Wheelimus

The cool thing about the stopgap is, there's no damage done if Pie steps it up and you think "he's ready" come spring training. It's not like Kenny Lofton is standing in the way. If Pie's ready to put up big numbers, Kenny becomes your fourth outfielder. Either really upgrade (Soriano, A. Jones trade, etc.) or find a stopgap. Or just play Pie. But either before you sign a mediocre player.

I do think it would be hilarious to see Juan coached by Lou. I could easily see him making a girly slappish swing at a pitch and Lou slapping the taste out of his mouth and screaming "EVERYTIME YOU SWING AT JUNK I'M DOING THAT TO YOU." :twisted:

Well, I keep forgetting that Theriot was a shortstop coming up, so he could probably handle that if Arthritic Piece of Crap's bat somehow loses him the starting job. :lol: Man, is the sarcasm thick in this thread or what. :D

If the choice came down to, say Juan Pierre, 3/25 or Kenny Lofton, 1/4 I'll take option 2 every freaking day of the week, and twice on Sunday...

See, that's why I love you guys. Nobody else gets the joke when I lament hating to watch the Colts or The Bears, because I've "got curse all over me". :lol:

Is anyone worried about Lugos drop-off upon going to the Dodgers? Small sample (49 games, 146 at bats) but the line was .219/.278/.267. Of course, maybe he lowered his price by doing that. Just wonder which Lugo we get, the one from Tampa who put up OBPs over .360 the last few years, or the one from LA and Houston who put up pretty atrocious numbers.

Did we ever find out if draft pick compensation was going away or not? Because if we don't get something in return...ugh!

hmm..potential business prospect? I'll take all the book publishers in the first half of the alphabet, you take all the ones in the second half. Hopefully Lugo goes along with this once we get a deal in place...

So multiple writers with head trauma, eh? (assuming that meant sports writers and not writers here, heh, if so I apologize!)

Lugo, however, is not writing a "hypothetical" book about how he did it...

Lugo for short, Soriano for center, Theriot for second. Theriot Lugo Lee Ramirez Soriano Jones Barrett Murton or some variation. Um, yeah, that should work out ok. Sign a starter quality backup outfielder (Lofton) to hedge your bet on Theriot (if he tanks, you move Soriano back to second, and put Lofton in center). Then spend everything else on pitching. :D

Hitting coach for Ryno, please. Or Iowa manager with Quade joining the big league staff. :D

Both of these guys sound like good gambles (at the least they'd be able to "fool" the league for a year) and considering we could probably have both for much less than Daisuke's posting fee and salary, not a bad idea.

I still think it can be done with the Marlins. They're the best match in that they'd trade Willis for a boatload of talent who would be plenty "MLB ready" for them. So for me, the discussion is what prospects are the Marlins going to want? Offer them Pie or Veal, Marshall or Mateo, Soto or Ryu, and a fourth lower level prospect? And what will the Yankess want with Willis to trade A-Rod? Scott Moore maybe? So at least they're getting our "best 3B prospect" back. Anyway to make this work?

I find it funny that Jacque keeps being brought up as a failure, but he posted a line this year that was the second best of his career. Even more mind blowing when you see his splits. Lefty - .234/.261/.416 Righy - .303/.358/.528 So, really, that's my big question on Lou. Is he going to see those splits and have the nerve to platoon Jacque? Both the nerve to demand the player to put with him (even if it's in house like Restovich) and the nerve to tell it matter of factly to Jacque. Because with the right talent, Uncle Lou is more than capable enough to win. He's done it quite a bit in his career. It will all come down to what they give him. To me that requires radically changing the outfield. The only options I see barring trade are Carlos Lee (shifting Jacque to center) or Soriano (who would play center). And it's going to requires oversaturating Lou with pitching. We need one of Zito or Schmidt, and at least another second tier pitching Free Agent (Padilla or otherwise) to have a good chance.

I'll give him a chance, he deserves at least that. I want to say "i just hope he leaves pitching decisions to the pitching coach", but knowing that will be Rothschild...ugh.

Would be damn interesting if something happens with the Washington job. What if Joe was told he'd be the heir to Lou, and would be expected to prepare for that with Lou? Yikes...

