hawkeyecub

Like who? It would have been Marmol and Ohman's 3rd day in a row also I believe. Wuertz and Eyre were already used. When you have a 5-man bullpen, you don't have many options. I don't blame Lou completely. It was a 5-run lead and he wanted to avoid those guys going 3 days.

My God I'm going to be sick

I love how Lou's "surprises" cause so much buzz and speculation.

Certainly. 7.5 games back with over 13 weeks to go. The Brewers are 27-13 at home but only 16-19 on the road. We have 7 games left with them, all at home. Win both of those series and we only have to make up a game on them every 3 weeks. While an above average team, they aren't as good as the teams we've been chasing the last few years. I refuse to believe that Braun, Hart, Hardy and to a lesser extent Fielder will maintain their current production. Sheets is due to break and Vargas has been lucky. Our bullpen is coming around as is our luck in close games. The Yankees are still the only team who has had a worse record than us compared to their expected W/L. I predict we go 9-4 until the break, the Brewers go 6-7 and we'll be back over .500 and 4.5 games back. Of course you can make an equally strong argument as to why we have very little shot.

Athlon's has you ranked 4th, Lindy's 6th and I think Phil Steele had you in the top 5. I think you're going a little heavy on the no respect card.

You are aware that would cost an extra $500 million, right? Nah, let's not just improve the quality of the actual playing field while keeping the history and draw of the park intact. That's not exciting enough so it makes no sense.

No. He's signed through 2010 at around $13M per, although I'm not sure if it's backloaded. He'll be 34 in his final year of the deal so he shouldn't see his production drop significantly. We also obviously have Ramirez and Soriano signed through that time also for a solid offensive nucleus near their prime or plateau years. Our pitching shouldn't be in terrible shape during that period either. We have some possible young, cheap pieces in Chicago and the minors to be able to fill C, CF and 2B at a low cost for these next few years. If you deal Lee you aren't going to make up that all-around production, plus his defense for the same price. In this division with the roster and budget we have, we shouldn't be building for the future. And I don't know if we can find a deal for Lee that makes us better for the next 3.5 years and fits with the pieces we have.

I'm not going to assume this is true if it was just speculation on Sullivan's part. However hypothetically IF this were true, how can some of you think there's no problem with it? It was a player's only meeting and what was said there was supposed to stay there. The players know exactly who was there and what was said and if it was leaked, then it had to have been a teammate. That's why Cliff was angry and said that if they found out who leaked it to the media, he should be sent packing. I know many of you like to think that players are like robots and it doesn't matter if they all hate each other's guts, but that's not reality. That's not to say that baseball is like football or basketball where it's a true team sport and chemistry is important. They're still humans and outside things affect performance or create undesirable tension. He was feuding with the manager, his defense was getting worse, he's getting old in catcher years, he and our ace threw blows, he's in his free agent year. And if he allegedly leaked this stuff, he lost the trust and respect from many of his teammates. That's a lot of things adding up to create the end result.

My thoughts exactly.

Z's last 3 starts: 25 IP, 2 ER, 8 hits. 26 K's, 7 walks, .60 WHIP, .72 ERA 4 starts since the fight: 31.2 IP, 4 ER, 13 hits, 35 K's, 10 walks, .73 WHIP, 1.13 ERA Wow

Z's last 3 starts: 25 IP, 2 ER, 8 hits. 26 K's, 7 walks, .60 WHIP, .72 ERA Since the fight: 31.2 IP, 4 ER, 13 hits, 35 K's, 10 walks, .73 WHIP, 1.13 ERA Wow

Z back out for the 8th, hopefully he works a quick inning.

Exactly. If the trading partner said they had no preference between the two, you would deal Marshall. But as others have said, Hill has greater trade value. If dealing Hill gets you a better bat than Marshall, I would be fine with it.

Cubs lineup is in. LF- Soriano 2B- Fontenot 1B- Lee DH- Ramirez 3B- DeRosa C-Bowen RF- Pagan CF- Pie SS- Izturis

Thanks father. You have educated me on the topic of baseball morals. I sure hope this young thug never wears a Cubs uniform. It doesn't pertain just to this and it really doesn't matter, but out of curiosity, how old are you? Why do you care? Fishing for a date? LOL, thanks for clearing that up once and for all.

Thanks father. You have educated me on the topic of baseball morals. I sure hope this young thug never wears a Cubs uniform. It doesn't pertain just to this and it really doesn't matter, but out of curiosity, how old are you?

