Soul

Can't trade Murton or Pie. Cheap/upside in the outfield, which is what we desperately need--not only to make the team work on the field, but also to make our financial layout make more sense. We are a baseball club that has been thoroughly dominated by two other clubs for over half a decade (other than 2003). And both of those other clubs have brought up significant position talent and spend much less than we do. Our ballclub needs a homegrown position player to hang its hat on.

That game was just legendary. Mongo nearly killed me. I was laughing so hard---Angel Hernandez was just standing there, face beet-red, fuming at Mongo up in the booth. Then the crazy play at the end. My Goodness. What a great memory. Thanks for posting that :D

Stone also said one more thing, which was obvious, but encouraging: Jim Hendry wants to have a good offseason. He is motivated and positioned well for 4 reasons: (1) has more than $30M to spend (2) has decent young talent in the minors, which he can trade (3) he was 4 games below .500 (4) he finished behind the Brewers They better get used to finishing behind the Brewers. With the potential addition of Furcal and Pierre, no way do the Cubs finish behind the Brewers. Brew Crew looking better & better. With the addition of Furcal & Pierre, it would still be a pretty good battle IMO.

Not long. Maybe a couple weeks. He can't afford another offseason like last year, when the perception around the league was he was unable/unwilling to do anything until the chips fell his way on one player (Sosa). The whole league saw how that turned out. Hendry must put forth an aggressive image this year.

Believe it or not CPatterson's ceiling might even be higher than Pierre's. Maybe so, but CPatt's had years of showing he can't tap into his potential. I'm guessing most teams aren't interested in Patterson's ceiling as much as they are resigned to the idea he will never reach it.

At least Furcal is a definite upgrade over what we had last season. I don't mind this move, assuming Hendry can pull it off.

If the Cubs don't get Furcal, there's still backup plans left. It appears that Castillo, Kent and Soriano will all be on the market. They can just go w/ Cedeno/Neifi @ SS. Of course, Sori and Kent aren't leadoff men tho. Going to need to get someone from CF in that case. You may have missed it somewhere, but I'm not willing to hand Cedeno an everyday job, either. Unless of course we have ++ offensive production from CF, RF and 2b. And I don't see that happening. Of course, with Hendry's philosophies of wanting to improve defense, I think it will be especially hard to find ++ offensive production AND good defense from all 3 of those spots. With just 80 major league at bats, we don't know whether Cedeno is a better or worse hitter than Neifi. Fact! I sit and think about all the different scenarios that have played out. I still think the best option would have been to invest their attention on resigning Nomar, getting Giles, keeping Walker and signing Lofton while spending any remaining cash on the pitching staff. Option #2 would have been to get Furcal instead of Nomar, sign Giles and Lofton and retain Walker, with the rest being spent on pitching. In these scenarios, Cedeno is the back up. Ah not willing to fully endorse Cedeno yet. Can respect that. These youngsters should earn their spots and not have it handed to them. I'm confident they'll get the bats this offseason, as they have more financial freedom, w/ Sosa gone. My template for success is signing Giles and getting Abreu. :) That would be great, except this is the Cubs. I would be shocked if they went out and put forth the effort to win a couple big boppers like that.

My Dad, and of course the afternoon ballgames on WGN. I grew up watching bad Cubbie baseball-----players like Ivan DeJesus, Steve Swisher, Rick Reuschel, Billy Buck, Bruce Sutter, Jerry Morales.... Jack Brickhouse called the games back then. My Dad passed away recently. Raising me a Cub fan sure did teach me some lessons on how to handle losing gracefully. Dad was part of an entire generation of Cub fans who never got to see the Cubs win a World Series. It's gotten so bad, many of these guys & gals fought in WWII (or worked to produce the weapons of war in the case of many of the ladies). Now they're passing away, and still the Cubs organization doesn't care enough to field a winner. For shame. Shame on this franchise.

Well, for anyone wondering what the answer to the great offseason Cubs question is: Will the White Sox winning the Series finally make the Cubs field a winner? We have our answer.

There's a little thing about lineup projections in early November: they're always way off. We'll see what happens. This lineup doesn't look like a playoff team to me, so are you worried or do you think if it came to fruition it would be good?

Excellent post. The big issue with Kerry has been his ability to stay healthy. When healthy, he's been one of the best pitchers in baseball. Using wins as an attack against Kerry is ignorant. It shows a lack of understanding of the game in general. I don't care if Joe Morgan thinks so, it's still idiocy. Correct. The biggest justified complaint against Wood is his inability to stay healthy. Unfortunately, that complaint appears to be well founded at this point. It could turn him into the greatest pure pitching talent to never put together a solid string of good seasons. I certainly hope not, but I must admit I'm worried about it.

