dew1679666265

I wouldn't be all that aggressive in trading Kosuke. If we get a good deal for him (relief from most of his salary and/or a decent return) then I'd trade him. But I don't think it's necessary to dump him for nothing or pay most of his contract just to get rid of him.

I'd keep Byrd for now. Obviously, if you get bowled over in a deal you make the trade, but he's in the first year of a three-year deal and shouldn't be overpaid by much, if any, at any point in the deal (max base salary is $6.5 in 2012). He seems to work well with Jaramillo and could be consistent production for us at a relatively cheap price – especially since we don't have a large number of outfielders in the minors he's blocking.

We were very much in the race last season well into July and August and DLee's OPS' by month were: May: .955 June: .973 July: 1.028 Aug: 1.014 April was his only bad month and he was very good pretty much the entire time we were in the race.

They also lost a championship game as well. It really doesn't make any sense at all from Fox's perspective.

I really don't get this from Fox's perspective. Why invest that much money into a conference that really only has two big markets - Texas and Oklahoma? If the reports are true, this is a great deal for the Big XII teams, but is very likely to lose a lot of money for Fox.

I'd love to see the SEC pull off OU, Texas A&M, Va Tech and Virginia. I doubt it'd happen, but that would probably be best case (and semi-realistic) scenario.

I don't know if Loud doesn't want Gorz in an important bullpen role or if there's just not an important role to give him. We've already got Marmol, Cashner and Marshall in the back end of the pen and Howry has pitched well in earlier innings. I'd like to see Gorz back in the rotation and the solution may be to let Wells work things out in the minors (if necessary).

Because he was asked a question, I think. If he just randomly brought it up, it'd be weird, but he was asked about Stone's comment and answered the question. The more PC answer would have been a fluffed up "no comment" but instead he gave his opinion.

Not happening, but I'd love to buy low on Haren. More realistically, Conor Jackson would be interesting. He's been bad for a couple of years now, but a lot of that could be bad luck - he's posted BABIPs of .207 and .270 while having LD%s of 18.1 and 26.8. He could come relatively cheap and be a stopgap type guy at first base potentially.

This is true, but irrelevant at this point. Grabow's on the roster and, thus, CCP is right - let Grabow pitch in place of Russell and see if he can build some trade value (which he will if he performs close to what he's done the past couple of years).

I really like the dominion_full theme. Not a big fan of the flames on the icons, but otherwise, it's probably my favorite theme. Really sharp looking. Good work on everything and thanks Tim!

I don't see any need to trade Gorz. He's been very productive for nearly a full season, has very good minor league numbers and is cheap. He's exactly the type of player we need to keep around. I'd much rather keep Z than deal him for Peavy. Z has been much, much better than Peavy in a starting role this year and is younger. As for Lee, I'd keep him around til closer to the deadline and see if he can hit a hot streak. If he can, the Angels may get more interest and we could get a better return on him. I'd have to think just about any team out there would be very interested in Lilly and by the deadline, there may be some legit interest in Silva if he can keep this up.

If we traded Aramis, Z and Grabow right now (or once Grabow gets healthy), how much salary relief and prospects do you think we'd get? As for current salary availability, we have more than you'd like invested in not enough players and likely won't be great in 2011 whether we keep the status quo or we have a Marlins-esque firesale. However, we do have roughly $42 million to spend next year and roughly $80 mil the year after if we don't raise payroll a bit. That's more than enough money to, along with the likely additions we'll get from the farm, to put together a very competitive, if not great, baseball team by 2012.

They are $20 mil behind the Red Sox in payroll this year and were ahead of Boston last year in payroll. They have the resources to compete with Boston, but not New York. That said, plugging holes with free agents isn't the only solution. They absolutely should be building up the farm system, but selling incredibly low on Aramis, Z and others isn't going to do much for the farm. Selling for the sake of selling isn't the right thing to do here. We don't have many huge contracts swallowing up all our payroll, even if we do have one or two huge, long term contracts. We have plenty of payroll room to compete without selling players for pennies on the dollar at their lowest point of value. If those players have no trade value whatsoever at the moment, but likely will in a season or so, there's absolutely a reason to keep them around. Aramis, Z, Grabow, etc. could all have exponentially more trade value in the offseason or early next year than they do right now. At this moment, we'd do well to get a team to eat some of Aramis and Grabow's contracts, much less restocking the farm. If, however, Aramis posts an .850 OPS the rest of the way and starts off 2011 hot, we could get some nice prospects and dump most or all of his contract. Selling is as much about timing as anything. This is not the right time to be selling off a lot of our pieces.

Here are a couple of links that have led many on here to view Ryno the way they do. Just thought it would be helpful. FJM Yahoo! HOF speech

I don't know about anybody else, but I don't think Lou sac bunts way too often. He tends to let the wrong guys steal sometimes (Theriot when he's not having success) and he hits and runs a bit too much, but I don't think he overly sac bunts all that much.

