jjgman21

hate to get technical, but the Cubs will be one game back in the loss column, so they won't hold their destiny in their own hands. usually not a big deal, but with this few games left, it is.

perfect timing for the DeRosa 5 for 5 game discussion. much like Lou chose Monroe over Murton there, he sat DeRosa the day after his 5 for 5. write the veterans name on nine pieces of paper, the young players name on one, put them all into a hat, and pick one.

that's strange. I had a webgem vibe there with Monroe. should have gone with the good old predictable DP vibe.

let's not use the guy who hit a dinger, a couple singles and had a walk yesterday. use the guy who has had six hits in the past month.

I mentioned earlier in the thread that I have full confidence that he will let the Cardinals roll over in that series.

middle infielders calls when back peddling is that they can get to the ball. as soon as an outfielder recognizes he can make the catch, he has to call him off and make the catch. like someone else said, he has no problem not listening to the centerfielder calling him off. there's a hierarchy here. CF over corner outfielder, outfielder over infielder, infielder over catcher and pitcher.

Definitely possible. Yeah the Reds protest a game that means nothing to them, in which they have gotten the benefit of the doubt on several calls. Meanwhile the Astros called to ask me if I could pitch against the Brewers. Seems on the level to me. You honestly think the Astros are trying to lose don't you? No, but I don't think they care if they do. Whereas the Reds are really trying to play spoiler. the Astros definitely seem to be taking the 'let's see how these young guys do' route right now, whereas they did no such thing when we faced them last week.

major league baseball players are generally capable of making 65 foot throws. it's not like it was even close. it was as routine of a tag play as occurs on a baseball field.

when your $18M man tries to go to third on a routine bouncer to short.

no. they will look to see whether the umpiring error made a difference in the outcome of the game. about the only protest ever upheld and resulted in replaying a game was the George Brett pinetar incident.

that's goooood baseball, there Mr. Gimpy.

for consistencies sake, I hope our next manager also is incapable of making a double switch.

how the hell do they not know the Taft story?

point taken. thank you.

I don't place a tremendous amount of blame on him for that, but he did get a bad jump and take a terrible route to that ball. as someone else mentioned, Floyd has to be somewhere in the neighborhood there.

It's great not to have to worry about them - Howard has 2 HRs and the Phillies have 4 haha we're going to be worrying about them when the brewers are beating the hell out of them next week. I have an inexplicable feeling the Cards are sweeping the Brewers. I would love if you were right I have a justified feeling that LaRussa will lie down in that series.

now that it has died down a little... I'm not in love with Rich Hill, but I don't hate him. I do think it's a little absurd that people are saying 'what did Rich Hill do wrong.' he did plenty wrong, and I didn't see the entire inning. that pitch sequence to Arroyo was unexcusable, and his tendency to not put batters away is disconcerting. let's stop acting like that inning was out of his control and purely a matter of luck.

proof again that god hates us. how does it not leave.

yeah damn you rich for giving up dink hits and getting boned over by the umps this all started with going 3-2 to a pitcher batting .111, then grooving and 89 mph fastball that was whacked into left. I then turned to the football game and saw him unable to put yet another pitcher away after getting to two strikes and giving up another solid single. as for the ump, I'm as big of a bitch about the umps as anyone, and I would have loved to have had that call, but it wasn't an outright boning.

I give them credit for a new found willingness to rearrange, but those polls are a fricken joke.

So why are we arguing then? I think I just showed how Guzman place is either going to be a fifth starter or the last man out of the pen, and that the Cubs have plenty of options to fill both of those spots next year if he isn't healthy. -Banghart Guzman won't be ready by next year if he has surgery, and even when he comes back, he can't be a fifth starter unless the minor leagues have 2-3 major league ready starters to fill his place after the inevitable injury. predicting the minor leagues to have that depth, or the major league pen to have that kind of depth, in 2009 is foolish. that being said, you have shown nothing. the gravy many think we may get out of Guzman is more like a third rate soup bone. his stuff may be electric, but two months of electric stuff only to leave the team in a bind for the remaining four months of the season is a risk we all should now know is not one that we should take. the only place for such a pitcher is the last guy out of the pen, if the pen is stacked.

