Little Slide Rooter

So basically we'll have Micah Hoffpauir at 1st again after Nick is DLd in May. Or maybe he could be 2011s DeRosa or Byrd, but more likely Aaron Miles. Hopefully these are just rumors much like those of Rick Ankiel and Scott Podsednik last year.

I know this suggestion ill be met with much hatred and venom, but ould a catching tandem of Chirinos and Castillo with Clevenger as an understudy be worth selling high on Soto?

Jimmy Piersall. honorable mention: Eric Karros not so honorable mention: Carlos Baerga, Larry Bigbie really not so honorable mention: John Grabow. I also have Orlando Pace, P Diddy, and Ralph "The REAL Karate Kid" Macchio.

The afor mentioned plus Cubs, Phillies, and Dodgers. This doesnt say that other teams have bad fans, its just that they dont have too many out of market fans. Say the Brewers and Twins were to make the series, Im sure theyd fill the stadium without a problem, because both teams have great local fan bases, at least when they're doing well, but they wouldnt get much out of market viewership, because well, aside from Chicago, and maybe Detroit, nobody really cares about the midwest. You often seem to underestimate how huge of an out of market fan base that the Cubs have, its probably 2nd to only the Yankees, maybe the Red Sox. If they were to make the series, it would probably be the highest rated in quite some time because of the 100+ year drought.

Nice to see these 2 teams make it to the series, but I have little doubt that this series will beat the 2005 White Sox/Astros series for least watched in history.

I kind of hope the Cubs win myself. Get outta here with that crap. TBF, I wouldn't wish Cleveland on anyone. Fixed.

Oh yeah, forgot about the Padres. My guess is that they trade Adrian in the offseason, hopefully to the Cubs, but probably not, and dont sniff .500 again for quite some time.

I have no reason to believe that the Indians will be anywhere near the World Series anytime soon, but I guess the same could have been said about the Giants and the Rangers a few years back. Still I have no reason to believe that the Indians will be anywhere near the World Series anytime soon. And dont forget the Brewers, Mariners, Astros, and Natspos.

And Mike Fontenot is going to the World Series. 1/25 of our opening day roster isnt too bad I guess.

It would be a lot easier of a decison if theyd take someone like JJax, Carpenter, or Coleman instead of Archer, but thats pretty much the type of package that youd have to give up for a guy like Greinke unless its a salary dump or they were trying to rush him out of town, but neithers thst case. With such a package however, we should be able to get Alex Gordon as well if we were to throw in another smaller piece.

Id have loved him on a 1 or 2 year deal, but considering his style, the NL West is the best place for him. Thats a lof of games at LA, San Fran, and San Diego where balls that would be home runs at a lot of parks would barely make the warning track.

I wonder what it would take to get Greinke and Gordon and call it an off season. Maybe a package of: Colvin J. Jackson/Carpenter Hak Ju Lee/Junior Lake plus a few mid level propsects or major league ready guys. If theyd laugh too hard, maybe replace Colvin with Vitters. Maybe if we get creative, we could get Soria in the mix.

Since the Cardinals won the World Series (groan), the NL Central teams are 1-15 in the playoffs. (assuming no Reds 9th inning rally. The NL Central champ will be 0-12 in that timespan. Makes me feel slightly better about the Cubs follies in 07 and 08. In the Reds defense, the Cubs didnt run into Halladay, Oswalt, and Hamels in the post season, but it was nice to see Votto ground into that double play. Im definitely rooting for the Yanks from here on out for Kerry Wood, but if not him, Oswalt and Halladay definitely deserve a ring too, and as much as I hate to say it, more so.

Look like Dusty Baker and his Reds are half an inning away from becoming the 4th straight NL Central rep to completely crap the bed and be an absolute non factor in the NLDS. 5th if you count the Brewers as well as the Cubs in '07. Maybe the NL Central shouldnt be invited to the post season for a few years.

Great post!!!! If I hear David Kaplan say one more time : "The next Cub manager should understand the Cubs history." it makes me want to drive a stake thru his heart. What history? 102 years of losing history? Years of being the doormat? This franchise wallows in the 1969 history. Ernie, Fergie, Santo, Billy, Hundley..blah..blah. That was 41 years ago. I want a GM, manager, ownership and players who could care less about that and want to win today..each game and not take a nap during May-September. I do despise the glorification of the 1969 Cubs. Granted, they were a great team, but they choked. Same goes for the '84, '03, and '08 teams. Sure, I enjoyed every moment of the 2008 season, at least until October, but then again, Im sure the folks on the Titanic were having a grand old time up until the end of their ride, and in the end, thats what they(the survivors anyway) remembered it for.

