neely crenshaw

I'll give them credit...yesterday they did get an awful lot of hits...its hard to get that many hits and have so little to show for it. Not really. They only had two walks. This team's problem is walks, they walk too many and don't walk enough. walks clog the bases....

unfortunately they are going to open him up and find nothing wrong. he is just a guy with a 84 mph heater. he is not coming back to any previous form or any team. i wish he would but you simply don't lose that much velocity for that long a time..with no injury and magically get it back.

A lot of if's...but if the rest of our pitchers held up like they are throwing and we had someone other than miller for the 5th spot. it might make sense. we certainly have a huge hole at short and cedeno no longer looks like a solution in the future. arod would certainly fill that and help our o. as far as anyone else unless jacque goes we don't have a place for miggy. yes i know we would make a spot but why trade for another outfielder who is not a cf. we have jones,soriano,floyd and murton plus pie. we either need a real cf(or pie) not another corner no matter how good with arod/soriano/lee/aram we could certainly live with a .300 hitting corner outdfielder who does the little things well.

for all the early talk..here's a stat for you no team since the start of teh wild card has finished below .500 in april and made the playoffs. none. right now we can not finish at .500 for april. I know there can always be a first and i know the astros were bad when they made a run..but it is very frustrating to contiue to find ways to lose instead of finding ways to lose. plain and simple hendry is gone when the sale happnes. hopefully he will be trying to fix things well enough that he can be hired someplace else. right now no one will touch him with the crap he has compiled over 3 years with large amounts of spending!

once again we have used up a top prospect and neither developed him nor traded him for value. we will give away ronny along the lines of cpatt. did we not supposedly balk at adding cedeno to the prior for tejeda deal? boy wouldn't that be nice right now!

i'm sorry but if we get the 40+ hr from our left fielder that is big not above average. add in the potential 300 average and stolen bases, i actually think this will keep it from being a horrible contract. being abutcher in center and blocking our best prospect could make it a horrible contract. the horrible part lies with hendry...he now has signed 3 players that should play left field in floyd,jones and soriano. then add in the cheapest one is murton.. he has now also devalued jones and murton because all teams know we have(or need) to trade them. we will not get anything like we could have for murton. jones i will be happy if we don't have to pick up any salary.

why we wouldn't we play him there? we put a bad left fielder in center and it's noit like that is an important defensive spot! how did hendry coach well in college? only he could put together a team that is weakest defensively right up the middle.

no, "baseball (or in this case cubs baseball) is like dating a german chick...you can love her but she don't always love you back" -beloved coach buttermaker

trade z..... why not. 3 years ago we had a young staff of historical braves type(glavine,smoltz,maddux, avery) potential now 2 are finished and z looks mediocre.

my worry is that when the bats wake up and get consisitent..the starting pitching will return to there normal performance...which means we will lose 1 run games 10-9.

face it..he was probably on the juice. it's not wear that broke him, it's that he is clean. ncaa baseball does not test. mlb did not test. please tell me how a forearm contact injury and a calf injury drops your mph over 10 points? if it was wear and tear it would have gradually gone down not dropped instantly. look at wood. he has faced worse abuse. he has had arm injuries and his mph's have not dropped like prior's. i know everybodies different but we need to look at this is very possibly the answer.

there will be a whole lot of questions to be answered. it unfortunately may be easier to pick than we hope. prior has to get healthy or he is a non factor miller has to continue to get healthy especially his fastball or he is a non factor marquis has to get much better or he is a non factor hill has to prove his work the 2nd half is the real deal marshall has to become consistent guzman,marmol, etc... the same we could have a glut or we could just a little better than last year. we have added lilly, who should be an inprovement..but was last year's amrquis any better than the young kids we sent out-not really. with prior,marquis,marshall and guzman you have 4 pitchers who probably combined for a 7.00 era last year! if that happens again, what will we do?

You aren't looking very far then. we tried long term, sound financial moves and blew it. right now, i want to win a series..period. i mean it would be great to be a contender for the next seasons but since in my 40 years of life i have had a team make the playoffs less than a half dozen times, what would the difference be if we won a title but then were bad for years...we have been bad for 100 years. explain to me how selling out the future for winning right now could be worse than what we have gone through?

i give hendry an A for effort. seriously, we were arguably the worst team in baseball last year. we had huge holes to fill! really we had z and dlee, barrett and jones. everything else could or should be fixed. it certainly looks like the timetable was 1 year to fix this and the market was not a very good one to fix a lot of holes! we signed aram..hendry's own screw up but had to get done! did not change short yet but we'll see if we are ok. i think we are not bad if izturis and cedeno hit 8th. 2nd base got derosa...helps with depth i don't know that it is a huge upgrade over theriot we get dlee back at first. this could be the biggest "deal" for improving next season. lf-so far still murton or soriano cf-soriano or anotherpick up..soriano is anothetrbig bat we needed. rf still jones so far. could be moved but if he can hit 6th or 7th not a bad spot. barrett= staff lilly=i like marquis..i hold out hope. i worry that with his deal he is not here to compete for a spot but will be given a spot. i would be ok if he earns it. with prior,miller and the young guys around he would be insurance but we paid alot for that. i certainly hope we have one more move for a solid starter. right now we have z and lilly..with high hopes for hill(but still not a sure thing) then huge ? on prior,miller,marquis and the kids) we can't play fantasy "let's make a deal" because you just don't know who really is available and what they are actually asking. with the market that was available..we ahd to overpay. my only negative is that we didn't get schmidt or meche. we still need one starter. i hope we can pull one off as well as find a CF.

keep this in kind...they only have to pay the fee..if they sign. that is something i didn't know. so they lose nothing if they don't sign him...however, they did keep the yankees from being able to sign him by outbidding them. this could very well be a ploy to keep him away from new york.

i have some spare time on my hands...

