Lefty

Ok, I'm not real quick on some of this corporate stuff...how would that assure the sale of the Cubs? If a financial buyer, a buyer only interested in making money and not running a media company, buys the Tribune, they would sell off assets to make their numbers work. They would sell off the newspapers to a newspaper operator, the TV stations to a TV broadcaster, etc. The Cubs have a value of $500 million? That's money that can be used to pay off the massive debt that this buyer will take on to make their bid in the first place. What I have tried to explain to those not up on corporate lingo is this: if someone from the outside buys the "Tribune," there is no "Tribune" company as we know it. Fitzsimmons will have no power in deciding what happens. It will be a bunch of finance guys who care only about the numbers. Maybe they could run the Cubs?

CNBC just reported that Private Equity is looking at an LBO before the buyback. Perhaps this should be a new thread because that would assure a sale of the Cubs.

The Cubs lost in 7 and would have won if Passeau hadn't been hit with a comebacker in Game 6. Yeah, I'm still bitter.

Thanks for that link Banedon -- the stock buyback plan, yes. I was wondering if there was something else b/c Lefty painted a bankruptcy scenario in his post. I'm sorry if I was misunderstood. Nothing I said involved bankruptcy.

Would that happen quietly? I genuinely don't know the answer, not trying to be sarcastic or anything. Depends on whether the Cubs thought they could drive up the price with a bidding war or not. Or how much either party wanted to keep it a secret. My feeling is any Cubs sale would be somewhat of a surprise when it happens. I don't think you'd see it negotiated in the press for months on end. Corporations are very good at keeping deals quiet if they want to. And it's a lot easier to sell off an entity within a corporation than to sell the entire business, which would require shareholder votes. As I said in the original post on this during the winter, Tribune is probably not the entity who is going to decide to sell the Cubs. A financial buyer will come in and sell off the pieces to strategic buyers. I.e., the TV stations would be sold to a larger TV operater, the newspapers to a media publisher, in order to get premium prices. There will be no "Tribune Corporation" as we now know it. Lefty, I missed that original post during the winter. What's going on at Trib Co that would result in such a mass liquidation? TRB has rallied about 15% since the beginning of April. Someone on Wall St must have liked the stock buyback plan -- in fact Goldman Sachs upgraded the stock just this morning. Private Equity is swimming with money. The stock has rallied, but it still has a very modest market cap, and hasn't done anything for years. Back to Private Equity: Tribune is a perfect target given the environment. It has very little debt. A financial buyer can borrow most of the purchase price, sell some assets, clean up the operations, and IPO what's left with a huge debt burden and take out all their equity. My initial winter post said it would happen this year if the junk bond market held up until Fall. It has been shaky the past month. If it rights itself I think we are on target. When I originally posted there was no talk of any buyback or other in-house finanacial engineering, but this is how it starts. The execs try to do something internally to forestall change from the outside. But today the financial buyers have more power. This will happen.

I just figured Pierre's stats. He has created about 23 runs while using 201 outs. That's 3.05 Runs per 27 outs. That is similar to a pitcher having about a 2.75 ERA. It's roughly as bad, probably a little worse, than Patterson's 2005 season. Way to go Jim!

Would that happen quietly? I genuinely don't know the answer, not trying to be sarcastic or anything. Depends on whether the Cubs thought they could drive up the price with a bidding war or not. Or how much either party wanted to keep it a secret. My feeling is any Cubs sale would be somewhat of a surprise when it happens. I don't think you'd see it negotiated in the press for months on end. Corporations are very good at keeping deals quiet if they want to. And it's a lot easier to sell off an entity within a corporation than to sell the entire business, which would require shareholder votes. As I said in the original post on this during the winter, Tribune is probably not the entity who is going to decide to sell the Cubs. A financial buyer will come in and sell off the pieces to strategic buyers. I.e., the TV stations would be sold to a larger TV operater, the newspapers to a media publisher, in order to get premium prices. There will be no "Tribune Corporation" as we now know it.

