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But Aaron Miles makes that less pathetic? DeRosa is much better at hitting RHP than Miles. But this isn't about Miles, it's about acquiring Milton Bradley. Look, I hate losing DeRosa, never said I didn't, but as Hendry said, they couldn't move Ramirez, Soriano, Fukudome, or Lee, so DeRosa was the next name on the list that Hendry considered expendable to make salary room for a Milton Bradley contract. 3yrs of Milton Bradley + the 3 prospects from the Indians V.S. 1 more year of DeRosa...I don't like it necessarily, but I understand it. There are ways to get a left handed bat into the lineup without moving DeRosa. Jeremy Hermida and Luke Scott are both available through trades - and with either we wouldn't have to downgrade from DeRosa to Aaron Miles. I don't have a problem with trading DeRosa - I'd have been in favor of it if it improved the team. This trade did not improve the team, all it did was allow Milton Bradley to play 90 games for us and give us Aaron Miles for second base.

Search through the board, this has been discussed thoroughly. The Cubs hit good RHP well in the regular season too. And of course you use the biggest copout, which is that Lou and Hendry agree with it. What about when Dusty was batting Patterson Neifi in the 1-2 spots and doing all sorts of other dumb things? We can't question him, because he has years of baseball knowledge, right? Basically you're saying we can never question anybody in charge of running a baseball team, which is really dumb considering that they make huge mistake all the time. Really weak. Piniella seems to get the benefit of the doubt alot . Lou doesn't play Pie because hes not ready /good etc. but Dusty doesn't play him because he hates young kids etc. Lilly throwing 130 pitches in a game is ok because "Lou knows his pitchers"If Dusty did that..... I don't know, I've seen a ton of hatred for Lou over not playing Pie. We had multiple threads during the season asking if Lou was better than Dusty, does Lou know what the crap he's doing, here are all the bad moves Lou's making, etc. There were also the usual "Free Pie" and "Play Pie" posts and sigs and whatnot. He took a lot of flack. And pitching Lilly for 130 pitches is a lot different than pitching a young Mark Prior or Kerry Wood that many pitches. Lou also took a lot of flack if he let Z get much over 100 pitches. He's taken plenty of flack, he's just gotten less than Dusty because he's such a better manager than Dusty. Managers seem to get too much credit when they win and too much blame when they lose. That's usually very true.

Search through the board, this has been discussed thoroughly. The Cubs hit good RHP well in the regular season too. And of course you use the biggest copout, which is that Lou and Hendry agree with it. What about when Dusty was batting Patterson Neifi in the 1-2 spots and doing all sorts of other dumb things? We can't question him, because he has years of baseball knowledge, right? Basically you're saying we can never question anybody in charge of running a baseball team, which is really dumb considering that they make huge mistake all the time. Really weak. Piniella seems to get the benefit of the doubt alot . Lou doesn't play Pie because hes not ready /good etc. but Dusty doesn't play him because he hates young kids etc. Lilly throwing 130 pitches in a game is ok because "Lou knows his pitchers"If Dusty did that..... I don't know, I've seen a ton of hatred for Lou over not playing Pie. We had multiple threads during the season asking if Lou was better than Dusty, does Lou know what the crap he's doing, here are all the bad moves Lou's making, etc. There were also the usual "Free Pie" and "Play Pie" posts and sigs and whatnot. He took a lot of flack. And pitching Lilly for 130 pitches is a lot different than pitching a young Mark Prior or Kerry Wood that many pitches. Lou also took a lot of flack if he let Z get much over 100 pitches. He's taken plenty of flack, he's just gotten less than Dusty because he's such a better manager than Dusty.

So the answer to great right handed pitching is to acquire bad left handed hitters? I don't see the logic. And Hendry isn't infallible - he signed Neifi Perez, Jose Macias, Shawn Estes and traded for Antonio Alfonseca. This is one case where I think he's wrong. If you want good left handed hitting (which is fine), don't focus on Bradley at all costs or Aaron Miles, go after Jeremy Hermida or Luke Scott and keep a good hitter (DeRosa).

It was a trade to free up cash to acquire Milton Bradley, and that's a bad thing. We downgrade a decent amount at one position to slightly upgrade at another - and we spend a whole heck of a lot of money to do it. Keep in mind that Bradley is very unlikely to play 100 games for us. Meaning that Hoffpauir/Reed/Gathright will get lots of at bats this year. That delivers a huge sting. Plus, we also downgraded in the pitching depth. I'd be fine with it if the alternative is to make the lineup worse by acquiring bad left handed hitters (Aaron Miles). But, keep in mind those aren't the only two options. Jeremy Hermida and Luke Scott are available - both are lefties and both are much better than Aaron Miles and would not force us to play the trio of Hoff/Reed/Gathright.

