Little Slide Rooter

It just seems like Billys luck has run out the past 4-5 years. They're no longer generating the top prospects they once did and all of the top prospects they acquired in his masterful trades have been doing bellyflops and Beanes just seemed weird and desperate the past few years adding guys like Mastsui, Nomar, Giambi and of course Holliday in an extremely un Beane-like trade. Now they're just stuck hoping that Daric Barton, Michael Taylor, and Chris Carter can pull things together along with the haul they got for Gio and Cahill. For now, I wouldn't be at all surprised to see them add someone like Manny or Vlad.

I said this before, but the only way this makes any sense is if we trade Byrd or Soriano with he other in left and Jackson and DeJesus in CF and RF. Then you have your veteran righty to spell one of the lefties against some of the tougher LHPs and let Sappelt, Camapana, and LaHair battle it out for the 5th OF spot depending on what they want out of it.

by this logic no small market team with no hope of contending this year should ever spend money on a veteran and should aim to have a major league payroll of like $10 million. I just think that teams like the A's should first try to sort out what they already have and then spend money to fill holes. Coco Crisp isn't as God awful as some made him out to be when we were supposedly interested in him, but at the same time he's not a guy that's going to help the A's be better than they are. As is, they'll have trouble contending with the Mariners and Coco Crisp isn't going to change that.

arblegarbleangerragewhatever arblegarbleconfusionwhydontneed seems more appropriate here.

I don't know, it is a lot of money for a team with no chance of going anywhere in the next 2 years to spend on a guy like Coco Crisp. They got a very nice haul from Gio and Cahill but I don't think those guys will make the A's a winner in the next 2 years, especially when competing against the AL champs who havnt gotten any worse and a team that just signed Albert Pujols and added CJ Wilson to Jared Weaver, Dan Haren and Ervin Santana.

Who are you even talking to? Anyone who says we're asking for too much of a return for Garza. Nobody said that. I guess I misunderstood much of the last page then.

Oh good, for a moment there I thought that they'd forget to close te deal because we really don't need a 12th outfielder.

Who are you even talking to? Anyone who says we're asking for too much of a return for Garza.

Some people simply arent getting the scenerio here. We're not trying to dump the guy, we're trying to coax teams into overpaying. If someone bites and gives us more than the market has him valued at, then good for us. If not, we keep him and either put him back on the block for the same cost this summer or next winter or we just keep him and maybe extend him. There's no urgency to move him anytime soon.

Nothing wrong with a little originality http://i37.photobucket.com/albums/e67/ndistops/Dumpster.jpg

It would appear as though Scott Boras wants teams in need of pitching to start flocking to Hoyer and Epstein with Garza inquiries.

http://www.minorleagueball.com/ Cubs preliminary prospect list was scheduled to come after the Indians, who were posted yesterday, so we should be up sometime today or tomorrow as they tend to do 1 per day. The organizational discussion has already been posted. Looking forword to it.

I agree with most of those, but I would argue that the Pujols signing was very Hendry-like. I agree that going after guys like that isn't "Hendry like", but if that was how they wanted to proceed this offseason, Hendry could have got it done. Theres this conception that Hendry, in a sweaty panic would have chugged to Scott Boras at the winter meetings with his shirt covered in BBQ sauce and whipped cream and offered Prince Fielder a 12/300 deal with full NTC and an opt out clause after every season, while Crane Kenney cackeled and ran a bus full of orphans and nuns off a cliff but I really don't think that would have happened. If the plan was to get Fielder/Pujols and Darvish/Wilson I don't think that Hendry or Theo would have made a difference and they may as well have let Hendry finish out his contract and sign Theo next offseason. Maybe Aramis would be back at a slight home town discount and Stewart trade wouldnt have happened and if the Marshall trade did it would have probably been straight up for Travis Wood. Kerry Wood would be back and Corpas, Johnson, and Sonnenstine would still be on the market. Also, I doubt he would have signed DeJesus as long as Byrd and Soriano were both still around. We might have ourselves another short term contender. Maybe not. I'm not going to lie, I have no clue what the 2012 Cubs are going to look like much less 2013 but Fielder, Cespedes, and Solar are all still very much on the market. If Theo does sign Fielder, he'll patiently wait and see what the other top suiters are offering. If he feels that he can trump it and still go about his ling term plans, he probably will. If it's more than he plans on spending, then he'll move on.

I was clear that I don't advocate giving him up for nothing, but if eating all or most of his salary could get us some decent prospects, consider it advocated. However, if we keep Garza and sign Fielder, I think we can contend and I'd be all for keeping all the main guys unless Soriano or Byrd can fetch a decent return and give Brett CF and if things don't go well in the summer, sell in July.

I think that a lot of people both internal and external were pissed that he didn't make a serious attempt to go after McNab when they knew that Cutler would miss significant time. Would McNab have made a difference? Who knows but I'd have liked our chances of at least back dooring into the playoffs a lot better than I did with Caleb "anyone but Todd Collins" Haney or or Josh "anyone but Caleb Haney" McCown.

1/3/12: Alright! Angelo out, good things are on the horizon. ?/?/12: Bears hire as new GM! Great hire, he should be able to turn this ship around in no time. 1 month later/12: Boo He didn't make a serious attempt to sign , , and . Bears are going to suck until 2023. Boo, hiss.

