brinoch

Mexico never had class to begin with Stone the crows, that was some goal from Messi. You can use all the superlatives in your world to describe that one. Awesome. Simply awesome.

He's in the last year of his contract and I'm assuming the Cubs would pick some of the remaining money up, so he would be a fairly cheap "solution" to anyone desperately needing middle infield help. That's desparation at its finest. The Orioles are playing Brandon Fahey at SS, they are desperation defined. Yes, I've pointed this out once or twice relatively recently. Unless there's someone in the O's system you really want, just trade Izturis for a PTBNL. You might be able to get Baltimore to take on the contract in such a deal, too. At this point in the season, Izturis is only owed about $2M.

I changed the title to reduce the incidence of heart attacks.

That's funny. I posted this exact same sentiment yesterday on another site. I really like the style with which the kids play and how aggressive they are. Great idea. :)

Trading for a reliever seems interests me because I think it's easier to obtain a solid reliever than a significant upgrade in any of the positions you listed. While it might be easier to obtain a reliever, that doesn't mean acquiring a reliever is a good move. Trading just for the sake of trading is silly. You should be seeking to get the best upgrade you can at your position of greatest need -- CF/RF, C, SS. To my mind, and I've posted this several times, we have in-house options at all three positions, but the greatest need is probably in the OF. Furthermore, I think our bullpen is fine, all in all. Yes, it blew chunks earlier in the season, but it's been doing very well for quite a long stretch.

Has some great numbers for the Smokies.

Let's go Nationals!

Soto and Kroeger hit HRs too. Colvin hit his first AA HR. It's time for Soto to get the call.

The Cubs still need a bat; I don't think they have the trading chits for two. Luckily, the Cubs have potential in-house solutions for all three of the needed positions. How I would improve the team: 1. Rightfield is a glaring need. Floyd has been lackluster at best, and Jones has been terrible. It seems that we have a DeRosa/Floyd platoon for the moment, but it's a stop gap. Murton is still a decent option, though he's not exactly lighting the world on fire in AAA. Still, he's worth a shot. Alternatively, you could try and go after something in the trade market with Murton as a part of the package. I'd try for one of these three guys who might be available: Griffey, Nady and Byrnes. Regardless of what you do, get rid of Jones. 2. Catcher. Why in the world did Hendry trade Barrett? I don't care that the Cubs reeled off a winning streak in the wake of the trade; Hill and Bowen are terrible. Outright Hill to AAA and bring up Soto; there's no way Salty will be had from Atlanta, and he's the only reasonable C that might be available. 3. Shortstop. Go with Cedeno, make Theriot your utility guy and DFA or trade Izturis. At this point in the season, you're only on the hook for $2.3M more for him, there's really no excuse not to simply release him. Trade Izturis to Baltimore for whatever you can get. With Tejada out, they are playing Freddy Bynum and Chris Gomez -- there's a need there for his services. 4. Eyre. Get rid of him as soon as you can. Just find a way to get rid of him. He's eating up a roster spot and is essentially keeping the 'pen at 5 men, rather than 6. The offense at C and SS has been so bad that it really can't get any worse. There's no risk in giving Soto and Cedeno a shot, and there's plenty of potential reward. For RF, I'd work the phones and try and see what you can get. Here are the moves I would make, and since we know Lou will want to go to 12 pitchers, I'll keep that in mind: 1. Trade/DFA Izturis. 2. Outright Hill to AAA. 3. Call up Soto. 4. Call up Cedeno. 5. Demote Pagan or Pie to AAA. 6. Remove Dempster from the 15-day DL.

Time for transactions: 1. Drop D. Lee, Add P. Fielder (Group C) 2. Drop A. Kearns, Add J. Rollins (Group D) National League still rules.

Personally, I love the emotional yo-yoing many do with various players when they struggle. One week he's great, the next he's shark bait, etc. Trade him for peanuts, DFA him, send him to AAA. Where's the hate for Piniella keeping Rich in a crappy spot? While Rich may have thrown the pitches, it was clear that he had nothing. In such a situation, it is incumbent upon the manager to make a change to improve his team's chance of winning. The bottom line is that Rich struggled yesterday, but he wasn't as awful as many make him out to have been (I was at the game, and I DVRed it, too). Hindsight is always 20/20, but I would have pulled Rich in the fifth inning (I annoyed my wife by commenting to this effect repeatedly). He was tired, struggling with command, and facing the heart of the Nationals order (such as it is) in Zimmerman, Young and Kearns with 1 out and runners on second and third. That was the right time to replace him, regardless of Lou's obsession about the impact on the 11 man bullpen. Bring in Wuertz to face Zimmerman, Young and Kearns, and you have a good chance to end the inning with no damage. Zimmerman is prone to the strikeout this year -- 60 K's in 369 AB, and his splits against RH pitching indicate vulnerability (51 K and a line of .218/.266/.380). Granted, historically, Young is better from the left side of the plate, and if you are really worried about that, you walk Young by giving him nothing good to hit. You then face Kearns, who has a line of .243/.308/.342 against right-handed pitching. Or you could walk Zimmerman, intentionally, giving up another baserunner for Young and go for the DP with a tiring Rich Hill who was giving up fly-ball after fly-ball yesterday. Good managing is about giving your team the best chance to succeed and using the players you have available to best advantage. Lou did not do this on Wednesday, and it cost Hill and the Cubs a grand slam and turned a winnable ball game into a rout. Admittedly, the Cubs scored no runs, in the end, and perhaps it wouldn't have mattered. But, at the time, no knew the end result of the game, so taking the best percentage option to get out of the inning seems like the right course of action. 2-0 is better than 6-0, last time I checked.