this is the exact type of garbage I was talking about a couple pages ago, although Khmennu came up with a new delusional twist on the subject. plucking things like this out from yesterday can be used to declare every single conference crap. BE Louisville lost to seventh or eighth best team in SEC Pitt lost to six or seventh best B10 team Syracuse is Syracuse UConn struggled against a team that was so bad it dropped out of D1 P10 UCLA gets crushed by Utah Washington gets thumped on their home field by OSU Arizona loses to New Mexico B12 Texas scabs one out, and has looked like crap in all three of their games OK State crushed by Troy Nebraska gets destroyed Colorado losses on home turf to a bad FSU team SEC Auburn losses to dormat MSU Tennessee losses by 40, their second blowout loss of the season Arkansas and Alabam play the ugliest game of football in recent memory, both of whom would have lost if they weren't facing each other last night. ACC with FSU and Miami down, do they really even belong in this discussion? but we'll just elevate the importance of an admittedly embarrassing rivalry game loss and the two worst teams in the Big10 losing close games. we'll elevate an admitted inability to adjust to the basketball offense in the first half by Wisconsin, and ignore that they outgained their opponent 273 to 29 from second half kick off until the starters were pulled. as for the B12 being better than the B10 and Pac10 in most years, I guess it's how you define better, but either way, I'm not the one being stupid here. I think you prove that with your comments about the ACC being better than the B10. sure the B12 probably has a national title contender more often that the B10, but the conference is always top heavy with too few teams. by that measure, I think the Pac10 is consistently better because of USC. I think it can be implied from the part of my post that you snipped, that I agree that they are the second best conference in years when everyone but OK and TX aren't dormats or even in years when OK and TX are both dominant and everyone else is dormats. but those years are far too long in between to declare the B12 the second best conference in the country. I am pretty sure that even all the SEC homers are pretty much in agreement with my post. why the Big10 haters won't come around to reality, I have no idea.

But that is just it. The Cubs have a full rotation going into next year. They have five guys who pitched at least a 100 innings this year that they control through at least next year. If Guzman, or Prior for that matter, show up and prove that they are healthy enough to take the ball every fifth day then Marshall can be moved into the bullpen as the long/swingman. The bullpen also has plenty of depth of players that the Cubs control next year. Unless I am inaccurate about the contract status of Wuertz the Cubs have Dempster, Howry, Eyre (player option), Marmol, and Wuertz. The Cubs have all kinds of options to fill the bottom of the pen with (Gallagher, Hart, Cotts, Ohman, Pignatello, and others). The Cubs aren't counting on these guys to be healthy. However, if either of Guzman or Prior can come back and pitch like they are capable it makes the Cubs that much better. These are low risk high reward type moves that this team should make. -Banghart re: the bold, you're missing my point. my point is the same people who have lined up on this board to say Guzman should be untouchable for the past three years are now lining up to say that even if he is about to undergo major surgery, he still has something to offer the Cubs. in a way, my post is conceding that point. Guz has a place, the last man out of the pen, if the organization is stacked with pitching.

pre-emptive rant the past two weeks Texas and UW have played a little dance. UW looked better the first week and bounced over Texas. last week, Texas really didn't look good, but better than Wisconsin did, and they bounced back over Wisconsin. this week, all the pollsters will forget that Texas trailed in the fourth and won by three, and only won due to a somewhat controversial call. they will remember that Wisconsin again had a tough time adjusting to another basketball offense in the first half, and not notice that they outgained the other team 273-29 from second half kickoff until they pulled their starters.

I agree with this completely. There should be some level of respect between coaches so that once it's quite clear the game is over, you don't keep piling on. It was not only classless, but also stupid when Meyer left Tebow in to do a QB DRAW on fourth and inches with a 29 point lead with 8 minutes to go in the fourth. What happens if Tebow suffers an injury in the pile-up and is out for a few weeks or even the season? And for what, so Urban Meyer can have his bloated ego stroked a little bit more because he beat Tennesse by 39 instead of 29? Meyer wouldn't be looking as much like a genius if Tebow were injured on that play. Or if the tackle on Harvin on the deep pass resulted in an injury. I like giving credit to coaches like Mark Richt who have the good sense and class to pull starters when the game's been decided (he did the last time Tennessee got demolished - pulled his starters in the third if I recall correctly - much like Fulmer did in the blowout over Georgia last year). There need to be more coaches with a little class and integrity. injuries is an angle I didn't think of. while the teams benefit from running up the score due to the computer polls (ie. Florida and USC have to run up the score, just look at what LSU and OU are doing with backups), who is going to be the first kid who has his career ruined so a team can impress a bunch of computers.