frostwyrm

I would be OK with handling Dusty's departure the way the Giants did: let him finish his contract, politely thank him for his service, then leak the org's true feelings about him bit by bit.

How do you plan to make Dempster disappear in option 2? Does it involve a shovel? What about Glendon? You may need a backhoe for him.

If you think about the quote, it implies he may end up referring to his time with the Cubs as his "weird years".

This dude should have been released back in June. I don't believe any BS about the Cubs getting a discount if he pitches well enough to regain some market value. He's at the point in his career where every contract could be his last, so there won't be any significant discount for anybody.

DL is the least sadistic option right now. Give him a couple of weeks off to work with the coaches and get his head straight, then hope he can finish the season on a high note. Better that than to keep running a guy out there when he's just humiliating himself.

He's been scored on in 6 straight outings. The poor guy is embarrassing himself and continuing to run him out there in his current state will just shatter his confidence. Sticking him in middle relief won't help his ego either. 15 day DL is the logical place for him.

Robinson Cano 2006 Salary: $381,100 Everybody likes cheap production, even the Yankees. They don't need it though.

Demp needs a trip to the DL.

Murt is too cost-effective not to start, and he also still has potential to improve. Unless you're the Yankees you need cheap production somewhere.

What's really irritates me is that Pierre was on a real nice hot streak going into the deadline and surely had good trade value. By keeping him Hendry stupidly failed to cash in on his trade value AND prevented Pie from coming up this year. If Pierre walks then Hendry will look very stupid. But then I don't want Pierre back, so I'll also complain if he resigns.

Hopefully it's not Barrett's nut.... :ohnoes: Let's all say a prayer for Michael's nut.

You have to be pretty damn aggressive to be called overaggressive by this organization.

I say eliminate any doubt and shut him down now. Z would have no right to complain about it after stupidly trying to be the macho hero in a meaningless game in a lost season. http://chicagosports.chicagotribune.com/sports/baseball/cubs/cs-060904cubszambrano,1,7566846.story?coll=cs-cubs-headlines

Degeneration in Z's back, and Izturis has degenerative arthritis in his elbow. Can't wait to see who else degenerates.

The closer concept is designed to put your most expensive and best reliever in mostly non-critical situations while lesser relievers play fireman and do the real work of saving the game. Most of us know how stupid that is but unfortunately every team feels the needs to have a closer so we end up debating who should close when we know it really shouldn't even be a big deal.

Can't even pinch hit, eh? Or pinch run?

The point is that Dempster has contributed very very little this year, despite having 24 saves. I'll also add that even successful closers are overvalued and overpaid, and when closers are less than totally successful they are absolutely hideous in terms of bang for the buck.

I freakin' hate the save as a stat.

Carlos Guillen pulled a hammy yesterday and today the Tigers' middle infield is Omar Infante and Ramon Santiago, who is just plain awful. Neifi is still supposed to have some soreness in his wrist.

Since you appear to have a time machine I suggest you go back a little further and get Vlad. Why not go all the way back to the 2002 season and hire someone other than Hendry as GM? :DAt the same time I'd also trade Sammy while his value was sky high.

why eyre and howery haven't done bad, admittedly we over-paid but it is the cast of characters around them that have made the pen look bad That is correct. We overpaid. We spent 13 million per on relievers this offseason. How many more games did that win for the Cubs? The bullpen has gone from weakness to strength (or it would be a strength if Dusty would quit pitching certain guys once a week and other guys every day until the former are rusty and the latter are worn out), and the Cubs are still much, much worse overall because they squandered money that could have otherwise been spent on a more pressing need, such as pitching depth or more, stronger bats. And that doesn't account for the fact that relief pitchers are almost always very volatile in their performance (Remember when Guillermo Mota was a stud less than two years ago?), so we don't know how that Howry or Eyre will be anything special over the next two years, but we do know they'll be getting 3-4 million per year. Same thing happened with Remlinger. Meanwhile, guys like Wuertz have been outstanding and cheap and don't get enough innings, and there are others with strong potential there as well. So yeah, I wouldn't spend any money on relievers. I wish MacPhail or somebody would declare a moratorium on expensive bullpen acquisitions because I fear Jim will offer Kerry $3-4M to be a reliever, in which case the bullpen will be a huge financial drag.

Since you appear to have a time machine I suggest you go back a little further and get Vlad.

Looks like a dig at Hendry. Hendry focused on speed and defense and Mad Dog says the Dodgers' defenders are far superior to the Cubs' and they have more range.

Yeah but he keeps bringing up the subject in the media, apparently so he can look like an underdog or a victim. He brings it up or does the media ask him about it? It's hard for me to believe (even with Baker) that that is his response when asked, "What did you think of the ump's call at first base?" He brings it up. In the latest example he actually read a racist letter to reporters and theatrically crumpled it up, then speechified about not letting bad people beat him down.

Yeah but he keeps bringing up the subject in the media, apparently so he can look like an underdog or a victim.