loukycub

this team need an offensive presence badly in the lineup, preferably 2b-ss, but wherever you can get it at this point. if you let harden walk, who could we sign with the money that would have been allocated to harden that would fit fitting the offensive needs and/or defensive needs? i don't know much about the upcoming free agent pool. i don't suspect that it has any decent middle infielders or impact bats in it. if there's no one out there to bring in with harden's money, i say offer arbitration or just resign him outright. i believe its easier to keep effective starters (because with his injury i don't think he's going to get any better offers than what we would give him) than it is to go get effective starters. i'd much rather see if someone would take bradley off our hands (full disclosure, i was against his signing). it's not because he's not productive because he has been, he's just been productive in areas that we don't really need his production and he's not producing the way his contract says he should be producing. if bradley is not going to be used where his obp can be used to its maximum (that being leadoff or second), we don't need a second kosuke who is slower, more injury prone and plays worse defense.

i know it sounds silly, but we aren't going anywhere this offseason, so why not. why not run out a 6 man rotation?

if that's the case, then i really don't see a point to this thread. getting 4 innings out of one bullpen arm and working from there (only burning, what 3 more arms, 2 of which would have gotten the same amount of work if carlos had pitched anyway maybe?) is pretty good pen management considering the circumstances. i would have moved everyone up a day and tried to see if if or until i could find someone in the farm who could spot start either saturday, sunday, or today and keep that one on normal rest but that's just me and i'm not a baseball insider. however if the title referring to signings, like for miles, or for bradley to be a power bat, or for trading derosa and not getting a quality replacement then it would be highly appropriate.

i've been at work for every game for this series, so i don't know if it has been mentioned or not: why DIDN'T z get any treatment for his back? if z refused treatment hoping it would get better, it's the team's fault for not making him, especially if it did not get any better over the next 5 days. if the team didn't give him treatment, then they have no business being in major league baseball. in either situation, the organization is still being handled by a bunch of idiots, the only question i have is what percentage did the player play in the idiocy.

if he has one, it's too many. the job of the closer is to close the game out. if he's getting wins, that means he has given up the lead in the 9th or he is being put into a tie game in the 9th which means he isn't being used correctly.

+1 we like to call ourselves a really big town or a real small city. :)

i hate the fact that a sox pitcher pitched a perfect game, however that hate is tempered by the fact that he did it against the tampa devil rays which makes it even in my eyes.

i like the thirds. they provide some sorely lacking color in the game. white vs gray is so unappealing and boring. diehards won't care cause it's baseball. casual fans won't get interested because the uniforms look so boring. i like the alternates but i think that the best alternate unis are the ones that don't look like either home or jerseys, such as the cubs thirds and the nats thirds. for those who hate the cubs blue alternates, was there this much complaining when the road unis were blue tops and white unstriped pants in the 80s?

i have nothing to contribute to this thread other than saying that seeing ryan smyth in an avs jersey is very painful knowing what could have been had he and the rest of the avs been healthy all of last year. and then what i have to look forward to the next few years out of denver. sigh :(

DeRo is overhyped because he was one of the few players on the Cubs who understood the importance of the team to its fans. And he understood that being on the Cubs had a much more special meaning than being on a team like, say, the Mariners. Combine that with above average play, great versatility, a care-free sense of humor, and taking accountability for himself and his actions when he played poorly... I mean he was just a class act. I think that plays into his hype much more than his ability. i agree with this. how many of you here as kids hated a player because of something he did during a game or off the field even though he was one of if not the big stars of the team? liking someone, or making someone greater than their abilities is affected far more by their reactions off the field than their actual play. the perfect scenario i believe is playing out this season. speaking for myself only, who would i rather have, a player that rakes (or was signed to rake) but was a known headcase and a clubhouse distraction or a player that was above-to-average on the field but made the team better in terms of leadership ability, who would you have? i personally would go with the team guy over the headcase in any scenario because i don't think one guy makes a baseball team (basketball and hockey are different stories) but one guy can break one. if forced to choose i'd rather have the guy who tears the cover off the ball when winning, because normally headcases aren't as big of a deal when the team is winning. hendry's main problem wasn't that he traded derosa whom i admit had me as a fan after the tampa series last year, but the guy who replaced him is that much worse than derosa. if hendry replaced him with a sanchez or a cabrera or frankly anyone who could play the middle infield and not suck as badly as miles, most of the fans reaction would be around the lines of mark derosa was a nice cubs player, i'm glad we had him but the guy we replaced him with is that much better.

why hasn't wrigley hosted an all star game in 20 years? yankee stadium got it twice. fenway got it twice. i understand that baseball wants to feature its new stadiums in games (evidenced when pittsburgh got the game when it was to be an al team's turn to host) but for a historic landmark where major league baseball games are still played, 20 years seems to me far too long a time to not have the asg at wrigley. at this rate new yankee stadium is going to have an all star game before wrigley does again.

i think we are all counting a lot on the offense flipping the on switch for the rest of the season. we have about 100 games to go. i think the saying, you are what you are is most appropriate here. this team is going to have to win games by keeping the other team off the scoreboard rather than putting up so many runs the other team can't catch up in time. that's a lot of 2-1, 3-2, 3-1, etc. ballgames and frankly despite the recent slight improvement of the bullpen in general, i think our starters may have to go 7 or 8 just to hope for a no decision. that the schedule looks favorable for the rest of the month doesn't matter as far as i'm concerned. if we only lose one or two games during that stretch and yet still aren't hitting any better, i'm still going to be worried. at this point i would rather lose 9-8 with lots of hits than win 1-0 with a few hits because then i would have some faith that the bats are starting to come around.

