UMFan83

What about... (don't quote me on the salaries, i dont feel like looking it up) Abreu (5m) + DeRosa (5.5m) or Bradley (10m) + Miles (2.2m) + the other FA the Cubs will probably sign to back up 1st and 3rd Remember this is all hypothetical.

Haha your going to look like such a poser Cubs fan!

Yeah the red billed road caps are history I believe. Kinda weird, most teams are adding more hats/uniforms/etc.

1 year 5 million? Wow. So would you guys rather have Abreu at 1 year/5 million or Bradley at 3 years/30 million (obviously with the option involved)? I remember a lot of people arguing for Abreu when they thought he would be getting a 4+ year deal. How bout now?

wow, they have the angels finishing under .500? i know they lost their closer and their first baseman, but that seems a bit much. Their pythag was horrible last year and I'm sure that's a big factor.

From some Suns insider thats posted valid info before

wait, what? oooooooo...owned

The neighborhood would never let a modern group play at Wrigley would they? The people that have the clout grew up listening to the Police, Elton John, Billy Joel, and Jimmy Buffett.

http://blogs.dailyherald.com/node/1390

He's no bigbird, but Tech9 is a pretty reliable poster at realgm. But then again being reliable don't always means trades, etc, etc, will happen. Tech9 is not a "troll", he is what he is. He's reliable. Note: I believe I saw UMFan over at realgm. Yup, I post over there occasionally. Hence why I don't post in this thread all that often. RealGM satisfies my Bulls discussion needs.

Dropping like flies. There are rumors that Golden State has jumped in the mix for him, but who knows if Phoenix will want to trade him to the West.

Yep. The thing that people are worried about is that Amare will be a FA after next year and after signing him to a max deal, the Bulls won't have money left to sign the little pieces unless they go well over the lux tax, which Jerry will only do if he thinks that he's paying for a championship contender, which the Bulls will have to at least somewhat show next year.

Darn, I got passed over again. I thought it'd be a cold day in hell before Vance got in :)

Yeah, I agree with the concept, but I would give up Thomas and Noah for Amare. We aren't really playing for this year anyways. But I'd have to take a long look at how many above average interior defenders there are in the NBA before deciding for sure. There doesn't seem to be too many, and its almost a requirement if Amare is your PF.

I just see that Tyrus's scoring and rebounding numbers have gone up every month this year. I'm not saying Tyrus is or will ever be a star, and I'm not saying don't trade for Amare (although jmajew is 100% correct about interior D, although its not impossible to add a defensive center to play alongside Amare), but Tyrus is starting to prove that he can end up being a solid NBA starting forward.

how do you decide whom to grant this designation? He's a nice guy. I guess I'm making an unfair generalization based on his reputation in the game and you called me out on it. I just look at his numbers and see a lot of consistency, although now looking at it closer I see his power numbers spiked during the years everyone calls into question as the height of the steroid era. Who knows anymore. I feel like the names revealed now is just the tip of the iceberg. We'll probably never know how many people are juicing. I say just label this whole era the steroid era, and judge the era as a whole. What I mean is, recognize the top performers of the era in the Hall of Fame, just like you judge the best players of the 60's in the era as a whole, not compared to more lively offensive eras. This is probably the best solution. If you continue to leave the Bonds, Clemens, ARods out of the Hall of Fame, its going to be a never ending controversy and baseball will take an even longer time to get over this black eye.

I was listening to the radio on the way to work this morning, and one good point was made. The Mitchell Report was very New York-centric as it was a Mets clubhouse guy that was one of the few to talk. There has to be a a guy in the midwest, a guy in the west coast, etc that has similar information but hasn't been found yet. Look at the 2001 home run leaders in baseball 1. Bonds - evidence of steroid use 2. Sosa - no evidence 3. Gonzalez - Whispers but no evidence 4. ARod - evidence 5. Thome - no evidence 6. Green - evidence 7. Helton - no evidence 8. Palmeiro - evidence Of the ones that had no evidence, Sosa, Gonzalez, and Heltons HR numbers sharply dropped after testing started in 2004, and Thome who I doubt took steroids, has battled nagging injuries since 2004

What I don't get is why the majority of sportswriters seem to think that Sammy is grouped into the McGwires, the Palmeiros, the Clemens, the Bonds, etc. I know it definitely seems logical that he was juicing, but unlike the others, there is no proof, no allegations, no testimony, etc. Until that proof shows up, it shows really poor morals to just lump a person in that group without any sort of proof. Jayson Stark in his article said that among others Sammy Sosa doesn't look like he's headed to Cooperstown. Why not? Because you think he did steroids? To be honest, I think it's pretty dumb that people might not vote in Bonds, Clemens, ARod because they did steroids. Bonds was a HOF player before he most likely did steroids, I would assume Clemens as well, and ARod will have played several spectacular seasons after his steroid use. It doesn't make any sense, these were spectacular players. I can see why you wouldn't vote McGwire in though...although his "proof" of steroid usage is him basically taking the 5th under oath. Still more than Sosa has against him.

