Tim

Definitely not Spears. It hasn't been 4 years since he left HS yet. Gomez was eligible for the Rule 5, but not selected. I don't believe the Orioles had him on their roster.

Let him be a backup OF. He's security if Pierre gets hurt, then if he gets hot you can spin him at the deadline. Like USS brought up, we hardly got anything for him, so it's not a huge deal if that deal isn't there next offseason, and there's a decent likelihood it will be. Keeping Corey would have been an inhuman, not to mention a media fiasco. I agree 100%. I was half-hoping the Cubs would either (a) keep CPatt as a $3M AAA player or (b) trade him for some other team's underachieving "talent" who also needs a change of scenery, or © make CPatt the last piece of a larger trade for an impact bat. That said, I don't have a big problem with this trade as long as the Cubs aren't paying Corey's salary (did I miss something or has this fact been reported yet??) I actually like the upside of this Spears kid from what I've read about him ... scrappy players tend to fly under the radar. Spears sounds like the type of guy people around here have been pining for. Someone w/ plate discipline is a nice change. Describing someone with Spears K/BB ratio as having plate discipline is a bit of a stretch. 36 BB, 82 K in 442 AB. Ryan Therioit has plate discipline. Spears .... meh.

I would say he has a chance to be decent in Baltimore but not in Chicago. And why is that? He was mentally fried and the fan's were all over him. Did you check out his body language? Did you go to a game in the 2nd half? It was horrible. I think you can take it as a given that I do watch Cubs baseball since I run a site devoted to them. Why do people even ask this question of someone who is a big enough fan to participate on these forums? Did you watch any Cards games last year?

I would say he has a chance to be decent in Baltimore but not in Chicago. And why is that? And why is Von Joshua (a well respected hitting figure here) saying Corey has regressed as a hitter? Egads. I never said that Von said that. I said that it is a possibility and we have no idea about a lot of information happening behind the scenes.

Good for him. I'd be glad he's doing well. That's not what I meant and you know it! If you are now saying that he has no chance of regaining his skills, what will you say if he has a decent season?

I would say he has a chance to be decent in Baltimore but not in Chicago. And why is that?

For all those people who think that Corey has no chance of recovering value, the team has very little blame in his development and the onus for his bad play rests entirely with Corey I pose this question: What will you say if he has a decent season in Baltimore?

To be fair, it is possible that Von Joshua reported to Hendry that it was hopeless and that he was regressing even further. There is much we just don't know.

I thought it was great when Hendry targeted Jody Gerut in a trade (though I hated giving up on Dubois so quickly). :D Then I hated it when he traded Gerut away so quickly. :(

Neither prospect we received is likely to be more than a backup or a bottom of the bullpen guy. What have they to be disappointed about? At this point, what were their other OF choices to go after?

Except that Theriot has above average defensive tools and, as you mention, well above average plate discipline. If you could staple the 42 extra base hits onto his resume, Theriot would be a very nice player.

It is interesting that you make this kind of statement given that you are certainly bright enough to know those comments are coming from different groups of people. It makes me wonder what the purpose of such a statement could be, other than to provoke the person you are addressing. I'm pretty sure with Neifi's bonus money he is indeed making 6mil. I was responding to the bolded portion of OCF's statement. I wasn't the one who put it in bold print, heck I don't even know how to do it!!I put it in bold to show YODC what part of your post I was responding to since there was a misunderstanding on his part.

Assuming your numbers are right, I'd replace Rusch with AJB or Millwood rather than Neifi. I think I'm in the minority, but I think he's a perfectly fine backup IF. The only problem comes if he's counted upon in a starting role, which I'm still hoping against. The crime here is that Hendry puts a product this inferior on the field with so much money to spend. A pretty damnable indictment if you ask me. Of course, I probably would have gone a cheaper route with the pitching and just worked my butt off to overwhelm Brian Giles to convince him to leave SD. Z/Prior/Maddux/Williams/rookie-until-Wood-is-back as a staff I would have saved the money wasted on Eyre & Rusch & Jones and offered it plus the excess $7M to Brian. I like my team better. :(

I'd have to say the HR he hit in the 15th (I think) to win in Milwaukee was my favorite. Of course, that inning also represents the peak of Todd Wellemeyer's career.

Assuming your numbers are right, I'd replace Rusch with AJB or Millwood rather than Neifi. I think I'm in the minority, but I think he's a perfectly fine backup IF. The only problem comes if he's counted upon in a starting role, which I'm still hoping against.

