scarey

Make up call...

Drew Brees 6'0 Julius Peppers 6'7 Isreal Idonije 6'6 Henry Melton 6'3 Matt Toaina 6'2 I know Brees has had to handle throwing over larger defensively lineman his whole career and has managed just fine, but I like the chances of there being some swatted passes on Sunday. If the Bears could snag one or two of those swatted balls out of the air, that would be fantastic. Even more so if 6'6 Corey Wootton plays.

Only 2 of 10 Urlacher's similar players through year 10 on football reference are in the hall of fame, and only 3 of the 10 of his career similar players have made it. I don't think he's a lock at this moment. As for Lewis, through year 14 7 of his 10 comparables are in the HOF and 7 of his 10 career comparables are also in the HOF. I'd consider Lewis a lock and players like Brooks, Urlacher, and Thomas as probables. One of those three could easily get left out though. I find this evaluation unacceptable.

Agreed at all points. The pick-6 was extremely frustrating since it was so unnecessary (plus the pressure put Cutler in harms way while the Bears were up 24 in the 4th). Carimi was bad but I figure there will be tons of improvement from him as he has the talent and this was his first NFL game. Webb, on the other hand, is what he is. And he was worse than Carimi today. I thought Webb outplayed Carimi until the holding calls in the 2nd half. Both OTs were below average. Really the only players that I would give a below average grade to today. But both will get better. Webb improved as the year went on last year, he will again. Carimi definitely will. While they each made some mistakes, I thought they each put together a pretty good game. Webb's lateral movement looked great. I've never seen him move that well. Carimi I have been very impressed with through the preseason, and showed some flashes today for sure. He definitely stuck out as the weak link on the line today though. Two of the four sacks were squarely on him. He went to punch his man on one of them, whiffed, and lost his balance long enough to get beat. One he got pushed back into Cutler enough where Cutler and to bail out of the pocket so that Webb's man, who was pushed around the pocket by Webb, was able to make the play. Other than those two plays though, I thought he looked good. The line as a whole looked good while pass blocking. There was one sack where the pocket collapsed from the interior line and another where Cutler didn't have an open man which was probably a coverage sack more than anything. The holding needs to stop though. The Bears were lucky they get didn't hurt too badly with the game being pretty much in hand at that point.

If they're having him work on a 4th pitch, isn't that an indicator that they are hoping he can be a starter?

The only changes I would make is dropping Jackson off the likely heading and making Marwin more of a priority. I wouldn't sweat any of the guys on the possible heading getting picked at all.

Did he even throw 95 pre injury?

This is the part I'm not so sure on.

Thanks for that sandbergcubs. He does come off as a very intelligent baseball player. If he can develop his stuff, velocity, and accuracy, it seems he has plenty between the ears to excel as an MLB pitcher. It's nice to see a guy get back onto the radar given all the struggles the Cubs starting pitching prospects have run into this year.

So, what's up with Searle? I lost faith in the guy last year and he's coming on strong this year. He only just turned 22 and is holding his own at AA although he's walking a lot of guys. Has anyone heard any reports on how his stuff is or where his velocity is at?

He would have been a waste in the cover 2.

I don't disagree, but would point out that they are not very far from being able to afford all 3. It wouldn't take seismic changes to get all 3, and you have to keep in mind they're paying 33 million for SP production(Dempster, Z) they could replace for far less the following season. From my calculations they're 7-10 million short even after declining Samardzija's option, not re-signing Wood, and going with minimum salary players for the bench and most of the bullpen. That's a lot of extra money to shed. They could trade Byrd to do it, but they have nobody to replace him. Trading Byrd with Jackson right there isn't a worst case scenario, although the much more likely alternative would be selling off Soriano or trading Zambrano. You'd also be able to potentially get a RF or replacement pen arms in such deals. I mean, you can deal with a bit more stars and scrubs when you have something like: Garza/Wilson/Dempster/Z/Wells/(SP acquired for Byrd) Marmol/Marshall/Cashner/Wood*/Russell/LOOGY Jackson Castro Pujols/Fielder Ramirez Soto Colvin/Baker Soriano Barney/Flaherty/DJL *They'd make it work with as little as he makes There's a good bit of downside with that lineup, but if you pay 2/3 of Soriano's deal to make him go away instead of trading Byrd a lot of that is fixed too. And the pitching would be only a half step from the Philly/SF rotations that have won with worse offenses than that. What are you assuming Fielder, Pujols, and Wilson's salaries to be?

