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UMFan83

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Everything posted by UMFan83

  1. UMFan83
    My thoughts are that it didn't happen that way so its fruitless to speculate on it. But since you asked, no I don't think Mike Quade gets hired if Lou stays the entire season.
  2. UMFan83
    Well there is a reason that Lee turned around his career at age 29. He developed a cutter which turned out to be one of the most dangerous pitches in baseball, and mixed it up with pinpoint control of his fastball and breaking ball, which allowed him to hit the outside corners for unhittable strikes, and then come in with that cutter. As others have said, his stuff seems to be the type that ages well as it relies on control more than overpowering a hitter. I'm not sure about injury risk, but in terms of stuff, I would have no problem giving him a 4 year deal. Probably a 5 but I'd be less enthusiastic.
  3. UMFan83
    Did you guys see that Byfuglien and Ladd both scored on Niemi last night, in a 4-2 Thrashers victory? Buff's goal was the game winner.
  4. UMFan83
    Someone should write a book about this team. This season has just been a comedy of errors. The biggest joke is that we're 4-2 and we would can the coach and GM in a second if we could.
  5. UMFan83
    Why? Because there was a lot of chatter about Girardi being the top choice, so I figured there wouldn't be any announcements from the Cubs until after the Yankees were done this season. Then maybe Girardi wasn't really the top choice and/or he made it clear he wasn't interested. Excellent analysis. The MLB Network would like to offer you a job dispensing your baseball genius to idiots like me. If that was obvious to you, then the timing isn't very curious at all is it?
  6. UMFan83
    Not sure how much of that I believe. The Cubs made Sandberg go to the minors and coach so he could get experience, why would Maddux be any different? Because the Cubs might actually want Maddux to coach the team, not just keep him busy for 4 years just so they don't burn bridges with a legend.
  7. UMFan83
    Like I said above, I honestly think this is what the Cubs want. I think they want to do whatever they can to lower expectations and still keep the fans content.
  8. UMFan83
    Any truth to the rumor that Jay Cutler has been sacked 4 times in this game already?
  9. UMFan83
    I think the Cubs org should get kudos for not caving in to popular demand and hiring Sandberg. If he wasn't their guy, he wasn't their guy. I also like that finally after a decade of big named managers coming in with a parade of media attention and expectations, the Cubs have hired a quieter manager. It was probably intentional as the Cubs didn't think they were in a position to fulfill the expectations that a big name manager would bring in, but either way I'm glad the manager and his press conferences won't be a sideshow to the Cubs season anymore.
  10. UMFan83
    If anyone is wondering, Ryno is saying all the right things, but gives the impression that he's gonna be moving on from the org. He is disapointed, but he said he wishes Quade the best, wishes Hendry the best, Ricketts the best. Said what he's been doing the last 4 years was worth it. Everything he's saying is in past tense. He was just asked if hes coming back to the Cubs organization, he said he was told by the Cubs that "he was not their guy", and he's heard no talk about any other positions or whatever. He's going to digest this news, and see what opportunities are out there to help him reach his goal of doing this in the major leagues. My impression is that he's not going to be in the Cubs org anymore, and it seems like its mutual. He said he will NOT be a bench coach for the Cubs. Not sure if that was his decsion or the Quade's. But if I'm Quade, I'm not making Sandberg my bench coach.
  11. UMFan83
    Ryno is apparently on ESPN 1000 right now.
  12. UMFan83
    I love twitter: BTW, if you want to single out dumb Cubs fans, do a twitter search for "Sandberg" right now.
  13. UMFan83
    See I don't know how much creedence we should give what happened in September. I certainly don't think it should hurt his evaluation, but I'm not sure how much it helped. In that "amazing" September run the Cubs had here are their team hitting numbers with NL ranking in (): BA:.232 (13th) OBP:.305 (12th) SLG: .343 (15th) OPS: .648 (14th) OPS+: 84 (14th) Runs: 108 (14th) Now here are their numbers for all of 2010 (including September: BA:.257 (7th) OBP:.320 (11th) SLG: .401 (9th) OPS: .721 (10th) OPS+: 98 (10th) Runs: 108 (10th) So they hit miserably, won a bunch of close games and had above normal pitching. I'm not saying I disagree with Quade as the manager. I'm saying that for me it's not because he got our hitters to play particularly well, because they didn't....they played worse.
  14. UMFan83
    It will be interesting to see what happens to Ryno now. I know he was being considered as a candidate with some other clubs. If he doesn't get a job from them, will Quade consider naming him a bench coach, as the logical "next step" to being a manager (Cubs or otherwise)? Will he feel slighted that he didn't get the job and move elsewhere? If so will he forever burn a bridge with the team he played for and has been associated with for nearly 30 years?
  15. UMFan83
    And a very important one nonetheless. If they can find the right 1B, then great, they've done their job. This team sucks at acquiring offense though. And Cliff Lee taking over the spot from whoever would have been the 5th starter would provide a pretty substantial improvement. Well I'd agree with you there. And actually after looking up some stats, I might partially take back my argument earlier. The Cubs starters ERA in the 2nd half of the season was 3.97 which is 8th in the NL, right in the middle. But if you break it down by month, results are over the place, but more often than not in the 2nd half of the year the numbers are below average April: 3.47 (4th) May: 4.35 (11th) June: 3.68 (1st) July: 4.45 (12th) August: 4.53 (12th) September: 3.52 (5th) So in the 3 months after the ASB they had a starters ERA around 4.5 which is bad for 2 months, and then in September in the month its notoriously difficult to evaluate players, it's really good. So after seeing that I'm more apt to look into spending finite resources at improving the pitching.
