loukycub

raises hand neither gorz or silva have demonstrated that they need to be removed from the rotation. the main problem has been a lack of offense most nights and the bullpen the others. someone had to go down when lilly came back. dempster quite obviously wasn't. gorz probably wasn't because he's a lefty. your choices are then wells, zambrano, or silva. of those three, which has been less than spectacular this season so far? i say zambrano. i am also thinking that this move is also a precursor to a trade involving either wells or gorzellany (or if jim can find a sucker willing to take on a lot of the contract) or silva plus a prospect for a bullpen arm. i don't think this will last very long and it is the best move to make out of a bad situation. i'm not going to be on the fire the managers (field and general) now bandwagon until that imminent roster move on friday to put lilly on the active roster. i'm getting on if jeff samardzjia is also on the 25 man as well.

i was only partially listening. it sounded to me to be a combination of z nibbling, z not having control, and a small strike zone. my opinion only- it wasn't a great outing but it wasn't horrible either. carlos didn't lose this game.

question: would it be worth the payroll hit to just dfa him right now? he may have been sitting for a week, but even then he was still off by a lot. felix heredia thinks jeff samardzija is horrible at baseball. it had to be the inning i decide to watch the game on my phone instead of listening to it on my phone. spellcheck did NOT look good. while i understand that an injury call up would have been the only way to get gray up, it should not preclude the team from removing samardzija from the active 25 man roster on the same day. Why would they DFA him when they can still send him down? how many times has he been sent down and how many times has he not improved on his return? if he gets sent down, he needs to STAY down until he can show significant improvement of his pitching. his trade value is near zero. and if we did trade for him, i suspect the value would be something equal to dinner at uno's or less. cut him loose and see if another suckerERRRRRRRRRRteam takes a flyer on him.

question: would it be worth the payroll hit to just dfa him right now? he may have been sitting for a week, but even then he was still off by a lot. felix heredia thinks jeff samardzija is horrible at baseball. it had to be the inning i decide to watch the game on my phone instead of listening to it on my phone. spellcheck did NOT look good. while i understand that an injury call up would have been the only way to get gray up, it should not preclude the team from removing samardzija from the active 25 man roster on the same day.

two things we agree on, screen name and this. so when's your elite eight getting vacated? :P /runs Stop...lol....Btw I go to school at Louisville so I pull for the Cards also. I'll probably be pulling for them in the first game of next years football season, but dont get me wrong if UK wins I wont be that upset. I think Strong is gonna do great things at UL...Joker Phillips at UK...not so much you are a rare breed, sir try finding the opposite in lessERRRRlexington

i'm no football fan, but the strong (no pun intended) hire and basketball season made me wish football season got here faster.

two things we agree on, screen name and this. so when's your elite eight getting vacated? :P /runs

this

there are two differences between this and the stadium in tampa: 1) less cowbell 2) bad metal not blaring out at deafening levels of the speakers this is one of the reasons i want to go see a game at wrigley. on tv i don't hear or have seen much prompting on the scoreboards or the speakers for the crowd to get up and make a bunch of noise. tropicana field and great american ballpark reminded me of cardinal stadium on the kentucky fair and expo center (former home of the louisville redbirds nee bats who are now in a much nicer place), which had all the fan features of a high school football field and made lots of noise to get the crowd involved. considering that those were my first ever major league games i was not impressed by the atmosphere they tried to create. i thought the bats did it better, and they were expected to do that because they're minor league.

i think he has some anger issues AND he's bat poop crazy

is it okay to get worked up that we have someone still on the roster who still needs development time on the active 25 man roster and is on the roster simply because of the size of his contract? am i upset we lost, yes. but i would be upset if it was a 2-1 loss. z being z on opening day was expected. but what i am most mad about was when the game was still in reach at 8-5 spellcheck gives up, what 4 earned runs, one after he was pulled? there was plenty of bad luck in that game yes, but the things that had nothing to do with luck, like the ability to throw strikes consistantly, that makes me mad. my fear is that when lilly comes back, russell gets sent back down.

i don't know if the parsing of a sentence means anything, but the bottom line on mlb network said that the cubs granted kevin millar his release instead of simply the cubs released kevin millar. i get the impression millar asked for his release.

an observation: it seems to me that the talk of bradley being a good clubhouse guy corresponds to fanbase size or level of media coverage of the baseball team in the market. in most cases one or both factors were small until he came to chicago, specifically the cubs. i honestly don't think that if he went to the sox instead of the cubs he would have been so vilified in the chicago media. so that being said, i would not be surprised to hear a similar story regarding bradley in san diego that happened in texas.

