Sorry, Sori

in 2006. he did. the team was terrible in ‘06. with soriano as the (filthy rich) principle leadoff man, hendry’s cubs did something no cubs team had done in a lo-o-o-ong time. they reached the playoffs twice in a row.

could the cubs have won in 2007/8 without soriano in left? not sure. we will hear arguments both ways. but without a splash, the prospect-less cubs were dead in the water.

yeah, he paid too much. way too much. but the cubs had to overpay. they couldn’t offer anything but playing time to prospective free agents. jacque jones, jason marquis, and others to be included below were overpaid to get them to arrive. without getting overpaid by us, they’d get overpaid by someone else. or get a reasonable rate from a good team.

we’re saddled with soriano. and dome. and bradley. sadly, outfield isn’t an organizational strength. the cubs will endure. maybe they’ll make the playoffs a few times before soriano takes his sori defense and strikezone awareness elsewhere. after his deal is done.

the questions are, will management finally ‘get’, ‘commit to’, and ‘excel at’ player development? if so, the soriano experiment will be a tempered success. if not, the sign’s numbers across the street will increase.

That he’s been hitting .265 in the month of July (would have been batting .300 if it weren’t for the night game he didn’t hit). While that’s still not great, he’s been hitting better with 3 multi-hit games for the month (he only had 5 for the month of June).

He might be getting out of this cold streak so give it a break for a week….

…but most teams that have relied heavily on FA signings to compete, end up dealing with the dissappointment of an underachieving club at some point.

So far in 09, the Cubs appear headed down the same road a lot of other clubs have gone (who have used FA signings as a cornerstone).

Prior to the great spending spurge, the Cubs did not spend a ton of money. Be happy we are able to spend such money.

We brought in Soriano after his explosive 40/40 year. He has been productive for us, hitting .299 and .280 in his first 2 years here. Yes, he is doing terrible right now, but some people on here are calling him a bust? He has the 2nd half to heat up, and he has been productive throughout his career.

Milton was a big risk that hasn’t panned out thus far, in fact, it has been a complete failure all together. There are some promising signs for Milton in the 2nd half, as he continues to take walks and is starting to look a lot better on the left side of the plate.

Fukudome flat out sucked in his first year. This year, he’s starting to look a lot more comfortable out there, and you can’t deny that he is a fantastic centerfielder. We brought him in, expecting a 20 hr, .300 avg type of player, and we haven’t gotten that yet.

Signing players is based of prediction based off a player’s history. Historically, we have an outfield that can be one of the most potent in the mlb. So far, they have not been that. But stop blaming Hendry.

for a moment Soriano’s salary. He is horrendous this year, regardless of the cost. He is hitting worse than most pitchers for the past 2 months, and dare I say Sean Marshall was an upgrade in the field last night when Soriano came out.

I think I saw somewhere that Soriano was hitting over ..300 for some recent stretch. I don’t buy it. 2 of those hits were bloopers that the outfielder dropped and they gifted them as singles. I haven’t seen any improvement other than he seems to be watching more pitches. But when he does swing, it still looks brutal.