Magnetic Curses

An organization will grant a promotion, if someone like Hahn or Logan White gets offered the position, they'll get it even if they're under contract by the Sox and Dodgers. In Oakland, they mentioned that Beane would likely be granted to interview if he desires despite the fact Oakland is not obligated to do so. Even with that, there's a time crunch, it's much easier to hire one person and have him a growing year and then assemble than expect him to have his staff. The Cubs already know that their scouting and development staff is coming back, I'm sure the next GM will bring in a couple of guys next year (assistant GMs, etc) but I would expect to see Flieta and Wilken in their roles. After '12, I expect many changes. I don't believe in drafting based on position or tools, rather than BPA. fair enough

They would wait to do this because once they find their GM, whether or not the scouting director and player personnel people are not under contract by another MLB club is another story. Scouts and player personnel developments guys sign contracts (usually 1-2 yrs), it's not like you can put a two week notice to change organizations, they have to grant you out of that contract. That is usually done between October-November and wouldn't make sense for someone to wait and see if a GM candidate actually gets that position because they have a good relationship with them. aren't there outs in contracts based on promotions? i would think so, but obviously could be wrong. so a couple plus power prospects have been unsuccessful, it would still make me feel better if we drafted hitters with plus power as opposed to hitters who, at their best, are extreme up-and-down guys like rios, colvin, wells, and at worst never make it out of rookie ball.

There's nothing fluff about it (at least for next year), expect almost all of the scouting and development to be the same. if ricketts enjoys hiring yes men and being involved in the day-to-day operations of the actual baseball team, then the cubs are in trouble. if ricketts has his sights set on hiring one of the big 3, he's going to keep his mouth shut about fleita and wilken. although i agree if the plan is to get gillick in there, wilken will surely be retained and i will be raging anus. How are they going to do this? Their window is too small to overhaul the staff. They're not going to start really narrowing down until the end of the season (October). By the time they find a candidate, it'll likely run around Nov 1st. Nov 1st is the date when most scouts, management, etc have their contracts renewed. If I'm a scouting director or a highly rated national crosschecker, you're going to get offered another 2yr contract within this month, why would you turn that down in hopes of getting it in Nov? Knowing that if you don't get it, the chances of you retaining a similar position are very slim. they wouldn't be overhauling the staff, they would be replacing department heads to more align with organizational philosophy. why would they wait to do this and prolong the wait time for shaping the team in their image? wilken has had 6 years to draft and develop a power-hitting prospect, and he only just this last year attempted to do so. that's not going to impress an incoming GM/Team Pres, especially if it's one of the big 3--who will likely want to take more of an active role in drafting and dictating what the farm system is valuing.

There's nothing fluff about it (at least for next year), expect almost all of the scouting and development to be the same. if ricketts enjoys hiring yes men and being involved in the day-to-day operations of the actual baseball team, then the cubs are in trouble. if ricketts has his sights set on hiring one of the big 3, he's going to keep his mouth shut about fleita and wilken. although i agree if the plan is to get gillick in there, wilken will surely be retained and i will be raging anus.

And also, you cannot pick your own assistant, you must use Jim's old one. I know it sounds silly, but this isn't an uncommon practice in the business world, especially when dealing with an executive admin/assistant who has been with the company for a long time or who has a lot of responsibilities (it sounds like this person has one of those). There are significant monetary and productivity costs associated with firing good and/or knowledgeable employees. not if those people have a different organizational philosophy then your own. sure, the lower-level scouts will probably keep their positions and then will be replaced accordingly if their work isn't up to par with the expectations of the new regime. the heads of departments, especially in departments that directly influence the performance on the field, will almost certainly be replaced.

when both of them get let go, i'm just going to whip it out for all of you

everybody had better numbers than peyton manning. it's like saying michael jordan got cut from his high school basketball team so i must be as good as him.

It's not necessarily an issue of Wilken being "forced" on anyone. It wouldn't be surprising if whoever takes over simply decides to keep him on for the time being, but it also wouldn't be surprising if he wasn't back. the time constraint issue makes sense, but i certainly don't look for him to be here long-term at this point.

Forced was a bad word choice. But I remember reading speculation right after that Flieta and Wilken have a strong chance to remain because Ricketts is happy with them. if beane gets hired you can bet that he's been given carte blanche to clean house, and then wilken and fleita are as good as gone. same with theo. no big name is going to come in and be told that he absolutely has to keep wilken or fleita, especially considering the magnitude and attitude and philosophies of those being mentioned seriously. i will change my screen name to raging anus if fleita and/or wilken are still with the cubs next year. if we hope to land a guy who can turn things around, he will not keep someone else's guys in such important positions. there's absolutely no [expletive] way, and it's insane to think otherwise. "hey billy, you can do what you want, we'll give you a mountain of money, but you absolutely have to keep these two guys who have pretty average to below average track records drafting and developing major league players. we all know the very reason we hired you was to change things beginning with drafting and player development, but you can't change the guys in charge of those two departments. they are untouchable." the only way those guys stay is if we hire colleti or the interim guy. not gonna happen. Wilken isn't considered average to below average by the industry. He is considered to be strange but still one of the best in his field. The funny thing is that Beane and Wilken are both considered about the same in their respective fields. Both still have great reputations but there are more question marks about both than there were 5 years ago. Now Fleita on the other hand doesn't have that great track record to fall back on. nevertheless, it would be asinine for ricketts to force anyone from the old regime on the man he's chosen to turn his franchise around, wilken being a huge piece of the old regime. it's not like he's an usher or a beer vendor, he's the director of mother-effing scouting. to think that beane or epstein or friedman aren't going to insist on bringing in their own guys, well, it just blows my mind.

