NCCubFan

With Spring Training underway, Nathan Baliva, announcer for the Peoria Chiefs (low-A), has once again graciously agreed to have a thread where he will answer some questions about the Chiefs throughout the 2010 season! This will be a great opportunity to not only get to ask questions to a first hand source, but to get to know Nathan over the course of the season. Please note that Nathan is being very gracious to interact with us. With that being said, please understand that Nathan may or may not be able to get to your question right away and that there may be times where he is limited in regards to what he can say on certain issues. This session will be in accordance with the NSBB Q & A Guidelines. Thank you to Nathan for taking the time to visit with us here at NSBB. In addition, thank you to all of you for making NSBB such a wonderful posting community!

Almost as depressing as Silva pitching well in his last start.

A reminder, now that the brackets are up. You can now start making our picks. The deadline to enter and submit picks is before the first game tips off on Thursday (the Tuesday play-in game isn't part of the contest).

Maybe two Cubs' ticket agents could talk about trading Theriot to the Marlins for Hanley Ramirez and get it on ESPN. :D

I'm sure he can, but I beat him to it.

Blanco, and I don't even think that's debatable if we assume Castro starts the season in the minors. We clearly need Blanco as backup shortstop.

Turns out to be a non-issue. I hadn't realized that the number of reserve spots has been set to 16 for now. That would provide plenty of cushion to absorb players who will eventually be placed on our DLs.

Unless I've completely lost my mind it looks like the previous draft discussion thread has disappeared. There's an issue that I think needs to be addressed. Juan mentioned earlier that, once your roster is full, you will no longer be able to draft. Apparently that's the case this year for all CBS leagues, since Brian mentioned that it's the same way in another CBS league that he's in. That would be OK if we were able to move our injured players (especially those who are already on MLB DLs, such as Volquez on my team). However, without that ability, CBS will view a roster as full when it really isn't, preventing an owner from drafting a full roster. That isn't OK, so some way we need to resolve that issue and make sure that everybody can truly draft a full roster. I don't know if there's any way to handle this other than finishing the draft on NSBB once this starts becoming an issue, but it is something we need to deal with somehow.

I'd rather see Trammel as manager. I still remember that it was under his leadership as interim manager (during Lou's suspension) that the Cubs went on a tear and turned the season around in 2007.

Gives new meaning to the phrase "Houston, we have a problem."

Welcome back; I'm glad you're still able to go to Spring Training.

Von Joshua is back as Iowa hitting coach, though, so that's an argument in favor of sending him to Iowa.

For trade value alone he should be way up there.

No Mel Rojas or Todd Hundley either.

If Hendry could somehow get the Twins to eat some of Wood's contract he should be voted Executive of All-Time. :D

All the more reason to hope it actually happens.

That's actually giving the Cubs a break, pretending that Silva would only give up 6 runs.

Syracuse, by a few hundred miles.

I've thought about that HF advantage, and like the idea, but the reasons I'm not pushing for it are that a big part of making the playoffs is extra playoff revenue for the home team, and fans getting to see a playoff game in their ballpark. Under that plan, if you are the 2nd WC, you will play a road game in the 1 game playoff, then two more road games before your first and only home date in the first round. It would be tough, and involve a ton of travel. Plus, forcing the WC teams to play 1 game before starting against the big boys is a pretty huge advantage for the #1 seed, who should get favorable pitching matchups and a more rested bullpen because of it. I think the WC teams have enough of an added challenge under the system without going all the way to the HFA thing. But I wouldn't necessarily object. I was thinking about it more from the perspective of giving an added incentive for having the best record, but then again they'd already have that under your plan since they'd be playing a tired team (that's assuming the division winner with the best record plays the wild card winner even if they're both from the same division). Perhaps a variation of my idea that would address the issues you raised (which are legitimate) would be for the wild card team to host game 1 and the division champion the remaining games.

Especially Treeman's review of the trade.

My plan would not add an extra round, it would add an extra game, well 2, 1 in each league. 3 division winners, 2 WC teams play each other the Tuesday after the season ends, winner goes on to face the #1 seed. The punishes WC teams for not winning their division, and greatly benefits the #1 seed by getting to a player a team that had to probably throw their best pitching in that 1 game playoff the day before. 1 game play-ins are great TV. But we only get them in the event of a tie. This opens up the chance at the playoffs to more teams, including those forced to face economically superior teams in their division. It actually makes it more "prestigious" to win your division, as only 20% of the teams earn the right to a playoff series, while the other 4 playoff teams have to play a 1game play-in to get there. I think this serves several purposes, it adds emphasis on winning your division, it makes being the #1 seed meaningful, it opens up the playoffs to more teams, but also makes it tougher on you if you get in via WC. MLB has to maintain interest in as many markets as possible. As it stands, you typically only have the interest in 8 playoffs markets, and then maybe 2-3 cities that came up just short. You add two WC and suddenly maybe 14-15 cities maintain their hopes into September. In effect it would be like having 1998 (Cubs vs. Giants) every year. I like it. I'd also like to see consideration given to giving the #1 seed a super home field advantage (4 of 5 games at home), because that also distinguishes the best team in the league from the others. It would mean matching up the #1 seed against the wild card in the first round even if they're from the same division (not currently done), but I'm in favor of that anyway. Under my plan the top division winner would host games 1, 2, 4, and 5, and the wild card would host game 3.

I'm not worried about Sanberg managing the team under ANY circumstances. In fact, I'd bet my life savings that Sanberg does not ever become Cubs' manager. you would??? it seems like a cubbish thing to do; they've already promoted him (very quickly) to their most advanced affiliate and it would be a p.r. boon among most of the fans. Read the bolded part of the post I quoted.

There's only one explanation for the article. It's obviously an April Fool's Day joke that accidentally slipped out early.

Oh, and time for the obligatory

I'm not worried about Sanberg managing the team under ANY circumstances. In fact, I'd bet my life savings that Sanberg does not ever become Cubs' manager.