jersey cubs fan

Pretty much every forum that has this info lists the payroll of the team's opening day roster. For instance, you won't see the $16m the Cubs paid Baltimore to take Sammy Sosa, or the $3+ million they paid Rusch not to pitch. They will not account for midseason acquisitions like Nomar Garciaparra, Aramis Ramirez, Kenny Lofton, or Steve Trachsel. They won't include the money the Cubs will pay Detroit to take Jones. They fail to take into account a lot of things, and when you do take this into account, it's clear the Cubs have had financial resources to spend than their divisional competition.

Not fair? My lord. Enough with the woe is us nonsense. It's like all the talk forgiving Hendry for any losses because of injury. The Cubs have had a decided and clear financial advantage over every single division foe, plus the advantage of playing the weakest competition, by far. The Mets also play the consistently great Yanks 6 times a year, while the Cubs have been able to play the up and down White Sox. NY has Philly and Atlanta to compete with, teams that have clearly outclassed STL and HOU in recent years. And remember, the Cubs have been the team handing out insane money to many draft picks year after year as well, grossly overpaying for guys like Samardzija. The financial advantage is not only in the USA Today listed payrolls, it's everything, and it's been ongoing for several years. Quit with the excuses already. The Cubs should win 90 games every year. If they finish with 85 or 86 once or twice, it's excusable, but when 85 is the highest win total in three years, that is inexcusable. When 88 and 89 wins are the high water mark you are doing a lousy job taking advantage of the very clear financial advantage. This is the part I agree with, and we'll have to agree to disagree if the Cubs have truly had a financial advantage over the division, especially anytime before 2006. I can't agree to disagree on such a clearly obvious statement.

Seriously? Just strikes me as odd people would even care. We've quashed a number of nicknames for people like Corey Patterson and Glendon Rusch as well. There's a point where nicknames cross the line from being funny and clever, to immature and childish, and even more so...annoying. Think of this as a general rule: if it's in the word filter, it's there for a reason. Don't try to avoid it by getting cute with the spelling. I love the irony of this coupled with the fact that Rusch is used by the word filter as a substitute for an "obscenity." It's used for that obscenity because that obscenity was used as a nickname for Rusch. [expletive] pitched like crap today. Rusch pitched like crap today.

Is there room to make fun on this sentence?

Not fair? My lord. Enough with the woe is us nonsense. It's like all the talk forgiving Hendry for any losses because of injury. The Cubs have had a decided and clear financial advantage over every single division foe, plus the advantage of playing the weakest competition, by far. The Mets also play the consistently great Yanks 6 times a year, while the Cubs have been able to play the up and down White Sox. NY has Philly and Atlanta to compete with, teams that have clearly outclassed STL and HOU in recent years. And remember, the Cubs have been the team handing out insane money to many draft picks year after year as well, grossly overpaying for guys like Samardzija. The financial advantage is not only in the USA Today listed payrolls, it's everything, and it's been ongoing for several years. Quit with the excuses already. The Cubs should win 90 games every year. If they finish with 85 or 86 once or twice, it's excusable, but when 85 is the highest win total in three years, that is inexcusable. When 88 and 89 wins are the high water mark you are doing a lousy job taking advantage of the very clear financial advantage.

No specific timetable, many are reporting within 24-48 hours.

Doesn't excite me either. Although a Murton, Fukudome, Soriano outfield could be very nice.

Your guess is as good as mine. If the Cubs land Fukudome, I think they will be more willing to trade Pie especially if Colvin is progressing. Hendry keeps saying Pie is untouchable, but I got to believe if Hendry becomes desperate for Brian Roberts, he'll put Pie in that deal. With Pie, Theriot and the pitcher's spot, the lineup has 3 automatic outs (save for Z). Theriot is now an "automatic out?" There wasn't a single Cubs regular who made outs more frequently than Theriot last year.