I read the first one he got called out on strikes and then laid the bat down and waited in the batter's box until he got tossed, which is hilarious. My understanding of this situation (according to statements made by Wakamatsu) is that Bradley wasn't trying to show up the ump, but rather that he thought the inning was over and was waiting for the bat boy to bring him his glove and cap. This--if true--is even more hilarious. i'll bet milton will blame his lack of ability to count to 3 on either chicago, the media, the cubs, or the "fans" who sent him racist mail.

well, the ncaa did buy the nit so i guess it should be okay

the final 4 will have a new york feel to it as 3 participants will be from the big east. and syracuse ain't one of them. k-state v. georgetown. west virginia v. nova nova beats georgetown 75-70. and i would not be so high on louisville beating duke. we may get blown out of the building by cal in game 1. i'm not joking. our fans are 55-45 split against a quick and painless end. none of us knows which team will show up, the one that could have beaten the 1996-97 bulls and absolutely was not going to lose against syracuse in the final game at freedom hall (i was there!) and took them apart, or the one that showed up against st. john's and got ran out of the building. my feeling is, if we are going to lose, i would rather lose on day 1 and get it over so i am not emotionally involved. in the bracket i submitted for the group i have us going out against nova, but i would like to submit another one with us out at round 1, because either is a likely scenario.

kid's persistant, i'll say that much. we have a player like that here. kevin barker has been a part of either 2 or 3 different organizations but in an odd quirk of minor league baseball affiliations is the franchise leader in several of the louisville redbirds/riverbats/bats offensive stats. i also think he has played the most games as a member of the franchise as well.

i think the cubs could afford sheets, but his asking price is way too high, especially after coming off of a surgery to the body part where he makes his money and being away from the game for a year. i'd be willing to listen to a 1/6-7 heavy on incentives but 2/14-15 is too risky. but then again if he wants that money we have the gm foolish enough to give him more than he asked for, along with a ntc.

with all due respect, sammy sosa has already disrespected sammy sosa especially in light of mcgwire's "confession". it's been a dirty number for a while and someone needs to play better to make the number respectable again.

anyone see milton's comments after the trade? if anyone seriously believes that he could have helped his situation with the team any from the time he was suspended until yesterday by being the bigger man, and apologizing, take a look. if he wanted the opportunity to really bury the cubs and jim hendry in particular, he could have said that he regrets it didn't work in chicago, that he did some things that didn't help the situation much either. instead? "i'm a mariner now. chicago is in the past." wow milton, way to be the bigger man. let me tell you, paraphrasing mark mcgwire's very regrettable comments to congress will not help your situation any now or ever. a classier way out of town would be to admit you made mistakes (even if you believe you really didn't make any) and thank the fans for their support, even the ones who mercilessly booed you. enjoy the headcase seattle. you're so isolated in the sports world that maybe if milton blows a gasket nobody would know about it and he can calm down.