Why? Most people don't want to pay to watch crappy baseball. We HAVE been watching crappy baseball, and I for one had next to zero hope that things would get any better anytime soon. Maybe at best the Cubs might could win a Wildcard one year, get swept, then back to sucking for a few years. If attendance drops noticeably this year then yes, we stinks as a fanbase. We got the front office we almost universally were hoping to get, and he seems to have an actual plan on how to build a franchise. You might not agree with it, but he knows what he's doing. I for one will watch to see how this complete shift in philosophy plays out. If we don't tune in if the Cubs suck in YEAR FREAKING ONE, then I think that's terribly short sighted and BS. Incidentally, I don't care what Cards fans think either. I am surrounded by them and mainly tune them out. It doesn't make them wrong, however, if things happen this way. I don't think anyone ever suggested that we should blindly fall in line just because Theo is sitting upstairs. If people stop going, it's not necesssarily to stick it to ownership and management, it's just that people aren't going to want to pay the highest ticket prices in baseball to watch Jeff Baker and Reed Johnson. As for Theo and his decisions, I'm not quite sure what people were expecting. People were acting like we'd just won the World Series when he came over and then Hoyer came along. All of the sudden, we don't get Pujols, don't ger Darvish, and it seems like we might not be getting Fielder either and people turn on them. Newsflash: Jim Hendry could have thrown a 10 year contract at Pujols or an 8 year contract at Fielder and bid 60 mil on Darvish. That's why Theo was signed for as much as he was and Ricketts went through all the Luchino crap to get him. Take a look at baseballs top 4 teams over the past few years: Yankees, Red Sox, Phillies, and Rangers. All 4 have gotten where they uilizing free agent spedning, trades, and the farm system. Any team with money can spend big on free agents. The difficult part is producing guys like Cano, Jeter, Rivera, Pedroia, Papelbon, Youklis, Lester, Bucholtz, Ellsbury, Hamels, Utley, Howard, Victorino, Rollins, Wilson, Feliz, and Kinsler through the farm system all while having enough additional prospects and assets to trade for guys like Granderson, A Gon, Beckett, Halladay, and Hamilton. we don't have that kind of farm system and even at it's best our top prospects seemed to fizzle one by one but hopefully we will be able to develope one through the draft, trades, and international FAs and we have the money to go after some big free agents as well. I'm not going to lie, I'd love to sign Fielder even if it is at 7 or even 8 years but I'm not going to judge the entire regime by whether or not it happens. The past 2 years were very tough to swallow, and 2012 likely will be just as much so, especially since we'd had the longest tretch of teams somewhat in contention 2001-2009(minus '06 and '02) in my lifetime, and it sucks to go back. I'm not going to abandon the team, but I'm not going to hand on every game as I had in that time frame.

Just out of curiosity, what did Da Bum do to get such a severe banning?

These just being 2 teams that are desperately seeking starting pitching. The Marlins and Orioles are also known to be actively seeking I really don't get why nobody seems to be willing to take a chance on 1 year of Big Z, a year that promises to be a walk year as nobody will pick up the 19 mil 2013 option. He has a 9 mil buyout which I'm sure the Cubs would pick up or maybe split. Obviously, Z has his mental issues, but if there's ever a year that he'll act and pitch anything like a 18 mil pitcher, this would be it, and although his velo is down a bit he still has what it takes to be a 3 guy in most rotations, probably 2 for the Yankees depending on how seriously you take Nova. A lot of teams seem very reluctant to give Edwin Jackson 4 years and Z would cost less in terms of prospects than Garza, Floyd, Jurrjens, or Wandy. I'd be willing to eat a good chunk, if not all of the salary if we could get 3 decent prospects in return, possiblly 1 of somebodies top 10 and 2 high ceiling guys or big league ready types, but obviously nowhere near the caliber of guys we'd expect for Garza. I understand that Z isn't a guy that should be railroaded out of town, but the way the 2012 season's shaping up, if we have to pay the 18 mil anyway it could be more valuable to us if we got some prospects and let Z pitch elsewhere. Perhaps a change of scenery would do him well. Maybe teams will be more desperate in the summer.

If nothing else maybe we can get another Joe Cowley rant about Chicago finally becoming Sox Town despite they couldn't even take over when they were fresh off a World Championship and The Cubs were one of the worst teams on earth.

I'm a bit surprised that the Rangers are completely out of the talks. We still don't know if Darvish replacing Wilson will be an upgrade, downgrade, or lateral. Hollands a nice 2 guy but I'm not completely sold on Lewis or Ogando and its certainly no sure thing that Feliz will take to te staring role, at least this quickly. Another front end starter shouldn't be out of te question for them.

Yeah, but if they traded for Garza and signed Fielder, all of the sudden it's time to start taking them seriously.

Not quite sure what that even meant.

Dude, you're Coco Crisp. Off the pedestal please.

More importantly, they simply don't get the fact that we're only trying to move Garza for a monster prospect package and by no means a salary dump of any kind. Now if they want to take Soriano and his entire salary off our hands to lower the prospect package, then we'll talk.