Ive been a Cubs fan since the '84 playoffs when my grandmother got me watching them. Between then and 2003, I say through some complete [expletive] teams. Aside from '89 and to a lesser extent, '98, mediocre would describe the better seasons. However, I was a big fan, so I sat through it none the less as did most fans. However, since '03 and '07-'08, Cubs fans have developed something called expectations. Loveable losers wont do any more. Will I give up on them? Absolutely not. However, a lot of fans very well might. While the 100 year drought is a pretty cool sports story, 101, 102, 105, 110 years if just pathetic. Sure, we can all see who needs the bandwagon fans, but the answer is the Cubs as a business and an organization. When Wrigley Field constantly sells out, a lot of it is the "uneducated fans" and "bandwagon fans", and there money is just as good as the more knowledgeable and dedicted fans. If the baseball idiots, as Boers and Bernstein calls them stop going to games, thats a lot of revenue lost, and in order to put money into the team, you need to fill those seats, no matter if they're a life long fan or just in it for the over priced beer or they think that Blake DeWitts a hottie. A lot of people say that no matter how the Cubs or White Sox do, The Cubs will always have the Chicago baseball market cornered, at least the North Side and suburbs but I remember 2005 when I saw an abundance of Konerko and Buerhle jerseys walking around Old Orchard and Northbrook Court which promptly dissapeared in 2007 when the Cubs got good again.

Id much prefer Dunn, or an Adrian Gon trade, or enen an Alex Gordon Trade but if the alternative is Lyle Overbay or something of the like, then yes, bring on Berkman on a 1 year deal, preferably incentive based.

1. Blake DeWitt 2B 2. Starlin Castro SS 3. Aramis Ramirez 3B 4. Adam Dunn 1B 5. Marlon Byrd CF 6. Geo Soto C 7. Alfonso Soriano LF 8. Tyler Colvin RF 9. Carlos Zambrano SP 10. Ryan Dempster SP 11. Justin Ducherer/Eric Bedard SP 12. Randy Wells SP 13. Tom Gorzolanny SP 14. Carlos Marmol CL 15. Angel Guzman RP 16. Sean marshall RP 17. John Grabow RP 18. Andrew Cashner RP 19. James Russess RP 20. John Maine/Thomas Diamond RP 21. Robinson Chirinos/Wellington Castillo C 22. Darwin Barney IF 23. Jeff Baker IF 24. Brad Snyder OF 25. Some random minor league invite or perhaps Micah Hoffpauir or Sam Fuld. -Kosuke is traded to make salary space for Dunn -We get Ducherer or Bedard as a buy low. Their DLd by May. Samardzjia takes over the spot. -Not sure what becomes of Silva.

With the likes of Koyie Hill, Darwin Barney, Micah Hoffpauir,Bobby Scales, and Sam Fuld getting regular PT, yes, it is an awful offense, but if you take what we have now, using Ramirez and Soto as the 3 and 5 hitters, and land somebody like Adam Dunn or Adrian Gonzalez between them, with guys like Byrd, Castro, Soriano, and Fukudome/Colvin worked around them, that offense would be as good as any in the division, maybe the NL aside from the Phillies and maybe Rockies.

And where exactly do the kids play? Assuming that Aramis returns, 1B is the only open position, and we really dont have any 1B prospects to speak of.

back to back and 3 out of 5 !! 7 of the last 11 games have been shutouts, be they wins or losses. I just hope we can get bottle up this pitching and ship it to 2011. And yes, I am starting to really like Casey Coleman, but not in an ace kind of way, more like a Wells/Gorzalanny solid mid/back of the rotation starter.

I think a fair offer for Adrian would be: Vitters 1 of Junior Lake/Hak Ju Lee 1 of Jay Jackson/Chris Carpenter/Casey Coleman Trey McNutt Another low level prospect or major league ready type, IE Darwin Barney, Robinson Chirinos, Wellington Castillo, Marquez Smith. Remeber, this is one of the elite players in baseball. If Aramis is back for 1 more year, this could be the last chance to pry back open what is a seemingly closed window and with a lot of money off the books, he should be given a large extension and build around him for the future. I know the general sentiment would be wait until 2012 when hes a free agent, but we all know that there will be a ton of teams after him.

His upside is a mid 3 ERA pitcher with plus batting and baserunning. How that not all that high?? His downside is season lost to injury, like every other pitcher. He's already there, so it's not an upside. It's what he's been. And that downside is huge. Wait, what? [expletive], it's another Jersey semantics trap. "Upside" means he can easily be a useful pitcher, and there's no reason that the Cubs "need" to trade him. We're not talking a Carlos Silva-type mess or disaster here. People tend to talk about him like just because he can't live up to making ace money that he's a bust and the Cubs have to cut ties, and that's obviously not the case. Unless the Cubs are able to shake a very clear pattern of underselling players that they smear, I think he holds much more value to them next year actually starting for them than being traded to another team. This. Granted, hes being over paid, but your not going to find another team to pick up enough of his salary to make it worth its while to dump and ace caliber pitcher. Even is he isnt a traditional ace, hes still a hell of a pitcher, and if the Cubs are going to be paying him even half of his salary, clearly, the moneys better spent if hes doing it as a Cub than a Met or Dodger or whatever. And who knows, maybe he has really figures things out and the Zambrano weve seen over the past 2 months is closer to what we can expect for next year.

So basically, they're saying hes Ryan Theriot.

That was the 1st inning of Cubs baseball Ive watched in I dont know how long, and a great one it was. 2 weak grounders and a pop to Aaron Miles seems like an ideal way to end the season season vs. the Cards.