C'mon man, no one in their right fucking mind for one second EVER thought Grace was going to be better than Frank. That was never even close and certainly not in the same comps as Abreu v Rizzo.

_________________
Proud member of the white guy grievance committee

It aint the six minutes. Its what happens in those six minutes.

First, I never said IMU made that statement. There were many Cub fans cheering on and agreeing with a joke trolling post by leash. Obviously, with any consistent and objective measure being used, not every Cub is better than every White Sox player. To come to such a conclusion one must use different criteria for each case. I have read Cub fans resort to the "every GM would take the Cub" argument here, far more than once. In fact, it's a favorite of Kirkwood.

As far as bias is concerned, of course I'm somewhat biased in favor of the team I root for. But you're so busy looking for the splinter in my eye you can't see the chunk of wood in your own. You're biased too. And the guys in the actual conversation are far more biased than you. You can't hoot and holler about how Theo made a great deal for the great prospect Mike Olt and then suddenly say Olt stinks and expect to have any credibility. And therein lies the difference. I thought Olt was a turd when the Cubs obtained him and I still think he's a turd now that he is wearing the uniform of my favorite team. I hated Samardzija on the North side and I hate him still on the South. I wouldn't call that "bias".

In addition, I'm not sure why you think saying they're winning with pitching is a shot at your beloved Theo Epstein. He obtained the pitching too. And I'm certain no PLAN was to be last in hitting in the NL. If they're last again next year, isn't it reasonable to believe the hits may not fall as opportunely as they have this season? I remember you arguing about all the luck Kenny Williams had in putting together the 2005 White Sox. Wasn't Arrieta luck? or do you really think Jed and Theo sat down and said, "We've got to trade for this Cy Young winner now!"? There's your bias on full display.

Finally, it isn't some small subdivision of Sox goofs who sees the Cub fan a certain way. The Cub fan is seen that way throughout baseball and the U.S.:

http://www.chicagotribune.com/sports/co ... olumn.html

The Cubs are coated with schmaltz, inevitably, full of mist and mush when things go well, and even when they don't. The Cubs are baseball's make-a-wish team. Oh, the longing, the public ache from private hearts. Please, please, pretty please. The Cubs are an obsession, part illusion and part delusion, and only incidentally a baseball team.

Whether these players or this manager, this front office, this dickering ownership with all of its building and refitting, modernizing and upgrading, whether they understand all of this is beside the point. Cubs fans will forgive anything, even their team not loving them as much as they love their team.

Not that these Cubs have to feel the ache of generations nor the glee of the newly arrived. And maybe they shouldn't. Building a better baseball team, playing better baseball, is their job. Dreaming is everyone else's, and the dreamers have been at it a lot longer.

The Cubs bandwagon always has been large enough, crowded early but more and more vacant by now. In September there is usually enough room for a piano and a swingset. No franchise in baseball has less to prove or is any more adept at it.

So what to make of all this? All this agonizing over getting the chance to play one more game, just in case. What a slim little carrot that is, baseball's great tease, a wild-card play-in playoff.

The Cubs are having a resurgence, so say the growing numbers trying to figure out just what's what at Clark and Addison. The problem with a resurgence is there would have had to have been a surgence, and that isn't even a thing. And if it were, it is hard to recall when it happened, or when there was any surge at all. Same thing with renewal, revival, recovery — any of the family of "re's" — because this is something unconnected with anything but what it is. And what is that?

Well, dependable, at times terrific, starting pitching. I am reminded of Harry Caray — and who isn't? — who always dependably asked the first question at any introduction of a new Cubs manager: "When are we going to get some pitching?" Among Jake Arrieta and Jon Lester, and Jason Hammel too, the Cubs have it, enough of it, for things to work out.

Hitting? It is there when it is and missed when it is not. It comes in clumps and it comes from odd places. Yet it has been enough, must be enough. The core is in place — Anthony Rizzo, Kris Bryant, Addison Russell, Jorge Soler, Kyle Schwarber, Javier Baez — all the young wonders, providing hope and the occasional game-winning hit.

Poor Starlin Castro, although he is a volunteer for most of his own agony, he was the first bag off the belt, and now he is just baggage, handy like a carry-on but invariably as suspicious.

