neely crenshaw

i also have to say that although injuries have taken it's toll on this team..this is the third year in a row that injuries have come about. it is no surprise to anyone that wood and prior were hurt this year. it is no surprise that nomar was hurt his 2 years here. there is a reason that boston gave up on him despite being in the middle of a world series run. hendry a team that was ENTIRELY dependent on pitchers with a history of serious injuries not only being healthy but also be very,very good. he also built our pffense ENTIRELY around the hope that lee and aram were both healthy and both had very good years. now most of us thought it would be aram that got hurt...it's still a very poor plan. no, not many teams could survive losing all of these guys...also not many teams base their season on a core of very injury prone players. knowng our potential problems, i said from september on that we needed to find someone to take wood for anything. we could not afford the risk. 12 mil is too much tied up in a pitcher that will be hurt. we could have signed someone for that money or whatever we didn't need to eat. we also could have bulked up the offense but instead we went defense and speed, which without pitching hurts! i'm sorry but an outfield that does not hit 40 hrs combined in wrigley had better have a stud pitching staff!!!! if we could not forsee the potential trouble that's even worse!

dave roberts for 5.5 mil a year for 2 years sounds like hendry's kind of deal except he will offer him 3 years even though no one else would even go 2... can you say 16 for 3! the sad part is i could see hendry actually signing guillen and roberts to multi year contracts and of course that would devalue murton..much like izturis had devalued cedeno...so hendry ships them off for a couple of class a long shots....just to completely seal the deal on the hendry administration!

how many in a row did he save? he has been bad now but so has everyone...at least it's happening when it does not matter. i would have to say that he was a better option than anyone in the pen-at the start of the year.....the hawkins experiment should tell you not to use howry or eyre in that role fulltime. wuertz certainly was not an option at the start and he has had moments also please oh wise one...who should we have signed to be our closer? todd jones?! hendry screws up alot.although i have never given him credit for dempster being a decent closer because he only got a shot after every other pitcher on the staff failed. i really thought they had this role set obviosly that needs to be reevaluted now. i also feel that he has sat around far too many times to be effective! i mean how many managers let there closer go 10 days without throwing?

for current status the cubs still win out but dolan seems to be trying unfortunately his team has won championships in my life so he has a way to go. but for current garbage only the knicks and cubs can actually spend huge dollars and still be terrible...not just not win but be truly awful that takes alot of skill.

jerome williams did not make hendry give him away...hendry choose to do that. this is just another in a long line of decent prospects...especially pitchers that we have had huge hopes for and then gotten nothing or next to nothing for.... and as i said i will bet big money ryu does not sniff the success that williams has had or will have... i have a sneaking suspiscion that the oakland organization has more of a clue than the cubs organization does.

i would place big, big money that ryu is never ever anything near what williams is and will be. so if he is more deserving then you can have him. how about walrond? is he more deserving? bynum..yeah a lot of upside there! we have so many worthless spots on our forty man, that jerome williams is hardly the odd man out! it was a bad move by a bad gm...

you are correct- my point is with the given lineup how much better would the cubs be..because of jones? a game..2? for 3 million more dollars a year with no upside at all, it doesn't make sense. now if you sign 2 stud pitchers, trade for a stud ss and sign a stud ofer...then it would make sense. to be less in last place..it makes no sense.

dlee and z. it's very hard to like the youngins' because i know we are going to screw them up.

i would agree except the cubs aren't doing this pie's own good they are doing it to keep his years of service down to help them... and jones is paid 6 mil...if he is told to sit..he should sit-period. he has his spot for next year...no one wants his deal for 2 more years. he might be able to be dealt at the deadline next year if someone needs a vet. so he has nothing to worry about being replaced and believe me he knows that! i'm pretty sure we will see the same outfield next season. if not, it will just magnify the fact that signing jones was silly. why pay jones 6 mil a year to be in an outfield with pie and murton. why waste the money? seriously if cpatt had his bad seasons and hit .240 with 20 hrs...how much better would we be with jones' .275 and 25hrs for double the money and no upside?

