i still dont expect the cubs to be very good, but i actually feel better about them THIS year than i did LAST year. i think the pitching staff is going to be pretty good, and will keep them in some games. the lineup clearly has some serious holes, for sure, but i am excited about seeing castro and colvin as some young players with potential get a full season of at-bats. i also like the energy and focus on teaching quade seems to have, something lou certainly didnt have.

i dont have any issue with a players-only meeting. if there was some laziness or bad effort going on, why not have a guy like pena or any other veteran try to stamp it out a few days into camp, rather than let it develop into a problem once the season starts?

this team isnt very good, but anyone looking for "fun-bad" (whatever that is supposed to mean) is going to be disappointed i think. This is a big season and off-season coming up, with those contracts expiring. this has been a good off-season for the cubs.

How is Colvin going to get a full season of at bats? They have a $13.5M right fielder and a $10M first baseman who are going to be everyday players for no reason other than their exorbitant salaries.

i didnt say i expected it, but i do i look forward to it. now, with pena in the picture at 1B, colvin is in a spot, fighting for at bats with other lefties such as fuk and pena. i do think that quade will make a bigger effort to get colvin at-bats, and if colvin has any early season success, quade may not be sitting in favor of fuk like lou did. i think colvin has potential to get a good deal of at-bats if he can start strong.

The same way you are hopeful of seeing Peavy pitch 25 times this year.

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"He is a loathsome, offensive brute
--yet I can't look away."

that is why the pena signing makes zero sense.

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why does the pena signing make no sense? i mean, im not a big fan of carlos pena or anything, but someone has to play the position. it was only a 1-year deal, he is a placeholder.

Ummmm....Colvin. You know the guy you want to see a full season of at bats from. At the very least they could have signed a right handed hitting first baseman for FAR less money and platoon Colvin to get him AB's.

Signing a veteran left handed hitting first baseman to a big money 1 year deal on a team that has little chance of winning in that year makes no sense. He's taking at bats away from players who will actually be there when the team is expecting to win.

If the Sox bullpen is so great why is the concensus answer among Sox fans as to who the first player they'd take off the Cubs Marmol?

ANd if they had signed Wood he probably would have been their closer.

because marmol is clearly the beat player on the cubs.

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wood would not have been the closer on the sox, he would be in the mix for set up men with santos and sale and crain until he got hurt in june

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i expected (even prior to the pena signing) to see colvin get the vast majority of his at-bats in the outfield in place of fukudome and spelling soriano and byrd, not at first. id like to see colvin and pena bookend ramirez in the lineup together. if you want to try to get colvin a start here or there at first, fine, but to have him penciled in as a first baseman or even as a regular platoon player at first is overly ambitious in my opinion. he has never even played a game at first. i would like to see him play a game here and there though, if the cubs feel he can field the position.

the pena signing is a stop-gap for this season. they needed a first baseman. they needed left-handed power. they got both with a 1-year contract. next year is the year where this team really starts getting a new identity, and i doubt pena will be part of that.

you can not convince me that pena signing makes any sense, another retarded ass move by a retarded gm

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im not trying to convince anyone of anything. i think it is a "who cares" kind of move, just plugging holes on the roster to get through this year. personally i think the move for a left-handed power bat is about 3 years too late, but i dont see how penas signing is such an outrage. they needed a first basemen. colvin is not a first baseman, at least not yet.

colvin is as much a 1b as an outfielder, he looks worse than soriano in the outfield

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hey whistler, bully up my brother!

to me, in the "friendly confines" of the cubs' situation, the move makes plenty of sense.

The Cubs do NOT want to use the R-word, aka rebuilding. They would love to tantalize their base into thinking the traditional Cubs' slogan of "why not us?" and have acted like they feel that they can scrap together a playoff run if they do things like trade prospects for matt garza... or start blake dewitt at 2nd?

in the curious case of carlos pena, his contract has both sides mutually using each other.... after hitting .196 last year, pena obviously didn't have many better options than the 1yr/$10m (with deferments) otherwise he would have went for it. he's playing for a multi-year deal, so if he goes off (read: sustains his power and hits .270) the cubs will take that this year, try to be an ~80something win middling team and sell tickets/beer/etc, and if he likes the experience the cubs might have the inside track to re-sign him just in case pujols goes mental and decides to not come here next year. if he sucks, hey, who cares? who expected this team to do anything?! =D

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yeah i don't get this whole bullying term for hendry, you are not the first i have seen to use this term incorrectly... throwing huge sums of money at people foolishly is not bullying..it is called bad business. as far as the "r" word.. yes rebuild and embrace that term..u havent won shit in 103 plus years...rebuild ... pena was looking to prove himself last season to a team for a long term deal also..how did that go?

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Spendry.

lol spendry, i like it!

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u havent been paying attention...he is a bully for other reasons...the bully thing has to do with his own players, not people he is bringing in from the outside

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