jersey cubs fan

This makes no sense to me. Sports are different now? We can't expect our favorite teams to win a lot of games in order to be defined as great? I mean that dynasties are on the way out. You defined great as winning 90+ games and contending year-in, year-out. Parity is on the rise and dynasties are a more-or-less a thing of the past. Not even dynasties are the issue, though, teams don't too frequently fit your description. It happens, sure, but not often enough to be the standard for accepting the results. I'm not asking the Cubs to win the WS every year. Oakland, NYY, BOS, ATL have all shown it's possible to win a ton of games and contend every year. You are right, as far as the NFL is concerned. But NBA is still dominated by the same teams over and over. MLB too. Regardless, there's no reason why the 2003-2007 Cubs couldn't have ammassed 3-4 90+ win seasons and been in the playoffs multiple times. Hell, just one 95 win season should have been attainable. But no, the "contend within the division" strategy has left us in a cycle of mediocrity highlighted by occasional brilliant failure. Win 95 games and the division two years in a row, and you'll have accomplished something worthy of praise. That would be great. This okayness nonsense is a joke.

A guess or a report you heard somewhere? ESPN1000 In that case, I have a bad feeling Pie's going to head back down once the DL stint is over. I'm also not sure that there's any guarantee he'll be playing much. Not if he starts to hit. Meh, he'll be back up a week later when the rosters expand. No biggie. Yeah, Pagan won't even be eligible the 22nd or so. And obliques (if this is real) often last a bit longer. There's no guarantee Pie gets sent back down for that last week before Sep callups.

This makes no sense to me. Sports are different now? We can't expect our favorite teams to win a lot of games in order to be defined as great?

They aren't a top 4 NL team by any stretch, but they could still very easily make the playoffs. Pythagoras says we are. Only to people who don't understand them.

bottom line, rhetorical question

Sorry, I can't embrace okay ness. I want the Cubs to be great. You know what I wanted for lunch today? A steak. All we had around here were hot pockets. I guess I'll just go hungry? No, I ate a hot pocket. And I'd be a fool to restrain my enjoyment of it just because it wasn't "great." Presumably you've eaten steak once in your life though, as opposed to the zero times you've seen a truly great Cubs team. I have, and I enjoyed the steak well enough to want it again. The 2003 team (greatness aside, since that's ambiguous) was very succesful and incredibly fun to watch, thus I know what I'm missing during the Cubs less-than-average years. Was that your point? by the way, the hot pocket was quite good. 2003 was an above average team that had a nice run. Great teams win 90+ games and contend year-in year-out. The Cubs have never been great in your lifetime.

Hooray mediocrity!! I'm surprised by the reaction to my comments. Why are we even Cubs fans, guys? Why even follow a team if you can't get caught up in the (positive) excitement of a pennant chase? I didn't choose to be a Cubs fan, it just happened, so I can't answer why I am one. However, it's one thing to be excited about being in a race for the title, and embracing the okayness. The Cubs are in a great position to win the division, because they are lucky to be in the Central. But they aren't a very good team and that bothers me. I want to be a fan of a very good, preferabbly excellent, baseball team. Since I can't just start being a fan of another team, I need the Cubs to be that excellent team. And they aren't. It's annoying. I don't take solace in the fact that it's better than what they've done in most years. If I'm a slave who works for a jerk of a master who beats me daily, I'm not going to be thankful if he starts cutting back to once a week. I know it's an over-the-top metaphor . . . but seriously, this may be the crux of our disagreement. If I'm in that situation, I consider two realities: the one who gets beaten daily (past), the one who gets beaten weekly (present). I sure as hell am thankful to be in the present. Last year, Neifi whipped us daily; this year, Marquis whips us weekly. Maybe that'll resonate. :) I never have, and hopefully never will, embrace the okay-ness. Sorry, none of this resonates. I'm glad they are still in the race, but I'm still very disappointed at what a poor job the front office has done over the past several years, when they had every opportunity to construct a truly great team and chose to blow it on crappy veterans who don't fit the profile of player they actually needed. When I go to the game, I can enjoy myself. When I sit back and think about the season as a whole, I have a little hope they can make the playoffs and get lucky. But I'm still disappointed I have to hope for luck.

Sorry, I can't embrace okay ness. I want the Cubs to be great. You know what I wanted for lunch today? A steak. All we had around here were hot pockets. I guess I'll just go hungry? No, I ate a hot pocket. And I'd be a fool to restrain my enjoyment of it just because it wasn't "great." Presumably you've eaten steak once in your life though, as opposed to the zero times you've seen a truly great Cubs team.

