abuck1220

His performance as a GM indicates otherwise. What about his performance indicates that he is stupid? what about his performance indicates that he isn't? he took a payroll that's higher than almost every team in baseball and used it to build one of the worst teams in baseball.

humberto! cubs couldn't have competed with that.

i hope the red sox did win it...maybe it will keep them from going after drew.

I think they would also need to pick up one of the many 2b options available this offseason also. The list is long at that spot: Soriano Kent Durham Giles Loretta Lugo Walker Iwamura I'd be very happy with Loretta, Lugo or Giles if we sign Drew and move Jacque to CF. drew would likely be the one to play cf.

unfortunately, you're probably right. maybe boston will win the mats bidding and they won't be able to afford drew. i'd rather have drew + schmidt than pierre + mats. of course, i'd love drew + mats.

doesn't sound like la is too anxious to re-sign drew...

fortunately weaver and suppan are both FA's. i'm assuming you'd want to sign them both.

yeah, what a failure all those division championships with a 50 mil payroll have been. obp....yuck!

i'd probably rather have drew than mats.

exactly. hendry couldn't have lucked out any more than this. exactly the type of player the cubs need, and he's there for the taking. he could put up huge numbers playing in the NL central, by the way.

forget soriano for cf...GET DREW!!!!! this could not have fallen into hendry's lap any better.

i really hope that the cubs wouldn't add the 'take it or leave it' language at this point.

He's actually performed at a high level before, none of those guys have. Career ERA+ of 112. You might be lucky to get 100 innings of 90 ERA+ out of any of those other options. Miller might be able to give you 150 inning at 100-110, and it wouldn't be ridiculous if he gave you 190 innings at 120 ERA+. yeah, i recently looked at his numbers and was surprised to see that he was quite good and healthy in 2001 and 2002. since then, however, he's either been average or hurt. i don't get my hopes to high for a guy when the last time he was worth something was 2002.

1. because the cubs have the money 2. because the cubs suck, and they will suck even worse without him 3. because there's nobody else worth spending the money on

i swear, hendry has it in his mind to build a team based around a bunch of 2-3 year deals worth between 2 and 8 mil a year. that type of attitude is not going to build you anything. it's not gonna get you beltran, ramirez, drew or anybody like that. yeah, sometimes those contracts will come back to haunt you in year 5 or whatever, but i'd rather have 4 good seasons/1 bad season from ramirez at 15 mil a year than a string of 5 bad seasons from john mabry, wes helms, tony graffanino, neifi perez, and gary gaetti at 2-3 mil a year.

let's face it...over the past three years hendry has made overspending a habit. for once, i'd like to see him overspend on someone that's good.

is it possible that the amount of the winning bid could be announced, but not the team making that bid?

Jim Rome just made a funny comment on the hiring. He was basically debating the Padres position and had this to say: "Hmm, let's see... should we hire Bud Black or bring in Dusty Baker to shred Peavy's arm with pitch counts of 140 every outing?" Hammer, meet nail. did he follow that up with 30 seconds of silence, which was then followed by him saying the exact same thing but worded slightly differently, which was followed by 30 more seconds of silence?

it's kinda weird to see young guys/prospects traded for each other like that.

i want the cubs to get him mainly because i'm bored with the cubs.

good luck with that.

welcome to the 2000's, jim hendry!

How about a 30 million dollar bid with a 4/30 contract with a player option for the 5th year? works for me as well. Question is, how much is boras going to want to string out of the winner. Considering the "window" for the winner of the bid and Boras/Matsuzaka would have when talking contract. Boras can't really afford to "string out the winner." Right now, if the Cubs win the bid....I would offer Boras/Matsazaka a "generous deal" of 5 yrs $50 mill (as someone allude to earlier) at the start of the negotiations, and tell Boras that the deal won't change much up or down. The franchise that wins the bid, wins all together, whether they signed him or not. Is there anything to stop a team, say like the Orioles or Blue Jays, from bidding some outrageous number (with no intention of signing the player) so that the Yankees don't win? Because, as I understand, if the teams don't come to a deal, the team gets its bid money back. I think all of MLB would hate that team, so maybe that's the answer to my question. Yes there is...In fact it was answer earlier in the thread. The cliff notes version of the answer would..if a team is proven o only make a bid (and low ball in neg....), just to keep him away from another team, Selig would pretty much step in, and void the deal. The rights to Matuazaka would go to the 2nd highest bidder. how do you prove that? you've already sunk $30 M into the player, would 5/40 or 5/35 really be lowballing? thats 14 or 13 per year. what a dumb process. edited for spelling. smrt poster! they would get the 30 mil back if they didn't sign him.

to make the fans think you're trying. like they did with beltran.

did this guy sleep through last season or what?? Unfortunately, far too many people still think that. They see the stereotypical leadoff man, and decide he's a perfect fit, without putting a second of thought into the stats (besides low K and high SB). For some reason, it's been a lot easier for many people to overlook Pierre's overall weak numbers by dismissing his poor April and May to a fluke, than it has for them to accept Ramirez's overall good numbers, because of his poor start. To her credit, Muskat seems to think Pierre ain't all that. that's an interesting point. didn't couch's article that ripped ramirez advocate re-signing pierre? i think, for those people, the fact that pierre hustles leads them to make excuses for pierre and hate ramirez.