Goodies Galore

All sorts of interesting little bits in Jayson Stark's Rumblings and Grumblings.

An executive of one team said that after examining the medical reports on Percival's shoulder, "we were scared to death."

Two other teams said they weren't prepared to offer more than one year, with an option -- not because Percival can't still be effective, but because he has to be used so carefully.

Already stated those concerns myself. Though if you read some of the posters on the Cub Reporter they would rather have Percival over Benitez. Kind of glad Percival never got that meeting.

True, Percival had a 1.67 ERA after the All-Star break, and opponents hit just .230 against him. But "he hasn't pitched more than 50 innings in two years," said one assistant GM. "He can't pitch three days in a row. And he's a good bet to go on the DL."

Beyond that, he wasn't that much better, with the game on the line, than last year's Detroit closer, Ugueth Urbina, whose ERA in his 21 saves last year was 0.89.

The Cubs are unlikely to deal for Urbina. They didn't want him when he was a free agent and never traded for him last season. I think Detroit would be wise to hold onto Urbina for the, "in case **** happens" bug hits Percival.

Moving on down the list, some teams have expressed interest in Corey Patterson. The Cubs however are not biting.

One center fielder who won't hit the market, even if the Cubs sign Carlos Beltran, is Corey Patterson. The Cubs would only be able to sign Beltran if they move Sammy Sosa. But even if they do both, they have no plans to shop Patterson, according to teams that have asked about him.

"Too much invested in him, in more way than one," said one NL front-office man, of Patterson.

I still think Patterson will continue to improve. Other people will disagree and say if teams are interested in Patterson, TRADE HIM! I would be interested in seeing what teams would be willing to give up in exchange for Patterson. The mere fact that teams are asking about him, comforts me a little. I would be a little worried if no one was asking about him.

RANT: Is anyone getting fed up with ESPN.com and all their pop up ads, audio banners, and extended advertisements you have to click on to minimize? My DSL goes nuts every time it visits ESPN.com trying to download all that crap. I have been going to Foxsports.com more for sports news and easier access.

Experimentation: I have been going around looking at different blogger services. One that perked my interest was Modblog.com. I have been experimenting with it the last couple days and it is a hell of a lot more complicated than blogger.com is. But I like some of their template designs. If I figure out how most of the crap works I might move there.

I don't like that it has basic post entry controls. No spell checker, no integrated html linking to make things go fast. You have to type out the HTML to put links in your posts. Yuck! Maybe there Version 1.0 will add those features, which looks like it will be coming out soon.

If you want to take a look and explore for yourself the site I am messing around with is Cubspundit.modblog.com.