This Milton Bradley thing is really pissing me off and showing me how stupid Jim Hendry just might be as a person, forget as a GM.

The fact he signed the guy for 3 years, $30 million because they had a good dinner, isnt really something you want to brag about.

What is pissing me off, is that he lived the Sammy Sosa mess. He knows he needs to get rid of Milton, just like Sammy in order to move ahead. The Sammy lesson was that he was left with no OF's to choose from once he traded Sammy plus $12 million to the O's- we ennded up with Jeremy Burnitz. Basically the last RF on the market. IF they could have moved him even a few weeks earlier, the Cubs actually could have got Jermaine Dye.

I think Hendry should give back $1 million of his own salary to pay for this guy and we can all move on.

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"That's what the internet is for. Slandering others anonymously." Banky
“Been that way since one monkey looked at the sun and told the other monkey ‘He said for you to give me your fuckin’ share.’”

If he was with any other team and spent the money he had with the results so far, he would have been out on his ass. McFail's handpicked little bobo who got snowed by an absolute asshole headcase. I don't even want to hear his voice this year unless it's his farewell press conference.

How he continues to keep his job is amazing to me. And don't bother with the "division titles and one playoff series win" bullshit. From what I've read from Bruce Miles, this is Jim's last year if they fall flat again. So just like I'm rooting for a Bears train wreck to get the housecleaning ball rolling, I'm doing the same for the Cubs.

Thanks for getting my blood pressure boiling, BF.

Maybe the Ricketts clan can finally get involved in their hobby.

This, we will sit back and see how things go, is fucking bullshit!

You have had 2 years to "See how things have gone", where the hell did these people live for 2 years? Alaska?

This Corporate Patience and keeping everyone in place is just bullshit.

Getting a very McFeeling about this

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"That's what the internet is for. Slandering others anonymously." Banky
“Been that way since one monkey looked at the sun and told the other monkey ‘He said for you to give me your fuckin’ share.’”

Hendry could trade Bradley for a backup player but he has to wait to acquire a starter first. Right Bigfan?

I heard Bruce Levine yesterday say that TB is still the most logical spot for Bradley to go in a trade, but the problem is that the Cubs would still need to trade Pat Burrell because he can't play RF.

My guess is that Levine is speculating, and has no inside information, but I would guess that it would be close to impossible to trade both Bradley and Burrell this off-season.

I think whomever they acquire is going to be on the team next season...

I would say that Levine rarely "speculates" about the Cubs. He definitely has connections inside the team.

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After making it well-known that payroll will not increase, Hendry goes out and signs an average lefty reliever to an $8 million dollar contract. Hendry simply doesn't understand the value of the dollar. What more do we need to see?

I've come around to your way of thinking on this Nas - kicking and screaming. It seems like a lot for a lefty reliever/specialist, but in the grand scheme of things, given what other situational relievers are making, I guess it isn't that bad.

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Does your cat make too much noise? Try KITTEN MITTENS!


Charlie: Oh shit. Look at that door dude. See that door right there? That door marked 'Pirate'? You think a pirate lives in there?
Dennis: I see a door marked 'Private.'

The guys at Fangraphs don't like the deal:

According to Paul Sullivan, the Cubs will announce later today that they have re-signed John Grabow to a two-year contract. Previous reports have put the value of the deal at $7.5 million.

Once again, we’re witness to the power of ERA as a negotiating tool. Over the last two seasons, Grabow’s thrown nearly 150 innings and posted an ERA of 3.09, giving the impression that he’s a high quality LH reliever. Yet again, ERA misleads.

Grabow’s FIP the last two years? 4.37, thanks to an atrociously high walk total. The entirety of his low ERA over the last two years is driven by an 82 percent rate of stranding runners, which is just not sustainable. He’s succeeded by putting men on base and then wiggling out of jams, but that’s not the same thing as pitching well.

It would be one thing if Grabow had developed this knack for stranding runners by elevating his strikeout rate, but he’s not any different now than he has been for his entire career.

Instead, he’s just posted artificially low BABIPs the last two years, and by not giving up hits, he was able to keep the guys he walked on the bases. That’s not a recipe for success.

Grabow is a generic left-handed middle reliever, the kind of guy you’re fine having for the league minimum but that you don’t really want to pay any real money to. He’s eminently replaceable, but the Cubs have decided to commit real money to him over multiple years because he has a low ERA.

The Cubs have money, and $3.75 million isn’t going to drastically alter their budget, but this is just a waste of cash. Betting on reliever ERA is a great way to get burned, and given Grabow’s actual talent levels, the Cubs are unlikely to be very happy with how this deal turns out for them.


Walking hitters at Wrigley= bad things go happen.

If Grabow was a high end lefty reliever or if the Cubs didn't have financial issues, I would have no issues paying him that kind of money. But he's not and they do. It wasn't the smartest way to spend the cash, which is par for the course in the Hendry era.

OMR,

What is Thornton making for the Sox? I would consider them to be similar type pitchers - at least in the roles that they will play for the Cubs and Sox.

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Does your cat make too much noise? Try KITTEN MITTENS!


Charlie: Oh shit. Look at that door dude. See that door right there? That door marked 'Pirate'? You think a pirate lives in there?
Dennis: I see a door marked 'Private.'

They are similar in that they both throw a baseball with their left hand. After that all similarities end.

So what they are saying is that 2 years of success have been based on pure luck. I'd love to have that kind of a run of luck.

This is where believers in pure statistical analysis run into trouble. Certain data that doesn't fit is dismissed as an anomoly, but consecutive years is a sufficiently large sample size to reconsider the analysis. Sure he might fail, but they have been unsuccessfully predicting the failure for several seasons.

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O judgment! Thou art fled to brutish beasts,
And men have lost their reason.

I'm not big on all this statistical analysis either but what they are saying is ERA is a useless stat for a reliever (and I agree).

DD, ESPN had Thornton's 2009 salary at $1.35 million.

I saw the same article from Fangraphs that Keyser posted, and that's where my concern comes from. I'll concede the second half WHIP stat to Nas, it's a valid point. But that's not my main argument.

Even if you feel the contract is fair, the Cubs don't have $3.5 million dollars per season to spend on one lefty reliever. Not unless he's a premier reliever in baseball, which Grabow is not. And not with the other holes on this team. Jim Hendry needs to make a few acquistions like the Thornton trade or a cost-efficient signing. Kenny Williams can do it. Walt Jocketty did it for years in St. Louis. But Hendry can't and that's the biggest problem I have with him.

That's the going rate for a Grabow type player. Top of the line left handed relievers are going to make a lot more than 3.5 a year.

I don't have a problem with this signing at all.

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Second City Saint

I agree as well but they go beyond saying ERA is useless for relievers. They then provide what they think is a better meter, show that Grabow is bad using that meter but conclude that for some reason he has actually been good for two years despite being bad on their meter and finish by saying that meter should still apply to Grabow.

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O judgment! Thou art fled to brutish beasts,
And men have lost their reason.

Nobody in the fucking world thought Sammy Sosa was going to hit 50 HR's in 2005. Several top prospects? Seriously? You're out of your mind if you think that's even close to the case.

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JohnKirk wrote: I dont get it...

I say a lot of things that make sense, you just have your head too far up your own ass to read them.

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JohnKirk wrote: I dont get it...

I'm only a bit of a jagoff to people who's every post I couldn't disagree more with.

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JohnKirk wrote: I dont get it...