are coming before we see another win against the Astros on the upcoming home stand. Wins against the lowly Astros aren't even a certainly with the AA lineup we are now fielding. Guess we shouldn't be complaining. This is Theo's rebuilding project at work. Like I stated this is a 5 to 10 year plan.

Another 5 to 10 months will get the Cubs a competitive team.

WOW. You really are optimistic. So you're saying they'll be competitive next year? I just don't see it. Hope I'm wrong.

No WS or even a playoff win, but they won't be a doormat. Keep in mind that it's a lot easier to be "competitive" with two WC slots in each league. Hoyer and Epstein have done everything that I thought that they would do and more. It's a progression.

It's amazing how so many people can be so optimistic about this scrapheap team of ours for the forseeable future. We have no pitching and no help for the pitching from our Minor Leagues ready for years to come, the chances of getting better pitching by trade or free agency are almost zero. We are seeing a bottoming out of Castro; Soriano is ineffective for long stretches and won't be around much longer anyway, after Rizzo he is our only other source of power; Brett Jackson looks like another Corey Patterson, can't see him being much of a productive player going forward; Barney is merely a complimentary player, decent in a line-up that has 7 other really good hitters but just one more poor element on a team like this; Wellingto Castillo is the catching version of Barney but with a little more power, it's a good bet he'll turn into Soto before too long; our outfield is in pretty poor shape, DeJesus isn't a long term fixture there, Jackson looks like a bust and who plays left when Soriano goes. So anyway you shake it, this team isn't going to be competative for at least 5 years when some young talent at the very lower levels of our system get a shot. It's really hard to flow with optimism when you know this team is going to stink for 5 years and how they are playing right now looks to be the trend for a lot of that time.....good heavens....why the optimism?

No one on this roster, save for Soriano and maybe Samardzija knows what a .500 record in the major leagues is. How are these kids going to get the snot kicked out of them for the next few years and have anything but a losing attitude? In theory, I like the "building with youth" idea, but to totally abandon spending on dependable veteran players to help create a winning atmosphere is scary. This is big-city Chicago baseball, doggone it! We certainly know that at the Wrigley Field cash register, don't we?

Terrific post tony2594. I said this in another post, it's all very well to have a youth program but you need a good mix of veteran, proven ML players to complete the line-up and that means spending SOME money. Epstein may very well do that at some point but all i see right now is a loading up of unproven youngsters at various levels and all the while the big league team is suffering. Epstein is treating this ballclub like it's the KC Royals, are we going too far down the 'build up the Minors' road to the point where it might actually hinder us in years to come?

So who are you throwing money at? Where are these impact FA that will turn things around?

When the Cubs lost their clubhouse leaders Reed and Dempster, the team lost their will to fight and win. Now the young guys are trying to figure it out and we are seeing the results from that. Just got to hope they figure it out, but they do have time, its not like it matters this year.