Fontenot is a LH though, and now will get to play everyday which will help against LH pitching. Miles is a fine hitter against LH pitching, yes he has very little power. But he can hit for average and get on base well against lefties. IMO every hitter doesn't have to have good power, hitting for average and talking walks also help make the line-up go, if you have other power hitters around them. I agree that OBP is important, but Miles just doesn't provide enough of it. He'll get on base at a mediocre rate and has no power whatsoever to balance that out. He's an older, slightly worse version of Ryan Theriot. If a guy can provide what Theriot did last year (a .380+ OBP) with no power, I can live with that. Miles is unlikely to come close to that.

To say Miles can't hit is quite a stretch. The reason he was signed is because he is a capable hitter. The guy hit .290 and .319 with an OBP of .342 the last two years with the Cardinals, granted not in a full time role, but I think Miles can duplicate these numbers and hit around .300. A lead off guy hitting around .300 with an OBP of .330 is respectable. It's an extremely low goal to shoot for and a lot worse than what DeRosa is likely to produce. I'm not happy at all with a player who might get a single 30% of the time. He doesn't slug, and gets on base much less than the extreme lowest I'd want out of a top of the order slap hitter. I'd want no less than a .350 OBP out of the leadoff spot - something Miles has barely done once in his career. And for a guy who will not slug at all ( career .364 SLG) I want much better than the very low end. He's actually a slightly worse version of Ryan Theriot. The fact that he's left handed will not save him. Add to that, all I've heard is that he's a poor defensive second baseman - which would mean a terrible defensive shortstop - and he's no better than a bench player at best.

I've heard all of DeRosa is sexy, though. He's better even in that, apparently. the tribe has stole my heart, i can't even bear to read or hear his name anymore must. force. self. to. love. miles. and. dreamy. eyes. of. golden. splendor. Maybe the opposing pitchers will fall for his dreamy eyes and walk him every time.

Aaron Miles is not good, though. He can't hit righties or lefties very well so I don't understand how starting him - much less in the leadoff spot - is a better idea than DeRosa. And Jeremy Hermida is a left, as is Luke Scott. Trade for one of them instead of signing Bradley. There's your left handed bat and you keep DeRosa, a far, far superior player to Aaron Miles - no matter the hand that either hits the ball with.

I've heard all of DeRosa is sexy, though. He's better even in that, apparently.

two teams I don't care about + Thom Brennaman = just changed the channel to what??? There's a Monk marathon on USA. I'm sticking with this game though.

two teams I don't care about + Thom Brennaman = just changed the channel Kenny Albert or Pat Summerall would have been worlds better than Brennaman. I just don't understand how he's their top broadcaster (save for Joe Buck and Troy Aikman).

He's replaced guys with slight downgrades at some postions, to improve at other postions. IMO Bradley is a nice upgrade compared to what we had in the outfield, and when he's in the line-up it will be lethal. He did downgrade at 2b a little and in the bullpen a little(could be though) but the rotation will be about the same. So right now we upgraded one spot, and slighty downgraded two spots. So the team is a little worse, but not much worse then when the season ended. Upgrading the rotation, will put us at a overall good offseason and make us better. Plus I think having more LH hitters in the line-up will help more then people think. The upgrade in right is slight, at best, because we'll have almost 80 games (most likely) with a mixture of Hoff/Reed/Gathright out there. But, again, if we add a top of the line starter (Peavy) I'll think differently about this move. It hinges on that, though. Left handed hitting is good, but only when it's good left handed hitting. Bradley meets that requirement, but Aaron Miles does not. Miles will be getting quite a few ABs now that DeRosa is gone. No matter what hand he hits with, that's a bad thing.

My fear would be the huge demands of Andy MacPhail/Peter Angelos. They are not rational men.

So you're saying its your fault Roast? Somehow I always suspected this. [-X

That they decided to arbitrarily trade him doesn't make the trade good. It made the team worse overall, so it was bad. A) we cannot yet value those pitching prospects. Afterall, the cubs have shown a pretty good track record with identifying/developing pitchers. B) not if this is the Part A of a multiple step transaction. Wait till all the dominoes have fallen I would say, or till the first pitch is thrown. A) The prospects may become good, but they appear to be very high risk, high reward players. They'll almost certainly not help us this year or next, as it appears. So I don't understand how the DeRosa trade helps us now, unless . . . B) It might be a multi-step transaction. I've said a few times (not sure if you've seen it, though) that if this chain of events nets us Peavy, I'm pretty happy with it all. Most of the reports I've seen, though, say the DeRosa trade is not connected in any way with Peavy. That troubles me.

