Little Slide Rooter

I just noticed that every team in the NL Eastbis above .500 (you're welcome Phillies). Is that rare for this point in the season?

Yeah, I'll admit that considering that Castillo could escape DL time and Clevenger could be back next weekend, we would not have been able to get anything better, at least not giving up something of value. There's really no point in giving up anything for a week of a catcher on a team like this. Would the Brenley kid be any better? Doubtful. And I don't speak a ton of Spanish, but I'm pretty sure that Apodaca pretty much translates to "just as bad as Koyie Hill that doesn't know our pitching staff", which is important.I hate the fact that he's back and I hope it's as short a stint as possible, but I understand it. It's just that he's a very strong representation and reminder of all of those little things that the old regime did wrong.

I can't agree with that. I think Brett's floor is that he never fixes his strikeouts and doesn't reach the majors. I think Szczur is a minimum of a 4/5 OF. Jackson "reaching" the majors is not an issue. He's going to come up and play this year at some point unless something more disasterous happens than is currently going on in Iowa. Him sticking in the majors may be an issue, but with the current state of this team, he's either going to get every chance in the world in Chicago or be traded and get a shot there. Isn't pretty much every relevant prospect's floor not figuring something out and not making the majors?

Because bullpen performance has such a huge year to year variance in many cases and in his example, the pen is the issue. More than that, when it comes to your overall record, a loss is a loss, but when evaluating a team as a whole, it's not necessarily the case. Like you said, a lot of the losses that came as a result of the bullpen blowing a quality start. Also, a pitchers duel in which you came up on the short end or a slugfest with the same outcome are very different than a blowout like today's. Yeah, we attempted a "fake rally" but at the expense of some dreg from the back of the pen. While a 20 loss difference is obviously a significant one, it's also important to evaluate what lead to each loss, thus figuring out exactly where to concentrate our resources. That's why you piece together a top of the line front office. Couple that with the fact that we have money, it's going to make it a lot easier to turn a 90-100 loss team into a contender a lot quicker then when you're the Pirates or Royals.

Because a 100-loss team is probably significantly worse than an 80-loss team and would require more money/trades/work to improve. I guess we'll just disagree on this. But I think with what we currently have and with what we've got coming in a month or two, a big bat, a big arm, and a few changes to the pen is more than enough to put this team into contention. I agree with your sentiment, but it's easier said than done. The big bat is going to need to be more than Upton or Ethier. Hamilton would be great, but he'll be quite the risk at the price he'll likely command. Hamels would be beautiful, and I'd be OK paying whatever it would cost on a 6-7 year deal, but I'll be that the Yankees and Red Sox to name a few think the same thing. With the amount of payroll shed between the end of last season and this, we should have the money to make the necessary changes, but other teams do to, and what we need will be on everyone's radar.

I could care less about the 2012 Cubs.I could care less about the BP Cup. I could care less about The White Sox. White Sox fans: now that's a different story. We need to beat these fucks, and if Peavy suffers his annual season ending injury in the process, so be it.

I don't think that anyone is going to question that building from what Theo had coming to the Cubs is going to be a lot more difficult than building from what he had from taking over the Red Sox. He had a hell of a starter kit there. Here, he has a few big league ready pieces, a few trade chips, and as far as we know a fairy decent amount of money. If all these factors are properly utililized, we should be at least a .500 team next year and go from there.

Damn, that could be pretty traumatic. I think you handled it pretty well by hoping for a Kieran or Kevin. I'm sure someone dropkicked their dog that found out that way. Or frantically checked their calendar in hopes that it was April 1st.

Well this has been a depressing little stretch.

$5 says he's a Brewer by sometime next week.

I guess I forgot to email this to Dale Sveum this morning. My bad.

Clearly you don't understand the value of a dollar. I was actually gonna add "though that's probably too much." But, was there really no better alternatives? A Steak and Shake coupon which expires tomorrow and a 1987 Topps Chico Walker and not a penny more, but I expect them to throw in a PTBNL

Somewhere between Brant Brown and Neifi Perez

And Randy Wells. John Grabow can't be too far behind.

Clearly you don't understand the value of a dollar.

His plane's probablly arriving at ORD as we speak.

Darwin or The Purple dinosaur? Suddenly I'm wishing we'd hung onto that Jaramillo fellow. Is Damon Berryhill still alive? Hector Villanueva? Rick Wrona?

NOOOOOOOOOOOOOO why would God do this to us? What's worse, with Castillo out at least 5-7 games, Clevenger not back until at least next weekend, and Blake Lalli being bad, he'll like be starting much of this week. Why is this happening.

That's not how it works.

In the past, John Danks has had his way with us to the tune of 2.88 ERA 6/24 BB/K 1.086 WHIP, but of the current team, he only really has a history against Soriano (.250/.400/.375 in 8 AB) and DeJesus (.348/.400/.435 in 23 AB). Also Soto (.200/.200/.200 in 10 AB) but I'm pretty sure he's on the DL by now.

And honestly, as many good surprises as there have been, there have been just as many disappointments. Soto, Barney, and Volstad all being much worse than expected, Marmol forgetting what the strike zone looks like, Kerry not being very good, and Soriano not bouncing back as hoped. Far from everything has gone right and I'm really not all that disappointed in how the season has gone thus far. I like the 1-2 attack of DeJesus-Campana more than I ever thought I would. However, we don't have much to follow through when they get on base. Even Castro is going to need to boost that OBP before he can be considered a 3 hitter. LaHair's been a nice 4, but I think he'll ultimately be a .260/.380/.450 type of hitter. The rest of the lineup is...lacking. Stewart could surprise us, and between Barney and Cardenas, we could be OK at 2nd. Aside from Volstad, starting pitching has exceeded expectations. However, the time to move Dempster is approaching. The bullpen is a mess, but it should really be expected. Of our top 5 guys from last year, only Russell now remains and we havn't had much luck piecing together the rest. What we have is your typical team at phase 1 of a rebuilding process. New pieces are emerging while old pieces still linger. There is help coming from the farm in the very near future, but how much remains to be seen. We can compete as soon as next year, but we'll have to spend a few bucks and make some trades.

And then you need to find a working VHS player.