That looks like 2006

Man if all he could get was a minor league deal, I would have loved to have taken a gamble. Either he steps in and plays CF or he becomes great trade bait come July. Oh well, I'm pretty sure he's washed up so it probably doesn't matter.

A Rod, Griffey, Martinez, and Buhner must have been one hell of a gauntlet for a pitcher to go through. That game was a lot of fun to watch. I used to watch White Sox games a lot in that era. I wouldn't say I was a fan, but as a 13 year old, I couldn't help but watch any sort of baseball that came on my TV. Plus I was a big Frank Thomas fan. Anyways, it was a lot of fun to see a lot of faces that I grew up with, Buhner, Cora, Griffey, Ozzie, Belle, Thomas, etc. It was also cool seeing the old WGN graphics. It's funny they havent used those graphics in like 10 years, and it still felt like only yesterday. I am loving the MLB Network.

DeRosa is gone. We'd be replacing Fontenot with Hudson, and I don't see how that's a big enough upgrade to warrant losing a first round pick. Plus, like I said, Hudson couldn't replace DeRosa anyways. With Bradley on your team DeRosa's biggest value becomes the ability to fill in for him when he's hurt....and allow Fontenot to essentially replace Bradley in the lineup. Hudson doesn't do that. Really I think people are just excited by the name. I don't see what Hudson really does for this team at this point. I've never really been enamoured by Hudson as a player, but when I read the Cubs might be interested to him, I thought he'd be a great fit. I am not thrilled (once again) with our MI defense. Adding Hudson to the mix is a great fit.

How is it for the best? So we can pick Chase Budinger next June? Yay? at least we have a shot at getting somebody good. it worked out pretty well last year. what is the upside of winning at this point? what chance is there of something good coming out of it? sneaking in the playoffs and getting embarrassed by boston/cleveland/orlando? sounds fun. Well I wouldn't count on making a huge move in the lottery. Last year was an aberration, obviously. I'd rather make it as a low seed and get waxed by a powerhouse then draft at the bottom of the lottery. At least Rose would get a taste of playoff basketball. I guess that's where we differ. I'm interested in winning a championship or at least going deep into the playoffs and having something to get excited for. That team is going to offer neither or those things this year. I mean, how fun were the playoffs for the Cubs the last 2 years? I'm not saying they'd luck out into a top pick.... they wouldn't have to. Any lottery pick would bring us closer to winning a championship than a meaningless playoff appearance. You make it seem like the Bulls don't get a draft pick if they make the playoffs. If they squeeze in as a low seed the pick will only be marginally higher than what they would get as a playoff team. I'm not talking about a speicific threshold that I want them to avoid. Making the playoffs was just an example of the best case scenario for this season and the most we could realistically hope. Obviously if it was between he 8 seed and 9 seed I'd choose the 8 seed. I'm saying I'd rather tank at this point than play like .500. If we're gonna suck, let's at least maximize what we get for sucking. There is no point in cheering for this team to tank. They have already won too many games and have too talented of a team to be bad enough to have even a decent shot at a high pick in a very shallow draft. So whats the point? I'm not interested in investing more time into developing another project (like Tyrus), and I'm definitely not interested in adding yet another flawed role player to the team (like Thabo/Noah). Sure if you said "You can either have Blake Griffin or make the playoffs and get demolished by Boston", I'd choose the former. But the chances of a draft pick bringing anything we can use long term is minimal. I'd rather cheer for this team to win and make the playoffs because that means players like Rose and Tyrus and Noah are playing better and give us a better idea of where we can improve in the offseason.

We replace DeRosa with Hudson and Miles (Hudson for 2B, Miles for backup IF/extreme backup OF). Lose some offense (that you hypothetically get back with Bradley) and improve defensively at 2B big time.

Hudson can't play right field when Bradley is hurt Really I don't see the point of signing Hudson and losing a first round pick. Is he really better than Fontenot? That's what Miles is for. Not ideal but we improve defensively at 2B and still have someone who can backup LF and RF. Also, Fukudome is an option to backup RF. The Cubs will likely blow their first round pick anyways.