CubinNY

how are they not? his previous worst for the past 5 seasons was .305. his FIP's actually as good as it's ever been. Probably has to do with his HR:9 and his line drive (against) %. He's missing badly in the zone. Sometimes a high BABIP tells a true story. The true story is that Marquis sucks, he's not unlucky. Edit: Sorry didn't read Brinoch's post.

I'm gonna go kill myself. They should make sure he gets the cold shower in the home dugout. I don't think he's going to like playing in Chicago very much. Hopefully he doesn't play very much, but something tells me that won't be the case. Meanwhile the Iowa Cubs are going to rake! I can't wait until they come to Memphis. Dumb.

This is where the Cubs come back. Marquis pitched a lot worse than the score of tonight's game. He's damn lucky the Padres cannot hit. He was missing in the zone all night. Blech!.

Bat confidence?

You do a great job setting the stage for the games. Well done, #1 starter.

Indeed. He'd be a terrible pick up at this point in his career. I hope this is more speculation than sourced material. Where's Bruce Miles?

The Cubs are for real. I am starting to believe in this team more than I've believed in any other Cub team. If Lou can get the pitching figured out they should be a 90+ win team.

I wonder what sharkfan50 or whatever he/she is called thinks about the recent developments.

A new park isn't necessay for the Marlins? In what dimension? It has a horrible location, it's not designed at all for baseball and it's brutal sitting there for 3 hours or more in the Florida weather. Contrary to current attendance, they do have a reasonably strong fanbase down there. They don't have a fan base at all and Dolphin Stadium is in the best location for easy access to both Dade and Broward County. However, the park isn't built for baseball, but that's not what stops people from going to games. Loria is just a terrible owner from the perspective of the fans. He's the reason why no one goes to games. Edit: I've told this story before, but in 2001 I was driving home from work and listening to the Marlins. I can't remember who they were playing but it was late in the year and they were losing. In between the banter of Boog Shambi and Len you could hear "Less go Jankees. Less go Jankees". Boog got kind of pissed and said he was embarrassed.

In the last 15 years, Loria has more World Series titles than any other owner besides Steinbrenner. Loria has one world series title. By accident. He was sent to Florida to torpedo that team the way he was set up to torpedo Montreal for contraction's sake. Larry Beinfest screwed everything up. Right, kind of. D. Wayne Huizinga (sp?) won the first title. I don't think Loria was offered the franchise to undermine it, I think the owners like him. They don't care because MLB is a private club and he's one of the more popular members (regardless of what RedIvyCub thinks she/he knows). If he were going to move it would have happened already. Now that they have a stadium deal in place, they won't be moving. The deal, btw, is a really bad one for the fans. Not only are they going to pay $395 million dollars The Orange Bowl area is one of the worst crime ridden slums in MIami, or at least it use to be when I lived there. Little Havana is controlled by corrupt politicians. I wouldn't be a bit surprised if their attendance figures don't significantly increase after they get their own park. Not only that, but the team gets to lease the field tax free!

Let me preface this by saying that I think Cuban would be a great choice. However, defending his ability to run a business really doesn't do much to further his cause to non-believers, especially in the Cubs case. The man is going to make an obscene amount of money with the Cubs no matter what he does; the question is, is he going to run his business like Jeffrey Loria or like Steinbrenner? And by like Jeffrey Loria, I would mean keep the payroll the same and not drastically change the team. Loria makes a ton of money by selling his young players high at the cost of the team's (continued) success. My finance major friend says he's the best owner in baseball because of his business savvy. I think he's an a-hole. There could be any number of different ways to define the best owner in baseball, and profitability is certainly one. Most fans would use some variation of wins and losses/playoff appearances/world series titles as the yardstick. The Marlins don't measure up too well on that scale, even after having won the WS in each of their two playoff seasons. Regardless, it's pretty hard to make a case for a guy being the best owner in baseball when his team is perennially at or near the bottom of the league in attendance (MLB ranks since 2001: 29th, 29th, 28th, 26th, 28th, 30th, 30th, 30th so far in '08). Think of it this way. Let's say you have a publicly traded company that is not particularly well-run. It's making a profit, but it's not performing up to its potential. However, the employees are treated well with plenty of vacation time and generous bonuses. Long-time customers get contracts for their goods at below market prices. One day, someone with a boatload of money comes around and launches a hostile acquisition of the company. He buys out all the shareholders at $2b total, takes the company private, fires the Board of Directors, and puts his own people in place. Over the next three years, the guy who bought the company proceeds to cut costs in a huge way. He fires employees. He cuts down on bonuses. Subsidiaries are sold off to competitors. The price of the goods sold gets jacked up twofold. Regulatory compliance costs (OSHA, Environmental, etc.) are cut to the point where the company is still in compliance, but just barely. Now the company is making a great profit. The company's value has increased from $2b to $5b. However, at the same time, employees, clients, and long-time customers are miserable. After carving out a path of destruction, the guy sells the company off at $5b just before the company begins to suffer a downward turn that leads into an eventual collapse due to all of the things I outlined above. If you think of it from a business perspective, the guy who bought out that company at $2b was a great businessman. He made a 150% return on his investment, which is phenomenal. The company is also making a much better profit than when he first acquired it. You can say that his business savvy paid off. However, in a larger sense, the guy completely killed the company. He alienated customers. He fired employees. He did a lot of really bad things that eventually led to the company's downfall. He made a terrific profit, but at the same time, he wrecked what once was a pretty good thing for a lot of people. He didn't care about the little people he crushed in carrying out his business plan. On a personal level, the man acted in a rather disgusting way. Maybe he's a good businessman in the sense that he got a great return on his investment, but there's something to be said for the consequences of his actions. Wow! what a great post.