I don't know. If they each had equal injury probability, I would definitely take Junior even at his age. In reality, it's a tough call for me.

There's a 48 hour window for all trade talk, this deal went down Wednesday morning so any and all discussion revolving around the deal must cease and desist ASAP. One last note: Sullivan claims that Barrett was the mole who leaked to the media that players were upset with Lou. So apparently he met with Lou and wanted him to take some blame, they obviously disagreed so then he leaked stuff to the media to get his point out there. Oh the drama.

I always get optimistic heading into these Sox series that if we play well this weekend, we'll get hot and take off. When we don't I think we're doomed for a losing streak. Of course reality lies somewhere in between. Today marks the first day of the rest of our season. With our schedule, 11-5 is realistic heading into the all-star break.

Well I'm glad that Lou at least is able to base his opinion off of what he's seen rather than Cesar's supposed reputation.

What happened? They asked how he liked Lou or what he thought of him and he put his face up against his arm looking like he was going to cry. It turned out he was holding back laughter. He gave some phony answer about how intense Lou is and talked him up, but he nearly started laughing about 3 times.

This feud between Lou and Barrett has been apparent for a while, but Barrett's reaction to the question about Lou during his press conference yesterday made it even more crystal clear.

We don't need him to be a savior. We need him to play good defense and provide average-above average offense for his position. As far as upgrade, he obviously isn't offensively. But as far as a use of the team's resources he may be. We would be upgrading by a decent amount defensively, paying less than $1M to fill both catcher spots and getting much younger. He won't have a 3-year stretch offensively like Barrett has had, but I think he's capable of putting up an .800 OPS in his best year(s) which combined with his defense and price tag, could make him a great value. It could, if that were realistic, but besides this season, in which he has under 200 ABs, he has never put up an OPS of .800 in the minors. In fact, before this year, his highest OPS was .756 in AA last year. I just hope he can put up a decent .700 OPS, which is more than any of our other catchers are likely to do. His highest OPS was .756 in AA as a 21 year old in 332 at bats. That's a very solid season for a catcher who is young for the league. Last year in 342 AB's he had a .739 OPS as a 23 year old. Again, as a catcher at that age, that's a solid year. He's not going to keep up the pace he has this year, but a .952 OPS in 173 AB's isn't just a few hot weeks. He's maintained steady progress and even his worst year of the last 3.5 wasn't bad considering he was 22 on his first trip to AAA. Also as has been mentioned, catchers tend to develop later on. He has had decent K/BB rates and the power has been coming. Compare his path to guys like Pierzynski, Estrada and you'll see his production and pace hasn't been far off. Heck compare his minor league career to LaRue, Damian Miller, Bengie Molina and Ausmus who either had an .800 OPS or were within 15-20 points a few times. Like I said I don't think he can do it consistently and won't guarantee that it will happen, but I think he is reasonably capable.

We don't need him to be a savior. We need him to play good defense and provide average-above average offense for his position. As far as upgrade, he obviously isn't offensively. But as far as a use of the team's resources he may be. We would be upgrading by a decent amount defensively, paying less than $1M to fill both catcher spots and getting much younger. He won't have a 3-year stretch offensively like Barrett has had, but I think he's capable of putting up an .800 OPS in his best year(s) which combined with his defense and price tag, could make him a great value.

If I needed a 5th OF with a little pop and could convince the Cubs to pay all but the minimum for him, I'd be interested. I would be interested in him in a bigger role than that if I were Texas. They're obviously going nowhere this year and will likely be trading Lofton by August. They're getting a .684 OPS from RF. A .704 OPS from LF. Overall in the previous 3 years Jones has a .777 OPS overall and .826 OPS against RHP. As horrible as he is this year, he's likely to get at least somewhat better and the lowest OPS of his career is .742. I would try to talk the Cubs into paying $1.5M this year and a portion of next year's salary. I can make him my 4th OF at worst and platoon him in CF with Hairston/Byrd once Lofton is gone or in the corner. You're buying extremely low and unlike the Cubs, have nothing to lose by playing him this year. There's a reasonable chance that you can get a CF who puts up an .800 OPS for less than $5M. If not, he becomes a somewhat expensive 4th OF who can hit RH and play all 3 spots while being in the last year of his deal. Unless they have some very good OF prospects I'm not aware of, I can see this making sense.