UMFan83

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.

Hope Solo's knee is ok (horrible pun)

Why? They're not any good now, their farm system is in the bottom 3rd of baseball and their ownership doesn't spend money. Good for them that somehow Maholm and Karstens have insanely outpitched their peripherals, but it's not going to hold up. I still think people like Alvarez and Tabata will develop into much better players than they are now. Also with fans starting to come back it's likely they can at least get their payroll into the $60 mil range. But you are right that their pitching has carried them and has been really lucky but I don't think they are going to just drop back to 95 loss awful rans after this ends.

http://img546.imageshack.us/img546/5917/doubleuteaef.jpg Just doesn't look right

I have a feeling I'll regret cheering for the Pirates in like 2-3 years.

huh? I feel like its gotten a good deal better...and Chris Campoli certainly doesn't make or break my opinion.

Yeah I don't get it?

Nah... The target audience won't actually watch the movie. They'll just look at the ticket sales and revenue stats to decide whether it's a good movie. \:D/ It's a good point. This doesn't seem like real good material for a movie. The people who are interested in this want detail, as in the text that actually describes how Beane conducted his business. And that's already available at your local Barnes & Noble. Beyond that, it's just seeing if Pitt can portray an interesting character. Worth the price of a movie ticket? For me, nah. Eh, the trailer makes it seem like it will appeal to the masses. The story seems like its going to be cash strapped club hires Beane for job, Beane struggling to compete with no funds, wiz kid boldly tells him what hes doing wrong using stats, beane takes a liking to him, making him his right hand man, buys into everything he says and tries winning with his method, team struggles at first, causing fans to turn on him and want him fired, eventually they turn it around and start winning...happy ending just before he has to trade mulder and hudson.

If Marmol could pitch we'd still be unscored since last Sunday.

Meh, I can live with not bringing back the guy whose mistake ended out season and ruined an epic comeback against a team I hate.

Actually Arizona would be one place I would think he might consider waiving his NTC for as I believe he has a home in the Phoenix area.

But honestly, what do you think the odds are that Joe Morgan donates 2 hours of his life to this movie?

Nah... The target audience won't actually watch the movie. They'll just look at the ticket sales and revenue stats to decide whether it's a good movie. \:D/ Good stuff. You get an A for the day.

Now, you could use this interesting experience to add some unique and thoughtful analysis to our discussion here, or you could be an [expletive] about it. Guess which one you've decided to do Dude he's better than us. He faced a pitcher who can bring it. That makes him the most qualified expert and his opinions should immediatelly be deemed correct.

Mark Riggins, do something for once.

Maybe it has to do with Marmol pitching horrible lately and blowing a winnable game by walking 4 batters on 17 pitches. Walking batters and then having a mental error by failing to cover home plate causing the go ahead run to score makes fans angry. When Wood came in, the Cubs were already losing so who cares.

wut? When Quade finally pulled Wood he barely got a smattering of boos, despite reloading the bases and giving up 2 more runs himself. There's a pretty clear distinction between who gets really booed at Wrigley and who doesn't. [expletive] white players rarely get anything close to what the non-white ones get when they [expletive] up. Regardless of skin color, Kerry Wood has given Cubs fans a lot more reasons to unconditionally love him. I don't know if I can get on this bandwagon either. Wood is a fan favorite for obvious reasons other than skin color and I'd say there have been plenty of white players who have been booed pretty strongly. Todd Hundley and Joe Borowski come to mind. Kevin Gregg, Bob Howry, Scott Eyre, Kyle Farnsworth at times.