the problem isn't that we rob or didn't rob sf...the problem i have is we got nothing for a uninjured 23-24 year old starter that has had success in the b igs...we got zip- and i'm sorry if the a's grabbed him...he was probably worth hanging onto. with our great pitching...we really can't afford to give away anyone. 6 months ago he was looked at as a lock to be #3...without factoring in anything to do with hawkins, this was a very poor deal. if williams sits in the minors for 5 more years...he costs us very-very little and would still be 29! that's 5 years from now...and we gave him away for nothing..

just a little fuel for the worst team in baseball fire! i have been waiting all season for this nugget! in april(actually 1 game into may) we were a solid 14-10...the rays were 10-14, royals a horrid 6-18... since those 24 games...the mighty cubs have cruised to 41-73...trailing both the rays at 45-70..and the royals at 46-70 think about that..we are 4 full games behind the royals......for what we pay wood,prior and niefi we could have their entire roster and we are 4 games worse over the last 4+ months then add this just for "cubs" sake...we have not fired our manager and our gm got extended, only in this organization!

a quick look back shows me all i need to know about the cubs front office and the fact the have no clue and have no chance to fix this! if aram leaves after this year..which no one would blame him for, we will have 0 position players left from the 2003 team- just 3 years ago- that was a handful of outs from going to and probably winning the series. hendry has remade this team. these are his players he has handpicked..he has no longer inherited any players...and really only 1 pitcher unless prior comes back. after 2003 we needed an upgrade at ss and i felt an upgrade at closer...that was it. hendry did neither and in 3 years we went from- 2003-loftin cf, sosa rf,alou lf, rameriz 3b, gonzo ss,grudz 2b,simon/karros 1b,miller c...pitchers prior,clement,wood,z,and cruz...bullpen farns,remingler,veres,jobo,6 finger and guthrie 2006 pierre cf,jones rf,murton lf,rameriz 3b,cedeno/izturis ss,cedeno/theriot 2b,lee 1b, barrett c pitchers z,marshall,guzman,hill,mateo...dempster,eyre,howry,wuertz, ohman, novoa we have changed every position player including bench players except rameriz. we have a completely redone the bullpen and the starting rotation...yes there have been injuries there but hendry choose to depend on wood and prior despite their injury histories we can blame dusty but tis is hendry's team!

it's not everyone who can spend 95 mil and be the worst team in the national league...and we actually have made a case for being the worst in the league...period! and i'm sure hendry will alibi that they played a lot of young kids are kicking butt and the vets are blowing it... this is quite a sad collection of talent and i have zero faith that anyone in the organization has a clue on how to fix it!

agreed...keep those two. if aram leaves why not get rid of everyone? do you realize we are the worst team in baseball with them since april? in the scheme of things does it matter if we are out of it in may as opposed to june? i know many of you felt we were still in it much later as we cruised along playing .400 ball but we were done june 1.... seriously if we lose aram " we would have to sign 5-6 big time players to make this team a "serious contender...with him we need 2 big time starters and 1 position player there is not a fill in at 3rd capable of aram offense..so we would need another bat somewhere else. we would also need to grab more pitching because it's pretty clear we could not grab 2 big bats to fill in the postions we need now..so we would lose someone like murton or 2b also... we all know that hendry would not swing the necessary deals to fill aram spot..so our lineup would look like pierre cf izturis ss barrett c lee 1b jones rf murton lf bell/bellhorn/lowell 3b cedeno 2b p with this as a real possibilty why not blow it up? is this much worse? pie cf theriot 2b murton lf lee 1b jones rf...no one would take him yet...maybe at the deadline bell?/moore 3b..why not z? soto c cedeno ss p

