fine? If fine is what you want, then be happy. But I think being a fan of a team, and wanting them to win a lot, would seem to be a good reason to want more than fine. Fine gets you 85 wins, which normally doesn't get you in the playoffs. Quit bitching about fans who actually want the team they root for to win lots of games. Because this team isn't and they will need improvements to do so. Except Harden wasnt the only player injured this year? We have had like 8 players who have been in the All Star game the past 3 years injured. He also wasn't the only one I mentioned. Zambrano has an issue every season now, Ramirez gets hurt every season, Bradley is almost always hurt, Lilly doesn't have a long history of high innings and health, he was due to go down at least part of his contract. You have a team of 30+ year olds with injury histories, you can't pretend the injuries are a fluke and everything is fine and will stay fine. Soto was a fat catcher who got in shape for two years and then came into this season fat. He's the only real "can you believe that" injury guy, yet it's hardly a fluke. Besides, he's a catcher, they always get hurt.

I always assume that whenever a big national guy does a story on a team I follow, it's basically going to be a rehash of stuff we've seen reported by the local guys. I mean, he actually put in the story where Urlacher called Cutler about that name calling and said, "hey p*****". Everybody already reported that weeks ago, and King decides to throw it out there as some sort of interesting nugget only he got out of him. The best part about MMQB these days is Drew Magery giving it the FJM treatment on kissingsuzykolber.

Or all of them.

Because he's a poor manager? "What are you talking about?!? He won us back to back division titles and won 97 games last season!" Seriously, Lou has gotten progressively worse since he's gotten here, and has been flat out BRUTAL this season. I'm not even saying he should or will be fired, but come on. There's a very good reason a lot of people want him gone. Stop looking at win/loss records to determine how good a manager is. Look at the moves he makes and what he does. If you do that, it's easy to see that he's been pretty awful. If Lou is terrible and should have won more games with the team he has, then Hendry must have put together a 100 win team. You can't hate Hendry AND Lou AND acknowledge that there have been a ridiculous number of injuries/under-performances. Lou is a great manager despite his flaws. What evidence is there that he "is great"?

Why would you assume that just because he's 24 years old, when his stats have normal random fluctuations, that it must mean something? Every player has good months and bad months. The fact that one of his bad months was in April doesn't automatically mean that he's learned something since then. I don't think anybody said it automatically means something. I think it shows a trend that can be considered positive. He's 24, which means he hasn't peaked and there is reason to have some hope for him to improve. Having a crappy April and better rest of the season is a good thing for him.

It would be an issue if you were talking about whether or not a guy earned his paycheck, or when comparing players. At the end of the year, what matters is Lee's numbers for the season, not his numbers discounting April. But when you are talking about a 24 year old who needs to develop, it can be informative to point out that after a horrid start, he has been better. There's nothing arbitrary about it.

I would agree with the concern for Basanez. I didn't remember ever thinking he had a future when I saw him in college. The tipped INT seemed to completely rattle him.