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Or they could go to a North/South setup: North Missouri Kentucky Vandy Tennessee Arkansas Georgia South Carolina South Florida LSU Alabama Auburn Texas A&M Mississippi Mississippi St If you go with 9 conference games, you'd have Tennessee with the 6 division games, guaranteed games vs Florida and Alabama, and then one rotating game. It'd work the same for each team. The South would be pretty rough in football, though, with that top 5 group.

Barney's cheap, can play fantastic defense at second and short, and is capable of giving us 2-3 WAR a year (and maybe more if his bat ever does anything). I'd send him to Boston if I had to, but I'd rather keep him if they don't ask.

This could actually be one where getting one pick right may make another wrong. You may be right on the Titans (though still a lot of doubt there) and if you are they may just knock off the Texans for the division. Probably not, especially if we keep losing to the Jags, but possible.

While I'm 100% behind pursuing either Wilson or CC, the only way we could conceivably get both would be to pass on Fielder/Pujols due to budget constraints (unless Ricketts really jacks up payroll, which is possible but can't be assumed). The perfect offseason for me is to sign Wilson (prefer him to CC due to age and less mileage) and either Pujols or Fielder. If you can free up a bit of money or raise payroll just enough, keeping Aramis would be icing on the cake.

The mods may cut off this conversation (in this thread at least), so I'll keep this fairly short. First off, nobody is assuming anything in terms of CJ Wilson. Everybody I've seen on here who wants Wilson is arguing that we have as much money as anybody coming off the books this offseason and should pursue him very heavily. If he hits the open market (likely considering the kind of money he'll be looking at), the Cubs have as good a chance as anybody to get him. Doesn't guarantee anything, but they absolutely should pursue him. As for significant difference making options being available, there's always doubt as to who will actually become free agents but guys set to hit the market the next two years include: 2011 offseason: Pujols, Fielder, Wilson, CC, Reyes, Beltran, Sizemore, Wainwright (maybe) 2012 offseason: Ethier, Kemp, Phillips, McCann, Kinsler, Wright, Haren, Shields, BJ Upton, Cain, Greinke, Hamels, Liriano, Hamilton Will all those guys be available in their respective offseason? No, but some will and we'll have options and the means by which to acquire more than one of them. This also doesn't include potential trade targets, and at least a couple will pop up over time. We'll have our chances to improve the team enough to have a chance to contend. To try to keep this marginally on topic, bringing in a high profile GM like Epstein with a track record of success and WS titles plus the whole history and tradition of the Cubs organization would make us a very attractive place to free agents and might give us an edge.

Right, which is why I wouldn't oppose adding him as a safety net should we lose out on the good options. However, to be a high reward type of guy, you have to have some upside. Garland has none - if he pitches great (for him) we might get an ERA close to 4.00 and a K/9 in the vicinity of 5. He's a safe choice, but he's not a choice with any upside and that's what I took issue with in your post.

Tim said the same thing earlier and as I said to him, you may be right but Moore already did everything he could to ruin Alex Gordon. They've got a ton of really good prospects, but Moore has also shown a weird fascination with gritty vets like Podsednik, Betancourt, Jacobs, and others. His recent Greinke trade didn't help him in my eyes as there's some value in that deal (a few of the players are thought of highly), but it appears he didn't get much upside in the deal.

I'd be really surprised, given his injury issues, if Cashner were considered very strongly for the major league rotation next year - at least early on. I expect they'll start him out in the AAA rotation and maybe give him some time in the majors as an injury fill-in or something. And I really hope they don't move Shark to the rotation. He's just now settled in and started excelling in the pen, don't start moving him around again. My guess is next year's rotation is Garza/Demp/Wells/?/? - with the question marks being filled by two of Z/Wilson or CC/cheap filler options.

Is he really a high reward type of guy? He's had 3 seasons out of 12 where he's posted an ERA below 4.00 and has a career K/9 of 4.86. His best WAR season was 3.9 (1.9 career average) and his xFIP has been between 4.10 and 4.86 his entire career. He's a really good bet to be mediocre. That said, I'd consider him if the Cubs give away Z. He's a really good bet to provide stability (stable mediocrity, but that's better than we had this year) to the back end of the rotation should we miss out on both Wilson and CC. I don't see any way that he's a high reward guy though.

I'm going to have trouble not buying into the Titans if they can knock off the Steelers this week. With the Britt injury I just can't quite buy into this team fully even after the 3-1 start, but 4-1 with wins over Baltimore and Pittsburgh would start to get me excited.

This seems like a really stupid question to me and I never dreamed before the year I'd ask it, but it's become a necessity to ask. Who do I start: Rivers @ Denver Cam v New Orleans Cam's been flat out better than Rivers in every way possible this year (Cam's scored 100 points in this league to 58 for Rivers), but the matchup would dictate Rivers. Also, same league: I have the Jets defense, but they're at the Patriots. Do I keep them and hope they get some turnovers and don't get torched too badly or do I go with one of these options: Bengal D @ Jax Titan D @ Pitt Colts D v KC

You may be right if he doesn't do everything he can to screw up the glut of minor leaguers like he tried with Alex Gordon. Stuff like trading for Yuniesky Betancourt, signing Scott Podsednik, trading Alberto Callaspo, acquiring Rick Ankiel, trading Leo Nunez for Mike Jacobs, etc. He can build up a farm system to be sure, though it's taken him 5 years to do it. The part that bothers me is the apparent love affair with gritty (really bad) veterans like Podsednik, Jacobs, Ankiel, Betancourt, and others. The recent Greinke trade is kind of in the same vein as well, good value overall but not a lot of upside or really good players.

My concern with one of the unknowns is the very real chance we end up with a Dayton Moore - a much hyped, well liked guy on this board who came up in a successful organization and turned out to be a horrid GM. I wouldn't complain at all if we got a Cherington, Hahn, or Coppolela, but there's more of an unknown with every one of them as to whether they can build a successful organization under them and whether they properly implement what they've learned or not. With Epstein, Friedman, or Beane we know they have the knowledge of how to build a successful organization and we know they'll implement an optimal organizational philosophy. I think you're looking for the perfect GM, and that person doesn't exist.

Samuel Peralta Sosa

No kidding. They were some really good value during a time when the Cubs really didn't get good values. Did that time end without me knowing? Once we hire Epstein or Freidman, it will.

Rick Wilkins. Now theres a guy I thought we'd be watching for years to come. Another Cub catcher I thought would be good (but for no good reason that I can remember) is Damon Berryhill. I think I liked him because I had one of his baseball cards. I was a real deep baseball thinker back then.

Not sure if they're obscure but, Mike Morgan and Terry Mulholland

No kidding. They were some really good value during a time when the Cubs really didn't get good values.

You would be correct sir. To make up for the mistake, Lance Johnson. When we traded McRae, Rojas and somebody for Mark Clark and Johnson, I thought we were getting Carl Everett (no idea why I thought that). I was disappointed to realize it was Johnson instead.

I was so excited about Rojas, thinking we had gotten a stud closer. Then he was awful. I also hated when we got rid of Van Poppel.

Larry Caspian And less obscure, Terry Adams

Also, Don Wengert

Dave Hansen Mike Hubbard. Trenidad Hubbard Dave Swartzbaugh

Dave Hansen Mike Hubbard.

Yeah, Noel was the best regarded player at the time (former 1st rd pick I think). Speier ended up being the best player in both deals and by a wide margin, though.