What?!?!?

2012: 94-68
2011: 74-88
2010: 81-81
2009: 75-87
2008: 75-86
2007: 76-86
2006: 93-69

Took Billy Beane 6 years to regain a division crown. Bad thoughts man, bad.

The Theo madness of finally sucking it up and doing a complete reset of the organization has to stop!
He should act like the (Bernstein progressively getting louder voice).....OAKLAND A's!

Yep let's average 18,000, seal off half the stadium and hope to occassionally sneak in the playoffs and lose in the first round.
Sorry I accidentally drank a jug of antifreeze that I thought was a new Powerade flavor called Prestone.

How people don't get the plan and timeline blows my mind.
Look at the organization (everything not just product at Wrigley) at the end of the 2011 season and look at it now.

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Kenny Williams fell for the banana in the tailpipe

LOOK AT WHAT? Some promising future stars? Every organization says they have that. What makes Theo's propaganda any more beleivable??

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favrefan said:"Chris Coghlan isn't gonna pay your rent, Jimmy."

I'd like to see this board stop feuding over Theo Epstein and instead regain its singular focus on how much Phil Emery sucks.

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Fire Phil Emery

Jimmy, you complain about Theo throwing away this season by not signing scrap heap veterans. Shit, if you were GM you'd do a better job of tanking the season than Theo. We'd have a 25 man roster of bums like Keppinger.

Time for the Mike in Milwaukee bit.

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I don't mean to sound bitter, cold, or cruel, but I am, so that's how it comes out. - Bill Hicks

Let's do it for Johnny!

I agree in principle but if it doesn't end in a World Series title, it isn't any more successful than the Jim Hendry era.

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There will be plenty of time for that.

If I'm reading you like an open book, it sounds like you two nuggets might end up going the distance. I don't have no phone, so you'll have to drop a dime and try to reach me at the Arco Arena after you guys cut the cake.

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I want a SHARK and a loooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooonnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnggggggggg










































jacket

_________________

This is spot on. Take Soler, for example. I think he'll be a pretty good ballplayer. But will he really be better than Dayan Viciedo? You listen to knuckleheads like bernstein all over Theo's jock and they'll tell you about the bright future the Cubs have as opposed to the dismal one of the Sox. It's all bullshit.

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Anybody here seen my old friend Bobby?
Can you tell me where he's gone?
I thought I saw him walkin' up to The Hill
With Elon, Tulsi, and Don

I disagree.

I dont think Samarzija, Wood, or Garza will all be bad in the next two years.

But they're gonna have to make some moves in free agency for pitching and I think they will.

But Jimmy is doing the same thing from a different angle. Yes, minor league development is obviously an inexact science and any good salesman can sell hope, but that doesnt mean its not getting better.

Its just as ridiculous to dismiss the possibility of the system getting better as it is to say its definitely better.

Actually it's not spot on. Every organization does not have promising future stars. Theo's propaganda is more believable since he has a track record of drafting and developing stars:

Dustin Pedroia
Jacoby Ellsbury
Clay Buchholz
Justin Masterson
Jed Lowrie
Jonathan Papelbon
Anthony Rizzo
Josh Reddick

Jimmy is just asking why anyone should accept the idea that Theo is doing it right simply because Theo says he is. Of course, Theo thinks he is doing it right. The Bears didn't try to get a guy who sucked when they drafted Stan Thomas either. Everybody thinks they're doing it right. Is Theo's body of work really deep enough to have earned such blind faith? I think that's a legitimate question.

And why is the future brighter for the Cubs with the unknown Soler than for the Sox with Viciedo who has already proven to be decent? The guy who hasn't done it is rarely better than the guy who has. But today's fan wants to be the guy who "discovered" some young guy who turns out to be good. He loves drafting him in A-ball for his keeper league. It's really pretty ridiculous.

_________________
Anybody here seen my old friend Bobby?
Can you tell me where he's gone?
I thought I saw him walkin' up to The Hill
With Elon, Tulsi, and Don

I could say a lot about that list and how he moved many of them and they were developed elsewhere, but I prefer to just let your credibility- or lack thereof- hang on your characterization of Anthony Rizzo as a "star".

_________________
Anybody here seen my old friend Bobby?
Can you tell me where he's gone?
I thought I saw him walkin' up to The Hill
With Elon, Tulsi, and Don

Do whatever you need to do.

I dont think you understand what Im saying.

Im not saying the Cubs are better or Soler is better than Viciedo. Im saying that its just as ridiculous to blindly assume its NOT improving than to blindly accept that it IS


I dont shrug off all prospects as a crapshoot like you seem to. I do think you can tell sometimes when a system is getting better (Rangers in the mid 2000's for example)

But regardless, to simply dismiss the entire idea that the system might be improving is dumb.

