UMFan83

Although Theo clearly has more impact on the current and future Cubs, I was still a bit more excited of Nomar. -Part of it was because it would have more immediate returns with the Cubs being in the thick of a playoff race and seemingly Nomar was the midding piece. -Part of it was because, while their were rumblings that Nomar was available, I don't recall many of us thinking we had much of a shot back then. There was no twitter to give us minute by minute updates and a few artciles casually mentioning the Cubs interest in Nomar, and many of those were speculation because the Cubs had a hole at SS. -Part of it was because there was still a lot of leftover excitement from the previous year's team and people in general felt we were a lot closer. -Part of it was because I was younger and my only major concerns in life were finishing college and having enough money for beer, so sports were a much bigger chuck of what I cared about on a daily basis. When Nomar was announced, I was listening to the radio as the deadline passed and all I was hearing about is the White Sox trading Loaiza for Conterras so I assumed the Cubs didn't do anything. Even if the Cubs did anything, I was thinking it would be for something much lower profile like trading for Orlando Cabrera, who many speculated we'd get in the days leading up to the deadline. So I was at a BBQ when I starting getting calls from my friends in Boston. By the 3rd one I figured something was up, so I called one of them back and the first thing I heard was "YOU BASTAHHDS YOU TOOK AHH NOMAAHHH" and I remember it took me a second or two to comprehend what he just said before it hit me. Great day. As much as we will remember Jim Hendry for being a bumbling baffoon, I will never forget the story of how he threw that trade together. I don't care if Nomar turned out to be on a clear decline and never the same player, I still commend him for making that happen.

I could really see Lucchino making this tough on the Cubs, if only because he wants it known that he's not going to let his employees go easily. Also because its been said he has an adversarial relationship with Theo and would probably want to get as much as he can possibly get for him, even if relative to what people are speculation it isn't a lot.

No NL team is going to want him even as a salary dump. That said, I didn't realize how badly Zito fell off last year after a couple of somewhat decent years. Maybe they would make that trade. They could use bats too even though Soriano isn't really a good hitter, just deceptive because he hits home runs on occasion.

what will you be wearing? Red Toews jersey just like 10,000 others

I have seats tonight on the 2nd row from the glass directly to the left of the Hawks bench. I believe its section 102 row 2. So pumped. The last time I sat on the glass it was at Chicago Stadium and I was like 10, and I remember I couldn't see anything all game because my seat was right where the linesman stood while the puck was in one of the offensive zones. Hopefully today is better

Or anything about spray charts.

If Cherington plugged Soriano into CARMINE, the machine would immediately start shaking violently with smoke coming out of it with a message stating "SYSTEM WILL SELF DESTRUCT IN 5 SECONDS" which upon explosion would probably kill Cherington, and would leave Theo as the prime suspect for his murder due to him designing the system. Are you sure you want to risk that?

We WILL get him on here so he can serenade us with statistical analysis and then one of us will say something creepy and disturbing and he'll ignore it but then a few more will as well and it will creep him out and finally he'll get scared and leave.

For real? I feel like the media is eating this up. They have certainly overshadowed Robin Ventura and cut greatly into Bears discussion time on sports radio, but that may also have to do with their play.

Did anyone post this earlier? Paula Faris is NBC-5 sports girl Not much news but good to see the players are thrilled

In order to win your division I think you need to beat the teams in your division. I have no problem with 18 games a year with the Brewers, Cardinals, Pirates, and Reds. I'd be fine with something like 12 games against division foes and 8 against the other clubs, but I hate only playing 2 series a year against the other 10 teams in your league.

Dude NSFW tags please. Now I have to explain to my coworkers why I have a giant wet spot in the front of my pants.

Cherington has a vested interest in making sure that talks don't hit a snag here because once it's done he's likely the new Red Sox GM. Meanwhile, Bush probably thinks he's canned and might become a disgruntled employee and give them Starlin.

