flyseye

Lou's not to blame for Lee and Ramirez hitting like crap all year, or Zambrano having another meltdown, but Jim Hendry is? For a guy that chastises others for looking for a scapegoat of some sort, you sure seem to be looking for a scapegoat of some sort. So you dont think the bloated contracts and no trade clauses ala Jim Hendry have more to do with the failure of this years Cubs than the fact Hill is getting a few extra starts a month ? What Dexter doesn't seem to grasp ,well one of the things, is that his Dusty analogy also made my point. Yes Dusty managed the 2006 Cubs, he is now managing the first place Reds. All you need is an average manager to succeed, I feel Lou qualifies as average.Firing him accomplishes very little, if anything ( based on who his replacement may be ). For the last time, start a Aramis Ramirez sucks this year thread and you will be on the right track.This thread to me is pointless moaning and groaning about Lou, and I apologize for adding to it.

If you want to have a discussion fine. If, however ,the best you can do is to compare me to another poster, we are done.Thats just childish and desperate.Good day.Whine away.

XZero-I dont think we totally disagree. It is just to me the blame lies much more heavily on Lee and Ramirez, not on Lou, at least nowhere near as much. If Lee and Ramirez are having even average years, the Cubs are in contention. Replace Lou and they still are not.

So using your logic, the Reds are in first now , so Dusty must have become a good manager ? Great argument. Start a 26 page thread about how much Aramis Ramirez has sucked this year and you might be on to something. This team would have been bad anyway, but Lou has been awful on multiple fronts. His lineup construction has been consistently crappy (keeping Lee and Ramirez 3-4 when they were at their coldest while at the same time burying Soriano/Soto in the 6-7-8 when they were smoking hot was just mind numbing, and may have cost the team 2-3 wins right there). His bullpen management has been horrible. He leaves SP in too long. He's just bad. The Hill/Soto thing is almost immaterial compared to the other crap. Yeah, Ramirez and Lee have sucked. But Lou really compounded things by sticking these two auto outs in between the players who actually were hitting,when they were hitting. Remember when Byrd, Kosuke, Soriano and Soto were all OPSing over .900, and the team still wasn't scoring? How many rallies were killed by Ramirez and Lee, or those killed by the pitcher's spot because our two best hitters were batting 6-7? And then there's the Z to the bullpen retardation. Good managers stay out of the way and make the obvious moves. Bad managers exacerbate bad situations by being obstinate or micromanaging. Lou has clearly been the latter this season. Thanks for making my point. If Lee and Ramirez had not sucked all year things would be much different. Hiding what are supposed to be your two best hitters at the bottom of the order is not the answer, them hitting is . I think Lou is an average manager. Replacing him solves very little.

So using your logic, the Reds are in first now , so Dusty must have become a good manager ? Great argument. Start a 26 page thread about how much Aramis Ramirez has sucked this year and you might be on to something.

Dexter already beat me, but seriously, read one of the 25 pages of this thread (hell, just skim one) and you will see just how misguided this post is. 26 pages of whining is about 25 more than I can tolorate, but I skimmed the thread , and it does not change the fact that replacing Lou might be good for maybe one win. Big deal. But as long as it makes you all feel better,have at it.

Lee and Ramirez have hit like crap all year, Zambrano has another meltdown and is on the restricted list, yet we should fire Lou because he has shorted Geovany Soto a few at bats? . I am guessing this "thought" process is just a bunch of fans looking for a scapegoat of some sort, blindly lashing out at a horrible team assembled by Jim Hendry. Can't really say I blame you, but firing Piniella accomplishes next to nothing.

For him not to be a liability at first base, he'd have to raise his career OPS by about 200 or so points. At almost 30, I see now way that happens. Rick Ankiel is the only player I can think of who has had significant playing time in the majors as a pitcher and position player (though there's an Oriole coming through their system who was a pitcher as well). He had to start back at A-ball and work his way back up through the system and has since posted OPS' of .863, .843, .672 and .695. I am pretty sure some guy named Babe Ruth did it.

Man, I have to admit I feel bad for the guy on a personal level. I can't say I am sorry he is no longer a Cub, but I hope he can work things out.

He could have been a little better, but he could have been much, much worse. His major league OPS' have ranged from .761 to .656 (most recent). Soriano posted a .726 OPS last year. So Dubois' upside was probably around what Soriano did last year, maybe a little better. Soriano's upside, however, is 100-150 OPS points higher than that. Like I have said, I hope Soriano is healthy and productive. I just think if needed Dubois could catch lightning in a bottle for a couple of weeks if needed, anything longer than that would be scary. He could, but if Soriano gets hurt I would not want Dubois playing ahead of Nady. Bringing him up for the bench would be fine, but if Soriano gets hurt, Nady needs to be the everyday LF until he returns. Bringing him up for the bench would not be fine. Dubois has not swung a bat in the majors since 2005. He has never batted higher than .239, and never had an OBP over .300. He is 31 years old. He is nothing more than marginal AAA filler. If Dubois gets an at bat for the Cubs this year, it is going to be a VERY long season.