  16. UMFan83
    Sorry I know there is a 13 page thread discussing this. If mods prefer to rename that thread "Quade named manager" and merge this, that's fine. I just wanted to get a thread saying that up here so people checking the site would see the news. Edit: http://hardballtalk.nbcsports.com/2010/10/19/cubs-remove-interim-tag-name-mike-quade-manager/
  17. UMFan83
    I'm not sure why you are breaking out 1st/2nd half. But starting pitching was part of the problem this year. Offense has consistently been the major problem for this organization, and pitching has more often than not been the strength. It was not good this year. I singled out the 2nd half because 40% of the rotation from the 1st half wasn't on the team (Lilly) or wasn't a big factor (Silva) in the 2nd half. The rotation of Z, Dempster, Wells, Gorzalanny and Coleman put together a solid 2nd half. And while we cannot count on anything but inconsistency with Z, and Wells and Coleman don't have a ton of upside, the offense is a much bigger need and question mark than the starting pitching. It might not have been up to the standards of the last several years but it was probably better than average in the NL. If you are dealing with finite resources to improve your club, and you look at the statistics, its a no brainer to use those stats to improve the offense. There's more marginal benefit to improving the offense if you actually acquire the right people, which is a different argument in itself.
  18. UMFan83
    Yeah of course. It's not a big enough need for them anyways. [/sarcasm] I'd argue that acquiring even 1/5th of an offensive line is more of a need than an entire QB was when we traded for Jay Cutler. I think you could get Mankins with a 2nd round pick but honestly at this point I'd give them a 1st if the asking price came to it. They are probably going to use their 1st on someone you hope could be as good as Mankins anyways. By price though they probably mean asking price, as in it's not in Jerry's philosophy to have high prices O-lineman. Chris Williams is already making a crapload and Angelo doesn't want to commit to more on the line. It's completely idiotic considering how glaring the need is, how good Mankins is, and the fact that it's an uncapped year and when a cap comes back in play you figure it out from there. It's not like you are gambling on paying Mankins. You are getting one of the best guards in the game, and he's only been in the league like 3-4 years so he'd be your starting guard for at least the next 5-6 years.
  19. UMFan83
    Football is the ultimate team sport. If you put someone in the position to kick a game winning FG and he misses it from a spot where its typically made 90+ % of the time, how is that the QBs fault? For not getting the TD? In the Bears game in 2008, I am pretty sure GB attempted a FG because they were in FG range and decided to run down the clock and take the chip shot FG instead of going for the end zone. You mean to tell me it's the QBs fault for that? Would Tom Brady have gone into the huddle and say "Coach wants us to run it up the middle for 2 plays, but I say [expletive] it, I'm a winner and I say we get this in the end zone and give the Bears a minute and 20 seconds to come back down the field." It's only one example but I'm sure there are others. Tom Brady won his first Super Bowl and took his first steps towards his legendary status by leading the Patriots down the field with a few seconds left and.......spiked the ball and brought out his FG unit. If the kicker misses it, is Brady no longer as great of a QB as he is now? You are allowing a kicker to determine the worth of the QB. Doesn't make sense to me.
  20. UMFan83
    Also, yeah the local media really bit hard on that 200+ yard rushing performance against a pathetic 0-5 football team. I mean yeah I was impressed that they were able to be so successful, but its an awful team we played. Even still, they rushed for I think 219 yards, and it was on 39 carries. 5.6 ypc is good, but only slightly better than what the top rushing teams in the league average for the season. You'd think the YPC would be a little big higher on a day you have your highest rushing total in almost 15 years. Despite 219 yards, they still had 21 of their 39 carries go for 2 or less yards, including 8 for 0 or negative yardage. If you take away their 3 best and 3 worst runs, their totals go down to 125 yards on 33 carries and 3.8 YPC. Still better that I'd expect from our running game, but not enough to make me believe we can run the ball against real NFL teams.
  21. UMFan83
    I see Washington as a completely average team. Without looking at the actual stats, I feel like they are just completely average at every part of the game, not particularly bad, not particularly good. Just average. They remind me of the 2008 Bears for some reason who had that same dynamic.
  22. UMFan83
    And this is why I hate the Yankees and their fans. "Man we just got dominated by this guy...we'll just have to sign his ass this offseason"
  23. UMFan83
    I can't see us doing it, unless we were completely content with no major additions on offense. You add Lee and I don't see any payroll room to add any decent FAs at 1B, 2B, OF. With the postseason Lee has had for the last 2 years, it's gonna be an outrageous bidding war and his salary will probably take a majority of the money that Lilly and Lee made last year. And lets face it, starting pitching wasn't the big issue the 2nd half of the season, it was anemic offense. Not saying Cliff Lee wouldn't help, or that we don't need an ace quality pitcher, but the money would be better spent in other areas. So as much as I love Cliff Lee and would love to add him to the Cubs, I don't think we are even in the discussions for him.
  24. UMFan83
    4-2-1 is very nice after a slow start, but that's amazingly still behind the pace of last year's team
  25. UMFan83
    Agreed. People who think hockey is boring, watch this game.
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