In the pink, means healthy.

True, but Jones not even trying to report to camp in shape does reinforce his claim that he doesn't care. For $1 mil a year, I'd hire an entire training staff and a personal chef specializing in healthy cooking to get myself into the absolute best condition I could be. For his salary?There's no excuse for being out of shape, especially if it affects the way you play. However, put yourself in Jones shoes and some jack-ass sports writer challenges you to go on a diet with him and then mocks you every week. To me there's to ways two go about it 1) get all pissed off and threaten to kick his ass and 2) pretend like it doesn't bother you. Everybody has pride. I'm sure Simers has pride in his terrible sports columns.

Ned Yost, super-genius.

T.J. Simers is a corporeal example of what's wrong with sports journalists. He's right up there with Rick Riley and his piss cup in the pantheon of immature and immoral sportswriters.

Not that I necessarily disagree, but why?

Momentum is bunk.

!@#!#$!$!@$!@#$@#@##$ !$#$!$ !#$!@#$

The Rookie is falling to pieces. C'mon Lee. Hit it to the NSBBers.

Lou needs to tell Theriot that he cannot steal. If Lou is giving the steal sign Trammel should kick Lou in the backside.

A beard

It makes sense to me that he'd be considered one of the best by the people who agree with his methods, while people with opposite viewpoints would not hold him in high esteem. You've lost me.... are yo saying you agree/disagree with his methods? Do you know his methods? What he's saying is, is that people who agree with his methods will hold him in high regard. People who don't agree with his methods don't hold him in high regard. I don't think goony has an opinion one way or the other.

That's not a fact. Its as much as a fact as the Felix Pie would be great given the chance to play full time arguement. More of a speculation. Could you kindly point me in the direction of a post that said that Pie would be great if given full time playing duties? Meanwhile, why don't you invest just a few minutes looking at Pie's history of performance in professional baseball and then get back to us about the "speculation" part. Sometimes one can learn things on the internet if one tries.

Siddhartha/Budda was left handed and had a 100 mph fastball and shoulder to toes curve, too bad baseball wasn't invented for another 1500 years. He would have thrown a no hitter. But his career would have been cut short by weight issues.

Or it could just be the fact that he's, you know, in his late 30's. And had several concussions. I've been told they do wonders for the hand/eye coordination. I use to make fun of him, but secretly I've always admired his skills on the baseball field. He's probably the best defensive CF in the last 25 years. Are you kidding me??????!!!! He is without question the most overrated defensive CF probably to ever play the game. He made his entire career out of making routine flay balls look like amazing catches. Yeah, he was good at making the diving catch, but if you judge the ball correctly off the bat and take the correct line on it (like Andrew Jones) you have to dive a lot less often. Don't let your biases cloud your judgment. He's not. He's completely accurate in saying Edmonds made a whole lot of more difficult than average catches look like you had to be a superhero to make them. However, he was in fact a very good CF, but not even close to the best of the last 25 years. Griffey Jones Hunter Puckett Lofton Just to name a few that were as good or better than him on an every day basis. Kirby Puckett?