Jehrico

Definately change the All Star Game. I would also ban Barry Bonds from baseball forever. Pete Rose style I would do it when he is one away from Ruth. That got me thinking...I'd make a 5th change...I'd force the umps to use a strike zone that gives the pitchers back the inside part of the plate. That, coupled with the body armor, would force Bonds to not stand on top of the plate. He'd lose his uncompetitive advantage that he has somehow accrued over the years.

I would really have to disagree. If someone doesn't have any ideas on how to move the game forward or improve the league, they shouldn't be there. Reacting to problems rather than being proactive is why Baseball has the whole steroids controversy...they waited until they were reacting to the scandal, rather than being proactive and instituting the same policy used by the World Anti-Doping Agency (or whatever you call it...) 10 years ago like they should have.

I don't think there's any substance to the rumor, but if it is true, we need to do a grassroots movement and spread the word through the Chicago market that, if the Trib sells the Cubs to Wirtz, all Cubs fans will boycott any and every other business facet of the Trib. The Trib isn't doing very well right now, the last thing they need to do is alienate a large chunk of what would be their remaining customer base while selling the Cubs.

Just wait until you see the look on his face when Walker is at first for 2 months. Nope, not going to happen. DLee will be back, I have faith! All that faith, plus $1.39, will buy you a cup of coffee down at the truckstop. Remember, man, these are the CUBS we're talking about !!! No...the buck thirty nine gets you the cup of coffee....the faith gets you the free refills!

I stole this idea from Toupeeonfire in another thread (thanks, toup...). He posted what he would do if he were commissioner, and I thought this would be a basis for it's own thread. Anyways, if I were comissioner, I would change a few things... 1) I'd do away with the DH! That would be my first 5 minutes in office. 2) I'd see to it that instigators are punished more than retaliators. 3) No more body armor...you either play with the same gear everyone else has, or you don't play at all. 4) No more all-star game for home field advantage in the WS rule What would you guys like to see changed?

Why? Top prospect? Yes. One of the most 50 valuable players in baseball? No way any 18 year old right out of high school just getting his first sniff of the minors qualifies to be listed as one of the most valuable players in the game. That's absurd. Upton is the only one I listed, but that was only he was the most extreme case, as he's had the least professional experience. His rating is based purely on ceiling and not at all on past performance or current ability. We all know how rarely someone like that pans out. To be fair, I could have put in the time to throw all of the prospects out there, my excluding them shouldn't imply that I think Upton is a future flop or overrated.

I'd second the nomination from the front page for Chan Ho Park. Beltre, Beltran, or whoever don't hold a candle to being overpaid compared to that guy. and while I'm at it, I'll throw in my $.02 on Jeter...he's overrated and overpaid, but it's not like he sucks...he's at worst, above average. The fact he's overrated AND he's a Yankee brings about a lot more hate for him than is deserved. I'd rather pay Jeter his contract than pay Beltre his. His isn't the worst deal by any means.

I wouldn't have minded seeing Lee a spot or two higher, but I think Z was that high because of his ability to stay healthy, which is invaluable for a pitcher. You're not considered the 11th best player in the league because you can stay healthy. He's the 3rd highest ranked pitcher on the list. All of these pitchers come before Zambrano if I am starting a team: - Jo. Santana - C. Carpenter - J. Peavy - R. Oswalt - D. Willis - J. Beckett Ben Sheets would have been on my list, but he just can't stay healthy. And I'll gamble with Beckett. Santana, maybe. Peavy and Oswalt are about equal to Z. I wouldn't pick any of the rest though. Carp and Beckett have bad injury history. Carp is the reigning Cy Young winner...he's on the list. The injury thing may be a concern for some...fair enough, but I'll take my chances...same with Beckett. And just because Zambrano hasn't gotten hurt yet, he's overweight and more susceptible to injury...so you could figure that in as well. On a side note, Zambrano could cost you a handfull of games each year due to meltdowns. If you figure injuries into the equation (missing a handfull of games a season), meltdowns could be figured in too. I'm not saying I wouldn't want him on my team, but man...3rd most valuable pitcher in the majors right now? I don't see that at all. That list isn't of the most valuable players in the majors though. Justin Upton is in there (which totally kills any credibility this list had to begin with). Age and potential are big factors in this list. Zs only 24 and has already proven to be a workhorse, hence, the high rating.

Z's poor start has resulted in an ERA of 3.97. I could only hope to get that out of Rusch or Williams, and would be happy to see Marshall put up anything sub 4.00. But, I would have hoped for better out of our Ace. That said, I'm not too worried about a slow start for him. April was he second worst month last year and in '04, and the month's not over yet.

How about a 3 yr contract with 2 automatic vesting options? If after the first year he wins 15 or has an ERA under 3.5, the second year vests. If he does it again, he gets the third year.

Yeah, Hendry deserves some credit for pulling him off the scrap heap, and both Dusty and Hendry deserve some credit for converting him into a closer. I wouldn't give any credit to Dusty. I could be mistaken, but my impression is that Dempster as closer was Hendry's brainchild (he talked it up quite a bit during the offseason between 04 and 05). Despite Hendry saying over and over that Dempster has the "stuff and mentality" to be a great closer, Dempster started last year as a starter. After what, 1.5 to 2 months, he was finally given a shot at the closer role. It always seemed to me that Dusty was bound and determined to give LaTroy another shot at the closer role, and when it became painfully obvious that it wasn't going to work, Dusty finally conceeded (or Hendry forced the issue with him) to put Dempster in the role. I think Hendry wanted it all last year, but Dusty fought him on it.

