champaignchris

We trade Fox for a four year younger version of himself. We dump Miles and only have to pay $1 million of the $2.7 he's owed. We get what appears to be a relatively decent relief pitcher and a 21 year old pitching prospect for our effort. What's not to like?

Roberto Alomar Bert Blyleven Andre Dawson Barry Larkin Mark McGwire Tim Raines Alan Trammell Those would be my votes. Larkin and Trammell are borderline for me. Someone would have to explain to me why they'd vote for one, but not the other. If you put Dawson in a Red Sox or Yankees uniform for any significant amount of time, he's not only a first ballot Hall of Famer, he'd be talked of as one of the great legends of the game. Despite playing his best seasons in Montreal, Rookie of the Year, MVP, runner up twice, another top 10 finish, 8 all-stars, 8 GG's. 438 pre-steroid home runs. A reputation for being, not only a great competitor and team mate, but also an all-around nice guy... The list of eligible players with more hits than Andre Dawson who are not in the HoF are as follows: Harold Baines. Of course Dawson was, in addition to being a comparable offensive player to Baines, a very good base-stealer and an elite outfielder, two things that Baines was definitely not. If someone wanted to argue with me that Morris should be in, I could probably be convinced. As much of a homer as I am for him, I just can't quite pull the trigger on Lee Smith. Compare his numbers to Hoffman, Rivera, or Wagner, and he just doesn't measure up.

Cubs Nation, if you want to be reminded of how utterly insane the 2004 season was. That season had to have actually happened because no one would actually dream it up. I've had Lords of the Realm recommended to me, but I haven't read it yet.

At this point, I'd rather Ricketts take the seven figures it would take to buy out Hendry and/or Piniella and put that into the roster. The realities of the Cubs' contract situation is that it would be difficult to impossible to blow up the roster and start over even if that's what the owner wanted. Ricketts seems to have made it pretty clear that he thinks the Cubs can win next year and that Hendry's job is on the line. Not sure what anyone can expect beyond that. I'm also not sure why anyone thinks Crane's job is safe. I doubt he makes it to opening day. As soon as the Ricketts get their offices in place and running, he pretty much becomes superfluous. Not that it should have any bearing on the on-the-field product.

That's certainly the gist that I took from it.

Nice video. They look happy and excited, can't keep from smiling, just like any of us would look if we'd just managed to buy our favorite team. I loved this quote, "For us, hope is just not a strategy anymore." Said winning a championship was the #1 priority and the Red Sox was a good franchise model. I think if you read between the lines, they have some pretty big plans for Wrigley. Sounds like Lou will be back as manager if Lou wants to be back as manager.

If you'd have given me 20 guesses, I don't think I'd have come up with this one.

I got the same score.

I liked Steve Buechele, too. He couldn't hit a lick, but was a pretty slick fielder.

I got 141/180. Guys I'm surprised I missed: Steve Buechele Brian McRae Jeff Blauser Eric Young Mark Bellhorn Jeromy Burnitz Juan Pierre Guys I still don't remember: Scott Bullett

O.K., how's this then... Why do you trade Michael Wuertz for pocket change, then effectively trade Cedeno and Pie for an older, more expensive, not as good version of Wuertz, and follow that up with spending about $3 million to sign older, more expensive, not as good versions of Cedeno and Pie (Miles and Gaithright)? And I've now checked back through 1960 and found no Cubs player to have had at least 150 ABs and a worse OPS than Miles this year. Although Don Kessinger's 1965 was a sight to behold... .485 in 309 AB. Of course, he was 23, in his first full season in the bigs, and he'd later go on to be a six-time All Star...

When you consider that Miles signed his 2-year, $4.9 million contract on December 31, 2008 and Orlando Hudson signed his 1-year $3.4 million contract with the Dodgers on February 20, 2009, one could argue that his awfulness hasn't been addressed anywhere near enough.

Aaron Miles, signed for a 2 year, approx. $5 million deal... and promptly: Hit about .100 points below his career numbers in Batting Average, On Base %, and Slugging. Had the worst OPS of any player in the majors with at least 150 AB... .466. Of players with at least 100 AB, only Eric Bruntlett, Mike Aviles, and Eliezer Alfonzo had a worse OPS. Posted a lower OPS than Zach Duke, Randy Wells, Chris Carpenter, Kyle Loshe, Russ Ortiz, Johan Santana, and Derek Lowe, just to name a few pitchers, none of whom are known to be "good hitting" pitchers. But really, how much damage can a back up 2B really do? Well, with his 157 AB, the Cubs essentially played a quarter of the season with two pitchers in their line up. That's pretty crippling, wouldn't you agree? (Think Sean Marshall can play 2B? He posted a better OPS this year, and then Lou could do that cool lefty-righty switch off thing.) I went back and checked Cubs teams going back to 1980 and, not only could I not find anyone with at least 150 AB who had had a worse season, I couldn't find anyone who was really even close. (Curtis Wilkerson in 1990 posted a .507... Special mention should go out to Doug Dascenzo, however, who posted a .428 in 139 AB in 1989.) It may take more research to determine, but we may have been privileged to witness, not just the worst offensive season by a Cub in a generation, but perhaps the worst offensive performance by a Cub ever. (And, yes, I agree that "worst offensive" is redundant.) Of course, best of all, he's under contract for next year!!!

Bradley to the Tigers. Magglio and Dontrelle (and about $15 million) to the Cubs. It makes too much sense not to happen. Yes, I'm kidding. Mostly.

With Ricky Henderson as 3rd base coach.

