UMFan83

if you can't beat them sign them? Interesting...after the Hawks lost to the Wings I felt it would be awhile until we could beat the Wings. I still sorta feel that but I'm a bit more confident today than I was at end of the season.

Yeah the score just reported it's done. Not sure if they are using tsn as the source but wow. I'm a big fan of this except 12 years is odd.

Weird. Today's papers suggested they were looking to trade Huet and resign Khabi. I wouldn't mind, especially if Khabi's contract was only 1-2 years. here is Kaps blog: http://www.chicagonow.com/blogs/david-kaplan-chicago-sports/2009/07/hossa-to-hawks.html

Umm...TSN is reporting that the Hawks are close to signing Hossa and Dave Kaplin confirms through his sources. I did a double take when I heard on ESPN1000s latest update.

Today the Cubs begin a 12 game winning streak

Good News. Hopefully you guys get 100% A-Ram back. Why do you care? We're much closer to last place than first place.

What a month for the Cubs...here are some numbers to reflect what an interesting month it's been... OPS for players in June: Lee - .992 Fox - .939 Soto - .879 Bradley - .707 Theriot - .658 Johnson - .653 Hoffpauir - .645 Blanco - .613 Soriano - .595 Fontenot - .582 Fukudome - .531 Miles - .440 Hill - .178 Pitchers ERA in June: Guzman - 1.89 Heilman - 2.08 Patton - 2.70 Gregg - 2.77 Marshall - 2.79 Zambrano - 2.91 Wells - 3.19 Dempster - 3.23 Lilly - 3.24 Ascanio - 3.52 Harden - 4.24 Marmol - 5.40 (17 BB in 13.1 IP) Team stats: OPS - .674 (27th) BA - .234 (27th) OBP - .305 (25th) SLG - .369 (27th) Runs - 89 (27th) ERA - 3.21 (4th) BB - 99 (3rd most) K - 176 (16th) BAA - .244 (9th) OBP - .327 (15th) SLG - .386 (10th) OPS - .713 (12th) Blown Saves - 6 (most in MLB) WHIP - 1.33 (14th) K/BB - 1.78 (24th) K/9 - 6.90 (15th) The pitching numbers are intersting. Despite having the 4th best ERA in baseball in June, some of their peripheral numbers are mediocre at best. Was it luck or just a small sample size that the numbers ended up this way?

Not all trades go through a heavy rumor cycle before happening. But it's probably not a legit rumor.

I think Gordon is going to Detroit shortly after midnight. One ESPN writer seems to think Gordon is bitter towards the Bulls and will sign with another team if the offers are similar, while another thinks that Gordon wants to stay with the Bulls and the Bulls are willing to offer $11 million while the Pistons are only willing to offer $10 million.

Because as weird as it sounds, I don't think the Cubs are going to pay someone $18 million to sit on the bench. They wouldn't mind seeing if Zito could be a halfway decent bullpen arm, something that hasn't been explored enough to make a conclusion in his past. Look I'm not saying its a no brainer, but I am under the opinion that if you can get rid of Soriano's contract, you have to. It was a mistake from the start, but I knew I really wouldn't start complaining about it until his skills started to erode.

No offense, but pretty much all of this is obvious. Ramirez gone was supposed to hurt but at this point its pretty clear that there is a lot more going on with this offense than ARam being gone.

Upgrade it how? Maybe a Fox/Hoff platoon, but we can do that with Soriano on the roster. Soriano has a chance throughout his contract to have some hot streaks here and there and be somewhat productive. Zito hasn't even been average since 2006. We're not likely to be adding significant payroll even when Ricketts takes over, so swapping bad contract for bad contract won't allow us to upgrade with another decently paid player in LF. Whether we have Sori at this point or not, the only upgrade we can have in left are inexpensive players. So we might as well keep the player who might have some value - and that's more likely to be Soriano. You are thinking short term, I am thinking long term. Soriano's contract is going to burn us way beyond this year. While I am certain that he isn't as bad as he's been playing, he undoubtably will be a much worse player than he was in years 1 and 2 at the end of his contract. I say trade him if you can. Zito will make the same amount of money roughly but he will be taking a bullpen spot (in my mind) of which there are several, instead of the LF spot of which there is one. Ricketts might not have money now but 1-2 years from now when Fukudome and Bradley and Lees contracts come off the books, he will have money to play with.

Each player having full NTCs might be an issue. We're also not saving any money. We're swapping one bad contract for an equally bad contract. I'd rather have Soriano through 2014 than Zito for the same time. EDIT: Actually, we'd have Zito for one less season. He's got a vesting option for 2014 that I'm sure we could avoid. Even still, I'd rather have Soriano through 2014 than Zito through 2013 (and Zito is actually a bit more expensive in 2012 and 2013). The point is that trading Soriano means that we can upgrade the LF position, something we wouldn't be able to do for 5 years if we kept him. As it is right now, we are pretty much stuck with Soriano, Fukudome, Bradley as our OF for the next 2 seasons after this one. Even if Bradley gets better, having 2/3 of our OF absolutely suck is not going to help us be a contender. We can also rid ourselves of a .290 OBP leadoff hitter which is a big plus. We aren't going to save money trading Soriano. I guess it's possible that we can eat a lot of money and trade him to a team willing to pay him $5 mil a year, but even that's not likely due to the fact that it's pretty obvious that he'll be absolutely awful at the end of his contract. So that leaves us with the option of trading bad contract for bad contract. And who knows, Zito might be a decent bullpen option. Not likely but possible.

If it's true, it shows that the Cubs haven't given up on the season yet, and that they do have at least some money to make moves. That said, there are much much much much bigger problems on the Cubs than the closer. They probably believe that Ramirez alone will come back with no issues and be the upgrade they need on offense. That's highly highly debatable of course.

Actually that's not a horrible idea. I bet the Giants would at least consider this and the Cubs have enough money to withstand having a $18m long reliever.

When are we gonna just destroy a team? Even bad teams do that (see Nationals vs. Cubs last year)

Soto should have thrown to first

Can someone might tell me what the Cubs see in Patton that makes them sabotage their bullpen for the sake of keeping him in the org? Because if his ceiling is slightly above average middle reliever what they are doing isn't worth it? Is there something you guys see in him that suggests his ceiling is higher than that? Because it's obvious that he isn't on the roster to aid us in winning a championship this year.

But the Pirates are only 6 games out of first.

You guys are jerks. Funny or not, the guy probably spent some time putting that together and got completely torn apart for it.

The Brewer game is getting at least somewhat interesting. Top 9, Mets have already scored 3 runs in the inning, and have runners on 1st and 2nd with 1 out, trailing 10-6. Tre Hoff coming in. Edit: Damn you Keener

How uncommon is it for a night game to be played and finished before it gets dark in Chicago? Heck, I didn't watch the game, it might have still been somewhat light in Pittsburgh.

Yes but in typical Gregg fashion, he did turn two different 0-2 counts into 3-2 counts with his incessant nibbling.

Neifi was never suspected of using steroids. He was busted for amphetamine use.