I think the most compelling reason would be that there is a good chance he was the 4th best OF on the team, and $3m is not outlandish for 4th OF, especially not for a team that guarantees $5m for Neifi Perez. There was also a decent chance he'd be the 3rd best OF, and an outside shot of being the best or second best OF on this years team. That's not saying I expect him to be all that good this year, but the current OF isn't any good, and it wouldn't take much to outproduce some of them, at least. Neifi had a far better year than Corey did. Perhaps. But he still sucked, and he consistently sucks. Corey's off year was an unexpected low. Neifi's crappy season was an expected clunker. The point is if you are willing to pay Neifi $5m, you have to be willing to pay Corey $3m, so money can't be the reason. No, to make it equal you would have to say you are paying Corey $6 million. Maybe Neifi didn't help fantasy teams, but he sure as heck wasn't the main problem the Cubs had. It is entertaining to read people missing Corey after all the bashing he has received on this board for at least 6 months.It is interesting that you make this kind of statement given that you are certainly bright enough to know those comments are coming from different groups of people. It makes me wonder what the purpose of such a statement could be, other than to provoke the person you are addressing. I'm pretty sure with Neifi's bonus money he is indeed making 6mil. I was responding to the bolded portion of OCF's statement.

Carlos Perez was the one in Low A last year.

I think the most compelling reason would be that there is a good chance he was the 4th best OF on the team, and $3m is not outlandish for 4th OF, especially not for a team that guarantees $5m for Neifi Perez. There was also a decent chance he'd be the 3rd best OF, and an outside shot of being the best or second best OF on this years team. That's not saying I expect him to be all that good this year, but the current OF isn't any good, and it wouldn't take much to outproduce some of them, at least. Neifi had a far better year than Corey did. Perhaps. But he still sucked, and he consistently sucks. Corey's off year was an unexpected low. Neifi's crappy season was an expected clunker. The point is if you are willing to pay Neifi $5m, you have to be willing to pay Corey $3m, so money can't be the reason. No, to make it equal you would have to say you are paying Corey $6 million. Maybe Neifi didn't help fantasy teams, but he sure as heck wasn't the main problem the Cubs had. It is entertaining to read people missing Corey after all the bashing he has received on this board for at least 6 months.It is interesting that you make this kind of statement given that you are certainly bright enough to know those comments are coming from different groups of people. It makes me wonder what the purpose of such a statement could be, other than to provoke the person you are addressing.

Ouch. They also wanted Burnitz but he dissed them at the last minute. Hey, that's why they needed Corey!

Good one. At same age he's got better numbers than ronny, both struck out a lot in A ball. Spears needs to improve his k ratio like ronny did. Ronnie was always graded out as having great tools, though. That didn't mean that his exceptional development since 2003 was a given, but the potential was there. Spears has a much more limited ceiling from what BA says about him.

I'm certainly not surprised that he's a lefty with what appears to be a live arm and control issues. The SS prospect doesn't look bad from the numbers, kind of comparable to Cedeno actually. I'm guessing it's those 14 sac bunts that caught the Cubs eyes. What a gamer, sparkplug, team-player kind of guy.

And they have 6 playoff appearances since 97, 5 straight .500+ seasons (9 out of 10). They've done all this with a significantly lower payroll than the Cubs. Houston's management deserves the benefit of the doubt that they'll make the right moves, much more so than the Cubs management. I'm not sure about a secret formula, but it doesn't have to be secret. Houston does a better job with their farm, they do a better job of maximizing results/payroll, they consistently get the job done. As of now, they are similar, but Houston has a far better track record, and therefore has to get the nod when thinking about how it'll end. Goony, I'm surprised to see you giving that much credit to a team's management based on past results. Just because they've been historically good or bad says very little about this roster. They achieved those results because they had two HOF players anchoring the lineup while also having other very good pieces to the offensive puzzle, combined with solid pitching. That simply doesn't look as good this year.

Player G AB R H TB 2B 3B HR RBI BB IBB HBP SAC SF SO SB CS GDP AVG OBP SLG OPS Spears, Nate 112 445 63 131 191 30 6 6 41 36 1 2 14 1 82 8 4 1 0.294 0.349 0.429 0.778 Player G GS CG SHO W L SV SVO ERA IP H R ER HR HB BB IBB SO AVG OBP SLG OPS WP BK G/F Perez, Carlos 27 27 0 0 11 8 0 0 4.28 151.3 168 84 72 10 3 61 0 146 0.281 0.348 0.399 0.747 12 2 0.71 Anyone else find it typical that the pitcher we got gave up more walks than the hitter took?

In 2004, they added Beltran to get that boost. In 2005, Berkman came back from knee surgery and lifted the offense. I don't think they really have any secret formula. Keep in mind that they also choked away the division in 2003.

I'm here and prepared to race to fix it this afternoon.