McPhail must be laughing himself to sleep. Let's see, last year the Cubs were adamant in not giving up Hill and Pie together to get Brian Roberts. So this year we literally give them to the O's, and get nothing in return.

C'mon folks, this is just brilliant management on our part! But hey, let's keep singing those praises of our GM and coaching staff.

I like baseball.

check out the RUMBLES IN THE JUNGLE section at the bottom of this Jason Stark article:

http://sports.espn.go.com/mlb/columns/story?columnist=stark_jayson&page=rumblings090129

sale of the Cubs might not happen for 8 more months, and if someone offers more than Rickets, the bankruptcy court can force the Trib to take it.

MacFail might be laughing, but its more nervous tension than glee. He just missed giving away an all star for a two guys, and add ons, that I hope play well, but have tremendous risk associated with them.

For you youngsters out there, if the Cubs had made that deal it would have been the mid-1960's Frank Robinson trade from Cincy to Baltimore in reverse. The star leaves Baltimore for a pitcher (Milt Pappas) and add-ons to excel in his new home. Cincy got smoked in that deal.

If you really think about it, the cubs were forced to deal Hill and Pie becuase of their mismanagement of roster moves in prior years. In the past couple years, they kept moving Pie and Hill up and down between Cubs and Iowa like yo-yo's, which eventually exhausted all the options that were left.

So fast forward to 2009, whereby they don't feel they would have been able to keep them both on cubs roster for whole year. So with no options left, they had to dump them and sell low. Not good. They boxed themselves into a corner. To me its really that simple. If either guy still had options left, there would have been no need to dump them, and they would still be cubs...but nooooooo. It was short-sighted thinking at the time.

Let's hope it doesn't come back to haunt them.

Brian is absolutely right on the main points: The Ricketts family and point man/Cubs leader, Tom, in particular are Cubs' fans and they want to win. And he's right that the Faithful are Cubs fans and want to win. But I would suggest that Brian is a little giddy about some of the other thoughts.

The $900 million (not billion) proposed deal--is a business deal bottom line. The price being down $300 million is one piece of evidence. Another is that, if asked if they would do the deal, if they thought their worse case scenario was a loss of $150 million or more, they would likely say no.

The family (thank goodness) can indulge their fantasy (and ours) by taking on what I feel is now an increasingly risky investment (buying a top level professional sports team). Their capacity is a measure of their risk tolerance, their just liking the celebrity of sports and (hopefully) their being able to do what no other owner has done for 100 years.

We share their infatuation with professional sports when we buy $70 good seats, $20 cheap seats, $8 beers and $30 Cubs' caps. So do big-time corporate sponsors when they throw 100's of millions of dollars into the pot. The Ricketts, IMO, have reached an emotional and a business decison that the sports' business model might bend but that it won't break. We're lucky to have the Ricketts on the scene, and I hope that they are lucky too.

While the Tribune wasn't successful for Cubs fans, from a business perspective they bought a team for $20 million(1981) and sold them for $900 million 27+ years later. I have to say that is a pretty good return on investment....and without ever making it to a World Series. I guess being Loveable Losers is good business.

With a Cubs fan at the helm I would have to guess the business strategy will change.

I think I'm right that the current options rules have to do with the number of years on the 40 man roster and not the number of times up and down in any one year. Something like three years on the 40 man, and you can't send a player down without the possility he will be claimed by another team.

As for the "mismanagement" of the up and down movement of youngsters - let me ask this....

A young player does well in the minors or wins the job out of spring training or what have you. Over the course of the next several weeks, the performance simply isn't there - it could be mental make up, trying too hard, lack of ability - doesn't really matter. Fact remains - they aren't cutting it.

Although there are flashes of talent, those players look more often than not simply overmatching.

For a hitter, maybe it shows up as swinging a foot over a hard curve or maybe at a slider that bounces a foot short of the plate... which I remember from Pie a couple of times. Or maybe it's having your knees buckled by a big-league curve that arcs slowly right into the middle fo the zone... which I also remember.

For a pitcher it could be control issues - and we're not just talking issuing too many free passes - it's a matter of the catcher setting up low and inside and having to jump up and try to keep a pitch high and well outside from going to the backstop. This is what happened to Hill over and over and over. He fought his way out of jams for those five games at the beginning of the season - but he was in a jam of his own making inning after inning - and his control can't be measured in walks. There were several pitches every inning where he simply came no where even close to where the catcher was set up. A batter might swing at that pitch on the outside corner and the stuff on that pitch might be good enough to induce a weak grounder to second... but it doesn't change the fact that he still missed his target by a couple of feet.

And that's not an exageration. I'm a fan of the guy and made a point to watch him on MLB.com whenever the games weren't on WGN. The walks are a symptom, but he was simply missing his target not by inches but by miles. He was all over the place. Each game included several visits to the mound by the catch or the coach to try to get him dialed back in.

His stats show a decent ERA, but it was more a product of stuff and luck. His control was flat out gone - as his stats in the minors and winter ball show (sigh)

So - you're the GM - which path do you choose?

1) you continue to throw the kid out there and hope they figure it out... but how long can you keep that up?

2) you reduce their role (hitter to the bench, pitcher to the pen)... but they are young and can only improve with playing time... otherwise how do they break out of it?

or 3) do you send them down to try to get their stroke/control/confidence/ etc back by playing against a slightly lower quality of player, playing everyday, and out of the pressure of the big league spotlight?

And then when they improve or you have an injury that opens up a spot or whatnot, do you leave the player in AAA or bring them up for another look? Does leaving them in the minors even mess with their (supposedly) fragile confidence because they got passed over for a promotion?

There's a LOT more at play here than "mismanagement"

...and to stick with the topic of the posting LOL

I too am excited to see a fan taking control of the team rather than a corporation looking at the bottom line.

I do however give the Tribune credit for finally realizing that a successful franchise would hold more value than one that wasn't.