davearm2

Absolutely!

Why is that? We don't do it very often, and by all accounts, he was the best remaining hitter as far as upside is concerned. And of course, the jury is still out on Vitters. They have a terrible track record of developing these players, and that's largely due to the fact that a) the guys they draft have no concept of the strikezone and b) the Cubs don't teach it once they draft him. I don't know much about Baez's approach, but if he's a toolsy free swinger, it's hard to have hope for him in this organization. I'd love to be able to disagree with this.

Unless Pujols/Fielder are the ones who think they're 2-3 years away, that's not really a big worry. Pujols and maybe two other good decisions and this team is probably the best in the division. Injuries have this team playing at a 65 game win pace, not their talent level. The talent level may not be 65-wins bad, but it's still pretty bad. And definitely a big part of the problem.

I think the second half of the Tribune ownership did some real things. The biggest mistakes they made was not hiring the right baseball people. But in the early 90's they went out and got a hot shot young exec in Andy MacPhail to run things and make a commitment to building through the minor league system. They also spent more and more every year on payroll, giving unprecedented resources to the team. They also laid the groundwork for the first real upgrades to Wrigley Field and got them done. I agree. A good owner will... a) hire the right people; b) open the checkbook; and c) stay the heck out of the way. The Trib definitely did b) and c), and tried to do a). In the end, MacPhail's small-market tendencies just didn't work here. Ricketts and co have yet to establish a), b), or c). But they haven't given us a reason to believe they'll fail on any of these, either.

I actually like their recruiting philosophy concerning Asia. They're getting tons of talent at less than half the price they'd have to pay for equivalent South American talent. The bang for the buck just isn't all that great in South America anymore. Somebody get Tryp a map ASAP.

"The Cubs are so far gone, they are much more than one player away." ... I can agree with that. "Forget about signing a free agent such as the Cardinals' Albert Pujols or the Brewers' Prince Fielder," ... but this does not logically follow. At all. In fact if you're more than one player away, then you'd better get real good ones.

They just had that opportunity, and passed on it.

I could see that happening. What pressure? Nobody's clamoring for Ryne Sandberg. If the Cubs wanted Sandberg to be their manager, he'd be their manager already.

Well said. And apply it to Hendry as well. We may not like the quotes in the media, but they don't have their head in the sand the way some folks seem to believe.

I see your point, but your average fan really doesnt care much about CUBTV, Mesa, or even the farm system. While it is easy to say to hell with them, they know nothing about baseball, they are still the ones you need filling up the seats. If they do indeed decide not to make an offseason free agent splash, and go with the youth movement, it will be a loooong several years. Our system isnt the Royals or Rays that will be able to compete with it anytime soon. If this is the plan, they may as well start trading pretty much everything of value on the big league roster with the exceptions of Castro and Cashner. This means dont waste money offering arbitration to Garza. Why would investing in infrastructure and making a free agent splash be mutually exclusive options?

I don't hate Quade but I'd be all for that. Hendry can't stand and if it means Quade goes also so be it. Hendry has overstayed his welcome for 2 years. Yep Hendry should have been fired after that miserable 2008 season.

Show me a list of the top, oh, 10 or 20 highest post counts on NSBB, and then try finding names on that list that ARE NOT persistently aggressive with their opinions. Throw out the persistently aggressive crowd and then there'd REALLY be nobody left.

This sums up my feelings entirely. And to no surprise, this sums up my feelings entirely about what's wrong with the culture around here. Too many folks are so focused on dividing people into smart/cool and moron categories, and gaining the acceptance of the smart/cool crowd by hammering on the moron crowd. It's like a cliquey band of meanspirited teenage girls around here. Sorry, but it's flat out pathetic if someone feels a need or desire to join a "make fun of morons" club.

With all due respect Rob, characterizing my viewpoint as "ridiculous crap" makes you part of the elitist know-it-all (and uncivilized) problem others have alluded to. Who are you to decide what's ridiculous crap? It'd be more accurate to characterize me as a liberal amongst a crowd of conservatives (or visa versa). We may not often agree, but that doesn't inherently make either of us idiots, or what we have to say ridiculous. Therein lies the problem here. There's virtually no tolerance for opposing viewpionts or differences of opinion. Right and wrong is treated as black and white. The notion that reasonable minds can differ on a particular issue does not live here. At all. That, as much as anything else, is what has stifled this board, IMO. The fact that this intolerance is often portrayed so smugly and maliciously surely doesn't help matters, either.

