jersey cubs fan

That's a hard vote to make. In 2003 it was Wood followed by Prior. Before that it was Sammy. From 2004-2006, it was in flux, with Baker probably leading the way. I don't think Lou has been around long enough to be considered the face of the franchise. Soriano is too quiet and new. Ramirez isn't new, but he is quiet and relatively unknown for a star. It would probably be between Lee and Zambrano, and I'd say Zambrano.

Do they play pickup football between games? Jeff is no bigger than a lot of other Cubs pitchers, not to mention Lee and Floyd. He cut his hair in the spring. And his swagger has led to some really disappointing performances in the minor leagues this year. There's absolutely no way this would help the team.

Looking at the radar maps, they could get this one in without a delay possibly. Expand out to the national radar. Ahh, that was my undoing. I think it'll take longer than an hour and a half from now (one hour into the game) for that mess to get to Wrigley. http://www.weather.com/outlook/travel/businesstraveler/map/interactive/60613?from=36hour_map_large&zoom=7&interactiveMapLayer=radar If the stuff directly to the south/southwest stays away from Wrigley, that stuff in Iowa shouldn't be an issue for a long time. Over the course of an hour the front edge didn't move a whole heck of a lot, according to the radar loop. Unfortunately that stuff between Aurora and Joliet looks like it might head toward Wrigley pretty quickly.

Please explain.

do you really think this could have a negative effect, though? I don't see it. I think it just feeds the irrational and unhealthy fan attention to the situation. The guy has a long way to go before he'll be able to help the team. Yet with the huge contract, unjustified promotion already this year, and a potential call-up, fans are going to be expecting him to start next year in Wrigley and be good. We've already seen how little patience people have with other young players, there's no need to throw-in the added burden of expectations that a September call-up would bring. but no negative effect on Jeff's development or roster status/clock? That's what I think of when I hear a prospect is "rushed." Bringing him to the majors is rushing him. Exposing him to major league hitters, when he's barely even able to handle minor leaguers, and has very little experience, could easily have a negative effect. It's not just about the mechanics of options and roster status.

do you really think this could have a negative effect, though? I don't see it. I think it just feeds the irrational and unhealthy fan attention to the situation. The guy has a long way to go before he'll be able to help the team. Yet with the huge contract, unjustified promotion already this year, and a potential call-up, fans are going to be expecting him to start next year in Wrigley and be good. We've already seen how little patience people have with other young players, there's no need to throw-in the added burden of expectations that a September call-up would bring.

Their general obsession with hype. Everything is the biggest, newest, greatest, coolest, mostest, bestest, overblownest, hottest, importantest, dramaticest and nowest. It's all hype and promotion. ESPN used to be itchy and scratchy, and now it's poochie.

Then why was everyone soo upset when Neifi and Izturis went 1-2 in the lineup last year? If it wouldn't matter if they batting 7th 8th, or 1-2, I don't see what the uproar was all about. Because by having Neifi and Izturis at 1-2 you are giving them more ab's than what they would get if they were batting 7-8. Actually, the whole Neifi thing was a perfect example of why I don't believe the lineup doesn't matter. When Lee was having a career year, he only ended up with a little over 100 RBI. The reason is because Neifi and Macias, among others who sucked were batting in front of him. Not only does it make it worse that these guys get more AB's but the fact that don't get on base also causes the players behind them not to get RBI opportunities. the neifi/macias problem was less about where they batted in the lineup and more about the fact that they were in the lineup at all Yes, their presence at all was the worst part, but the spot just added insult to injury.

Lots of unusually debilitating injuries to major stars for a few of those seasons make looking only at the team's won-loss record an obviously overly simplistic way of judging the job Jim Hendry's done. That said, over simplify away... Excuses excuses excuses. Record vs resources. It's simple because that's all that matters. Excuse away, and you'll just keep getting the same results.

Would you have prefered that he not be re-signed? when players are making $40 million per year in 5 years, yeah, we'll be thrilled What year was the current highest salary signed? whatever year A-Rod was signed, but no one thought that would ever be a good deal (vs. the marketplace). With people talking about Johan Santana getting $25-$30mil a year this offseason, however... A big difference is ARod is a position player. You aren't going to find many long term deals for pitchers that didn't turn ugly. I don't think 5 years for a 26 year old with no history of injury is that big of a gamble. It's definitely a big gamble, but it's not necessarily a bad one. In baseball, pretty much every free agent contract is a disappointment, to an extent. You get all your value in a player's pre-free agency years (or maybe his first couple of post free agency). But you can't afford to completely avoid overpaying guys.

