Dick Allen

You cut any one of the 4 and you still are sitting pretty. Kobe is an obvious choice because he is now just a chucker and that Kobe is in most minds, not the guy winning titles. Even though IMO, he is the most gifted, with talent and size, I think the guy I would cut, if we are talking in their prime is Lebron. He got really passive playing with Wade and Bosh for the longest time. Kobe and the MJs would never have done that.

If the mid 90s Indians with Thome, Vizquel, the Alomars, Belle, Lofton, Manny, Colon,didn't win a title, there is no reason to think the Cubs are virtually guaranteed one. We still don't know how all these guys will pan out. There could be slumps, injuries etc. A lot of things went the 2015 Cubs way. That doesn't happen every season. It is easy to assume these guys are young and only going to get better, but that doesn't always play out.

QUOTE (AustinIllini @ Oct 21, 2015 -> 09:09 AM) Agreed it's pretty terrible. The only thing keeping this from getting beyond insane is the fact that ESPN is in Mets country. Everyone has pretty much written the Cubs off there (wisely). But you know if the games were on ESPN the tune would be completely different One of the most beautiful things about the MLB playoffs is you don't have to deal with ESPN anymore, and their blatant bias. There is always going to be Cubs bias until they win. I get that, even though the White Sox had a long time between titles, had a team that was never not in first place, and lost 1 postseason game total, and they were perceived as a team that should have been counting their lucky stars they were on the field vs. their opponents. If the Cubs ever win, I wonder how much it may actually hurt them from a lovable losers standpoint. The Red Sox hadn't won a title for a while when they finally broke through, but they had usually still had good teams, and plenty of playoff appearances. The Cubs have just basically sucked. If they ever win, will some of their charm actually go away? Locally, probably not a chance, but nationally, I think it might.

So let me get this straight, Robin Ventura's managerial winning pct. of .458 is ample proof he is a terrible manager, and no one but the White Sox would ever hire him again. And Manny Acta would make a decent bench coach hire and potential Ventura replacement despite his .385 winning pct. in 3 years in Washington and .446 winning pct. in 3 years in Cleveland.

QUOTE (Jose Abreu @ Oct 21, 2015 -> 08:06 AM) Garpax should really be fired (or at least one of them) if we go through another season of 48-60 wins but not even an ECF appearance. This team needs a trade (big man for guard/wing) but just won't do it. Look at the Cavs and their acquisitions of Smith, Mozgov, Shumpert, etc. ... midseason trades can help and they would help our issue with having too many bigs competing for minutes. They should have gone before Thibs. We will see. It is really hard to take much out of preseason games, especially when they aren't playing with their entire roster, but it is interesting J G Buckets plays 37 minutes on Monday night then 32 on Tuesday in games that don't count, and not a word about the Mayor running his players into the ground.

QUOTE (LittleHurt05 @ Oct 21, 2015 -> 08:07 AM) Not just anybody. It was Theo in the LCS, against New York, to end a long WS drought. What people seem to forget is that Yankees rotation was trash, nothing like Matz/Harvey/Thor/DeGrom And the next year when the White Sox went up 2-0 in the best of 5, it was the Red Sox had them right where they wanted them. 1 time out of 33 has a team come back, and as you pointed out, not to a team as loaded in pitching as the Mets. It is funny all the mention of Theo on the radio and TV now. What exactly does he have to do with what will happen in the game? Do these morons even think about what they are saying?

QUOTE (Buehrle>Wood @ Oct 21, 2015 -> 06:46 AM) He said he was healthy. Doubt they would have pitched him the last day of the year if he wasnt. They were going to pitch him 2 innings to keep his streak alive. He is either not healthy or suddenly really bad.

If the Cubs can't hit when it's cold out, how come the genius Maddon was bundled up like it was 20 degrees on a pretty warm night? I know he's not feeling well ,but.............. Of the 33 MLB postseason series that started off 3-0, only 5 made it to game 5, only 3 to game 6, and 1 to game 7.

