Soul

Hill starts again last night, blowout. Kendall starts & it's either a loss or a struggle to win. Just sayin'. Of course this is all based on unimpeachable, flawless science.

I'm afraid they'd treat him like Wade Miller though and hold on to him even if it's obvious he can't pitch anymore. The Cubs and "projects" scare me. Yes. After labrum surgery, @ age 31? I'm nostalgic, but not that nostalgic. Matty might never pitch well again.

The knock on Braun has never been his hitting; it's always been his defense. For his entire minor league career, Braun's been knocking the crap out of the ball (he did struggle a bit in High A in 2006, but that was after mowing through Rookie and Low A in 2005). Braun will cool off a bit as pitchers adjust to him, but his hitting prowess and power isn't a fluke. Well, crap then. Gotta hand it to them, Crew have built a fine farm.

that's only this year.... last year he was fine on the road, and 2 years ago he was lights out. He's been one of the better middle relievers in baseball. It's a good pickup for the Brewers, but they had to pay a pretty steep price in Inman. So was Scott Eyre. Hasn't Linebrink led the league in holds for a couple years though? I know, holds aren't a sexy stat... I dunno. Maybe the Padres know something, maybe they don't think Linebrink is a lock to return to his former good pitching. I thought the Crew was decent in the BP anyway, although tonight they sucked. Wise has been sucking a bit, maybe that was the Crew's reasoning.

Going from 1HR/12ABs to 1HR/9ABs is a jump in production. That's really all that needs to be said. I'll let others draw their own conclusions about whether they think Barry is a nice guy.

He's been less than his usual self this year, he's a potential free agent, and they have had several relievers performing as well or better to pick up slack from trading him. I suppose. They still just took one of their better arms out of their bullpen in the middle of a pennant race. Prospects or not, it is odd to be selling key pieces when you are leading the WC race.

Terrible.

Uh oh, wanted Poo Holes up with 'em empty.

Um, I think you're looking at your numbers wrong. Bonds went from hitting a home run every 12 AB's from ages 31-35 to a home run every 9 AB's from ages 36-41. How is that not a significant jump? Whereas both Ruth and Aaron hit home runs less often. Yeah, I was thinking the exact same thing. Looks like Bonds went from 1 every 12ABs to 1 every 9ABs. That's a big time jump in production. And post-35, too? I've never run the numbers league-wide, but I feel like that would be almost in unheard-of territory.

LOL, what the hell is going on over there?

It sounded like they had a basic agreement once the deadline passed, so I'm not that surprised. It's certainly nice to have it done two days before camp begins, though. I was fully expecting him to symbolically sit out at least part of training camp, if not all the preseason. But I was certain he'd be around for all 16 games. I wonder how the "Bears are having a disastrous offseason" crowd will respond. Won't we be returning 20 starters from last year now (minus Tank & TJ)? Yeah, real disastrous LOL.

Seems all but clear he's finished. I mistakenly thought he would at least hit well enough to be better than Hill. My bad. I wonder if they'll just dump him and bring Soto back up.

They're currently ranked in the upper half of per game attendance in the major leagues. Just thought I'd note that. If you were aware of that before your post, we define the word "pathetic" differently. Look at their stadiums during games, they are never filled. Since Chicago is a big market i'd wager there's a bunch of scalper type of people who just buy a crapload of tickets hoping to sell them and are left with alot of extras, like they do for the Cubs, except Cubs fans actually buy most of the scalpers tickets. Let me see if I understand this. You believe that scalpers -- who have a significant financial disincentive to buy tickets they can't sell -- are buying "craploads" of tickets they can't sell? :shock: From what I see, on the weekends they're pretty full, but during the week there are plenty of empty seats. I believe that's the case for many teams around the league, so it wouldn't be a suprise that they can still be among the higher attendance teams even with weekday 'empties.' I don't see anyone outside of the Yanks and BoSox who pack their building on weekdays like the Cubs do.

All draft picks now signed, nice work JA: http://www.chicagobears.com/news/NewsStory.asp?story_id=3612

Good. I hope it happens. This freaking Murton is a god, crap, again. Uggh, Hendry. Noone said he's God we just want him to play instead of that nagging injury dude. I'm just sick of everyone bowing down in front of the "Golden Calf" Matt Murton. Look, he's not the next Barry Bonds like all you guys think. Enough with the BS comparisons to great players. Nobody is calling him this. People look like idiots constantly criticizing people for doing something they aren't doing. Calm down, killer! I thought it was pretty obvious that I was only joking around. I'm a big Murton fan and I think it's ridiculous that he's in Iowa right now. Yeah, you were taking a dig at me. That's fine. I shouldn't be posting when I'm barely awake enough to type.

