neely crenshaw

nice point einstein... i think the shoulder fatigue is a phantom injury to allow the cubs to activate rusch and use use an option on marmol knowing that rusch or someone else will be TRADED thus re-opening the spot for marmol.

from the looks of this, someone is going to get moved..hopefully rusch. marmol has "shoulder fatigue"...i think they knew a spot would be open again very soon and didn't want to use any of marmols call ups. of course it might just be until september call ups but i can hope! anyway we need rusch active and pitching to be able to deal him, hopefully he finally does something good for the cubs and throws well..so someone will want him!

b/c he can play multiple positions and he can catch the ball And he's fast. And he comes to play the game. but can he drive in runs with his glove?

fyi..concessions for a full house at wrigley average $600,000 a game. add in tickets, programs, parking, advertising and so on and they make a pretty penny with a full house. concessions alone pays for about 4 kerry woods a year!

the problem is when hendry resigns him we will get nothing...and don't think for a minute that he won't resign him.

i would rather have young and a little stinky(cedeno) than old and stinky(neifi,womack,agonz,izturis?) we could go back to paying 8-9mil for a ss that doesn't play(nomar) the main prob is that you 95 mil on a roster but still hav eto live with unproven (murton and cedeno) and undertalented (neifi,womack, jones,pierre,izturis,) players. we could probably live with cedeno as our 8th hitter unfortunately we have a roster of 8th hitters!

no seriously i have seen him twice this summer and he was filthy! i had to take a double take! once was against the sox. he was 94-95 all night and ate them up. and his curve was zito-esque...i saw him later and he was very estes-esque but as a .500 number 4-5 pitcher he would look decent. he is also very different than any of our lefties or zito..so teams would see a different look when they play us. i always thought that was a problem when we sent out wood, prior, z and clement and then had farns in the pen..i mean how tough is 100 mph when you faced 98 all day!

we have to at least consider that prior will never ever be a major league pitcher again. or at least a good one. if we can deal him for anything this offseason we can use his salary for a known quantity of a pitcher. i said this with wood last off season. prior doesn't have the huge deal wood had but it's still up there. with what we have already dropped in wood and maddux we could probably sign schmidt, zito and a 2nd tier guy like lilly, meche or padilla. if we are looking too do that we certainly would have the prospects to package with prior to get something of value...prior, hill and guzman for arod? i'm sending anyone but pie and marshall...your pick george! we don't need six guys(pitchers) if we sign 3 FA's. heck if sent 3 we would still have 3 more to deal! plus theriot,cedeno and izturis(we should only keep 2 at the most)

first we have to decide our we looking to win next season in in the near future! if we look to win now...my hope we will have lost about 25 mil in starters salary(wood,maddux and hopefully rusch) we will lose pierre's deal 6 mil...neifi's 2.5...walker 3.0 blanco...not much if we choose to get a 2b..like loretta we have 2 of 3 guys to deal in cedeno,izturis and theriot.... we have an abundance of pitchers that are at least looking like they "can" make it... we do not need all of them-mateo, guzman, marshall, hill, omalley...deal 2-3 for a proven non free agent starter or position player. we should be able to package enough pitching and position guys to get 3 proven players and at least one should/could be a stud. then we can try to sign 2 guys to fill in through free agency what we couldn't trade for. the best part about this season is we have been able to showcase quite a few youngsters without devaluing any of them. the guy who has looked the worst has the most upside in guzman. murton,cedeno and theriot have all shown enough to make gm's believe they'll continue to play well and get better. the rest of the pitchers have all shown flashes of major league starter quality. we have a wealth of talent and a wealth of open money this offseason. to me , we see what hendry is made of right now. it's make or break time

i'd like ted lilly. not as the big name but as a 2nd or third guy. i would love it if the cubs would sign schmidt and zito but who here thinks that will happen? lilly has looked like steve carlton at times(he was dropping a 95mph heater and a plus curve) and sometimes like steve carlson(freind of mine who can't pitch a lick) but he takes the ball everyday has less questions than say buerhle who mph is down. obviously he wouldn't get 10 mil a year either. z, schmidt, marshall, lilly...and one of many names would not be too bad. we would also have to spend money on offensive help. this isn't ideal but we have to think the way hendry thinks because i do not see him going after both zito and schmidt..even though we need them. we also need offensive help so signing those 2 would mean our offense remains the same except with some 2nd rate add on in center until pie is ready!

If a player can be traded while on the DL why can't he be waived? you can not end a players career on the dl. which waiving is theoretically doing...even though he can be picked up. actually, you can do it but you will have to pay a huge settlement to the player. it's easier to wait and do it when they are activated.

any team that blocks rusch from going to a contender because they don't want him to help that contender has not been watching much baseball! anyway it's a win-win for the cubs...put rusch through waivers witha deal in mind..anyone claims him can have him and his contract..don't even care about a prospect! aren't injuries great! first neifi then rusch and possibly pierre. to bad the yanks didn't go after jones...we would be out of every horrible contract that hendry signed this year! how about this one...send prior through if he can throw at all. see if we can send him toboston who is desperate for any pitching help! they might gamble on him...and he would get through. i hope that prior comes back healthy but i seriously doubt he ever will...he is a chance to get out of his deal. giving us even more money to spend next year! not that it would get spent but at least we could dream!

