lumafia

Only the Cubs.

That's probably the most likely scenario.

I think his defense has been better this year.

Do we REALLY want Hendry going into the off-season thinking, "We need to spend more on the bullpen!"? and lefties? and speed? and a leadoff hitter? That's what Hendry does.

Wouldn't that be true regardless of this possible trade? Or would Lee have returned on a short-term (cheap) deal? I think there's a chance Lee could have come back on a shorter and/or cheaper deal, but you're right that the basic point holds true regardless of whether or not he's dealt. If he is traded though, he's probably not coming back, and that's one less option and leaves them completely barren at the position heading into the offseason. Why would he not come back (assuming we want him back)? I thought he said he didn't want to uproot his family. Well he can go play for the Braves for a few months and have a shot at another ring and then come back to the Cubs next year. That way his family doesn't have to go anywhere. The problem is that it is being said that he is building a new home in southern California. Playing for anyone other than the Padres, Angels or Dodgers next year would "uproot" his family. My guess is that he is either A) full of [expletive] by saying he doesn't want to uproot his family, B) will sign a cheap contract with a California team in order to be close to his family or C) will retire after the season. Lee seems like a pretty good guy, so I doubt it's A, but you never know. I think it's within reason that this is Lee's last year. Consider his daughter's health problems, his own health problems, his declining production and the end of his contract, now may be a good time for him to ride off into the sunset. Accepting a deal with a contender with a shot at playing for a championship would be a nice way to finish up for him. If he's traded, I wish him the best.

You're not recalling correctly. It was really close. I believe the negotiations went on past midnight (which meant the deadline did pass) but the contract was signed either late that night or that next morning. But there was a report that the Angels were going to give Aramis a 100 million dollar offer as soon as the deadline passed. Hendry also was quoted that Aramis turned down 20 to 30 million dollars extra by signing his deal. Edit: Looks like I was a bit off on the time as well. It was reported that he signed at about 3:15 in the afternoon on that first day after the Cubs lost exclusive rights. It's uncertain when the contract was actually worked out but there certainly would have been some time for others to make offers. The deal Aramis signed was for $91 million if you include the 2012 team option. There were several ways for that option to automatically vest even without a trade. His contract had award bonuses, and he also received a $5 million signing bonus. Not too far off from the 100 million dollar offer that Hendry said he was getting from the Angels, which was always speculation. He got a fair deal when he signed, and he isn't leaving money on the table by accepting a trade and waiving the 2012 option that he hasn't already lost. I'm not passing judgement as much as I am just pointing out the obvious.

Owings wants to be traded from the Reds, who designated him for assignment. Is it time for an organization to take a chance on this guy as a position player? Most pitcher-to-hitter conversions are disasters (sorry Babe Ruth...I wasn't talking about you), but this guy has some skill with the bat. He's still cheap and would be worth the risk in my opinion.

I posted this when Chipper got hurt. Please let this be true. :beg:

He already gave up $30 million when he was a free agent to resign with the Cubs. You expect him to give up another $30 million to a) play for a team that may or may not make the playoffs and b) enter a depressed free agent market with no guarantee of a multiyear deal? You're assuming that he would have gotten his asking price, which is exactly what Beltran got. He was never going to get as much as Beltran. And he is really only leaving $14 mil on the table since next year is a player option, and he will never get the club option from the Cubs anyway. With contracts shrinking, the only way the Cubs pick up the 2012 option is if they are very competitive after next year and Ramirez somehow puts up MVP type numbers again. Only 3 third basemen have made more money than Aramis Ramirez in MLB. A-Rod, Rolen and Chipper Jones. And he's made only $2 million less than Pujols. IIRC, the Angels offered him over $100 million and he turned it down to go back to the Cubs. And if he's traded, he's not just leaving $14 million on the table because his 2012 option vests as well. According to the link above, the Braves would have wanted him to rip up the last two years of his deal. IIRC, the Cubs re-signed Aramis while the Cubs had the exclusive rights to negotiate with him, meaning he never got an offer from another team. What I'm saying is that Aramis will never get the 2012 option if he stays with the Cubs, so how is he "giving it up" if he gets traded somewhere else? I just can't see how a guy who has made almost $85 million in 12 years is worried about giving up $16 mil. Unless he knows that he is done.

