Little Slide Rooter

I cant help but blame 2006 for a lot of it. after the magical 2003, there was the ill fated roller coaster ride of 2004, the mediocre 2005, and the afwul 2006. '06 embarassed the organization big time, and as they probably already new they were going to sell the team, or they simply wanted to make a statement and they decided to stock up. The 2006-2007 free agent class wasnt particularly plentiful, but Hendry was bound and determined to stock up on as many free agents as possible. It started out innocently enough with the signing of Mark DeRosa, a career utility player coming off a career season in Texas.I cant help but notice that Jim Hendry has a thing for guys coming off career years in Texas. Many thought that the 3 year deal for a guy with DeRosas credientials, or lack there of was foolish. They were soon to learn the meaning of foolish. Then it escalated to 2 massive deals announced in like an hour, Alfonso Soriano and the resigning of Aramis Ramirez, who had recently opted out of his previous deal. At the time, most experts expected both guys to end up with either the Angels or Phillies, but Jimbo well out bid everyone. Next up were 2 rotation up grades, Ted Lilly, and later Jason Marquis, and to top off the spending spree he added a pair of DHs in Cliff Floyd and Daryl Ward. Im not sure exactly how much money was spent in that off season, but it was a lot. A hell of a lot. Several months later, Jim would throw some more fuel on the already raging inferno with a massive extension to ace Carlos Zambrano. Had 2006 not been as humiliating as it was, would the Cubs have felt the need to spend so much money in such a short period of time?

The good thing about having crappy team is that I dont have to watch every game, and if I miss a few late start games, so be it.

That his trade value may have eroded some recently is all the more reason not to trade him. A player like Gorz should only be dealt if a team is offered the proverbial "deal they can't refuse." With him stuck in the pen, the best choice would be to hold on to him and find a spot in the rotation in the offseason (i.e. trade Silva). But do we want a spot for him in the offseason? Z, Demp, and Wells are almost guaranteed in the rotation, and Silva has a good chance as well. If there is 1 openeing in the rotation next year, Id definitely like Casnher to have it. If theres 2, Id like to see Jackson, Coleman, and Diamond compete for it in ST.

Ryan Dempster, 5-5 with a 3.67 ERA will take on the fairly hot Seattle Mariners and Jason Vargas, who I thought dissapeared sometime between 2005-2007 but is sporting a very solid 5-2 record with a 2.88 ERA. Good for him. More importantly, maybe we'll get to see Milton Bradley exchange dirty looks with Ryan Dempster, Ryan Theriot, Lou Pinealla and whoever else he feels was responsible for his failure as a Cub, a list that includes everybody in Chicago but Milton Bradley. That could be the most intersting part of this interlag series between 2 very dissapointing teams. Either way, the Cubs would be wise to win this game, because Cliff Lee and Felix Hernandez come next, 2 guys who are sure to make the Cubs look very, very silly even with 2009 and 2010s respective pleasant surprises, Randy Wells and Carlos Silva on the mound for us. Watching Marniners fans react to Silva Thursday should be just as interesting as Cubs fans would react to Bradley if it were on our turf. Fun fact: Talk about bad offenses, Milton Bradleys 6 home runs tie him for the team lead with former Kansas City Royals perenial pity all stat Mike Sweeney, who many experts believed retired 5 years ago.

I'd only trade Gorz for a significant deal. He's got too much value as a cheap, productive arm to trade him unless we just get bowled over by an offer. Like Tim said, it'd be much better to just deal Silva instead. Maybe if Silva finishes the season well, he'll generate some interst in the offseason with only 1 year remaining, but for now, I dont think the'll be swayed. As for Gorzolanny, hes just being wasted here. He could be a 4th, maybe 3rd starter on a lot of teams and were using him as the 3rd lefty out of the pen behind the less talented John Grabow. Whatever trade value he had when he was starting is being gradually erased as he rots away at the end of our bullpen. The Cubs are not only hurting his trade value but his career as well. Its just a shame they way the Cubs are using him, and hed probably be better off back on the Pirates AAA team.

http://mlb.mlb.com/news/article.jsp?ymd=20100620&content_id=11389102&vkey=news_mlb&fext=.jsp&c_id=mlb The Tigers sent down Rick Porcello an dont have a replacement yet. I wonder of we could send them Theriot and Gorzolanny for a decent prospect package. I know a lot of people want to keep Gorz, but with Z, Demp, Silva, and Wells are in for next year, and Cashner, Jackson, and Diamond all in the mix for the 5th rotation spot, we really dont have much use for Gorz as a releiver, especially with Marshall as our primary lefty out of the pen, Grabow being unmoveable, and both Gaub and Russell in Iowa if we need another.

