jersey cubs fan

Karstens having a nice day.

That is assuming that the time he missed would have included his good streaks, and not his bad. Who knows, maybe they missed some bad Soriano time. Or maybe missing time has allowed him to maintain his good Soriano side a little longer.

This is the nature of the beast with such a streaky and flawed hitter. When he's one, he's ridiculous, and it's fun as heck. But when he's off, he's horrible. He could never be my favorite Cub as he just makes too many outs for my liking. But he is an incredible talent. It's just a shame Hendry screwed the team up so bad that he practically forced himself into giving Soriano that contract in order to provide a boost to what was a pathetic offense.

that would be great

16-runs?

Saying one guy has been better than the other in no way say that the competition is over for the rest of camp. I am just talking about the first pre-season game. If you look at the depth chart released, they have Davis/Hester for the number one receiver position and Lloyd/Booker for the other. There is no reason why Davis should be the number one receiver. Do other football teams do this? The point is none of this matters. The goal is to field your best 11 in the first game. The Bears don't know who their best 11 are right now. There's no benefit to saying, "this guy has been better so far" unless you truly believe one guy has clearly been better. And nothing I've read has suggested that is the case.

Yep, he accrued next to no service time as all his DL stints have been in the minors. This will push him back a season. I guess my questions are specifically: Does he have anymore options? When does he hit arbitration? (it looks like he has a little less than 2 years major league service time) When does he hit free agency?

Even reporters like David Haugh, and announcers like Tom Thayer have admitted that neither has been better than the other. Both have been pretty boringly "ok". They've had a few mistakes, they've had a few nice moments, but generally, they've both been meh. Neither is ahead of the other, though Haugh said if pinned down, he's say Orton's been better, but not in any significant fashion. Then Orton is better. I've heard Rex is a great practice QB, but an average to below average game QB. If he can't blow Orton out of the water in practice, he is the #2 QB. Also, stop saying that Rex is a game manager and Rex is not. Both have around the same TDs to INTs. A game manager doesn't throw 50/50. Now maybe Orton is better at managing the game now, but we don't really know that from experience. And stop saying that Orton is 12-3 or whatever as a starter. He was the worst starting QB in 2005. He was 12-3 in spite of his play. I remember that Sunday night game when Orton was QB and Rex came in. The offense starting clicking right away. The field was opened up. Naming a starter now is meaningless if they are still competing for the job. It's not childish, it's trying to counteract the overwhelming idiocy that runs rampant through the media and fans. The first preseason game is home, and inevitably Grossman will be booed. The 2nd game, when Rex starts, will be away, so he won't be booed. Kyle is a low risk low reward QB. As a rookie he was high risk, but he was a rookie. You can't really take a lot from that showing. I don't think it's the least bit inaccurate to think of him as more of a manager. Whereas, Rex is a higher reward QB with huge risk. As a veteran he's still shown nearly unprecedented disasterous tendancies. I think the Bears would like Rex to be their QB, if they are a comfortable that he can limit the disaster. I think they are willing to go to Kyle, if Rex either stops showing the upside, or keeps showing the downside. But they are forcing both guys to go through training camp, and the first two games with the same chance to start. I'm fine with that, and I don't really understand how anybody can't be. Sure, you'd like to have one starter you can count on. But the Bears don't right now. So there's no good reason to just name a guy for the sake of naming a guy and pretending there is no longer a QB competition/controversy.

I might

I'm pro-wild card and, I guess, anti-4 divisions per league. And I don't know why you're hung up on the Yankees and Red Sox. i'm not. I don't care if one of them is left out every year. Look at the year when the Braves and Giants each won over 100 games and one didn't make it to the playoffs. That was the main reason we have the wild card today, because of the uproar of a 100+ win team sitting home in October. I think it has a lot more to do with keeping fan interest in more cities. The wild card keeps a lot more teams "in the hunt" and that means a lot more fans willing to pay to watch more games deeper into the year.

Assuming for a moment that Rich Hill does turn things around and pitches well enough for the majors next year, how has this season affected his service time with regards to arbitration and free agency. If the Cubs can pull off a 95-win season without him, and still get him back plus another year of cheap service time, that could be pretty sweet.

Thank you. There's still so much focus on the QB battle, and I'm wondering if it even matters given that line. Chris Williams needs to get his ass on the field. I'm starting to wonder if he's going to... Did the Bears screw up the scouting on this guy? I heard that several teams took him off their draft board because of a prior neck injury. While he played with it in college -- could that be what is extending his time out of the lineup? All that stuff is pretty much connected back there... Another issue that came up was a report that he was soft. Some teams supposedly didn't like his "nice guy" personality. Missing 2 weeks of practice due to a tight back at the beginning of your career seems like something that would piss off most football coaches and make a lot of personel people doubt your committment.

