Transmogrified Tiger

I don't see a huge difference in salaries between Hawkins/Remmy and Howry/Eyre. It's the same situation as last year. It is different when you consider that Remlinger (and Borowski) wasn't available at the start of last season. Dusty also leaned on LaTroy too much. At this point, all of the key bullpen arms are healthy so I forsee Baker calling on them a lot. Remlinger didn't go down until a month and a half into last season, almost the exact time Borowski came back. Fox was there at the start of the season until his arm got blown out. We weren't hurting for the veteran arms in the pen.

I would not have a problem skipping the 5th guy early. I don't think the extra day off here and there is helpful that early in the season. I do think you should find way to skip guys by June/July though. 12 pitchers is dumb though, and 8 relievers is asinine, but very Cubslike as well. Why? Pitching is a tearing down process. They have 5 starters avail., there's no severe dropoff between Williams and Zambrano and certainly minimal difference between Maddux/Rusch to Williams, not to the point where it would have any impact of the standings. Early on in the year, it will take their bodies longer to recover, especially with the colder weather. I definitely agree with UK on this. Whenever you can give a guy a little extra rest we should always do it. With the way Baker rides his pitchers I think it is imperative to get them as much rest whenever possible. Seeing as Prior has yet to pitch a full season I think he most of all should get the extra days rest. Just an idea to throw out there but if wood is healthy in july wouldn't it be advantageous to go with a 6 man rotation for the month. That way Prior, Wood, Zambrano, and Maddux can all be primed to go for the stretch run. I also agree with saving the starters arms whenever possible. However, this year I think Baker will be more apt to go to the bullpen than in previous seasons. Not only will there be a good mix of veterans and youth in the 'pen there will also be some high priced arms (and even though Dusty shouldn't be influenced by salaries he does seem to take that into consideration when giving play time.) I don't see a huge difference in salaries between Hawkins/Remmy and Howry/Eyre. It's the same situation as last year.

Haha, an independent source verified the rumor, but he had the main player going to a different team. No big deal.

Being resigned to the fact that we are going to trade or platoon Walker does not change his past production and value as a player. Maybe his value to us is less, in which case it makes more sense "logically"(and it is a maniacally warped logic at this point) to deal him.

Williams is quite good. As I have said a couple of times, his numbers as a Cub place him as a 2 starter in the NL. That's very good, especially considering he's 24 and not yet reached arbitration. Lugo is a rental, and Williams would become the best pitcher in the Tampa Bay organization save Kazmir. Plus we're giving them Walker, who outproduced Lugo offensively, when we might be moving Lugo to 2B, where his defensive advantage is mitigated? Terrible terrible deal.

I was late to the anti-Hendry crowd, but he took a chance to vastly improve the team and made nightmarish decision after nightmarish decision. Barring an overhaul not yet seen in MLB history, there's not much to convince me that Hendry should remain GM IMO. Baker is an abomination, he's terrible. Problem is, there are far fewer managerial options than GM options that we know will not fall into some of the same traps that Baker did. That shouldn't prevent them from firing him yesterday, today, tomorrow, and the day after that though.

Wow. If that's really what TB wants, then LaMar's legacy of lunacy lives on.

The Cubs made the playoffs in '03. Once you make the playoffs, it's pretty much a crapshoot of who's hot. There's no reason to think that Thome alone would propel us to the World Series, and there's reason to think that without Lofton and Ramirez with Thome in his place, that we don't get the playoff position we get, if at all. Furthermore, there's no reason to think that Thome's production over Lee(forgetting that the salary constraints would keep us from adding other players to fill holes) would have propelled us into the playoffs in '04. And again, Thome has a horrible contract. Remember the Sosa fiasco? It'd be like that with Thome, only the contract is longer, more expensive, and he has injury questions. Not signing Thome was the right decision before, during, and after the fact.

Welcome! I want Baker fired. Here's a short list of what he does wrong: - Leaves starting pitchers in for too long, with regards to pitch counts and visible signs of tiring. -Mismanagement of the bullpen. Dogged persistence to R/L matchups even when vast evidence proves other courses of action would be better(e.g. Taking Farnsworth out for Remlinger to face a left handed batter). Also, overworking arms and ignoring others. Examples of this include Fox blowing out his arm, Farnsworth and Wuertz in the first half of the past few years, while Wellemeyer, Hill, Mitre, etc. go weeks without an appearance. -Maddening love for veteran players. Despite players proving their crappiness time and time again, Baker continues to dole out playing time to crummy veterans in lieu of rookies who are very likely to be as good or better. Macias, Harris, Hollandsworth, Karros, Neifi are all living proof of this. - Poor Lineup construction, which reflects on abhorrent philosophical views. Refusal to acknowledge that OBP is important, especially at the top of the order("it's called hitting, not walking"). - Failure to take responsibility for his own actions. Baker has never taken responsibility for the failures of the team, yet whenever things go right(i.e. a Dubois or Murton succeeding in limited playing time), it is according to his grand design. There's probably a couple others that I'm missing, but that's a good start.

