mcgoobs

Wonder if any of the voters were swayed by the fact that he lost twice to the Cubs.

They would likely be able to differentiate between economic shares - which would be allocated between dollars invested - and voting shares - which would be used to make significant decisions about the organization. A new owner would push to have a larger percentage of the voting shares if Zell is to hold on to some ownership of the company for tax or any other reasons.

After the Wade Miller experiment it seems the Cubs would be establishing a pattern of signing once productive Astros pitchers.

There was some discussion in the Peavy thread about whether giving up Lee or Aramis or Soto, etc is worth getting Peavy. Clearly if the Peavy deal were to happen there are an inifinite amount of potential packages that could be put together. What I would like to get a sense of is who on the Cubs roster NSBBers feel we couldn't give up at all, regardless of the package. So the question is this: if you were Jim Hendry and putting together a package of players to get Peavy, and only Peavy, which of the following players would you tell Towers or a third team's GM is off-limits? Assume NTCs for the Cubs' contracts can be negotiated around and the trades would be for the players straight up (i.e. the Cubs don't have to eat any of the outgoing players' salaries to make the deal work). Btw mods if you feel that another Peavy thread is too much, feel free to nix this. Was just hoping to get a quantitative sense where NSBBers heads are at.

And deserved the 2004 Cy Young.

Combining that logic with last year's thread, we should have signed Brian Robert's 8000 times.

The problem is that Dempster is very unlikely to duplicate his 2008, so Peavy would be necessary just to match what we got out of Demp last year. And you're missing the key point..which is that we wouldn't be able to re-sign Wood if we had Peavy and Dempster, not to mention any other free agents. So 2009 Peavy might not make us that much better than a 2008 Dempster would, but the loss of Wood make our bullpen significantly worse. If we lose Wood then our bullpen could be in serious trouble. I'd rather have a really good rotation and a good bullpen than a mega rotation with a crappy pen. Bottom line is that Dempster would not be even remotely necessary.... Wood would. Plus it's very possible that Dempster isn't even much of an upgrade over Marquis next season. I'm not counting on Dempster. Just to be clear: Are you saying you'd rather have Peavy+Wood or Dempster+Wood over Peavy+Dempster? Even if both Peavy and Dempster decline, having above average to excellent starting pitchers is far more valuable to having one above average to excellent starting pitcher and bullpen arm. This is aside from the fact that Wood, while great last year, has significant injury history which continued last year.

I don't think he has leverage anymore. In Kosuke's introduction press conference, he said he chose the Cubs because the Cubs want him to play his natural position of RF. It was an organizational promise by the Cubs that the Cubs have now broken. Then we can void his contract, re-sign him to his market value, and make him the backup right fielder. In all seriousness, I would be surprised though if this decision wasn't at least discussed with Fukudome after the season ended.

Byebye Jim Edmonds.

I'm in the minority of posters who would rather see Dempster back over Wood. As hard as it would be to see Wood in another uniform, the Cubs payroll right now can't afford overpaying a reliever who has only pitched one "full" season as a reliever in the past three. Dempster, although unproven as a consistent year-to-year starter, was the Cubs best starter last year and didn't show any signs of fatigue in the later months of the season. One would hope that Dempster would agree to a 2-3 year deal that gives the Cubs a hometown discount for taking the chance on moving him into the rotation, hopefully something in the $10-12MM range?

Jim Edmonds should be mentioned. He's not a 150 game option but deserves to start the majority of games aainst RHP, which he's continued to hit well even in his advancing age: Agst RHP 2005: .251/.385/.515/.900 2006: .295/.404/.543/.947 2007: .268/.336/.419/.755 2008: .250/.362/.521/.883 If he can be had for a low base (<$2MM) with incentives, it's not a bad deal for someone who will start 2/3 of our games in center. Also Vance, great message in your sponsorship of the Edmonds BR page.

I could see this turning into an adaptation like 21. Less a review of what actually happened or was documented in the book, instead a Hollywood-influenced thriller/drama.