The bullpen often pitches with its fingers crossed, and the quality of the defense depends on whom Captain Quirk, the manager, plays out of place today. Joe Maddon makes out a lineup card like it was a hostage note. You have to wonder how Bryant becomes a better third baseman by not playing third base. The Cubs aren't a work in progress, they are a work in weirdness. Maddon's hunches work until they don't. Today's genius is tomorrow's buffoon. If it made sense for the pitcher to bat eighth instead of ninth, everyone would do it. The American League, where Maddon came from, figured out long ago what to do with the pitcher.

Everyone wants this to happen, the city, the working press, radio and cable, the networks, the national media, the bloggers, the tweeters, the pilgrims to the park, those keeping score at home. This is the recipe, not entirely new but unfamiliar enough to anticipate the taste.
So much longing, so much yearning, so much suffering. Cubs fans know what these fresh Cubs players do not. Something will happen. Something always happens. The truth is every Cubs season ends so quietly you can hear a tear drop. Hearts are waiting to be broken. See what I mean about schmaltz?

_________________
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 Matthew, Tulsi, and Don

Lot of words there that all end up at you wanting IMU to answer for someone else. Lazy.


No, Im not. I have long ripped the Cubs and praised the Sox when necessary. Anyone who reads CSFMB can see that. My first post on this board was ripping a 97 Win Cub team (before they were swept)

And I was lauding Abreu way before most Sox fans. And Sale. And Ramirez.The list goes on. I have never judged the Sox any differently than I do the Cubs and Ive never had a problem giving them credit. The only difference is that I want the Cubs to win and I dont care if the Sox win.




Lazy. Dont put other people's thoughts on me.


Probably because dolphin frames it as such. That was meant for him and he confirmed it already so let's move on from that.



Total bullshit. Ive never given him credit for that. See this is what im talking about. From the day of that trade to this very minute it was a gamble on a guy with a ton of potential that worked out and ive never said otherwise.

So no, my bias (that doesnt exist as you say) is not on display there.

Sometimes I understand why JORR takes heat for his thoughts. I don't understand it in this thread. He didn't say anything close to outrageous. He said Abreu is a better hitter than Rizzo. I'm pretty sure that's a true statement. I think their numbers would look a lot different if they swapped lineups.

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Fare you well, fare you well
I love you more than words can tell
Listen to the river sing sweet songs
To rock my soul

Our greatest glory is not in never falling, but in rising every time we fall.
Confucius

Its not the opinion on Rizzo, its the hypocrisy of saying that Cub fans always take the best stretch and think that is the truth and he's doing the exact same thing with Abreu.

There is absolutely no reason to think Rizzo cant continue to be a good hitter. To say he's "probably having his best year" for the second year in a row just doesnt make sense.

If he does it again next year, will that also "probably be his best year" for the third time?

You're right. Rizzo's numbers would be a lot better playing 81 at US Cellular.

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Rick Hahn is the best GM in baseball.

and he lied to you at that time

"The 2015 Cubs are in a much better position to compete and to win, certainly than the 2012 Cubs," Epstein said. "We acknowledge it's a process. I do think we have so much going for us."

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

Im sure he lies a lot, like all GM's.

You said he never set the goal. I showed you that he did.

So every time you've written that he has never set the goal was wrong. You need to go back and edit like 80 posts.

Nope. That's called conversation on a message board. It isn't PM. It's an ongoing discussion with multiple people. Anyone who isn't biased is welcome to step into the conversation and take issue with anyone else's contribution. Of course you won't take issue with any Cub fan statements. Because you're biased. That's fine. It would be weird if you weren't. The mere act of being a fan of a particular team is by definition, being biased.



You do judge them differently though. You may believe you don't, but your actual statements contradict that.



I'm not putting anyone's thoughts on you. Stop being so sensitive that you take every statement I'm making to someone else in a public conversation personally. That's what's really lazy.



Lazy. Don't put dolphin's statements on me. See how that works? But of course, I'm biased and you're not.




So is this team a product of Theo's genius or is it lucky like the 2005 Sox? It's hard to keep track of you not having a bias.

_________________
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 Matthew, Tulsi, and Don

LOL @ bad dolphin. This has to be killing him.

