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He didn't have to bring up at all that he slacked off some last year. The fact that he brought it up and then said what he did about the Cubs leads me to believe he's sincere. I think it's more comparable to a person with sick days calling into work when they are legitimately sick but could still work if they had to. I dont know, to me the cubs would have been better off with Adam Dunn. Bradley is much to fragile and or doesnt have the right character for this team. Sure he brings fire but he also brings that of someone who slacks off when he isint feeling great. Thats not what any team needs Dunn's been accused of not caring in the past as well, keep in mind. lol are people still acting like that BS remark from ricciardi actually meant something? jesus not to mention that the "so and so doesn't really care about winning" argument is dumb, especially when talking about proven players. yeah, dunn doesn't care all the way to a .900 OPS for 150+ games every season

i usually don't like to speculate about roids when there's no evidence at all, but it's to deny that he's a prime candidate. i just don't understand how he could have let himself get fat again after he attributed to much of his recent success to shedding the weight. it makes me think about how you sometimes gain weight when you come off steroids.

I don't agree with that. Bradley hasn't shown anything to me that makes me think he doesn't care and if he's not hitting because he doesn't care, I have to ask why he hit so well the past few years. Mostly because of Arlington Without getting into another debate on Bradley's production potential, he's had OPS+s over .900 outside of Arlington. .923 in Cleveland and .947 between Oakland and San Diego. He can do it, and the wind blowing out of Wrigley in the summer can only help. i never said he couldn't do it. i said arlington is the main reason his stats were so juiced up last year. he had like an .870 OPS on the road. not saying that's bad or anything.

Which is why it's comical when people defended the Bradley signing by saying "well it's only 30 mil guaranteed if he stays healthy." yeah, not really.

over/under- 50% chance that soto was juicing the last 2 years?

I don't agree with that. Bradley hasn't shown anything to me that makes me think he doesn't care and if he's not hitting because he doesn't care, I have to ask why he hit so well the past few years. Mostly because of Arlington

did he really say that?

Hendry likely didn't want Hudson because he doesn't have the reputation of being able to play SS. Miles has that rep. I don't agree with that line of thinking, but it's likely what Hendry thought. Heh. Miles doesn't have the reputation to bat 3rd either, but Hudson sure is doing it. Hudson is about as injury prone as Bradley. . umm, he is? the reason he came so cheap is because teams didn't want to give up the draft pick Missed the back end of the last 2 straight seasons because of wrist injuries. Augie Ojeda was kicking our butts in the playoffs, remember? he still plays the majority of each season, which is something bradley doesn't do.

umm, when you give up a game tying home run with 2 outs in the 9th to a terrible hitter on literally the only pitch he can handle, then yea, it's your fault as much as anybody's Umm, if Mr. Overweight blocks strike 3, Franceour doesn't even get an AB, much less with a guy on base i never said soto wasn't to blame, but to act like it's not at all gregg's fault is ridiculous. there's no reason that any decent reliever shouldn't have been able to retire a terrible hitter, or at least not serve up a meatball to him to go yard. seriously, jeff franceour is a terrible player.

Hendry likely didn't want Hudson because he doesn't have the reputation of being able to play SS. Miles has that rep. I don't agree with that line of thinking, but it's likely what Hendry thought. Heh. Miles doesn't have the reputation to bat 3rd either, but Hudson sure is doing it. Hudson is about as injury prone as Bradley. . umm, he is? the reason he came so cheap is because teams didn't want to give up the draft pick

the sad thing is that many people will still let him off the hook because of injuries, even thought the tea still wouldn't be very good if they were healthy. not to mention one of the guys who keeps getting injured is a guy who is always injured, yet was still given a huge contract by mr jim hendry. it still boggles the mind that hendry thought it was okay so sign bradley and trade derosa in the same offseason. way to think ahead, jim i guess he really needed to free up derosa's salary so he could go for peavy even though it's obvious now that he wasn't able to trade for jake because of ownership just a comically bad offseason in pretty much every way.