The sad thing is, if Jacque Jones hit 60 HRs and was given nightly curtain calls he would still never like the Cubs. For some reason, the Cubs fans just hated him like no other Cubs. Think about all of our bad FAs signings, none were ever hated as much as Jacque. The man hit a career high in HRs and was still hated by the Cubs. Not fair, and I feel really bad for the guy because you have to believe that he thinks racism is the reason. We hated Latroy Hawkins more. A lot more. Todd Hundley too. Based on performance... Cubs fans were ecstatic about the signing. Todd Hundley too. Cubs fans were ready to boo jacque heartily the moment he first stepped into the box at Wrigley. I dont believe that at all. Jones started out horrible, and the team was horrible, and it free falled from there. I don't see it that way. The Jacque Jones signing was vilified on boards like this. Cubs fans came out with pitchforks waiting to use them on Jacque it seems. They were booing him crazy on the first Saturday of the season because he started out 0-10 or something like that. These are his OPS by month last year: .748,.853,.896,.679,.881,.887. Those numbers, save 1-2 months are pretty consistent. Other than maybe his rough first week as a Cub and July when the whole team was horrible, there were no stretches where the fans needed to call him out and boo him. He finishes the season with 27 HR and a +.800 OPS and gets off to a slow start this season and immediately the booing continues. But JJ also brought up the fans to the media early on, and mentioned something about Latroy warning him or something, so he kind of did bring it on himself. He was the "fall guy" though for part of last season in some stupid fans eyes. Not to mention, boards like this hardly represent typical Cubs fans. Jacque started out terribly, made some atrocious throws and baserunning mistakes, and blamed fans for being negative. Fans weren't predisposed to hate him.

Going off memory here, but I think it's 732 in the past 7 days, 680 in the past 14, and 750? in the past 28. No need to call people morons, unless you'd prefer to get banned to protect yourself from people who aren't happy with a 1B hitting like a shortstop.

5 gamer or not, his OPS over the past 7, 14 and 28 days are all bad. The fact that the team has struggled overall isn't an excuse for his lack of productivity.

I don't think there's any question that a large part of the Cubs' fan base, smallish white guys, identify with guys like Ryan Theriot. But I don't think there's any racism involved when they choose to buy his jersey even those he's clearly not the best player on the team. It's irresponsible to suggest such a thing. The fact is we're talking about personalized jerseys, not the readily available ones for guys like Soriano, Ramirez, Lee and Zambrano. Plus, people often purposefully avoid the bigger names, so as to not be just like everybody else. When looking for a different player, you probably want somebody who could be around for a while, and who is performing. Theriot has been a bright spot for this team. We aren't talking Augie Ojeda and the weird fascination with his littleness. We are talking about a guy who is performing while filling a position that has been a disaster in Chicago for a long time. Add in the fact that he came from within the organization, and that he has a fun nickname, and you've got a recipe for somebody the fans will take to. But he's still not the favorite. Maybe we should look at a comparison to DeRosa. Certainly he's been more valuable to the team. And he's a little white guy as well. But there isn't the same level of silly fan love for him, probably because he was a free agent, coming from outside the organization who doesn't have as goofy of a nickname. There's a lot of reasons, besides race, that go into fan's taking to a player. But even if fans do identify with a guy based partially on race, that is not racist.