He already gave up $30 million when he was a free agent to resign with the Cubs. You expect him to give up another $30 million to a) play for a team that may or may not make the playoffs and b) enter a depressed free agent market with no guarantee of a multiyear deal? You're assuming that he would have gotten his asking price, which is exactly what Beltran got. He was never going to get as much as Beltran. And he is really only leaving $14 mil on the table since next year is a player option, and he will never get the club option from the Cubs anyway. With contracts shrinking, the only way the Cubs pick up the 2012 option is if they are very competitive after next year and Ramirez somehow puts up MVP type numbers again. Only 3 third basemen have made more money than Aramis Ramirez in MLB. A-Rod, Rolen and Chipper Jones. And he's made only $2 million less than Pujols.

Well, if it is true that Aramis killed the deal, we learned a couple of things about him. 1. He's more interested in getting paid than winning a championship. 2. He has as little faith in his career getting back on track as we do.

The Braves aren't dumb enough to trade for Ramirez. However, I could see them moving Glaus to 3B and trading for a 1B. It really would be an ideal situation for Lee, the Cubs and the Braves, if he would allow it. Glaus isn't much worse than Chipper at 3B defensively. Offensively, Chipper had been on fire for about 2 weeks, but during the month of July, Lee was better.

Nah, I disagree with that. The Cubs have the fanbase they do due to the size of the city they play in, their longevity and, most of all, WGN TV and radio. Anyone who defines themselves as a Cubs fan by the team's futility is just the worst. It's not the futility, it's the desire to end the futility. If you were right, I would have been a fan of the Braves instead of the Cubs, because the Braves are on TV almost every day in the south, and have been for decades. Where are all the White Sox fans? Based on your criteria, wouldn't they have the 3rd or 4th largest fan base? I think they fall in the 20ish range?

You're nuts. If a cat showed up and they won anyway people would be freaking out? Yes and no. I'm not saying that people would be freaking out only over the cat, just like they weren't freaking out only over the goat in reality. I'm talking about how superstition just adds fuel to the fire. The context would largely still be the same: long-suffering team and fanbase with an epic implosion just 5 outs from the WS, stupid mythology/curse to go along with it. You're talking about a team that would have supposedly shrugged off one "curse" with the stupid goat if they had won in '69, but then not a single lazy sports journalist or announcer wouldn't have picked up on how one of the biggest teams in baseball history hadn't won a WS in decades after the season where they had a black cat run around the on-deck circle? Come on, we'd be hearing that crap left and right, same as the stupid goat. So little would be different in 2003 if they had won in 1969. The gap between World Series victories is what defines the Cubs, and the fans of the organization. Without that, the Cubs are just another sucky team. They wouldn't be "The Loveable Losers"....they would be "The Losers". We'd be the San Fransisco Giants, and nobody outside of the north side of Chicago would care.

Move Glaus to 3B, give us Kimbrel for Lee. \:D/

I love lamp.

I love lamp.

His FIP this year is 3.56, just ahead of names like Sabathia and Cain, and just behind names like Greinke, Santana, and Price. I get that FIP measures all sorts of things that ERA doesn't reflect, but it's still weird to me to say that Wells has been "great." It's mostly semantics, I understand. I'd be fine with saying his peripherals are good, but the results have been mediocre. His WHIP is 1.40. That's not great. Yeah, it sounds weird, but the way I see it is that if he were to continue to pitch exactly the way he's been pitching in the future, we should expect the actual results (ERA, WHIP, etc) to be much better. His BABIP against is .336 right now, 42 points higher than last season, and way above the average pitching BABIP of .290-.300. Yes, his line drive rate is up (from 18.8 to 22.6), but so is his strikeout rate per 9 (5.66 to 7.08), while his walk rate his stayed consistent. Calculating FIP only takes into account walks, strikeouts, and homeruns (http://www.ehow.com/how_2288361_calculate-fip-statistic.html), so I assume it normalizes everything else like line drive rate, strand rate, etc. With Wells' LD% just a bit above league average, you'd expect his ERA to be a little higher than his FIP in terms out he could control (that is, eliminating strand rate and others), but not .81 higher. I agree with all of this. It was more the issue of saying he's BEEN great. He's hasn't been great, but he projects to have better results in the future. I was being picky, that's all. So, I guess you are saying that he's been very FIPpy this year.