Well it would be found here if the Cubs actually elicited an emotional response anymore. Even people who aren't on the "its cool to not care" bandwagon (such as myself), I can't see them getting too down about the repeated failures of this team. If the Cubs fielded a team that actually generated some interest, we'd see a return to emotional highs and lows for the Cubs (for better and for worse), although likely at a depressed level from 3-4 years ago. Point is, I'm now finding that elsewhere. Which is the reason I can't understand Tim or Yellon's defense of upper management. It's against their best interests to maintain the status quo. I suspect these folks would rather have a less-busy site where they express their opinions freely and honestly, than a more-busy site where they perpetuate a false persona in order to drive traffic.

Thome has never played LF son. Fine, Thome at SS. Didn't Thome catch one game once in his life? Someone ought to log onto the internet and find out.

I'm sure I'll be torn to shreds for saying this, but you could add "leadoff hitter" to the list ;) Put Fukudome and Castro in front of a middle of the order on par with the Lee-Sosa-Ramirez-Alou days, and you'd be rockin. Of course the problem is, the Cubs have exactly zero power guys like that in place longterm. (Well, I guess Soto is one.)

Anyone at least a little curious to know what it would take to sign Fukudome to an extension? Would we want him back at, say, $7M per year? No matter where he winds up he'll be taking a paycut.

It depends on the player - which I think is what you're saying here. Should some team decide it wants Soriano, I'd take a couple of low-ceiling A ball guys if the other team will eat a large chunk of the money. If it's Pena or Kosuke, I'd eat much more of their salary if it would get us better prospects. Dumping salary shouldn't be that large a concern for this team, however, considering how many prospects we have coming up and how much salary we're already freeing up in the near future. Even if it's those guys, it's still an open question. If the team could save, say, $3m in additional money by taking lesser prospects and invest that money in overslotting in the draft or signing international FA's, would that be better than taking incrementally better prospects back in the trade? I'd think it's really hard to give a firm answer to that one without knowing the gap between the prospects, how close to the bigs, etc. However, this draft is one that is going to be prime for overslotting given the depth of talent available. I'd love to see the Cubs take a bunch of overslot guys in the draft in anticipation of being in the position of saving as much as possible from the Pena, Kosuke & other contracts. What it really comes down to is putting a $ value on the types of "intriguing" prospects the Cubs have gotten back in trades over the years... the Mike Fontenots, the Chris Archers, the Kyler Burkes, the Jose Cedas, etc. If you're the Cubs would you rather get back one of those guys, or instead save an extra $1M in salary on the guy being shipped out? We have a general sense of what draft prospects are worth, in cash, based on where they're drafted. What's the cash value of a guy once he's been in the minors for a year or two? Difficult to say.

JMHO of course, but eating salary should be a total non-issue for the Cubs (and virtually any other team), especially on guys with expiring contracts. It's a sunk cost. The issue is one of, would you rather get more salary relief and lesser prospects, or less salary relief and better prospects? It's impossible to generalize an answer to that one.

Bench Castro and play Barney at SS. Problem solved.

Barney has had 286 career ML plate appearances and has posted a .680 OPS in that time. This isn't a grizzled veteran who we know is going to give us good production consistently. We may not know how good LeMahieu will be in the majors, but we wouldn't be benching a guy with an extensive major league track record either. I agree.

Yeah, because this is EXACTLY what everyone is saying. For someone who accuses people of not comprehending things on a routine basis, I think you better look in the mirror. The point here is that LeMahieu has more longterm potential than Barney. And it's not a knock on Barney either, who holds value to us as a cheap guy for a few years as a utility player. Not every youngster you have has to become A-Rod in order for him to have value to your club. Relax. All I'm saying is that in a thread a week ago discussing the Cubs' good young players, Barney was mentioned by several folks. Now this thread has several folks (albeit, not the same folks) pushing for him to be bypassed in favor of a guy that's literally 100% unproven at the ML level -- 1 AB. It's just amusing, is all. The truth is, both guys are probably in the replacement level / utility IF tier.

It was apparent early on that it was going to be a long day, just by looking at the big hacks the Astros were taking against him. They were teeing off right from the get-go. He wasn't intimidating them at all with either velocity or movement.

Hehe a week ago Barney was a prominent member on some folks' lists of good young Cub players. Now he can't hold DJ LeMaheiu's (and his zero career bigleague at-bats) jock.