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I asked Churchill if the Vazquez trade def. took the Braves out of the Peavy talks

Are you comparing teams in, say, similar divisions? Nope in baseball because I was talking about W/L records, when I said teams have spent at the level we have and not been nearly as successful as us. I don't think people realize how many high payroll teams have bad or average seasons each year. Thats why I don't believe any GM with money can put a playoff team on the field, because you need to spend that money on the right players. Hendry has done a good job putting this team together, with back to back division titles(even though we were only 85-77 in 07), and us in a postion to be very good again next year. i think we should wait a few years until we determine how good of a job hendry did/has done. this team could be a mess in few years due to backloaded contracts and a depleted farm system. i think that has to be taken into account.

bill simmons says it best about vinny. he always looks like shooter from hoosiers....like he's terrified and he can't believe he actually is a head coach.

so adam dunn is a bench player now? um

this 8 game stretch was supposed to be where we went on a run. starting off by losing at home to philly is pretty awful. oh look, 2 more missed field goals by gordon. "pay this man!"

horrible shots all night long

god, gordon is like the soriano of the bulls. he's either on fire or completely awful. he isn't hitting ANYTHING right now yet he keeps taking terrible shots

or Snider

Yeah I should have read the whole article before I posted it

Now the Vazquez deal gives me hope that the Cubs can move a similar pitcher with a cheaper contract in Marquis at the Winter Meetings. if by similar you mean they are both pitchers, then yes, they are similar By similar I mean they are both decent innings eating pitchers. The difference is Marquis contract is a yr shorter. Also, Vazquez is much better at pitching. He was much better at pitching, 6 years ago. Vasquez has been fairly mediocre for quite a while, with one good year mixed in. He might be better now, and probably has higher upside. But I don't think he's much better at pitching. You must only be looking at era. All of his other numbers are significantly better than Marquis' over the past several years, and most of them are actually quite good.

If the Vazquez trade goes through, then it gives me hope that the Cubs can move Marquis without eating any of the money. Again, I don't understand why you're comparing Vazquez to Marquis. Vazquez actually has the ability to be good. Marquis isn't even close towhat Vazquez is. Even when javier's ERA is high his peripherals are all good. Last year was the first year he posted a WHIP above 1.29 (1.32) since 2000.

Now the Vazquez deal gives me hope that the Cubs can move a similar pitcher with a cheaper contract in Marquis at the Winter Meetings. if by similar you mean they are both pitchers, then yes, they are similar By similar I mean they are both decent innings eating pitchers. The difference is Marquis contract is a yr shorter. Vazquez is a much much better pitcher than Marquis. Just because they both eat innings doesn't make them similar

Now the Vazquez deal gives me hope that the Cubs can move a similar pitcher with a cheaper contract in Marquis at the Winter Meetings. if by similar you mean they are both pitchers, then yes, they are similar

I probably like Vazquez a little more than most but it seems like the Braves gave up a bit too much

Not sure if this deserved it's own thread but whatever. http://www.azcentral.com/sports/diamondbacks/articles/2008/12/01/20081201dbacks-CR.html crazy

Gammons says it 4 for 1 http://sports.espn.go.com/mlb/news/story?id=3740201

That's some imagination you've got there. So you hate every GM and not just Hendry? Did they kick your dog?

no, that's not why he had a high era. not at all. Huh?? Marquis 07 12-9, 4.43 era in 33 starts in 191 IP On the last game of the season he pitched out of the pen and gave up 4 ER in 0.2 IP. So total era went up to 4.60 Marquis 08 11-9, 4.43 era in 28 starts in 166.2 IP On the second to last game of the season, Marquis pitched out of the pen and gave up 2 ER in 0.1 IP So total era went up to 4.53. Some GM is gonna look at that and see that Marquis era when starting was much better, and believe that his era was higher because he struggled in meaningless games out of the pen on the final few days of the season. I'd imagine that GMs are smart enough to look past just ERA and w-l record when trying to determine how good a pitcher was

You know that people are mad about losing the picks and not mad about losing the chance of Wood accepting arbitration, right? Not chance. Risk. That's not my point. It sounded like you thought people were mad because they wanted Wood back when they're mad about losing the draft picks

You know that people are mad about losing the picks and not mad about losing the chance of Wood accepting arbitration, right?

*laughs til he cries* Why? I even specified that it wasn't necessarily his fault. I guess you can't even allude to the fact that Wood might not be a saint without people here flipping out. Why? Because it's utterly nonsensical? I love this new Wood the saint strawman when much of this thread has been people calling Kerry a liar regarding his willingness to accept a one year contract. Apparently Jim Hendry(who's apparently Kerry's best friend now? When did this nonsense start?) believed he was willing to take a one year contract. That or he's following the Brian Sabean plan of first round picks = bad. I didn'y even say I was blaming Wood. I said the situation effed us. That said.... could Wood, understandiong the situation and that the picks would be good for the organization, not have gone to Hendry and assured him that he wouldn't accept arbitration no matter what happens? He couldn't have done that? Why not? How could doing that have possibly hurt Wood? Can you answer that? Oh, and why is it nonsense to say that Wood and Hendry are good friends? They've both said on numerous occasions that they are good freinds. Nobody ever said they are "best" friends, and if they did it was obviously hyperbole. Bottom line is that Wood could have allowed us to get the picks had he gone to hednry. Obviously he didn't. I'm not even criticizing Wood as much as I'm criticizing Hendry...you just get sooo defensive when anyone says something that even suggests something even remotely bad about Wood.

*laughs til he cries* Why? I even specified that it wasn't necessarily his fault. I guess you can't even allude to the fact that Wood might not be a saint without people here flipping out.

It's comical that Hendry has allowed it to play out this way. I blame both him and Wood. If they really are such good friends, why couldn't he go to Wood and get his assurance that he would not accept arbitration? If Wood is really the golden boy that everybody makes him out to be, then he'd have no problem telling Hendry he wouldn't accept arbitration and allow the organization to get the much need picks. I can't believe it's actually going down the way it is. Wood, whether intentional or not, just f'd this organization big time.

2 mil with another possible 2 mil in incentives

you need to stop