Soul

It's morphed into this dazed-out, wake me up when its over kind of season. I'm not really sure this season actually exists. I might wake up from it. One thing's for sure. 10 years from now the only thing I'll remember is Castro, and I'll probably mistakenly attribute what he's doing in 2011 to some other year. This year's going in the circular file as soon as I'm mentally able. And Quade's going right along with it. Let's just fast forward to the offseason, please.

Take a few moments sometime and think back on the last decade of Bears OLine mismanagement. BoggleBoggle

I don't get it either. I thought they were going to move someone else in by now, but it hasn't happened. We've been talking about the Kreutz decline for many a season now.

It's a good call, much as I don't like Brennaman. Plus, it's always loads of fun to see the Cardinals get beat late. Anyone got video of that Pirates S-A-T-U-R-D-A-Y, HEY! call? That's an example of bad walkoff fare.

Holy crap, please stop. WE'RE NOT GOING DOWN ANY ROAD "AGAIN." Pujols and Fielder are not Soriano, no many times you attempt to compare signing them to signing him. And you never know what any FA will be 6 years after you sign them. You're going to be signing big name FA who are pushing 30 (or past it) unless you develop them internally. Well, the Cubs have absolutely nobody even close to that on the horizon, thus they need to go out and spend. When you sign big names you've got to pay. The key, again, is overpaying for the right guys, and yes, you WILL be overpaying for players like that. Always. And the Cubs are a big market with lots of money to spend, so I don't know why you want them to just automatically not spend money on big contracts unless it's on a player they developed themselves. They have the money to make these kind of signings and SHOULD make them. Yes, I wish the Cubs would develop players like Fielder and Pujols...but they haven't and they won't any time soon. In the meantime they need to sign good FA to go along with more and more players they hopefully develop from within who can be useful everyday players. I actually don't think we're that far apart. I just think we should take our pain for a little while, develop our system, and then re-engage in the free agent market because I think it would result in shorter, relatively lower-cost deals. For one, even if they wait, they won't get any impact players on shorter more cost effective deals. Secondly, if they are able to produce those players occasionally, how do propose to keep them if you are wanting the Cubs to avoid long term, expensive contracts? How will you be able to guarantee that when a Vogelbach, a Baez or a Maples ( all purely examples) are entering their FA years and their prime at the same time, similar to Fielder, that they will earn their long, expensive contract it will take to keep them? One way or another, either resigning your own player or going the FA route, you will have to spend eventually, and yes, a few will end up like Soriano, but others will be worth the money it takes to sign them. But the problem is, you can't possibly know that until you are well into or after the contract term. You seem to be saying you want them to go the small-market route and build from within and use FA to get fringe players to fill sparingly. Sorry, but you can't wait around hoping you produce a Pujols, Bonds, Maddux or Clemens. If you want those types of players, you have to go get them when they are available. Even if the Cubs create the best MiL system in the MLB, they may never produce that kind of player, so how long do you wait? If you are a large-market team, with the ability to have a top 5 payroll, you use everything at your expense to build a good team. Many on here have been saying the Cubs don't have to wait around to develop a winner. They're right. The Cubs have what, $62 mil coming off the books this year? And another $40-42 mil next year? If that isn't enough to fill the holes they have coming up (essentially 3 this year, 3B, RF/CF and 1B), they will NEVER be able to do it. I don't know if they'll be able to win the WS next year, but damn sure should be able to put together a team that can compete for the division or WC. That just seems like a resigned attitude when it comes to developing our own players. These guys come from somewhere. I don't think it's chance. It's great scouting and development. There's no guarantee it will happen that way. There's no guarantees period. I'm glad we've got a lot of money coming off the books. Now let's spend it wisely, not blow it all on a guy who will make us feel better right now, and quite possibly feel terrible years down the road. I don't view this as a small market attitude. I'm not saying we don't spend anything on the FA market. I'm saying there's got to be a way to introduce balance into this equation. And while I see teams like the Yankees & Red Sox winning plenty, I also see it done by teams with a different approach too. They aren't always the ones who win.

I'd like to avoid the situation where we are hamstrung with a long contract for a player or players who aren't performing anywhere near their level of compensation. Of course I want that happy medium. I think we just disagree on the best way to get there. I think we all want to get to that point where we are at that good mix of developed players and targeted, nicely-performing free agent acquisitions.

Nah... The target audience won't actually watch the movie. They'll just look at the ticket sales and revenue stats to decide whether it's a good movie. \:D/ It's a good point. This doesn't seem like real good material for a movie. The people who are interested in this want detail, as in the text that actually describes how Beane conducted his business. And that's already available at your local Barnes & Noble. Beyond that, it's just seeing if Pitt can portray an interesting character. Worth the price of a movie ticket? For me, nah.

