YearofDaCubs

Izturis you POS. If anybody wanted to start him because of his defense, well there is your answer.

One of the more egregious examples of Hendry just throwing money away. Blanco puts up an OPS+ of 80 and people think of it as a pretty big surprise on the upside. He's just brutally awful, and Hendry has now given him 2, 2-year contracts. Completely unnecessary nonsense. Soto's OBP in the minors is .344, and has been around .355 at Iowa. Blanco's OBP in the minors was .325, and in the majors it has been .290. Assuming Barrett stays healthy, Blanco isn't going to see more than 150 ABs this year. Soto may well be a better player than Blanco already, and even if he were worse, the difference can't possibly justify the difference of more than $2M in salary. For comparison, Doug Mirabelli is considered one of the better backup catchers in the game, and he's making $750,000. Blanco will make an average of $2,675,000 over the next two years, while blocking a guy who is probably major-league ready and could be making the league minimum. Way to go Jim. I'm becoming increasingly convinced that this organization will make no real forward progress until he is gone. No doubt about it. I'm still shocked the guy still has a job!?!! They should have cleaned house last year, and for the most part did, save for the man who dishes out money left and right to mediocre players and overpays for decent ones.

I personally would NEVER give a 30(at the time when the contract was signed)-soon to be 31 year old a 8 year contract. Never, and that's not including the ridiculous amount of 18mil per.

Then what was with all the "Soriano will play one position all year" talk? I think the plan, once they moved him to CF, was to keep him in CF. They blamed his slow start on the move and used the injury as an excuse to bail on that plan. But I don't think they ever planned on playing Soriano in CF until Pie was ready. You don't give a franchise caliber contract to a guy who you expect to keep a spot warm for a rookie. The Soriano will play one position all year talk mysteriously vanished after Soriano agreed to play CF. The team tried half the winter to not have Soriano play CF, they weren't exactly going to reverse course and have him play CF all year just because he started the year there, and I'm sure that they explained that to him before they accepted his volunteering to play the position. I have to agree with Jersey's view. Nobody gives a player $136M and then asks him to play out of position for half a season for the sake of a prospect who may or may not come up and take the position. I think Hendry really believed that Soriano could be a good longterm CF. That's the thing-the Cubs didn't ask Soriano to do this. That view doesn't fit the available evidence-here goes: 1) Soriano is signed-Bruce Miles reports that Soriano has been signed to play one of the corners, not CF. 2) Reports come out that Henry is trying to trade for a stop-gap CF and trade Jones. The quotes were constant "We are not going to do anything to block Pie" "We feel he can be something special, and we are not going to tie up CF long-term" 3. Soriano suddenly volunteers to play CF a month and a half after he signs-the trade talks with Jones stop, and so do the statements that they are not going to move Soriano around between positions. 4. After just a few games, they move Soriano out of CF, even though he didn't look nearly as bad as some of the other converted CF's around the league (Bill Hall for example). None of this supports that they wanted Soriano to be the long-term CF all along. I think you're right. They wanted Sori to play a corner not CF. They were surprised he said he wanted to play CF and that's why he was trying it out in ST.

better luck next time..ugh

We should have scored more than 2 runs off of Duke.

Murton and his groundballs are getting annoying.

so much for that..

Dr Z is a complete moron who has never said anything good about the Bears. He was the same guy that thought we would be last in our division last year, as well as other far out predictions that never came to fruition.

OK I really understand that Piniella and Dusty are not the same manager and have several differences. That quote sounds like it came straight from Dusty's mouth without the "dude" There's one big difference. Piniella is worried about "clubhouse problems" while Dusty seemed to actually believe the veterans gave him a better chance to win. Remember that Lou has played Theriot at SS for several days now so there's some evidence that he will bench a veteran if they play badly enough. Hendry shouldn't have signed Floyd without first trading Jones. If he was going to keep Jones, there was no need to sign Floyd at all since we had already signed another lefty OF, Daryle Ward. It's that simple. Hendry continues to be one of the worst GMs in all of baseball and whether the Cubs win or lose this year, I hope the new owner this offseason fires him immediately. I agree completely. Hendry has done a terrible job and has overstocked the OF. He just doesn't get it.

OK, that makes sense. So what will be the move to get Guz up here again? Somebody called down, or traded?

Sounds like he'll be pitching for Iowa on Tuesday. They meant for the big league clubs but they could be wrong.

This morning on ESPN I'm sure I heard Guzman to pitch on Tuesday. I don't know what roster move will be made but it's going to be interesting.

Thanks to this thread, I had a dream last night that we drafted Vitters. :lol:

For cash or a player to be named later. http://atlanta.braves.mlb.com/news/article.jsp?ymd=20070429&content_id=1937923&vkey=news_atl&fext=.jsp&c_id=atl

yeah, ony negative, he'll probably demand top 15 salary because he was supposed to go that high... Isn't his dad one of our coaches? I don't think we have much to worry about. The deal will get done.

Hey we all wanted a TE now we've got one. Truth is I don't know much about Olsen but he seems like a good pick here for us.

I could give a rat's about the rsox and yanks jeez!

good job jones you stepped up there and against a lefty.

good job Theriot!

Z hustles to 1st all the time. I love that

blanco!

great job jacque..

Good inning by Z. Great catch by Jones..

I wonder if Lou will chew him out. I doubt it. i doubt it unfortunately.