abuck1220

i love that dude's sources. if the cubs sign furcal long term and keep walker, i have no problem w/ trading cedeno while his stock is high. but if the cubs trade walker, making neifi the 2b, then i've got problems.

i'm starting to think that there's something wrong w/ giles...it seems like nobody wants him. everybody's overpaying for crap, but they don't seem to want to open it up for giles. maybe he has a wooden leg that won't hold up in anything other than san diego weather. maybe he's a robot programmed to explode in 2007.

slightly more power? mabry hit as many hr's last year as macias has in his past three combined. he's got roughly the same power as hollandsworth, and most people were pretty happy w/ him on the bench.

option for a fifth year. http://msn.foxsports.com/mlb/story/5117698

i've accepted that the cubs' bench will suck.

is that when the quarterly chemistry report comes out?

i like when people complain about how ridiculously long threads get by posting in that thread, thus making it longer. mabry > macias, i guess. at least he's got a little pop. i'd have preferred branyan, but oh well...

Hard to pass them out until after the fact, though. you know what i meant!

so...are you really suggesting him as a solution or did you start this thread to throw out a 'told you so'? after the fact, of course...as it's the only way to go.

how's about a rf?

yeah, seriously...you guys are idiots.

uk...no hill? you're dead to me.

son of a...iowa state is so frustrating. THREE overtime losses and a loss at home to baylor, a team they beat 95 times out of 100. it's one thing to be a four loss team, but it's another to be a four loss team that could very easily be 10-1...or even 11-0. argh!

if hendry goes out and gets abreu/giles/dunn for the of, i guess i can't complain about this middle relief splurge. but if he starts talking penny pinching and jacque jones is the rf in 2006...

[-X if trading pierre prevents hendry from spending big bat $ on furcal, i guess i'm ok w/ it. i'm not a huge fan of either, but i've come to terms w/ the fact that todd walker will not be leading off for the cubs next year...

not saying that anybody in this thread is doing this, but it seems like the same people who say 'who cares about prospects, trade for proven commidities' are the same people who ride the cubs for trading willis, the red sox for trading bagwell, etc.

source? just my negative, nay-saying, hendry hating intuition. sorry. let's try this again... roberto clemente is so gonna be the cubs rf. hendry will find a way to make it happen. he's the best.

jacque jones is so gonna be the cubs rf.

good support for your argument. :roll: funny that he mentions mcgwire and bonds, but fails to mention sosa winning the mvp in '98 over mcgwire.

tom gordon's agent has GOT to be on the phone to hendry right now. at least 5 yr/$27 mil for flash.

that dusty bonus doesn't mean much to me until some really good players start coming here because of dusty. neifi and scott eyre don't sell that one for me.

well, for one, the reason i don't want walker traded is because he's good...not because i don't want his feelings hurt. secondly, walker's done more for the cubs than the cubs have for him...accepting a back up role, playing for below market value, etc. on the other hand, the cubs did dempster a huge favor by giving him 1) a contract when he was coming off an injury 2) a spot in the rotation when he did nothing to deserve it 3) a shot at the closer's role when he was pitching terribly 4) a three year contract based on 3/4 of one good season 5) a $15 mil deal, which was probably more than he could have gotten elsewhere. also, giving a guy a fat contract, job security, etc and then having him switch to a somewhat different role is a lot different than picking up a guy's option, taking away his ability to choose where he plays, throwing thinly veiled criticism of him out through the media and then trading him to a place he may not want to go. in other words, the situations are different.

yeah. given the amount of $ the cubs have to spend, i'd rather have wagner at $10 mil than eyre at $3ish. and as long as we're throwing opinions out there, i'd rather have wagner at $10 mil than eyre, neifi and rusch at $10 mil. I'm bumping this thread when the old fart blows out his elbow next year and we will have avoided another Benitez/Urbina are you also gonna bump it if he has another season like this past one? or if eyre sucks, neifi starts 110 games w/ a .280 OBP, or rusch posts a 4.90 era? Since apparently you've been feeling ornery lately, please tell me when I've EVER EVER EVER EVER EVER advocated for the re-signing of Neifi or Rusch? I would like to be pointed to ONE single post where I mentioned I was happy with those deals. I'll give you some time to find it, but you won't, because they don't exist. If Eyre sucks, then I'll eat my crow, but I'm not the one bashing hendry left and right for EVERYTHING he does and doesn't do 3 weeks into the offseason (not implying that you necessarily are, but some people are) And did you see what happened to EVERY high priced closer last year? big deal...that was one year. since benetiz and percival got hurt, that means wagner's good as hurt next year? that makes no sense. i never said that you wanted neifi or rusch. you said you were going to bump this when wagner gets hurt...in response to me saying i'd take wagner over the three cubs. even if wagner gets hurt and misses half the season, i'd rather have him over the three cubs if those three cubs suck and take playing time from cedeno/hill.

isn't he supposed to be the clubhouse/chemistry/attitude superking? if so, he should take it in stride since it would be the best thing for the team. Sure. That seems to be the response anytime this question or one like it comes up. Its a very helpful and productive solution. A better argument - and one I could understand - would be that we should not have resigned Dempster until we took a run at Ryan. That's a reasonable argument. fine. whatever argument you want to use...but dempster + ryan (in whatever order) is better than eyre/howry + dempster. and i don't care whose feelings get hurt...this is baseball, not the girl scouts. dempster should be happy w/ the $15 mil he got and pitch whatever inning they tell him to. I love how these guys are treated like robots simply b/c stats exist by which we can evaluate them. I guess we'll have to agree to disagree on this. well, you're acting like they're sensitive, insecure little cry babies that will single handedly take down a team from the inside if they pitch the 8th inning instead of the 9th.

You don't become a professional athlete without a competitive ego. No, I wouldn't be happy about "job security" and a "huge raise" that came along with a demotion. I also wouldn't want to spend 8 months with a guy who was told to do just that. You play to compete and win, the money is a secondary issue. that's quite an assumption. so you think that dempster would have turned down 15 mil to be the cubs set up man to take 1 mil to be the d-rays' closer? come on, you guys are acting like the cubs would be tarring/feathering dempster by 'demoting' him to set up man. it's not like they're sending him to peoria or taking away his 15 million bucks.