WrigleyField 22

I still am confused with Greenbergs situation. He is not eligible for any phase of the Rule 5 draft right? And we have 10 days to do something with him. What about after those ten days are up? Can anyone just sign him, and they only have to keep him on the 40 man all season? I would have liked to see him on out 40man, but if he nets us something valubale in a trade, I guess I'm okay with it.

.253 .357 .342 Wow I didn't realize his SLg dropped so badly last season. However he still gets on base at a great clip. He can be a god backup catcher. I mean Blanco is a career .359 slugger, and can only get on base .288 Yea he is a better defender, but Soto is pretty good himself.

Well based on my limited knowledge, it looks like the following guys could be drafted: Brownlie- 6th men in the pen? Sing- high OBP, decent power bench at LF/1B Bacon- good speed guy off the bench Haggerty/Blasko- both high profile pitchers at one time, a team hoping they could shake injuries Out of that group not all of them will be drafted, maybe 2. Then even if they do get drafted they have to stick. I wouldn't see Haggerty/Blasko/Bacon lasting past Spring Training. Sing or Brownlie I could see making it on someones roster. The question would then be are they good enough to stick. And yea Jose Reyes is nothing special-a career backup, but you never know what team might want a guy who could come in and be a defensive specialist to handle one of their stud pitchers. The types of teams that might want him could really vary. Good teams that dont need a good hitter at backup catcher cuz they have a stud starter. Bad teams who have a crappy hitting catcher at starter and the dropoff wouldn't matter, etc. That being said its odd to have 4 catchers. If Barret/Blanco did go down, Soto could fill in pretty well both hitting wise and defensively. Anyone see a trade coming invloving one of the exra catchers? Also I would have risked losing Dopriak. He wouldn't have sticked and now you have one exrta spot you have to loss to make room to fill the holes we still have CF, RF, SS. One last thing: I'm sure that at the fall meetings that just occured that GMs all get a vibe for the interst in all their Rule 5 guys. I dount they go in blindly and just gut instinct.

Do we know that no one tried to sign him? Maybe he got other offers but decided to stick with the Cubs.

I think one of you guys who supports "post of the week" out to just make the first poll in the Polls Forum. It might not be as fun as hot chick polls, but it could help keep us occuppied during the offseason.

My sister is in St. Louis (SLU) :cry: Can't we just concentrate on the Cardinal's stadium, players, and maybe fans? Actually now that I think of it, go ahead and nuke the whole city, just make sure its over the Thanksgiving holiday.

My sister is in St. Louis (SLU) :cry: Can't we just concentrate on the Cardinal's stadium, players, and maybe fans?

I wonder if the NSBB emergency site has enough bandwith? :wink: Sounds like an Emergency to me! **JK I am in no way supporting the continuation of the hot chick polls on any NSBB affiliated site**

Any notable players, besides Sing?Why didn't we protect him? He could easily find a spot on someones bench all year. Dopriak and Moore, not likely. Heck, he could have filled in on our bench if someone went down. :x

Is that the "you have 10 days to trade him" move? If another team picks him up, he has to stay on their 25 man roster the whole year (either that, or the DL). If he doesn't stick, he gets returned to us, and the team gets a little money out of the deal. that's the rule 5 process, he was talking about designating for assignment, which is defined as removal from the 40 man roster without immediate assignment to a minor league roster. But since he doesn't have the time, isn't he put into the rule 5 pool? He cant refuse the assignment, so I don't think there's anything particular with him being DFA'd. I could be wrong though. The thing that pisses me off the most about this move is we used a 40 man roster spot on him, he did about how we expected last year, now we're dropping him when we could have used him last year to protect Sisco. And Dopirak? Why is he protected? He's obviously not ready to stick on a roster. Sounds like Hendry is going to the opposite extreme after losing Sisco last year. IIRC he did not start last year on the 40 man, so his spot couldn't have been used for Sisco. If you wanna argue someone else spot, yea you have a good point.

As someone who did post pics that may have been offensive to others, I just want to say sorry to anyone who may have been offended by them.

$10 bucks the Sox trade a good prospect for him midseason.

I think a lot of times, the team giving up the PTBNL gets to make a pool of available players (10-15?) who the other team also agree on at the time of the trade. Then after a certain time, they have to choose one. I'm far from an expert thaough, but I can recall some instances like that.

Why? Why? Why? GOOD LORD, WHY?! :wall: I can't see any reason why we would. If we sign Furcal and have Neifi as a backup its not like we need a defensive SS for late game situations. Unless Hendry thinks he can be a late inning HR threat(remember all those game winners he had for us?) I don't think thats a smart move, but it may be what Hendry is thinking. EDIT----- OOPS- Wrong Alex Gonzalez, Nevermind.

