Little Slide Rooter

Carlos Zambrano will be given every opportunity to prove himself. Brian LaHair is our 1st baseman. Can I get a we have no intention of trading for Felix Hernandez? Can't complain about this move.

yeah i'm sure a major league organization is going to give hush money to a possible rape victim. sounds like a solid p.r. move. Hush money would suggest that it would have been given to her before the reports had actually come out. cash settlements are to avoid dragging a case to court when there's a good chance that there won't be a resolution. It's all a part of this wonderful land we call corporate america, and sports franchises don't react much differently when their best and brightest get themselves into trouble. so the cubs are just going to give her money to make the problem go away. wouldn't that seem to set a poor precedent? hey do whatever you want off the field, we'll pay off your victims. FFS Truffle, it happens. The money is somewhat to go away, somewhat to avoid the hastle of the court case, especially with a 21 year old budding star who already seems to have issues with focus. I'm not saying it's the right thing. It's just how the system works. Rich guys get away with things that poor guys don't because their company is often willing to bail them out.

yeah i'm sure a major league organization is going to give hush money to a possible rape victim. sounds like a solid p.r. move. Hush money would suggest that it would have been given to her before the reports had actually come out. cash settlements are to avoid dragging a case to court when there's a good chance that there won't be a resolution. It's all a part of this wonderful land we call corporate america, and sports franchises don't react much differently when their best and brightest get themselves into trouble.

Again, I don't see why anyone would be shocked at someone taking on Soriano who can still mash lefties if it only costs them around 5 mil over 3 years and something like a Chris Volstad. The O's are in desperate need of some publicity, I'd love to see Duquette jump on this move. I really do not care who the get in return. This isn't Sammy Sosa we're talking about here. Just a guy who can still do an OK job of hitting a baseball and throwing it from the outfield to home plate, occasionally managing to catch it when it's hit toward him.

What the hell, man? It's easy to just pluck that sentence and ignore the rest which is just explaining why something like this can be more than worthwhile to someone looking to score some easy money. I really don't think that Castro flat out raped or sexually assaulted this girl. However, the more likely scenerio is that it's pretty much what happens about a hundred times in this country every prom night where boy and girl have a bit too much to drink and it ends up leading to people making. The girl usually gets the benfit out the doubt, however, as long as there are only two people in the room at the time(if not, Starlin, you rascal) and they're the only ones who know what really happened. In the end, there won't be enough evidence for anything to come out of it and The Cubs will end up giving her a generous cash settlement to go away rather than taking it to court.

right now i'd say these are the things that will hold my interest in 2012, even if the cubs aren't contenders: 1. minor leagues. they spent a lot of money last year and hopefully some of the guys in the low minors will break out, plus they may get some good prospects in return for a potential garza trade. 2. ian stewart - can he be at least a league-average 3b? if so then the cubs made a very good trade. it appears he'll get an extended shot at the job. 3. travis wood - can he be at least a league-average starter? again, probably not a really high impact player but if the cubs can look forward to cheap league-average or better production from him, then that's a nice plus. 4. catcher - will soto be healthy and productive? if so, do they try to deal him with the idea of castillo becoming the starter for the next few years? 5. castro - really, he's fun to watch, but i'm hoping his power and patience continue to improve, and i hope he gets better on defense. if his defense doesn't improve then it could be time to start thinking about him as a 3b or 2b while finding a long-term answer at short. 6. can they find a taker for any of the high-salary guys (soriano, zambrano, dempster) that brings salary relief and/or good prospects? the salary relief is obviously soriano; zambrano and (moreso) dempster could bring back prospects if they have a nice first half. 7. bullpen - can marmol build up his trade value? also eager to see if some of the young guys like beliveau can stick in the bigs. 8. nsbb - how short will the game threads get if the cubs are lousy? how quickly will some people give up on epstein/hoyer? will da bum ever be freed? Add Cashner to that list . If we could get a package centering around Montero and Banuelos for Garza, I would probably be as excited about a Cubs season as I've been in several years. Banuelos, Cashner, Wood, Volstead and maybe McNutt later in the year could possibly fill out the rotation of pitchers that I would be interested in watching most days. Montero would provide the first young exciting power bat we've had since God knows when. I'd also like to file motion to add Jeff Samardzjia to that list. After 2 years of futility, last year he seemed to be finally pulling it together and at a few weeks shy of his 27th birthday there's still plenty of hope for him, but this could be his make or break year, at least in regards to his Cubs career. I know we have a plethora of back of the rotation options(Volstad, Wood, Sonnenstine, Wells, Jackson, Rusin, Struck, Cabrera) but Shark is very intriguing if given the shot, especially considering the amount of pen options we have: Marmol, Carpenter, Corpas, Dolis, Beliveau, Russell, Gaub, Maine, Castillo, Weathers, and probaby Kerry Wood.