So you admit you hate him cause he hurt your feelings. I'm glad somebody will. no actually i don't hate silva. i have no opinion on him. seriously. when i say "throw him under the bus" i mean as in joining the majority of the cubs fans in this thread who are hate silva as much as they love major fancrush on bradley. if silva doesn't produce anything worthwhile the first year i won't like him because he didn't help my team. if he speaks as badly about the fans as bradley, i want him gone, and that goes for any of the players. if milton had just kept his stupid big mouth shut, while i do dislike him, i would never have been one of those who was calling for his trade this year and i would not have any issue with him back next year, hoping he produced more runs as the big offensive target he was advertised as being. remember, he didn't have to say anything about the fanbase at all. be complimentary or say nothing. it's not that hard. and also, bradley hating on the fans never turned me against him. i was already against bradley for his performance on the field and in baseball related stuff off the field (the appealed suspension when he wasn't playing anyway, taking himself out of games late in the year), and it was not an action that happened all at one time. his comments just should have made it patently obvious to everyone else he didn't want to be here after less than a season and we should have made it very easy to accomodate him.

thank you. for all here that absolutely know for a fact of what silva will do, well what's your excuse for what you absolutely knew for a fact of what bradley would have done this year from past history, all of his past history on and off the field? when silva starts trashing the main people who help pay his salary (that would be the fans who show up to the ballyard, buy overpriced concessions and souvenirs), then i'll throw him under the bus. until then silva may or may not do well this year. but none of us knows FOR 100% CERTAIN that he will be a bust this year right now.

am i a milton hater? if you describe me as one who was against this signing from the start, wanted him to do well since he was signed, and turned on him when it was clear he was not fitting the role he was perceived to have been signed for (and didn't own not doing well) then yes, i will proudly wear the label as a hater. when a player publicly states in no certain terms he does not enjoy playing for the team he's playing for at home, then it doesn't matter what you try to do. milton had to go because milton had taken the reasonable reactions of a few (and i mean a few) people, blown them up to exponential proportions and started trashing the fans. a pr disaster. the first sign of a player quickly being shown the door whether by trade or outright release is starting to bash the fans and in turn not retracting and apologizing profusely immediately afterwards. milton was given a much much longer leash than most other players would get in their first year with a new team. you can't tell me that the cubs tried their best to make it work for as long as they could. if the player does not want to play here, then the player does not want to play here. i believe that milton tried to speed his departure out of town as much as hendry tried to accomodate him after the suspension. so with reguards to this thankfully ended milton bradley experiment, i prefer a trade rather than an outright release. if he is going to get paid either way, i would rather have another player back than just cutting ties. we really don't know what is going to happen with silva once he gets here or the season starts. players have gotten better seemingly just from a change of venue (jim edmonds). they also have gotten worse (milton bradley). so from that standpoint, i am going to reserve judgement until i have seen him for a month or so. he may be a gem that needed polishing. he may turn out to be a bum. the thing is no one knows yet. i imagine that milton would be happier in seattle than in the third largest media market where the team has a national fanbase shown on national television at the least around 81 times a year covered by a phalanx of reporters. his next blowup should occur after two months in the season instead of a few weeks in chicago.

combination of the two. because the division is so weak, 83-86 wins could win the division. up until st. louis got hot at the end of the year the top teams could have been thrown under the same blanket. granted by going conservative we are essentially giving up on the wild card before the season even starts. get one or two cheap parts and we still can contend for the central and after that see what happens. the advantages of going conservative for the next year is that should we be pretty good that year, we are that much more attractive to the better free agents in 2011. the disadvantages are we finish third or worse and we start overpaying for free agents in the attempt to win, in other words exactly where we are right now. the way i see it nothing lost.

now having read the entire thread from start to finish (my above post i made when i got to that point in this thread) i'd like to say to the retain bradley crowd that professional sports decision making that relies purely on stats exist inside an xbox, ps3, or wii. i will submit that milton bradley is a decent baseball player and that he puts up nice numbers. however i also believe that when you sign a player, you sign all of the player, the good and the bad. and if an organization believes that a player's bad outweighs a player's good, then the player is not going to be gotten rid of at the first best opportunity. milton has not only burned bridges, he nuked them and burned the blueprints to make new ones. the players implicitly stated that they didn't want his attitude around anymore. the fans clearly don't care for his attitude. he acts that getting booed by the home crowd is the worst thing in the world, even if its deserved by stupid play and going 0-6 by strikeout. he doesn't have the mindset to survive playing in chicago. the best thing for him is to move on someplace else where the press is much more friendly and the pressure from the fanbase is much much less.