jersey cubs fan

I feel like the Indians are a good comparison here. During the late 90s and the time Jacobs Field was built, they were a winning team and sold out every single game. That is just not true anymore, and thats considering they were a playoff team last year. The fan base was irrecoverably hurt. I realize we're the Cubs and everything is a bit different with us but man, your typical meatball fan is PISSED, and those meatball fans money spends just like ours does. The Chicago metro area has 7 million plus more people than Cleveland, and the ballpark is a destination for tourists. EDIT: Not super relevant to that point, but their sell out streak was a sham. Right. Wrigley will always be a destination. Whether that's bad or good I'm not so sure about anymore. Wrigley will be a destination, but being a destination does not guarantee huge attendance. Wrigley was a destination that received a huge boost from 1984 and 1989. But by the mid-90's it was easy as hell to get tickets. It wasn't until 98 that it got a boost again and that tailed off before 2003, when it reached new heights. And ticket sales is not nearly as important as actual butts in seats, which haven't come close to matching the stats bandied about here. When nobody comes, nobody spends money at the park, and that hurts the bottom line. Whether season tickets stabilize at 20k or 21k is irrelevant.

I cannot believe how worked up people get about this stuff. Nobody is worked up. It would just be nice to hear them talk about something else once. the two guys saying [expletive] you espn and espn can [expletive] off seem to be. Not worked up. Just seems wrong to attack half of the audience. It's not attacking the audience.

wtf rizzo

I cannot believe how worked up people get about this stuff.

Does Kaliyah always do that ballet leap when catching pop ups?

Might as well start calling him Obi-Wan, cause he's our only hope.

You have to use some really circuitous apologist logic to pretend there wasn't a point there.

I don't think it's all that roundabout at all. The Cubs have chosen to rebuild by taking a multi-year dive to stock up on top draft picks. It's pretty crazy that their ownership has given the front office a singular mandate and have completely blown off the concept of even being competitive at the major league level. The White Sox are trying to win some games, and Abreu personifies that fact. The fact that Rizzo is good has absolutely nothing to do with the concept. How does Abreu personify that fact, because he's been good or because they spent money? The Sox playing .500 ball for a month doesn't really show a commitment to being competitive to me, unless you're implying that the Cubs wouldn't have wanted to add guys like Abreu or Eaton who keyed their fluky start. Look at their pitching staff, it's Sale(hurt), Quintana, and a trough of sorrow, and the bullpen is worse, partially because they traded their closer for a prospect. Even Eaton came at the price of a young MLB SP whose output has matched Eaton thus far. And this is the example of not "taking a dive"? If Abreu had OPSed .600 for a month getting acclimated to MLB pitching would they still be meeting the threshold for not intentionally tanking or whatever you want to call it? The whole comparison is silly. The Sox made good moves this offseason, but they certainly didn't take any extra care to avoid being bad in the short term, otherwise they wouldn't have traded Addison Reed for Mike Olt's proxy or made their rotation Sale & Jose and pray for rain. Playing .500 baseball for 35 games doesn't change that. Unlike the Cubs, they actually tried and actually did spend money despite not being good. You have to be a complete moron to not understand the very simple comparison being made.

[giant image of Len and JD] yeah, but a turd can only be sweetened so much before you just have to accept that it's a turd and flush it down the [expletive] toilet. Why would you sweeten a turd? dunno, why would you polish one? To put on display at the turd museum.

That's oddly impressive. It seems like most mediocre or bad teams at least stumble into a period of sustained success. The Cubs will still stumble onto that period at some point. They'll probably also manage more than the 5-game losing streak. Last year they had a 5-game win streak (bookended by 6 and 3 game losing streaks). 7-3 over a 10 game stretch was the best they did though.

I don't think it's all that roundabout at all. The Cubs have chosen to rebuild by taking a multi-year dive to stock up on top draft picks. It's pretty crazy that their ownership has given the front office a singular mandate and have completely blown off the concept of even being competitive at the major league level. The White Sox are trying to win some games, and Abreu personifies that fact. The fact that Rizzo is good has absolutely nothing to do with the concept.

I literally just took a look at the box score during the 9th, and even noticed the 3k/2bb and still did not notice that.

A guy currently going through TJS? I would assume yes. Unless your plan was to lowball him so much that he would refuse to sign and then you'd get your pick again next year.

Is it possible to draft a lesser prospect in the first and this guy in the 2nd somehow split the 1/2 bonuses between them? What would that look like?

well that bumps up a bat.

http://instagram.com/p/ntCBH5NQ5I/ Jaxon? She is going to ruin our QB.

Aaron Rodgers looks relieved for Javy.

Before the injury, Hoffman was my favorite for 1.4, moreso than Rodon, Aiken or Kolek. Now, I'm pretty wary. I've been following from a distance and share that opinion.

Longevity. And he pitched multiple 300 inning seasons while getting elected during an era when all the old timers realized nobody was going to do that anymore. Plus his name sounds like negro and the old racist writers couldn't resist.

The primetime and multiple day airing has killed my enthusiasm. The draft is ideal saturday afternoon background noise in the spring. But it blows as primetime television and spread across half a week. The fact that it is May has nothing to do with it for me. I don't care much about the draft being pushed to May but the multiple day is just killer. I wouldn't have minded round one on a weekday at primetime if the rest of the draft was on Saturday. And of course MLB decided to follow that pattern and extend the draft. The MLB one is crazy to me since they just started making it an event to watch and still do not know how to properly hype/rationalize the pick. Every selection is compared to the guy currently playing that position at the major league level on that team. They have a product worth watching, but diluting that product before it ever became popular in the first place seems misguided to me.

He was traded because they got enough value in the trade, questioned his health/ability to live up to an extension and knew they weren't going to be any good in the next few years. The hot head stuff is just a side story.

That's not fair.

Attitude issues? Is this because he pointed out the obvious that no smart veterans want to partake in the farce the Cubs organization is performing. No, when his Twitter tirade happened, railing against women, it was noted that this was well known within baseball. You think Garza's misogynist views were unique enough to be considered a red flag attitude problem? You think having those views on women is OK apparently? Seriously? That is your interpretation of what I said? Just to clarify, my point is that being an [expletive] is pretty much par for the course for major league baseball players. The truly decent and nice guys are not the norm. And half of them get criticized by baseball people as being too soft.

I don't follow how that humiliates Vitters. Major league player.

Attitude issues? Is this because he pointed out the obvious that no smart veterans want to partake in the farce the Cubs organization is performing. No, when his Twitter tirade happened, railing against women, it was noted that this was well known within baseball. You think Garza's misogynist views were unique enough to be considered a red flag attitude problem?