Our Kaz Matsui Nightmare is Over

Ed Wade Will Sign Anyone, Anywhere

Our Knight in shining armor has arrived. His name, Ed Wade. Ed was an awesome GM for the Phillies and recently was hired to bring his own special brand of crazy to the Astros. Signing a weak hitting, quadruple A, utility infielder to a 3 year, 15 million contract is quite an openning move. Well played, sir, well played.

We absolutely love it. Smarsh had to slap us out of shock when we heard the news. Even the TLFCSC can't Believe that the Cub's didn't outbid the supposed 3 yr, 15 million dollar ball and chain contract that Mr. Wade coughed up. An added bonus, we now get to see TL dominate Kaz in divisional games! The excitement in the TLFCHQ is palpable, but cautious.

You see, Hendry is on the verge of baseball's Winter Meetings; essentially booze filled, week long, ego driven, cock-off, that doubles as a live auction for marginal baseball talent. Anyone that's ever been to a live auction knows that drinking and ego don't work. Our own TLFC mistake is a 2 foot black stone carved eagle that stares at us in the TLFC study everyday. It's too heavy to move, it's ugly, and no one else wants to take it from us cause its all busted up... sounds like someone we know. We tend to think that Mr. Hendry might go out and do something all crazy, like sign Sean Casey for 1yr/ 8mil. cause he's a "locker room guy," "a winner," and a "lefty bat," and, frankly, we'd be fine with that. Really.

As insane as that scenario sounds, the biggest land mine in the free agent market is now gone and there's little more than Hendry can do to hurt the team. We're so very excited for Ed and the Astros that we're composing a thank you letter to the organization. It's a happy day, Ted Head's, our Ted Lilly Fan Club, Dear God, Please Don't Sign Kaz Watch now over.

Cubs Re-sign Kerry Wood, TLFC Rejoices At Another Year of Immature "Cubs have Wood" Jokes

Champage was uncorked and fire crackers went off today at the Ted Lilly Fan Club upon hearing the news that the Chicago Cubs have re-signed Kerry Wood to a one year deal worth $4.2 million with an additional $3+ million available in bonuses.

Not only does this move ensure another season of solid bullpen work as Wood will serve as the primary set-up guy or eventual successor for Johnny Drama Dempster, it also gives the TLFC another year to make immature jokes relating to the "Cubs having Wood", "losing Wood in the 9th" etc.

Now, with Wood re-signed, we just need to focus our free agent dollars on getting Cincinnati Reds pitching coach and former Cubbie bench coach, Dick Pole, back in the dugout so we will have 365 days of 4th grade-level humor. Other acceptable jokes would include laughing at the ketchup bottle when it makes farting noises, anything/everything involving poop and the number 69.

Of course, over at the Hardball Blog, our arch nemesis, Paul Sullivan, penned a blog post this afternoon (From Sun Tzu's Art of War: "If ignorant both of your enemy and yourself, you are certain to be in peril") that comes ridiculously close to an open letter to Kerry Wood in which Sullivan professes his undying love for Kid K and names him his Cubs man-crush of 2008. Honestly, Sully, off your knees...it's not Valentine's Day yet.

Cubs Looking to Sign Seventh Minor League FA: Kaz Matsui

Kaz Connects With His Mighty Pillow Power

Just when we thought we made it through Thanksgiving without any issues, we read this via our Cub Reporter friends. We can stomach Uncle Dale getting all liquored up and making racially insensitive comments to Aunt LaQuita, we can work through Cousin Mike slipping into the garage to get high and then taking down 3 plates of stuffing, but (and we've said this before) we absolutely LOATHE Kaz Matsui.

To cheer ourselves up yesterday, we grabbed Smarsh to play a little game: Beer Pong. After about twelve Bud Select's we sat down and tried to grasp what Cub's management saw in Kaz that we didn't. We walked the grounds at the Ted Lilly Fan Club Lake House (TLFCLHS), skipped some stones, spent some time on the Ted Lilly Fan Club Rotten Thinkin' Stump (TLFCRTS), and came up with this: Cub's Management is F*#@(@king nsane to like this guy. Check out this fun:

Player A: Career Avg. .272 OBP .325 SLG .387
Player B: Career Avg. .276 OBP .341 SLG .379

Pretty much the same, right? Player A is Kaz, Player B is The Riot. The numbers themselves aren't that different and the Nerd Herd over at BP will probably yell, "Sample Size" or "Regression to the Mean" at us... fine, we can handle that. Our point isn't that these guys are similar players, our point is that the Cub's are about to lock up one of them for several years as our SS. Is Kaz's "speed" and "versatility" really worth the 20 million (and obligation to play) that he's going to have over another round of The Riot?

Wouldn't this signing constitute Gross Mismanagement? Hendry is sacrificing numerous options at the SS spot, The Riot, Cedeno, Pedro Infante (all can combine for a similar .270/ .325/ .380 line at much cheaper and with more roster flexibility than Kaz) all for the press of a "name" signing! What a waste! At what point did the organization come to an agreement and say, "let's mis allocate our time and resources to an area which we actually have options and not focus on our real problems, ie OBP."