I'm hoping Hendry is unwilling to devote a large chunk of change to manager next year. Just say you've got a two million dollar limit (gets you Bochy's contract, Girardi) and if he really wants to coach here, he can do it on a make good contract. Lead us to the division and a playoff run Lou, we'll bring you back...

100 games of having Barry Bonds in the lineup is 100 games we have a real good chance of winning. And when you figure the other 62 games will go to Murton, plus all of Jacques lefties, doesn't really hurt him at all. Plus you know there will be blowout games where Barry might want to sit down early. What if that cost you $6 million with incentives? For a 1.000 OPS. Sorry guys, we're the Cubs, I think old Cap ruined any chance of having a "we don't hire slimballs", before all of us were even born. So lets go for the cheap guy with the four hundred plus OBP if he's cheap... Look at the bright side, if he's a Cub he'll power us to an insurmountable lead in the division, one homer from trying the record, and then HAVE A VERY LARGE SATELLITE DROP ON HIM IN A GAME. The cleanup is going to suck, but then Matt gets more at bats. :lol:

Gambles don't always work out. For every Kenny Rogers 2/16 contract, there's a pitcher getting a big contract and turning to trash. But sometimes they pay off, and I'd think a 115 million dollar payroll team could fit a gamble into the budget, hedged in case of failure. Kerry Wood is the most obvious for us. How much to find out if he can do a Smoltz? What if Nomar Garciaparra fell into bargain basement pricerange with this very public postseason injury? Are we nuts enough to let him try to play up the middle again if it doesn't cost much to watch him self implode? And what if this is it, that last magical run we just know he'll have if it's not with us... How cheaply do Barry Bonds or, gulp, Moises Alou have to come to make you interested? If Soriano is out of your reach, could you swallow your pride and give Jim Edmonds a call? Maybe he'll want revenge on the franchise that's likely to cast him aside. Cliff Floyd. Are we dumb enough? Aubrey Huff. Any use? Trot Nixon? Gulp...Sheffield? Personally, Wood is my main bet. And if any of them come into gambling range, I'd give it a shot. Can you imagine Barry Bonds, fourth outfielder? Eating lefties for breakfast for Jacque (surely Matt can handle a little right field) and taking a few righties for Matt that might give him trouble but he'll eat for breakfast. Why not? Who better to lead the Cubs straight to the gates of hell to break this curse than Barry. :lol:

Not the end of the world. As an alternative they could sign Luis Castillo and go with him and Riot up the middle. Throw "Arthritic Piece Of Crap" to whoever will take the contract. Then you could probably afford to keep Dempster and see if he can improve his trade value. Hell, put him back at starter. He's more of a "not give up a big inning but don't count on me to not give up something" pitcher anyway.

