soccer10k

Well, you are entitled to your opinion. But i am not hating. I just said in the earlier 20+ pg hatefest that Jones needs a fair shake and pointed to the Boston-Renteria disaster last season. Sometimes it just takes a player 1 month to adjust to the league. One of those crazy things. But we do need to get more positive posting going in here. Need to find some diamonds in this rough. So your thoughts about letting Ramirez, a superior hitter (and possibly better defensively so far), leave after his April were justified and shouldn't be called out later on? If Jones keeps up those splits against righties, I think we'll need to call Ripley's. Are Jacque's splits against righties going to go down? Yes. But his splits against lefties are going to go up. He's not going to end the year hitting .056 against lefties if he plays the whole year 2006: .273/.311/.495/.806 2003-2005: .268/.322/.443/.765 With the exception of the slugging, he's giving us exactly what we should have expected out of him. I'm NOT saying that it was a good signing, I'm just saying that what Jones has done this year shouldn't be a surprise.

I just figured all the Dusty haters would say that Dusty somehow overworked Mitre while he was on the Cubs.

Sergio Mitre was placed on the 15 day DL today with inflammation in his right shoulder. http://florida.marlins.mlb.com/NASApp/mlb/news/article.jsp?ymd=20060513&content_id=1451820&vkey=news_fla&fext=.jsp&c_id=fla I bet this is Dusty's fault as well eh?

Platoon anyone? BTW, I think that this might be the 15938th time this has been suggested since the season started.

Both of these make complete sense. Maddux is one of the few pitchers in the league that I would trust to say that he's okay to stay in the game and actually be telling the truth.

That's just bad luck in this case. If one of your middle relievers blows the game then you can question why he brought that reliever in. But if a closer blows the game, that's all on the closer. Like somebody else said (not sure if it was in this thread or another one) this is what happens to a team that's on a losing streak.

I believe Nomar had the whole "not all that excited about playing" problem before he came to the Cubs. He wasn't too happy in 2004 with Boston and that's the main reason they traded him. And I'm sure Nomar was really trying to completely tear his groin also. That was all part of his master plan to get away from Dusty. It was one of the most freakish serious injuries I've ever seen. At least consider the possibility that lack of preparation before the game contributed to that one. At least *consider* it. Wouldn't that be his own fault though not Baker's? Isn't it a player's job to get himself ready to play for the game. Taking batting/fielding practice is one thing, but shouldn't an adult, and somebody who has been in the league for a number of years know how to get himself ready to play. I don't think any of what happened to Nomar is Baker's fault. Yeah, it would be his own fault. I'd like a climate of winning on the North Side though, and we have a climate of losing-----for 97 years. I look to ownership/GM/Manager to provide a climate of winning first, then the players follow suit. Does anyone seriously doubt that if Nomar resigned he would have either proceeded directly to the DL or gone into a Pierre-esque slump? Of course he would have. I don't know about the slump, but based on Nomar's history I would have been surprised if he DIDN'T get hurt this year had he resigned with the Cubs. And considering he started the season on the DL with the Dodgers, that would be a pretty good assumption.

Just curious, what do you mean by this? I think he means that it's been so long that Dempster had forgotten. Sorry, that was my bad. I got it now. I thought he might have meant that Dempster forgot what it was like to blow a game when he meant that Dempster hasn't had a save opportunity in a while because the Cubs sucked. Misunderstanding on my part.

I believe Nomar had the whole "not all that excited about playing" problem before he came to the Cubs. He wasn't too happy in 2004 with Boston and that's the main reason they traded him. And I'm sure Nomar was really trying to completely tear his groin also. That was all part of his master plan to get away from Dusty. It was one of the most freakish serious injuries I've ever seen. At least consider the possibility that lack of preparation before the game contributed to that one. At least *consider* it. Wouldn't that be his own fault though not Baker's? Isn't it a player's job to get himself ready to play for the game. Taking batting/fielding practice is one thing, but shouldn't an adult, and somebody who has been in the league for a number of years know how to get himself ready to play. I don't think any of what happened to Nomar is Baker's fault.