I believe they will resign Grossman if he has a good season. And I believe there will be money to sign him if he has a great season. A great season by Grossman virtually assures them of at least an NFC Championship appearance, and probably the Super Bowl. They have always been good about maintaing a smart cap. There will be space, or they will make the space. Besides, when was the last time a marque QB (and under this scenario RG would be marquee) actually signed as a free agent with a new team? If he fails to improve from last season, I think they will either try and get him back on the cheap or let him walk. Drew Brees was probably the last "marquee" QB (under your definition) to be signed by another team just 1 season ago. His team had a different guy that they wanted to promote, and he was coming off injury. Plus, he took a bit of a step back. I'm talking about a QB coming off a great season whose team wants to keep him. It's not like baseball, where stud pitchers routinely do to free agency and leave. If a team finds a QB, they typically keep him, unless they already have his replacement on board. Agreed, although Grossman is sort of an unusual case in that respect. Usually QB's get signed for pretty long deals out of college, and by the time they hit free agency the team knows if they are going to sink or swim. Grossman got that type of contract as well, but because of all the injuries a lot of the decision making will have to be based off of this year alone (because if he has a good year this year, last year can simply be chalked up to growing pains). I do agree with you that the Bears won't let him go if he has a good year, although that might mean that his top receivers this year will be cap casualties. If Grossman really did perform well, like let's say a pro bowl appearance, then wouldn't that put resigning Harris at risk? I was under the impression we're pushing it cap-wise now. Cap numbers (up-to-date, accurate ones) seem difficult to find though, so I'm really not sure. I'd do whatever it took to keep a pro bowl type QB too. We've searched so long for a good one.

No steroid allegations + magic number 3,000 = HOF. I don't see how being the best player on your team matters. He was one of the best 2B in the business for a long, long time. Plus, come on. Mazeroski got in on .260 BA, .299 OBP(!!), .367 SLG. Nobody can tell me Craig's .282/.365/.434 doesn't blow that out of the water 6 ways to Sunday. Bigs played longer, too. Without commenting on Biggio's qualifications, we're not really using Maz as the baseline, are we? He's in, isn't he? It's a 2B comparison, Maz is in and Bigs will be voted on. How is that not a valid comparison? Not my fault the voters put Maz in. Fred Lindstrom, Jimmy Collins and Brooks Robinson are in the Hall of Fame, therefore Ron Santo has also been selected. I've always thought Ron should be in. Is that just another one of my stupid notions?

What did he say about his injury??

Before Tillman got his chunk of change, I thought maybe the Bears might revisit a long term deal with Briggs after the season...but now I'm not so sure about that. Nah, he's gone. I think re-signing Harris will be the priority next. Say Grossman puts up a decent, but not great, year. What do you think the Bears do? Send him packing? Sign him for a moderate amount? There won't be budget for a huge deal @ QB (I don't think), so if Grossman were to explode on the scene that could be trouble cap-wise.

Those numbers don't clearly show to you that Bonds has a major jump in production post-36 that neither Aaron or Ruth had?

Ahahahahahhaahhh. I'm sorry, I just read the thread title and that was enough. Kendall. Evaluation. HAhahahahahahah.

Was at the game so didn't hear their comments. It's okay to do that once, but twice? Especially for a catcher, that's bad. On a somewhat separate note, they had Al on 1380 this morning here. Man was he ever cranky. He basically said this year is over, sell off whatever you can get value for and look a few years ahead. Also expressed doubt that TLR would be back next season. Both pitches were right down the middle. I think it's okay to do it once on a borderline, but neither was borderline. And then he tried calling timeout while Zambrano was in his motion. I will give Buck credit for calling that correctly. There was never a hint that they thought Molina should have gotten the TO. But that's about as far as I'll go. The rest of the game was quite humorous, actually. Even the camera crew was getting in on the act, showing every little thing Zambrano was doing, trying to make it out like he was losing it or something. Maybe they were just hoping he'd lose it.

Well, I still care :) I wish Briggs would be a Bear for life but it's just not happening. You're right we got what we needed, which is another year of Briggs so we can work on his replacement.

Buck was all over Z for being too emotional, then had to admit Z had another strong outing later in the game. It was pretty funny. It's just very painfully clear that Buck digs through the Cubs local stuff to find ammo to use against us when he does his broadcasts. Pathetic, really.

Good. I hope it happens.