Dr. Andrews has done stories and interviews before. I've read at least one of them. For example, this is a very long article all about Andrews, with plenty of quotes and a few stories spread in there: http://sports.espn.go.com/espn/news/story?id=3024046 Yeah, he was featured in a column in ESPN the Magazine in the past month. A column, or one of those short "7 things you should know" about him features.

Greenberg is a Yankees fan who pulls for the Cubs on the side because his wife's family is from Chicago and he spent time in Chicago.

Favre would reportedly go to the Bears, I just don't think the Bears have any interest. And at this point, I'm not sure I blame them. Sure, he's vastly superior to the other guys. However, he's also looked like crap at times in recent years. This is not a baseball pitcher just taking his arsenal with him to the next destination. We're deep into training camp and Favre hasn't practiced a down. Perhaps that won't matter with GB, where he knows the system. But he would have to learn the Bears offense, or, perhaps, the Bears would have to completely readjust their offense for him. If they could have figured out a way to make a deal in June, I would have been all over it. But GB wasn't going to give a division rival a full training camp with Favre. Considering how mediocre he was in 2005 and 2006, I'm not sure any team getting him in mid-August is going to have a great chance to succeed with him at QB. Every day that passes makes me more and more concerned about the offensive line. This is a disaster in the making at this point.

Kenney and Kellerman have a show on espn radio in NY and they were going off on this story this morning. They are huge Yankees fans who think everything Yankee is a success/great because it is a Yankee.

And basically, I think it is absurd to say he's perfectly fine for a number 5 starter. He's a starting pitcher, and not a good one. The fact that he's better than most number 5 is absolutely meaningless. You have 5 starters, your worst one should not get the benefit of being compared against everybody else's worst starter.

This is all a bunch of nonsense. The whining about ownership always was overblown. They ran the team like crap and employed horrible personel decision makers. That is why they sucked. It wasn't because of spending or the drive for profit.

No need to disagree. I said they may have let him in to up the bidding. I didn't say they intended to start a legal battle. I think there would be a bigger battle if they didn't even allow him to look at the books. At least if they did it this way, they can make up something about preferring another structure. I think there is a group that doesn't want him, but I have a hard time thinking there's a big enough group to prevent him from buying. And that there would be enough rational owners who see the value in selling to the highest bidder with the liquidity to run a successful franchise.

32 teams means 16 teams in each league, which would then mean 2 divisions of 8 or 4 divisions of 4, in each league. I see no reason why they'd have to stick with 6 total divisions.

2008-09 NFL REGULAR SEASON WIN TOTALS Team Open Current Atlanta Falcons 5.0 5.0 Miami Dolphins 5.0 5.0 Kansas City Chiefs 5.5 5.5 San Francisco 49ers 5.5 5.5 Oakland Raiders 6.0 6.0 St. Louis Rams 6.5 6.5 Detroit Lions 6.5 6.5 Baltimore Ravens 7.0 7.0 New York Jets 7.0 7.0 Buffalo Bills 7.5 7.5 Cincinnati Bengals 7.5 7.5 Houston Texans 7.5 7.5 Minnesota Vikings 8.0 8.0 Arizona Cardinals 8.0 8.0 Denver Broncos 8.0 8.0 Carolina Panthers 8.0 8.0 Chicago Bears 8.0 8.0 Washington Redskins 8.0 8.0 Tampa Bay Buccaneers 8.5 8.5 Tennessee Titans 8.5 8.5 Philadelphia Eagles 8.5 8.5 New Orleans Saints 8.5 8.5 Cleveland Browns 8.5 8.5 Green Bay Packers 9.0 9.0 New York Giants 9.0 9.0 Seattle Seahawks 9.0 9.0 Pittsburgh Steelers 9.5 9.5 Jacksonville Jaguars 10.5 10.5 Dallas Cowboys 11.0 11.0 San Diego Chargers 11.0 11.0 Indianapolis Colts 11.5 11.5 New England Patriots 12.5 12.5

Perhaps, but then again, maybe they were only willing to get him involved in the bidding process, in order to drive up the price. Oliver Stone stuff there. But isn't that what happened in Boston? Its not unprecedented. Nor is it akin to conspiracy theories. It's easy to allow a billionaire to see the books and make a bid. It would be very difficult to not allow him to even be a part of the process. Approving his bid is another story.

They aren't a sleeper if most people think they are contenders.

I don't see anyway possible how a town that size with no professional sports teams could be reasonably expected to sell tickets to 81 games a year.

Perhaps, but then again, maybe they were only willing to get him involved in the bidding process, in order to drive up the price.