TruffleShuffle

I remember you were on the Marlins' ride in the preseason, and some of us on here (i.e., me) made goofs about when Beckett would get a boo-boo on his finger again. Well, that time of the season has rolled around...

No longer Cy Maddux... more like Sigh, Maddux. ERA is creeping up toward 5.00. Board is slow as hell today... WTF?

and there's the difference between Cub fans and LaRussa/certain types of Card fans Cub fans' complaints are legitimate So when LaRussa complains about the schedule it's whining, but when Cubs fans complain about the schedule it's legitimate? Personally, I don't think changing the Cardinals/Giants game to a night game the day before the all-star break is a big deal. But if Tony LaRussa wants to gripe about it what's the big deal either? Don't Cubs fans have enough problems with their own manager that they don't need to harp on what they don't like about TLR all the time? Any time Tony makes some comment of a complaining nature Cubs fans on this board and others start calling him a hypocrite, a whiner, etc. He contradicts himself, very well, he contradicts himself. Tony contains multitudes. I'm sure 9 out of 10 Cub fans would love to have him as their manager. It must suck being on the business end of all that competitive fire 16 times per season. I could give two craps about competitive fire. I want a guy who makes good decisions with the lineup and during the game. There are a lot of other guys I'd prefer to have managing the Cubs other than LaRussa. You're right, 9 out of 10 Cub fans would love to have him as the manager over Dusty, but personally I'd rather have a doped-up mule managing the team that Dusty.

I've got another one: Player A, who has 9 wins in 16 starts or Player B, who has only 6 wins in 15 starts Obviously, player A is Doug Davis, with his 4.44 ERA and 1.37 WHIP. Player B is Roger Clemens, with his 1.51 ERA and 0.95 WHIP. Apparently the 300 game winner has just forgotten how to win in his old age.

I'm not going to get into the wins debate because it's been rehashed 100 times. I will point out that Jerome Williams had a better ERA+ in 2003-2004 than Maddux did, and even in his supposedly terrible 2004 campaign, his ERA+ was only 8 points (113-105) lower than that of Maddux. He hasn't been much worse than Maddux this year, either. I'll take him at $8M less than Maddux and expect him to outpitch Greg next year.

I voted no... I really don't care enough about the White Sox to hate them. The only team I hate is the Cardinals, and possibly the Yankees for other reasons.

How Hawk and DJ didn't make it on this list is beyond me...

We'll see if he keeps it up. My guess is that he will get worse in the second half as he approaches a career high in innings.

I would kill to have this man in a Cub uniform. Soooooo tired of all the low OBP losers on this club.

Hey, Dusty has been managing Mike Remlinger for 2 1/2 years now and he still hasn't figured out that Remmy is worse against lefties than righties. What makes you think he'll catch onto the problem of having two low-OBP guys batting 1st and 2nd?

Tom Emanski should make a new videotape entitled "How Not to Manage a Baseball Team." Then when you pop the tape in, it'll say "Watch Dusty Baker" in the intro, and then it will be the replay of tonight's ballgame. What an incompetent fool.

The starting lineup, Remlinger in to face a lefty, going with Zambrano way too long, not using Dubois to pinch hit for Wilson or Hollandsworth (versus the lefty)... well I could probably go on but you get the idea

The other question though is even if that $9 million was available, would the Cubs spend it on guys who will get on base? Probably not, but I can dream, can't I? :D

Part of my original premise was that the Cubs should definitely do this if they're 5 or more games out of a playoff spot come mid-August. I don't want Maddux having his option vest while pitching meaningless games for us at the end of the year, because not only does it not accomplish anything this year, it sabotages our chances of winning next year. If the Cubs are right in the race for a playoff spot, then it's a tougher call and I probably just bite the bullet and pay him next year. But if we don't make the playoffs and then next year are struggling because of a weak bullpen and an offense full of guys not getting on base, I guarantee you a lot of people will be grumbling about paying an average pitcher $9M.

He won 16 games last year and the year before after getting off to a similar start. Not to mention having him in the clubhouse cannot hurt the young pitchers the cubs have. If he pitches 400 innings in these two years, that should be an indication that he is pitching well enough to keep for a third year. Wins are a lousy stat and are too dependent on offensive support. I heard a lot about how great Maddux would be for the young pitchers, but to this point a lot of the young guys they've brought up have had trouble sticking. Suppan has pitched 200 innings just about every full season he's been in the majors; I don't think this means he's pitched well enough to merit $9M in any given season.