We're becoming more irate by the keystroke and think it best to stop now. If the signing does happen, we'll be all over anyone that defends it. We'll make a list, check it twice, and unleash an unintelligible blog slapping that the Internets has never seen.

Things We're Thankful For At the Ted Lilly Fan Club

A lot of excitement around the TLFC this week as Thanksgiving is upon well upon us.

--Intern Richie and Smarsh have both been super busy drinking chocolate ovaltine and drawing turkeys by tracing their hands on construction paper.

--TLFC House Mom Brenda has already been cooking since last week and, yes, her infamous candied yams are going to make an appearance.

--Word from the North is that TLFC Super Fan Overnight Pete is geeked out over the ability to feed his gambling demons with three Turkey Day NFL games

--Heck, even the Ted Lilly Fan Club Super Computer has gotten into the act by volunteering to dress up as Squanto for the annual TLFCFTPAHR (Ted Lilly Fan Club First Thanksgiving Play and Historical Retrospective).

With that in mind, we wanted to offer up a sneak preview of what we're going to offer up as the things we're thankful for when we go around the TLFC Dinner Table tomorrow.

We're thankful for:

1. Dane Cook being off the air. Sure, we'll have to deal with him again soon enough when his next POS movie hit theaters ("This Summer, Dennis Rodman and Dane Cook are....Fire and Ice!")

2. The Cubs having not signed Kaz Matsui yet which would result in those annoying thundersticks showing up in Wrigley and Top Ramen become an outfield wall sponsor. That being said, "Mr. Baseball" with Tom Selleck is an underratted movie so maybe it wouldn't be that bad???

3. A-Rod ending upback with the Yankees. Sure, it'd the best player in the game was wearing Cubbie blue but, now, it's that much easier to root root root against the Evil Empire again. Of course, with the Red Sawx winning again, it's probably Evil Empire A and Evil Empire B.

4. TLFC Nation. Not two ways around it, the TLFC has had a great first year. Made some friends at the Cub Reporter. Solidifed our hatred for Paul Sullivan. And, in between, were given a virtual platform to try and make ourselves laugh (Result? Unsuccessful).

Of course, now the gloves are off and the stakes are a lot higher:

TLFC Beta Version is done and we have big plans for version 2.0. There's been discussions of going IPO...maybe a 3-D virtual reality Ted Lilly simulator (kinda like that movie "Lawnmower Man")...we'll see. Here's to a 17 pound turkey and lotso of heavy gravy.

Happy Turkey Day Ted Heads...

-TLFC Super Computer

Cub's "Fire Sale" Continues: Craig Monroe Shipped to Twins for packet of "Pop Rocks"

We're not kidding around, Jim...

Day 4 of the Ted Lilly Fan Club, Dear God, Please Don't Sign Kaz Watch, (TLFCDGPDSKW), and the chess match continues. Today, the Cub's "traded" Craig Monroe to the Twins for a player to be named later. We applaud this move. Craig finally gets a chance to play with his brother Justin Monroe, and the Cub's get their choice of a grab bag of Twinkie players. TLFC sources inside the Twins organization have told us that the PTBNL will come off of a list that includes, Johan Santana, Boof Bosner, or handful of Garbage Pail Kids Cards. Our source also tells us that Hendry thinks that Adam "Bomb" kid can really hit and will likely choose the cards.

For us, the more confusion on the Cub's roster, the better. Hendry now has to sort out what our annual Rule 5 draft mistakes will be this year, how to do screw up the 40 man rosters, and how to over pay in the Kerry Wood re- signing. The man can't multi task and we love it.

However, we're still incredibly nervous about the Cub's signing Kaz Matsui for something insane, like 3/44. Though the signing would provide terrific blog fodder for the '08 campaign, we really, really, really, dislike this guy and not since the Todd Hundley era have we really disliked a Cub player... and the time since has included such truly hate-able Cubbies like Andy Pratt and Jose Macias (a side note, we highly enjoyed the Neifi era).

As you can tell, we're off our rockers just thinking about Kaz. As such, we've gone and done some pretty thoughtless acts to prepare ourselves for this outcome and we'll roll those out for you as the Kaz watch continues. Till then, Ted Heads.

Ted Lilly Fan Club Fires First Volley Against Kaz Matsui, Tricks Hendry Into Trading for Pedro Infante

That suave man on your right is new Cub and the finest Mexican Actor to ever grace the silver screen, Pedro Infante.

Today, on the advice of the Ted Lilly Fan Club, Jim Hendry traded Jacque Jones and cash, for Pedro Infante's corpse.... well ... they got the baseball equivalent of Pedro Infante's corpse: infielder, Omar Infante.