The Cubs would be exercising a tremendous amount of faith if they just make a couple of moves during the offseason. Byrd is having the 2nd best season of his career at age 32. Is it reasonable for him to maintain those numbers? Is it reasonable to expect Castro and Colvin to maintain their production as the league figures them out? In addition to those things happening, you would also need to expect Ramirez to bounce back, even though his production has been on a steady decline since 2004. You would also have to expect Soto to repeat his career year. Also, Carlos Silva would need to repeat, or come close to, the numbers he put up this year as a 31 year old, which are his best since 2005. Oh....I almost forgot. Gorzelanny and Marshall would need to repeat the best years of their career. AND, you would need Dempster to maintain his numbers at 34 years old. AND, you would be expecting Soriano's numbers not to decline, even though he will be 35 years old. Pretty much anything you do at 1B and 2B (already improved with Dewitt) would be an improvement, but if you are the GM, you have to plan for some of these guys who have had career years to regress. If not, next year's team could be worse than this year's team. I'm not advocating a complete overhaul, but in order to compete, the Cubs need to clear enough payroll to get 2 top of the rotation starters, a top tier 1B and a couple of good bullpen guys. And you would need these things in addition to the current group maintaining or improving upon their current production. Sounds like pretty wishful thinking.

Rebuilding is stupid when you have a 130M payroll. Unless Jim somehow convinces Ricketterbilt to give him another $50 mil to play with, he is going to HAVE to move Zambrano and Fukudome. He needs a big time 1B, at least 1 top of the rotation starter, to hope that we can improve the bullpen from within and everybody else on the team that had a career year to repeat, and for Soriano not to regress.

One of the knocks against him was he was too passive; taking too many pitches that were strikes. Which I would assume was responsible for the high K's looking. It looks like he is being more agressive; hence the high swinging strikes. He's on track for his most hrs in awhile - granted not by a whole lot, and he's streaky enough that projections can be iffy, but his overall extra base hits are up pretty significantly. Lots of players in baseball are "statistically aggressive". 1. Balls swung and missed outside of the strike zone are up 4% from last year. That % had held very steady (25%) for the 3 years prior. 2. The % of pitches seen inside the strike zone is down 3% from last year. Pitchers are throwing the ball in the strike zone less often. Again, a % that was formerly very consistent. 3. The % of time an MLB hitter makes contact with a ball thrown outside of the strike zone is up almost exactly 5%. Once again, a number that has been very consistent over the last 5 years. These 3 things appear to show that all hitters are being more aggressive, not just Adam Dunn. The funny thing is that I don't know why. Why would hitters suddenly start swinging at everything?

To pick a random line from a thread I didn't have the stomach to read and go in a related but different direction, the thing that really grinds my gears about this team is that they're tied with the Royals for 6th place MLB-wide in the Fecal League standings (tied with the Royals...puke), and doing it with the third-highest payroll in baseball. The only other team with a comparably laughable relationship between payroll and standings is the Mariners, who occupy the 3rd-worst record in baseball with the 9th-highest payroll. We're only a half game behind the Indians for a bottom 5 spot! edit: and now we're tied for the 5th worst record in all of baseball at 47-65, with KC and the Tribe. Woo!! The freaking Nationals are better than us. I'm excited to see which toolsy, free-swinging high school player the Cubs will draft with a top 5 pick.

You're forgetting about DeWitt. I keep forgetting that guy..... :banghead:

Meanwhile, Lou sticks with his worst two hitters at 3 and 4. :banghead: Gee, I wonder why the offense struggles. Please Ricketts just give Lou a check and send him home after the game. It blows my mind. It really isn't that difficult. SS - Castro RF - Colvin CF - Byrd C - Soto LF - Soriano 1B - Lee 3B - Ramirez 2B - Fontenot/Baker Imagine that, setting up your lineup so the top 5 hitters on your team get the majority of the AB's during the course of the game. MAGIC! I also love how Lou sits Soriano because he is 8 for 42 against Arroyo. Anybody want to guess how many hits Fukudome has against Arroyo in 13 AB's? That's right....none.

Dempster should be asked to impersonate Harry for every 7th inning stretch, except for the days he starts. On those days, we bring Will Ferrell to the park to impersonate Harry. If not those guys, then you bring REAL celebrity Cub fans to sing. That would be Vince Vaughn, John Cusack (has claimed to be both a White Sox and Cub fan, so he's on thin ice) and Bill Murray.