neely crenshaw

the thing is the only people with value are z, lee, barrett,cedeno and the bullpen. aram could be if he plays better and someone has a need but he is very expensive and not a rental, so whoever took him would have him for a while. wood could have some value at the deadline if he pitches without much of a problem. we would have paid most of his deal already and he'd be gone at the end of the year. walker and pierre could net something at the deadline for the same reason. but i don't see them getting anything that was close to being major league ready. no one wants jones at the amount we pay him. our bench would not bring in anything above an A level player, more likely cash. miller might get come interest because of upside and low cost but why trade cheap players with upside in a firesale. our kids have some value but not much. guzman would get interest but probably not net a stud unless he was a free agent to be..which at this point would be dumb..just sign them in the offseason pie has value but we need him we are really, really stuck. we have no one of value that we don't need and can only get prospects(and mostly not very good ones) for what we do have to trade. the only saving grace is that we will be one of only 4-5 teams that are out of the race at the deadlines meaning the players available might have more value.

there are a whole lot of assumptions there. the cubs history pretty shows they will not deal for tejada, cabrerra or arod. it's possible but until it's done...let's not even consider it. jones is here to stay, he is not platooning for 6 mil a year..no one wants him at that price for that long. we might be able to deal him at the deadline of his 3rd year. pie will be up unless pierre takes off. pie is not a lead off man. we will be back to the cpatt situation with a younger less proven player, unless we sign a 2B to lead off. hendry has shown this is not a priority. it took him 3 yeasr to get pierre and balked at signing furcal. look at our obp and that will tell you he does not see the importance of it. we will have zambrano, marshall,and prior. i woory that hendry will sign wood. maddux will not be back..i am not sure he will be dealt though. this will leave us terribly short in the rotation. prior could be hurt we means we will look a lot like this year with williams,hill and guzman or rusch in there...not good. cedeno, aram, lee and barrett. a very good beack end of the bullpen...a not so good front end. unfortunately with our starters we will see lots of them.

They weren't wins. They were gambles that didn't work out in our favor. They wound up being washes, or double-losses, whichever way you want to look at it, because in no way did either trade help our team. now i see why some fans think hendry is good. let's look at the dubois trade. we take a sure fire prospect who was absolutley untouchable through the minors- we would not even listen to an offer. we hand him the job of replacing sosa...and even mention that he could be rookie of the year. then by june we give up and we trade him for a hobbled outfielder who limped around for a month...and then trade him for a vet "to be free agent" that you let walk at the end of the year. so you got NOTHING! a guy you would not deal for anything..you trade for ZERO. that is not a good trade, that is not a wash. it is a horrible devaluation of one of your stud prospects, who a year earlier you could have gotten some pretty good value for but instead you get zip, zero, nada

Kenny Lofton and Am Ram for a bag of balls. Hendry is a good GM. He'll make the right moves. here is the prob with your thinking 1...that was 3 seasons ago. loftin was a gimme...aram turned out on a gamble he was playing,hitting, fielding horribly in pittsburgh. you must also factor in he passed on scott rolen to gamble on aram. lee for choi..no complaints barrett good pick up but he passed on pudge when we were very, very close to being a ws team for a hopeful in barrett. willis for 6 finger... pierre burnitz sosa for hairston and we pay sosa alot jones for 6mil instead of another 1.5 to get furcal lawton gerult getting no closer and ruining hawkins nomar alou and sosa replaced by dubois and burnitz... neifi over and over rusch over and over getting absolutely no one to help our lineup or rotation this spring this is a what i like about hendry, he makes some good gamble moves. williamson, dempster, miller and even rusch to a certain extent. those are good moves that are cheap and could have high value. the problem is these are the only moves he makes. so we end up with high priced..high gamble players. for instance: we have jones,pierre,wood,prior ,lee and aram making around 50 mil a year. for that jones is playing about his career averages, lee is hurt(but that is the first time ever) and none of the others is doing anything. i would rather see us throw money at a player that is consistent and healthy. yes we would have overpaid for furcal BUT he plays 155 games and you have a pretty good idea of how he will play. instead we overpay for jones, and then have to have pierre- who combines make morethan furcal BUT we are hoping they can return to form. there are no guarantees..things like lee's injory happen but give me the guy without a history-who is not trying to rebound from a few bad seasons.

