don_kessinger_was_good

Everyone loved Preston Gomez!!

Girardi's from Peoria and grew up a Cub fan, no? Plus, he graduated from NU, was drafted by the Cubs out of college, he came up through our system, and he played 7 years for the Cubs, more than any of his other teams, nearly combined. He won rings with the Yankees, but he's a Cub. No doubt about it.

If the Yankees are serious about getting younger and lowering payroll, some have asked who replaces A-Rod if they dealt him for 3B? The Yankees top prospect is 3B Eric Duncan, and he's ready. He's better than Robinson Cano, and the Yanks had no qualms about plugging him into the 2B slot this year. So you trade them Felix Pie to replace Bernie Williams long-term, Rich Hill to replace Kevin Brown, and give them the free option on Corey Patterson: that's a big infusion of youth, and an enormous reduction in team payroll. Big Stein will never stand for any of this of course, but the logic works out good. If this were any team other than the Yankees we're talking about, I actually think it could happen. Alas...

PS--with Girardi at the helm, the Cubs can bring in another of Peoria's own, Jim Thome, for 1B--after the Cubs make that Derrek Lee for Johan Santana trade. :-)

I'll take an ex-catcher over an ex-outfielder as manager anyday. An ex-catcher with Cubbie blue running through his veins is even better. Heck yes, I'd be excited to see Girardi running the team instead of Baker. But then, I'd be excited to see a rigid corpse running the team rather than DFB. Plus, Girardi is just 41 I think, he can put himself on the 40-man and be the team's emergency 3rd catcher player-manager if anything happens to Barrett or Hank White. So that's something.

One possibility the Tribune has at their disposal is to follow the Boston Celtics model from years ago, and make the Cubs asset a limited partnership, with publicly available shares. The Trib could raise a lot of cash from selling a stake in the team, yet still retain majority control. Given the passion of Cubs fans nationwide, it's not hard to see the Trib raking in several hundred millions in up-front cash, but to make it work, they'd need to commit to spinning off some real cash flow to shareholders in the form of a promised dividend. It all works similar to the real estate investment trust (REIT) concept, shares of which trade on the exchanges. So perversely, the discipline imposed on running the team from needing to generate a profit, in order to pay the dividend, could actually make matters WORSE in terms of a tighter payroll. Bottomline is that if you're wanting the Cubs to be free-spenders, the only way it can happen is if the Trib outright sells the team, Wrigley, and all the associated accroutements lock, stock and barrel. And while the Trib would show an enormous book profit gain from doing so (IIRC they bought the team from the Wrigleys for less than $25MM), management in the Tower is too conservative to get it done.

Yup. And I don't think it's that far-fetched, problem is that it hinges on the Yankees wanting to move A-Rod for some reason. Just because he had a poor, brief ALDS hardly discounts his MVP year (again). But the NY fans and ownership are mighty fickle, so who knows? Maybe there is some Jeter-ARod friction, you never know. If there is, Jeter wins that battle every time. I'd even sweeten the deal a little. Instead of Patterson, maybe I offer the Yankees Jerome Williams to go with Hill and Pie. Or maybe they'd prefer a reliever like Mike Wuertz or JVB. Whatever it takes. DKWG, Nomally you and I don't see eye to eye, but I'm liking that idea. I know we give up Pie, but we're getting a top 3 player in return. I think I could handle that, if we got 4 years of MVP type production out of ARod. His salary isn't even all that awful now that Texas has picked up a good portion of it. Yeah, I'd offer it. If the Yankees turn it down, oh well, but at least you tried. Unless I'm mistaken, after taking the Rangers $$ pickup into account, A-Rod is actually paid less (going forward) than Todd Helton, Carlos Beltran, Manny Ramirez or Jim Thome. Wow. In fact Soccer, let's make this easy on Jim Hendry. Four moves and you're done for the offseason, and you've got yourself a pennant favorite. 1. Trade Patterson, Hill and Pie for A-Rod (SS) 2. Trade Walker for Bradley (CF) 3. Sign free agent Brian Giles (RF) 4. Sign free agent reliever Scott Linebrink (setup). Cedeno gets the 2B job with Hairston as backup; Murton gets the LF job. Stick with Z, Prior, Wood, Maddux, and Williams for your rotation, and hope that if one of them goes down hurt, then either Pinto, Ryu or Nolasco in AAA can pick up the slack. Do it.