steve stone was talking about this but in regards to hendry...and i think it means more on him the last 3 years....over 300 mil spent on players! 11 games under .500 after yesterday for the 3 years this is much more hednry's fault than dusty's- although there is plenty of blame to go around. a manager can not control who gets hurt but we have a gm that continually puts together a team based on certain players being healthy and certain players having stud years. hendry continues to put a team on the field that is completely dependent on great pitching...and a pitching staff that is completely reliant on wood and prior being studs. i certainly can understand 2004...i can forgive 2005...but then we do it again in 2006...there was no reason to do this again. there were many pitchers out there...there was a trade on the table...there were many offensive threats available that would have made us less dependent on pitchers..but our guy blew it....nearly everyone on here felt we needed at least one more starter, but not jimbo! please let me sign up for a job where i can be this bad and still get extended.... seriously explain to me how you can take a team that was a game from the world series...completely tear it apart- we will have 1 position starter maybe from 2003 left, and maybe 1 pitcher. and now we are fighting to stay out of last in the central and the national league..not too mention we are within in shouting distance of kc.... that is the fault of our gm...

2 things.. they kept mentioning on the radio that the trainer was looking at z's forearm not his back....not that the cubs would lie.. and i'm pretty sure ryu left his start with a very sore neck after the beating he took- don't know if that counts or not!

you can make stats say anything you want but for me it is tough to compare the cubs success one hundred years ago with the last 37 years of the padres and astros.... 98 years of no championships is much,much worse than 37 years. i am 39 years old and the cubs have not been in the world series in my life...the padres and astros have. the expos have been one of the worst run..monetarily but if they had the cubs resources, their baseball guys may have had more success. just look at the names they have developed and not been able or willing to keep. one other point...in my life the cubs have had 2 true oppurtunities at going to the world series 1984 vs san diego and 2003. the expos have had 1 in 1994? the strike year. i would have to say they have more upside right now.

god forbid we sit down jones for 3 weeks. he has been just fine but he IS SIGNED for 2 more years, he is going no place, so why does it have to be murton that sits? of course as someone said we can't bring up pie because that would take valuable at bats away from bynum! and yeah it sounds good that we will play 3 youngsters however i'm pretty sure that means bynum...and not theriot or soto

here is the thing...the team is pretty much blown uo right now. wood is gone prior is gone...at least he should be out of any plans..we still have his salary walker gone neifi gone maddux gone pierre gone and maybe aram the thing is we stand to win between 60-65 games with our 95 mil payroll1 who cares who comes back! we have lee, barrett, z and hopefully aram all who we want most of our bullpen is set to return...and maybe except dempster -rusch we want we have murton we are stuck with jones so we need a ss,2b,cf...maybe another of and 4 starting pitchers and basically our entire bench whether we sign or go from within we have to replace most of our team..which is great because we are awful!

when did they make the choice to play youngsters? they have played murton and cedeno all year...theriot still can't get past bynum, wo although the same age is not a prsopect for anything other than utility. these guys would not be on the field if isturiz was healthy.. where is pie? or that catcher who is supposed replace blanco next year? why not dopriak instead of mabry...we are not playing youngsters we are just playing whose left over..why isn't pagan playing center or right?

i'd rather see theriot play but if we see tham as even why does bynum play 4-5 straight days and theriot gets a bone once in a while? at this point i could care less but it would be nice to see if someone could play or if we need to go get a 2b for next season... i am really tired of the cubs putting stock in youngsters for teh next season but not trying to find out if they can actually play at this level..see dubois,jason. let's find out if one of these guys can be in our plans...same with pie. play them somewhere almost everyday. letting a guy pinch hit down 5 in the 7th does not give you much of an idea if he can play or not

Might as well go for the high draft pick. What else is there to play for? can someone fill me in who knows alot by amautuer baseball. Lets say we are picking top 3...is there a saviour out there? An Arod? A Joe Mauer? A Johan Santana? no but i'm sure there's a mark prior or ben christenson we can draft and then screw up.....

Sanchez signles to right. Jones threw it over the backstop. Wow. I know, your wondering how it managed to go over the backstop on the 36th bounce just like I am. too funny

can someone please get fired .....anyone...hell fire someone on the grounds crew but when you spend 95 mil and you are the worst team in baseball...someone did not do their job well...just pick someone

evidently he was tired of hearing about his weak arm! he showed us