neely crenshaw

Wrong. Unless you think 12K is in a row by a major league team is running to expectation somehow. ok a slight exaggeration but when your last 6 outs are k's and almost half of them on the day are k's- it seems like the last dozen batters k'd

not a lot of luck involved when your last dozen guys strike out.

I'd like to welcome David Dejesus and Starlin Castro to the 2012 MLB season...

So the signings of stewart, johnson, dejesus, even wood,camp and the rest of the bullpen are because they can help us compete this year? Heck I believe the management even said they were stop gap to plug holes. We do not have anyone near ready for the bullpen. We have one outfielder that seems ready but we need 3. We have a POSSIBLE 3b(hoping) and unfortunately 3 possible 1b. We have potential starting pitching...which I hope is filtered out this year. I don't mind any of the moves at all. I think it's smart to leave rizzo and jackson down for now...we aren't going anywhere fast.

Why would anyone even consider bringing up anyone before the vesting date? There is no chance of competing this year. Heck we may not win again before July. This is a business, and a long range plan. With the amount of holes that we need to fill there is no quick fixes of any kind-We may need until 2018 to put this together- hopefully not but there are some huge missing pieces and it does not appear that help is close.

Signings of stewart, dejesus, johnson..etc simply emphasizes that help is not close.

Back on subject. Bottom line is were they worth watching last year? I basically watched hoping several guys would have great years so they could be moved without eating to much contract! I would much sit back knowing we are playing some younger guys, working toward the future rather than pretending to try to compete. Last year, Pena may have been my favorite cub but to spend 10 mil on him to finish with the 4th worst record in mlb was dumb. I would rather have played colvin or baker their every day- no matter if he hit .175 or .300, at least then we would have known exactly what we had. I will happily watch while they take steps to make the entire situation better. It is quite enticing to look at the division and say with a couple moves we could be right there but we would be right back here in 3 years with horrid contracts and little room to change. After 40 years of making the playoffs once a decade I enjoyed the 4 straight years where we expected to win, and felt like we had a chance to win it all but I will happily take a step back year if it means we can put together an organization like boston or the cardinals that seem to there every single year.

every level he played at, it went up each year. he showed a slight drop when moving to the next level then improved. Don't know why that wouldn't continue. Also for what we would pay him, he wouldn't be fielder, pujols but he wouldn't be pena either. It would be worth a risk if we don't make a move. The problem is that you don't have many people who have a reason to move a decent up and coming player. They signed the big dog, so unless the think he can play 3rd...some say yes, some say no. Right now we have baker. wouldn't be awful but there also isn't much reason to expect growth. I would rather take a shot on trumbo than drop 10 mil on pena again, although I really liked pena. It just make much sense to pay that much for a guy who is going to hit like that especially when it's not going to be a difference maker.

you may want to investigate that, yes he had 291 obp but his minors were much better and steadily got better with a high of .368 in AAA in 2010. It seems his history says his average, and obp will rise since he was a rookie. it's just a thought because clearly pujols or fielder aren't coming, pena isn't coming back...i guess it could be jeff baker. I just think if we got trumbo and a pitcher for Marmol (especially if they are planning on moving him out of the closer role, making his value fall substantially) then this could be a chance for a pretty decent return.

we should have done more of this last year. we finished with the 4th worst record in baseball. why spend 300mil to be what 10th worst? Why would we spend 50 mil to sign an unknown for any large amount? we have way to many needs to waste money. of course part of it is some you are happy spending make believe money that isn't yours!

yea, that's a good description, of course we just paid a veteran in carlos pena 10 mil to hit 30 points lower. hit 1 fewer hr and 1 fewer rbi than trumbo in his big league season. good call, he probably won't get any better... as for walden he is what they used last year but he blew 10 saves and they tried the job to fernando rodney even. I just can't see them being ready to pay that much money to hand walden the ball in the 9th inning of game 7of the ALCS.

No, I would think we would rather use 50 million to maybe get a few players rather than pay that amount to "talk" to a guy about giving him another 20mil a year. it seems like we could find a lot better use for the money.

It would be stupid to post 50mil bid to talk to someone who has potential but is unproven. If we were close, then maybe but how an unknown pitcher who has never started 30 games or worked in a 5 day rotation, or thrown with a larger major league ball is going to put this team over the top is impossible. Unless he can play 1st, 3rd, left and catch...and possibly start in 2 of the 5 starters spots, it's not worth it. We would have been better throwing 80 mil at wilson. This guy maybe Cy Young but 50mil or more to simply find out what it takes to even sign him...no thanks.

actually this does not put you in the hall. The guys on the score read the actually award and it is a yearly award that is given, and the winner gives a speech during HOF week, but IS NOT ELECTED to be in the HOF.

