jersey cubs fan

Or the winning of baseball games? I think some are likely annoyed. But I think he's tolerable due to the fact that he brings so much to the table.

Molina is a horrible idea. The best part of trading Barrett is the Cubs aren't tied to an older catcher on the downside. Molina is older, has more miles and has a contract through 2009 that pays more than Barrett got. To top it off, he's not good. Terrible idea.

I think people are ignoring the single biggest factor in all of this. To be kind, I'll say it's "familiarity." . That wouldn't explain both a drop off after marriage if you dated for a long time beforehand and a dropoff after marriage if you didn't date for long (you and bob). It's not until after marriage until the "last person you'll sleep with" thing really hits you in the head.

If this little breather lasts through the break, then definitely.

Hahahaha! What? Too aggressive? I think it was the phrase "future franchise catcher" that got him. Oh. Well, I'm not saying the guy is, I'm saying there's a chance he could be. That doesn't mean he'll ever be an all star or anything, just that he might be a guy who comes up and provides relatively inexpensive catching services for 6-7 years without being a weight on the team. I would hope a 1st round comp pick would have a chance to be that guy. He'll fit perfectly with our infield of Kelton, Montanez, Hill, and Choi! Heh, I'm just kidding around - you have to admit your post is reminiscent of newbie posts! :( Well, you've got a point there.

Hahahaha! What? Too aggressive? I think it was the phrase "future franchise catcher" that got him. Oh. Well, I'm not saying the guy is, I'm saying there's a chance he could be. That doesn't mean he'll ever be an all star or anything, just that he might be a guy who comes up and provides relatively inexpensive catching services for 6-7 years without being a weight on the team. I would hope a 1st round comp pick would have a chance to be that guy.

I haven't voted in many of these, but I gotta go with raw. I almost gave up on him when he sold out and became a moderator, but I'm pretty sure he's the longest running co-poster of BS and nonsense about the Cubs that I know. None of you top seeds would stand a chance against me if I wasn't on probation and ineligible for postseason play.

Hahahaha! What? Too aggressive?

the production from SS isn't anything to write home about either And it's not just when Izturis starts. The Cubs are still bottom of the league in SS OPS, and Izturis actually has the best numbers out of the SS position. Plus, RF is still ranked 10th in the league. They are being carried by 3B (2nd in league), 1B (3rd in league), LF (4th) and 2B (5th in league). I can't believe that there are 6 worse RF in the NL than what the Cubs have had. That hasn't been nearly the abyss that SS and CF have been, but I'm surprised it's ranked that high. Jacque Jones put up a 600 OPS there over half the games, so it shouldn't be that surprising. Murton sucked in his brief RF stint, and Floyd didn't start hitting at all until Soriano was moved to LF and RF became his regular spot. About 2-3 weeks ago I think they were 13th in the NL in OPS from RF.

Not really. Just because it leaks, and from all accounts, the first source of those leaks were on this message board, doesn't mean it was ever finished. He could have agreed to players and then negotiated the money before backing out. He could have agreed to the money but been trying to upgrade the prospect in return. Or maybe it never got that close. Trades are regularly reported as "all but done" without ever being finalized. Lots and lots of trades have been leaked and then fall apart.

So who is telling the truth? It doesn't make any sense that the Trib Tower would veto a trade of Jones based on salary. (For the reason Bruce stated). It also doesn' t make any sense that MLB offices would come out any deny having any involvement in stopping the trade, if they truly vetoed the trade. How about Hendry?

the production from SS isn't anything to write home about either And it's not just when Izturis starts. The Cubs are still bottom of the league in SS OPS, and Izturis actually has the best numbers out of the SS position. Plus, RF is still ranked 10th in the league. They are being carried by 3B (2nd in league), 1B (3rd in league), LF (4th) and 2B (5th in league).

I think people are ignoring the single biggest factor in all of this. To be kind, I'll say it's "familiarity." Raw, I will point you to the Eddie Murphy skit about Ritz crackers and regular saltines.

Good to see he's at least this far. I was hoping he'd be low A worthy by the end of this season. If he can be in Daytona in 2008, AA in 2009, then there's a chance we could have the future franchise catcher up in the majors by 2010, at age 24.