I don't know about that. Hawkins had good peripherals, but fell flat in the end. Dempster walks the tight rope in his outings. It would not take much of a downgrade in those peripherals for me to see him falling on his face. I'd still like to see the Cubs sign a dominant reliever like Ryan or Wagner. Let Dempster pitch the bridge role, not entering in the middle of innings, but starting and finishing the 8th every night. Fell flat? Come on man Hawkins was plain terrible in the closer role. It wasn't even close. I don't deny that, I wasn't trying to sugarcoat. My point though is that Dempster was walking the tightrope. He wasn't a lockdown closer, despite the % (which isn't a great indicator of future success). Mitch Williams, Randy Myers and Rod Beck all "walked the tightrope" too, and they got the job done. It makes for nailbiting sure, but just close the deal, that's all you can ask out of these guys. Look at the seasons Todd Jones and Chad Cordero had, for crying out loud. Or Bob Wickman for that matter. Are you telling me you think any of those guys have better stuff than Dempster? I don't. My one quibble with all this discussion though, is that it ignores the necessity for a companion, successful 8th inning guy. THAT is what we need, that is what we did NOT have this year, and that is something that nearly ALL the other successful closers in the league have. Where is our Jesse Crain or Juan Rincon? Tom Gordon? Brendan Donnelly or Scott Shields? Bob Howry or Rafeal Betancourt? Hector Corrasco? Scott Linebrink? Get us something like that to go with Dempster, and our worries will decline exponentially.

Yup. And I don't think it's that far-fetched, problem is that it hinges on the Yankees wanting to move A-Rod for some reason. Just because he had a poor, brief ALDS hardly discounts his MVP year (again). But the NY fans and ownership are mighty fickle, so who knows? Maybe there is some Jeter-ARod friction, you never know. If there is, Jeter wins that battle every time. I'd even sweeten the deal a little. Instead of Patterson, maybe I offer the Yankees Jerome Williams to go with Hill and Pie. Or maybe they'd prefer a reliever like Mike Wuertz or JVB. Whatever it takes.

If the Yankees decide to go a new direction and turn to youth, and they might, perhaps you get them to deal A-Rod for a package of Corey Patterson (free option on him ever turning it around), Rich Hill and.....Felix Pie. They free up loads of money and get our best prospect--at a position they need filled no less--our top pitching prospect, and the ertswhile "five tool guy" Patterson. We take on roughly $16MM a year in salary (less Patterson's $3MM) in exchange for the best player in baseball. And we put him back home, at SS, where he has maximum value. A pipe dream, sure, but man would that be nice. All Hendry would need to do then is get his leadoff guy for CF (Lofton, Pierre or Bradley), plug in some veteran for RF like Floyd or Hidalgo or Burnitz, and we done with the position players. A-Rod, Lee and Ramirez, you think we'd get a bit of offense out of that combo?? 8)

Worst case scenario would be much worse than that. What makes you think they would automatically fill that spot with a dominating closer? Worst case is that he sucks, but Dusty keeps running him out there, then in an effort to fix the problem when it's too late, Hendry trades young talent for an aging has been like Mesa. And let's not pretend that can't happen. Hendry knows his butt is on the line this offseason, he'll spend all the money he has available, whether wisely or not. If he does not get the guys he wants in the outfield and infield, I think he'll look at BJ Ryan, Trevor Hoffman and Billy Wagner all sitting out there in free agency and sign one of them, figuring if nothing else, at least I can upgrade my bullpen quality to become a team strength. In that scenario, Dempster moves to the 8th inning. Sign a free agent middle reliever like Scott Eyre or Bobby Howry, and suddenly the bullpen WOULD be a big team strength. If you had Wuertz, Eyre, Dempster and Hoffman let's say in your bullpen, our notoriously inefficient starting pitchers would only need to give us a quality 6 inning start and we would shut it down from there. We've never tried that model, but it seems to have worked well for teams in the past like San Diego, Houston and Minnesota. Maybe we should try it.

Jim Tracy is a stooge, we wouldn't have wanted him. Ask any Dodgers fan about their opinion of Jim Tracy's managerial ability. Ask the guy at dodgerblues.com, he'll blow a gasket. Or ask our old friend Choi Hee Seop, Tracy really played games with the poor kid. If no one is going to let him start, I'd sure like to get Choi back for our bench. He would be one heckuva LH pinch hitter off the bench late in games, as well as the 1B backup for Lee (we don't currently have a backup 1B if Walker is dealt). So, Todd Walker + Roberto Novoa for Milton Bradley + Choi? I'd do that.

