Little Slide Rooter

and Carlos Silva urinated on the ashes.

Yup, light hitting, poor fielding middle infielders only come around a few thousand times a lifetime.

I don't know of any other team out there that has the money we have to spend, the need at first base we do and the big market we have to support a mega contract. The Dodgers and Mets don't have the finances to make a move if they want to and the Yankees and Red Sox have no hole for Pujols. The Red Sox just gave a monster deal to Adrian Gonzalez. DH might be an option, but would Pujols prefer to play first or DH? The Cubs are in a better financial situation than the Red Sox and will likely be able to offer more money, along with the opportunity to play first. The Yankees have Teixeira at first, leaving DH as the only option to place Pujols. If he prefers playing first, the Cubs are again the better option. The Angels could make a run at him. They'll probably be the biggest competition, along with the Blue Jays - if the Jays are willing to spend $25+ mil on one player. The Cubs will have at least $60 million to spend in the offseason, meaning they can give Pujols a 10/300 deal and still have $30 million left to plug holes such as third base. With as many young players we have on the verge of being ML-ready, that should be plenty to work with. But assume that The Cards do work out some kind of team friendly ridiculous backloaded contract which has them paying him for all eternity. All of the sudden, Prince Fielder becomes the number 1 FA target, and while his price goes up, hes still more affordable to other teams tha Pujols would have been. Next thing you know, Pujols stays in St. Lou, and were in a bidding war for Fielder. If we lose out, whats our next option? Mortgage the farm for Felix Hernandez and David Wright?

The Cubs will have plenty of money freed up to spend, a hole at first base and a good, young core of players on the verge of making the majors (along with a good, young core of players already in the majors). Plus you have the curse, Wrigley and all the other history and tradition that makes the Cubs a free agency favorite. The Cubs will have as good a shot as anybody - if not better - to lock up Pujols if he hits free agency. Maybe as good a chance. I dont know about better. Again, there are a lot of teams who would love to have him. While Prince Fielder would be a nice consolation prize, hes not Albert Pujols. Also, if Aramis leaves, thats another hole we need to fill, unless we want Blake DeWitt and Jeff Baker platooning, and I dont see Josh Vitters being ready to step into that role just yet. Sorianos aging. Byrd is a productive player, but has 1 year left. Basically, we need a guy to build around. As for Hendry, while he has made his mess, its already made. I dont think he should be extended, but theres no reason to just fire him at this point. What needs to be done is sign Pujols or Fielder as the cornerstone, use guys like Castro, Soto, Jacskon, and Soriano by default as blocks to build around him, and go from there. Pick up some quality guys. If we can get a Felix Hernandez to anchor the pitching staff, that would be great. I dont think we need an elite GM to figure that out and make it happen. When your the 1 big market team in a sea of small markets, theres no reason not to be a strong contender every year.

The number of those contracts handed out by Hendry lately has been nearly nil. We are filling the bench with young players and cheap veterans. The bullpen is almost entirely home grown at this point. Grabow is really the only bad role player contract on the team right now and I wouldn't be surprised if he's shipped off before the end of the season to be replaced internally. Koyie Hill could be considered a bad contract, but it's probably better to have Castillo in the minors getting ab's anyway. And I have a feeling that with the glut of serviceable backup C's in the upper levels of the minors, Koyie's tenure with the team won't last all that much longer, anyway. A lot of the traditional criticisms of Hendry have been addressed the past few years. The plan for next year is pretty easy: put Pujols at 1B, a placeholder at 3B if Aramis doesn't pick up the pace and put Brett Jackson in the OF in Kosuke's role. The bullpen is pretty well set already, but Chris Carpenter will take Grabow's place and be another realistic late inning option. The big question is Dempster's spot in the rotation. We should have enough money to go out and sign a starter in addition to bringing in Pujols, but McNutt might also be ready for the role at that point. We should also have the assets to make a bold move for someone like King Felix if Seattle decides to shop him. Frankly, I wouldn't mind extending Hendry at this point to a very modest extension - say, 1-2 years - and letting him continue the current process. I certainly wouldn't mind a new GM, either, but I'd be very nervous about the hire. I'd also be nervous about it impacting the signing of Pujols or Prince, which is easily the most important thing this team has to get done in the next few years. If it was that easy, it would be super, but I dont think theres anybody out there who thinks for a moment that even if the Cards dont get him locked up, which I still think they will that he'll be the Cubs for the taking. There will be plenty of teams lining up. This is a guy who will be able to turn pretty much any team into a contender, not only that, but get him into a major market, and he also likely becomes quite profitable.

More so than albatrosses, Hendry just seems to nickel and dime too much, giving unnecessary money to the likes of Todd Hollandsworth, Neifi Perez, Aaron MIles, and John Grabow, when these are the types of role players you should be pulling from the farm system.

And Detlef Schrempf would never miss a 3 pointer in the original NBA In The Zone for Playstation.

Almost as weird as someone using his picture as a sig and avatar. They are funny pictures. They just look like run of the mill pictures of run of a run of the mill pitcher to me.

I do often wonder what would happen if you took a small market GM like Billy Beane, Dayton Moore, or one of the like and give them an open checkbook or at least a much higher payroll than what they are used to. Simialrly, what would happen if you took Jim Hendry or Omar Minaya and put them in charge of the Royals or Astros.

Which reminds me, what is the purpose of Crain Kenneys existance? Even the name agitates me.

