treebird

the bears continue to win games and i continue to start the thread. here are the teams that have beat the bears this year: saints packers lions those are really good teams! but if we want to be a really good team, we cannot just lose every time we play someone with a good record. so this would be a good week to go and do something cool. gabe carimi seems like he will probably be ready to come back, but it's unclear what he's going to do. strangely, lance louis is og now, and i don't mean offensive guard. the line seems to be bears by either 2.5 or 3.

jesus christ, forte

how are we not getting destroyed in a game in which we have both bad cutler and bad hester?

great replay on the pi call, thanks guys

Maybe he molested some kids in the locker room 10 years ago... 0.0

TRUFFLE NO WHAT ARE YOU DOING

if we sign pujols we should give him 10/100 with a 200 million dollar signing bonus, that way when he declines late in the contract it won't matter since he's only making ten million a year

i love the cubs as much as anyone, but i really don't think i can find it within myself to root for a city government with a major financial crisis to give a billionaire money to make his profitable business even more profitable.

As literal as you can possibly take it. Players Dad's accompany the team for a couple games on the road trip. you don't know what you are talking about. It's a road trip sponsored by Dad's Root Beer. They do one every year, and while the team is away they open up the UC to the fans to watch at a Dad's sponsored family fest. Kind of hoaky but you need to bring in that casual fan and young families. Mug >Dad's Not even close. A&W > Dad's > Barq's > Mug barq's has bite barq's > dad's > a&w > mug

that is actually pretty cool. and i very much liked the comments on lopez and ortiz.

As literal as you can possibly take it. Players Dad's accompany the team for a couple games on the road trip. you don't know what you are talking about. It's a road trip sponsored by Dad's Root Beer. They do one every year, and while the team is away they open up the UC to the fans to watch at a Dad's sponsored family fest. Kind of hoaky but you need to bring in that casual fan and young families. incorrect the dad's trip is a road trip is an annual men's rights event in which the team works to raise awareness of the implicit unfairness of the divorce and child custody system in the united states by allowing all team employees to bring their children on the trip to show that they can successfully balance work and parenting.

He has IU picked to finish 18-13 overall, 8-10 in conference. I'd certainly take that record! I'll take the under. you should also take the under on "where will we find bruce weber in relation to treymon's car" if illinois really has the season kenpom projects and doesn't get fired

Possessing that kind of movie can get you in an awful lot of trouble. 6.4

hardcore : malfunctioning 50s robot :: kingkongvsgodzilla : siri it's a lot closer to sounding human, but it's still just not there. doesn't quiiiiite know enough to be real and just gets caught up in stupid little things too much to make a lot of sense

They won't be bad at all, but they were a 90 win pythagorean team that won't have any payroll flexibility, even without Fielder. Plus I don't think they can count on getting 155 starts from their Top 5 SP like they did this year(including 95 from Greinke/Marcum/Gallardo), which is just an insane number. it's that damn brewers pixie dust at it again

my favorite computer model is s1m0ne

i get the distinct impression that it smells like burnt toast in the room each and every time kkvg goes to make a post

EXPOS

So your preferable route is to overpay for a 34 year old, oft-injured third baseman who has missed significant portions of time (60 games one year and 80 games another) in 2 of the past 3 seasons? Why is a good, but injury risk pitcher a bad idea, but a good, but injury risk hitter is a good idea? the whole point from the beginning has been i am scared of what the team is next year if we don't sign aramis or pujols or fielder. i don't know what "overpay" means in the context of ramirez, but i would rather bet on him being good and healthy next year than oswalt.

I already addressed Byrd and Jackson. Soriano cleared the NL and MLB average for RF OPS last season, and he did it with a .266 BABIP. ONE clearing the ops average for your position by 11 points while sporting an obp 40 points below average does not make you an average offensive left fielder. TWO the numbers for the position as a whole are just that: for the position as a whole. if you are a starter and hit what the position as a whole hit, you are below average, as those numbers incorporate all sorts of other crap guys who got at bats there but weren't good enough to be starters. the cubs are going to have those guys too, and they are going to bring our numbers for the positions as a whole down as well. You are severely both effects, imo. Unless you aren't considering average to be a range and that a player who is a fractional run below the strict league average is a "below-average" player. Remember, we're taking this in the context of a conversation that says that with Ramirez or an elite 1bman, the Cubs offense will be soooo bad that they'll lose 90 games even without an elite pitching staff. what are you saying here? i am severely what-ing both effects? overstating? i am overstating the fact that you think soriano is an average left fielder with a 289 obp? i disagree. the second line doesn't make much sense either. i guess you mean lose 90 games even WITH an elite pitching staff. and i don't think this offense is that bad. as soon as you tell me how we're getting an elite pitching staff (and 2011 + wilson + mystery 3war pitcher we can get without giving anything up) doesn't count.

