abuck1220

it should be easy to trade wood since he doesn't have a no trade clause. great article!

i didn't realize that the dbacks called up conor jackson. sucks for me because i was looking forward to seeing him when tucson came to town in august.

that was a pretty dirty play by sosa. real dirty, actually. if jim edmonds had done it, the board would be up in arms.

The strength and conditioning coach wears #31. :-k You know, I wonder if buying a jersey through the silent auction will let you meet the player after the game. I loved the Boy Scout jersey auction in that once you bought the jersey you could go and meet the player to receive the jersey and get it signed. I enjoyed getting to visit with Murton and Shipman! This is probably completely irrelevant, but at the 45 jersey silent auction the Chiefs did, the winners went down to meet the players and get the signed jerseys from them. If these jerseys are to be signed, I'd guess it would probably be done the same way. that's how they did it at iowa.

I'm not going with a plan for any one player. I do have some cash from someone to make a push for Sing's jersey. I'll just hang out and hope to get one for the opening bid ($50-$75). weak! :D

who are you hoping to get?

i suppose there's a chance that he got called back up with hairston hurting. a crappy patterson is certainly better than macias.

big surprise...dusty taking credit for murton's success.

delmon got called up to AAA.

baker's just bitter because he had to spend like 18 years in AAA before he got his shot. so now he thinks everyone else should have to do the same. this is why he was a terrible choice for this job given the group of players he inherited.

heh...now the pads are playing him at catcher for the first time in five years. if his heart keeps from leaving san diego, maybe his knees will think otherwise.

patterson 0-4 so far...average down to .185.

if all hill can do is bounce the curve, he's never gonna make it. in his last AAA start, he couldn't get the curve over, and they ripped his fb. he has to throw his curve for strikes. i would venture to guess that i've probably seen hill pitch more than anybody here, and i can't think of one occasion where a guy hit his curveball hard. not one. and nobody hit it hard last night either. when he did miss with the curve last night, it was waaay up and away or down and in. those are great spots to miss with a curveball. because his curve has more of an 11-5 motion than a 12-6, it seems like he hangs it out over the plate less often. so, long story short, i'm going to have to vehemently disagree w/ you when you say that his curve will get hit hard by righties more than not if he leaves it out over the plate. that just hasn't been the case in the 30+ innings i've seen him throw.

that's what the cubs thought they were doing when they signed remlinger and hawkins. neither of those signings worked out very well. relievers' (especially 7th-8th inning guys) performance just vary too much from year to year for anybody to be a sure thing. i'm not saying the cubs shouldn't ever sign a guy like that again, but there's a decent chance that it will end up backfiring.

man, you people are harsh on hill. mitre has a couple decent starts, and people are deeming him the second greg maddux. hill does well, and people are comparing him to estes... by the way, hill is the second oldest guy in the rotation now, behind only maddux. weird.

yeah, he keeps getting hurt because he's not mentally willing his labrum not to fray. that's definitely it. matter of fact, the coaching staff told him a way to throw that would make him 100% healthy and the most dominating pitcher in mlb, but he said, 'no way, suckers. you guys are stupid, and i'll do things how i want.' that was right after the cubs told patterson how to turn into willie mays, but he ignored them and then went out to not sign autographs for little kids and swing at high fastballs. Very clever. I keep reading that his mechanics are a problem. and you somehow know that it is a problem that someone has the answer to, but that wood refuses to change?

yeah, he keeps getting hurt because he's not mentally willing his labrum not to fray. that's definitely it. matter of fact, the coaching staff told him a way to throw that would make him 100% healthy and the most dominating pitcher in mlb, but he said, 'no way, suckers. you guys are stupid, and i'll do things how i want.' that was right after the cubs told patterson how to turn into willie mays, but he ignored them and then went out to not sign autographs for little kids and swing at high fastballs.

1-5, 3 k's for patterson. good job by piggy in a spot start...4 ip, 2 h, 4 bb, 5 k's. and bartosh's great run came to a rough end...3 ip, 6 h, 5 er. mcclain homered and soto and hoffpauir had two hits each. i-cubs lost.

Also, everyone should vote in their poll. It asks "Hot enough for you?" "@#&%^$!" currently leads with 61.7%. "Yes. Make it stop!" is in second with 18.7% followed by "No. Bring it on!" with 12.1%. And yes, I realize that only adds up to 92.5%. I voted "No. Bring it on!" because I don't live in Iowa and feel Iowans should suffer. :D you take that back!

Well, a fact is a fact. Hes still not proven at the major level. Whether he has had a chance isnt the point. If we are trying to win this year, we shouldnt be audiontioning Hill. Just pitch Mitre. Also, look at the number of homeruns he has given up at every single level hes pitched at. Do you really want that at wrigley field? by your reasoning, how is he ever going to get 'proven' at the major league level? in fact, how did mitre become proven? there will always be a guy w/ more experience than a rookie...how's he ever supposed to get out there if he is continually passed up for whoever has more innings than him? and i don't know why everyone is so awestruck by what mitre has done. look at his numbers...it's not like they're passing up a dominant pitcher in favor of one that sucks. if mitre's better, the difference is minimal. and i think most people would agree that hill has a higher ceiling. w/ regard to alou...hill better throw him hooks all night. don't even try to sneak that cutter in on him, because if he doesn't get it in far enough, it's going onto the street. from watching hill's last AAA start, it was evident that if he can't throw his curve for strikes, the opposition just sits on his fb. since he knew his hook wasn't working, he went to the cutter occasionally, but he wasn't getting it far enough in on righties...and they hit him hard. so, for me, it all starts w/ whether he can get his curve over...or at least make it look like it's going to be a strike so he can get some swings off it. go rich!

don't use a sharpie on a ball. [-X

the iowa game is in oklahoma, not in iowa.

i'll bust this pic out for the first mlb start of my favorite cub prospect. i've been a fan of his since before bandwagons existed on this board. go rich! http://img215.imageshack.us/img215/3435/1000573aut4vj.jpg

i think my favorite part was the cardinal fans chanting 'mvp! mvp!' as pujols went down for the tenth time (?) w/o a hit in the series.

quit heaping praise on pujols. if neifi could catch, he would have been out easily.