I'll deny it. It's not like that was a pre-ordained 100 game winner. It was highly flawed, as evidenced by the continually weak offense predicated on contact and the ignorance of the value of a walk. Amazing? Please. It was set up to be pretty good. Maybe not amazing just because that's such a strong word, but he did put together exactly what we always complain about him not doing. He put a team together that was a 95 win team on paper, and even if things go wrong, they should still win the wild card. That team was great. Obviously they were not great. The problem is the team looked great on paper because the first thing people saw on paper was the names. But we were still talking about a barely above average offense with a terrible tendency to not take walks and a pitching staff that was far too relient on very young pitchers being extremely good and carrying the team with a heavy workload. It didn't work out. If you look at the post above yours, you'll see that its not just the names that looked great. Even if you say Hendry got nipped by injury in '04, you still must concede that he hired Dusty, who is the biggest starting pitcher abuser in the game. I just don't see any way around it. GM's are tagged with the whole thing, it's hard to argue around lack of wins over the course of 4 seasons, especially when you look at other clubs and they're getting it done. I never said I think Hendry's done a good job overall. I'm just saying we had a crap-load of talent in 04. There's the problem. Talent does not equal productivity. The Cubs under Hendry have had a lot of talent. What they have lacked is productivity. Hendry covets talent and does not pay proper respect to production (at least the areas of productivity that matter). The 2004 offense was barely above average, not because of a lack of talent, but because of a lack of respect for the walk. Likewise, the pitching staff was walk happy, and placed an extremely heavy burden on extremely young pitchers (and a manager that was far to happy to place a heavy workload on those young pitchers).

maybe they wanted to get him away from the team before ankiel got there Makes sense, although I don't think Ankiel is doing that stuff anymore. Ankiel used to be on that stuff? Wasn't it his father that was an abuser?

Sorry, but you put your reputation out on the line when you post without confirmation. Owned. Yum...This crow is soooo tasty! I don't see how he was owned or how you'd have to eat crow. You were right. This is supposed to be how it works. Somebody posts something like that, and in retrospect it was legit, but at the time there was no way of knowing, so rational people remained skeptical.

I'll deny it. It's not like that was a pre-ordained 100 game winner. It was highly flawed, as evidenced by the continually weak offense predicated on contact and the ignorance of the value of a walk. Amazing? Please. It was set up to be pretty good. Maybe not amazing just because that's such a strong word, but he did put together exactly what we always complain about him not doing. He put a team together that was a 95 win team on paper, and even if things go wrong, they should still win the wild card. That team was great. Obviously they were not great. The problem is the team looked great on paper because the first thing people saw on paper was the names. But we were still talking about a barely above average offense with a terrible tendency to not take walks and a pitching staff that was far too relient on very young pitchers being extremely good and carrying the team with a heavy workload. It didn't work out.

I would definitely say he's a heck of a tryer. I don't doubt his effort.

I'll deny it. It's not like that was a pre-ordained 100 game winner. It was highly flawed, as evidenced by the continually weak offense predicated on contact and the ignorance of the value of a walk. Amazing? Please. It was set up to be pretty good. Ok fine. Replace it with, "No one denies that Hendry put together a very good team for the 2004 season, but we didn't do much" Do you mind addressing the main points of my post instead of arguing semantics with me? I was trying to bring up the issue of an underachieving team in evaluating a GM. 5 years, sub .500, top of the line payroll. I don't see any reason to pretend the Cubs have underachieved what they should have done during the Hendry era. He hired a bad manager, and stocked the team with a flawed mix of players. And his team has been mediocre. I'm really not interested in all the excuses about injuries and underachieving. The GMs job is to construct a team that achieves. The owners provided him with more than enough resources to get the job done, and he failed. In any one given year, sure there could be a level of underachievement. But a GM isn't there to just create a roster for one given year. Over the course of 5 years, excuses get completely washed out.

Honest questions: Is the top GM rated by his team's record? How do you personally calculate GM worth? I don't think there's any one way to do it. But 5 years of near the top payroll producing a record as mediocre as 383-385 is more than enough evidence to indict, try and convict Jim Hendry for being a bad GM.

I'll deny it. It's not like that was a pre-ordained 100 game winner. It was highly flawed, as evidenced by the continually weak offense predicated on contact and the ignorance of the value of a walk. Amazing? Please. It was set up to be pretty good.

383-385

I think re-signing threads are a little slower than new player threads. Not as much information to dicuss other than money, and frankly some people, I think, would rather talk baseball than dollars. And we all know Z and how he plays...nothing new to discuss there. It's good news, but it's not that big of a story. Z constantly saying he was going to remain a Cub made it seem like it was inevitable. There's really not a lot to talk about, in relation to new signings/trades. If it was November and coming up on a deadline like Ramirez, that's different, but it's a mid-year extension.

The Cubs scare me.