For a message board so intent on not having duplicate threads, this one sure has a lot of them, they simply have different titles.And they always seem to contain input from the same two or three posters. IMO if they want to endlessly rehash the same old tired subject over and over, they should consider using PM's in consideration of others.

One for, one against. Hey, at least I read the damn thing.

Is that really all you got out of the article? Really? Pretty much,Tim.When you start with " I used to like Ryan Theriot ", then end a paragraph about his handling of the Bradley situation with "Count me as one person who no longer thinks of Ryan as such a nice guy" it taints any legitimate reasoning you may have presented with the stain of being simply sour grapes. At the very least I would have axed the opening line. Once again, my opinions. And you're ignoring all the baseball reasoning in the middle. Excellent. I think I have explained myself pretty well.

Is that really all you got out of the article? Really? Pretty much,Tim.When you start with " I used to like Ryan Theriot ", then end a paragraph about his handling of the Bradley situation with "Count me as one person who no longer thinks of Ryan as such a nice guy" it taints any legitimate reasoning you may have presented with the stain of being simply sour grapes. At the very least I would have axed the opening line. Once again, my opinions.

If you want to write an article about why Theriot should be traded, stick to the facts. If you want to write an article venting about how you "used to Like Ryan Theriot ", then write that. Don't attempt to hide the latter under the guise of the former. Simply my opinions.

You should have left the Bradley part out. It taints everything else you wrote by making it appear it was the only reason you wrote the article in the first place. It's actually very relevant to the discussion. A lot of people wanted Bradley run out of town because of his character (or lack thereof). Why shouldn't Theriot's character come into question for the way he handled the situation? I thought the article was supposed to be about valid reasons for Theriot being traded, but I guess it is simply sour grapes.

You should have left the Bradley part out. It taints everything else you wrote by making it appear it was the only reason you wrote the article in the first place.

By then Milton will have probably ripped the ears off the Mariner moose, and be proclaiming that something in Puget Sound is out to get him.

Except for the key points that are completely wrong, like Milton not owning up to when he performed poorly or not being able to play with the pressure of what was going on. He may have been playing better but he was certainly losing it. There is just no way that Milton Bradley can make it thru a season at wrigley, even if he was putting up sosa-like numbers. Some people are just drawn toward chaos. I'm glad we got a few bucks in return for him. We did not "get a few bucks in return for him." We got a near-worthless player whom we still have to pay huge money to over the next two years. Not true. Ricketts got his jumbotron and six million bucks.

This post certainly sums the entire situation up. Anyone who can't see this is simply not being realistic.

Yes, lets replace Hill with a guy who hit for an even worse average, got on base even less, was worse on defense, and made over a million dollars more.

why would he? Because Hill isn't very good? That's why he's a backup catcher. Backup catchers aren't very good or else they'd be starting catchers. Zing . Is Meph back ? The guy caught every game for over a month, made only 3 errors while throwing out 40% of the base stealers, managed to keep his OBP over .300, and made less than 1/2 a million in a backup role. But lets get someone better, he isn't very good.

plays world's smallest violin for the great fans :roll:. Some of us don't want to trade Bradley for pennies on the dollar and have to either hope Sam Fuld/Ty Colvin becomes a adquete baseball player immediately or Jeremy Hermida turns into Jayson Werth redux at roughly 7.5-10 mill per (once you factor in Bradley's salary). But it has to be the fact I play too much Xbox. :roll: Sorry, I really was not aware those were the only available choices. Please, when you are done playing Xbox, name your sources for your insider observations. I will skip the rolling eye emoticons as a good faith showing of maturity. Oh, and if you are going to quote me please do not add periods where there were none. Heck, you might even want to include the entire sentence, but that would have wrecked your entire, really clever little violin thing.

Albert Einstein's entire quote was: "Not everything that can be counted counts, and not everything that counts can be counted." I can not think of a quote that more accurately describes the Bradley situation. The video game analogy is also accurate, anyone who thinks otherwise has obviously never managed anything. There is plenty of evidence, including some first hand from Bruce Miles, to indicate Bradley upset, disrespected,was insubordinate, or just plain rude to the fans, his hitting coach and manager, the other players, and the sports writers. I can't prove that these distractions cost the cubs any wins, just as those Bradley supporters can prove that they did not. I can, however, state from experience that distractions of the magnitude of those caused by Milton Bradley can be detrimental to achieving the task at hand. Of that there is no doubt to anyone in management of any kind.

Almost as dishonest as those who, due to either an irrational hatred of the general manager, a strident and close-minded adherence to neo-sabermetric principles (without examining the evidence), or just a general contrarian attitude, refuse to admit that his behavior had any negative impact on the team. Anyone who has ever managed anything knows that an employee like Bradley can be very disruptive to the entire workforce. Some seem to forget that baseball players are simply employees, just like at any other business. As a manager, when an employee gets totally out of control, you really have no alternative other than to dismiss them. If you do not take control of the situation, you will loose all respect from the other employees. I dislike Jim Hendry, but he did what needed to be done in this situation. I fault him for signing him in the first place, but not for how he handled an employee who had obviously crossed the line. The Cubs can win without Milton Bradley.