CyHawk_Cub

A Sori-esque swing by Sanchez

Lee has got to be it at this point. Lilly deserves some love too

You can say ass. This is a family site. "Ass" is in the bible...

Should be leading off for good.. I know no one is used to seeing out leadoff man get on base, but that's how it's done. Weren't you just complaining about people saying good things about kosuke after one good game? You know Fuld was OPSing in the .700's in AAA, right? Yeah, but Sam Fuld has fundamentals. Combine that with Bob Brenly and the World Series is basically ours. Not to mention the fact that Fuld was annointed by Hendry as being"untouchable"

Come on Riot...don't let Fuld out-grit you

LOL, love the eternal Bradley optimism! He's never finished a season with an OPS this low (save for his first couple of years in the majors), yet he's always had injury issues. Why is it that he won't rebound this year? The likelihood is that he'll rebound to right around his career averages, but won't begin to come near the lofty numbers of the past two seasons. Is there a clear reason why it's certain he won't do that? Here's the only thing I can come up with on Bradley: Mental. As far as I can remember, he's never come into a situation where he's the "big left-handed bat" a team has been counting on. He was very comfortable in Texas and walked into a Chicago situation he was not mentally ready for. His behavioral issues should be a surprise to no one. He told Hendry what he wanted to hear and the checkbook was pulled out. You may be on to something, but he was acquired by the Padres at the deadline as the "big bat" that would push them into the playoffs. He ended up injured, but while healthy he OPSd 1.004. Obviously though, the "pressure" in San Diego cannot be compared to what must be felt on Clark & Addison

I get what you're saying, but in defense of the Wrigley faithful (whom I rarely defend), they've at least witnessed Soriano contribute to 2 division-winning teams. All they've/we've seen from Bradley are his emotional issues, ticky tack injuries & very little production.

Fukudome: 10th in the majors in wOBA for all center fielders this year with at least 200 PAs. Ahead of Ellsbury, Bossman Jr, Sizemore, Rasmus, Vernon Wells, and about 15 others. Guess they all need to get sent down too. Soriano: Near the bottom, but honestly, what are you going to do? Bench him and miss one of his hot streaks? Let's face it, the guy carries your team for 2 week stretches over the course of the season and doesn't do much for you otherwise. We got him for 5 more years, let's make sure he's really done before sticking a fork in what could still be a productive player. Bradley: 368 OBP in the month of June, 408 in the last 14 days. Oh by the way, his career OPS in the month of July is 924, next highest is 829. Let's not write him off yet either. Yeah, I know that might seem like cherry picking stats, but come on, by definition there are 90 starting caliber outfielders in baseball at any given time. You're telling me none of these guys crack the top 90? Two guys with with 875+ OPSs last year and a guy who's been above average offensively in center this year (not to mention his plus defense)? Yes, they're overpaid. By a lot. Yes, it absolutely sucks watching this team right now, and Soriano is my least favorite Cub in recent memory. But there's not much we can do about it now. We don't have a lot of places where we can improve and we don't have a lot of pieces that we can use to improve with. But let's not pretend this is some "worst team in baseball situation" with how incredibly good our pitching has been and how miserable the rest of our division is. I mean, at the end of July 2003, we were one game over 500, and that's been our best chance to win the WS in a long time. We did that with superior pitching, we've been hanging in there so far with superior pitching. Benching guys with really good track records for what have been career minor leaguers (Hoff, Fox) is questionable enough, calling to bench them for the likes of Fuld and Taguchi is plain laughable. All of that makes a lot of sense. Unfortunately, it doesn't fit neatly with the current reactionary, tar & feather feeling amongst NSBB board members... I read with interest all the trade ideas, as if this team could actually be improved to the level expected with a couple quick moves. This team/franchise is fundamentally flawed, and it ain't gonna be fixed w/ a couple of trades/benchings. We're just gonna have to ride this out fellas, and it's gonna be largely painful barring hot streaks from aging guys who have admittedly shown the ability to do so in the past.

Lack of offense, or the bullpen...which will screw Randy this time? O.K. kid, pitch a shutout & happily take your ND..

This road trip could put us all out of our misery

Samardzija joining the bullpen mantra of "start every hitter 2-0"

This team blows when it comes to "clutch" situations...what a joke

Yay!!! We beat a AAAA team!! j/k I'll take it...

A longish one....in the air?

Omar Minaya laughs at this notion. He can't even get into the playoffs with a consistent top 5 payroll in all of the MLB and he has 3 of the ten or so best players in the majors. As bad as Omar is, he has a .550 winning percentage compared to Hendry's .519. I thought only post-season success matters?

Ugh. No, he didn't. "Sold high" implies that you got max value for the guy. Hendry oculdn't even get a major league reliever for DeRosa. He did not sell high. The Indians just got a better package for him than the Cubs got. Umm, no. Sold high doesn't mean that at all. Sold high means that he traded that player when that player's value was higher than it's ever previously been. YOUR perceived value of DeRosa doesn't mean anything. Especially when we have evidence of what his actual value was -- three marginal prosects, and then a few months later, one fairly decent prospect. That may be the precise definition of "sell high", but don't you think the return has to be at least considered? I mean, just getting rid of a player at his peak value (up to that point) is of no value in a vacuum...it's all about the return value. Just for sake of argument (b/c I'm not necessarily saying it's true), when Duquette traded Kazmir for V Zambrano, and a Mets fan were told "But Kazmir's value is higher than it's ever been. We had to sell high", how should said Mets fan react?

In the midst of some petty name-calling & girl-slappery, is some interesting discussion about Hendry's tenure.... Personally, I'll hinge my opinion of Hendry on one thing to keep it simple--he's a former Creighton guy, and is therefore automatically suspect. There, nice & neat... Carry on with the more in depth analysis...

DeRo....I liked him, but he's no savior, so I don't really care if he's with the Card's. The fact that he was replaced with Aaron Miles, however, now that pisses me off

This team stinks...but since I'm a masochist, I'll keep watching anyway.

The acronym I'd prefer to see when it comes to Miles is "DFA"

My preference is to NOT make a trade... Don't want to sound overly defeatist, but JH would need to make multiple moves, IMHO, to sufficiently improve this team. Yes, I know (and agree w/ the premise that) we just need to get into the playoffs since it's a crapshoot... But I just don't like the idea of trading away pieces of the farm for marginal improvements. The only deals I'd want to see are of the selling type...IOW, the kinds of deals that won't happen since our large contracts are largely untradeable & b/c the Cubs will never sell... I know we live in the here & now, but I personally don't have a problem with looking to the near future either...

Unfortunately, the Cubs are so inept that they won't even be able to get that right... No way they'll be worse than the Nationals by season's end

Only before the 9th inning apparently

cardinals i bet. Of course...