No, it's perfectly valid. Since it's the Cubs it's automatically stupid.

I haven't heard anyone suggest the system wasn't getting better. If there are shows from 1-6 every day that talk about how much worse things are, let me know about them.

_________________
Anybody here seen my old friend Bobby?
Can you tell me where he's gone?
I thought I saw him walkin' up to The Hill
With Elon, Tulsi, and Don

There are guys making millions of dollars a year who are wrong far more often than they are right, what makes some fan in the bleachers thinks he knows more than they do?

_________________
Anybody here seen my old friend Bobby?
Can you tell me where he's gone?
I thought I saw him walkin' up to The Hill
With Elon, Tulsi, and Don

It seems you and Jimmy are pretty much saying it isnt and even if it is, it doesnt matter.

I dont get the vilification of daring to build from the ground up organizational wise. When Hendry was here that's all people wanted.

Now that its time to take the lumps, they want shitty veterans.

I dont know.

The same can be said about those in the majors. Should we not have an opinion on the major league players either? Might be wrong!

Ive never been the type of sports fan to go to great lengths to cover my bases and make sure Im never wrong about anything. Im comfortable predicting things and being right sometimes and wrong sometimes.

I don't think we're saying that at all. We're just not fetishizing prospects. Prospects are immaterial until they arrive and do something. Until then it doesn't matter if they have 1.100 OPS at Birmingham. They're just guys like you and me who aren't playing major league baseball.

It's not absurd for a fan to be unhappy with a 100 loss team. Or to be even unhappier with a guy who suggest he's doing it on purpose for some future result that he may be confident in, but that others have every reason not to be. Theo Epstein isn't the first guy to come in here all brash and ballsy talking about doing things the "right way", you know.

These seasons count. You're 30 years old. Maybe you don't mind gambling a few seasons on Theo's dream. Jimmy is like 70 or something. He has a lot less of those seasons left. I can understand why he wouldn't want to throw them in the garbage. Especially when a few veteran free agents would likely have put the team a lot closer to contention. But we know now that the directive to Theo isn't just to build a minor league system, but also to do everything on the cheap.

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Anybody here seen my old friend Bobby?
Can you tell me where he's gone?
I thought I saw him walkin' up to The Hill
With Elon, Tulsi, and Don

Attention every MLB GM.
Bud Selig was very drunk last night and decided that as of this morning Viciedo (24) and Soler (21) are free agents.
You may only select one.

Wait I thought this was a BB thread......ok well I'm shocked to admit that Waddle and Silvy are actually growing on me and I'll pop on B&B just as I would the Al Sharpton show...because it's there.

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Kenny Williams fell for the banana in the tailpipe

Major league players are doing it. A professional scout thought Frank Thomas' ceiling was .240. A professional scout! But some dope who is the three time champion of Ronnie's Rum and Rotisserie League thinks he can spot the next Mickey Mantle in rookie ball because he subscribes to Baseball America? Give me a fucking break.

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Anybody here seen my old friend Bobby?
Can you tell me where he's gone?
I thought I saw him walkin' up to The Hill
With Elon, Tulsi, and Don

First off, I dont think Jimmy is quite 70

Secondly, I dont know what to tell you. The team hasnt won in 104 years. They're trying to build from the ground up. Im good with that. I think that's their best chance at winning long term.

I understand being upset with throwing away seasons, but Jimmy seems to take offense when anyone even mentions a prospect. That IS absurd.

And I dont fetishize prospects and I dont see a lot of that on this board. The whole Cubs minor league thread is very negative.

I cant see why that bothers you or why you would need a break from it.

There are unqualified "experts" in every part of our society

Also, your THOUGHT. PROCESS. is flawed. Those guys arent spotting anything. They're likely regurgitating something they read from an actual scout/talent evaluator

It's not so absurd when you've been through Glen Hobbie, Dick Drott, Moe Drabowsky, Karl Pagel, Ozzie Rosinski, Ty Griffin, Felix Pie, Kevin Orie, Corey Patterson, Gary Scott, and on and on and on. Maybe in 20 years you'll scoff at some 25 year old dude blowing his load over Anthony Rizzo Jr.

_________________
Anybody here seen my old friend Bobby?
Can you tell me where he's gone?
I thought I saw him walkin' up to The Hill
With Elon, Tulsi, and Don

Exactly. That's how every guy that talks up a hot prospect gets his information.

_________________
Anybody here seen my old friend Bobby?
Can you tell me where he's gone?
I thought I saw him walkin' up to The Hill
With Elon, Tulsi, and Don