UMFan83

Similar early career stats, breakout seasons at the same age. At a similar point in their careers, both low walk, high K, lots of power, just got huge contracts, Both once skinny Domincans...

Do we know if Soriano made any changes to his approach last year? Yeah...he changed his approach to "I want to make a crapload of money, I better start slugging"

Sosa before 1998: 4021 AB 1035 H 162 2B 33 3B 207 HR 642 RBI 277 BB 1027 K .257/.309/.469/.778 Soriano before this season: 3902 AB 1091 H 240 2B 18 3B 208 HR 560 RBI 224 BB 836 K .280/.325/.510/.835

Maybe people misinterpreted so I'll try to make it more clear: J.D. Drew is not playing for the Cubs in the near future. Period. You don't need stats. You don't need to know who likes or doesn't like him. The Cubs are not interested in signing him. They'll use the bulk of their remaining money on pitchers. So I'm confused...were the reports that the Cubs made him an offer false? Or did they just make him an offer as a backup plan in case Soriano didn't sign?

Hmm...Sosa was 30 in 1998, Soriano 30 now. Both had high K rates and low BB rates until their power numbers increased and teams started pitching around them. Very interesting case study.

Anyone think that its possible that Hendry, being desperate to make a splash, signed this contract with Soriano with the intention of trading him in like 4 years (while eating some salary) if he slowly begins to decline? Think about it...I'm not sure how the salary breaks down, so for now I'll assume a flat $17 mil a year 2007: $17 2008: $17 2009: $17 2010: $17 Traded to X team, agree to eat $8 million a year in salary, get a slightly above average OF 2011: $8 ($9 - Picked up by Team X) 2012: $8 ($9) 2013: $8 ($9) 2014: $8 ($9) That breaks it down to 4 years, $100 million, with $32 million deferred. A very very very ridiculous contract, but in order to make a splash and try to win a World Series, what do you think....reasonable?

There is one though...its just way below

^^ Well if the whispers about Cliff Floyd are true, it could be bad for MM

Did anyone post the Buster Olney article on here yet? Not a big fan of this signing either... Here is the Cubs part of the article: Sorry if it was posted already

Haha, I didn't realize this has been bumped. I just saw "SIGNS WITH CUBS" and I was thinking we landed another big FA

Tony, you really need to do something about your propensity for mixing it up with opposing fans !! :wink: Hey, last time it was against (dumb) Cubs fans :)

Home field is 3 1/2 points correct?

They did what they had to do to win this game, without showing anything to the Patriots. This had classic letdown game potential, but the Bears methodically beat a good team on the road. If anything, this game showed teams that you can't go into the Bears game thinking, "stop Grossman, and we win". Everybody talked about beating the Bears by forcing Rex into mistakes. But they just showed it's not that simple. This defense made Brady look silly the week before. I think this was a play it close to the vest type of game. They held almost everything back, and did the bare minimum to win. If I'm a Bears opponent in the coming weeks, I'm thinking long and hard about how I'm going to beat them, because there is no simple plan. Rex and Turner said they had a very simple game plan for this game. It does look like they played it close to the vest. I wonder what would have happened if they got behind. Yes good analysis Goony

Thanks for that. It's good to hear what someone who saw him play on a day to day basis thinks.

Look for me in the stands. I'll be the one getting beat up by drunken Pats fans.

How can you say that when (assuming 1B plays in 150 games) Derrek Lee plays 100 more games and Alfonso Soriano replaces Juan Pierre? The rest is pretty much the status quo. This seems close to .500 right now with the potential to be much better with a couple of solid additions to our pitching rotation. With no improved pitching and the potential of 75 starts from Marmol/Mateo/Guzman, etc. I don't know how they can improve much more. But just in general I like being pessimistic.

Lets do this yesterday. If this happens, I will be forced to be optimistic about the 2007 Chicago Cubs.....we might even hit that magic 83 win mark

What a wonder is that if any team can blitz heavy and hold the Bears to 10 points, isn't that going to lead to a lot of losses? I mean the D can't shut out the opposition every week, and even this week, the Jets could have easily put up 10 or more points on the D. Obviously the Bears spent the majority of the 4th running out the clock and potentially could have had more points, but its something to consider. If the Jets had scored on that drive instead of Urlacher getting an INT, would Grossman have started to sling it

There are a couple of advantages to this signing beyond batting. His defense was actually better then league average (I can't remember what factors were considered in this), his speed of course can replace the speed of Pierre mostly (but the importance of speed is of course a huge huge debatable discussion), and the thing I'm most impressed about is his 22 OF assists last year. A strong arm is a BIG help. How many times did we give up the extra base because of our crappy OF arms?

For those who didn't see this the other 11 times I posted it in this thread: Soriano OPS+ 2004: 98 2005: 110 That means our great $17 million man had a league average OPS for those years (with Park and League factors included). However, he should continue to put up better numbers because he's in the NL , but nothing that would deserve $17 million, unless you are enamored with made up stats like 40-40-40. The other $17 Million man, Beltran, put up OPS+ of 108, 126, 136 the three years before his contract.

1) It's rumored that there are 2-3 option years in there. Not yet confirmed, nor known if they are player, team or mutual options or how much potential buyouts are. There is a NTC for the first 5 years though I believe 2) Most news reports are saying CF, but Bruce Miles has stated that he will be playing RF and he said he was very certain that this is the case from what he's heard. 3) Not yet, pending a physical today. Expect acknowledgment from the Cubs today.

I'm still confused about the offensive game plan this game. It's pretty obvious that if the game plan was more open, Grossman potentially could have more then doubled his numbers. There are a few reasons why the game plan was so conservative. 1) Lovie looked over the Jets win over the Pats, and saw how the defense was able to fool the great Tom Brady into having a good game, so Lovie decided that the best chance to win was to pull in the reigns on Grossman and control the ball and the clock. 2) People were saying the Bears were not a running team anymore, and teams were putting too much of their defense into stopping the pass. You've heard of establishing the run? Well Lovie decided to establish the run for the rest of the season by proving that the Bears could and will run when necessary. This will force D's to focus more on the run, and leave the passing game more wide open, allowing Grossman to pick apart secondaries as he was before all these blitzes and confusing passing schemes. 3) Long shot: Lovie saw something in Grossman during the Giants game and decided to stop the gunslinger game plan altogether and consulted with John Shoop to redevelop a modified Kyle Orton game plan for the rest of the season. Either way, the game was kinda eerie because it just wasn't what I expected. I expected Grossman to go on a long scoring run with lots of passes at some point, and it never happened. I'll take the win though, thats for sure...and lets see how Grossman comes out against NE.

I think we are about a 74 win team right now as currently assembled. Hey thats an 8 game improvement!

Largely, but there are a few holding out positivity. A few of us (me, jjgman, XZero, ConstableRabbit and a few others) are holding to the "hate the money, love the move anyway" opinion. co-sign First time since Hawk in 87' that we have signed one of the three or four best available FAs. I just hope Jim saves some cash for midseason deals - we are going to need pitching, IMO. I just don't see why people can't see that the numbers say this is a bad signing. Saying we signed one of the best FAs out there is like saying that the Bulls got one of the best 3-4 players in the 2000 draft when they got Marcus Fizer, meaning, its true but its a weak crop of players. The fact that we gave him one of the top 6-7 highest paid contracts in history makes me worry. That said, I am happy that they did something. Certainly this is better then nothing..but personally there were about 2-3 other FAs I would have spent my money on first.

With McNabb out, you think NBC wishes it could choose that Bears/Pats game?