Like I said, Mick didn't indicate that Ryno was annoyed or angry at Ty Wright when he laid down the bunt. That means either he called for the bunt or didn't disapprove of the decision. It could have been otherwise, but everything points to Sandberg calling for the sacrifice.

Ty Wright? I suspect he was trying to get on via sac bunt especially considering that was his one and only SH of the year. He had 7 sacrifice bunts in 2009.

There was also no indication from Mick Gillispie (the Smokies' PBP guy) that Ryno was upset with Ty Wright or anything like that. From the way he reported it, it was a sac bunt called from the dugout.

As TT said, it could have been the 4 hitter instead of the 3 hitter, but otherwise that's exactly what happened. The runners beforehand reached base and then Sandberg had a sac bunt laid down to move the runners over. If there was another reason for doing it, I haven't heard Ryno give why. But seriously, take Sandberg's name out of the equation. Wouldn't you think something unusual happened here? A missed sign? An attempt at a bunt base hit? There's plenty of explanations that make more sense than "Sandberg was giving up an out to move his base runners over with his 4 hitter so his 5 hitter could drive them in". I thought it was pretty crazy as well and thought for sure I had misheard. But as I said, Mick made it pretty clear that it was a sac bunt.

As TT said, it could have been the 4 hitter instead of the 3 hitter, but otherwise that's exactly what happened. The runners beforehand reached base and then Sandberg had a sac bunt laid down to move the runners over. If there was another reason for doing it, I haven't heard Ryno give why.

When did this actually happen? I feel like it was hyperbole thrown out by someone at some point and has turned into the definitive proof that he would be a terrible manager. Hell, even if that's what the box score actually reads, we don't even know if in that particular situation the number three hitter was someone that had decent speed and thought he could reach by sneaking in a bunt that turned into a SH. I don't remember which game it was, but it was during his time managing the Smokies. I was listening to the radio when the play happened and was pretty stunned, to be honest. And there was no doubt that it was a sacrifice, Mick Gillispie called it that way from the start.

Your last sentence is the key point there. A team with the monetary resources the Cubs have shouldn't and don't need to get rid of every veteran making big money – or any kind of money if we go by a Marlins-esque firesale. We have a decent chunk of cash coming off the books after this year (Lilly, Lee, maybe Aramis) and more than that the next year (maybe Dempster, Kosuke, Aramis, Silva, Grabow). After this season, we'll have $103.5 mil invested in 9 players. Aramis, Grabow and Shark are the only ones who haven't been productive this year. If payroll stays the same as it is this year (no indication it won't go up), we'll have $42 mil to spend to fill holes – not counting the young pitching ready to come up. After the 2011 season, we'll have $62.5 mil invested in 7 players. There's no reason we can't keep some productive veterans and still rebuild the team. Z is only 28, he can still be part of the future. And with as well as he's pitched in a starting role the past few years, I don't know why he wouldn't be. I also wouldn't trade Aramis now. There's a realistic chance he rebounds and there's no reason to get pennies on the dollar for him now when he could be an .850+ OPS guy again. The difference in record isn't as big a deal as playing games with a bunch of minor league filler. We're a big market club, there's no reason we can't wait out some of these big money veterans who have proven recently they can perform (Aramis, Lee) instead of trading them for extremely marginal return and sending out a bunch of players who have no chance to perform at the major league level. If you're talking about selling high on some guys like Soriano, Lilly, Silva, etc., I'm fine with that. If you're talking about selling extremely low on guys like Lee, Aramis, Z, etc., just so we can play Hoffpauir, Tracy, Atkins, etc., I don't see the logic.

It's commonplace among HS and CC/JC players, especially in later rounds. Most of those guys have commitments to major programs (or have those aspirations), which they feel would give them a much greater chance of being drafted higher. For example, if Chris Anderson goes off to Jacksonville, sharpens his pitches, and shows that he has the durability needed to maintain his stuff deep into games and deep into the season, he could find himself drafted much higher and get a lot more money. Yeah, I understand the idea of overslot guys, it just seems like we've gotten more of them than normal. It may just show how little I've followed the draft in the past, though. But keep in mind these aren't overslot guys who deserve upper-6 figures or even 7 figures. These are guys who should be bought out for $50 - $200k and a lot of them are just more interested in college because they know they need to grow/mature/improve before they can get the bonuses they want (which is why they have sometimes have outlandish demands). The Cubs will likely follow a few of these guys in the summer to see if they're worth their tough sign status. That's a good point I hadn't thought about.

It's commonplace among HS and CC/JC players, especially in later rounds. Most of those guys have commitments to major programs (or have those aspirations), which they feel would give them a much greater chance of being drafted higher. For example, if Chris Anderson goes off to Jacksonville, sharpens his pitches, and shows that he has the durability needed to maintain his stuff deep into games and deep into the season, he could find himself drafted much higher and get a lot more money. Yeah, I understand the idea of overslot guys, it just seems like we've gotten more of them than normal. It may just show how little I've followed the draft in the past, though.