WrigleyField 22

I wanted it banished. Now we are just giving Bonds more attention. Couldn't we have banished the ball and pretend he never played this game?

1. Derrek Lee 2. Matt Murton 3. Mark Prior 4. Aramis Ramirez 5. Sean Gallagher

Its too bad he's not from the African sun, Dusty.

The biggest issue, it would seem is that we need to match salary. With the sale of the team adding a lot of salary may just not be realistic. Tejada makes 13M. Lets just say we need to have at least 10M outgoing. The one thing this does, is require us to give up better younger talent than if we were offering a salary dump. Even if we gave up guys with one year left, its not that much better than the two years Tejada has. Dempster: 5.5M 28/31 SV with the "closer" tag. Jones: 5M He doesn't really do anything any of their other OF already do. Not much value there. Eyre: 3.8M We would probably end up eating a lot of his contract in the trade, but they might take a chance and agree to take on a million. Blanco: 2.8M Way overpaid, but maybe they want a backup catcher with Bako a FA? Pick and choose to make the right salary. Then we need to add actual value. Probably some young pitching and then a cheap position player. No Soto or Pie, so its pretty much Murton, Theroit, Fotenot, Cedeno. Marshall, Jones, Dempster, Murton, lower level pitcher for Tejada and Markakis Okay fine just Tejada. :) Other possibility: Perhaps they don't want Jones, because, hey who needs that many mediocre OF on one roster? Maybe we sell high on Marquis and even net a decent prospect in the process. We already have a good staff and then we just fill the fifth spot with one of our young pitchers like Gallagher, Hart, etc or someone like Traschel who might sign a cheap or non-guaranteed contract. We also take Marshall out of the deal then.

Eh, at least they can afford the nice hotels and nice rooms. Minor leaguers everywhere would envy them!

Not gonna win any games with turnovers like that. That's the bottom line.

I would think Dempster could be moved without eating any salary. He has the "closer" label and has a good save percentage, so some team would probably like him. Eyre, I would take on most of the contract. Even if we save 1 million, thats one million more to spend, or one million less we have to backload someone's contract, etc. Jones is another guy who could be moved by taking only a little or no salary.

I wouldn't mind Fukkudome, but the sale might make adding salary difficult. If you figure Soto and and Pie can fill CF and C, that leaves two holes at SS and RF. Theriot could play SS, but I'd prefer him to be the main MIF backup where he would still get a lot of time playing 2B for DeRosa since DeRosa is the "supersub". Murton could also fill in at RF cheaply. So really, at all of our positions that we could fill we have cheap young players to fill the holes. I would take out CF and C right now because we have players who are at the least, excellent defenders at the spot and one who is likely a good offensive player within the next few years. The other I'm not as sold on, but he plays a mainly defensive position. So we need to fill SS or RF with a big acquisition. This is assuming we can move around some big contracts like Jones/Eyyre/Dempster to make room. Whatever position we spend on we will be looking at the scrap heap for the other spot. So that being said, aren't we much more likely to find cheap help from a RF/CF than from a SS? It seems like every offseason there are those decent hitting cheap contract OF available. Think of the Milton Bradley's. Anyways I'm rambling, but I just hope that we give some young guys a shot. LF-Soriano RF-Murton/? 1B-Lee 3B-Ramirez SS-Tejada or ARod? 2B-DeRosa CF-Pie C-Soto The other option: LF-Soriano SS-Theriot 1B-Lee 3B-Ramirez RF-Fukudome 2B-DeRosa CF-Pie C-Soto I'd be pretty happy with either, but I think the first would be a little more proven. Another good note is that we could potentially put together a pretty cheap bench. Fotenot, Theriot, Blanco, Ward, Murton, Pagan, Patterson, etc are all potential bench players with Blanco the only one who really makes a lot.

I like him, but would probably prefer his role next year to be backing up SS and playing 2B with DeRosa. Between resting the SS and starting 2B when DeRosa needs a rest or is playing supersub, he could still get a lot of bats. His numbers just doesn't justify playing everyday. That being said, who knows if the Cubs will be able to spend on a starting quality SS this offseason, in which case he might be the best option.

The fact that Fukudome can play CF makes him even more appealing to me (I thought he was only a corner OF). Your Of could be Soriano, Pie, Fukudome. If Pie struggles, Murton is the 4OF and can step in quite effectively.

Fukudome was the guy I had specifically in mind when I made this thread. What kind of numbers is he putting up this year? What kind of contract is he likely to demand? What kind of numbers could we expect next year?

I remember we used to have a real good thread about tracking potential Japanese players to be posted. Could anyone dig up the old thread or start a discussion in here.

Well I haven't seen that fight, so I can't really comment on it. ladies and gentlemen, Joe Morgan. nothing against you WF22, i just had to. I don't get it. :-? Any time Morgan is asked to give an opinion of something not involving his playing career, he says "I haven't seen enough of him to say" He does not watch any games he doesn't broadcast. As long as we're picking on Joe Morgan who deserves it and not me :)

Well I haven't seen that fight, so I can't really comment on it. ladies and gentlemen, Joe Morgan. nothing against you WF22, i just had to. I don't get it. :-? I think its cause you already commented on it, and now saying you cant cause you havent seen it? I think that is it anyway lol. I commented on the dugout fight, and he was talking about the clubhouse one, so I didn't. I think the explanation above your post is the one.

Well I haven't seen that fight, so I can't really comment on it. ladies and gentlemen, Joe Morgan. nothing against you WF22, i just had to. I don't get it. :-?

Well I haven't seen that fight, so I can't really comment on it. I'm not saying its right, but it happens, and we don't have to trade two good players because of it.

From that angle it looks like Barrett took a step towards Z, but you can't tell for sure if it was an agressive step like he was going to hit him, an agressive step like he was going to get into his face, or neither. Z reacted too quickly for us to find out. And do people really worry this much about a little fighting? I'm not trying to support it and there should be some ramifications, but people tend to get passionate about sports like this. I know just playing H.S. football there were times in practice me and a guy could get into each others faces similar to that. At the end of the day we were still fine and we both were gonna do what was best for the team. Michael Jordan was a competitive S.O.B. who layed a punch right in Steve Kerr's nose during a practice. Sometimes grown men get pissed off. If we weren't so bad no one would care. If we could solve some other things that are much bigger problems on the team Zambrano and Barrett would be quite useful in helping us win, even though they both are struggling. I don't get the trade them feelings.

I agree. Its not like we have to be much better than .500 to take the division. Then you just hope you can get hot at the right time. A couple of small trades could probably help things. If nothing else let the firesale occur after Hendry is gone.

Yea the weird part is that they already had the lead in the top of the 9th. Its not against the rules, so he might as well do it I guess.

I think its hilarious because we are still second in the conference and have actually gained ground on the Brewers lately.

me too everyone else join

Their newest registered member is "JuanPierreIsGay" :lol:

Just give us some crappy prospect. Deal.

I'm 100% sure I could make a stronger throw than that. The location might be a little trouble, but just give me a little practice.

haha, I'm sold.