It's also all too easy for scumbag athletes to do whatever they want because they know people will think like you, so accusations will never stick. We don't know right now, so I don't see why Castro or the woman should be getting the benefit of the doubt. We just don't know. Agreed, but while I tend to give the edge to the atlete for the fact that more often than not these guys can pretty much pick out what they want and something else the next night. While we don't know much about who this girl is, if she's in her early 20's as reported, there's a good chance she's in college, out of college and either has a low paying or entrance level job, waiting tables or working retail, or no job at all. While anywhere between $250K-$1 mil or so may seem like spare change in baseball money, to someone like that it's pretty huge even if they are from a well off family.

Yeah no one ever talks about Rapelisberger or Kobes exploits in Colorado anymore. More importantly, Starlin Castro isn't Kobe Bryant or Ben Roethlisberger. He's a 21 year old just starting to make a name for himself so if anything does come out of this he'll have a rougher road ahead than those two who were established superstars of their respective sports.

Yeah, that's certainly true. But also, when they actually do rape a chick their defense is ready to go. The chick must just want money (Big Ben). Unless they're underage (LT). That wasn't rape though. He paid fair and square. Then there was Mark Chmura who was accused of sexually assaulting his 17 year old babysitter. He was found not guilty, but admitted to inappropriate behavior at a prom party. I think he was in his 30's at the time. I'm not saying that they're all innocent little boyscouts, but it's a bit too easy for some hose bag groupie to go home with one of these guys with full intentions of letting them have their way and then crying rape afterword. At least Castros accuser is said to be in her 20's.

Again, I don't see why anyone would be shocked at someone taking on Soriano who can still mash lefties if it only costs them around 5 mil over 3 years and something like a Chris Volstad.

Seriously though, this is the 3rd time this year(past few months anyway) I've innocently checked Twitter expecting to hear some minor transactions and I'm hit by some huge out of nowhere 1) Braun fails PED test 2) Zambrano traded 3) Castro assault charge. Kind of like waking up and the morning goes just like any other morning and you walk outside to find that a tree fell on your car. At least my cars insured. The only Castro insurance is Darwin Barney and Jeff Bianchi. Damn cut rate 15 minute insurance. This being said, I don't buy it. Star athletes are such easy targets for these types of things because everyone knows that even if they don't have a ton of money themselves, their team is likely to pay the accuser to go away and a lot of them don't have the kind of background as you average young rich 20 somethings.

This just in: a bus carrying the Chicago Cubs top 20 prospects just drove off a cliff.

As long as Soriano can mash lefties, don't be surprised to see AL teams start taking out fliers as long as we pick up most of his salary and accept a failed former top propsect in return.

