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Dave Magadan

The Heredia trade was Noel, Orie, and Justin Speier (best player in the deal) for Heredia and the great Steve Hoff. The Karchner trade was for Garland straight up.

The first Cubs prospects I ever got excited about before they hit the majors were Kerry Wood and Steve Rain because Harry asked Steve Stone about them on multiple occassions and Stoney was high on both.

Andrew Lorraine

Is naming two against the rules? Mike Perez Marc Pisciotta

John Coppolela. He's kind of a scouting/saber mixture guy who Fangraphs mentioned early on as an under the radar good hiring for the Cubs job (along with names like Hahn, Ng, and others). He's been mentioned a few times on this board.

The problem is most of what you said isn't necessarily an indication that he'll be a successful manager. Before the season, every indication was that the players loved Quade and guys like Dempster were pushing hard in the media for Quade to be named the manager last year. The players respected Quade and busted their ass for him last year and into this year as well. Quade managed for a number of years in the minors and earned his promotion to be a ML manager as well. None of that is an indication that a manager will succeed in the role. As for winning at the minor league level, again 24 games over .500 in five seasons is decent, but it's nothing that makes me immediately feel like that guy should be given the ML managerial job. Especially when in at least one of those years he was managing the most talented Cubs minor league team in the system (Tennessee in 2009 that had Castro, Barney, Carpenter, Cashner, Colvin, Gaub, Guyer, JJax, Mateo, Parker, Russell) and managed only a 71-69 record.

The manager should be an extension of the GM and the organization's philosophy. The general manager should set the philosophy of the organization (what type of hitters and pitchers does the team want, etc) and the manager should help to execute that philosophy by promoting whatever offensive and pitching approach that philosophy calls for. With extreme exceptions (20- and 21-year-olds in the majors, for example), the fundamentals should be taken care of throughout the minors - so if you want to hire a guy because he'll preach fundamentals, then you should be pulling for him to be a minor league manager where that teaching will be far more useful. Except for the youngest of players, if you're trying to teach fundamentals at the major league level, you've failed already. Whoever the Cubs hire as GM should have full reign over bringing in a manager of his choice. If that GM is Epstein and he feels Ryno will work inside the constraints of the organizational philosophy Theo sets, then I'm ok with hiring Ryno. Hendry's biggest problem with the Cubs is that we never had an organizational philosophy, it changed with each managerial hire. When you rely on the manager to set the philosophy, it changes with every new managerial hire. You should hire a manager to fit your organizational philosophy, not let your manager set your philosophy.

So, basically, you have no clue on who should manage. Nobody "should" manage the team. Personally, I'd like Martinez, Bobby V. or Francona. I like Martinez because he was a relatively marginal player who was very sound defensively and has been the bench coach for one of the very best managed/coached teams in the majors for four seasons now. He's worked under an excellent manager in Joe Maddon and would ideally bring a similar approach to managing himself. Have no issue with Bobby V or Francona. But how does Martinez warrant a shot and not Sandberg? Sandberg has done all he can do to get a shot. He answered the question in the bolded section of his post. Ryno has done none of those things except be sound defensively.

You're probably right, though I was referring more to fans who loved the player and didn't word it well. Fans are clamoring for him because he's Ryne Sandberg and they really liked watching Ryno play, not because of any real managerial merits he's shown.

In all honesty I don't know how you know any of this. I don't really care that much if he has pet names to refer to players or not, it has nothing to do with whether he can help us win games or not. On the other points, there's no evidence of this at all except for things he's said. But if we should dismiss the smallball-related stuff he's said and done in the past, why should we take seriously the disciplinary stuff he's said? What it comes down to right now is that he's a Hall of Fame player who has been an ok manager in the minors who's said some stuff that sounds good and some stuff that sounds bad/cliched. If hired he may turn out to be a good manager, but there's simply nothing to indicate he will. To top it off, former great players are generally the worst coaches/managers out there because they expect the same work ethic/talent that they had when they played and they're simply not going to get it from most players. It's generally your marginal players (Girardi, Torre, Lou, etc) who make the best managers.

Is it better to give Ryno the job simply because he was a really great player and a lot of people like him? If you take away the name and consider a man who's been a minor league coach for 5 years total and compiled a 364-341-1 record, is that a guy you're really clamoring for?

I was a pretty big opponent of the Garza trade when we made it, simply because I felt like we were giving up too much young value for a pitcher who hadn't yet made the step up to elite status. Now I'm really glad we made that trade because Garza made that step this year and is one of the best pitchers in the majors now. Lee is a really good prospect and I still like Archer's potential, but that was a good trade.

And even then, he's not exactly been stellar in W/L record either.

If anybody likes offense, watch the Tennessee/Georgia game. There may be 100 points scored in that game. I can't imagine Tennessee's defense will stop Aaron Murray very often and that will lead to Bray and the Vol offense passing it a lot - and they should have success with Da'Rick and Arnett going against UGA's defense. I'd strongly favor Tennessee in this game if Hunter were still healthy, but even without him I think Tennessee stands a decent chance at winning.

My thinking is they're a young, bad team with a really great coaching staff that is able to scheme them into games. Losing to Clemson, as we've seen, wasn't a bad loss so the only bad game they've had thus far is the should-have-been loss to Utah State. Overall I don't think they're as good as they've shown, but the coaching staff is propping them up. Also, South Carolina isn't nearly as good as people think.

I think you downgrade him simply because it was his actions that caused them to make the decision. Had he not acted the way he did, the dumb decision would have never been made. I don't think you downgrade him considerably, though.

That's exactly the reason I think we should keep him. Z's a perfect example of being worth more on the roster than he is in a trade.

The same way Koyie Hill could get anything other than an F from anybody.

Sorry, thought you were referring to mine and bukie's posts about the way we were grading. As for Z being at C+/B-, I don't think that's all that high. It's more a grade on his performance while overlooking the blowup, I think. The problem is that Dempster, Garza, Soto, and Russell aren't much higher than that. Demp should be a B or C, Soto should be a B, and Russell and Garza should be As. I'm not sure what your question is here. His pure on the field value is probably a B when you combine his offense, pitching, and defense. However, I think you have to drop him a bit because it was his blowup that led to him missing a month of the season. That's why I'd put him around a C or so.

It's just the Browns, but the Titans are looking really good so far through a half. Jared Cook is a major mismatch for anybody on the field.

The overwhelming majority of national and local sources were saying that Hendry was going to be back next year ... even after Ricketts had informed Hendry that he would be fired. Even if the reports are that a reconciliation and managerial job is awaiting Ryno, that doesn't mean it's true by any stretch.

Really good win for Tennessee today. It was over Buffalo so we should have won easily, but it was nice to see the offense put up 41 points against anybody without Justin Hunter. Next week against Georgia is going to be the real test to see what this team is without Hunter, though.

wasn't he rumored for the bears job? I think he might have been before Fisher was fired and Dinger left. He was a really good offensive coordinator.

Former Titans OC Mike Heimerdinger died today. Really sad.