First of all, I never said I'm giving up. I'm stating the obvious, which is that this team is not very good and will have to make multiple serious trades if they want any chance of winning a world series this season. Second of all, YOU are the one who during the losing streak was constantly saying that this team was done and that the season is over, so don't even start with that garbage. I don't really see how you're writing off the Braves either. If they trade for a big outfield bat (and they have the prospects leftover from the non-peavy trade to do it) that team looks pretty solid. Medlen and Hanson are legit, and if they come up and do anything at all this season, that rotation is looking really solid... def the best in that division. Their bullpen looks pretty nice with Gonzalez and Soriano at the end also. yes, I was the only one saying the season over during the game threads. Its one thing to be over the top during the game, but a new thread like this doesnt need to be started after every tough loss. uhh, i start a thread like this after every loss? show me. so you're saying it's okay to overreact and declare the season over during the game, but it's not okay to start a rational and completely true thread after one of the games? got it. the point of this thread is simple. everybody is looking for one guy to blame or one area to blame, but the bottom line is that the team in general is just not that good.

This game was just 1 of 3 that Gregg has crapped on already this year. When you factor in that he throws a minimum of 25 pitches per appearance because he gets behind in the count to everyone, it makes him very hard to like or even watch. Whether you like him or he's hard to watch or whatever, he had to get 4 outs in the 9th because Soto didn't block strike 3 and it cost them 2 runs.....I know blaming the closer is the cool thing to do, but if you blame this loss entirely on Kevin Gregg you don't know much about baseball or didn't watch the game I'm certainly not letting anyone else off the hook or blaming Gregg entirely, but this kind of performance has been more common from him than Soto so far. soto has been miserable on both sides of the plate all season long.

umm, when you give up a game tying home run with 2 outs in the 9th to a terrible hitter on literally the only pitch he can handle, then yea, it's your fault as much as anybody's

First of all, I never said I'm giving up. I'm stating the obvious, which is that this team is not very good and will have to make multiple serious trades if they want any chance of winning a world series this season. Second of all, YOU are the one who during the losing streak was constantly saying that this team was done and that the season is over, so don't even start with that garbage. I don't really see how you're writing off the Braves either. If they trade for a big outfield bat (and they have the prospects leftover from the non-peavy trade to do it) that team looks pretty solid. Medlen and Hanson are legit, and if they come up and do anything at all this season, that rotation is looking really solid... def the best in that division. Their bullpen looks pretty nice with Gonzalez and Soriano at the end also.

Yeah, because those 2 things have so much to do with each other.

assuming Ramirez heals quickly which i doubt is the case since i read he might need surgery as soon as the season ends. The bullpen is terrible and will cost us this season just like 2004 This is what I'm saying. Even if we start hitting, the bullpen will hold us back.

What do you mean by "stay up"? We're a .500 team. If we're at .500 when Ramirez comes back we'll not be the favorites for anything. The WC winner usually ends up winning around 89-90 games. I don't see how we win that many games.

yeah, the 2004 team was way better than this "team"

who cares about winning games when you can have more guys batting on the other side of the plate. i still can't believe how bad of a GM hendry is. i've never seen a gm turn a stacked team into garbage over one offseason

it's just kind of sad that you can see the window of this team closing. with the big contracts to aging players and backloaded contracts, this team is going to be in trouble for the next few years. everything was invested in this core team and they failed. 2008 was the time to do it.

yup it's hendry's fault for not waiting for the market to completely tank like it did and everyone in baseball knew it except him. :roll: uhh, most gm's waited out the market because you could see the way it was going. hendry didn't. but hey, he had to lock up miles while he still could. if he waited a while, somebody else may have snagged him! that would have been disastrous.

it's pretty embarrassing when even joe morgan understands how bad you fucked up this team

i've been optimistic over the past month or 2, but i've about given up on this mess that jim hendry has created. there is absolutely nothing enjoyable about this team. even the 2004 team was more likeable than this. these guys all make me sick and yeah, i've come to really dislike zambrano. when he was actually good you could deal with him acting like a little kid. now he's basically a 4.00 era pitcher, if that.

It's as simple as that. It's no longer being overly negative to say that. It's being realistic. I don't think this team is like 1 or 2 pieces away from being a great team. I think it's more like we're one injury away from tanking. The rotation is probably the one area we're alright, but there are still a lot of question marks there. The offense looks to be the 07 offense. We have zero depth, we're playing pure garbage at 2nd base and will be for a while since apparently Jim can't find an infielder who can OPS over .700. Soto is flat out terrible and has less power than Ryan Theriot. The offense looks incredibly mediocre, at best. I'm not convinced Aramis will be back and producing by mid July either. The bullpen is the biggest problem. It is a complete mess. We have one good reliever, and his name isn't Carlos. The problem is that bullpens are extremely hard to fix during the season. It's almost impossible. You have to overpay for everything, and most of the time the guy ends up sucking. I really don't see how this team is going to become good. They are increidbly mediocre all the way around.