Omar Infante hasn't played more than half a season the last two years and struggled to hit .270 doing it. He has 32 HR in 1600 plate appearances (we plugged that into TLFCSC to get a ratio and it kicked out "shitty") and sports a .298 career OBP. The only thing Omar has on our boy Pedro over there is an active heartbeat.

We're REALLY excited about this move. We've gone on record as having some degree of fondness for Frenchie Jones and think it's going to be good for him to get out of town. The Cub's essentially trade an excess outfielder for an excess infielder. Unless Hendry tries to move Pedro for another corpse, this increases the chances that Kaz Matsui won't be playing DDR at Murphy's anytime soon... and we like that. A Lot.

The Ted Lilly Fan Club, Dear God, Please Don't Sign Kaz Watch, (TLFCDGPDSKW) proudly marches into Day Two.

Discussion of Kaz Matsui Elicits Protest By Ted Lilly Fan Club

TLFC Hates Kaz In Pinstripes

Oh, how we loathe Kaz Matsui! Here's a guy who signed for big money to play for the Mets, struggled and was traded (for Eli Marreo!), spends some time in AAA, then gets hot just at the right time with the Rocks. He's now a free agent and has the perfect profile for Jim Hendry: Toolsy, Good Glove, Weak Hitting, and Over Priced Name Guy. The thought of seeing this guy in a Cub uniform simply makes us nauseous.

Earlier this season, we jumped the gun a little and staked our support with for our own younger, less Japanese, more Latin, cheaper, and possible better hitting version of Kaz, Ronnie Cedeneo. We're aware that we may have been slightly misguided thinking Ronnie could immediately fill the SS role, but we're still way more excited to see what a Cedeno or Theriot could do than the vicious alternative: Lou being forced to play Matsui every day because of his insane contract. Our most lovely solution involves the Cub's acquiring Jon "Don't call me Jhonny" Peralta, but that's not going to happen.

As such, we're not going to sleep until Kaz Matsui IS NOT a Cub. We're going to work tirelessly to ensure this doesn't happen, even if it means tying up Hendry's Dog and locking it in the Ted Lilly Fan Club Vault of Shame and Pain (TLFCVOSAP), (which is only accessible via a secret latch in the Ted Lilly Fan Club Library Stacks (TLFCLS)) for the next several weeks.

The Ted Lilly Fan Club, Dear God, Please Don't Sign Kaz Watch, (TLFCDGPDSKW) enters Day One.

Ted Lilly Would Have Made That Shot

We're Probably Biased, BGor Uses Our Weight Room

We spent much of last night winterizing the TLFCHQ while having the Bulls season opener at the Nets fill the air as ambient noise. Little known fact: Ted Lilly is a Hoops junky and we, as loyal Ted Head's, are trying to understand and love Ted's second favorite game. In case you missed it, the Bull's staged a huge third quarter come back led by Londoner, and friend of the blog, Ben Gordon (BGor) and eventually took the game into OT.

Yeah, okay, BGor had his last second shot blocked by #16 on the Ted Lilly Fan Club List Of Least Favorite Pro Athletes, Non X Games Addition (TLFCLOLFPANXGA), Vince "Vinsanity" Carter, but it wasn't a hugely terrible play: not so, says Paul Sullivan wannabe, Jay Marrioti.

With a byline of "Kobe Would Have Made The Shot," our boy Jay leads us into a world of senseless prose and uniformed literary masturbation. Example:

Kobe Bryant isn't about moral victories. He's about making the damned shot.

We think it's a little aggressive to put the words "moral" and "Kobe" in the same sentence, especially when we're referring to basketball and not beef. We're more on the side of this fella, via Blog A Bull, that keeping the Bulls core over aquiring Kobe might actually make basketball sense. From a PR standpoint, we're also not sure we'd like to see Mamba in a Bulls Uni. Call us prude, call us abhorrent of sexual abuse, call us fascists, but we're not really keen on rooting for a guy that married a high school girl who grew up in Italy. That's just us, we're honest Ted Head's, lunch pail guys, Chicago guys, and not to understanding of man purses and other Euro Trash apparel... we tend to think that many Chicagians would agree with us.

Then again, Chicago seems to adopted a guy like Mariotti. He's deliberately negative, faux brash, and a little pantywaist when it comes to his own criticisms. He plays himself off as a working man's writer but likely expenses to the Sun Times pick up his decaf frap on "business trips" to the Olympics. He's got a little man complex from a big fat guy, we suspect he leaves an even 13% tip, in change, at the local diner, and likely yells at little kids whose Big Wheels run over his manicured lawn.

Put simply, ask yourself WWTLD? (What Would Ted Lilly Do) when you read Jay. BGor brings the team all the way back then gets blocked. So what? Ted Lilly would have given BGor a big, "it's ok, we wouldn't be here without you" slapped him on the ass and told him to get after it in OT. TL certainly wouldn't advocate acquiring an egomaniac like Kobe on his team. WWTLD? He would stop reading Jay Mariotti.