jersey cubs fan

They still rank top 10 on both sides of the ball though. Part of it is they don't have to be great this year to still stick out. There's plenty of mediocrity out there to hide a team's flaws. There's mediocrity in every NFL season.

I don't think it is all that hard actually. It's just that when you are the A's you have to let average guys go when they are poised to make $5-7 million. The Cubs can hold onto and pay average guys but also pay for a couple stars, and they absolutely should. I'm certainly not advocating the avoidance of stars. It's foolish unless you absolutely cannot afford them. And no matter how hard they pretend, the Cubs are not in the A's situation. Those guys help you go from contention to domination, and the 1 seed.

Pissing my pants? I'm lamenting the fact that with the market apparently higher than previously thought, the Cubs may be even less active than previously hoped. If you could read with any semblance of proportionality you may have figured that out.

What a cop-out. It isn't asking you to be a juror sentencing somebody to death. If you are an adult American you've probably heard enough about it to have an opinion.

and that's not misleading? (separate years of 4.60, 4.61 in that time) ok put it this way: he just set a career high in xFIP, with 4.29, and still only 4 qualified starters in baseball had a worse mark than that Why qualified? There's 15 guys that pitched as much as him with a worse mark.

we're really doing this right now. for Jason Vargas. he, of the 4.63 career xFIP. there are no words. If a guy who is a tick better than Travis Wood is getting that kind of money, that is the market.

It's almost as if major league teams have lots of money to spend.

lolwut? Okay, I'll give you that one. Headley's OPS+ was very good. 120, vs. Stewart's 97. Didn't look that far... I looked at Headley's .773 OPS vs. Stewarts .781. Stewart's 18 HR vs. Headley's 4. It's very possible the Cubs favored Stewart's power potential and over Headley. Stewart had a .454 SLG in thep revious 3 seasons leading up to the trade. Headley had a .387 SLG. try again

I like to think our front office has voodoo beyond fangraphs pages. Okay, he was also younger, cheaper, had a better pedigree, had yet to hit his prime years, and was coming off of a better offensive season and cost us Tyler Colvin and DJ LeMahieu instead of our best pitching prospect (assuming Garza trade had been done already) and our cheap, fan-favorite starting catcher who put up 10+ wins over the previous 4 seasons. He was one year younger and coming off an abysmal season after breaking his wrist. Headley was coming off a better year and was at least as good over the previous three years.

So now Ilitch is ok with trading him? Doesn't make a lot of sense. Illitch hasn't been doing so well lately, maybe he's no longer calling the shots. They just told him they were opening more franchises in Texas and needed his signature.

uggghhhh

The blackhawks aren't available nationally on wgn. The cubs aren't gaining national fans with wgn. That benefit stopped in the 90's specifically because it was no longer true that it was unique. Kids in 2013 aren't coming home from school with only 1 or 2 options to watch, and them being sucked into the cubs as a result. Aren't some of the Hawks games on WGN America, or is that just the Bulls? Not that it matters because at most its like 5-6 games a year, but I thought some were national. And yeah this. This isn't the 90's where the Saturday or Sunday night game is your national game of the week and that along with Cubs and Braves games are it if you don't live in a baseball market. Between ESPN, Fox, TBS and the MLB Network (not to mention MLB.tv) there are nationally broadcast games on almost every day of the week, in addition to hundreds of other TV channels, youtube, hulu, netflix, etc etc etc available for a 10 year old to watch when he gets home from school. I have never seen one game on WGN America. I believe they play there on Sundays, and I have to settle for the opposing teams' broadcast on Center Ice. Although, a glitch in the system cancelled my Center Ice this month and I haven't bothered reordering it. WGN games are strictly an enticement to the local people who don't have cable.

The blackhawks aren't available nationally on wgn. The cubs aren't gaining national fans with wgn. That benefit stopped in the 90's specifically because it was no longer true that it was unique. Kids in 2013 aren't coming home from school with only 1 or 2 options to watch, and them being sucked into the cubs as a result.

Doesn't this process of team building lead to higher variation from year to year and make it more difficult to build any sort of sustained success? The opposite, I think. If you have stars and scrubs and a star goes in the tank or gets hurt, then you're more or less screwed. With "no bad players" that risk is distributed across a larger pool. Of course, I think there's a little bit of a difference in perception too. No bad players doesn't mean no good/great players. The A's got an MVP season from Donaldson and had 4 players above 3.5 fWAR(Cubs had 0), plus they had an elite bullpen and platooned the bejeezus out of people. I think no bad players allows you to stay in the race every year and prevent horrible seasons. It also allows for flexibility in terms of which players from the outside they can target, whereas black hole positions force you to address specific players.

apparently. Not sure how that can end in anyway but badness.

