UMFan83

You're telling me. Michigan's "signature win" looks worse and worse every week. Michigan is gonna get slaughtered once it gets into the meat of the Big 10 schedule. But that's ok, all I want is bowl eligibility...and with Delaware State a virtual lock (waits for App State jokes), we only need to win 1 of the other 7 games to get there. Hey, just be happy we've already won more games this season than we did last season. Progress. Michigan has one of the youngest team in the nation. They'll prob get to bowl eligibility, but they are definitely going to struggle against teams like Iowa, Penn State, Wisconsin, and Ohio State. They'll have a decent chance against MSU, Purdue, and Illinois. Yeah I see us likely beating MSU next week just because they are demoralized right now. I also think we can take Illinois on the road, but who knows. This young as hell team hasn't played a road game yet this year. I think they can finish with a very soft 8-4 season and improve next season.

You're telling me. Michigan's "signature win" looks worse and worse every week. Michigan is gonna get slaughtered once it gets into the meat of the Big 10 schedule. But that's ok, all I want is bowl eligibility...and with Delaware State a virtual lock (waits for App State jokes), we only need to win 1 of the other 7 games to get there.

Boooo-urns

Yep...3 outs away. But a Cardinals win keeps the Cubs playoff elimination number at 3 for another day. I have only been here since 07, do Card fans come here to brag about winning the divison after it happens? Err...no. If they do they meet Modzilla very quickly.

Yep...3 outs away. But a Cardinals win keeps the Cubs playoff elimination number at 3 for another day.

They just said on Fox that "the story for the Cubs all year" has been "miscommunication" Umm ok

That wasn't very Taguchi

And they did...2-0 Cubs

Good time to see if we are improved over the rest of the season. Because we all know how the April-August Cubs would do in this situation... (loaded, 0 outs)

I was doing a little breakdown of the Bears schedule today. I am going to make the following 2 assumptions: 1. 10-6 is the goal for a playoff spot 2. The Bears will beat Detroit (twice), Cleveland, and St. Louis So the Bears are 5-1, needing to go 5-5 against the rest of the schedule to hit 10-6. The thing is, the rest of the schedule has no real cupcakes in there. I'll break them down into 2 categories: Championship contenders, and playoff contenders. Obviously these are very arguable, but whatever. Championship contenders: @Minnesota Minnesota @ Baltimore Philadelphia @ Atlanta Playoff contenders: @Cincinnati Green Bay @ Seattle @San Francisco Arizona Pretty tough schedule. So I'm thinking we can definitely split against Minnesota, and we should be able to beat Green Bay at home (more of a guess than another assumption). So of the remaining 3 championship contenders, we should probably win 1 of the 3. That leaves us with needing to go 2-2 against the other category to get to 10-6. Can we go 1-2 against Baltimore, Philly and Atlanta, likewise can we go 2-2 against Cincinnati, Seattle, SF, and Arizona? I think we can, but it should be interesting...we've definitely had easier schedules.

Wow, I just saw the lineup. Lou did the same thing against Lincecum last year (at Wrigley). Just gave them a throwaway lineup to face a stud pitcher. Then again at that point the Cubs were in contention and Lou thought it would be a good opportunity to give the starters a day of rest. Not sure why he's doing this now with 10 games left in the season. BTW, St. Louis lost again so if we want to delay elimination another day, we can do so with a win.

The difference is, if you trade for Rowand straight up you are basically getting Rowand for 3 years $36 million because he's signed for the next 3 seasons at 12 mil per. Or you can keep Bradley for 2 years 21 million (9 mil next year, 12 million in year 3). So you are taking on $15 million dollars to get a player that puts up .750 OPS's every year. And while Bradley has an upside where he might put up a .900 OPS, or at the very least put up a .380-.400 OBP (and don't forget, OBP is under represented in OPS), you're pretty much getting a .320 OBP and .750 OPS from Rowand. I know he put up a .900 OPS season in Philly, but he's not doing that in SF, but he'd maybe have a slight bump at Wrigley (maybe .780 OPS). So, as much as we want to get rid of Bradley, this isn't the right way to go. I'm personally not willing to pay $15 million to take on a more likable, slightly worse version of 2009 Bradley, with little upside and for an extra season.

