[01LUGrad]

Hooray capitalism!

[Liberty4Life]

I've complained about competitive imbalance for quite some time, but if it results in a Cubs championship, I won't complain.

[Liberty4Life]

Red Sox made two moves:

The Boston Red Sox have agreed to a deal to acquire All-Star
slugger Victor Martinez from the Cleveland Indians.
A person familiar with Friday's trade told The Associated Press
the Indians would receive right-hander Justin Masterson and minor
league pitchers Nick Hagadone and Bryan Price. The person spoke on
condition of anonymity because the trade had not been announced.

Also, they traded LaRoche to the Braves for Casey Kotchman.

[rueful]

How are the cubs going to buy a championship? If you look at most of the roster, they arent the all stars that become free agents and got signed by the cubs. Most of them are just good players. I dont think the cubs are aaaanything like the Yankees or Red Sox or what the phillies may be turning towards now.

[Sly Fox]

Team 2009 payroll
New York Yankees $201,449,189
New York Mets $149,373,987
Chicago Cubs $134,809,000
Boston Red Sox $121,745,999

[rueful]

Team 2009 payroll
New York Yankees $201,449,189
New York Mets $149,373,987
Chicago Cubs $134,809,000
Boston Red Sox $121,745,999

That just says we play our players well. When I think of buying a championship, I think of the teams that dont care about the fan favorites, they just go out and get the best player possible and throw money at them. This is not something the cubs do. If it was, we would have heard alot more about the cubs around the trade deadline, probably as much as we heard about the BoSox and Yanks.

Another example: see UTEP Miners on the flamefans fantasy baseball. Its hard to miss him, he changes players every game.

[Liberty4Life]

Team 2009 payroll
New York Yankees $201,449,189
New York Mets $149,373,987
Chicago Cubs $134,809,000
Boston Red Sox $121,745,999

That just says we play our players well. When I think of buying a championship, I think of the teams that dont care about the fan favorites, they just go out and get the best player possible and throw money at them. This is not something the cubs do. If it was, we would have heard alot more about the cubs around the trade deadline, probably as much as we heard about the BoSox and Yanks.

Another example: see UTEP Miners on the flamefans fantasy baseball. Its hard to miss him, he changes players every game.

Maybe they were quiet around the trade deadline because they didn't exactly have many marketable assets.

[Rocketfan]

How are the cubs going to buy a championship? If you look at most of the roster, they arent the all stars that become free agents and got signed by the cubs. Most of them are just good players. I dont think the cubs are aaaanything like the Yankees or Red Sox or what the phillies may be turning towards now.

Based on your explanation of buying a team and then meantioning the Phillies, you make 0 sense. I dont' think we have grossly over paid for any free agent ( Ibanez was a steal) and even Cliff Lee only makes 8-9 million next year. Ryan Howard signed through all this arbitration years at 56 million ( i believe, was another steal by Ruben Amaro - GM) So as far as the Phils buying a championship that just not true.

[01LUGrad]

Cubs' GM Jim Hendry reminds me of that rookie fantasy football manager who thinks about getting the great running back, but can't seem to pull the trigger, so he waits too long and ends up with Ricky Williams....oh, and he pays him like he is LT. (example: Before the deadline this year, the Cardinals got Matt Holliday, Cubs got Jeff Baker. In case you're wondering, I asked "who?" too.)

By the way, the Cubs' bullpen is a complete mess right now. Kevin Gregg couldn't miss a bat to save his life and Carlos Marmol couldn't hit the strike zone to do the same. They had better get their collective act together or this is going nowhere.
(I type this as Marmol attempts to blow a save against the mighty Reds...)

All of this to say, the Cubs are tied for first, only 3 games behind where they were at this time last year when they sputtered down the stretch to win 97 games. Baseball is a funny game.

[Liberty4Life]

Today's edition of FAIL...

From the Mets marketing. They are going to give away 25,000 of these shirts in celebration of the Mets' 1969 World Series win:

[01LUGrad]

[NG33]

http://sports.espn.go.com/mlb/news/story?id=4384410

I personally think this should've been done sooner...

[Cider Jim]

Come to B-more!

[Liberty4Life]

Come to B-more!

They have plenty of lousy pitchers, he'll fit right in.

[Th3rd]

Yanks have come through 3 games against Boston and are actually looking good right now. Its kind of a miracle and frankly i say lets keep pouring it on Yanks!

Yankees 68-42
Red Sox 62-47 5.5 GB

thats the stats i like to see, anyone catch the ortiz interview about him juicing?

[JMUDukes]

Today's edition of FAIL...

From the Mets marketing. They are going to give away 25,000 of these shirts in celebration of the Mets' 1969 World Series win:

as a Mets fan I can say for a fact that that is the least of our concerns

[Liberty4Life]

as a Mets fan I can say for a fact that that is the least of our concerns

I'm a Mets fan too. It's just a microcosm of a lost season.

