XZero771679666304

I hate so say it, but I'm with you, J.R.. I almost want them to lose.

Bingo. Sell, sell, sell...and we'll get more AAAA players in return. Dubois, Rusch, Mitre, et al...nobody's going to give up much for our role players. Combine a couple of those AAAA players with a Rich Hill, and you get something. Rusch also has value. You have to remember that there are teams out there with dire pitching situations and offense to give. When you are a team like Cincy or Texas, a Mitre, Rusch or Hill looks very, very good.

Even the cheapies are falling. Well, if the Cubs are going to tank, they should do it good and proper.

Neifi Perez is my hero! :roll:

If you get drunk fast enough, you might not remember the Cubs cough it up in an inning or two. Good point. :pint: You better hurry, here it comes. :evil:

If you get drunk fast enough, you might not remember the Cubs cough it up in an inning or two.

OMFG! A run!

I trade Dubois for him, but no one else on that list. McDougal seems to be another guy with good stuff and erratic control. I'd give up Dubois and maybe Koronka for him, but thats as far as I would go. We need to save Mitre, Cedeno, etc. for an impact offensive player. Pie, Harvey and Hill? Yeah right.

I'd take Williams over two Mitres. At least Jerome has more than one effective pitch, and has had sustained success (at least realative to Mitre's success). And with his low BAA, Jerome's problems doesn't seem to be alot of hard hit balls. I just don't see Mitre as being anything more than a streak pitcher, alternating between dominance and batting practice, depending on how good his sinker is. In all honesty, I think Sergio is in his last weeks as a Cub. I too would trake Walker, perhaps to Texas if they still want him. I'd trade Cedeno, but only if Dusty remains. If Dusty is fired, I' d keep Perez and Holla. If not, I trade them too. I would trade Barrett if an upgrade is available. In fact, I keep Lee, ARam, Z, Prior and the rest are eligible to go. Wood's value is low at the moment and he has a no trade, so his departure is highly unlikely. Same with Maddux. If this thing goes way south, just cut loose what you can, bring up some kids to prepare for 2006 and wait till the offseason.

I'm not holding out any hope for that until they score a run.

I don't think that's Corey's problem. There have been some steps in Corey's development and progression to the majors that you can question. But Corey is the only one to blame for how poorly he's performed this season. There's no excuse for him to revert to perform at a lower level than he did in 2002 as a 22 year old. The booing and scrutiny contributes, but the problem is Corey's abysmal plate discipine and lack of any kind of consistant approach. UNtil he fixes the root cause of his failure, the aggravating circumstances will remain.

BTW, love your screen name, TRD. I tried to get the gmail address therobotdevil@gmail.com, but every variation on it was taken. :( Thanks a lot. I've promised to change the Robot Devil icon if D Lee plays at the All Star Game (This was before he was voted in), but I love the guy - it was his "how deliciously ironic" that did it. I think I prefer him to Death on Family Guy... rest assured, however, its just a name. I'm neither evil nor robotic. Favorite Robot Devil line: "You're not nice!" Favorite Death line: "I'll see you real soon... hahaha, is he kidding?" Great characters. I have nothing to add regarding the actual game being played, btw. The episode where fry swaps hands with the Robot Devil is easily my favorite Futurama episode. Fry: These hands are so cold! RD (from off screen): And yet hell is so hot! hahahaha... Can I have my hands back? Fry: NO! RD: You're not nice! I love it.

i do not! I'm just a masochist. Cubs fan = masochist

The way I see it at this point, there are three probable paths this season can take from here: 1. Hendry gets the teams some help and they claw back into the WC race and make the postseason. Chances of this happening IMO: 15% 2. Hendry gets us some help but the Cubs only manage to hover on the cusp of the WC race and ultimately fail to make the postseason. Chances IMO: 50% 3. The Cubs tank before Hendry can arrange a suitable trade to help (and such trades are hard to do without paying alot this early). The Cubs drop far out of the race, and a total overhaul takes place. Chances IMO: 35% I would love to see #1 happen, #3 would be painful, but to tell the truth, I am scared to death of #2. If the team is to fail, I want something positive to come out of this season. Hovering around and creating the illusion that circumstance has held the Cubs back would be a disaster, IMO. If anyone has read ant of my posts over the past three days, they know what I think of Dusty Baker. In addition to Baker, this team needs to be purged of overpriced and/or useless vets, i.e. Remmy, Macias. Maddux would be nice to trade, but I doubt that happens. Holla and Perez would be nice to retain, but only if they are used properly. Cedeno needs to play. The only way any of this is going to happen is if an overhaul happens. I say if We can win , then definately win. But if the Cubs are going to tank, then they should do it all out.

Another thing people fail to realize is that not every "great" prospect is guaranteed to even see the bigs. I am not an expert, but I believe that if you have, say, 30 "great" prospects and even 7-8 of them have any real success, you're doing pretty damn good. THe problem comes when people expect every name they hear with the label of a great prospect to amount to something. That just isn't the reality of it. And the Cubs prospects have panned out well on the whole, unfortunately many of them have done so for other teams.