The Cubs are just coming out of the dark ages as far as prospects go. They had a horrible run in drafting from 2002-2006 (Hendry's biggest mistake in his entire career was not making a change on this earlier) which led to having to buy so much talent from 2007-2010. I wouldn't call Soto or Castro role players though. They'll probably both be legitimate All-Star quality players at their position for several years. Cashner has that type of capability in him. But yes, the Cubs system doesn't seem to be designed to produce superstars. And that's an ok strategy when you think of this question. Where are baseball teams most inefficient? Usually it's at 2B, SS, the bench, 3rd/4th/5th starters, and the bullpen. Since there is a scarcity at all those positions, teams tend to overpay for bad players there. If the Cubs can develop good players at those types of positions (plus at C) it gives them a lot of money flexibility to go out and buy elite bats for the corners. I look at the Cubs over Hendry's tenure as 3 eras (and getting close to entering a 4th). 2003-2006- this was a period where the future got bleaker for the Cubs every single year. Hendry did a pretty good job of restocking the offense but between the young pitching getting hurt and the minor league drafts consistently being bad by 06 there was very little hope. The organization was in a complete mess both in the majors and minors 2007-2009-the Cubs decided to make a run for it right then. This part I blame on the ownership change. A responsible owner would have fired Hendry after 2006 and attempted to slowly build up the team and farm system instead of trying to suddenly buy a winner. Hendry actually did an admirable job building that team together though. He avoided most of the free agent land mines. The 2006-2007 offseason was particularly impressive where the Cubs spent a ton of money and only came out of it with 1 bad contract relative to production when there were tons of horrid contracts handed out that offseason. But it was still the wrong strategy to take because even though Hendry did a lot right, you have to be absolutely perfect when just buying a winner without help from your farm and the Cubs weren't perfect. The Cubs did make huge strides in their farm system during this time though. 2009-2011-Ricketts comes in and says that buying a winner. The Cubs continue to develop their farm system. Hendry stops giving out long-term deals. The team slowly starts unwinding the long-term commitments they gave out. The 4th era is when the team really starts sticking their toes into the FA market again and signing a couple long-term contracts to complement the guys they have in their developing core. That will probably come in the next two offseasons. The bolded kind of sums up the Cubs as a team and an organization. Full of solid, productive players, but we just dont have that 1 guy you can almost always count on, like a Pujols, Braun, Votto, Morneau, A Rod, A Gon, etc. If we could take what we have now, and just plant one star 3 or 4 hitter into the lineup, I feel we would have a very good team that could easily contend. If you look at your average NL lineup, aside from the pitcher, theres usually 1-2, sometimes 3 blackholes in there. The Cubs dont have that, but they also dont have that one go to guy. Another thing that we have sorely lacked is a legit ace, something very valuable,especially when the playoffs roll around. I just wich there was some way to pry King Felix away from the God foresaken Mariners before the Yankees know hes available.

Should Nelso Perez be bumped to Tennessee just to see what he can do? He's at the age where we should give him 2 years at the higher levels, and if it doesn't work out, hed still be young enough to covert back to pitching.

Another problem with the Cubs is the farm systems failure to produce a superstar, so maybe Fleita should go as well. We've produced 2 great relievers in Marmol and Marshall, and a very good starter in Zambrano, but as far as position players go, we produce role players. Granted, the jury is still out on Soto, Castro, and Colvin, but when you look at the teams who regularly contend or are contending now, they get just as much out of their farm system as they do from FAs. Look at the Phillies, Red Sox, Yankees, Dodgers, Braves, Brewers, Rangers, Reds, and Rockies. In each of those cases, there is a legitamate chunk of talent coming from the farm, be it players they produced or that they traded for young. The Cubs have been unable to produce anything along those lines. Even our current systen seems loaded with future major leaguers, maybe everyday players but nobody who projects to be a star.

If he can add power to his game, which I belive he is projected to, we could really have something. Dare I say Corey Patterson, or at least what he could have been?

It beats that insanely ignorant Pujols mows my lawn shirts.

I dont think Id call Zambranos performace so far "cruddy". That 1.053 WHIP is pretty impressive.

Looks like that trade was a wash. Will someone else take a chance on MIlton?

Just this week? Actually, my fear is more that the doofus Cubs fans will cheer him like hes Greg [expletive] Maddux.

I remember hearing from BA, BP, or someone like that that something along the lines of The Cubs farm system may very well have more future major leaguers than any system in baseball, but nobody who projects to be a superstar.

Yeah, the Cubs are the ONLY MLB TEAM EVER to have an unfortunate or fluke-y ground rule double happen to them. You couldn't possibly have been serious with this, right? It's even more hilarious because you're complaining like the Cubs got cosmically hosed on a ball that Baker got a double off of that almost any CF is going to usually catch and should have been caught today. The OP here is nonsensical, however, I do find ground rule doubles frustrating, but theres not much to be done about them. The fact is, more often than not, a guy with average to above average speed will score from first on a double. Not always though, and they really cant cange the rule to say, if a guy like Juan Pierre or Rajai Davis are standing on 1st, they score on a GRD, but if its Aramis Ramirez or Paul Konerko, they go to 3rd.

The question is where. The Cubs 3 second baseman have been the Cubs best 3 infielders so far (who knew we would be saying that after just over a month!) DeWitt always has had the highest ceiling of the 3, not that thats saying a ton. DeWitt can handle 3rd as well, but I believe that Aramis has had a day off recently, but going by his health history, he could use some time off here and there. I think Baker has logged some innings in the OF, but we dont exactly need a 6th outfielder.

Dont forget that damned Billy Petrick.

And if everyone in America goes a day wihout buying gas, they'll have to drop the prices, right?

Id give him time too, but the way hes playing, hes not going to get time, playing time at least which is why they should give him some time in Iowa and call up someone from there. All we really need at this point is a 5th outfielder.