CUBZ99

I read somewhere that the Cubs didn't have to enter a bidding war to get Kuroda. Is there a time period in which they can negotiate a contract with him or is it likely they will wait to see if they lose out on their main target?

Is it a big deal that the Cubs are interested in making a bid for Matsuzaka? I thought the Cubs were pretty much a non-factor in Japan.

Wow. No way is Juan Pierre worth 7M per season, much less 9M. 4 years? [bleep] that noise. I could live with 3/18M at the most. Looks like Juan is gone. Yippee!! Yes, I wouldn't mind seeing him come back for $4-5M but noway is he he worth $7M a year for three years. Won't be sad at all to see him leave if Kaplan's scoop is true.

2 year extensions for everyone. :lol:

Just saw the story on Chicagosports.com that says prior had to get a second opinion on his arm. Unbelievable. http://chicagosports.chicagotribune.com/sports/baseball/cubs/cs-061017cubsprior,1,862568.story?coll=cs-home-headlines

Lou is really starting to grow on me. :D

You have been around long enough to know that it will never happen. If he wins they will say that Lou had nothing to do with it, if he loses it will be all his fault. Seriously, when will people stop bitching about this board? It's getting to be a friggin joke. The Cubs lost NINETY-SIX GAMES last year, how happy do you really expect this place to be??? Nobody said anything about "this board." Nobody said anything about how many games they lost either. :roll: The implication was obvious. And using the stupid rolleyes is neither original nor helpful to your point. ok

You have been around long enough to know that it will never happen. If he wins they will say that Lou had nothing to do with it, if he loses it will be all his fault. Seriously, when will people stop bitching about this board? It's getting to be a friggin joke. The Cubs lost NINETY-SIX GAMES last year, how happy do you really expect this place to be??? Nobody said anything about "this board." Nobody said anything about how many games they lost either. :roll:

You have been around long enough to know that it will never happen. If he wins they will say that Lou had nothing to do with it, if he loses it will be all his fault.

Are you sure, I haven't seen that reported anywhere?

So is Larry Rothschild back or not?

Only $3M a year? :shock: Kudos to Hendry for going after and signing his target while not getting fleeced.

What? When have the Cubs tried to build from within? They're going to try & win now coming off a 90+ loss season and a declining farm system. It's ironic that it's the exact scheme that they've tried forever, including hiring a "proven" manager. Agreed. I don't see how this siginfies that the Cubs are "ready to win". They've been down this road before. I'm not happy about the move. I think it's pretty much lateral but...whatever. I'm more interested in what players are going to be brought in. I'm not as excited as many of you though. The Cubs have been spending money. Hendry had $100 million at his disposal this year and put together the worst team in the NL. I have little faith that he can put together a championship team with an extra $15 million. Dusty had the Cubs within 1 game of the World Series for the first time in almost 60 years. So bringing him in wasn't the worst move in the history of the Cubs franchise. I would rather have a manager that is a proven winner than hire an unproven and pray it works out. I am glad that Hendry is not trying to hire a sub .500 manager with the hope that the guy will all of the sudden become a winning manager once he comes to the Cubs. Also, a team with a $115M payroll should never have to rebuild and foreit their whole season.

WHAT?! My thoughts as well. Now if it were Marshall, Veal, Jones for Andruw and Hudson...that's a good deal. I'm just trying to make a trade that seems plausible. Don't forget last year the Red Sox traded both Anibal Sanchez and Hanley Ramirez for Josh Beckett and the Red Sox took on Mike Lowell's contract. I think you guys may be a bit unrealistic on what you can obtain. If you switch in Cesar Izturis for Jacque Jones would the trade become more palatable? ONe more thing if you are willing to overpay for guys like Soriano and Lee in free agency why is not acceptable to overpay to get guys through a trade? If you want to build a winner immediately you are going ot have to overpay. but you're trading for a guy who is probably on the back end of productivity in his career, and has an albatross contract that might be the difference between us being able to sign our core players to extensions. Every free agent we can sign is on the backend of his career. Carlos Lee is gonna be 32. Soriano is gonna be 31. Schmidt will be 33. I would rather pay Hudson 30 million over three years than Schmidt 48 million over 4. What is the scoop on Hudson? Did he lose some velocity this year or was there some other factor contributing to this average numbers?

i CALL SHOTGUN!!!!! Count me in! :D

Might want to fix that. :) Good point.

\:D/ =D> =D> Here is hoping that the report is true and Lou is coming. I agree with BHogg, this move shows me that the Cubs are not content with the season they had last year and are very serious about getting back into contention next year.

That clip is EXACTLY why we need him here - he has the intensity we need I'm...Hoping thats a joke. A hothead manager is exactly what we dont need. We already have one ignorant hot head managing a baseball team in chicago, we dont need another. I have to disagree here. Watching Lou lose his mind will best part about next season. That may be true since the Cubs surely won't do much worth watching. And let the doom and gloom scenarios begin. One minute a manager has hardly impact on the overall team, next minute the hiring of a World Series manager means that the entrie season is lost and the Cubs will be horrible. Do any of you guys who actually listen to him on any of his recent broadcasts? Yesterday's broadcast Made the comment that Craig Monroe (and his .300 OBP) should not have been batting #2 in the batting order. Made numerous comments about the importance of working the count. (throughout the whole series). Made comments about not just giving up outs.(Regard to bunting to move a runner). He sounds like he has a pretty good idea about how to win. Further, Piniella has proven that he can win with a good team. If Hendry signs Lou, I'm sure its with the understanding that Hendry isn't going to be hoping for a good team in 3 years. The best news we could have hoped for was that the Cubs were going to be serious about winning next year, and not continue to give us fans the same old hope and "wait 'til next year" garbage.

There is no truth at all to that part of the report. None whatsoever. The story makes no sense on several levels. It stated that Piniella was the guy Hendry has been after all along, and then goes on to say that his higher ups had to shoot down the idea of him interviewing Bochy. Hopefully, Hendry is using the Bochy angle to get Lou to sign for a cheaper, shorter term deal. Last time when he was all ga-ga over Dusty, he was pretty much at the mercy of Baker's agent. By dragging this process out, my hope is that Hendry thinks that Lou will be more likely to sign a reasonable deal.

No, they are not hiring Bochy.

Yes, it would be horrible for the Cubs to have a manager that has actually won the World Series or that would hold his team accountable. A sub .500 coach is just not going to do it for a team that needs to win in the near future. If you listened to the interview on WGN tonight with Tim Flannery, you would have heard that he likened Bochy to Baker as being a real baseball guy. He also said that they are similar in that they will never talk bad about a player in the media or get down on a player when the team is losing. Piniella is the only choice the Cubs have at any sort of credibility. He is the only coach out of the ones available that has proven that he can lead a good team to a World Series championship.

Tim Flannery on Sports Central just said Bochy is a great baseball guy like Dusty Baker. :pukel:

I was also impressed on his insights to the pitchers. He was pretty upset when Verlander was trying to be too perfect with a lead. "Just through strikes and let the defense behind you do their job."

Sign him up already. Hendry must be trying to get his price down.

Well, Hendry will sink or swim with his decision, so it would be nice to see him show some guts and pick someone like Bochy. I would much rather prefer Bochy than any of the other candidates on the lists that have been reported.