With LA's signing of Pujols and Wilson, they have a very set lineup and staff save for no closer. They also have a potentially great young 1b in Trumbo. Love to see the cubs swing a deal of marmol for trumbo...and maybe a pitching prospect-they have 2-3 that were supposed to be major league ready, and it looks now only 1 will make it or be needed. This seems to be right up theo's alley. With talk that Karchner may be moved into the closer spot, Marmol's value will not be any higher. There are 2 names out there KRod and mattson BUT both krod would be much more expensive(as he will be turning down arbitration for between 14-16 mil) and marmol is much, much better than mattson, and probably less expensive to a team that just spent 325 mil for 2 guys. I think garza for hanley is not possible. watching hot stove all week, they made a great point that without pujols joining that lineup, if they lose rameriz without getting a bat would make that lineup actually worse than last year. reyes to stanton and sanchez is ok at best. then they have johnson, garza and beurhle,,ok also but not overtaking the phillies and probably a crap shoot for wildcard. A better scenario would be maybe garza for sanchez..another good young 1B. I am sure the marlins aren't done but perhaps an insight can be gained by if they go after fielder(which they say no) or "our" Rameriz which would mean hanley is not on board.

the problem is that with the contracts we'd like to move, it would take a miracle to get anyone to jump without us taking on some money. save for lilly, who could be rented for the last few months. even if they got crazy hot, who would take soriano, rameriz, or even lee(most likely but not as a .265 20 hr 1b) hopefully the yankess can come down with a few key injuries that we can fill- and they certainly woudln't take soriano back. it would be really nice if z came back and showed the form of the 15-16 game winner that he is/was...then maybe someone could take that deal. we paid him 19 mil to be a stud and he had never turned into that. good pitcher-yea, 20 game winner, consistant? feel like you will win every time he takes the hill...no. at his best, he was nearly unbeatable when he was on, but he was only on like that a handful of times a year.

lily out after this year right? at this point there is no reason to sign him. we have no number 1, and until we do we don't need to spend lots of money on 3's and 4's. i like lilly and he has done well for us, i do not dislike the signings but we aren't contenders yet we have nearly 60 mil wrapped up in starters with no big time stud. if we can get anything from lilly and either get z straightened or moved along at a savings or if god smiled on us, someone to take his contract down the stretch(stretch is right), we could start over. we would have a few months to evaluate what's here and then build again. right now i would much rather see 20+ mil go to cliff lee than to lilly and z, but we can not win with the current staff even in it's top form, and we certainly are not going to drop another 20-25 mil into the starters without something moving.

at the pace we are going we will only need them in about 65 games, so why wait?

didn't mind the move at all, he needed a fire lit under his tail but it can not be permenant unless we somehow became contenders with him there. He has to go back to the rotation, we can not win without a "good" carlos at the front of the rotation(of course we may not win even is he is there), if he no longer can be good carlos, then we need to find that out asap. also if he can be anywhere close to decent, the only way a contender might pick him up is as a starter...not an 8th inning guy at his price. we either have to have him as a front line starter or he has to be gone someway-somehow. we can not afford that price for a mop up or set up guy. of course if the middle of our order does not hit it won't matter if we have ford, young, carlton,gibson and palmer..

I think a lot has to do with the outcome of this season... dempster would be a solid signing he does not have to get front end money-which he may receive from some teams. with certainly can't drop money that we have for lilly. you never know what the market will bare but I never thought that meche would get 11 mil or that would start thinking 10 for lilly wasn't too bad! if finishes the year the way he is heading-he has to be in that catagory but will the market be the same money? we have z,harden,lilly, and marquis set..hill and marshall waiting. in that case marquis' performance may hold as much of the answer to dempster's future as dempster's performance does.

what you don't want to do is never let the thing heal and have it be a problem later. he should be fine, he had a few extra days rest so why not "use" it to make sure it's taken care of.

I think the way the season plays out will determine what we need. soriano comes back it adds a bat to the bench. reed johnson, edmonds at times, de rosa at times..maybe even aram with derosa playing 3b. if we don't need anything to get to the playoffs obviously we gain a reliever when #5 goes to the pen..which should be marquis or marshall( if he replaces him)- but marquis would add a righty arm there. right now it seems the question would be is wood out for a while and is marmol bouncing back. if there is a problem there then we better look for a big time righty- which are difficult to find this time of year. we certainly have the potential to hit our way into the playoffs if healthy, and we also have the starting pitching if healthy to get there. the main deal is if we get there do we have enough to win the thing-which has to be our goal when we are this close

marquis is good for what he does...a fifth starter. he wants the ball but you would really like a free agent with talent that wants the ball...more like z if you are looking to acquire a pitcher. we certainly have enough end of the rotation options

I would much rather see young and inconsistent (marshall) than old and inconsistent (dempster), at least marshall has a potential for improvement. I do not see why we would do this other than because we signed dempster to a big deal which is no way to run a team that wants to win something... i would really like to see a front end starter to put at #2..it owuld be tough for anyone to match lilly at 3 but that won't happen unless we deal.

by talking about the insanity of hendry's plan...you forget the fact that he has no plan...