Transmogrified Tiger

Welcome.

Don't be petty. They got in the crapshoot and they won it. I'm going to punch the nearest person in the face every time I hear about Guillen's brilliance or Smartball though.

It certainly wouldn't have been a bad call to call him safe.

Excellent. Not only will he continue to cripple an NL team with some talent, but provide more amusement as well.

Baseball Reference says 1184 games at 1B, 1130 at 2B. And if you like BP's fielding metrics, Carew profiles as an average defensive 2B, and at 1B too for that matter.

Depends on how their OF situation shakes out in the offseason. They don't have much in the way of good options in terms of CF options plus they have their share of contracts to unload. They have Michaels, Lofton(FA), and someone who I believe won a AAA MVP(the name escapes me, hispanic name). If anything I'd say they have a wealth of options at CF.

Raffy's not better than Pujols. Sosa should probably be up there in front of Vlad, but fans are what have you done for me lately types.

I rememebr this summer when Cuban said he'd like to own the Cubs....I about fell out of my chair. Big time payroll does NOT equal a good team ala this year's Cubs. I wouldnt mind Cuban being the owner, but you need quality playes, not just big time money players. Big time payroll + smart spending usually does equal a good team. Cuban's a stat geek. He'd be a tremendous owner. He's basically modelled a lot of what he's done with the Mavs off Moneyball. Only problem is there's not equivalent stats for basketball that they've found yet. He's also very very reactionary, which is a very very bad thing in baseball. Requires much more patience than basketball.

UK can't stand the guy, but I think he'd be a good pickup.

I want to point out how hilarious it is that Fred has continually refused to capitalize our southside neighbor's moniker. Well done Fred.

Turning that question around, I wonder if the Cubs are more hesitant to get rid of Corey because of Eric's presence in the organization?

Lee for Manny? No thanks. The Cubs spend a whole lot more money, and don't get any better than the 2005 team. Depends on how much money you get from the Mets. Whether or not you improve from the 2005 team or not, Manny is a likely step up from what Lee will provide offensively next season. Just throwing it out there. Our best chance for landing an impact bat might be trading Lee + prospects for said impact bat and another quality player. Lee is an impact bat. I don't think he'll repeat his numbers, but I think he'll be a 900+ OPS hitter. That "quality player" would have to be another 900+ OPS hitter to justify a deal. This team needs to get better than they were in 2005. They couldn't take advantage of that career year by Lee, I don't see any way they'd win if they simply traded Lee for another impact bat, without acquiring a 2nd impact bat. Think of it this way. Once Giles is gone, the quality bats in the OF are nonexistent. So if the Cubs were to trade Lee and prospects for Manny and say, Milton Bradley(not a .900 OPS guy, and I have no idea of how that trade would work out), then they still have money to go out and sign Konerko to play 1B. So now they have someone who's just about Lee's equal offensively next year, plus Manny and Bradley, and the only real tradeoff is prospects plus the increase in salary. Just trying to explore all the possiblities here. First, Konerko is going to look for $50 million over 4 years and secondly, the only way he is Lee's equal is if Lee regresses to his previous career averages. I think it's much more likely Lee regresses to his career averages than him going over a 1000 OPS again. The point I'm trying to get across is that Lee has a very high perceived value, and he's really likely to not be worth that value again.

They have an excellent run defense, and their D is very similar to Nebraska's. That being said, we should win by at least two scores. I'd also LOVE a KSU upset over Colorado, but regardless we still have to beat Colorado next weekend. BUT, Kansas first. Oh man, if we win and KSU knocks off CU, then there's no excuse at all for us not to win the North. I really need to stop thinking about how good a position we're in right now, I'm setting myself up for a major disappointment.

Lee for Manny? No thanks. The Cubs spend a whole lot more money, and don't get any better than the 2005 team. Depends on how much money you get from the Mets. Whether or not you improve from the 2005 team or not, Manny is a likely step up from what Lee will provide offensively next season. Just throwing it out there. Our best chance for landing an impact bat might be trading Lee + prospects for said impact bat and another quality player. Lee is an impact bat. I don't think he'll repeat his numbers, but I think he'll be a 900+ OPS hitter. That "quality player" would have to be another 900+ OPS hitter to justify a deal. This team needs to get better than they were in 2005. They couldn't take advantage of that career year by Lee, I don't see any way they'd win if they simply traded Lee for another impact bat, without acquiring a 2nd impact bat. Think of it this way. Once Giles is gone, the quality bats in the OF are nonexistent. So if the Cubs were to trade Lee and prospects for Manny and say, Milton Bradley(not a .900 OPS guy, and I have no idea of how that trade would work out), then they still have money to go out and sign Konerko to play 1B. So now they have someone who's just about Lee's equal offensively next year, plus Manny and Bradley, and the only real tradeoff is prospects plus the increase in salary. Just trying to explore all the possiblities here.