Theres Steven Drew if the D Backs decide to move him, but of course, he'll cost a hell of a lot more in trade than Theriot would. Other than that, Im sure Baltimore would happily move Miguel Tejada or Julio Lugo, probably Cesar Izturis. Washington would move Christian Guzman if they found a taker, and Toronto would probably move Alex Gonzalez. Depending where the White Sox are come the deadline, they might be willing to move Alexei Ramirez, if not Omar Vizquel might generate interest. Of course the Sox have found new life after beating up on perenial NL punching bags the Pirates and Nationals who everyone except the Cubs beat.

Why do I get the sneaking suspicion that moving Jackson to the bullpen and then moving him back to the rotation did more harm than good? I was thinking this same thing too. He was doing great as a starte, then untouchable as a reliever. Since being moved back to the rotation, hes been solid, but not as good aside from his outing the other day which was awful.

If we cant use Cashner anymore, although he really needs to be back in Iowa starting the way hes been used lately, heres how mine stck up. I guess I really dont use the system most use, more how closely I watch them. 1. Brett Jackson 2. Jay Jackson 3. Trey McNutt 4. Josh Vitters 5. Chris Carpenter 6. Chris Archer 7. Hak Ju Lee 8. Thomas Diamond 9. Casey Coleman 10. Brooks Raley Others I track regularly: Schafer, Watkins, Spencer, Dolis, Rhee, Castillo,

Tank for Rendon. gonna have a hard time catching baltimore. They're only 11 games behind Baltimore. They could make that up in 2 weeks if we really put their minds to it !!! :wink: I dont know, with the likes of Baltimore, Seattle, KC, Cleveland, Arizona, Washington, Milwaukee, Houston, and Pittsburgh in our way, climbing to the top of the fecal league standings could prove harder than winning the NL Central. Sad but true.

Yes, sometime in September. Its called spoiler ball.

How will the Cubs embarass themselves tomorrow afternoon? Who knows, but it is sure to be spectacular. Will it be an implosion of starting pitching? Perhaps a classic bullpen meltdown. Or maybe, the offense simply wont show up, I know shocking to even fathom. Or maybe Lou will simply trot out his worst lineup to date. You never know with these guys. All I know is that the FIre Lou thread will be in full force by about 4PM tomorrow. The worst thing is not only is our team brutally bad, but there are so many teams in baseball this year that are that much worse, we'll be lucky to get a top 10 draft pick next year. Go Cubs Win!

Jackson was literally traded the day before our series with the A's, and those posts are from before then.

The fact is, 1 of Theriot or Baker need to go, and Theriots the best choice because Bakers a better hitter and can play more positions. We dont need 3 second basemen, and Fontenots left handedness should secure him a spot. We really need a legit back up short stop, becsuse Castro cant play every day. Trade Theriot, and call up Darwin Barney as a backup SS. Then, until Ramirez returns, Tracy plays 3rd, and occasionally, Baker or Fontenot can spell him when needed, meanwhile, Font and Baker share 2B duties. When Ramirez returns, we do something with Tracy, I dont know what.

One guy they have that would be very usefull for us is Kelly Johnson. At .271/.374/.526 and 13 HR, hes probably playing well over his head, but Id take him over Theriot, Fontenot, or Baker any day. The big downside is that hes on a 1 year 2+ mil deal, giving the D Backs all the leverage in the world over any team trying to aquire him, and he is the perfect example of the type of player Hendry would be likely to well overpay for if he thought that he might have a small chance of weaseling back into contention. Then again, aside from the Pierre trade, Hendry hasnt made any awful trades like that, so the biggest would be if we traded for him and then give him a 4 year/75 mil deal with an NTC.