They went the entire offseason saying, 'We don't have any pitching. We don't have any depth. We don't have any hitting. We're too old. We don't have any prospects.'

So what did they do? They built up their bullpen (and don't get me wrong, the bullpen killed them last year). But anyone who's ever played fantasy baseball knows that you can get a really good closer for a bargain price (the old '80/20' rule comes into effect, you can get 80% of a closer at 20% of the price).

And then you could have appropriated money to getting some depth and a bench. But nooo...

[JMUDukes]

as a Mets fan I can say for a fact that that is the least of our concerns

I'm a Mets fan too. It's just a microcosm of a lost season.

They went the entire offseason saying, 'We don't have any pitching. We don't have any depth. We don't have any hitting. We're too old. We don't have any prospects.'

So what did they do? They built up their bullpen (and don't get me wrong, the bullpen killed them last year). But anyone who's ever played fantasy baseball knows that you can get a really good closer for a bargain price (the old '80/20' rule comes into effect, you can get 80% of a closer at 20% of the price).

And then you could have appropriated money to getting some depth and a bench. But nooo...

But honestly...who could have predicted the MOST PLAYERS ON THE DL?!?! i mean, while depth is a problem...that's not really a situation you prepare your farm system for

[Liberty4Life]

as a Mets fan I can say for a fact that that is the least of our concerns

I'm a Mets fan too. It's just a microcosm of a lost season.

They went the entire offseason saying, 'We don't have any pitching. We don't have any depth. We don't have any hitting. We're too old. We don't have any prospects.'

So what did they do? They built up their bullpen (and don't get me wrong, the bullpen killed them last year). But anyone who's ever played fantasy baseball knows that you can get a really good closer for a bargain price (the old '80/20' rule comes into effect, you can get 80% of a closer at 20% of the price).

And then you could have appropriated money to getting some depth and a bench. But nooo...

But honestly...who could have predicted the MOST PLAYERS ON THE DL?!?! i mean, while depth is a problem...that's not really a situation you prepare your farm system for

Carlos Delgado is 37 years old and is in his walk year. The Mets should have an acceptable replacement brewing in the wings.

JJ Putz, who they traded for in the offseason, is 32 and saw his WHIP and ERA double the previous year.

Carlos Beltran is 32, and the Mets threw him into a vastly larger outfield with two subpar corner fielders, forcing him to cover more ground than before. No wonder his knees took an undue amount of strain.

John Maine missed a big chunk in 2008, and the Mets wanted him to be their #2 pitcher this year.

Oliver Perez wasn't good last year and shouldn't have been resigned.

Jose Reyes, who had been durable the last few seasons, showed signs of wear and tear in the last months of each of the last two seasons.

Gary Sheffield is on the wrong side of 40.

I read not too long ago that the strength of a team lies with its 11th to 30th best players. The Phillies have good 11 to 30 players. The Mets do not. And it is management's fault. Anyone could have reasonably expected the Mets to endure injuries. Except Omoron Minaya.

[Schfourteenteen]

Daniel Murphy is gonna stick it at 1B. Hes a natural corner infielder and we all know how wonderful he is in the OF.

Reyes has always been an injury case and many Met fans were wishing hed get traded when his stock was high.

32 isnt necessarily old for a reliever. Putz isnt pitching well, but that is masked by a decent bullpen.

With Ollie, the Mets HAD to resign him after the attempt to lowball Derek Lowe went bad. I also dont think he would look as bad if he actually prepped for the season (5 ERA as opposed to the 7.5 hes sporting now)

Stop complaining about Sheffield. Were paying him 500K this year.

In the end management decided around 5 to 6 years ago to win then. Now youre seeing the downslope of trading away young talent for pieces to win. Boy do I miss Scott Kazmir.

[Th3rd]

http://tiny.cc/SehZ9

great article, and i agree! i would renounce baseball if Jeter's name showed up on the '03 list

[Liberty4Life]

http://tiny.cc/SehZ9

great article, and i agree! i would renounce baseball if Jeter's name showed up on the '03 list

For me, and I know he wouldn't be on the list because he retired by 03, but my 'last straw' would be Cal Ripken, Jr.

[TDDance234]

Or Ken Griffey.

If Griffey shows up, baseball would collapse.

[Liberty4Life]

Or Ken Griffey.

If Griffey shows up, baseball would collapse.

I wouldn't necessarily say 'collapse'. Baseball has endured much worse. Certainly we would never look at baseball the same.

But there's a flip-side to this argument. Once everyone is a cheater, then in essence, no one is. If everyone is getting a competitive advantage, that's not really a competitive advantage.

[Th3rd]

i do have to say that drawing out 2 to 3 names a year off the 'list' is more painful then anything else. i really wanted to believe in A-Rod, but then baseball stabbed me in the back. Manny and David were both kind of shockers but when you look at it, not really. They need to end the horror and just release them all