Lefty

We offered arbitration, he refused. Are we still allowed to sign him before the season?

I'll even switch off Rush Limbaugh to hear that!

For those too young to remember, the 2004/2005 off-season featured a Carlos Beltran free-agency that created a lot of buzz on this board. Beltran had let it be known that he wanted to come here, Hendry didn't want to spend that kind of money or commit to that length of contract. So let's recap. Beltran was paid 7/119 and 2/26 for a total of 9/145. When his conract is done, we will still have Soriano for 1/18(?) and will end up paying 8/136. Beltran is two years younger.

Recent moves by the Cards (Berkman and Beltran), Brewers (Ramirez) and Reds (trading all their prospects) indicate that they see their windows over the next couple of years. Maybe it makes a ton of sense for us to target a 2014 contention as the field will be less crowded.

The idea is that you spend around it. You put up with Darwin Barney and Travis Wood so that you can afford Prince Fielder and Yu Darvish. In theory, anyway. In theory, communism works. In theory. Communism works in theory if you believe in the power of the repressive state. Shame on those who still believe in that. Also waiting on the prospects, though I doubt they will amount to much. Still love Theo, though.

I don't believe his birthdate any more than I believe Aramis Ramirez'. Why on earth wouldn't you believe Aramis's? Mexicans be lyin Dominicans be tryin'.

I don't believe his birthdate any more than I believe Aramis Ramirez'.

Bigger picture, this is a lousy major league team and a lousy organization. I think Darvish and Fielder make sense as long-term assets. But the damage done by the previous administration and the contract overhangs might demand some serious retrenchment. I never bought into the Obama hype but I do believe in Theo.

Can't be. That's Kent Tekulve.

We'll be lucky to get Mike Fontenot even if we pay most of Soriano's salary. What is Soriano worth for 3 years? $10 million? That leaves $44 million for the Cubs to pay. The more I look at it the more I think we will have to add a productive player to any deal.

During the Hendry era every rumor had me nervous. Don't we trust these new guys?

The CS and PO were the same play and it was his first time picked off/caught stealing in the AFL season: yeah i was referring more to the 4 SB/10 CS with tennessee. Of course he likely won't try to steal much if/when he gets to the big leagues. The Red Sox don't do much running.

No wonder he looked dour. I'm here to play in a tournamnet. We played at Hohokam on Monday and the lineup sheet from the AFL game of 10/29 was on the wall. All the Cub guys were on it so I took it. Not sure what to do with it, though.

Ryne Sandberg was on United flight 725 from O'Hare to Phoenix. He was sitting in seat 1D. As I passed him I said "good luck" and he said, "thank you." Not quite Theo Epstein at the Lincoln Park Starbucks, but pretty cool.

When are they going to figure out that they have to put an El entrance on Waveland and Sheffield?

You'd think the stock market would rally on this news.

Let's start by destroying the mausoleum on Addison and Clark.

Besides being a cool guy, what's with your infatuatuation with CJ Wilson?

They probably won't ever contend considering all those monster, bloated, never-ending contracts they have weighing them down. At least the world is ending next December, so we only have 1 more full season to endure. Then Ricketts should have no problem emptying out his bank account by singing Wilson along w/ Pujols AND Fielder. The latter two comprising the most expensive platoon ever. Might as well go out w/ a bang. Who's Wilson?

maybe if you're the type that likes rooting for car wrecks to occur. Aren't the Cubs about entertainment?

Signing Bradley was probably too much to hope for.

Wow. Still, without that trade, our rotation would be even more of a mess than it is now. think Zambrano, Dempster, Silva, Coleman, Russell. this is true. you probably do not want to look up brandon guyer's numbers either. archer, on the other hand, has been bad. ...and Fuld has been OK too.

As much against the Bradley signing as I was, probably the worst thing that could have happened to Bradley was him being hyped as a big-time power hitting "RBI machine" who would slug like crazy in the middle of our lineup. When healthy he's generally been a very productive player, but more in the Fukudome way and not in the Adam Dunn way. People probably would have been more accepting of him had they expected a better (though less healthy) version of Kosuke rather than the next Sammy Sosa. I don't think it mattered whether the fans accepted him or not. It wasn't the fans that got to him (and if it was, I wish they would have got on him even more because he was really good at home and terrible on the road). The Cubs signed a guy with severe mental issues, so it really wasn't a surprise when he went off considering he was on a losing team with a manager like Lou. It was a gamble by Hendry that, predictably, didn't pay off. In hindsight, the best thing to do probably would have been to simply keep the 97 win team together, and if a need came along, fill it during the season. Unfortunately, those 3 fateful games in October yielded a knee jerk reaction that the team wasnt left handed enough, and we needed a lefty. Several were available, but none were particularly impressive. Bradley was probably the best overall player of the bunch, but was both physically and mentally fragile, both of which came out in his short time as a Cub. From an offensive standpoint, theres no question that Adam Dunn was the best choice, however, there were legit concerns about his fielding ability, and to this day, I dont think that right field at Wrigley would have been the best place for him. I wonder how things would have turned out if theyd just tried to squeeze a but more juice out of Jim Edmonds in 2009 and kept Pie in Iowa as insurance. Pie was out of options. Another example of the kind of non-obvious damage that can occur when incentives are misaligned. Hendry knew that Piniella wouldn't commit to Pie. But Lou is gone and Pie just turned 26 and has been decently productive in the AL East.

Think of all the names linked to steroids with some corroboration. Everybody was using something. Why not Byrd? Big deal.

No. 1974 was worse.