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More like this team is really average and Orlando (er, Dwight Howard) is really, really good. david it's okay to admit that this team is below average.

I can explain that ... contract year. with the cardinals

wat

Not one of those replacements is accurate in expected roles, so your notion of downgrading across the board is wrong. Replace Wood with Marmol at closer (even). Replace Howry with Gregg at set-up (even). Replace Edmonds with Fukudome in CF (moderate downgrade). Replace Fukudome with Bradley in RF (notable upgrade). Replace Marquis with Marshall at 5th starter (slight upgrade). Replace DeRosa with Fontenot at 2B (slight downgrade). Replace Fontenot with Miles on bench (slight downgrade). Replace Jon Lieber with Vizcaino in relief (moderate downgrade). That's how I see it. That's extremely flawed logic. It doesn't matter what the specific roles are... Wood was essentially replaces by Gregg. You say we replaced Wood with Marmol at closer, but then we say we replaced Howry as a setup man with Gregg? Uhh, no. We're replacing Marmol with Gregg, not Howry, and that's a significant downgrade. The rest of your downgrade list just doesn't Make sense. You say how we replace Marquis with Marshall, but you don't acknowledge the lack of depth, or the loss of Marshall in the pen. You say how we replace DeRosa with Fontenot, but you don't mention DeRosa's value as a guy that can play anywhere, which will be very significant when Bradley gets hurt. Now instead of sliding DeRosa to RF and giving Fontenot more at-bats, we're suddenly giving more at-bats to Aaron Miles and other similar players. That big, especially when you look at the amount of time that Bradley misses each year.

Who's paying Gregg $5 mil? ???

Everyone in our division except maybe the Reds are having a terrible offseason. In fact everyone outside the AL East is having a terrible offseason. The Indians and Mets are doing alright Not sure the Indians are having a great offseason but they have improved over last year. Wood and DeRosa won't make too much of a difference though. My point is they're improving instead of butchering the team like Jim Hendry is doing right now.

Not that I disagree or anything, but for what it is worth. Ryan Dempster has had two ASG appearances, which is two more than AJ Burnett and only one fewer than CC Sabathia. stop

Everyone in our division except maybe the Reds are having a terrible offseason. In fact everyone outside the AL East is having a terrible offseason. The Indians and Mets are doing alright

Wow I'm so glad I've never listened to the Score. So let me get this straight - The Cubs can't win a title with an .800-.850 OPS 2B - Aaron Miles is a good leadoff hitter Yeah, that's perfectly reasonable.

ya think. when it seems so obvious that this is all leading up to a Peavy deal... No it doesn't. It's obvious with the stuff that's been coming out lately that this is just to clear payroll so Hendry can add Bradley, which is awful. I was kinda "meh" on including DeRosa in a trade for Peavy if we were signing Bradley, but now we're trading DeRosa and we're not even getting Peavy? Awful.

Man, this is turning out to be the worst offseason ever. Now what happens when Bradley gets injured? Instead of more at-bats for Fontenot we're looking at more at-bats for Miles, Johnson vs RHP, or Fukudome vs LHP. Maybe instead of giving Dempster a ridiculous contract we should have just kept DeRosa and re-signed Wood. Dempster was a huge waste of money. Really this team is looking very mediocre for next season when you take into account all the fulkey seasons we got last year. Bullpen looks mediocre, offensive looks slightly above average, and the rotation will look pretty average when Dempster regresses and Harden is out. Good thing the Brewers are having an even worse offseason.

the only thing i would change is every player in that lineup

If DeRosa is traded I'd try this Soriano Fontenot Aramis Bradley Soto Lee Johnson/Fukudome Theriot

Well Marquis hasn't been traded yet and the only person saying Bradley is close is Levine. I've learned by now that none of this really means anything

I can't disagree with you about keeping DeRosa, but one of the biggest complaints I've heard about Hendry is that he often sells low on players, ie Patterson, Sosa, Barrett. This might be a case of Hendry selling high on a player. I agree with you that keeping DeRosa and adding Bradley improves the Cubs offense and makes it deeper, but I can see why Hendry would trade DeRosa. I'd have no problem dealing DeRosa if he wasn't going to sign a guy who is pretty much a lock to miss half the season. If he wants to trade DeRosa then he shouldn't be looking at Bradley IMO

The better Bruce says the deal is "possible but not yet close" http://blogs.dailyherald.com/node/1163

Hmm. Will this be archived later or something? I want to hear it for myself

nomar garciaparra and rich harden the harden trade was certainly not leaked. there were like a couple of small rumors about the cubs possibly be interested in him a couple weeks before that but that's all It was talked about a pretty good deal leading up to it, but *nobody* expected it to get done as soon as it did. well a rumored trade happening and a trade being leaked are 2 different things. remember there was the article about how the trade happened, and they didn't actually do it until the night before it was announced, when jim called billy and said he'd include gallagher.

nomar garciaparra and rich harden the harden trade was certainly not leaked. there were like a couple of small rumors about the cubs possibly be interested in him a couple weeks before that but that's all

If they do sign Bradley it would be pretty stupid to trade DeRosa. The only reason I'd find signing Bradley acceptable would be because of the ability to put Fontenot in the lineup when he's injured

SOmebody on another board said Levine said the deal "might be announced next week", which is pretty funny. so it's a done deal but we'll hear about it next week maybe sounds about right.

lol i know, it's not like he doesn't strike out over a third of the batters he faces while the rest of them pop out or ground out. against guys who on average are worse than fukudome

Well it's so nice that you let us all know hiow much you don't care about my posts. That was very necessary. Do you realize you average nearly 20 posts a day? My parent's vodka when I was a teenager was less watered down. and that has nothing to do with anything. i just thought it was funny that you made a post to say how much you don't read my posts

Chargers Ravens Falcons Eagles

I'm gonna laugh my ass off when the Jets bring back Favre for another year