Cubs sale possibility greatly increasing. Bruce, do you think you could play it up? Wouldn't you love to tweak the big guys?

And 1968 was "The Year of the Pitcher" in which Gibson set the single-season ERA mark and Yaz won the Triple Crown and didn't even hit .300. It makes Neifi's feat all the more pathetic. Yaz won the Triple Crown in 1967. He lead the league in BA in '68 with a .301. Doesn't anybody remember the Miracle Sox of '67 anymore?

i'm watching the Fox sports StL feed, so no Stoney, its the regular Stl duo I heard them say the same thing. Disgusting. I'm seriously on the verge of finding another team to root for. I've always been a Cubs fan, but, as a baseball fan, it's becoming tough to root for them. You know, there is a whole community of Cubans in Miami who would kill and die for Cuba, but feel the current management has to go. That's sort of how I describe my Cub fandom.

Geez, I hope you never have to write about economic or budget issues.

Patterson is pretty much doing what he did here in 2003, the first five months of '04, and the first two months of '05. We've seen it before, but the organization wanted more. Instead of batting him seventh and leaving him alone, they just jerked him around to the point that he was worthless at the end of last year. And then the team had to make a decision. The truth is, they don't have enough confidence in themselves to make tough decisions. Why else bring in Pierre? I believe they thought he would be what he was, give him an extension, and trade Pie for a veteran OFer. Pierre is really messing this up. If Hendry had gone into the season with Pattercon in CF, and he didn't hit, yeah, we'd all be calling for his head. But that's their job. They shouldn't get a pass for giving him away.

he can't handle personal situations well at all, but I'd take him over Hendry in a heartbeat. He knows how to setup a good team, something Hendry has failed to do. Not really. He basically caught lightning in a bottle recently. Moneyball paints him as a bumbling idiot, but I guess everyone is compared to Billy Beane. so much for moneyball. it probably said that dye, thome and contreras were done... Maybe read the book. Moneyball is about market inefficiencies. Dye's contract at the time was seen as a little much, Contreras for Loaiza was buying low, and Thome was a calculated gamble helped by not wanting to go to arbitration with Rowand. You could argue that these are mostly Beane-type moves. Sorry.

But the Dodgers held on and won the division. Would LoDuca and Roberts have made a difference in '06? Give it a rest Jim. Or are you Bill Plaschke?

This is all irrelevant but DePo's team made it to the playoffs his first year. And I don't think that appearance was inevitable before he got there. And which stupid trades? Mr. Hendry, you should know better than to get involved with this thread.

Did you see something in Hill, Guzman and Williams that I missed? That looks very much like our current rotation.

Only if the WS winner doesn't have some kind of quirky hook. Unfortunately most of them do just because it makes good copy. If the Cards win, and Ponson does anything, Hendry would probably try to find a fat, violent, (ex-)alcoholic starting pitcher to replace Wood and Prior.

To think that this board (in the aggregate) was against trading Hill for Aubrey Huff.

This surely complicates things if the Cubs are to go into fire sale mode. Maddux wouldn't bring that much in a trade, sorry to say.

What do you need a leadoff hitter for? We got one and where are we? I am so sick of this line of thought. If the Cubs had Jim Edmonds in Center, how many more runs would the Cubs score? Get the best player you can get at each position and then make the lineup. Trading for Pierre has the whole thing backward. Murton and Walker are probably the best choices to lead off from the curent roster. Please don't give Pierre an extension, and Pie bats 7th where Patterson should have always been.

The Ks will eat him up.

Mrs. Hoff*** is a member of this board. Please weigh in.

It is commonly known that Ruth "lost" one HR because of the "walk-off" rule. It is not counted in his 714 because that was the rule at the time. I can't believe I used my one-thousandth post on this, no offense.

I don't think anyone's looking for reasons, they just jump out at us. You're lucky. They don't just jump out at me , they kick me in the ba**s.

Darn. I hope he knew somebody. Edit: Pitching coach at Loyola Academy in Wilmette. I guess I can't compete with his credentials. Go get 'em Mike!