No, I had said depending on criteria, he could be top 5. He is in my top 10.

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Rick Hahn is the best GM in baseball.

Your top 10 is wrong.

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General Jim wears Fort Bragg down to get it!

Seriously, I've been accused of being "all over the place" on this, when actually, I'm the only guy who has a consistent position. What criteria possibly suggests Nolan Ryan is a top ten all-time pitcher. You guys love to take different positions depending on the argument. For example, "WHIP is the most important stat by which to judge a pitcher", but suddenly it isn't important when I point out that there are about 200 starters with better career WHIP than Nolan Ryan.

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General Jim wears Fort Bragg down to get it!

Untrue. Just on this page you changed your position on Garza.

No, I didn't. Garza pitched three seasons with the Cubs and he was .500 or worse in two of them. He then had a sharp stretch in a very small sample where he was 6-1, got traded to a better team and was under .500 for the rest of the season. He's the picture of mediocrity and his W/L record illustrates that. If you and dan bernstein want to insist he's good based on some other numbers, go for it.

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General Jim wears Fort Bragg down to get it!

He pitched 11 games for the Cubs and 13 for the Rangers.


I don't disagree. Sure, but other numbers like ERA also illustrate his mediocrity. His pure stuff is what gets people excited about him.

I've been the consistent one.

I repeatedly state over and over that no one stat, or even two stats, can be used by themselves to identify a pitcher's skill or worth.

This is why we have many statistics...and we use them all together to try to come up with ways to judge players.

I happen to think that W/L is just one of the more worthless statistics, since it is heavily dependent upon a pitcher's offense and bullpen.

A great pitcher on a team with a bad offense is still a great pitcher.

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Rick Hahn is the best GM in baseball.

Who is a great starting pitcher with a losing record?

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General Jim wears Fort Bragg down to get it!

The Garza and Soriano quotes, while a big "who cares" on their face are illustrative of the mindset of how FA in the near future are going to view the Cubs. When they are looking for veteran talent to fill in the gaps around young players they are going to have to overspend just to get involved in a conversation and will most likely not get anyone with other options.

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

No way.

As soon as they even resemble a contending team, that all gets forgotten. Just like it did when they started trying to win in the 2000's nobody was bothered by their previous cheapness etc

You really twist things around to find the most negative possible way to view the Cubs. Its kinda impressive.

The 2000s Cubs really didn't sign any big free agents other than someone they paid at least %33 more than anyone else offered. The rest were scrap heap guys (Cliff Floyd), guys coming off surgeries (Dempster), or mental cases (Bradley). Ted Lilly was okay I guess.

You're hopeless.

Is your argument that career W-L is important but not single season W-L?

Is Chris Tillman a better pitcher than Felix Hernandez and Justin Verlander?

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Rick Hahn is the best GM in baseball.

Gavin Floyd

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First of all, who cares if they have to pay more.

Secondly, the 33% thing is an exaggeration

Thirdly, they signed Soriano, Aramis Ramirez, Carlos Zambrano, Fukudome, Todd Walker, LaTroy Hawkins, and Derrick Lee


All premier players when they signed, all of them had the option to go elsewhere, all of them signed with the Cubs and other than Soriano, they didnt pay anything more than was expected

Any fan that would like the team to sustain success for a period longer than two years.

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Rick Hahn is the best GM in baseball.

Don't ask him what his argument is, trust me.

They traded for Lee and Ramirez and Zambrano was an amateur free agent.

If you really think paying a few extra million for a player is going to prevent long term success than either you root a small market team or you dont understand how payroll works.

Do you honestly believe I dont know they traded for them? Cmon KD

They were REsigned by the Cubs. All three of those guys had a chance to leave, but chose to resign with the Cubs. Those count.

I can't believe you forgot Mark DeRosa. Please turn into your Cubs Fan card.

Hendry got Chris Archer for him from the Indians and we all know where he went

I understand Hendry guided the team to a very, very mediocre 10 year period.

Hendry's focus on signing veteran free agents as constant stop-gaps brought peaks that were not high enough, and valleys that were far too low.

I want to try something new.

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Rick Hahn is the best GM in baseball.

I don't think resigning your own players says as much as getting someone new, sorry.

This is the whole crux of the argumemt. Are there really any great pitchers who have a career record of .500 or worse (based on a good sample size of course) . I'm pretty sure over time your record will be the indicator of how good you actually were. Are there pitchers out there with Maddux like WHiP numbers that are 73-90 ? Doubt that there are.

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Proud member of the white guy grievance committee

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

Plus Zambrano was never a free agent, they resigned him when they still had control. Lee could have been the same, don't remember.

No apology necessary but its pretty ridiculous to point out the trades like I didnt know about them. I think you knew what I meant.

You seem to be on a FUCK THE CUBS no matter what tangent lately. Cant say I blame you.

They signed him months before he hit free agency. The point is he could have left and chose to stay. He didnt have to sign. Same with Lee and Ramirez.


What are you aruging? What free agent did they want but couldnt get?

Right, over a career W-L is a fine stat to judge starters.

Over a season, a month, a game it gets less and less useful

That's fine. Im not advocating for spending. Im just pointing out that free agents have no aversion to signing with the Cubs.


How soon we forget what it was like in 03-04 and 07-08 when everyone in baseball wanted to be a Cub and Eric Karros was saying things like "everyone should play one summer at Wrigley" and a lot of guys agreed with him.

Mike Hampton? Were Cubs seriously in play for Vlad? Bigfan might know the answer to your question better.

No, not Hampton.

Maybe Beltran after 04, but that wasnt him being Anti Cub. The Mets paid up.


The point is, you can be cheap for years and players will forget very quickly once you open the checkbook