The only convincing argument that has been presented is that Santo benefitted from a Wrigley that was favorable to hitters during his time. If this was true, and if it wasn't so much Santo having a hitting style tailored to Wrigley or the effects of him having to deal with diabetes, we should see the same effect for other Cubs players who played at the same time. Here are the career home/road splits of players who spent the vast majority of their time playing for the Cubs at the same time as Santo. I'm too lazy to isolate the seasons they played for other teams. Santo: 1960-73 with CHC, 74 with CHW Home: .296/.383/.522/.905, tOPS+ of 118 Road: .257/.342/.406/.747, tOPS+ of 82 Glenn Beckett: 1965-73 with CHC, 74-75 with SDP Home: .292/.328/.361/.689, tOPS+ of 108 Road: .274/.307/.329/.636, tOPS+ of 92 Don Kessinger: 1964-75 with CHC, 76-79 with STL and CHW Home: .264/.328/.326/.654, tOPS+ of 109 Road: .240/.300/.297/.597, tOPS+ of 91 Billy Williams: 1959-74 with CHC, 75-76 with OAK Home: .302/.374/.525/.899, tOPS+ of 110 Road: .278/.349/.459/.808, tOPS+ of 90 Ernie Banks: 1953-71 with CHC Home: .287/.345/.532/.877, tOPS+ of 112 Road: .258/.312/.463/.775, tOPS+ of 88 Randy Hundley: 1964-65 with SFG, 66-73 with CHC, 74-75 with MIN and SDP, 76-77 with CHC Home: .245/.300/.378/.678, tOPS+ of 111 Road: .228/.285/.322/.607, tOPS+ of 90 It looks as if there generally was a benefit to playing in Wrigley, although Santo's home-road splits would suggest that there was something unique that made him especially favorable to hitting at home. Does this mean that he deserves to remain on outside the Hall? I personally think no, but understand if someone points to his road splits as a reason why he should. To OMC's point we'll never know how much of that was due to traveling with diabetes, or if all of the Cubs favorable splits at home were due more to adapting to day games than anything about the park specifically.

Since 1998 there have been 10 different NL teams that have made the World Series: Padres, Braves, Mets, Diamondbacks, Giants, Marlins, Cardinals, Astros, Cardinals (again), Rockies and Phillies. The Cubs join the Reds, Pirates, Nationals/Expos, and Dodgers as the NL teams who haven't been to the World Series during that time.

One would hope that Dempster would follow Wood's lead and give the Cubs the hometown discount. Especially after taking the risk on putting him back in the starting rotation after he was a average arm in relief.

It's not the matchup itself that's the difference it's how each team would use their RH'ers that made the difference. STL would challenge them inside and would pay for it, LA stayed away and the Cubs wet their pants trying to pull HRs into LF. Then would being less right-handed by having Ibanez or another left-handed outfielder have made much of a difference? And then is the correction for what LA pitching did to us not be more left-handed but to have Perry work with existing right-handers (maybe something as simple as working on taking the outside pitch to the opposite field)?

For 161 games in the regular season, the Cubs were virtually the same very good offensive team against right vs left handers: Cubs 2008 vs RHP: .274/.350/.443/.793 Cubs 2008 vs LHP: .288/.366/.442/.807 Of all NL teams this year, the Cubs had the second highest OBP and OPS against RHP, the Cardinals percentage points higher at .287/.353/.443/.796. The idea that the Cubs couldn't hit right-handed pitching is media-created nonsense.

Every generation of fans has a Cubs team that breaks their hearts to the point that, no matter how good the team looks, pessimism prevails going forward. For the older generation it was '69 (or even '45), for some it was '84, and for younger generations '03 was the heartbreaker. Regardless of how good the team looked in the regular season, anyone who has been following this team for at least the past five years shouldn't have walked into the postseason with anything more than apprehensive optimism.

yes i did...it is called personal superstition... what does fth mean? when we were having our craptastic september slump...i burned two hats and another shirt...and they started winning...i burned the last piece of that fukudome shirt last night before the game...it was the front cubbie bear that was attached to my backpack... i guess my burning luck has run out or it just doesn't work in the playoffs :banghead: I love this post.

Wow. Getting made fun of by LA media for being quiet. Next the Philly media is going to accuse the fans of being too harsh with the booing.

Then would he be Milton BraDLey? I write my own stuff.

In high school I could pick up a curveball by the pitcher's motion and the way it came out of his hands. I had a very hard time picking up a slider. It looks too much like a fastball.

I remember that watching that game with a bunch of high school friends. We were livid for about two minutes before one of us said: "You know there's no way we'd even be competing right now if Brown didn't do a kick@** job filling in for 1-Dog." Basically calmed us down. Anyone remember the look on Beck's face when it happened? You didn't know if he was going to go up to Brown after the game and let him know it was no big deal, or light into him.

Just to highlight how Z has regressed post ASB: HR/9 K/9 BB/9 Pre-ASB .67 5.85 2.85 Post-ASB 1.31 6.87 4.48 Just to highlight on an arbitrary stat, he's two quality starts in nine throughout the months of August and September. It's clear Z's struggles aren't just the result of a bad start or two or three, he's clearly not the pitcher he was the first half of the season.

This was posted at the beginning of the season, but it's still a great video.