Magnetic Curses

we meed to learn what opposing offenses learned against us--if you're facing a young, good pitcher, sometimes you just have to make him work--take as many pitches as you can, foul off as many pitches as you can, get pitch counts up there and then take him out in the latter innings. while we did finally get to him, he should have had more pitches when he went out.

terrible call, though.

hendry's a bad gm. last year was the year of hendry's grand anti-moneyball experiment. he put together a team full of guys who don't walk, don't see a lot of pitches, and put the ball in play at a high rate. unfortunately, he doesn't understand that putting the ball in play means nothing in the grand scheme of things. hendry's hypothesis that the more balls put in play=more runs scored was a miserable failure, he should have been fired for putting together such a rotten team. my fear is that hendry will blame derrek lee's injury last season for why his theory fell on it's face, along with the team--and hold fast to his idiot logic, biding his time until he can do something similar with our cubs. seriously, there should be a book written about last year's cubs with exclusive interviews with the front office. losing in an unfair game which was greatly stacked in your favor. it's time for depodesta. this go round, he should be given as much time as we've given hendry.

they didn't even show the highlight on espnnews when i was watching it.

i wouldn't say that i'm missing it, bob. guys who put up burrell's offensive numbers are expensive, and not easily produced by farm systems as prolific as the chicago cubs'. the lack of defensive prowess wouldn't outweigh his superior offensive skills, he's an outfielder, no one's asking him to make insane catches. besides, we've had some pretty bad fielders out there this year, including derosa, who looks like he's about to fall down at any and every second when playing out there. this hasn't really hurt us at all. defense is small part of the game, largely contingent upon pitching, not the other way around. the new ownership will more than be able to afford burrell's contract, especially with pie, theriot, soto, marshall, and hill all seeing regular time next season, hopefully. personally, i'd rather have andruw jones, but burrell would be a significant upgrade over any OFer we've had in the past 3 years, regardless of where he's playing.

i want to make a new sig of the overlay of miller park, with a little arrow pointing to where dunn hit that ball--vorp monkey wuz heer.

and he don't bunt, neither.

mr. "vorp monkey" or whatever, he hit ball far in milwaukee tonight. so far. it made me want to slap my mama. if you aren't gay for adam dunn, you're gay.

hill will give up 2 runs in the first four innings while throwing 92 pitches and then get clobbered in the 5th after getting the first 2 hitters out.

Compared to the pitching market? Hardly. Z would have gotten 7 years, 130 million+ out there. Props to BleacherBadger for bringing us this news last night! Probably true which makes the market completely out of whack. No A-Rod now fellas Not impossible to still sign A-Rod. They'll have $105 mil. or so committed for '08 with arguably only a catcher and an upgraded bat to sign. $90 mil. committed for '09. all they need is a big bat. with, hopefully, theriot, pie, and soto starting on opening day and hill and marshall, hopefully, in the starting rotation--this will make getting that bat much more doable. i'd like to see me some andruw jones in right field. lf-soriano ss-theriot 1b-lee 3b-aram rf-jones 2b-derosa cf-pie c-soto me likey that lineup. Payroll would have to increase by about $20M. to 110 mil, if 90 is committed for next year? Look at my post from the last page, we have 100M committed if we get rid of Prior, Blanco, and Ohman (assuming Eyre picks up his option) my mistake. however, i doubt that increasing payroll to 120 mil if indeed necessary will be much of a problem for the new ownership. i anticipate that canning's group will probably increase payroll if anything. the cubs, even though they are a pretty profitable franchise, are a baseball team, not a high risk/high return investment. they'll still be run at a profit, i don't expect new ownership to run in the red--but i imagine any new ownership team, if the team switches hands, won't worry much about the bottom line in terms of revenue.

Compared to the pitching market? Hardly. Z would have gotten 7 years, 130 million+ out there. Props to BleacherBadger for bringing us this news last night! Probably true which makes the market completely out of whack. No A-Rod now fellas Not impossible to still sign A-Rod. They'll have $105 mil. or so committed for '08 with arguably only a catcher and an upgraded bat to sign. $90 mil. committed for '09. all they need is a big bat. with, hopefully, theriot, pie, and soto starting on opening day and hill and marshall, hopefully, in the starting rotation--this will make getting that bat much more doable. i'd like to see me some andruw jones in right field. lf-soriano ss-theriot 1b-lee 3b-aram rf-jones 2b-derosa cf-pie c-soto me likey that lineup. Payroll would have to increase by about $20M. to 110 mil, if 90 is committed for next year?