_________________
Hawaii (fuck) You

4 of the last 5 WS Championships
4 of the top 5 records this year


HUGE pile

_________________

Has zero effect on me. It is my board pastime...but love me more

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

I don't think JORR has come close to suggesting he won't continue to be a good hitter. Rizzo is obviously an MVP candidate this year. JORR is saying he's probably not a perennial MVP contender. He may be wrong about that, but I don't think it's extreme bias that informed that opinion. Taking exception to that statement is actually kind of sensitive.

_________________
Fare you well, fare you well
I love you more than words can tell
Listen to the river sing sweet songs
To rock my soul

You're complaining about a couple months of Cub fans being excited about their team? Really, what a pussy. Are White Sox fans that sensitive?

All we have heard from you guys is 2005! 2005! since fucking 2005! Cubs suck 2005! and now we are good and you are all

Crying, there is no crying in baseball! Do you want us to lie and say, don't worry Hahn's plan of signing Soto,Shark and Olt will bring you closer to a championship? Because NO! it won't. and friends don't lie to friends.

#truth

2005

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

this is playing out great for cub haters. can't have a painful choke job if they're losing 100 games.

_________________
Reality is your friend, not your enemy. -- Seacrest

Good point...

Except no one said he was going to be a perennial MVP contender. WTF you guys pick lists of trolling topics out of a hat every day?

Well, I wouldn't exactly use World Series victories as a measure of league quality. When the Yankees were winning all those titles in the 50s, there's no doubt the NL was the far, far stronger league.

I think the two leagues have evened out over the last couple seasons. In the mid-2000s there was a pretty big disparity with the AL being much stronger.

_________________
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 Matthew, Tulsi, and Don

So you agree with JORR then that this is probably Rizzo's best season. There's not really an in-between here Juiced.

_________________
Fare you well, fare you well
I love you more than words can tell
Listen to the river sing sweet songs
To rock my soul

2005 was an answer to all the obnoxious Cubs fans. Try again.

The point is that if the standard really is winning the World Series, then the Cubs have nothing to hold over the White Sox.

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You do not talk to me like that! I work too hard to deal with this stuff! I work too hard! I'm an important member of the CSFMB! I drive a Dodge Stratus!

Fuck you and your apology!!!

You don't have to actually type it. If you're arguing that this year is his normal year, you are saying it.

_________________
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 Matthew, Tulsi, and Don

Nah, that's you being lazy. Most of the time you dont even acknowledge the person you're talking to's actual opinion. You go to th



You do judge them differently though. You may believe you don't, but your actual statements contradict that.[/quote]
No, they dont. You wish they did, but they dont.



I'm not putting anyone's thoughts on you. Stop being so sensitive that you take every statement I'm making to someone else in a public conversation personally. That's what's really lazy.[/quote]
Its just not relevant. Were discussing our opinions. To bring up third party bias serves no purpose.




Lazy. Don't put dolphin's statements on me. See how that works? But of course, I'm biased and you're not[/quote]
I didnt put it on you. I actually posted that it was dolphin, NOT YOU, who said it and that was meant for him. See how that works? You can actually address to different people in different ways.



The 2005 Sox were a great team and KW had many gamble pay off that year.

The 2015 Cubs are a very good team being led by one great gamble (Arietta)

You can keep trying to frame me as anti White Sox or pro Cub but its just not there, man. Sorry.

I have not given Theo much if any credit for his Cubs run. He's made some good moves (Rizzo) and some bad ones (Edwin)

And I lauded Hahn for many of his moves. Way more than Theo btw.

Even if they win, they have nothing to hold over as the Sox did it first in our lifetimes. Maybe if they win two, maybe.

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

Do you even know what perennial means? Is it just me?

He can have another couple good career years, mixed with his career average and not be a perennial MVP. He is not M.Trout.

Again, its not what Rizzo is, it's the hypocrizy of how he treats the two situations and the fact that he hilariously accuses Cub fans of what he's doing with Abreu.

I apologize that you were offended but if I did, so be it

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

The most likable Cubs team in my lifetime was 1984, but this team is getting close.

_________________
CSFMB 2014 Nascar Pick 'em Champion

We don’t have a trillion-dollar debt because we haven’t taxed enough; we have a trillion-dollar debt because we spend too much. — Ronald Reagan

It's really simple

Abreu and Rizzo have very similar numbers over the last two years. There is really no reason to think either will fall off or improve drastically.

If you think one is or will be significantly better than the other, its not because of anything reasonable.