But like it or not, it appears as though the powers that be are building for the future, and I don't think that anybody can deny that neither Zambrano nor Soriano were ever to be a part of that future. I'd have liked to see a better return for Z, and by no means was I happy with what we ended up with at the time but 24 hours later and I'm well over it. Still don't love it, but whatever. If you read any of this thread you'd know I was one of the ones defending this trade as being the best we could have expected, and largely inevitable. I'm just telling you why people here won't react the same way to a Soriano trade. No emotional attachment. While a handfull of people may have been upset about Z being traded for emotional reasons, more people were upset that we up gave away an expensive player who could have potentiially been productive and got little back in terms of salary relief or talent. Soriano too is an expensive, somewhat productive player with no reason to be run out of town for nothing until he thepoint where he's blocking someone.

That was Wilkens thing and I wouldnt expect to see anymore Tyler Colvins and Hayden Simpsons drafted in the 1st round and if he has a problem with that perhaps he should start prepping his resume.

Not this year anyway.

But like it or not, it appears as though the powers that be are building for the future, and I don't think that anybody can deny that neither Zambrano nor Soriano were ever to be a part of that future. I'd have liked to see a better return for Z, and by no means was I happy with what we ended up with at the time but 24 hours later and I'm well over it. Still don't love it, but whatever.

I didn't realize that Shields was 31. If he has another year like last year, 5 years isn't out of the question. Haren too.I think the Angels hold his option and if so, they'll likely pick it up. However, depending on how long Cain and Hamels last in the market if they make it to free agency, Haren and Shields should get 5 years depending on how many teams wanted Cain or Hamels and missed out. Greinke could probably get 5 years as well anxiety issue or not. Cain and Hamels could end up with 6-7.

In the sense that if he were traded for anything resembling value, some people would be thrilled but many others would be equally pissed because if we're paying most of his salary anyway he may as well play for us unless we're getting a better return? Yes. I'm going to go out on a limb here and say the reaction to a similar trade for Soriano the reaction would be much, much different. Actually, I'd feel about the same about it. At least with Z, we knew he'd be gone next year and perhaps could have boosted his value with a good first half. Soriano's just there for the next 3 years. Hes somewhat productive as long as we accept the fact that at this point his salary is irrelevant. As long as we don't have a better option available I don't mind him hanging around, but I'm at the point where if he was traded, no matter the return I'd be pretty apathetic about it.

In the sense that if he were traded for anything resembling value, some people would be thrilled but many others would be equally pissed because if we're paying most of his salary anyway he may as well play for us unless we're getting a better return? Yes.

I predict that in the next few weeks, Soriano will be traded to Tampa Bay along with $47.5 million for Reid Brignac and it will be me with the perfect mix of overwhelming joy, seething rage, a bunch of saber metrics attempting to prove that it was the greatest thing to happen to this country since the death of Osama Bin Laden. The [expletive] just happened. Refer to the [expletive] of intense emotions that is the Zambrano thread.

6.) Sign Luke Scott for 3.5 mil and replace the Gatoraid cooler with a barell of plantain chips.

I predict that in the next few weeks, Soriano will be traded to Tampa Bay along with $47.5 million for Reid Brignac and it will be me with the perfect mix of overwhelming joy, seething rage, a bunch of saber metrics attempting to prove that it was the greatest thing to happen to this country since the death of Osama Bin Laden.

If 2013 rolls around and the heart of our lineup consists of Brian LaHair, Darwin Barney, Starlin Castro, Blake DeWitt, Dave Sappelt, Reed Johnson, David DeJesus, and Wellingon Castillo and a rotation of Trey McNutt, Travis Wood, Chris Volstad, Randy Wells, and Andy Sonnenstine, then I'll freak out. Until then, I'll keep the faith in the guy everyone was orgasming over just over 2 months ago. Will I gripe about moves that I don't like or simply understand? Absolutely, but at the end of day, I know that Epstein and Hoyer weren't brought here to fight Billy Beane over crap like Ryan Spilborghs and Neil Cotts for the next 5 years.

Sure things - Jackson, Cashner, Soto/Castillo? There are 2 little words before sure.