This has got to best the greatest non-sequitor ever. I have no idea what you are talking about. When I got engaged, a friend shared with me a story about the jelly bean jar. If you put a jelly bean in the jar every time you have sex with your to-be before you get married and then take one out for every time you have sex afterwards, you will never run out of jelly beans. we dated for a year before we got married and have been married for 8. by my calculations, I'd still have about 340 jelly beans in that bad boy Give up now. :D We dated for 10 years before getting married. I'm going to die with a monopoly on the jelly bean market.

Which again begs the question, "How is that incurring more debt for the new owner when we have to pay him if we keep him?" It's debt in a baseball sense, paying a guy who is not on the team. When baseball hurts teams that try to do that, it makes them think twice about handing out stupid contracts, in theory. Enforcing this debt concept is not new. MLB has a rule in place where teams can't carry debt in excess of 40% of their value. For their purposes, the value of the team is based on something like twice the previous year's revenue, and the debt includes any money owed to players in future years. It's a tool MLB uses to screw with teams that are giving out stupid contracts, like the Cubs. Everybody knows the Cubs gave out $300m in contracts this year, of which about $250m is owed in future years. There was already another $50m or so on the books owed to guys in the future. That $300m is 40% of $750 million, which is greater than the Cubs value, as it's been stated in many official records ($600-650m I believe). So, the Cubs giving out deals willy-nilly gave the commish power to mess with future moves. Just another reason why the Jones, Eyre, Rusch, Blanco, Howry and others deals were so harmful, and why the Lilly, Marquis and Soriano deals hurt as well. And unless I'm mistaken, I believe potential money owed, as in the case of incentives like the ones in Floyd's contract (up to $17m?) also count in this process.

I doubt it. (and by it, I'm referring to the last question, can Selig stop them from cutting Jones) Trades involving the movement of more than $1m, regardless of whether it's about "buying a player" or one team paying another team to take a guy off their hands", have to get commish approval. So that's why he could stop them from making the trade (if he even did). But he doesn't have the authority to stop them from releasing Jones. He could go to the owners and tell them he advises against it. Or a potential buyer could say he'll take whatever dead weight cost off his offer, but if they want to cut him, they can.

As far as I know, they are. And while I agree to an extent, I think they believe he's a stable presence there, and don't want to surround Urlacher with two unknowns, assuming Briggs doesn't play.

RFK seems to sap everyone's SLG%. How do the home/roads look for all the Nats players? Last in the league, 658 OPS at home, 2nd to last in the league, 685 on the road. It holds them down, but they suck anyway.

Not likely. Probably Jamar Wilson, with Okwo as the dark horse rookie candidate.

The Briggs situation is unclear. It makes the most sense for him financially to take the pay and play this year, after skipping training camp, but staying in shape on his own. But we won't know until September. Peterson is probably the backup. I'm guessing the DT starters will be Harris and Dusty, with Adams next in-line on the rotation and Idonije and Garay behind them. Anderson may or may not start, but he and Bazuin are pretty good bets to challenge Brown and Ogunleye for playing time. Although, at least with Bazuin, that's just a guess. They probably can't get a whole season out of Mike Brown, but it's not unrealistic to hope for 12-14 regular season starts plus a healthy playoff run by him, now that he's moved back to free safey. The Bears have added their draft picks, they've added a DT in Adams from the 49ers. They added another Ayabendejo, Obafemi the full-back. They added Adam Archuleta, who they tried to get last year, before he went to the Redskins where he didn't fit in at all. Lovie seems to think he knows how to use him better in his system, where Archuleta once flourished. They lost Boone and Scott, basically their DT depth. They lost Johnson and Worrell from the safety positions and special teams. They lost Jones. They pretty much return their offense more or less intact, with the same offensive line, WR group and QBs. The only change being Jones. The core of the defense is back, but there's a few noticable changes at each of the three levels, with a change at safety, uncertainty and LB and questions at DT. ****won't let me type full back without the space****

I don't think they consider signing an asset that you can keep around for a long time to be debt, in the way they think paying a guy to play elsewhere is debt.

You want us to look at the 07's free agents asses at the mid-point?

I'm not sure we can go that far. The ex W-L on espn.com has them as the 5th best team in the NL, still on the outside looking in to the playoffs. Expected W-L has said the Cubs are better than their record, but not really among the elite. There's another 7 AL teams with better ex w-l records.

I wouldn't pretend that, but he's definitely got a solid chance of outperforming what the Cubs have gotten out of SS so far this year.