Yes. I don't know why you're not grasping this. It's not like I want him to fail, but it would be surprising if Colvin consistently hit 20+ HR each season as a starting OF. His success thus far this season, while a pleasant surprise, is nowhere near being proof that he'd be a 20+ HR guy every season. I have no problem with Colvin getting most of the RF starts if Fukudome is traded, but in the meantime it's simply not realistic to have him starting over the main 3 OF. You can't bench Fukudome if you expect to pull of a decent trade, Colvin definitely cannot man CF full time and a streaky Soriano is still more likely to be more beneficial to the team getting more starts than Colvin. As long as he keeps hitting, thats reason enough to keep him playing regardless. Hes OPSing over 1.000, and has 3 fewer home runs than Jason Heyward in less than half the ABs. When the main thing killing this team is offense, when your 1 of the few guys on the team whose hitting, your going to play even if you cost the over priced guys playing time. Again, he can't play CF well enough to start there regularly, you can't bench Fukudome if you expect the team to be able to make any kind of a good trade moving him and regardless of what some people refusing to believe the odds are much better that Soriano, flaws and all, will be more productive over the course of the season as the starting RF than Colvin. And hell, it's tremendously likely that Colvin is hitting this well BECAUSE he's not starting full time. Just let him hit off the bench and spot start for all of the other OF (hell, let him start for Fukudome against lefties to get a bit more of an idea if he can hit them) and then ideally he gets the bulk of the RF starts after Fukudome is (hopefully) traded. Im not saying I disagree with what you are saying, but from the organizations standpoint, especially when you have an awful offense, and a manager and a GM whose jobs should be in trouble, although they are reportedly not, there going to play the guy whose hitting the best right now, (although that makes starting Theriot over both Fontenot and Baker perplexing, unless they really are trying to trade Theriot). Also, you cant automatically assume that Colvin will falter if given full time PT. theres a chance, but theres also a chance that he does well. When rookies start out hot, eventually, the league eventually develops a book on them. There success is not simple determined on whether or not the pitchers make those adjustments, it is also determined on whether or not they are able to adjust to the way they are being pitched to once the pitchers make their adjustments. I doubt he keeps OPSing over 1.000, or even .900, but as I recall, when he was drafted he was projected as a .280 hitter with about 15-20 HR/year, and now that hes put on that extra 20 lbs of muscle in the offseason, he seems to have developed that power to maybe boost him to 25 hr on a good year.

Up already. Ill have tomorrows up tonight or tomorrow morn.

Yes. I don't know why you're not grasping this. It's not like I want him to fail, but it would be surprising if Colvin consistently hit 20+ HR each season as a starting OF. His success thus far this season, while a pleasant surprise, is nowhere near being proof that he'd be a 20+ HR guy every season. I have no problem with Colvin getting most of the RF starts if Fukudome is traded, but in the meantime it's simply not realistic to have him starting over the main 3 OF. You can't bench Fukudome if you expect to pull of a decent trade, Colvin definitely cannot man CF full time and a streaky Soriano is still more likely to be more beneficial to the team getting more starts than Colvin. As long as he keeps hitting, thats reason enough to keep him playing regardless. Hes OPSing over 1.000, and has 3 fewer home runs than Jason Heyward in less than half the ABs. When the main thing killing this team is offense, when your 1 of the few guys on the team whose hitting, your going to play even if you cost the over priced guys playing time.

Im really not that surprised that AL teams would want Theriot. When you dont have a pither batting, Theriots the type of guy who could be very good as an 8 or 9 hitter, and he can play both middle infield positions, although hes not particularly good at either.

I know we spent the majority of 2009 saying this, but if we can hang around the division until Aramis comes back, and hes back to form, we could be right back in this.

Its really a frustrating situation. We have these 4 outfielders, all who need PT, 5 if you count Nady whose been decent too. Colvin: The most consistant hitter on the team thus far, More expensive players need to be benched to get him PT Byrd: the only other consistant hitter on the team Soriano: Were pretty much stuck with him. He aint going back to 2B. We'll just have to enjoy his hot streaks and deal with his aful streaks for the next 4.5 years. Kosuke: Hes the best trade option, but as hard as he'll be to trade, if hes on the bench, it will be alot harder. Maybe Kosuke and Soriano can become the worlds most expensive platoon.

I would strongly advise Hendry to pull the trigger on a deal with 1 of these teams before whatever drugs are causing them to want Ryan Theriot wear off. On player we might potentially be able to get from Detroit for Theriot is LHP Daniel Schlereth. He was the 26th pick by the D Backs in the 2008 draft, and I beleive was sent to Detroit in the Edwin Jackson deal. He had a rough spring training, but has been decent in AAA this year with a 3.26 ERA and 41 K in 30.1 innings. Hes still a decent prospect, so we might have to throw in something to sweeten the deal, but nothing huge.

I have thought about this and this is my theory: The Cubs have a pretty decent starting pitching staff and a bullpen that is somewhat stabilizing (at least 8th-9th guys). They can stop good and bad offenses many nights. However, their offense is putrid. They cannot score runs against anyone. So what we see is that these sub-500 teams get just enough offense to win, while the punchless Cubs can't do anything to come back. The same things happen against good teams. Sample size is the reason they've won a few more against the good teams. Yeah, but teams like the Astros and Pirates not only have worse offenses than we do, at least on paper, but they dont have the pitching we have. When it comes down to bad offense vs. bad offense, shouldnt the team with the better pitching win? Id take our number 5 or 6 starter over any Pirates or Astros starter aside from Oswalt any day.

Wasnt he hired as the Mets manager a few years back but fired almost immediately for drunk driving or something?

Weve actually played our best ball vs. .500+ teams this year. If only we could have managed at least a .500 against the Astros and Pirates, who pretty much everyone pounds the snot out of wed be in pretty good shape.