Lee for Manny? No thanks. The Cubs spend a whole lot more money, and don't get any better than the 2005 team. Depends on how much money you get from the Mets. Whether or not you improve from the 2005 team or not, Manny is a likely step up from what Lee will provide offensively next season. Just throwing it out there. Our best chance for landing an impact bat might be trading Lee + prospects for said impact bat and another quality player.

Mets want a 1B? Lee to NY, Beltran to Boston, Manny to the Cubs. Mets send us some cash over the next several years.

VT will jump to number 2 after Mizzou exacts their revenge on Texas in the Big XII Championship game. On a more serious note, Mizzou travels to kU this weekend. Please don't suck against them, they're bad.

I'd be surprised if AJP has any loose cash after last weekend.

Yeah, IIRC, Williamson's deal is almost the exact same one Dempster got.

Why don't we ask the Mets to give us Cameron ($6M), Floyd ($6.5M) and Glavine ($9.5M) in a pure salary dump move for some prospects? With the $22M they save here, and the $15M freed up with Piazza as free agent, the Mets can trade for Mannys' $20M and Delgado's $16M. We fill the needs for CF, RF and a >200IP/<4.00ERA SP. And, all 3 guys we get are free agents after 2006. That's a good thought. Only trouble is that, unless CPatt were out of the picture, would it give Dusty an excuse to bench Murton? Put Patterson in the deal to the Mets. The Mets can then deal Beltran to Boston for Manny, and Kris Benson to Miami for Delgado. What's their rotation look like after dealing Benson and Glavine?? Pedro, Zambrano, Seo and?? Seems they need to pick up someone like Millwood in free agency to make all this work. Looks like they would have the money to do that after this particular sequence of deals. I really doubt that Minaya would be so bold. Nor am I sure that I'd want Glavine, Floyd, and Cameron.

The system penalizes success. It's nearly impossible to have sustained success because of all the restrictions. I'm not saying not to have a salary cap at all, but the NFL's system takes parity to the extreme IMO. That is hysterically lame. What do you want, the Yankees and Braves winning every single year? New England has won 3 of 4 Super Bowls. SF had a nice stretch under the salary cap era. Philly has sustained success for quite a while. I can't believe how unbelievably ridiculous some of these complaints are against the NFL. Why do people want to see the same team win every year? The best of the best compete for the title for a good stretch of years. The middle of the road is constantly churning. All the while the bottom of the barrel can change quickly with competent management. And it's all due to the system they play in. There's a reason this postseason has bit the bullet. Nobody cares about the contestants because they've never seen them. The Yankees/Red Sox/Braves have been shoved down our throats for a decade, and the entire league suffers because of it. I'm not saying I want the same team to win, but I definitely think it's unfair for the majority of teams to have to outright cut some of their best players every year because of cap penalties and restrictions. Making it more difficult for the teams who do things right shouldn't be the goal.

The system penalizes success. It's nearly impossible to have sustained success because of all the restrictions. I'm not saying not to have a salary cap at all, but the NFL's system takes parity to the extreme IMO.

Welcome to the Forum!

Ugh for a corner OF. For a CF, not really. I'd say he's about average. Had Cameron played enough CF to qualify, his .819 OPS would have been 5th of 19 CFers. His career .782 OPS would've been one point away from Vernon Wells at 9th.

Soccer's a different game, and the kids are half the age of your high schoolers Cuse. There are plenty of things you can do. You can tell the team not to shoot until they have X amount of passes strung together, or with their off foot, or at a more advanced age, to try and score on aerial balls. Kids at 7-9 are pretty prone to giving up when their hopelessly outmatched. Not scoring(or putting restraints on your team) is the sporting thing to do out of courtesy.