QUOTE (danman31 @ Oct 21, 2015 -> 02:11 AM) They're still the only team to beat Stanford and the only team to beat Duke, and that was on the road. Say what you want about their garbage performances in two losses, but they earned that ranking with two quality wins as good as anyone in the country had at the time. Kind of forced the voters. Has Duke beaten anyone above .500? The Stanford win was big, but strange things happen in week 1. IMO, a rematch would result in a much different outcome. I could see the Stanford win getting them in the top 25, but 13 is obnoxious.

QUOTE (fathom @ Oct 21, 2015 -> 12:32 AM) Couple of my friends used to take batting practice off of Hawkins in the offseason When he played for the Cubs, he rented 2 apartments in a highrise at Clark and Eugenie. A friend of mine lived there. One apartment was for his shoes. I guess he's a shoes freak.

Jessie Rogers before the game was pretty much guaranteeing the Cubs would score 7 runs tonight.

QUOTE (greg775 @ Oct 20, 2015 -> 10:22 PM) He was horrific. Any team that signs him for 18-25 million a year is crazy, but he will get the $$$. Just like Cueto. How can any GM pay a guy like Cueto. He goes 2 innings in the ALDS?? Gets ROCKED. Yet he'll get between 20 and 25 mill a year. Crazy. Good luck to the team that pays Shark and Cueto. Their pitches way too often scream, "hit me over the fence." Cueto is going to be an interesting signing. He has obviously cost himself some money. I wonder how many teams that planned to go after him will bail.

Kaplan reported this a month and a half ago.

QUOTE (AustinIllini @ Oct 20, 2015 -> 10:12 PM) Who won the Art Ross trophy last year? That's right. You have no idea. It was obvious from day 1 what you were. You get on a White Sox message board and want to talk Cubs. Now they are losing and you claim you don't watch, yet you are in this thread. Change your name to troll.

QUOTE (AustinIllini @ Oct 20, 2015 -> 10:09 PM) My team didn't actually play. Glad your Mets won, though. Good for you. Your neighborhood rip showed you are a Cubs fan.

QUOTE (AustinIllini @ Oct 20, 2015 -> 10:06 PM) "ill informed". You guys are the best. Your post was dumb and inaccurate. We know your team lost and you are in a bad mood, but don't try to defend your childish stupidity.

QUOTE (AustinIllini @ Oct 20, 2015 -> 09:59 PM) Wrong side of town. This isn't 35th and Shields we're talking about. Cubbie boy is starting to fall apart.

There are the real Cubs fans, filing out so they can get a good seat at a bar that smells like puke.

Ball gets suck in the weeds cost the Mets a run,

lol everyone is talking about on CSN is how the cold hurt the Cubs. How do they expect to win the WS if they can't win when it is cold?

Kaplan just had a Mets announcer on and he was talking about Murphy. Called him a great hitter who really doesn't care about anything else. Bad in the field and makes a lot of mistakes on the bases. Sounds like a White Sox.

QUOTE (Mike F. @ Oct 20, 2015 -> 03:16 PM) Good lord, Cubs fans are literally the dumbest people on Earth. Yes, I realize that World Series appearances for their team are rare, but $2500 for one ticket? That's a fortune. Unless someone is insanely rich and don't know what to do with their money, that's crazy. Especially considering they are virtually guaranteed to be in the WS the next 10 years.

QUOTE (shipps @ Oct 20, 2015 -> 12:11 PM) To me the only way it is legit is if you get the char on the crust. I love to have a couple little black bubbles of crust. Gives great flavor. I agree.

I am pretty sure Northwestern is the worst team ever ranked as high as 13 after week 5 in NCAA history.

QUOTE (scs787 @ Oct 20, 2015 -> 11:24 AM) ....Because the bullpen was above average. Managers are gonna look as good as their players. He also ranked high in bullpen use in 2014 when the bullpen was turble. I don't agree with everything he does. No one would. But the notion that every White Sox message board has that Ventura basically doesn't know the first thing about baseball is obnoxious. He knows more than any poster on these sites.