I don't know about that. I'm pretty sure that other interested GMs werent thinking "I should go after Cutler...well no, I'm not even sure who is to blame for him asking out...I'd better stay out of this."

I trust our general manager to correctly decide whether we should go after this player.

clearly the "safari" was a trip spent with Bill James and Mr Beane to discuss how Mr Ricketts could change the world. It worked. Don't get too giddy guys. The guy hasn't done jack [expletive] yet. Let's not grab our collective [expletive] just yet. He hired a highly qualified person with a track record of success that prescribes to advanced statistics to run the baseball opps department. That's all he needed to really do on the baseball side, other then opening up the purse strings. Now its said he is going to be hands off. So yeah, he did a ton. I realize you also might be sarcastic.

The thing I would love about this is eliminating unbalanced schedules. I have long hated that we only travel to most of the NL cities once a year. Some years we play a series in April and then the next year don't play there until late September, leaving a 16 month gap beween Cubs games in a city like NY.

I want Gracie back. I don't care if he's a creepy old chain smoking guy still hitting on 19 year old girls.

I've never watched much MLB network since the Cubs have pretty much sucked since it started. Guess I'm gonna have to check that out. it wasn't anything of note. Talking about how Soriano's contract is the worst thing ever created and dan plesac saying the reds, cardinals, and brewers are a lot better. Come on Dan, why you gotta diss us, remember being the conductor of the Cubs bandwagon train back in 08?

links It boils down to people saying that the Cubs players still suck, as if the GM has no power to replace them and then they just say John Lackey and Carl Crawford repeatedly. I have a Cubs fan bitching because he wanted Friedman, and is convinced Ricketts is broke and will drop the payroll to 80M I have a Cubs "fan" angry that serious Cubs fans are going to drive up the ticket prices like they did in 08 and make it way more expensive to get a tan, pick up chicks, and drink Old Style.

Would Duquette have realized the potential in Ortiz and pull him off the scrap heap? Would the Sox win the title in 04 and 07 without him? Would Duquette have sacrificed his Thanksgiving to fly to Arizona and pitch Curt on his plan for the Red Sox and how they plan to build a perrenial contender? Would Duquette have been able to build a competent farm system to develop players like Pedroia, Ellsbury, Papelbon, Buchholtz, Lester, etc.? Nope, Theo just sat around played his guitar and let Carmine handle everything. The only reason Theo was needed was because computer programs cannot be GMs because they can not sign legal documents.

Damn, didn't even think of that. Call everything off. he ignores the fact that epstein had the forward thinking to acquire ortiz when the other teams had no interest. Yeah and then force fed him a bunch of steroids so he would hit lots of home runs and cheat his way to 2 world series titles, amirite?

The first one you might be able to make a case for. But the second one? Not a chance. Pure meatheadery. Besides, it's not the specific rings that makes him an awesome candidate. It's the consistent regular season success. Or more specifically, the amazing drafting and trading history. Here, I took 22 of the major players on the 2004 Red Sox and tracked who brought them on board. Duquette:Jason Varitek Manny Ramirez Trot Nixon Johnny Damon Pedro Martinez Tim Wakefield Derrek Lowe Alam Embree Brian Daubach Kevin Youkilis (played a bit role in 2004) Theo: Curt Schilling (trade) David Ortiz (FA) Kevin Millar (FA) Bill Mueller (FA) Orlando Cabrera (trade) Mark Bellhorn (FA) Bronson Arroyo (trade) Keith Foulke (trade I think) Pokey Reese (FA) Doug Mientkiewicz (trade) Dave Roberts (trade) Ramiro Mendoza (FA) So yes, a lot of the key Red Sox that they couldn't have won the title without came from Duquette. But in the 2 years that Theo was on the team he managed to bring in 10-12 key contributors that made up a championship team, including the teams premier star for the next decade (Ortiz) and the ace pitcher.

And we shall call our new statistical model system DarkSlate

What are your sources on that? I heard his full name was Theodore Mutombo Mpolondo Mukamba Jean Jacque Wamutepstein