abuck1220

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.

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.

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.

Who is your favored candidate for SS? AGonz? Neifi? Cedeno with all of 80 major league at bats? an injury prone and past his prime Nomar? cedeno's gonna start (in theory) whether furcal is here or not. if furcal comes, the cubs will probably trade walker and play cedeno at 2b. if furcal doesn't sign w/ the cubs, the cubs probably will keep walker and play cedeno at ss. in my mind... walker + cedeno + $10 mil/year for the next five years/huge bat for rf is better than furcal + walker - $10 mil/year for the next five years/no huge bat for rf

go braves.

Wow, that was a ridiculous thing to say. This has hardly been 18 pages of complaining. I've seen a lot of the space used for questions, clarifications and praise. But it's good to see the spirit police spring into action to try and haul in those evil people who have the audacity to question a move made by the impeccable Cubs management team. I've read the thread, the majority of it has been complaining. Spirit police? LOL. No, it's just that no matter what Hendry does (or doesn't do) he gets slammed for it, and frankly it gets old. Signing Howry will make our team better. The specifics of the contract may not be ideal in your eyes, but answer me this: when was the last contract that a Cubs player signed that you thought WAS ideal? well, the team has sucked the last two years w/ a very sizeable payroll, so i don't think it's crazy to say they've made more than their share of bad decisions. i don't understand why gm's get the benefit of the doubt just because 'it's their job'. people suck at their jobs sometimes. and you're not talking to me, but i'm pretty happy w/ the lee & ramirez deals.

come on. if the cubs signed giles to an 11 year, 145 million dollar deal no one would complain because he would make our team better? there's more to a signing than just 'does it make the team better'.

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?

i'll take 95 wins and a yearly playoff berth. the championship will take care of itself if you make it to the postseason consistently enough. a set of three short series is a crapshoot anyway. besides, the cubs aren't in 'fine tune to put the finishing touches on a world series team' mode right now anyway. they've spent giles money on three non-impact guys and haven't filled rf or ss yet.

wow...95 wins is failing horribly? sign me up for a couple years of that type of failure! Obviously I was referring directly to their bullpen performance, any Red Sox fan will tell you that bullpen inconsistency doomed any chances of a championship. so despite a bullpen disaster, they still won 95 games? sounds like a great pen may be overrated if you can win that many games w/ such a bad pen. how about some offense?

wow...95 wins is failing horribly? sign me up for a couple years of that type of failure!

might be ADD. you should have that checked out.

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.

yeah, but wagner's way, way better than eyre.

i'd rather just stick w/ walker/cedeno...that way you don't have to give up any players. throw furcal's $ at giles (brian). there's really no need to trade walker to get an impact rf when you can just sign giles.

that would not be good for my fantasy team.

Something else to consider is attitude. While BH with the I-Cubs, I had the "pleasure" of meeting him a few times. He was an arrogant , and I was overjoyed to hear he was dealt. From what I know, Neifi has always been a very well-liked teammate. well, if he was rude to you a couple times, he obviously had a terrible attitude. Was that really necessary? Why the snide comment? I'm not the only one who ever had encounters with BH that said he had a bad attitude and was extremely arrogant. I have heard other fans as well as former teammates say the same thing. Since you have had no personal encounters with him, he obviously is a choir boy. yeah, that's what i said. Exactly. ?

Something else to consider is attitude. While BH with the I-Cubs, I had the "pleasure" of meeting him a few times. He was an arrogant , and I was overjoyed to hear he was dealt. From what I know, Neifi has always been a very well-liked teammate. well, if he was rude to you a couple times, he obviously had a terrible attitude. Was that really necessary? Why the snide comment? I'm not the only one who ever had encounters with BH that said he had a bad attitude and was extremely arrogant. I have heard other fans as well as former teammates say the same thing. Since you have had no personal encounters with him, he obviously is a choir boy. yeah, that's what i said.

Something else to consider is attitude. While BH with the I-Cubs, I had the "pleasure" of meeting him a few times. He was an arrogant , and I was overjoyed to hear he was dealt. From what I know, Neifi has always been a very well-liked teammate. well, if he was rude to you a couple times, he obviously had a terrible attitude.

wow, neifi's career .681 OPS makes him the toast of chicago. bobby hill's career .693 OPS gets him run out of pittsburgh. baseball's funny sometimes.

but, hey, it's only the crazy pessimists from this board that don't like what the cubs are doing. everyone else obviously thinks hendry is great.

what a great night in the eyre household. i heard hendry's also sending him a gift basket full of hundreds.