Let's just say we spend the remaining $40 million on Wilson and someone middling like Oswalt. If we take Aramis Ramirez's mother's projections for his 2012 and assume that the Baker Brigade is replacement level, then you are still left with no more than a 4-win gap. A realistic projection is more like a 1-2 WAR gap. Assuming Pena drops back a little and Pujols recovers to his 2010 numbers, that'a 5-win gap. From Fielder to Pena is about 3.5. Using 2011 WAR (extrapolating to a full season for Oswalt), you get 5.8 WAR for replacing the fifth-starter horrors with CJ Wilson, and you get 3 wins for replacing Wells with Oswalt. There are many paths by which the Cubs' remaining $40 million can improve the team significantly. It's absurd to simultaneously argue that the Cubs are terrible and that there's only two ways that $40 million worth of players can improve them. see, that's where i got messed up. i didn't know that the way to solve the problem was to sign 35 year old pitchers with back problems and pretend the would pitch full seasons at previous levels of ability. yes, we can make this work if that happens.

I already addressed Byrd and Jackson. Soriano cleared the NL and MLB average for RF OPS last season, and he did it with a .266 BABIP. ONE clearing the ops average for your position by 11 points while sporting an obp 40 points below average does not make you an average offensive left fielder. TWO the numbers for the position as a whole are just that: for the position as a whole. if you are a starter and hit what the position as a whole hit, you are below average, as those numbers incorporate all sorts of other crap guys who got at bats there but weren't good enough to be starters. the cubs are going to have those guys too, and they are going to bring our numbers for the positions as a whole down as well.

You mean Aubrey Huff, who posted a .694 OPS in 2009 and a .676 OPS in 2011? An extremely up and down player who happened to have a really good year that season? If Grady can stay healthy, he could give us Huff-type numbers. And then there's Pat Burrell who had a .682 and .756 OPS around the 2010 season. Again, the Giants took a chance on a highly up and down player and got an up year. They caught a break - one we could get from a Soriano/DeJesus platoon if the breaks go our way. Soto could also have an up season next year and give us an .800+ OPS like Burrell did for SF. As for Posey, Castro probably won't be that good but he could give us an .800+ OPS next year. As for the relievers, Marshall can be close to as good as anybody in their pen that year and Marmol can as well if he can rebound. As for the third, we have a plethora of options to work through, all with upside. Pretty sure Trey said that they have three SP and three relievers better than ours. Their offense would be just as god effing awful as ours. There's no one that's like Lincecum or Cain just out there for us to sign with no competition, not to mention you're again hoping that Carlos Marmol doesn't suck, and hoping that the collection of glish in the upper minors can step in and effectively relieve at the major league level. yeah, i could've phrased that better. meant starting pitchers, not starting position players.

Soriano/Jackson/Byrd Random Crap/Castro/Barney/Pena Soto That offense is above-average at C and SS, average at LF, CF, and RF, and below-average at 2b and 3b. I'm not seeing how that's a terrible offense. It's not a great offense, but it's an okay one, and this is in some sort of nightmare scenario where they fail to upgrade a single position. http://www.baseballprospectus.com/sortable/index.php?cid=975442 these are the numbers for what the league as a whole did at each position. you should look at them. and keep in mind that if you have a starter performing at these numbers, you have a below average starter, for obvious reasons. you're being VERY charitable calling anyone in that outfield average.

And what are we relying on if we give Aramis a 3/45 deal at minimum? Health. We're overpaying a 34 year old, oft-injured third baseman in the hopes that he will stay healthy. I've said multiple times this isn't an ideal scenario and my first option this offseason is to pay very large amounts of money to one of Prince/Pujols. But if that doesn't work out, bringing in two stud pitchers is better than one stud pitcher and overpaying for an old, oft-injured Aramis. Retaining Aramis and signing Pujols or Fielder is far, far, far more likely to be helpful next year and beyond than hoping one of those two decides to sign here to play with Castro and a collection of crap. And again, who's the other stud FA pitcher? i guess people are talking about darvish.