Hooray mediocrity!! I'm surprised by the reaction to my comments. Why are we even Cubs fans, guys? Why even follow a team if you can't get caught up in the (positive) excitement of a pennant chase? I didn't choose to be a Cubs fan, it just happened, so I can't answer why I am one. However, it's one thing to be excited about being in a race for the title, and embracing the okayness. The Cubs are in a great position to win the division, because they are lucky to be in the Central. But they aren't a very good team and that bothers me. I want to be a fan of a very good, preferabbly excellent, baseball team. Since I can't just start being a fan of another team, I need the Cubs to be that excellent team. And they aren't. It's annoying. I don't take solace in the fact that it's better than what they've done in most years. If I'm a slave who works for a jerk of a master who beats me daily, I'm not going to be thankful if he starts cutting back to once a week.

Sorry, I can't embrace okay ness. I want the Cubs to be great.

Agree. If anything, Fontenot takes over to 2B when DeRosa moves to the outfield due to Jones piss poor bat. Also, I think Lou will try Pagan against LHP to try to ease Pie back in as a regular. Lastly, Theriot looks like the more consistent out there out of all players that have been shuffled around, so he's not going to sit for Cedeno. The issue of course is that leaves them with no backup shortstop. Teams rarely go without a backup shortstop.

what?

I cannot for a second support this "It's better than what we've seen in the past so let's just be happy" mindset. I couldn't support the "back to back .500 seasons was awesome" mindset either.

They aren't a top 4 NL team by any stretch, but they could still very easily make the playoffs.

No, I really didn't think he'd be the one. May be though. I'd think they would want a guy capable of swinging from the right side and play CF, but who knows. Maybe Lou is sick of him.

Any platoon involving Cedeno is bad. He is a bench player. And DeRosa is a RF. that's probably why he listed him that way Mark DeRosa is no RF. He needs to rest some.

It's hard to blame Soriano's injury either, since he hadn't been hitting for a while before he went down. It's a bad offense put together by a bad GM. It's been a bad offense throughout hit time with the Cubs. At it's peak, it's been average. That's what happens when your front office ignores the changing of the guard.

He's hitting well, What?

Not sure why a weak bloop single would prevent him from being sent down. It's hard for me to believe a team would be stupid enough to add a guy to the 40 man and then send him down 2 days later, when all they had to do was call up Pie in the first place. But it's the Cubs, so it could happen. I have to assume Patterson is up for at least the next week or so.

I wouldn't either, he's had about a 550 OPS since the break, I think. Not sure why they didn't bring up Pie in the first place, given the obvious need for an OF. It would be so ridiculous to send down Patterson after 2 days.

Donaldson seems to be off to a great minor league start. I was hoping he'd be able to master the Midwest League this year, but a 950+ OPS with fantastic K/BB ratio is good regardless of the league.

How would you? You have three lefties. No matter what combo's you use two lefties would have to go back to back. Not in most 3 game series. The best you could do is RLRLL. Take that 5 man rotation through 1 series and you only have 1 lefty. But by the 2nd series, you go back to back. It's inevitable that lefties will throw back to back against the same team quite often throughout any period of time. You could cut reduce them by having one guy constantly going on 3 days rest, therefore constantly shuffling the rotation, but that's not very likely.

Do you see Pie being moved to RF, then? Actually I see one being traded, or Pie sticking in CF and Colvin not making it. I can't imagine Colvin putting up the numbers that would make him a productive corner OF, that's why I was saying my realistic hope is 6 years of cost effective (but far from great) production out of CF. Pie would really have to reach his full ceiling in the next 3-4 years as a 900+ OPS guy to think you'd be doing the right thing having both out there.

Oh my freaking lord this drives me nuts. Leadoff hitter is not a position. There is no requirement about what player can hit there. You don't call up a leadoff hitter when your LF goes down, you call up a LF. Furthermore, Pie would be 100 times the LF Patterson is.

But you don't know that's the case. So you're settling for mediocrity rather than taking a chance on the unknown with potential. Of course I don't know that's the case. Nobody can see the future. Certainly there's the potential for the unknown to outperform the mediocrity. But there's even greater potential for the unknown to underperform the mediocrity, or for the mediocrity to return to career norms. The sort of "taking a chance" you're talking about here is the same kind that built Las Vegas. The odds are in the house's favor, but people "take a chance" anyway because it's exciting. The promise of a big payoff leads folks to ignore the negative EV. That's a pretty ridiculous mindset if you ask me. You do a really poor job of theorizing about career norms. Post-30 players playing like crap don't just return to their averages. Their averages were built up when they were better. They aren't the same player. Furthermore, there is no house here. There is no law of averages saying the odds are that crappy veterans will outperform hot hitting prospects. This is the exact same mindset that has led to the Cubs sucking so bad for so long. It's mind boggling why people still believe this nonsense.