IIRC, he was actually drafted as a somewhat light-bat, good defense SS. I had gotten the impression that since he hit for power his senior year, he was considered a much better hitting prospect and no longer just a good defense-kid. Looking at that 2003 first round, that was an impressive draft (link). Wood isn't the only Angels SS prospect in the farm. Eric Aybar is a good looking SS prospect too and was the reason Brandon Wood didn't get promoted to AA this past season. And don't forget they have Jered Weaver. IMB, if both Kotchman and Morales are on the same team, I expect Morales will play LF. Aybar and Kendrick have come up through their system together as a double play combo, they're good. I so them play when they were in the Midwest League (Cedar Rapids). These guys are both can't miss prospects. If I were running the Angels and I were smart, I'd move Wood this offseason when his value is sky-high, and stick with the plan for having Aybar and Kendrick be the DP combo long-term. After all, Wood showed nothing like this before this year. That's EXACTLY the kind of kid you move in trade to maximize team value. In fact, it's exactly what WE should have done last year with Brian Dopirak, same kind of situation. Unless they somehow screw things up, the Angels are going to be very very good for a very long time. Move over Yankees.

This thread is really dumb. For all the disasters on the Cubs in 2005, for all the underachieving and disappointment this team subjected us to, there were two true bright spots: Lee and Dempster. And now some want to pee all over Dempster's parade? The only issue I think merits some wavering is the money he got, but it's just the money--and the Cubs have plenty of it. Worst case scenario Dempster becomes a $5MM setup man for a dominant closer somewhere down the road, is that really so awful? We paid Sling Blade $4MM/year for absolutely atrocious performance and no one seemed to get excited about it. I'll go out on a limb here and say Ryan Dempster is worth at least $1MM more than Remlinger. Let's focus on where the real problems lie: poor OBP, a terrible manager, no outfield and an overrated starting pitching corps. Dempster is fine.

Considering the Yankees only had to give up Soriano to get A-Rod in the first place, I think they'd consider a Zambrano or Prior for A-Rod trade. I wouldn't hesitate on that for a second. While Z and Prior are good pitchers, neither is one of the top 5 pitchers in the game. A-Rod on the other hand is not only the best player in the game, but (if he goes back to SS) does so at one of the three most difficult positions on the field to have a quality guy (the others being 2B and catcher). So if Cashman tells me Prior + Rich Hill gets it done, I jump.

Geez, did you even WATCH Farnsworth with the Cubs the last six years? Sometimes he was great. Sometimes he was a gas can. There were way too many times he was the gas can to be worth sticking with him. I can think of a half-dozen times against the Cardinals alone that Farnsworth completely blew it. Couldn't throw strikes for the life of him. Then grooves a fastball that gets clubbed to death 450 feet. Next.

Most Recent World Series Championship: Chicago Cubs--1908 Chicago White Sox--1917 Cleveland Indians--1948 New York/San Francisco Giants--1954 Every other one of the original 16 teams (from the first series in 1903) has won the title at least once in the past 26 years (next is Pittsburgh, 1979). Even worse is looking at pennants: Chicago Cubs--1945 Chicago White Sox--1959 That's it. Every other one of the original 16 has won the pennant at least once in the past 26 years. The Indians and Giants of course, though they didn't win the title, have been pennant winners very recently. Yup--this is a pathetic, hapless, limp-wristed organization. Just inexcusable.

The time to nab A-Rod was when a measly offer of Alfonso Soriano was sufficient to pry him away from the hapless Rangers; well, that and $20MM cash per year. Which annoyingly, the Cubs now have free. Sigh.

The difference between Farnsworth and Dempster? Last I checked, Dempster doesn't drop a pant load the first time a critical situation arises on the mound. Farnsworth is a big time choke artist, always has been for us. that's why he was expendable. Who cares what you got back for him in return, the $2MM in salary relief was reason enough. Same reason Patterson gets dumped. After enough chances, with continued failure and underperformance as a result, you need to cut the cord eventually. Cripes, I can't believe how inured some are here to mediocrity. Think big. Demand excellence. Penalize underperformance. Fire deadbeats and has-beens. Or else you are doomed to never win a world series.