Just curious, what do you mean by this?

I didn't get a chance to watch the game today so I'm wondering why Maddux was removed in the eighth? He had 7 1/3 IP and only threw 73 pitches so he couldn't have been tired.

At least Maddux pitched well.

I feel bad for us moreso than I feel bad for him. He did have the whole issue of being an outsider on his team (Boston), then getting shipped away for a couple players that played key roles in his old team winning the World Series. The guy was the face of Boston baseball for a few years with Pedro Martinez.

I believe Nomar had the whole "not all that excited about playing" problem before he came to the Cubs. He wasn't too happy in 2004 with Boston and that's the main reason they traded him. And I'm sure Nomar was really trying to completely tear his groin also. That was all part of his master plan to get away from Dusty.

Just to get it on the record, I think that the GM is more important than the manager. Like other people have said, the GM makes the moves and if he gets the right players, any breathing manager should be able to lead them to a decent finish.

No way Steinbrenner does that.

Couldn't agree more. The one thing that we thought we could depend on failed today. I know it's foolish to think that Dempster would never blow a save, but when you have a solid closer it just catches you off guard.

Did Ryu get called up?

Nice. I usually go by C = Completely U = Useless B = By S = September C = Completely U = Useless B = By S = Summer Or for you true pessimests C = Completely U = Useless B = By S = Spring

I'm surprised you actually were able to find 3 min 14 sec of good highlights for the season.

That's good to hear. I felt bad for the guy the past couple years with all the injuries.

He is a fool. 2003 was a long time ago and with an expanded payroll we still haven't been into the playoffs since then. He has done some good trades but overall most of his FA signings have been questionable. It seems like every year we go into the season with question marks and some of them aren't corrected the following year. This years debacle takes the cake and as fans I believe we deserve better than Baker and Hendry. Don't forget that only 4 teams in each league make the playoffs every year and the Cubs had a better record in 2004 then in 2003. Is it Hendry's fault that the Cardinals won 100 whatever games in 2004? No. If this was basketball, the Cubs would have made the playoffs in both 2001 and 2004. We should have been a lock for the wild card but our inconsistent offense and blown saves cost us that year. With the postseason situation in baseball, nobody is a lock to make the playoffs.

Feb 2 2005. He traded Sosa for nothing and signed Burnitz. Sosa needed to leave. What was Hendry supposed to do, eat Sosa's salary? I don't see what else Hendry could have done with that sitation. He did eat Sosa's salary and he could have signed a top tier FA OF instead of Burnitz. I'm not disagreeing with you, but please refresh my memory on who his other options were that year besides Burnitz because I don't remember. Magglio, Alou, Beltran, Drew and Dye. Honestly, I was ticked we didn't bring Alou back. I didn't like that one bit. I was glad we didn't get Beltran. I didn't think that one good month was worth $100+ million. Drew had a bad injury history. Magglio would have been a good sign though. Thanks for the info.

He is a fool. 2003 was a long time ago and with an expanded payroll we still haven't been into the playoffs since then. He has done some good trades but overall most of his FA signings have been questionable. It seems like every year we go into the season with question marks and some of them aren't corrected the following year. This years debacle takes the cake and as fans I believe we deserve better than Baker and Hendry. Don't forget that only 4 teams in each league make the playoffs every year and the Cubs had a better record in 2004 then in 2003. Is it Hendry's fault that the Cardinals won 100 whatever games in 2004? No. If this was basketball, the Cubs would have made the playoffs in both 2001 and 2004.

Feb 2 2005. He traded Sosa for nothing and signed Burnitz. Sosa needed to leave. What was Hendry supposed to do, eat Sosa's salary? I don't see what else Hendry could have done with that sitation. He did eat Sosa's salary and he could have signed a top tier FA OF instead of Burnitz. I'm not disagreeing with you, but please refresh my memory on who his other options were that year besides Burnitz because I don't remember.