I'll be sure to bump after every good Maddux outing. Don't be ridiculous. Problem is, there haven't been that many good outings. There have been a couple of good games, a large number of average performances and then a couple of bad games. Maddux has had an average ERA+ of around 109 the last two years; Suppan has been around 103. Given that Suppan is 30 and Maddux is 40, it's likely that Maddux will continue regressing whereas Suppan may only regress a bit. Therefore, it's very reasonable to expect Maddux to pitch about as well as Jeff Suppan next year... and if the option vests for Maddux, he'll likely be making at least twice what Suppan is making. It's a terrible waste of $4-5M for a team that doesn't have unlimited resources. Backtobanks, the problem is that every other team in baseball knows Maddux is not worth anywhere close to $9M next year. If the Cubs want to trade him, and it appears his option will vest, they'll have to eat about $5M of next year's salary and possibly some of his salary for the rest of this year as well. A prospect would be nice, but I don't know how great of a prospect we'll get for a guy who isn't much better than average at this point. The best case scenario for the Cubs would be to simply not have his option vest next year, IMO.

Maddux is not a legit 2 unless he's pitching for Kansas City or Tampa. 3.50 may be his average ERA over the last 3 years, but once this year is over his average 3-year ERA will probably be over 4.00. His ERA+ will barely be over 100. He rarely goes more than 6-7 innings in a game. Is that worth the $9M next year? Not even close, in my opinion, especially when you consider that given his age it's likely he'll be worse next year than he has been the last two years.

Bump. Not interested in paying $9M in 2006 for Greg Maddux to pitch like Jeff Suppan.

Haha... actually his prediction has been pretty good to this point; Carpenter has pitched very well for most of the year... 9-4 with a 3.17 ERA. We'll see if he can keep it going at the end of this season, because he kind of crapped out toward the end of last year. He's on pace to throw 240 innings this year, which are a whole lot for a guy with a history of arm trouble. Question. If a pitcher (say Maddux) pitches 250 innings, but never goes over 100 pitches in a start, is that still overworking a pitcher? I know that innings and pitchcounts have become an important way of charting a pitchers use. Which is more important? I'd say both are important, and here's why. Every inning before a guy goes out, he throws probably 6-10 warmup pitches. While these aren't thrown with the same effort, they're something. Plus he cools off every inning after he comes out of the game and has to get warmed up again. Anyway, in the case of Maddux I think that 95 pitches for him is about equivalent to 115 pitches for Zambrano. Maddux doesn't have a whole lot of stamina any more and the closer you push him closer to the 100 pitch mark, the less comfortable he will be. In Carpenter's case, he's thrown over 100 pitches in 9/14 games this year, is averaging 103 pitches per start, and has thrown 110 pitches or more in 6 of his starts. I'm not saying he's been abused, but he also hasn't been preserved either.

Haha... actually his prediction has been pretty good to this point; Carpenter has pitched very well for most of the year... 9-4 with a 3.17 ERA. We'll see if he can keep it going at the end of this season, because he kind of crapped out toward the end of last year. He's on pace to throw 240 innings this year, which are a whole lot for a guy with a history of arm trouble.

Man, if Rollins is worth $8M per year, then Tejada is worth about eleventy billion dollars per year.

I can't see a team taking him in the stretch run with him likely to have his option vest next year unless the Cubs throw in about $4M toward that option.

Darren Oliver. He retired. :( OK, Dave Crouthers then.

I just read in game threads that Mark Prior is out for the year after throwing 126 pitches in today's game. Who should we call up?

Do you know how much getting a World Series ring meant to him? It was pretty apparent (even then) that that wasn't going to happen for the Cubs any time in the early/mid '90s. Though I hated to see him go (he was and remains one of my favorite pitchers) I completely undserstand his motivations for leaving. So the he can leave the Cubs to have a better chance of winning a ring, but the Cubs can't allow him to leave to improve the team's chances of winning a World Series next year? Personally I just want the Cubs to not stink next year. If they go into next year with the same bunch of low-OBP bums on offense and the same mediocre losers in the bullpen, I'll know before the season that it will be a hopeless season.