Neil and Aaron, just finished listening to blog talk...Thanks for another great show...It kind of reminded me of the old show of the beat reporters on Channel 11.

Were you smoking your cigars? lol

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No doubt, we have to have one of the worst draft records ever...Thanks for the list.

Earlier you asked if the Ricketts could make one huge move for the season...what would it be.

The impossible.

Trading/dumping Soriano.

(And I'm assuming Bradley is gone)...so maybe that is 2.

If we're talking management...Fire Kenney/Hendry///Hire Epstein.

btw Iread recently that Hendry was only offering Five years on Soriano's deal...

John MeDonough added the other three years because he wqas fearful of another Furcal situation (where the Dogers swooped in at the last second to steal

Furcal)

So we are in debt to the Blackhawks for the length of Soriano's contract...

silly me...I was blaming Hendry all the way.

Suzy, thank you ... and no cigars, yet.

I have read and heard the same about McDonough and the increased offer to Soriano.

But it was at the direction of the Tribune Company in one of the reports I heard.

What a list of failure ... WOW!

I do think the Cubs scouting must improve from top to bottom, especially their advanced scouting. They always seem to be a step behind and that has to be the scouting.

I remember a couple of years back I was listening to an interview concerning Dontrelle Willis and the reason given for trading him away was they did not know what they had in him ... but the Marlins did.

Neil,

Here's that ESPN link as promised:

http://sports.espn.go.com/chicago/columns/story?columnist=schoenfield_david&id=4474793

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I took particular interest in this little part:

One other key factor doomed the franchise -- an amazing streak that is mind-boggling. Baseball began its amateur draft in 1965. The Cubs, often bad, often drafted high. Despite this, the Cubs have NEVER drafted a player in the first round who turned into a longtime star with the franchise. Not a single one. In fact, of the 46 first-round picks made from 1965 through 2006, few even became quality major leaguers.

This is so astounding, so inexplicably astonishing, it's worth reviewing.

The seven "good" first-round choices:

1981: Joe Carter. Traded.

1982: Shawon Dunston. He did have a long (if mediocre) career.

1985: Rafael Palmeiro. Traded before he became a star.

1991: Doug Glanville. Traded for Mickey Morandini.

1995: Kerry Wood. Injured.

1997: Jon Garland. Traded for Matt Karchner.

2001: Mark Prior. Injured.

As for the rest, check out the complete list of first-round picks, from Rick James in 1965 through Tyler Colvin in 2006:

Rick James (not the funk master), Dean Burk*, Terry Hughes, Ralph Rickey*, Roger Metzger (five home runs in 1,219 career games … 1970s baseball, folks!), Gene Hiser, Jeff Wehmeier*, Brian Vernoy*, Jerry Tab, Scot Thompson (an outfielder who played 626 games and hit five home runs), Brian Rosinski*, Herman Segelke, Randy Martz, Bill Hayes, Jon Perlman, Don Schulze, Vance Lovelace, Joe Carter, Stan Boderick*, Tony Woods*, Shawon Dunston, Jackie Davidson* (could have had Roger Clemens), Drew Hall, Dave Masters*, Rafael Palmeiro (who knew he'd develop such power?), Derrick May, Mike Harkey, Ty Griffin*, Earl Cunningham* (prodigious power when he connected, which was rarely; hit .196 one year in Class A with 152 strikeouts and 19 walks), Lance Dickson, Doug Glanville, Derek Wallace, Jon Ratliff, Brooks Kieschnick, Jayson Peterson*, Wood, Todd Noel*, Jon Garland, Corey Patterson (had all the tools except strike-zone judgment), Ben Christensen*, Luis Montanez, Mark Prior, Bobby Brownlie*, Ryan Harvey*, Mark Pawelek*, Tyler Colvin.

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If we are to succeed as a franchise, we absolutely have to get the draft figured out...particularly the first round. When you have 44 years of amateur draft, and you have only 3 (arguably) long-term successful major leaguers come out of the first round (Kerry Wood and Palmeiro and Joe Carter----who we traded), then there's absolutely NO way you win consistently, nor do you have any chance in hell of winning a championship. If you look at guys like Soto, Theriot, Hoffpauir, Fox, Wells, Marshall, etc., outside of Theriot, not a single one of them has had more than one successful season, and I'm sure you'd agree that none of them are expected to be stars in this league...Why? Because a majority of star players are found in the first three rounds or supplemental first/second rounds...it's just fact. One theory might be that they're given priority over other draftees because of bonuses (and that very well might be true), but the fact is, those are the spots where good talent is found in any draft. That's not to say that good talent doesn't slip to later rounds, because Mark Grace, Mike Piazza, and others are perfect examples...but the chances of those players becoming stars later on is remote. Guys like Soto might have a good season once in awhile, but they're rarely consistent performers.

Want to know our top performers in the minors this year?

Colvin-first round

Cashner-first round

Snyder-first round (Indians)

Burke-first round (Padres)

Vitters-first round

Brett Jackson-first round

LeMahieu-second round

Jake Fox-3rd round

Chris Robinson-3rd round (Tigers)

Chris Carpenter-3rd round

Tony Thomas-3rd round

Aaron, thank you for helping me with the show tonight on very short notice.

For those that missed the show, Aaron and I discussed the Cubs 40-man roster and several of the minor league players for a majority of the hour.

Also, we are working on the site problems. I would like to thank everyone for their patience. It appears the problems are only on IE 6 and IE 7, Firefox, IE 8, Safari and Chrome are fine.