Going with the goalie... oooooh, and I broke the tie. Hmmm. Maybe *I* should lock it. Muahahaha!

Unfortunately, I believe you will be proven correct.

I think people are ignoring the single biggest factor in all of this. To be kind, I'll say it's "familiarity." . That wouldn't explain both a drop off after marriage if you dated for a long time beforehand and a dropoff after marriage if you didn't date for long (you and bob). It's not until after marriage until the "last person you'll sleep with" thing really hits you in the head. there's always the Dayton Swim Club lol

Bruce has a nice article up on the nixed trade and other sundry Cub happenings this morning. Here's a blurb:

I'll be there again tomorrow. I can't wait.

So true. As soon as I got to RFK Stadium and saw our lineup flash on the scoreboard, I knew any sort of W would be gladly taken. Lou must've figured that with now-minor league washout Tim Redding on the mound (vs. Z), scratching out 3-4 runs would be doable even without Ram. Another huge pro-Cubs crowd...tonight I'd say it was closer to 45-50%, definitely an even better Northside showing than yesterday. Only negative from tonight IMO is Derrek- the guy's swing just doesn't feel right. Driving every single ball right into the ground with little burst whatsoever. When you watch him swing, you don't even get the sense that 6 HRs in July is abnormal. That's how 'off' he seems to me. PS Marmol is absolutely filthy. The Nats fans (who of course had no clue who Carlos was) couldn't believe how badly he embarassed Belliard in the 7th with men on, the key AB of the game. Yea I got the feeling there was quite a few Cubs fans there tonight when it looked like the crowd gave Z a standing O when he was leaving. We did. :) I was in row 5, section 117 -- behind home plate and a little towards the 3rd base dugout. Incredible seats. Highlight of the game: Marmol's first pitch to Belliard. That had incredible movement. Unhittable.

Perhaps we haven't really gained on Milwaukee, but the key is to just keep winning games. The gain in the standings will come, either against Milwaukee or in the wildcard, provided the Cubs keep on winning. Right now, the Cubs should be focused on getting to about 5 games over .500.

US should have won the game. That's all I really have to say, other than I was disappointed with Bradley's coaching/subbing in this game.

I think everyone this side of Brinoch will agree that Tillman is the better player. I could get behind Vasher being overrated if people still think he's better than Tillman. This is a good contract for a good player, though. Vasher has his weaknesses in his game but he's a good #2 cornerback. :D Actually, I think Tillman and Vasher are both decent cornerbacks, and Tillman is better than Vasher, all in all. I don't think that Tillman is the lock down #1 corner, though, that everyone thinks he is. This is opposed to the general prevailing opinion on the board, but I think an unbiased evaluation of both of them will back me up: Tillman's good, but not great. Vasher is good, but not quite as good as Tillman. Now, on the other hand, in the Cover 2 scheme, you don't need wonderful CB's; they need to be decent (and they both are fine for the Cover 2). They aren't a problem area in this defense, in my mind. The real problem in the pass defense, such as it can be called a 'problem' wasn't the CB's at all, it was recognition and reaction by the FS and SS and the nickel-back when the CB's released on routes over the middle. Secondly, the LB/DT coverage of the RB safety valve pass up the middle was absolutely terrible last season. That was the achilles heel of the Bears' passing defense. Time and again, I saw gains from this play that should have been covered; I'm not sure if the fault was with the personnel or with Rivera, but it was pathetic and they need to plug it. More important than the secondary, frankly, is the penetration and pressure applied by the front four. They need to get better at applying pressure and hurrying the QB. The best CB cannot stay with a WR forever -- or even all that long once the route has been run and the WR starts coming back to relieve pressure. Good defense (like offense) starts with controlling the line of scrimmage. Without pressure from the D-Line, teams will pick apart the Cover 2 and create tremendous problems for Vasher and Tillman.

Beckerman looked like he had no idea what to do with the space Argentina gave him, and then I realized that no one was making any runs.

We've heard that it's a lefty from low-A Greensboro, so if that's true, it eliminates Ungs. I find it odd that it would be leaked that it's a lefty from Low-A, and not hear an actual name. It could be that there are slightly different price tags associated with each pitcher. Or something.

Ching made a tremendous play to turn a defender and Sanchez, but then he blew the easy part and hit the post. Overall, today he did very well, and at the top of his game he can be very McBride-like. But he isn't consistently that way. Ching didn't look too bad, all in all. He missed an easy puppy, and still needs to learn to finish. I'd rather have Ching in there over Johnson or Twellman. I think the US needs to look at perhaps making Beasley a forward in the Thierry Henry mold. He's certainly got the pace for it, if not the finishing instinct. The defense still needs a lot of work. No one marked anyone. It seemed that on every corner Mexico got a head on the ball, but couldn't direct it goalwards. Gooch looked better and I though Spector did a decent job against a tough Mexico left side, but Bocanegra and Bornstein were less than impressive. Bocanegra looks better than he is, in many ways, because he does recover well, kind of like Hejduk. That said, the US should have won this game about 4-1. Mexico's first goal was terrible. The midfield and defense simply fell asleep and let Mexico run through, but Howard was unbelievable on that shot near the end. Mexico did enough for a goal (and perhaps two). On the Beasley muff, Donovan made a nice pass and hit Beasley in stride. That was a gimme goal. End of story. Ching's, while tougher, was also an empty net and should have scored.

A good friend of mine is a die-hard Sox fan. Let it just be said that he hates Hawk more than I do.

I hate when we have Mexican refs. They almost always do a terrible job. Not only did he botch that offsides call, but Iain Hume should have been red-carded before he scored for his blatant knock down. And Hejduk didn't deserve a yellow on that play after getting head-butted. I grant, however, that the ref *might* not have seen the play, and you have to depend on your linesman.