I didn't believe it, so I had to check. He did indeed make 2 errors in 10 games at 1B. For the record, I think AROD deserved it. Besides AROD having better batting stats, I also think its absolutely fair to consider desfense when both of the candidates are so close. Its not Most Valuable Hitter. Now, in a situation were a DH was clearly above and beyond all other hitters than yea, give it to him.

I remember goin to the game after that one, which was my second Cubs game. My first one I just remember was against the Mets. The lost 4-2 or something like that. The thing I remember the most is that around the 7th inning, the fans in the bleachers started throwing trash onto the field. My parents kept trying to get us to leave, but I resisted and stayed for the whole game (I wouldn't have wanted to miss a comeback!)

Does he want 5 guaranteed? 4 yrs 38 mil, with an option for a 5th year at 12mil. I have no idea if that would work, just throwing something out.

Imagine how many posters that would have to change their names? Well I wouldn't have to change my name, but the 22 is in reference to Prior. I'm sure I'm the minority here, but I think despite Prior's struggles, he is still better than Zambrano.

I might stop watching the Cubs if they trade Prior.

I think it might be a good idea for him to shake off some rust in AA, but I don't know that you make that decision right away. See how he finishes up his winter season, see how he performs in Spring Training, and then evaluate it. A couple months should be enough to help him get some rust off or help strike zone recognition. If he repeats AA, and puts up a BA around .300 again, I would feel very confident if he was able to rise his OBP to .370-.380 range. if he hits .300 with a .350 OBP again I would be worried.

Lucky for us and Pie, he got hurt and wasn't able to be rushed into the big leagues. He will not be Corey Patterson if he is given time to become the complete player that he has the natural ability to become. The best thing about Pierre would be that there wouldn't be temptation from Hendry to pull up Pie too soon. It would buy Pie time until at least next season. I'm not sure when Pierre hits FA, but maybe we would even be able to use him the following year and ease in Pie as a PH/4th oufielder/platoon guy etc. So id we waited 2 years say, he could possibly be ready to take over as a full time starter(with starter quality) at age 23, right? If he can improve faster than that pace then hey, we get a quality starter even sooner.[/b]

Way back, if any of yoy remember it was mentioned that Hendry was looking at MacDougal from the Royals. I checked out his stats quickly, but nothing really blew me away at first glance. Is he somebody to get excited about. We have to trade for him. Would we be able to consoladte some of our BP arms to save some guys from Rule V?

Oh and some of you won't believe this, but, many of you overvalue Dunn just as much some others overvalue Pie! :shock: Yes I know, shocking. Surely Dunn is the Messiah! Dunn would improve our lineup a TON. He is a great player. But believe it or not he too has his flaws. I think that as Cubs fans we have lacked OBP so much that we concentrate on it too much. Yes, I realize he brings more than OBP, he is a great power hitter. I'm all for getting him on board. But lets not just immediately meet their demands of giving up our best prospect.

Pie has always been young for his league and shown a lot of natural ability at each level. Yea he has his flaws, but if he takes the time to work on them he will be a solid major leaguer. I'm not a part of the group who wants to see him at Wrigley this year, at the beginning, or mid-season. The earliest I want to see him at Wrigley is Spetember, and even then, just to fill a spot on the bench. If given the full year at AAA, he can take steps to improve his dicispline and base stealing. Lets give him time. Give him a full year at AAA. You can't doubt his natural ability. Having said that, I will admit he is overvalued(what top prospect in any organization isnt?) And right now he wouldn't make a bigger impact than Murton and Cedeno did, or what some other guys could this year(Sing,Greenberg). But with the exception of Murton maybe, none of those guys will get much better. Pie will get a lot better still. You can bet on it.

I personally wouldn't give up Pie in a deal for Dunn unless it meant they were throwing something else valuable our way. But beyond Pie I would give up any other prospect. They would no doubt initially demand Pie, but we have enough talent (especially pitching) to get a deal done. Williams, Hill, Nolasco/Pinto, Novoa(or anyone similar to him) and choice of a minor league bat(excluding Pie)- could be Sing(who could be like Dunn with less power but higher AVG and OBP), Harvey, etc for Dunn That deal could vary, -we throw in Murton and also get Kearns, -throw in Murton instead of Hill/Williams, -throw in Cedeno instead of someone-I don't know if they need a 2B/SS, give -Walker if a 2B is what they need(hes as good as gone so might as well package him for something real valuable) -throw in additional major league ready guys for Freel, who would look nice in UTIL We can do this deal without Pie.