i said this quite a bit after 2003. we need to go balls out to win right now(2004) because we a have a short window of time whne we have have stud pitchers who are very cheap and can spend on other things to fill the holes. i really worried that even though there was seemingly no way the cubs could blow this chance...that the cubs would do just that. i also felt and still do...that if they blew this window they would never,ever win a championship in my life. guess what? we haven't won...our young pitchers aren't cheap anymore and they aren't good anymore, we have more holes than we did in 2003...and now we need more pitching! only the cubs could have wood, prior(2004 cy young winner rememeber) zambrano, guzman(who supposed to better than all of them) christenson(second coming of prior) brownlee,garland ...i won't even mention the others...from that bunch of can't miss prospects we have one quality starter in z, and the rights to matt karchner..who is pitching slowpitch softball right now...we have no stud pitchers, we got no position players, we did not find a closer(trade for one)...

Nope, he got sent down. Rusch is in line again. That's great for Iowa, they're only 4 back in the loss column to Nashville, with Hill back they may have a shot at the playoffs. seriously if we sent the whole cubs roster down to triple A do you think they could win? i really don't without lee.

we needed to trade kerry wood for a bucket of balls or a 75 round pick..anything to free up all or some of his money we should have signed furcal for the extra jack...this screw up alone led us to have to trade for pierre and to sign jones. i will not say anything on pierre because after furcal it was either pierre,damon or loftin..and although i really liked damon i was worried about his shoulder...especially with our history we needed to sign or trade for a quality major league starter. anyone who believed that wood, prior, hill, rusch, guzman and williams would be able to man 3 of the spots adequately all year has not been paying attention. i have no problem going young but to do that and still spend 95 mil...[expletive]! an offense with murton,pierre and jones in the outfield and cedeno at short can not get it done at wrigley. yes walker has good power for a 2b but he still will go for 15-20. you have 3 spots that may not hit 10(perhaps not 5) in ss,lf and cf. you have rf that if he has a better than average year will hit 25. we needed a big bat in the outfield...not a burnitz/jones/dubois/lawton/gerult/patterson. jim hendry is not a genius and plain and simple he got lucky in 03 that loftin,rameriz and simon worked magic..not to mention jobo was juiced up and got the job done.

len kasper also saaid "everyone knows that cabrera is the man in the lineup that can beat you"...evidently that does not include dusty or rothschild (or our pitchers and catchers)

is anyone in the dugout paying attention? i am no friggin'genius but YOU CAN NOT LET CABRERA BEAT YOU! he is there only big bat....walk him every single time...for sure with men on. where is the pitching coach? the manager? hell...ask the guy selling beer..he knows.

sorry guys but i can't heep this one on the trib...although they are the ones who have hired the guys who hired hendry and baker. in 2004 i felt that they did not spend the money to really try to win. if we spent 10-15 mil more..we probably win it. we needed a stud closer and a lead off man-preferrably a shortstop but also a need....we got latroy and neifi. latroy was not signed to close but to shore up the pen.we were oh so close and would not spend some to give long suffering cub fans a winner. this year(and last) we are spending 95 mil on dogcrap. that is hendry's fault. if i a the trin i certainly am not dropping another 10-15 mil in order to a .500 team. we are no where near being competitive...we are so far from 2003 and 2004 it isn't funny. this is hendry's fault...what other gm could have 3 years of 100 mil payroll and have it end 20 games under(by the end of this year) not too mention probably a combined 50 games out..or more. right now we are only better than kc,pittsburgh and florida-record wise...and we probably spemd more than those 3 and washington combined.!

the yanks are not paying that....they said today that he makes less than mussina from the yanks..and i think he gets 15 mil

mike cameron, troy glaus, coco crisp, reggie sanders, jim thome,aaron rowland,alfonso soriano and rafeal furcal all changed teams this year. not too mention a lot of rumors flew around about guys like arod, man ram, mench and floyd....i think we could have gotten a deal for someone done instead of the money we overpaid jones and neifi! throw in that the sox got vasquez when we certainly could have used a proven starter early this season!