We have some players who would be worth a look, but I doubt they will help us win the WC at this point. Even then, Dusty wouldn't play them. I have read a few places the Hendry wants to call up Murton and Pie within the next month, but I fail to see what good that will do unless Dusty is gone or his veteran toys are taken away from him. The Braves are winning because Bobby Cox is intelligent enough to realize that his rookies are a better option than his washed up vets on an everyday basis, and Dusty is not. Any effective youth movement here is impossible until there is a philisophical change.

Would you have said any of same things to the Marlins in 03, or the Astros when they fired their manager and went on a tear? Me thinks not. Teams have been known to turn around when managers get fired, and I'm sure the team is sick of Dusty's moronic lineups he trots out their daily. They might fight better for a manager with at least half a brain. Come on. Do you really think the Astros would've won had they not gotten Beltan and if the Marlins didn't bring up Cabrera? In 2003, we won the division because Houston choked and because we got Lofton and Ramirez who were better than playing Goodwin and Harris. So, no, the manager alone won't make a difference. No the manager alone won't make a difference, but the problem is that even if we get the right players, Dusty may not play them. He doesn't even play the players he should that we do have. I have in the past defended Baker, but this team can't win with him. Multiple changes are in order, but Baker is the major catalyst that has exacerbated the problems this year. When you don't have a surplus of talent, you have to maximize it, and Baker minimizes it. Plus he has had a couple of players openly wondering what the hell he is thinking, and with good cause. What we have now is a total mess, and extreme measures are called for. Any list of changes that have to be made must start with Baker's removal.

You don't get it. No one is saying Grieve is great, or should start. All he has to do is take a walk to be an improvement over what has been coming off the bench. It's not like anyone on the bench is that much better (aside from Cedeno), particularly Macias. Swapping out Macias for Grieve would be a world of improvement. Grieve is more of a major league player than Macias is or Wilson was, and they were on the team.

Are you trying to defend Dusty's decision to put Macias in the 2 spot in the lineup or am I misunderstanding your post? I think he actually was. You don't need to be a member of Mensa to know what total garbage that lineup is. What Dusty is doing is unbelievable. Every day it's further down the rabbit hole.

its sad that we have to state what should be obvious to everyone. i havent been paying too much attention the last week or so. i assume dusty actually did this? i also assume a GIDP was the result. which game? Last night, and he struck out. With Dubois, Barrett and Cedeno sitting on the bench.

No kidding. Or Dubois, Barrett and Cedeno.

Are they in contention now? I don't think so. I think the point was that as long as we have the starting pitching we do, the Cubs wil be a very dangerous team.

I fount the bit about Hendry calling up Pie and Murton in late July or August interesting. In order for this to have any point at all, he would also have to deprive Dusty of Patterson and Hollandsworth.

I still don't see why Baker is the only problem on this team. Barrett sucks (4-46), so a new manager is going to get him to be better? Patterson sucks right now, so a new manager is going to get him to play better? Hairston misses signs and runs the bases poorly. A new manager is going to change that? Maddux has a 5+ERA. A new manager is going to change that? Burnitz turns into Moises Alou on the bases. A new manager is going to change that? Baker is part of the problem, but don't kid yourself into thinking that the players have nothing to do with the record and poor play. The players have a lot to do with it. However that problem is exacerbated when you have those who are performing the worst in the spots where they can do the most damage. Patterson and Perez 1-2 with their atrocious OBPs while Lee scalds the ball with no one on base, Hairston on the bench after he demonstrated exactly why he should play on the field, Hawkins used to close when everyone knew he couldn't and after Dempster had been suggested, Cedeno called up because he's white-hot only to ride the bench behind ice cold Neifi, Holla being allowed to play every day early in the season when he couldn't hit a beach ball with a tennis racket, while red hot Dubois was relagated to PH duty, behind Jose Macias. Batting Macias first off the bench while a group of better hitters watch.....etc. And you can't forget what happened to Chad Fox, who everyone and their cousin knew shouldn't pitch back to back games, at least early, who hurt his elbow pitching in a blowout game. It is a litany of the absurdly stupid. Have the players underperformed? Sure. Should Hendry have addressed LF and the pen more in the offseason? Absolutely. But neither of these things has had anywhere near the effect that Dusty's catastrophic managing has. Now he has players (Walker and Hairston) openly baffled and irritated by his total lack of logical thought process in his managerial decision making, and with just cause. Then Dusty says stupis things, like after last night's game when he said that "We're getting hits, but we're getting them with no one on base." Huh? He says this after benching Hairston, who had reached base in nearly every at bat the previous two games in favor of the second most automatic out on the roster. Dusty's actions have transcended being indefensible into a stratum of absurdity that I can't find the words for.[/i]

I think the chances of Wood waiving his no-trade to go to Philly are about a trillion to one.