For reference, and recognizing that lack of team OBP is the primary problem with the Cubs offense, here is the rank ordering of all major leaguers in 2005 with an OBP of 375 or greater. Stats shown are BA, OBP, SLG and OPS. Todd Helton COL .320 .445 .534 .979 Jason Giambi NYY .271 .440 .535 .975 Albert Pujols STL .330 .430 .609 1.039 Brian Giles SD .301 .423 .483 .905 Álex Rodríguez NYY .321 .421 .610 1.031 Derrek Lee CHC .335 .418 .662 1.080 Lance Berkman HOU .293 .411 .524 .934 Nick Johnson WAS .289 .408 .479 .887 Travis Hafner CLE .305 .408 .595 1.003 Bobby Abreu PHI .286 .405 .474 .879 Jason Bay PIT .306 .402 .559 .961 Carlos Delgado FLA .301 .399 .582 .981 David Ortiz BOS .300 .397 .604 1.001 Vladimir Guerrero LAA .317 .394 .565 .959 Luis Castillo FLA .301 .391 .374 .765 Pat Burrell PHI .281 .389 .504 .892 Derek Jeter NYY .309 .389 .450 .839 Morgan Ensberg HOU .283 .388 .557 .945 Manny Ramírez BOS .292 .388 .594 .982 David Wright NYM .306 .388 .523 .912 Brian Roberts BAL .314 .387 .515 .903 Adam Dunn CIN .247 .387 .540 .927 Jim Edmonds STL .263 .385 .533 .918 Michael Young TEX .331 .385 .513 .899 Miguel Cabrera FLA .323 .385 .561 .947 Mark Teixeira TEX .301 .379 .575 .954 Gary Sheffield NYY .291 .379 .512 .891 Víctor Martínez CLE .305 .378 .475 .853 Jeff Kent LAD .289 .377 .512 .889 Chase Utley PHI .291 .376 .540 .915 Paul Konerko CWS .283 .375 .534 .909 Geoff Jenkins MIL .292 .375 .513 .888 Several names jump out at me. Brian Giles, of course. Can Todd Helton play LF? Can OBP Jesus (Nick Johnson)? Is Bobby Abreu really available in trade? Is Luis Castillo available from Florida? Good old Adam Dunn. And I love Chase Utley.

If we're going to get an outfielder from Tampa in trade, I'd much rather it be Jonny Gomes than Aubrey Huff.

Walker for Bradley straight-up makes so much sense for both teams, I think it could happen. LA desperately needs the offense, and it allows them to move Kent to 1B. We get our leadoff man and CF. Get it done. Cedeno/Giles would be my preferred double-play outcome, I just don't think Atlanta would really trade Marcus--and even if they would, I think the cost in players would be too high. We don't exactly have a good track record in dealing with the Braves. These are all good names to add to my list of Crain, Romero, Eyre and Gonzalez. The exceptions are BJ Ryan (love him, but will be too expensive) and Flash (too old).

1. A high OBP, run-producing corner OF with average or better defense. 2. A true leadoff man, with high OBP and speed. Bonus if he brings strong defense to his position. 3. Middle infielders with excellent defense, high OBP and speed. 4. A 3/4 starting pitcher. 5. An 8th inning stopper. 6. A quality middle reliever. 1. Brian Giles, Brian Giles, Brian Giles. Cabrera would never happen, nor Manny, but those are good options too. :-) 2. Milton Bradley, Juan Pierre or Kenny Lofton, in that preferencing, for CF. 3. Ronny Cedeno + Rafael Furcal or Julio Lugo. 4. Free agents Kevin Millwood or Paul Byrd. Trade possibilities Brandon Webb, Odalis Perez and Livan Hernandez. 5. Trade for Jesse Crain or JC Romero or Mike Gonzalez. 6. Free agent signing Scott Eyre.

Trade possibilities? These guys might be on the block: 1. Jason Schmidt 2. Brandon Webb 3. Odalis Perez 4. Kip Wells 5. Eric Milton 6. Livan Hernandez 7. Steve Trachsel 8. Sidney Ponson 9. El Duque 10. Kyle Lohse 11. Mike Maroth Nothing looks very exciting there, with the exception of the first two names and maybe, Livan.

I do. Because if he had signed that contract and come to the Cubs, we likely would have won the 2003 World Series. Let's see....Thome vs. Hee K Me and Eric Karros. That's a tough one..... :roll: