UMFan83

whoops

http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_O0EBF2MHPwg/TKnheY_NcfI/AAAAAAAAAEY/b-LV_XaOfSU/s1600/wahmbulance.jpg Actually I agree that accidental or not, that was pretty shitty what happened. But at the same time, get over it. You're surely allowed to hold a private grudge but whining about it in the media 3 months later makes you look like a crybaby.

Classic Lou quotes.

We could do a lot worse than Montador-Lepisto for the last D pairing. I think you have those nailed, with O'Donnell as the 7th. I also agree on Kruger. I'd be shocked if he doesn't crack the opening roster on the one hand. But on the other, which of those 12 sits? The easy answer is Mayers, but he serves a purpose, regardless of whether or not some of you think it's a valid one. This is why they need to buy out Olesz. They already have too many forwards. This reminds me of managing my fantasy baseball team. I have a whole bunch of guys who if I dropped any would immediately be one of the top FAs on the waiver wire. But none of them are good enough to win me the championship. That's how I feel about Frolik, Stalberg, Bickell... In my opinion Frolik, Stalberg, and Bickell (and Kreuger) all have upside offensively. If just one of those guys blossoms a bit this year, things are looking really good. I think that's what the Hawks are banking on. I don't think its unreasonable to think Frolik could have a season closer to his 43 point output 2 years ago (45 the year before). He's a great fit on the 3rd line if he's getting 20+ goals. I really liked what Bickell did at times last year, and at other times I didn't. Stalberg is Stalberg, what can you say.

I do kind of like Carcillo-Smith-Mayers a lot for our checking line. Not sure how many goals they will score but obviously 4th lines aren't supposed to score a lot. I really think that having a physical line like that is going to really help us next year.

Al Alburquerque has a 2.73 ERA and 47 Ks in 29.2 innings this year for the Tigers. Though he wasn't much of a prospect at the time and he did nothing with the Rockies. FML nevermind then. He was signed as a minor league free agent by Detroit, you might as well fault Hendry for not picking him up in the offseason. True, just like he could have picked up Josh Hamilton 5 years ago, wtf is this man's problem? (besides donuts!!!)

Al Alburquerque has a 2.73 ERA and 47 Ks in 29.2 innings this year for the Tigers. Though he wasn't much of a prospect at the time and he did nothing with the Rockies. FML nevermind then.

I don't care if LaTroy Hawkins was the best reliever on the 2004 team, it is not unfair to remember him as the guy who blew 3 of his last 6 save attempts down the stretch of a tight playoff race, including the Victor Diaz game. Then in 2005, he managed to blow 4 of his first 8 save attempts, and compile a 1-4 record in 15 appearances before being mercifully traded. I know, he said he wasn't a closer, and he pitched pretty damn good as a setup guy in 2004, but I can't remember him with any fondness at all for helping to blow 2004 and continuing the crappiness into 2005. Though I was pleased at the return we got for him at the time.

Rollercoaster? I consider those examples speed bumps on the way to hell.

Did you know....if the Cubs hold on and win, Halladay will drop to 1-4 lifetime against the Cubs in 5 career starts. Despite this, his ERA vs. the Cubs will be in the mid-3's

what was the injury? any word? Just looked like heat exhaustion or dehydration. They made him work really hard in a 30 pitch 3rd innning and he never seemed to look right after that. Wait, the Chicago Cubs offense made another pitcher - a good pitcher at that - work hard?

Someone on facebook said they said he had a 'shortness of breath', possibly due to the heat. It's only 88, I'm sure he's played in much worse. Maybe he didn't hydrate himself properly.

what was the injury? any word? They havent said anything and he didn't seem to be pointing out any particular part of his body. In fact, he didn't even really say anything. I would check twitter but twitter is dead right now for some reason

Wow so we have the lead and Roy Halladay left the game injured.

Not a top 10 move but trading a scrub prospect for Jeff Baker wasn't that bad, even if he is only a platoon player at best.

That said, here's every top 10 pick used on a pitcher between 2002 and 2005: Bryan Bullington, 1st, 2002* Chris Gruler, 3rd, 2002 Adam Loewen, 4th, 2002 Clint Everts, 5th, 2002 Zach Greinke, 6th, 2002 Jeff Francis, 9th, 2002* Kyle Sleeth, 3rd, 2003* Tim Stauffer, 4th, 2003* Paul Maholm, 8th, 2003* John Danks, 9th, 2003 Justin Verlander, 2nd, 2004* Phillip Humber, 3rd, 2004* Jeff Niemann, 4th, 2004* Mark Rogers, 5th, 2004 Jeremy Sowers, 6th, 2004* Homer Bailey, 7th, 2004 Wade Townsend, 8th, 2004* Thomas Diamond, 10th, 2004* Ricky Romero, 6th, 2005* Wade Townsend, 8th, 2005* Mike Pelfrey, 10th, 2005* * = college pitcher 21 top 10 picks used on pitchers, and we're looking at something like 10 MLB starters, and 3 that have ever made an All Star team (Verlander, Greinke, Romero).

And once in a generation pitchers fail often enough that taking the sure thing college bat was still the better choice. I get that for every Justin Verlander, there's 3 Brien Taylors. Actually it might be more than that. And I know there is superlatives like "once a generation talent". I dunno my memory of the draft was that the Twins were stupid for not picking Prior number 1 (or would be stupid if they weren't cash strapped and had a hometown talent like Mauer next on their board). If the Cubs didn't pick Prior they would have been laughed out of the draft room.