That should only get better as Ohman will eventually return to normal, and what we were getting from Wuertz wasn't on par either. Let's see if the rotation can catch up to the pen...

I agree. One superstar player is not a substitute for a quality team of players. Felix is good, but we would be mortgaging the teams future. To further put in perspective, we'd be giving up a pretty good reliever, plus the #1, 2, 4, 5, and 7 prospects in our system(BA rankings). I definately don't think you should trade 5 of your best young prospects for a player that is only going to take the field once out of every five days. I could maybe see doing it with a position player like Pujols, MAYBE. But that had better be one hell of a player. Also you have to consider the injury risk. If your one star player gets injured, you're screwed. Whereas if you keep those five prospect and one gets injured, you still have the other four. In baseball, one player doesn't win you a championship. The same goes for football. However, if this was basketball, then it might be worth it since one player can completely change a franchise (re: Michael Jordan). I bet the odds are fairly good that one of those five players will make multiple All Star games in his career and another could make one or two. Throw in an average everyday player, and have the other two washout, and that is still three players that make contributions to your team. So like I said, I would maybe do it for a position player but I would never make that trade for any pitcher. Unless he's going to make 70-80 starts in a year and throw 450 innings. Then I would consider it. But I highly doubt we'll ever see another pitcher like that. I see that as the best case scenerio, not a given. I also see Felix Hernandez making multiple all star games as a given. Still not worth it. Look at what the Herschel Walker trade did to those teams. If that isn't a clear example of why you shouldn't leverage the future of your franchise against one player, then I don't know. And in that situation, it's not like Walker stunk or was hurt and washed out of the league right after the trade. Even if Felix's best case scenario turns out, it still likely won't be a great move.

I don't agree that putting the decision off is a bad thing. It might be a hard decision now, but it might be easier in a couple of months. Maybe Rusch's arm falls of, or someone gets dumb and decides they want to trade for Neifi. If there's no clear solution to the problem, go ahead and delay it 60 days or more and see how it plays out. That said, I don't think it's a hard decision...get rid of Bynum and bring up Sing and Theriot.

He's only had a half of a season above A ball, period.

I'd also say LaRussa. If he gets a rookie pitcher who throws a great game, he'll ride his arm all season until if falls off. See: Bud Smith. If I wanted to take the time, I bet I could reel off about 5-6 other young promising pitchers that have had similar fates under LaRussa.

This is highly unlikely. Look, my point isn't to dis Cub prospects however Felix Hernandez is more heralded prospect than Prior ever was - he's that amazing. How do you figure thatit's unlikely that the cream of our farm system may produce one all-star caliber player and maybe 2 everyday players? That includes what we could get for trades. i.e. Bobby Hill and Hee Seop Choi netted us two all-stars...

Does this trade proposal remind anyone of the Herschel Walker trade that set up the Cowboys dynasty in the 90s? I wouldn't do it. Hernandez might be great (more like probably will be, big question for me is the injury question). But then again, out of Pie, Pawalek, Guzman, and Harvey, there's a very good chance that one of those guys is a future all-star, and out of those and the rest of the guys, there's a possibility that there's another 2 solid every-dayers. Or, you could look at it like those guys could make up packages to upgrade to two other all-stars at positions of need. I think we could get more in trades by separating everyone than by lumping them together for one great prospect.

When I was in college working retail part time, that was my typical shift!

Koronka also had a great winter too, which may have helped garner interest in him.

Anyone, Koronka, Rusch, whoever, is capable of reeling off a good game every now and then. I personally wouldn't want either of them in my rotation if I had a choice.

They also have a former Cub for a manager!

How can you say that? It's only been 7 games, and Pierre hasn't been very good in them, terrible actually. OBP and OPS don't always tell the whole story. Pierre has 6 runs and 2 RBI in 7 games. That projects to 139 runs and 46 RBI. That's 31 runs above his career high and 22 more than his best season's combination of runs and RBI. He's doing a great job of helping us score runs right now. That's the name of the game. Runs and RBI are dependent on the people around you. If he weren't hitting so terribly, or if we had someone else there that wasn't hitting terribly, we'd have more runs and RBI from that spot. Yes, but they're not 100% dependent. You have to get on base to score a run, and 139 runs scored would be purdy darned good in any lineup, even the best the Yanks or BoSox have ever put up.

Last time we offered him $5 mil per, he walked :wink:

Especially since he'll be starting for Rusch next game. Williams is joining the rotation in the 5th spot on April 15th. We're still stuck with Rusch, who's scheduled to go again on the 16th. What do you think the odds are that Guzman gets the call up to pitch for Rusch? Don't go and get my hopes up. If Rusch has another terrible outing and Guzman continues going well (I believe he went 5 scoreless, with 5K in his first outing) I believe it'll be impossible not to replace Rusch with Guzman. I don't know remember Estes in 2003? Baker to learn from mistakes? Ok, impossible, we're stuck with an automatic L in the rotation. Estes was mired in the rotation because we had to have a lefty. We have Marshall, hopefully that helps make Rusch expendable.