Your guess is as good as mine. If the Cubs land Fukudome, I think they will be more willing to trade Pie especially if Colvin is progressing. Hendry keeps saying Pie is untouchable, but I got to believe if Hendry becomes desperate for Brian Roberts, he'll put Pie in that deal. With Pie, Theriot and the pitcher's spot, the lineup has 3 automatic outs (save for Z). That's why the Riot hits 2nd to stop the auto 3! If Pie goes and Hendry deals for Roberts doesn't that leave a hole in Right? They would go with DeRo in RF most days in that scenario. I believe Pie could be more than an automatic out. And if SS was manned by somebody who was competent, I'd be more than willing to let him battle through any struggles. Well, actually I'm more than happy to keep Pie in CF regardless. I'm not in favor of including him in a Roberts trade.

They've had the advantage for several years now. Under Omar Minaya, the Mets have averaged 89.333 wins per year. This season's 88 win season was considered a disaster due to the late collapse. And that is just with 3 years to work with what his predecessors did, averaging 70.67 wins the previous 3 seasons. To compare, Hendry has average 81.4 wins, coming off a 3 year average of 73.3. There is absolutely zero reason for this team to not consistently win 90 games.

If it wasn't for all the blind allegiance to him, there would be no need to constantly point out the truth.

Bruce's Saturday article Bruce's Friday article And today Bruce is putting out 5/75 as the upper limit.

A team with the resources of the Chicago Cubs should never have to think in terms of "windows". The Cubs should be a 90+ win team virtually every season. I dont think I buy that, but I do think they should be far more successful then they have been The Cubs hold a clear and substantial financial advantage over everybody in their division. Likewise, there are no Yankees or Red Sox like teams in the NL. The Cubs are usually in the top 2-4 of NL payrolls, and get to play against the weakest competition, year-in and year-out. An 85 win season should be the lower end of the expected range. They should easily be able to rip off 3-5 year runs of 90+ wins, or, at the very least, average 90 wins over that time frame.

i'm convinced he built the homes of at least a dozen people on nsbb. also, is it really so outlandish to think theriot's not worth $10 million? I don't think that's outlandish. He's not worth $10 million a year. He's not worth that much over 3-4 years, but he isn't even close to being as bad as what some of you guys make him out to be. Outside of a couple unproductive months, Theriot was very good for this team and far from a hinderance. Other than the actual facts, you are exactly correct. The funny thing is, he is actually as bad as people make him out to be. He was great for one month, and sucked the rest of the time. He's awful. There's no way to lie your way out of that fact.

A K/BB ratio has absolutely nothing to do with production. It's meaningless to this discussion. You also can't merely replace Theriot's 2007 numbers with Greene's 2007 numbers. It's a fairly baseless comparison. You must take into account Greene's home park, and how much that hinders his overall numbers. We're talking about one 27 year old player with a career OPS+ of 101, and another 27 year old player with an OPS+ of 83. It's an enormous difference that the SB numbers don't even come close to compensating for.

MLK day.

Not sure anybody knows. It makes sense that he wanted a 3 year deal when the talk was 3/24-27. That would leave him with 3 years to prove he's worthy of a big deal. However, once talks went from $8m a year to over $10m and close to $13-15m, 4-5 year contracts would look a lot more enticing. If the 5/75 Bruce Miles suggested could be out there, was the eventual offer*, that's got to be better than 3/36, even if he's "throwing away" the chance for free agency after 3 years. *Edited to clarify the point made by Bruce. He had a story last week in which he wrote the Cubs may go as high as 5/75. He didn't report that was the offer, or even suggest it was the likely offer. I believe he said, "it could got as high as" 5/75.

OK, but what are the other options. I don't think there is a reliable enough shortstop available for the price of Hill. A cheap young talent like him, developed from within for a change, is vital to on organziations ongoing success. I am not as high on Greene as everyone else. I wouldn't give up a quality starter (hopefully on the rise for) .254/.291/.468 even if it comes with 20 more HRs. Especially for a right hander with a 128/32 K/BB ratio. So who do you think is available who might help. Greene, Ronny Cedeno, probably a handful of others. The fact is, even a below average SS would be a significant improvement over Theriot. Cubs SS production was bottom of the barrel last year, and it wasn't because Izturis weighed it down. It's not just that SS is a place where they can improve, it's that SS is so god awful they must improve. You can't afford bottom of the barrel production at any position, unless the rest of your lineup is great. And clealry the rest of the Cubs' lineup is nowhere near great. You don't have to be high on Greene to acknowledge he would be a huge improvement over Theriot. I'm not high on him either. I don't envision him as some star. I'm not nearly as confident he will reach the levels some have projected for him if he were to leave San Diego for Chicago. However, he's clearly better than Theriot, significantly so. And he provides even further upside that Theriot can not come close to providing.