I'm game, sure, we've done this before, but not with the knowledge of the additional payroll. Can't hurt! In my scenario, I'm keeping the following players from our team/system for next year, with a guesstimate of their salary next year (All salaries in millions) 1B - Derrek Lee, $13 2B - Ryan Theriot, $0.4 3B - Aramis Ramirez, $13 1B/3B - Scott Moore, $0.4 SS - Ronny Cedeno, $0.4 RF - Jacque Jones, $5.3 LF - Matt Murton, $0.4 OF - Michael Restovich, $0.4 OF - Angel Pagan, $0.4 C - Michael Barrett, $5 C - Geovany Soto, $0.4 P - Carlos Zambrano, $9 P - Mark Prior, $5 P - Rich Hill, $0.4 P - Kerry Wood, $4 P - Wade Miller, $2 P - Will Ohman, $0.4 P - Michael Wuertz, $0.4 P - Bob Howry, $4 P - Scott Eyre, $3.5 So I'm letting the following walk CF - Juan Pierre C - Henry Blanco 1B/OF - John Mabry And dealing the following, or in the case of Glendon, expecting him to miss the year and most of it to be covered by insurance. P - Glendon Rusch, $3.25 P - Ryan Dempster, $5 SS - Cesar Izturis, $4.15 Presuming that I'm able to deal those two off without eating any of their contract, my current payroll is roughly $68 million dollars, leaving me $47 million dollars (!!!) to spend. Here's what I'd do with it. Trade - Ryan Dempster, Cesar Izturis, and one of Marmol/Marshall/Ryu for Miguel Tejada. I know, I'm nuts. But this gives them a guy in Dempster who they'd have start and he'd instantly be their #2 best starter. A "gold glove caliber" replacement for Tejada (who could compete with Gomez for the job). And another pitcher who is probably going to easily be one of their five best. If the above doesn't get it done, tell me what you think does... Tejada of course becomes my starting shortstop, relegating Ronny to being the backup at both middle infield spots. FA signing - Alfonso Soriano, 5/75. Hate to pay it, but it may be what it takes to get him signed. I only pay the above if he's willing to start the season in center field. FA signing - Kenny Lofton, $3 million. My fourth outfielder, and insurance policy in the case that Theriot doesn't keep up respectable lead-off numbers. In that case Soriano would move back to second, and Lofton would take his place in center field. FA signing - Barry Zito, 4/50. Automatically becomes your #2 starter. Total cost at this point is under $115 million dollars. So I suppose my team would be (in the order i'd hit them) 2B - Ryan Theriot C - Michael Barrett 1B - Derrek Lee 3B - Aramis Ramirez CF - Alfonso Soriano SS - Miguel Tejada RF - Jacque Jones LF - Matt Murton (not a ton of thought put into that lineup yet because, damn, that's a tough lineup to juggle) With a bench of OF - Michael Restovich OF - Kenny Lofton OF - Angel Pagan SS/2B - Ronny Cedeno 1B/3B - Scott Moore ? - last guy on the bench should be someone from the system, with options, in case we ever do need the extra pitcher. And a starting rotation of Carlos Zambrano Barry Zito Rich Hill Mark Prior Wade Miller/one of our other young guns And a bullpen of Kerry Wood Scott Eyre Bob Howry Michael Wuertz Will Ohman Miller/young arm/vet retread/etc Hmm, I could live with that. Wishful thinking of course.

As a team, we're to the point that we either get the best players in the free agent class, pull of a fleece of a trade, or we're mediocre, again. If the Tribune is going to up payroll, we can afford to overspend a little bit. 5/75 is fair and I pay it, in this market, so long as he agrees to play center. Because that effectively negates the overpaying, since you can plug a minimum salary guy (The Riot) in at second base. Riot is our new leadoff hitter, and we're set. And if the payroll rumors are true, we still have 20 to 25 million to spend, enough to get a good starting pitcher, re-sign Wood, and have enough leftover for trade flexibility.

Nice! Hope it's true. With that we could bring Soriano in for center field (just convince him that center is the second base of the outfield, he'll get to make some spectacular plays that will make the highlight reels), sign a Schmidt or a Zito, and bring back Kerry Wood to be our (eventual) closer. And still have more money to spend if, say, Baltimore can be talked into dealing Tejada or something. :D

I'd take Pavano in a packagew ith A-Rod, but no way in hell I give up Rich Hill (and maybe not even Felix Pie) in said deal. Pavano has two years and twenty million dollars left on his contract, and no guarantee that he's going to pitch again. Crazy thought. If the Cubs directive is to win a world series, now, is management and The Tribune willing to put their money where their mouth is? Because we might be able to swing this just by spending a LOT of money. The Yankees have a lot of work to do and could use salary relief. I know they have a lot of big contracts coming off the books, but those are new holes they have to fill. So what about something insane like this, a three way deal. Marlins give - Dontrelle Willis, Renyel Pinto Marlins get - Carl Pavano, Sean Gallagher, mid-level prospect, Pavano's salary almost exclusively paid by Cubs Cubs give - Ryan Dempster, Sean Gallagher, mid-level prospect Cubs get - Alex Rodriguez Yankees give - Alex Rodriguez Yankees get - Dontrelle Willis, Ryan Dempster, Renyel Pinto I know, nobody would do it probably. The way I'm working this is, we know the Marlins have no money. We have $20 million for a parking garage that's on hold. If we dumped that into paying Pavano to go back to Florida, maybe they give up Dontrelle who they can't afford and everyone knows it. Unworkable I'm sure, but fun to try to think up. Of course, Florida could be having a big bump in payroll for all I know.