Abreu is much much better offensively, it's not close.

Yeah, but they changed the rules after that year so that cornerbacks can't cheat, tackle, bite, mug, etc., WRs coming off the line of scrimmage. So Manning will not be that effective. And when did Gamble and Lucas become known as some of the best corners in this league? Gamble is on his 2nd year. http://www.sportsline.com/nfl/playerrankings/regularseason/DB Gamble is ranked 20th...14 places behind Tillman, 2 ahead of Vasher. Lucas is 30th. FWIW, when it comes to baseball Sportsline's rankings are absolutely worthless. It's the same system for football, but I don't know how they came to the rankings.

he wouldn't have been bad at all. He's going to need to get back the power he lost last year. Without knowing if the power will return, especially at age 34, I'd rather have Jones. Now if the choice is Millar for one year vs. Jones for three, then it's a tighter decision.

No need unless the discussions are getting bounced off the page that are still active, which isn't the case.

What state were you educated in? :wink:

Is this true, honestly...where have you read this? There were rumors posted by someone here, JeffH I believe. Even he said to take it with a grain of salt, but Prior being upset with the trade talks would be consistent with that. Take it FWIW I guess.

To my knowledge, Giles only had other offers to play CF in the Bronx, or to go to Canada. Chicago offers him both the position he wants at a locale that's not 3 timezones away from home. Maybe he wouldn't have come, I'm not going to pretend like there was a magic price that he could be bought for. But the fact that Hendry didn't pursue him at all given how well he fit their needs, and the dearth of other options that met those needs, is where he is in the wrong.

Average for a CF.

When you name your arena after a snotty rich chick who cheated in college, that's the name you get forever. We can reassign it, our students voted in the newspaper to make the new classroom building the Paige Laurie Morals & Ethics Center. Did we really? I didn't see that. Dammit. Not really, but I think in the poll it narrowly beat out some option involving the Hulk or something.

When you name your arena after a snotty rich chick who cheated in college, that's the name you get forever. We can reassign it, our students voted in the newspaper to make the new classroom building the Paige Laurie Morals & Ethics Center.

Until you make your way into the ZOU. :-D How does Colorado look? They come to Columbia Saturday, and I haven't seen them play at all this year. I didn't see any of the game. Theyy only have three losses, but they haven't played anyone. Roby is a very good player, and they're experienced, but if you can beat OU in Norman, you should beat CU in CoMo. And if I were a betting man, I'd predict a loss for KU at Mizzou, too. We haven't faced a true hostile environment yet, and Lord knows the Paige will be a madhouse. I can't wait. I was surprised to see we had our best attendance by 4k for the OSU game while everyone is still on break, I'm pumped for the environment with the student body back and coming off these two wins. Fun Fact: Aside from the Gymnastics team dropping a meet against highly ranked opponents, every Mizzou sport is undefeated since the bowl game.

Welcome! The Nomar trade was far from a bust. Beltran and Jones have both fallen to injuries, Murton looks to have a brighter future than Harris, and we got rid of the abysmal Alex Gonzalez. Jim Thome signed a ridiculous contract in years and in dollars. The Phillies got 2 good season and a poor injury riddled one, then had to trade him for pennies on the dollar. Also, there was no reason for "urgency" prior to the '03 season. We were a remarkably young team with only RF and LF guaranteeing good production. Looking at the team prior to the season, there's no reason to think that Thome would put us over the top, and in hindsight there's no reason to think that Thome's presence would have won us the extra game needed to make the WS.

I got it a couple times yesterday as well as today. Like you though, it came back after a couple refreshes.

Thank you for not sending my hopes for you spiraling into despair, MSU.

Why is it obvious Pierre should bat leadoff? If I were a Cub fan I would want him to get as few as AB's as possible. As I stated before, I'd bat Walker and Murton in the top 2 spots because of increased OBP and extra base hits. I almost wanted to drop Pierre in the order, but I can't see Murton or Cedeno being likely to give you better production.

The stripe that goes down the sleeve looks terrible IMO, which means I like the sleeveless jerseys much better. Something about the design seems like a clash of several designs, a lack of continuity. Maybe it'll look different in actuality on the players.