I wouldn't be upset with 4/60, if it's backloaded and the 4th year is either a player option or it includes a player opt out. If the first three years pay something like $39-42m, it may not be awful. Odds are he'll wind up opting out after 3 years and look for one last big major league contract, at the age of 32/33. At that point, hopefully the Cubs will be able to replace him with some more reasonably priced internal option, or maybe even another import. I do recall someone saying (not sure if it was his agent) that he will only sign a 3 year contract. It's been widely reported by many outlets that he wants a 3-year deal, so he can either "go back to Japan" or sign a bigger free agent contract after proving himself in the majors (I would assume the latter is much more likely). I believe that you can entice him by throwing on a 4th year, either in player option form, or with an opt-out after year 3, as an insurance policy incentive against him underperforming for 3 years. At the age of 32/33, odds are he will much rather go for a new contract, rather than play for 1 year at $15-17m, even if he fails to live up to the highest expectations. He'd have to be injured, or terrible to choose to play out that last year. And my guess is he won't be terrible.

I, too, would like to see him on the team as a utility player. A guy making $350,000 who can OBP over .320 or so is a fairly valuable asset. Much better than a guy making $2.25 million with a sub .300 OBP.

I wouldn't be upset with 4/60, if it's backloaded and the 4th year is either a player option or it includes a player opt out. If the first three years pay something like $39-42m, it may not be awful. Odds are he'll wind up opting out after 3 years and look for one last big major league contract, at the age of 32/33. At that point, hopefully the Cubs will be able to replace him with some more reasonably priced internal option, or maybe even another import.

Most definitely, it could be but, I'm beyond the point of caring about the economic ramifications, I’d like to see Cub WS in my lifetime, if this signing gets the Cubs there costs be damned. As a fan the only reason to care about financial ramificiations is the worry that a couple years down the road this will be less money available for worthy assets and more being spent on lost causes. That was when Tribune was the owner and you could be reasonably assured that payroll would be rising at a steady rate, and therefore, have a pretty good idea of what impact a contract would have 2-3 years from now. With the ownership in flux, right now there's no way to know what will happen in 2-3 years. It's possible the new owner will just freeze payroll, or maybe even cut it. It's happened before when franchises were sold. If that were to happen, it really wouldn't matter what Hendry gives guys today, because the team will be screwed regardless. It's also possible the new owner will go balls out, in which case it'll be relatively easy to eat these contracts. Of course, they could turn out to be fairly similar to Tribune, and see the payroll rise 5-10% year over year. In that case, it'll take a lot of creativity for the next GM to fix some of Jim's mistakes. But at least with a guy like Fukudome, you are overpaying for somebody who at least has a chance to be very very good. He'll probably never be excellent or elite, not at his age and with his limitations. But it's better than overpaying for somebody, who, if everything works out, will just be average.

Shortstop is by far, without question, the number 1 biggest glaring hole on this team. It's not about him getting tired. It's about him not being good. He would be a bad option at leadoff. If you had 7 other good hitters, you could live with him in the 8th spot, but that is it. He sucks. It's just a fact. Shorstop is the biggest weak spot on the offense.

$50 million? Yikes. Over what time period? 3/$50 is pretty much insane. 4/$50, with an opt out after 3 years is much more reasonable. If SD is over $10m for 3, that could be 3/33.

It's not like it was a banner FA market this year. We didn't have many more choices (if any) besides K-Fuk. It's times like these that I like to point out that had Hendry done a better job the past 5 years, perhaps we wouldn't be stuck hoping against hope in a weak market.