Oh....most likely because of his contract/production, that makes sense. When he was making less money and was a grinder flying all over CF in Philly and the South Side he was mostly adored.

Dude he's gritty. He flies into the wall a lot. Plus it would piss off those south side scums. Swap a mostly good baseball player who is under appreciated by the fans for a mediocre baseball player who is way over appreciated by the fans. I could totally see the Cubs doing this figuring if they were paying someone a ton of money, it might as well be someone who will get cheered by the fans, not necessarily the best player they can get for their money.

Why would they DFA him after stashing him on the 25 man roster all season? They wouldn't keep him here all year if they didn't think there was some upside.

I was just thinking about Rule 5 guys when looking up Veal's numbers for Pittsburgh this year and then Patton's. Correct me if I'm wrong but isn't the point of the Rule 5 draft to help players that are bogged down in a team's minor league system, giving them the opportunity to get taken by other teams that are willing to give said player a shot in the big leagues? But what is the point of taking a Donnie Veal (12.1 IP this year for PITTSBURGH), or Patton (26.2 IP for the Cubs)? Both Veal and Patton are 25 years old and just wasted a year of pitching so that their new teams can keep them and store them in the minors next year. Obviously judging by their numbers and the IP they were given neither are going to be on the big league team next year (and that says a lot for Veal who plays for an awful team and still can't get burn). So why was it so imperative for the Cubs to use 1 of their 25 roster spots on Patton for a majority of the year (minus the phantom DL time)? What do the Cubs see in Patton that made what they did with him worth it? What is Patton's ceiling? Is he going to start in AAA and if he improves get called up during the year, or will he just go back to the mid minors and never quite develop enough to get a shot? Just interesting in people's thoughts on this, because I'm looking at some of the better Rule 5 guys over the last 20 years, and they all have one thing in common, they were given somewhat significant time to play during their Rule 5 seasons. Santana (86 IP, 5 starts), Hamilton (337 PAs), Uggla (683 PA), Soria (69 IP, 17 SV), all were given significant time and their talents were evident. Others started out slowly and were deemed too risky to keep on the team and were returned. Either way, none of these players had to waste an entire season of development waiting for their Rule 5 status change so they could be a permanent member of their new team.

Dammit, and I was just thinking about how if we swept the Giants, and the Cardinals swept the Rockies, we'd be only 3.5 games out heading into the last week of the season.

Did Len really mention "The Cubs pull to within 6.5 games of the Wild Card" as one of his positive things about the game today?

Win #79. I would still love to finish with 86 wins just so when people look back on the season they will laugh when they realize that this team had more wins than the 07 squad that made the playoffs.

Marmol he's not gonna run, they know with a 3-1 count and you pitching its 97% likely you are gonna walk him and he'll end up on 2nd anyways.

Haha, not that it's not inevitable, but the Cardinals were 1 out from clinching the NL Central and then Baker homered.

It's pretty much irreconcilable at this point. The fact that Hendry had to suspend him for 2 weeks, and the fact that the Cubs players did anything but defend Bradley after the suspension shows that there is a lot going on behind the scenes. Bradley will never get on the fans good side, or even to the point where the fans and him can co-exist which will lead to many more depressing Bradley outbursts that threaten to shake up next year's team.

It is likely our last day as defending NL Central champs. Cherish it and hope to be back on top next year.

Gee I wonder why. You can disable all avatars/sigs in the User Control Pannel. I don't have a particularly fast computer or internet connection and I don't have any trouble loading pages with lots of animated sigs. Heck, even when surfing on my IPhone on the 3G network it doesn't take a noticable amount of time to load (relative to the time it takes to load a regular page). Maybe I'll take it down tomorrow due to not intending to ruffle anyone's feathers (besides Packer fans)

Very quietly, Mike Fontenot has put up a .412/.450/.529/.979 line over his last 40 PAs (not including that PH single he just had), a span of over a month for him. Obviously it's probably too little to late to salvage the season (and likely his Cubs career), but it's nice to see at least.