Definitely worth the click just to see the picture. That, Ladies & Gents, is the look of a man who just stole millions of dollars and knows it.

There are basically two ways to go. One way is to spend on free agents, which costs alot of $$$. The other is to build from within, which requires a good farm system. In the case of free agents, Hendry is limited because the Trib won't let him truly spend like the top-tier teams, ala NY & Boston. In this case, we're screwed. In the case of building from within, the Cubs' minor league system hasn't produced reliable position talent for decades. The pitching farm seems alright, but that's half the puzzle. So, we're also pretty much screwed in this case as well. I don't see it. We're not bringing in the franchise-changing talent from either the minors or free agency. It's not happening. We will see what happens in the coming months. Right now it's pretty bleak from where I'm sitting.

So Neifi isn't going to start in 2006, just like he wasn't going to be a starter in '05, right? mmmmm, yeah. We all know he will wind up starting alot of games. This just proves the Cubs have no commitment to winning.

I will admit this much: the field seemed rather weak this year. I didn't see the true powerhouse teams that usually make the playoffs. The Yanks & BoSox were mere shadows of their former selves. The Angels were good, but not great and they had Colon injured. The Cards were injured and choke-happy. The Braves were the Braves. Choke-o-matic. The Padres were the weakest team to ever make the playoffs I've ever seen. So the Sox pretty much had it easy. That said though, I'm convinced the White Sox were the best of the playoff teams this year. Even though in many other seasons they probably would have been beat, this year they seemed to be the best overall club. Congrats to them.

Yeah people on this site never get down on Cubs management. It's all excuse making and White Sox hating. You're being sarcastic, right? We've been dissing Dusty Baker since the 2005 season began, and Jim Hendry and company haven't exactly escaped punishment either. Yes, he was. Good to see reality has started to take an effect then. I admit I don't have time to visit NSBB every day (or every week for that matter), but last time I was here there was nary a soul (no pun intended) who was willing to side with me when I called Hendry's work this season into question. All sarcasm aside, I imagine it's much harder to live in Chicago proper being a Cub fan right now. I don't, so that makes it easier on me. I'm sorry the Cubs won't be the team celebrating. Believe me, I am. Maybe this will be the impetus needed to bring a better ballclub to Wrigley.

It needs to be said. That Astros lineup is incredibly weak for a World Series team. How did they get here again? That's got to be the weakest NL Champs lineup I've seen since the Mets in the all-NY World Series. The Cards must be the world's biggest choke hazard losing to them.

Some of you need to dose up on tranquilizers. So what if the White Sox win the World Series? Maybe our Cubbies shouldn't have wasted all those years and all those dollars then, huh? Be angry with your own team. They're the ones who have let us down. Hating on other's success will only make you a miserable person.

On the subject of Joe Morgan, only one thing needs to be said: Thank God the World Series is on Fox. However, I have to agree with goony on this one. Morgan isn't throwing out racist comments in that article. He's just expressing concern that his favorite sport is no longer very popular with black youth. I fail to see what's wrong with that----and I *loathe* Morgan.

Wow, his voice is really unique. So strange to hear that from a big guy.

2006 is shaping up to be yet another year on the MLB scam-wagon.

I don't care how they spend their money or how much they spend. I don't care if they spend $55 million like the Marlins did in '03. Just whatever they do, do it well enough to win the World Series. That's the trick. And that's what takes what the Trib doesn't have-----desire to win. Build a championship organization. Take a page from the book of the winners. Or, if they can't do it, then sell the team to someone who can. Just freaking win. After 100 years, there is no excuse. None at all. Just get it done, whatever it takes. If it takes more money, then just do it. If it takes less money, then that's fine too. Just please, no more excuses from the Cubs and the Tribune. I've heard them all and it's gotten old.

Basically, we get to play 6 against the AL Champs while St. Louis gets to play 6 vs. KC, the AL Chumps, right? That's a 6 game swing like always. Another season of easy-schedule Cardinals... Oh, and the Stros probably get their annual 6-game "rivalry" against the Rangers. They must be quaking in their boots. I'm just assuming all this, of course...........I don't even care if I'm right this season. It's complete B.S. that we must put up with one of the roughest rivalries in all of baseball year in & year out while the Cards play their AAA affiliate.

I'm not sure. Leave it up to Everett to find a reason to be upset at a time like this.

It's just the White Sox's year. There will be no stopping them. The road was pretty much easy in the playoffs, and they're a pretty good overall ballclub. 5-4 Sox. Off Oswalt.