i have never minded trading prospects for proven talent. sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn't. we could all be pissed about willis but he was just a class a throw in for a deal for a provem starter(clement) and a closer(6finger) at the time we had just lost our closer at the beginning of the season and truthfully at that time closers are not very easy to get. that part certainly did not work but matt was solid for a couple years. my complaint is that we traded a very highly regarded young starter in garland, who has turned out to be the stud we all thought, for a middle reliever. for the most part non set up middle relief does not go for a top prospect... my biggest complaint is that we actually don't use our farn system to get proven guys. i would rather list the "untouchable" guys we refused to trade that now(or previously) have no value! names like.. dubois patterson brownlee christenson wood..for sure prior...wuite possibly wuertz...although he is coming back farnsworth guzman hill..rich not bobby mitre nolasco wellmeyer kelton at one time everyone of these guys was considered untouchable by the cubs. think of who we might have been able to get for one or a combo of these guys! now the best we have been able to make is a 3 for 1 for pierre-which is only for 1 season...not very good especially when you think back to how close we were after 2003..a deal or 2 may have sealed a championship instead we one player(pierre) on the roster as a result of these prospects!

pierre might be an ideal pick up for the phils. he is a free agent so he is really a rent-a-player..2 months and then rowland(or someone else) is back for next season he is playing his bext ball by far right now..it just doesn't make a difference on the cubs also it should not change the cubs ability to resign him if they want to for next year. add to that we could get a prospect or 2 of any kind back in the mean time.

there were a large number of posters who felt this way the second hendry let furcal get away..and definitely felt that way after all his big moves..

aren't injuries after the dealine GREAT! teams need to deal but only guys like neifi cam get through...watch hendry will spin signing him to the big contract as a way to be able to get him through waivers because no one would be stupid enough to claim that contract! sorry i doubted you jim!

i think many of you miss the true shame in this thread... the fact that we are still alive in the wild card with this crap team that hendry built. just think if he had actually gotten another starter like we all thought we needed..or one more big bat... unfortunately for the 3rd straight season jim built a team that was entirely dependent on prior and wood being healthy and good..which has not happened for some time. thanks jim

well the yanks got him and it didn't take wang,melky or cano...

clearly they got bored waiting for a pitch to hit...

we are getting excited and talking about contending....which means we should prepare for a butt whipping this weekend! this is a double reverse jinx buster....

the platoon would make sense to everyone but hendry. he did not drop that kind of cash on jones to platoon him. chances are the outfield is exactly the same. if someone goes it will be murton which would be a shame. we are also looking hard at izturis/cedeno middle for next season. again if someone goes it would be theyoung guy. our only spot to get better is that d.lee will be back. we either have to hit the starters hard in free agency or we will be only slightly better next year. i think it willalldepend on how secure hednry feels in his job. if feels pressure, he may deal some kids for bigger name, more proven players if not...status quo, baby!

Can Theriot or Cedeno hit 28 HRs in 150 at bats? Not that Cantu will necesarily do that again, but he did do it last year. That being said he is probably a 15-20 homers a season type of guy. It would be a definite upgrade offensively. my point is why upgrade at a spot that we have a chance to be solid at? we need a whole school of upgrade...but why trade anything to bolster a strength...we only have so much to trade. not to mention that as soon as you trade for your 2nd basemen of the future..cedeno and theriot's value goes down the tubes because other teams know you don't want/need them. i rather see us jump on a replacement future cf or pitchers.

i think you missed the true cost of not signing furcal. first, if you need a guy, a guy that you decided was your target and you have the money- you must sign them. and yes you must overpay sometimes. we did not sign furcal. so we then felt it necessary to keep neifi for 2.5 mil as insurance. i know this came first but if you plan on signng furcal, you have cedeno and walker..why do you need neifi. you need neifi because you knew you weren't going to sign furcal. now because we still do not have a lead off man, you overpay with prospects for pierre- who if you still want after you get furcal, is not as big a need so florida can't rape you on the deal. look at a few of the deals they made..pierre by far brought them the most. we also need a free agent splash to cover hendry'sdoing nothing...so he way overpays jones to come here for way too many years. which of course forces us to trade the younger,cheaper version of jones...corey patterson. and he will be here for 2 more years basically blocking pie or murton from playing. so we would not pay the extra to furcal but we paid more for neifi, jones and pierre...and lost prospects and maddux(or whatever other prospects we could have gotten instead of izturis) lost cpatt, and are holding back one of our prospects. jim, sometimes overpaying is in the eye of the beholder

you seem to be operating in the hendry zone..listen we have very few position players that are close to ready, right now we have 2 at 2b, why would we deal for another guy who might be ready? he might be a nice pick up but unless we deal cedeno and theriot first it would devalue bth of them. maybe if an upgrade is all we needed to get over the hump but we have so many problems, at some many places we can't afford to trade to upgrade a spot that we already have some options.

to me there are only 2 ways to go. 1. spend and get 2 studs..or at least 1. 2. go with our young guys. i makes no sense to go low ball and gamble on middle of the road guys like meche. they will cost much more and there simply would not be that much improvement in what we have. i mean do we want to pay 12-15 mil for a couple of starters that will get us to 5 or 10 under .500...even if they got us back to .500- where does that get us other than we would be in the race longer. either go young or go for it...this inbetween garbage has got to stop!