i get the feeling that if bradley plays much next year, it will be more of the same. i have not seen much of anything from him when he was reported to be "100% healthy". it was a bad deal from making that clause too easily achievable to just signing an injury prone 30 year old to begin with.

on another forum i am a known cubs fan and there is also another member who is a known brewer fan. we had fun going back and forth last season. but i told him at the start of this year, we weren't winning anything because we got that much worse and no other team got that much better. when you trade away depth for a kneejerk reaction to a bad matchup in the postseason compounded by making deals to make one big trade and not pulling off the big trade, bad things are going to happen. and right now that's playing out. milwaukee and st. louis are 1-2 and it looks like the loss of wood, derosa, wuertz, eyre, and marquis are the equal of about 5-6 games as to this point last year. i really would love to hear hendry's reasoning for trying to get more lefthanded when being a predominantly righthanded team got us the best record in the national league, and an explanation for not dfa cotts after the tampa bay series last year, or why he hasn't been dfa right now.

We should sign LeBron James in 2010. only if bats left handed and throws strikes left handed and can play 5 different positions.

all this on and on about the wind blowing out and bradley. didn't the wind blow in more last year than out and isn't the percentage of time the wind blows out to in around 50-50 historically? it is about as likely the wind isn't going to blow in the rest of the season as it would out. if he can't perform when the wind is in, he shouldn't have been signed in the first place. right now, he just hasn't been performing period. i really hate to say it but joe was right. in the quest to get more left handed for the playoffs (before the playoffs were even assured) jim traded away the key pieces of a 97 win team for one that may finish above .500, but only just. i would be more comfortable with a deadline deal/waver wire deal with last year's team to go get a left handed bat than i would completely overhauling something that wasn't broken and overreacting to a bad matchup in the playoffs.

...with 3 nd's which iirc easily could have been wins if not for the bullpen and their kerosene tanks and matches or the bats not showing up. wells has pitched really well in 3 games and left either tied 0-0 or with a lead.

I think Indy, Kentucky (Louisville), or one of the Carolina's would have been a better place to start a team. not gonna work here. the reds won't allow it for one, and two it would be the same situation the natspos have in washington with the orioles, except you could substitute baltimore with cincinnati, chicago (N) (this is a national league town), and saint louis. i am big on louisville and will support anything louisville, but if that team comes here, i'm gonna be agan' it. the only way a team will ever move to louisville is if it's an american league team and may have trouble drawing because it's an al team.

reason to hate seattle is that the players and organization likes to have fun, something that the players on the cubs aren't it appears?

i got nuttin' other than to say as an avalanche fan this (http://www.advancedpower.ca/images/Golf-Canucks.jpg) is hilarious to me.

how many of those teams have the same level of expectations that we did coming into this season?

but who is to say that it couldn't be expanded? i'm pretty sure that there are more than 200,000 cubs fans who wouldn't want to own a piece of the team. or that the price of one share could be higher than $125. both numbers could be adjusted. my point is that ricketts just going after big money investors when he could open up a very large infusion of cash by doing the same thing on a greater scale with a very loyal fanbase as well as big money investors seems kind of short-sighted to me. think of it this way- if ricketts opens up the possibilities to the fanbase and they come through in a big way, those big money investors could get more money squeezed out of them by way of the fewer opportunities to invest in the team. this plan is purely hypothetical, but it's one i think would work really well.

you know, if ricketts was really smart, he would open up the possibility to buy shares to the fans instead of wealthy investors ala the green bay packers. you don't think that several hundred thousand people across the country wouldn't buy a part of the cubs? 200,000 people buying a share of the cubs at $125 a piece gives you $25 million dollars. quite frankly i'm surprised they didn't think of this first with the type of fanbase the cubs have.

WHAT? I CAN'T HEAR YOU! LET ME TAKE OFF THE HELMET FIRST! wow, it's still hot in here. let me say this: i am still thoroughly unimpressed by our bullpen at this point. perhaps its because neal cotts is down there. i know that every team would like to have 4 shutdown guys in the pen (your LOOGY, ROOGY, 8th inning guy, closer) or at the very least 3 and that expectation is unrealistic for every team. with all of the changes the pen has gone through from the end of last year to now, i would have figured that someone would have stepped up. supposedly this team should be the class of the division. i know its early which is why i'm not putting too much into the record at this point, but the bullpen does not look like a world class pen right now. i do have the perrogative to change my mind in the next few weeks. except on cotts. (quick backstory before anyone asks, game one down in tampa last year, dempster goes out with a 1 run lead or tied, don't remember, first guy cotts faced, solo shot, we lose by 1 run, hated him ever since.) perhaps its just my paranoia that during the offseason, all of those trades for bullpen pitchers were like the knicks made a few years ago when they made a few trades too many.

both seriously challenge/d for the division both had larger than life pitchers (z vs. cc) both have aces with injury issues (sheets vs. harden) both call miller park home both have serious bullpen issues that will be a hinderance all year long. it may be early, but that is the serious glaring weakness that i don't think is going to get addressed very easily aside from marmol. i know its early but i have absolutely no confidence in anyone in the bullpen other than marmol and we can't use him in the remaining 153. everyone should know by now what their roles are by now and none of them are executing. i think the difference will be that this team can win games 8-6 or 7-5. our offense is diverse enough to not completely rely on long bombing teams like the brewers did. it also appears that no one else in the division has gotten that much demonstratively better. however i have deep concerns that our bullpen is going to start affecting our hitters at the plate or our starters negatively in a very short time. /rant /dons flame retardant suit for the comments to follow