Holy crap, please stop. WE'RE NOT GOING DOWN ANY ROAD "AGAIN." Pujols and Fielder are not Soriano, no many times you attempt to compare signing them to signing him. And you never know what any FA will be 6 years after you sign them. You're going to be signing big name FA who are pushing 30 (or past it) unless you develop them internally. Well, the Cubs have absolutely nobody even close to that on the horizon, thus they need to go out and spend. When you sign big names you've got to pay. The key, again, is overpaying for the right guys, and yes, you WILL be overpaying for players like that. Always. And the Cubs are a big market with lots of money to spend, so I don't know why you want them to just automatically not spend money on big contracts unless it's on a player they developed themselves. They have the money to make these kind of signings and SHOULD make them. Yes, I wish the Cubs would develop players like Fielder and Pujols...but they haven't and they won't any time soon. In the meantime they need to sign good FA to go along with more and more players they hopefully develop from within who can be useful everyday players. I actually don't think we're that far apart. I just think we should take our pain for a little while, develop our system, and then re-engage in the free agent market because I think it would result in shorter, relatively lower-cost deals.

http://espn.go.com/chicago/nhl/story/_/id/6773324/chicago-blackhawks-patrick-kane-surgery-fractured-wrist I wonder what he was doing. Sad to say, but my first instinct is that it was something stupid. It's the left wrist, geez :)

I mean - don't misunderstand me. I want Pujols. I want Fielder. But I would like us to move toward having those players in the way that the Cardinals & Brewers had them. And away from massively overpaying for past performance.

I can't believe you want to go down that road again. Nobody knows what Fielder will be like 6 years from now. Certainly not Pujols.

Well, define big contracts. I'm talking about insane contracts. $18million for 8 years contracts.

I still maintain that this would be perfectly fine, if they had more talent at RB and/or more ability on the line. But even after adding another 1st round linemen they still are very questionable at multiple positions (potentially all 5 actually), and they are steady but far from spectaculiar at RB. Without some a serious talent upgrade, they are still putting all the pressure on Cutler with very limited weapons. Maybe they should just do WR because its only one player, and I'm starting to doubt whether current management can handle revamping the whole line.

Why couldn't this be the case? Why do we have to become the Pirates for the next ten years just because we won't take on another huge, lengthy deal while our lower levels are brought up to speed? I don't understand why my theory -- wrong as it may be -- would necessarily mean that this team is heading for a disaster. There's no guarantee signing a guy like Fielder would do anything other than fill a few more seats while the team still languishes around the .500 mark anyway. And once you are realizing production from your lower levels on a more regular basis, that puts you in a better position to make saner forays into the free agent market, rather than feeling like you need to throw insane amounts of cash at a guy like Soriano because you have nothing else to go with.

I'm sure he's talking about the cubs' insistence on not going after one of the best hitters in the game entering the prime of his career. i mean, it's just common sense to see why any team would be averse to that. There's been a focus on the lower levels of the franchise, with time & investment in our facilities for Spring Training and in recruiting. And the contracts Hendry has been given license to sign have been shorter term deals (like Pena, for example). I don't buy that it's all because we have bad contracts on the books. Someone with a ton of money to spend and willingness to go nuts with it would eat the cost and move on. The fact that Ricketts hasn't tells me that he isn't going to stand for being locked in like that -- at least not easily or quickly. And it tells me he really doesn't have unlimited funds to work with anyway. More Soriano-type deals would just put us back in the same hole we've been in, that Ricketts now has to clean up. It doesn't make any sense to me to go through all this only to jump right back in again. He's enduring quite a bit of pain to clear our books of the bad ink. There have been empty seats, a real sense of apathy that hasn't been around this franchise for awhile. My read on this is that he's doing it because he has a plan to go in a different direction. That's what makes the most sense to me. Again, maybe I'm wrong.

I see, you ask the question and then answer it in the affirmative without anyone having a chance to say no. I'll have to adopt this tactic more often.

What indications were these? None. OK, it seemed clear to me we wouldn't be loading up on huge, long contracts like we used to, but I acknowledge I could be wrong.

Yes -- and that's probably part of what made him a good football player. But Goodell -- it's not his job to be liked by these guys. Harrison can hate him all he wants. I'm not even sure that's a bad thing. I don't really relish the idea of a commish who the players think is wonderful.

I don't think Fielder fits in with what appears to be Ricketts' new direction. It's another large, long term contract that he's given every indication he would like to move away from. Plus, you can expect the Brewers to beg, borrow, and steal any method they can find to keep Fielder from going to another team in the division. That would be disastrous for their organization. I don't think it happens. Pujols is out, too.

Yep, Campbell was fine. Today's game didn't, uh....lend itself very well to making an impression. But yesterday I watched all the way though, and enjoyed his commentary. I also kept thinking of MLB The Show. I presume that would fade fairly quickly if he were to ever land the job full time.

Obviously they didn't realize the guy was going to die when they did that.

I don't want to make it seem like I'm blaming the building designers -- obviously this is a horrible tragedy and the last thing anyone needs is a bunch of finger-pointing. I'll bet they raise that railing further, though. Or supplement it somehow, like Wrigley does in the aisles of the upper decks. Even with that, I feel like there's the possibility of someone falling over at Wrigley, having attended a game in the front row of the upper deck...

I wouldn't say people have given Z crap for absolutely no reason, though. I think that's going too far in the other direction.

Watching the video, it seems like that railing is really low. The perfect height for someone reaching for a ball to pivot and fall over... What a horrible thing to happen.

Awesome. That's the Nats, I guess. Give up an 8 run lead, but make damn well sure you have a conference at the mound to intentionally walk Soriano.