Gingerballs Lives

I think Lilly still owes one of the Braves a fastball in the ribs. Cubs win 9-2 Fontenot hits 2 home runs

You're missing Jake Peavy.

Maybe we could trade Fontenot and Samardijza for Hanley Ramirez.

I generally don't like soft-tossers either. Hopefully he'll be effective in the bullpen.

Quite frankly, as long as Wells is pitching well (and the rest of our rotation is healthy), I'm perfectly fine with Marshall going to the bullpen.

Yeah, he's been getting plenty of singles and walks, just not driving the ball (and when he does, it has been dying on the warning track just like all of our Cobs right now). I'm hoping this offense turns around on its own but I think it's going to be pretty spotty until Mr. Ramirez returns.

Christ has Soto been bad this year. What happened to this dude? We should probably be seeing more Koyie Hill.

These C0bs are hard to take, sometimes.

:puke

Question for anyone who has watched enough of a Sox game this year to know the answer: Does Stoney participate in that idiotic "You can put it on the boooooooard, YES!" homerun call with with that backwoods hick partner of his? That is BEE ESS!!!!!

Get more play from the ladies when on the road would be my best guess. Or, dudes, in Stoney's case, anyway. Not that there's anything wrong with that.

I too would like Alf to get the day off. Hoff should probably play.

Why the hell would we want him? Hill is a better option as backup, IMO. Maybe he's talking about Gregor Blanco.

Yeah, the Red Sox are totally awash with awesome pitching. Our bullpen looks like a large pile of poo, by comparison.

Let's go cobs.

Exactly. This is my biggest gripe against Hendry from this past offseason. It's difficult to put a price on the value DeRosa brought to this team when he was filling in for Soriano in left last year. When he was splitting some time with Fukudome when he was struggling. When he was filling in for Ramirez when he was banged up. And when he wasn't doing that, he was giving us decent production at 2nd based. And what does Hendry do? He goes out and signs the most injury prone RF in the history of mankind, and then trades the one guy who might have made the Bradley signing make some sort of sense. For a team in win now mode, the DeRosa trade made zero sense. Teams in win now mode need guys like Mark DeRosa to fill in where necessary without losing too much production in the line up. To date, DeRosa would have been a real busy guy so far. While Soriano hasn't really missed much time, Bradley, Lee and Ramirez sure have. Nice job, Jim. Exactly. In addition to being a good second baseman, he provided instant insurance for your four best and most expensive players. And it's worth noting that 3 of those players vary from somewhat injury-prone to incredibly injury-prone. Also, any GM who thought Aaron Miles, Joey Gathright and Paul Bako were worthwhile bench pieces to a championship caliber club needs to have his head examined. Just an awful descision to get rid of Derosa, and I flat out hate the Dempster and Miles contracts. And for much of this board, this isn't hindsight being 20/20. Throw in the two things that are out of Hendry's control, Bradley not producing and Aramis getting hurt, and you've got a pretty mediocre ballclub. Hopefully we can win in spite of Hendry's offseason changes.

My hate for this team, and its management, knows no bounds.

Let's see. - Everyone here knew signing Miles, especially as basically DeRosa's replacement, was a stupid idea. - Everyone here knew that Bradley was injury-prone. - Everyone here, for the most part, could see that Derrek Lee had been declining throughout most of 2008. (I'm glad he's on the uptick right now, but he's got a long way to go before having a productive full season.) - Most here, while glad to be rid of Jason Marquis, thought it was iffy to bring in a nothing reliever for him. - Everyone here was skeptical as to why we were shedding like 5M in bullpen pitchers for no apparent reason less than two weeks in when we weren't exactly loaded with great relievers. - Most here were skeptical of Dempster's contract considering his career numbers. This isn't hindsight. For the most part, these moves were bad even in foresight. Exactly. Although I had no problem with the Lee contract at the time. I mean, he broke his arm like the next day. Still a good player though and I'm glad he seems to have found his way back on track this year. He has a NTC so he won't be getting moved. It just sucks because it seems the Cubs have handcuffed themselves with so many bad contract and NTC that it's hard to see how we will effectively retool. We've got nearly $120 million committed to 10 players for next year. I think we're pretty much stuck with this aging team.

I want you to prove that rotation is mediocre. You've said it repeatedly, you are wrong, and I'd like for you to produce some sort of evidence that Zambrano, Harden, Lilly, Marquis, Marshall is a mediocre rotation. Yes. Plus, Dempster is proving himself to be the weak link so far. Randy Wells has eaten his lunch. (and no I'm not saying we should be relying on guys like Wells but he has been pretty awesome)

It's one thing to spend money on good players that fill needs. It's another to spend money on a guy who had one good season (in a contract year) who is likely to regress to his career averages. Soriano, DeRosa, Lilly, and to a lesser extent, Marquis filled holes on the Cubs team by performing primarily how they typically had over their careers. We definitely overpaid for Soriano but we needed to make a statement. Giving Dempster that kind of money was/is insane. His current ERA is 4.99, right in line with his career average. He's a bad pitcher who had his career year at the right time and we're going to be paying a steep price for his mediocrity for the next 4 years. An inexcusable move by Hendry and Co. We'll see. I expect Dempster will pick it up and prove you wrong. The prediction here is, by the time the dust settles the guy will put in a solid year and be a key ingredient to the team making the postseason, just like last year. Dempster is garbage. No team in this league would take him at that price. Christ, what a crippling offseason for the Cubs. Almost $90 million spent on Milton Bradley, Ryan Dempster and Aaron Miles. jfc.

It's one thing to spend money on good players that fill needs. It's another to spend money on a guy who had one good season (in a contract year) who is likely to regress to his career averages. Soriano, DeRosa, Lilly, and to a lesser extent, Marquis filled holes on the Cubs team by performing primarily how they typically had over their careers. We definitely overpaid for Soriano but we needed to make a statement. Giving Dempster that kind of money was/is insane. His current ERA is 4.99, right in line with his career average. He's a bad pitcher who had his career year at the right time and we're going to be paying a steep price for his mediocrity for the next 4 years. An inexcusable move by Hendry and Co.

A horrible deal that isn't getting enough attention. Dempster was a nice story last year and did a nice job but there was no way in hell he was going to repeat that (especially 4 more times)! That thing is an albatross of Chan Ho Park proportions. Yep should've just gone with Z Lilly Harden Marquis Marshall. That's a championship-caliber rotation if I've ever seen one. Probably would've won like 120 games. I'd be ok with that to start the season. Adding Dempster to the mix doesn't make it any more championship-caliber, especially at that price. Dempster has plain sucked this year and that shouldn't come to a surprise to anybody.

A horrible deal that isn't getting enough attention. Dempster was a nice story last year and did a nice job but there was no way in hell he was going to repeat that (especially 4 more times)! That thing is an albatross of Chan Ho Park proportions. but he's a great clubhouse guy. thats what hendry said. he said people don't realize how great he is in the clubhouse and they couldnt lose that i'd rather have guys that are actually good, but you can't blame hendry for thinking with his heart instead of his head! thats how you win titles It's gotta be tough for Jim to defend all these terrible moves. I almost feel sorry for him, but then, I realize that he sucks and deserves the scorn for his crappy moves.

A horrible deal that isn't getting enough attention. Dempster was a nice story last year and did a nice job but there was no way in hell he was going to repeat that (especially 4 more times)! That thing is an albatross of Chan Ho Park proportions.

Nice job, Jimbo. :thumbsup: What a pile of excrement.