Little Slide Rooter

May as well. I cant see any good coming out of this team with the possible exception of a decent draft pick, which will be wasted on another piece of crap.

This might be a good time to take up smoking. Anyone know a good brand? Free Allen Trammel!

Lou is seeing if its possible to make us miss the 2006 lineup.

The you really need to DL the guy. How much times left at this point, like 5 days? We really need that extra body on the bench.

Got to love a lineup where the 3-4-5 hitters are all OPSing <.600.

Anyone know if Ramirez will play today, or do we get another game of the Bad News Bears in the infield?

Speaking of which, what happens now that Bobby Scales is back in Iowa? Does Camp go back to Tennessee and Marquez to Daytona, or what?

Lets see if Ascanio can keep up his awesome streak.

Now they say he may be able to pinh hit but the question is, will it be for the Rays or the Red Sox? :lol:

The fact that Aaron Miles has been in the starting lineup for he last week would suggest otherwise. Has it devestated us? Not so much, but it has hurt.

At least theres that. I know you shouldnt rely on other teams players getting injured, but sometimes you have to take all the help you can get.

With the money pit of the tribune gone, and nobody knowing what direction the team will go after the ownership is resolved, Hendrys true colors will start to show more than ever. God I wish hed gotten that Seattle job. Next year, we probably lose Harden. Our rotation becomes Zambrano, Lilly, Dempster, Marshall, and either somone from the farm or a lesser free agent. The once the big name contracts start to run out, we'll pobably end up replacing these guys from within or more lesser free agents. Nobody thought our window would staty open forever, I just didnt think Hendry would screw it up the way he did this past offseason.

In order to obtain an .830 ops this year, what ops would he have to put up the rest of the way? Depends on how many at-bats he gets this year. If he has 400, my calculations would have him needing an .857 OPS the rest of the year to get to .830 overall. But I'm not very confident about that answer although it should be in the ballpark of what is needed. So essentially, we resigned Jacque Jones. Yay.

Not if it handcuffs Hendry and prevents him from adding payroll and trading for Peavy.So you'd sacrifice the long-term viability of the franchise for an extra month or two of Jake Peavy? We may want to hang on to some of our prospects, because we may be relying on them in the next few years. All of the sudden the bottomless money pit of the tribune is gone, and Jim Hendry will soon be exposed as the worst GM ever.

Good offensive shortstops don't exactly grow on trees. On top of that, the Cubs don't exactly have a large surplus of prospects to use in a trade for one. True about the first part. But the thing is, we do have some decent prospects, the problem is, wed have to deal in bulk, and since we have no idea what direction this team will go once the new ownership is finally settled, we dont want to completely deplete our farm system. 4 years down the road, we may be looking at Ridling/T. Thomas/Flaherty/Vitters across the infield.

I'm thinking SS and 2nd are the prime spots to upgrade offensively in that order if there's anyone out there and the payroll can be upped if needed. I'd say 1B as well only if the Cubs are willing and able to eat a chunk of Lee's contract. I'm not overly concerned about Fontenot's offense just yet. He's still showing power. His strikeout and walk rate aren't really any worse than last season. His BABIP is only .240 this season, compared to .324 for his career. There's still a chance he can pick it up a bit. Don't get me wrong, if they can upgrade at that position, I wouldn't complain. But I'm not too worried about Fontenot yet. If Theriot and Fontenot were a coulple of defensive dynamos, that would be one thing, but they're average defendrs at best. Idealy, we could get ahold of a better offensive shortstop, platoon the cajuns at 2nd, and dispose of Miles.

We have a lot of AAA guys Id like to at least take a look at. Brad Snyder, Jake Fox, Jason Dubois, my grandmother with macular degeneration, and maybe Sam Fuld would all be upgrades over Gathright. Scales, Deeds, Blanco, or Rivas might not be as appealing as the outfielders, but at least couldnt be downgrades from Miles Stevens, Fox, Ascanio, and Wells would all be upgrades over Patton and Cotts easily.

My saving grace is that the Brewers were like 12 games out this time last year, and they clawed their way to the top, or at least close enough to it and I feel that were better than the Brewers were this time last year and the competition, aside from the Cardinals isnt. We really need to do something about the bullpen. though. Id take Chad Fox, Ascanio, and Stevens over pretty much anyone we have, aside from Marmol, when hes not injured and having no business on the mound. Also, Gathright and Miles need to go. If there was nothing better available, Id say whatever, but there are upgrades over these 2 guys everywhere you look, be it through free agency, Iowa, or through trade.

Wrong. We have a good team that's playing bad right now. There's a difference. A bad team would stay bad; a good team hopefully won't. We are a good team, but I dont know about great. Our starting rotation is one of the best in the business. Our bullpen, however, is a joke, especially if Marmol never finds the strike zone again. Soriano and Ramirez are the only 2 players I trust for a fully solid season. Lee is clearly on a decline, but hopefully he can still give us an OPS in the .800s. At this point, hes a big time liability, especially where he is in the order. Milton Bradley has had 3 season with >100 games. Last year he had that monster, but it was in on of the top hitters parks in the game. The other 2 rsulted in a .923 OPS(pretty damn good) and the othe in the .700s, not so good Fukudome has been off to a hot start aside from the last 2 games, but wasnt he last year at this time? We dont know what to expect from Soto. While its hard to believe that that bottom would completely drop out, its happeend before. Hopefully he stabilizes with an OPS in the high .700's-.low .800s Theriot can hit for average, and Fontenot has some power. Id replace either in a heartbeat if there were an upgrade available. As for the bench, we go from Johnson, Edmonds, Fontenot, Blanco, Cedeno to Hoffpauir, Johnson, Gathright, Miles, Hill. Thats one hell of a downgrade.

Apparently Scales was at Wrigley and in uniform before they told him they wouldn't need him and sent him back to Iowa. So close yet so far. :-)) Wait. What? Couldnt someone have Tanya Hardinged Aaron Miles?

Those are definitely honorable mention, but the wors of all may have been not trading Lee.

We should win this one, but you never know.

While you are probably right with Gathright, I'd probably take the same stance as Lou and pretend like he isn't on the team in protest for him actually being on the team in the first place. In such a case, you make it so that said player is no longer on the team. Bring up Jake mother loving Fox already. So what if he cant play defense, Gathright has played like 2 innings of defense all season. Lou has gotten better players than Gathright off the team in the past so I dont see why he cant get rid of him.

I blame the cat.

You really need to stop. It's kind of embarrassing. If I wasnt so tired, Id be half tempted to dig up all of the kind of embarrasing posts of another poster who will remain nameless.