That they decided to arbitrarily trade him doesn't make the trade good. It made the team worse overall, so it was bad. You keep repeating this over and over as if the fact that Bradley and whoever the fifth starter will be (Gaudin/Marshall) will automatically be worse than DeRosa and Marquis. Personally I would rather have Bradley in RF and Gaudin in the rotation if it comes to that than have DeRosa in RF and Marquis in the rotation. The fact that the move potentially opens the door for the Cubs to get Peavy if everything works just right with the Padres makes me more willing to do it since without moving DeRosa and Marquis we know there definitely is not enough salary room for Bradley and Peavy. If they can't close the deal with the Padres then Hendry should have some wiggle room come the trading deadline to make a move to improve the team. There are injury risks with Bradley but when he is healthy he puts up all star caliber offensive numbers. With DeRosa there are significant regression risks considering his age and the fact he is coming off a career year but his upside is not as great. I think Hoff showed enough last year for me to think that if Lou picks his spots well he will combine with Bradley to give the Cubs a very good offensive RF. Marquis has been flamed here for 2 seasons and now that he is going to be gone it is amazing to me that suddenly people act like it is going to be a significant loss. I think the Cubs got the best they could hope from him the last two seasons and are smart to get rid of him now while there is still some value. On Bradley/DeRosa: If Bradley were likely to be healthy for a majority of the season, I'd be cool with all of this. But the huge likelihood is that we'll have 85-90 games of Bradley and 72-77 games of Hoff/Reed/Gathright. I'm not optimistic that the latter trio will be better than keeping DeRosa and going after a cheaper RF option such as Scott, Hermida, etc. On Marquis: I was not one of those who "flamed" Marquis for two years. I argued that he was, in fact, a decent enough starter who had value unless we found somebody better to replace him. I was never, and still am not, in favor of dumping him without replacing him with someone better. And, as I've been saying, if we acquire Peavy or sign Sheets/Lowe/etc, I'll be a lot happier with the trades of DeRosa and Marquis. Otherwise, I don't expect this team to be as good.

I'll go ahead and beat that poor, dead horse: We need a playoff to correct this stuff.

Of the national title? Why? Auburn didn't get one in 2004 and they were undefeated. Auburn wasn't the only undefeated team though. Utah would be and they'd have wins over Michigan (lol), Oregon State, TCU, BYU, and Bama. You haven't yet realized that play on the field doesn't matter in college football? It's all about the polls and subjective opinion - and the majority of that opinion wouldn't consider giving a split to Utah.

Of the national title? Why? Auburn didn't get one in 2004 and they were undefeated.

It was 38-14 and then PSU kicked a field goal. That made it 38-17. There would be no reason to go for two at that point - not worth the risk. The only problem I had was the non-onside kick after the TD to make it 38-24. Fine, when it was 31-7, they scored a TD and should have gone for two to make it a two score game. Same concept. That's a minor squabble at most. And most coaches aren't going to do it since the chances of making all three two-point conversions is very slim.

I agree, but the key word is yet. Adding Bradley will help when you consider there losing those guys. If we add another good pitcher(doesn't have to just be Peavy), I think we will be better. But if we don't make anymore moves I think were just a little worse, and still a good team. Adding Peavy or another good pitcher then I'd we would be just as good as last year if not better. I guess we will have to wait and see what happens the rest of the offseason. Adding Bradley isn't enough. He might be a slight upgrade overall from the DeRosa/Marquis duo, and I doubt that. If we don't get a very good starter, I'm unhappy with these moves.

Why do you think he's doing it for the heck of it? How do you know he doesn't think Fontenot is ready to play at least against RH pitching? It's not like what he's done in the minors and off the bench the last two years doesn't show that. Hendry probably wanted to start Fontenot at 2b, and decided he would rather have Bradley over DeRosa. Stuff like this only raises questions with the fans, but plenty of times last season the fans questioned him and he was right. Probably the only time they didn't was when they signed Fukudome, and as of right now thats really is only major mistake. His job is to make the team better, he believes Fontenot/Miles can do what DeRosa was gonna do and Bradley will give them a quality bat in RF. And I think he's making a poor decision because he wants another left handed bat in the lineup. I could be proven wrong, but if you have a sure thing to produce well (DeRosa) you don't then trade that away for three big question marks. It's just not that logical. I will agree with you that right now this team isn't better then the one that finshed the season. But I think their only a little worse, and still a 90 plus win team. Of course getting Peavy, Sheets or Lowe would put them past last year IMO. I still think were not done, and once we get a little payroll boost from the new owner we will add another pitcher. Then how are the moves Hendry made good moves? If we are a worse team now than before the moves and those moves (assumingly) were not forced on him, then they were bad moves. If Peavy comes in (or perhaps one of the others), I will understand the moves better. But not until then.

That they decided to arbitrarily trade him doesn't make the trade good. It made the team worse overall, so it was bad.

Any slim hope PSU had left was gone when Butler didn't run out of bounds. That was dumb.