Compared to the pitching market? Hardly. Z would have gotten 7 years, 130 million+ out there. Props to BleacherBadger for bringing us this news last night! Probably true which makes the market completely out of whack. No A-Rod now fellas Not impossible to still sign A-Rod. They'll have $105 mil. or so committed for '08 with arguably only a catcher and an upgraded bat to sign. $90 mil. committed for '09. all they need is a big bat. with, hopefully, theriot, pie, and soto starting on opening day and hill and marshall, hopefully, in the starting rotation--this will make getting that bat much more doable. i'd like to see me some andruw jones in right field. lf-soriano ss-theriot 1b-lee 3b-aram rf-jones 2b-derosa cf-pie c-soto me likey that lineup.

just about 1 mil more per than the contract he was reportedly set to sign at the beginning of the season. not bad.

juice. juice. juice. juicE. juiCE. juICE. jUICE. JUICE. JUICE! JUICE! JUICE! JUICE!!!!!!

i'm going to go out on a limb and say that no, they didn't. i know, call me crazy.

if the worst case scenario has him putting up a .786 ops during a slump, where do i sign up? Combined with being one of the worst regular OF's in the game? I guess I have higher standards for $14M. I'm not saying I wouldn't want him under any circumstances and he is a pretty good bet to get you around an .850 OPS. However there are things that make me hesitant and I would want them to eat some of that money. If not, I'd rather go with Murton (and Jones if necessary) and allocate that $10-$13M to Z and a possible shot at A-Rod. again, defense is not our problem, our problem is OPS. burrell provides that. i'd take him in a second. You're right, defense isn't our problem. But awful defense changes a player's worth. I think there's a very reasonable chance that we can come up with an in-house option(s) that provides an .800 OPS for a low cost. Is Burrell going to be able to produce enough offensively to make up that $10-$13M AND the defensive drop off? yes, because +.800 ops right fielders odn't grow on trees, and burrell is good. They aren't rare or elite either. There are 17 qualified outfielders in the NL alone with an .800+ OPS. 21 in the NL have an .800+ OPS in 300 plate appearances. The number increases to 25 when PA's are reduced to 250 currently which is more than a straight platoon. I don't really think it's much of a leap to think that we can get an .800 OPS out of in-house options next year in RF and definitely get better defense out of them. Maybe not highly probable, but a good enough chance that I'd rather save the $10-12M and invest that on Z or an unlikely push for A-Rod. in the NL: 1.bonds 2.holliday 3.hawpe 4.dunn 5.griffey 6.rowand 7.c lee 8.burrell the closest cub, soriano trails burrell by over 40 points. in either league, there are 13 current everyday of'ers that qualify who have better OPS's than burrell--that's not that many. he'd be worth the money, even with his less than stellar defense--which, and i repeat for the thousandth time, is not our problem. we've tried driving in runs with the glove in the past, and it just doesn't work as well as with a bat. mo OPS plz.

He's gone. Hendry screwed this up, like he does everything else. No he isn't. He wants to stay with the Cubs and SOMEHOW they'll get it done.Sure, except he isn't going to wait until our sale gets sorted out. We had our window and we blew it. well, the sale will get sorted out before the season ends and free agency begins, so unless zambrano plans on signing with another team illegally, the cubs still have their chance.

oh yeah, we're still not drilling conine in the back? just do it already, he's going to get on base anyway, might as well make it hurt.

please worst, get someone out.

Seriously? Do you have any class? Do you have anything better to do then complain about "a hole" that's something you can say on network TV. Grow up. I would prefer to keep this board relatively enjoyable, something that it hasn't been while reading your posts So don't watch TV-14+ shows you might get offended. i laughed at that one.

conine with another non-out.

come on wuerzt.

you're pronouncing it wrong.

yeah, that vorp donkey sure sucks, don't he?

lou is a micromanager, that's for sure.