The perception over the last couple of years is that the Indians have had the talent, but not performed on the field.

He was asked about breaking the record, and he said something to the effect of, "So what?" Mike and Mike went off on him this morning saying the strike out is the least effective end result of an at-bat. While, I don't think that a strike out is good, it at least eats up three pitches, more often five or so. I've watched too much of the Cubs offense these last five years and seen too many first pitch lazy fly balls, first pitch slow rollers, and opposing pitchers blasting through 7 pitch innings. The strikeout is overrated. There's certainly a time and place where the k is completely unacceptable, where you simply have to make contact and get the ball in play, a runner on third with less than two outs, for example. But generally, in this day and age, where there is such a disparity between starters and middle relievers, when there's so much strategic advantage to getting into the bullpen early, If a guy is going to make an out, I'd rather see strike outs than early in the count easy outs.

Ram is, and has been since 2004, one of the most consistent players in the National League. You can pretty well chalk in 140 G, 30 HR, 100 RBI, .300/.390/.525 every year. I suspect, barring another significant injury, that's about what you'll see from him again next year.

Z got shelled in the start leading into, and the two starts right after, going on the DL for the second time. Other than that, he's had a pretty darn good year. I think a lot of critics look at the W-L record. He's had six starts this year, where he's pitched six or more innings and gave up 2 runs or less and not gotten the win. In five starts from May 27 to June 23, he pitched 35 innings, posted a 2.07 ERA, and was 1-0. He's only 29 years old and still has 3 or 4 seasons of 180-ish innings with a sub-4.00 ERA left in him. I'm not saying he's untouchable, but the Cubs better receive value for him if they do trade him.

I see nothing in that article about Soriano dissolving before our eyes like the bad guys in Raiders of the Lost Ark. Or Ramirez missing 70 games. Or 2B being a big black hole. Or Soto having the sophomore slump to end all sophomore slumps. Keep DeRosa and don't sign Bradly, and you either still have a hole in RF or you have the same hole at 2B. Either way, you still don't have anything to make up for Soriano and Soto under performing and Ram missing almost half the year. Hendry is being roasted for not standing pat. If he had not made any changes and everything happened just as it did this year (Fontenot, Soriano, and Soto sucking, Ram getting hurt) he'd be roasted for standing pat. At the time it made sense. We had an extra second baseman and needed another outfielder. If you want to blame him for something, blame him for signing the wrong outfielder. (I wanted Dunn) Bradley's blow-up may have been inevitable, but Fontenot and Miles OPSing .080 and .220 below their career averages respectively was not. (And to Hendry's credit, he did trade some loose pocket change for a guy who's OPSing at .845 for the last third of the season.)

Exactly. Here's a little perspective for you. I was born in 1979. The Cubs have made the playoffs 6 times in my lifetime. The Cubs have also made the playoffs 6 times in my Dad's lifetime. He didn't have me when he was 10 either. There have been far worse stretches to be a fan of this team. We've just been teased into thinking it was, uh, gonna happen. Other than 1969, my dad saw a lot of [expletive] baseball until Sutcliffe and Sandberg came along. So true. For all the crap that's gone down this year, it's still looking like it'll be the first time since '70-'72 that the Cubs have had three winning seasons in a row. (They had six in a row from '67-'72.) Because those Banks/Williams/Jenkins/Santo years straddled the late 60's/early 70's you could argue the 00's has been the best decade for the Cubs since the 30's.

I tried. Prior to the 1993 season, I actually went out and bought a Braves hat. I was sooooooooo pissed about the bungling of the Maddux deal. But I couldn't follow through on it. The Braves didn't hold my interest and by the end of the year, it was all about the Cubs again. Some really pathetic years in between - 1994 and 1997 - and the strike, and I was ready to swear off baseball entirely. But, of course, 1998 comes along... Sammy and the home run chase, Woody, the playoffs, and I've been hooked, hard core ever since. Oh well. There's always next year, right.

If he does nothing but shag fly balls in right for the rest of the season and off-season, will he be ready for opening day? (Only half kidding.)

Just for fun... Jeff Stevens (26) AAA, 57.2 IP, 2.03 ERA, 1.04 WHIP, 61 K John Gaub (24) AA-AAA, 60 IP, 2.25 ERA, 1.15 WHIP, 80 K Chris Archer (20) A, 109 IP, 2.81 ERA, 1.32 WHIP, 119 K Stevens has already been called up to the Bigs and was pretty impressive during his time with the team in July. Less so in his infrequent appearances since. Although it's too soon to tell with Archer, I think there's a strong likelihood that Stevens and Gaub are fairly frequent contributors to the Cubs' pen over the next three or four years. Considering DeRosa just turned 35 and has a career OPS+ of 97 (which, he has matched this year, by the way) I'd say, viewed in hindsight and in a vacuum, the DeRosa trade will probably look pretty good. Problem is, it's just not the kind of trade teams that a team that thinks it's gunning for a title generally makes in the off-season.

Baseball is a weird game. Looking at their remaining schedule, I could see the Cubs going about 12-7 the rest of the way, which would probably leave them about 4 games out of the playoffs with no real drama toward the end of the year. It would also give them 87 wins, which would be two more wins than the '07 playoff team and only three or four games off of most people's projection for the team this year. As disappointing as this year's been (and it has been disappointing) and as much as the Cubs have underperformed (and they have underperformed), you have to give a whole bunch of credit to the Cardinals cobbling together a real good team mid-season, and the Rockies and Giants playing way above expectations.