Zero chance you are correct. Olsen was disappointing at times but this is a move based on a stubborn coach and not player ability/value. Just idiotic. The big variable for this team is the offensive line. If the offensive line performs well, it doesn't matter if we have Olsen here or not. At the end of the season, I don't think anyone is going to lament this move. It has nothing to do with him being a disappointing or fantastic tight end. The bottom line is the Martz offense has been put in place. I know a lot of us (me included) thought it was going to be a one year thing and the Bears would move on. The fact of the matter is that it's been implemented and it's about time to form the roster to it. Olsen doesn't fit that form and the Bears got a high 3rd round pick out of getting rid of him. It's not the worst thing in the world. Believe me, I liked Olsen. This move has very little effect on this team though and they'll be able to get production out of the remaining tight ends.

I liked Olsen, but what he provided this team (production wise) can be matched by Kellen Davis and Spaeth. By the end of the season, Olsen won't be missed much by any of us.

It doesn't really matter. Most of these guys are like 26-30 years old. If they are signing a 3 or 4 year deal, that's likely to carry them through the duration of their career. Also, even if a guy does this and will need to sign another deal in 4 years when he's 30 years old, teams are going to have a very short memory on this (especially since this is a very unique situation), and they're not going to make that much money at that age anyway.

I agree. However, I am still going to take all these agreements with a grain of salt. I would put a small sum of money on one or two of these reports being retracted. Also, I wouldn't be surprised if there were unannounced agreements in place too. The second that clock ticks over, the ESPN ticker is going to be crazy.

My understanding may be wrong here, but I was under the impression that NOBODY has signed a single FA yet. They have to wait till tomorrow to sign anybody. Teams and players are only coming to unofficial agreements. Right. I don't know how to respond to that. I guess what I'm saying is, it's not the end of the world that they haven't signed anyone yet because nobody is technically able to sign a free agent yet. All these agreements everyone is talking about mean nothing until the player signs on the dotted line. Until then, these players can have their agents talking to other teams.

My understanding may be wrong here, but I was under the impression that NOBODY has signed a single FA yet. They have to wait till tomorrow to sign anybody. Teams and players are only coming to unofficial agreements.

Here's an article about the signings from Bleacher Nation (not the execrable Bleacher Report): http://www.bleachernation.com/2011/07/27/the-chicago-cubs-may-be-on-the-verge-of-adding-yet-another-top-high-school-draft-pick/ Good to see you're a reader. Bleacher Nation is actually ran by our very own AceCubbie. In my biased opinion, one of the very best Cubs blogs out there. I didn't plan on Cubs being motivated enough to sign Jacquez to what he was wanting given his injury issue. Now, I'm excited at the possibility of adding him.

I guess I find it hard to believe the Cubs could bring in a first baseman and a top of the rotation pitcher. I am a bit worried Wilson could regress too. Not worried enough to the point I would complain if signed to a Dempster-esque contract ($52M/4 years), but worried enough to not want him signed to a Zambrano type contract($91.5M/5 years). Plus, he'll be 31 at the end of the season. I guess it depends on how much attention he draws in the off season.

Thanks for the clarification. I should have made that distinction clearer. :lol: I get the feeling that you actually thought that was his first over the fence HR of the year. It's ok if you own up to it.

Has anyone seen the list of free agent starters coming in the 2012/2013 off season? I'd be fine with standing pat and seeing if Dempster and Zambrano have one last good year in them in 2012. With the money coming off the books after the season, the Cubs can sign a true ace as well as maybe a mid rotation starter. Fairly young ones at that. Matt Cain John Danks Francisco Liriano Zack Grienke Cole Hamels Anibal Sanchez Johnathan Sanchez Jered Weaver Shaun Marcum Not all of these guys will necessarily be there by the time next season is over, but I'd be fine with getting a crack at half of that list.

It's obvious the Cubs put an emphasis on developing the hitting tool before stressing plate discipline, but I know I've heard evaluations from hitting coaches, managers, and Fleita stating something along the lines of "So-and-so is doing great, but we want to work on his plate discipline." It's not as if they're whipping their players for drawing a walk. Also, while Bearclaw's post is ridiculous, the part that should be considered is the fact that average should be considered along with walks. There's a reason we evaluate players by OBP and not always just IsoD.

Tony Campana with the biggest leap forward is laughable with guys like Bour, Rosscup, Marwin, and Ha as much better candidates.

I'm not sure what you're suggesting. What can Purdue really do to discourage a player from playing? Obviously, it looks very convenient, but I can't understand what they could possibly do to convince him not to stay committed to Purdue. A guy on the team already, you can whisper in his ear about how much better he would be at football (IE: Bade). You tell him how little he'll play. Why exactly wouldn't a player go to the media with it then? There would be a media frenzy about that even if it was just allegations.