neely crenshaw

they are certainly giving whoever their choose is a lot of leverage! I hope this does not turn out like the furcal deal where we put all our eggs in that basket and didn't have it set. it seems that most good GM's have the next step pretty well set before they cut lose their options.. it would be a little silly to go straight youth with fuld/pie/murton after dropping the cash we did on soriano BUT HENDRY DOES SILLY VERY WELL...

So you'd prefer disgruntled Jacque at 5M on the bench rather than Infante at 2M on the bench? Why? Because disgruntled Jones at least provides a little bit of offense to a team that is in DIRE need of offense. And I really don't care about whether someone is disgruntled or not. It's not like Jones can just go out there and try to suck, because his next contract with a big league team will be dependent on how he performs in his contract year. Is that little bit of offense really worth an extra three million that could be spent elsewhere though? Also, although in a somewhat limited sample size, Jacque has sucked coming off the bench in his career. only better if they actually use the 3 mil...of course if we had dumped him for prospects we woudl have even more. I hate to say this but we have a hand full of omar infante's..utility guys are not in short supply for this team...If we have a plan that we know is going to play out..great, if we are hoping that we can get fukdome....then we could have really hurt our team for next year. this lineup without jones/floyd and with pie/fuld is going to struggle or you will have to have derosa play OF... I guess we will have to see how it plays out last time we had big plans..we missed out on furcal and hendry force fed us jones and pierre as a substitute!

he was struggling down the stretch and they gambled on a vet that had a couple good starts. the dempster thing is completely the work of hendry. he is trying to justify the contract (and length) he gave to dempster. much like forcing izturis,miller,barrett and jones into the lineup at the start of the season last year.those were his big moves and they needed to be justfied or proven. My hope is that lou will again make the moves he wants as soon as performance is proven.

note to giants...it is far better to be a YOUNG lousy team than an OLD lousy team. at least then your fans can believe they might get better...

I think we may have given up too much but I can understand the gamble. trachsel was about the only thing out there. he was gone after the season. he had thrown well in his last 2-3 starts. marshall was fading and we could use a vet now he failed horribly but it was a move that actually made some sense. he wasn't winning us the WS but he "could" have helped get us to the playoffs, which we needed badly.Now we gave up a lot but hendry has let far too many great prospects rot on the vine and lose any value. so i can not blame him for trying. now if you would like to talk about the ridiculous statement he made trying to cover his arse...that just makes him sound more stupid! if i'm the gm, i simply say the truth. we took a shot on a vet that we thought had some upside and it didn't work out....

I think most people would be surprised at how many did it. I would guess that 11 free agents is low. I am also guessing that there are many more that are not free agents. I would be willing to guess that since they were not illegal and we are talking millions of dollars potentially, that easily 75% of th players at least tried them or growth hormone. also you can not just look for huge size gains. many steroids do not give you super bulk, there are 1000's of choices. I would think that many pitchers would use an oil based type that keeps you leaner and more flexible. also they are not magic, the gains you get depend on your workouts. one of their attributes is that they allow you to workout harder, much more often(recovery time). Now HGH is a little more of a magic pill but you still must work. the thing that I look for is constant injuries to muscle and tendons...especially rips from bone (nomar-griffey) spikes in performance(jobo-steve finley,palmeiro etc) and then huge fall offs later...giambi,nomar,jobo,prior?,..or very abnormal performance..clemens, bonds,sosa...(sorry throwing 150mph at 48 is not normal).add in that clemens actually was a tall skinny kid at texas, and is now a huge hulk of a man much like bonds-most people just think of bonds and his changes. I also don't think most people realize how huge AROD is...he is a monster and he certainly is doing super human things. The only thing that gives me a doubt is that he has never really been hurt

i think you are a little light on the pitchers..i'm guessing it will 4-5 also i would look at jenkins as a possibility. just looking at size..injury..drop off i also wonder if previously implicted plyers like bonds and guillen are counted in the 11... it will be interesting to see if clemens and arod are named...if i had a bet on who did roids...they and nomar would be my top choices.

I agree with the idea...also I have a little more faith that maybe prior will be back to form because they found he did have an injury. it certainly makes more sense than spending two years saying nothing is wrong but his mph just dropped to 84-85... I know there is not much loyalty but you could easily say he owes us something for the money we put in his pocket(cubs and fans)

this is completely a hendry thing! it makes no sense.he paid him big money so he will try to push him on theteam anywhere he can. i have no idea how he is still employed. the only saving grace is that Lou won't stick with it if it isn't working just because hendry wants it...a change from dust. much like izturis,barrett(hendry's boy for sure) or eyre... this is strictly a money move. if dempster equaled his best effort in his career ever as a starter, it would not be good enough to put the cubs over the top. we would be better hoping that prior returned to form than having dempster be dempster..ven the good dempster would likely not win 15. we need a real live #2 to slide in between zambrano and lilly. this was all too clear during the playoffs. if you look at boston..they faced 3 must win games vs cleveland....and they trotted out be beckett,schilling and matzusake. we sent z, lilly and hill. dempster is not an the answer...it's a way for hendry to not eat that contract too.