I don't wish Hendry ill, not even as a joke, but he better recover so he can stand behind what he has put together. So if he were to die you would be mad that he is not around to take the criticism? Ridiculous. Some of us may not agree with Hendry's signings, trades, and philosophies but if the 2007 Cubs fail it will not be due to lack of effort on Hendry's part. Maybe this team will recognize how hard Hendry worked for them this offseason and return the favor on the field. I don't think that a generalized opinion on how hard the GM worked in the offseason is what really drives most baseball players to play winning baseball. No but it may prompt Eyre to whine less about running laps and getting in shape. It may inspire pitchers to field their position better i.e. cover first base properly. It's something that just may cross the mind of every player that Hendry brought here and give them one more reason to leave it all out on the field next season. no, having a red a$$ like Piniella in the dugout getting on players for not doing basic things like covering 1st will motivate the players to play harder and smarter!

who is out there? floyd? i like him but he can't play fulltime. trades?...i simply do not see anyone that is a big bat available. there is talk that wells may be moved for pitching but what major league ready pitching would we send? hill- then that adds another hole on our staff. there's always a chance but i have a hard time buying the old...trade players a,b,c for this bat and then trade players d,e,f for this pitcher.... just too many scenarios to feel confident we can get them.

does anyone else think we have now pissed away a possibly stellar offseason? really..less than a week ago we were talkning about getting schmidt-lilly and jennings....with meche thrown in as a possiblity we were set to get another big bat... now we get lilly but not schmidt or meche. jennings is supposedly untouchable,garcia went to the phils for prospects we are talkning about ward as the big bat...ward who has no place to play and we are talking about gambling on marquis to help save our staff...might as well go back to hoping wood and prior will be studs we are better but how much? we still look to have serious holes on offense and pitching. we are aslo back to hoping for career years from derosa, marquis, jones again. lilly...etc

you never know what will get a trade done...yesterday the white sox wanted a major league ready starter for garcia...they got 2 pitching prospects today. i certainly wish we had called. garcia at 8 mil a year is worth meche and lilly at 11 mil! and we certainly have the pitching prospects! you just never know!

how can we be outbid by kc? who would want to play there for less? it's a career killer for a pitcher like colorado. in kc you can pitch great and still lose 20!

the problem with us here in cubland is that no one in our system should be untouchable. we have watch many untouchables come and go with nothing to show for them..if we have a chance at jennings and marmol is holding it up...that's bad baseball. marmol could be great but if we get a young major league ready starter we should do it. again we could have gotten tejada but prior was untouchable- at least straight up cpatt was untouchable and at one time we could have gotten anyone, same with guzman..or christenson, or brownlee, or wellmeyer, wuertz...farnsworth need i say more. sometimes you have to pull the trigger and help get a proven player.

lilly is not estes..he throws much, much harder and has a nasty curve. estes is a puff baller with a looper. this seriously hurts. i hope they have a serious plan b in place. this loss could derail what looked like a great offseason. get to it jim, the clock is ticking... also we had better move on lilly and meche because if zito goes...the price tag likely goes up. i'd take jones for penny. we need a stud pitcher. i like lilly,jennings and meche as secondary pick ups but they unless we get all 3, we need the impact that schmidt would have brought. and why would lofton be out if we traded jones for penny? certainly we still need him, and certianly he would cost less than jones..

the problem with jj is not jj..it's the position that hendry put him in. he had a very nice year. he exceeded all the hopes that i had. he is a nice player BUT with his arm and bat he can not be your big time outfielder. if he can play left(or maybe center) and hit 7th he is a huge asset..if he plays right and has to hit 3rd, 4th or 5th your team is not very good. i would certainly take him over what the sox gave drew for similar types of production..the difference is that drew will hit behind ortiz,manram,lugo,yuko and damon...

i put thisi a different thread but hendry was quoted on the score as saying the cubs were after schmidt,jennings and lilly plus another left handed bat . perhaps meche is the back up plan if they can't pry jennings away. or it could be leverage to get one or both of lilly and schmidt signed. if we are offering the best deal to lilly and schmidt but they are holding out..having the rumor out there that they are looking at meche too..might lead them to believe that if meche signs the dollars from us go away...i have to believe if the numbers out there for schmidt and lilly are accurate, they are the best offers one other thing..meche and lilly are much better than our options. prior had a 7 era...hill looks like he finally got it but guzman,marshall,mateo, miller,ryu are all worse...yes they have some uopside and may improve BUT it certainly seems like hendry feels he needs to win now and money does not seem to be an issue. so as long as signing meche and lilly and schmidt do not keep us from filling other possible needs who cares if we overpay for 3 pitchers? it's not my money and we are much closer to winning with all 3 in the lineup as oppossed to having marshall,hill,and hoping prior and miller make it back..i am tired of that. if we sign one...we are looking at hill,marshall and prior or miller or another youngster in the rotation every 5th day. if we sign 2 of them...we still have hill and one if the other 3.