hey, don't be hating because my QB plays through injury my quarterback played with undiagnosed diabetes for a whole season. i'm not impressed.

i think there's a decent chance that at least one of them is back, so i'm pretty excited about this. you should change your name to "gay guy from crocodile dundee, you know the guy dressed like a chick who gets his dick squeezed by crocodile dundee" if they're both gone.

I'm not expecting them to leave, I'm just commenting that it seems odd to me that a new head of baseball operations wouldn't have his choice of executive assistant. Well on that article about the current assistant, it says right in it that the previous executive assistant spanned multiple GMs and a quarter of a decade. I know from my own experience at my company when the new CEO came in, our executive admin assistant stayed in the same role. We've read stuff saying that actual baseball people like Fleita may be forced on the new GM, so an executive assistant doesn't seem to odd. Sure if they decide after a year, they want a change it would be granted, but right away? That would seem odd, IMO. Where have you read Fleita may be forced on the new guy? Forced was a bad word choice. But I remember reading speculation right after that Flieta and Wilken have a strong chance to remain because Ricketts is happy with them. if beane gets hired you can bet that he's been given carte blanche to clean house, and then wilken and fleita are as good as gone. same with theo. no big name is going to come in and be told that he absolutely has to keep wilken or fleita, especially considering the magnitude and attitude and philosophies of those being mentioned seriously. i will change my screen name to raging anus if fleita and/or wilken are still with the cubs next year. if we hope to land a guy who can turn things around, he will not keep someone else's guys in such important positions. there's absolutely no [expletive] way, and it's insane to think otherwise. "hey billy, you can do what you want, we'll give you a mountain of money, but you absolutely have to keep these two guys who have pretty average to below average track records drafting and developing major league players. we all know the very reason we hired you was to change things beginning with drafting and player development, but you can't change the guys in charge of those two departments. they are untouchable." the only way those guys stay is if we hire colleti or the interim guy. not gonna happen.

yeah, what's to get so excited about a former #1 overall pick putting it all together to the tune of a 154.0 QB rating? go ahead and talk about how much preseason games mean to the Lions when our starters were all sitting on the bench watching Brady, Mayo, etc. still playing for nearly another whole quarter of play, visibly frustrated nobody's getting excited about stupid preseason wins, they're excited that our first-stringers are having their way with other team's first-stringers, which is all you really care about in preseason action but hey, if you have a strong feeling about it, you definitely should be jumping all over the under for wins, at +150 right now oh please get your hopes up

It's about time. What a gloriously ridiculous waste of money. I still chuckle when thinking about how people lumped those three guys together last year just because they spent so much. An All Pro pass rusher. A washed up blocking tight end and a washed up backup running back. What a haul. Maybe Jerry had buyer's remorse this offseason. the manumaleuna signing was dumb. the chester contract was actually kind of clever, they thought that they could get a good year out of him, and there was really no indication that he was washed up. he had minimal miles on him and wasn't going to be counted on as a feature back at all, they signed him to a deal that was front-loaded. it didn't work out, but no one could have forecasted how bad he was last year. if he would have done well, they would have had him for 2 more years on the cheap.

that punter is certainly getting a lot of congratulations after having a punt blocked.

Is there a difference between that and dropping the punt when its on its way down? I don't actually think I've seen that play work before. i don't know, i guess you could consider it a fumble, but that's just terrible. anyhow, this game means nothing, it's nice to see a blocked punt.

can you advance a blocked punt?

hester is so very afraid of getting hit. which is weird.

drop

that's a nice stream. i went there right after asking and just was putting random letters in the address bar.

where can i watch online?

i love wekse's sister, she lives in my xbox!

Many have already turned on Jay, too. Much of that is dumb, unsophisticated "I'm frustrated at my team and I want to be mad at the guy who personifies the offense" complaining. That's kind of the point. We have too many of these kinds of fans. We need a qualification test or something. we call them meatballs

schlereth hates cutler, they obviously didn't do their homework on this one. i can totally see schlereth hulking out on this one and taking it way too seriously and possibly maiming an innocent bystander.

i now am wanting beane or epstein. if we get friedman, i'd also be ok. anything less would be a disappointment.