how can you say dempster is better than marquis? i would rather see him in long relief or in someone else's clubhouse. i actually think they may be the same pitcher...anyone seen them together?

there is no way that disty is letting tom goodwin get away....needs that veteran bat/glove

have they said why they decided to go with z on 3 days rest? are we already skipping trachsel....

if he pulls off a meche type contract for lohse, it could well be the 7th sign... anyone who pays that type of money for lohse has to be fired immediately. no questions asked

anyone else convinced he shoots down a couple Jim Beams before he comes out for these? i'm thinking more like half a bottle but who knows he could be high on life!

got by arroyo now let's get harang...or whatever its spelled. this was big. we need 2 of 3 the rest of the way and it would be nice to go 5 of 6 at home but with arroyo and harang it wouldn't be easy!

this is pretty fun!!!!!! :D

unbelievable!

a little comparison eckstein..2001(26yrs old) .285 26 (2B) 2 (3B) 4(HR) 29 Steals .355obp 971. fielding at short Theriot..2007(27yrs old) .268 30(2b) 3 (3b) 3 (hr) 26 steals .330obp . 974 fielding at short... I think we are ok for a while at short. I'm sure we could drop another 10mil to get a little better offense at short but unless you are the yankees you simplt can not afford to do that everywhere. i would rather see us spend money on another top pitcher and hope that our corner guys who are counted on to hit 330 and 35-40 hrs come around.

Except Burnitz was a corner OF with below average defense, while Theriot is a SS with above average defense. I have always said it wasn't burnitz' fault he failed. he was signed as a corner of..at a pretty decent cost to replace sosa and alou. he did exactly what he did his entire career hit 250 with 25-30 hrs, strike out, play average to below average defense and hsutle. the probklem was our management signed him to be our huge power guy and carry the team with an outfield of murton and pierre...which he simply is not that type of player. similar to what they did to jones last year. theriot is cheap and does not need to hit 50hrs to help this team.

eckstein has been around a lot longer and did not start off as the hitter he is. theriot is very good. we don't have an arod or rollins or tejada..and right now we could not afford to pay one. he is cheap. he is faster than heck he plays d. look at what it cost for izturis for similar production! is he an all star..no but when you have put all stars at 3b,1b and lf and paid what we paid our pitchers you can't afford one at ss. please look at what eckstien,greene,visquel or furcal make. do we really want to drop between an extra 8 and 12 mil a year to have our shortstop hit 20-30 points higher? not to mention the fact that the chances are he gets better every year that he plays!

I think the moves are more likely to be round trades rather than signings which would keep the cost down a bit. We will probably drop a few names for salary room..like floyd. Right now jones has to stay unless we pick someone up. i just don't think you can go with pie and murton as fulltime guys with no one behind them. we certainly could use bullpen upgrade and I think a starter. we could continue with hill,marquis and marshall but they are too up and down. I would think we could grab a veteran pitcher for 2 young guys. I would love to grab a stud RF and then turn CF over to pie as a number 8 hitter.

Not sue why everyone wants Hendry out of town. Sure, he likes to spend the big bucks, but his main aquisitions have done their jobs as well as they were expected to. the problem isn't his pickups it what he hasn't done/ also please, please, please kee[ in mind that hendry's vision of this team would be izturis at short, delarosa at 2nd, jones in left,soriano in center and floyd in right, with barrett catching. if lou did not have the power to make this his team we would even know fontenot, theriot and pie would be september call ups..who knows where marmol would be..but the bullpen would be eyre,howry and dempster because that's what he spent money on. and the rotation would include miller...you definitely know that hendry would never have moved barrett for kendall..barret was his guy period. this team has gotten better becuase lou cleaned house.

There is more to d..what's the difference between an error and a ball you didn't get to? nothing other than the stat. izturis makes great plays and then blows an easy one...that's a wash. give me a guy who will pick up every ball that he should. championships aren't won by guys that make spectaclur plays alone. izturis is also horrid at the plate not just by average but how many times does he fail at a situation. it really appears that he does not even look to do these things. when you suck at hitting you have to do these things! let's go with theriot because he plays the game hard and correctly..maybe just maybe he will serve as an example for some of the other vets that haven't exactly been bustin' tail. they could be next. if we are going to be in last i would rather be in last with a bunch of guys busting their humps

I have to say that I was 100% wrong! i didn't think they find anything but I now i have to say that if he went on with this junk in his shoulder..he threw with a lot of pain. having been through rotator cuff surgery..I don't know how the cobs staff missed it. You can actually throw pretty well with it but it hurts like heck. when he first comes back he won't throw as well as he did injured. it will take a while and a lot of work.

abso-[expletive]-lutely!