Mark Prior, along with Kerry Wood, got us to within 5 outs of a World Series. We might not ever have a run like that again in our lifetimes. The hell with Mark Teixeira. I see your point about Tex over Prior, but I mean Prior I believe had put up some historical numbers in college, and correct me if I'm wrong, was billed as a once in a generation pitcher. But I completely agree with what jersey said about not drafting him if the org. has no idea what protecting young arms means. But then again, Teixeira might have gotten a crash course in being an aggressive hitter if we had drafted him.

Nolasco, Piggy and Willis for Pierre, right? I forgot about that one. No. Mitre, Nolasco, and Pinto. Willis was sent with Cueto, Tavarez, and Jorgensen for Alfonseca and Clement. I'd defend that trade as one that was pretty good for both teams. But it was a Lynch transaction, so isn't part of the conversation. I was about to say where the hell did you get Cueto from, but then looked back on the trade and there was indeed some guy named Jose Cueto in that trade. And Id completely forgot that Piggy ever existed. Whatever happened to that guy? Went to the same mysterious place that Jose Ascaino, Francis Beltran and many others go. The Land of Has Been and Never Were Middle Relievers.

I had completely forgotten about Ceda....pretty sick numbers in the minors, but hasn't performed in the majors so far.

Nolasco, Piggy and Willis for Pierre, right? I forgot about that one. No, Willis was in the Matt Clement trade in 2002. It was Nolasco, Pinto and Mitre for Pierre.

I miss joking that the Cubs should have brought Marquis Grissom out of retirement to play LF for the Cubs. Marquis - Jacque - Pierre outfield backing up another Marquis (Jason)

"We need a lefthanded bat, so lets get a switch hitter that hits worse from the left side!" I'm with you here. I choose to believe the story mentioned by a couple of local beat guys that McDonough (and Trib Co Brass) basically forced Hendry to sign Soriano. By that I mean they told him to offer Sori 8 years, which supposedly he was only willing to give 6. I mean its fair to pin it on him because at the end of the day he's the GM and there's no concrete proof that this story is true, but I give him the slightest break when people mention this. Signing Grabow to that insane contract might not be the most damaging thing he's done but it might be the worst move he's made, considering the need, the quality of player signed, and the financial situation we were in at the time. Yeah he definitely liked Neifi too much. Didn't mind Rusch as he was still young and had produced at least acceptably here on a bargin basement deal. I can't remember how much the extension was, but probably too much. Ehh, I would have liked them to sign those guys in retrospect (and at the time) but we don't even know how willing they were to sign. If they signed Beltran to the contract that he got, trust me when I say that 'signing Beltran to 10/200' would be among your top 10 worst Hendry moves. But if we had signed him we could have avoided Soriano, and that would have been nice. No mention of Prior or Wood? How did Dusty/Lou kill Murton? He just wasn't that good. Yeah he had a good 2 months in 2005, but there's a reason he's in Japan. Patterson, meh maybe they brought him up too early, I might agree with you because even to this day he shows little flashes of potential surrounded by all of his bad qualities. OPR was a flash in the pan, I don't buy that. Not sure how Pie was ruined...he was made opening day CF in 2008 and played himself out of the lineup and hasn't done too much in Baltimore. You mean allowing Koyie to photograph Hendry in a compromising position. A questionable move but no way is this among his top 10 worst moves. Gorzelanny wouldnt have changed this season one bit and neither would Silva. I don't blame him for this move, especially Silva. Not touching this one. Bullpen arms are so fickle, I don't know if I can blame him for that. If anything, Lou ran Wuertz out of town. He really fucked with his head. Aardsma, I always liked his stuff but he was given plenty of time to produce here. I hope this is a joke.

I mean its another small (5-9) WR. And one past slightly past his prime and oft injured.

While I think some of Stan's thought process is definitely counting on bounce back years from the players you mentioned, I would argue that the Hawks are slightly more talented this year. They are a tougher team to play against due to their increased size. They should have more scoring from the 3rd and 4th lines (really like the Frolik/Bolland/Bickell 3rd), Brunette is a really nice piece added that not a lot of people are talking about and we have a ton of depth on the blue line. This all goes to hell if Leddy doesn't take the next step or we have last years Keith/Hammer. This is what I am counting on as to why we've improved. One of our bigger struggles last year was with depth and getting scoring outside of Toews/Kane/Sharp/Hossa. Brunette is a great veteran depth piece, you gotta think Frolik will bounce back with a full year on the Hawks, Olesz could be a good 3rd or 4th line piece to put up some offense. The big thing is, last year we filled the back of our roster with borderline NHL talent, whose biggest attribute was that they fit under the cap. Unfortunately, we had our share of injuries and this lack of depth was exposed badly. This year we were able to clear cap space and address our offensive depth and size issues. Not only that, but we hold significant cap space for a move in the winter. I think combining all that with bounce back years from a few guys (feel very confident about this) and will will be much improved from last year. Last year only 2 points seperated us from the 4th seed, and 7 points seperated us from the Wings, so when you factor in that a lot went wrong for us last year, it doesn't necessarily be a big improvement in talent to get us to the top of the conference. The only piece that really hurts losing IMO is Campbell, and while I am a little worried about the defense without him, especially if Leddy doesn't step up, the fact is that losing his $7 mil cap hit indirectly brought us Brunette, Olesz, Montador, and Mayers (they add up to ~7 mil), that is a pretty good tradeoff in my book.