Bingo. I would give restructure his contract this offseason and feel confident enough to add 3-4 more years for an extension. You can always just cut him that last year (assuming his cap hit isn't like Peppers) if he isn't performing. He got the skill set to last longer than most WRs, but the only questions will be injuries (like every other WR/player) and his size (staying in great shape). There's also the question of his mental state.

If I'm being honest, Michigan and Ohio State are better examples. They are similar in geography, and obviously in our conference. The point wasn't the schools specifically, but rather their recruiting practices. People seem to forget that Nebraska is a blue blood program. It wasn't by accident that the following has occurred in our proud football history: 5 National Championships 43 Conference Championships 4th most all-time victories among FBS schools, behind Michigan, Texas and Notre Dame (who we are only 9 wins behind) 9th in winning percentage among FBS schools Winningest college football program during the last 50 years When I say I'm a homer, it isn't only because I'm from here. Nebraska is a blue blood program, and has the resources to compete every single year on a national level. I additionally don't expect that we will see a return to the Devaney and Osborne years - but I do expect to be nationally relevant and winning conference championships. This is Nebraska. Nebraska is not a blue blood program. Or, if it is, the blue blood is based on the family's great great grandfather's textiles company and the fortune has been dwindling. Nebraska is a step down in prominence from Michigan and Ohio State. Nebraska is Iowa and Wisconsin with a better track record. But that record is very old, and from a very different era of college football.

I think you are a little misguided on this point. The fact is that anything NU can offer students can be matched by probably a dozen or more other schools. It's not about what it can offer that others cannot match, because that really doesn't exist. There are only a handful of programs that sell themselves in recruiting. Nebraska is not among them. I'm an unrepentant homer when it comes to the University of Nebraska. People from outside of the state will never understand, and I don't expect them to. I understand. You are in the same boat as any number of fans of any number of other schools. You think your school is special and therefore can practically sell itself to anybody. The fact is there is a very small base of people for whom that "specialness" resonates. But that's not what recruiting is about. You are preaching to the choir when going after the little glasscows of the world. If you want to be better, you have to either recruit to the crowd for which Nebraska really isn't anything special, or actually coach the X's and O's better than the next guy. Or at the very least, find a gimmick that other teams can't figure out for a couple years.

I think you are a little misguided on this point. The fact is that anything NU can offer students can be matched by probably a dozen or more other schools. It's not about what it can offer that others cannot match, because that really doesn't exist. There are only a handful of programs that sell themselves in recruiting. Nebraska is not among them.

The point is the 2008 Cubs below 100 were at 93 and 89, while the 2013 Cubs had guys at 56 and 72, plus a 94 and 99 getting lots of time. The scale matters, not just whether they were above or below 100. And on top of that, the 2013 strongest regular was at 107. They combined black holes with no studs. The 2008 guys who weren't good, weren't black holes either. And they also had some really good guys, but not top 10 OPS+ hitters.

http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/mlb/news/20131119/worst-positions/ Len Kasper tweeted a link to this Verducci column, noting that he really liked the Billy Beane quote: This sort of thing is why the 2008 Cubs were so good. They didn't have much in the way of superstars performing above and beyond, but they had no weak links. The problem with so many other Hendry era Cubs teams is they had several black hole positions that weighed heavily on the team. The current team is filled with even fewer high end performers but with just as many black hole types. OPS+ isn't the best way to go about judging the weakest links, but it gives you a pretty good indication where the weaknesses lie.

You should probably consider growing thicker skin on the matter and not worry so much about what you perceive as everybody mocking your team.

That report was exactly what started the discussion about his injury on the Jay Cutler Show yesterday. Cutler immediately dismissed it and started all that negative talk. But then again Jay was very non-committal about playing in the Lions game the week leading up to it, but yesterday on the show he pretty much implied that he knew he was going to be back for that game during the bye week. The only conclusion is the organization is pushing Jay to come back, knowing he isn't ready, so he will look bad and it will help justify not bringing him back. You really think they're trying to put themselves in a position to lose games so they don't have to bring back Cutler (who they don't have to bring back anyways)? No, but that wasn't at all implied in the joke either. The point was if he isn't healthy enough to return, and the Bears know he isn't healthy enough to return, the conspiracy theorist view would be they are leaking that "they expect him to return on 12/1", knowing full well he won't be able to return on 12/1, therefore painting him in a bad light.

That report was exactly what started the discussion about his injury on the Jay Cutler Show yesterday. Cutler immediately dismissed it and started all that negative talk. But then again Jay was very non-committal about playing in the Lions game the week leading up to it, but yesterday on the show he pretty much implied that he knew he was going to be back for that game during the bye week. The only conclusion is the organization is pushing Jay to come back, knowing he isn't ready, so he will look bad and it will help justify not bringing him back.

I don't think anybody was heaping praise on it.