hate to throw salt in hendry's wounds but now that corey is getting regular time in baltimore did anyone notice that his stats basically equal jones' stats? he is hitting a bit lower (274-250) but has only 1 fewer walk and fewer k's. he also has 10 steals, power stats are basically the same. did i mention he is much younger and is paid half of what jones is?

i have no problem with neifi...like you said he is what he is. heck, he already had a hit in this game, what are the odds he actually gets another swinging hit? not too mention if he does get a hit, there is no way he hits it far enough to score the tying run. so we still need mabry to get a hit. my problems are as follows: #1 we are paying him 2.5 mil #2 dusty plays him far too much since lee went down #3 why was he still in this game at this time #4 when he was still in the game...someone lese had to be a better bat off the bench. we needed an extra base hit...the chances of neifi-mabry getting hits back to back...pretty nil #5 we are still paying him 2.5 mil! add that to our offer to furcal and...he is with us! not neifi, pierre and jones...we might still suck but we would suck with some upside. we would certainly be better when dlee came back

tops would be jones..he is an ok player but NO ONE giving him 6mil or 3 years rusch..he'd be signed but nor for what we pay and it would be a one year perez...would be under a mil and again no more than a year at a time wood...not completely our fault because he might have been worth it if he was healthy but he would not get clement money right now maddux...even as our best starter so far because of age he would never get 9 mil again. except for wood, i really think we were negotiating against only ourselevs and we still badly overpaid! look we just signed womack for a minor league....but we signed neifi to a 2.5 mil for 2 year deal- and they are the same exact player! now that i look at it, neifi may be the stupidest signing in our history! i mean seriously, if cedeno flopped and neifi had to play everyday...with our lack of moves is their anyway we contend with neifi starting everyday? why would you overpay a utility guy to make sure you are at least mediocre?

come on guys! we have all been bitchin' that dusty doesn't play small ball!

how did this go for ya?

with the way things have gone this year..i certainly feel pretty good having dempster in at the end with a lead. for all the crap dusty pulls, i have to say that if he goes to dempster in that situation every single time, it's probably the right move and i like our chances

let's be real...he has had a good stretch. why don't we wait and see what he does before he becomes hendry's great signing. burnitz was on a pace to hit 40+. drive in 100 and hit close to .300...in the end he returned to being jeromy burnitz and hit 258, with 25 jacks and 80 ribs.. problems= we have jones for 3 years which will either keep pie out, cost us murton to make room for pie or make dusty(or whoever) play pie in center and to leadoff. which could repeat cpatt. he runs bases like crap, throws like crap and can't hit lefties. finally he has hit a serious hot streak and he is hitting .275! he is our stud production outfielder and i am supposed to jump up and down for a number 5 hitter who is on pace to hit 275 with 24 jacks....wow! no one hates jones...i still tink he will post the numbers of the last 2-3 years and hit 260 with 20+jacks. we all hate the fact that hendry signed him for 3 years and 6 mil! if we had done a 1 year deal then i would be fine with it and it would be a decent gamble

we won't get him but soriano might hit more homers than our 3 starting outfielders combined....especially if he was at wrigley. having soriano as 2b would certainly help an outfield that might not hit 50hr...heck if murton keeps going at this pace they may not hit 40...25(jones) 10 (murton) and 2-3(pierre)

seriously..what will you do if he gets resigned? the sad thing i think its at worst 50/50 that he does!

roberts was on the score after the game and was actually very cool about it. he said he and barrett have known each other for a while and it was just some frsutration on barrett's part.

the problem is that anyone who is stupid enough to think that hawkins was the answer at closer, nomar would stay healthy(and wood-prior), and that jones or burnitz was the answer to our outfield problems(or dubois,lawton,gerult) would probably think that dusty will revert to his form of a few years ago...see pierre,juan and jones, jacques...

we are really good....

good analogy! kind of like bunting...everyone complained that we didn't play small ball so dusty turns up the bunting...except no one told him that you don't bunt the 7 hole guy so neifi and the pitcher can try to knock in a run....