Diffusion

How about Williams, Aardsma, and Marshall for LaTroy and Tejada? Ronny Cedeno is not the problem with this team right now. But if you can get Tejada for Marshall, kind of, I guess you've got to do it. And then trade Tejada for Manny Ramirez or something. Marshall has exceeded my expectations and then some, but I'd do that deal any day of the week. Ronny would also not be the problem with this team if he was playing 2nd. And then Lee comes back and you put Walker where?

What trash did we get in return for Patterson again? Nate Spears has a .225/.329/.239/.568 line at Daytona! Well, excuse me while I clean up my drool. Yuck! The other player we got for Corey, Carlos Perez, has this line out of the Daytona bullpen... 13 IP, 26 H, 3 HR, 14 BB, 14 K, 10.38 ERA

How about Williams, Aardsma, and Marshall for LaTroy and Tejada? Ronny Cedeno is not the problem with this team right now. But if you can get Tejada for Marshall, kind of, I guess you've got to do it. And then trade Tejada for Manny Ramirez or something.

Ryan Doumit is moving to first to accomodate Ronny Paulino behind the plate.

Update: Cubs have now scored just 11 runs in their last 10 games.

High-eighties to low-nineties fastball, not much movement, okay changeup, not much else, throws from the left-side. Pass. Mitre on the other hand will be fine once he gets over the big inning meltdowns. And he will. He added 150 points to his ERA in recording his last out. He was down at 3.38 or so.

That's it! Eureka! The 10-man lineup is the way to score more than 2 runs in a ballgame! Why didn't I think of this before? Anyway, seriously, less Jones. And Walker's fine at second base.

What?! Did I hear that right?! Did someone mock Nomar Garciaparra's arm strength?! The guy has an absolute cannon for an arm. The problem has always been that because of the low arm slot he throws from, he too often fails to be accurate enough with throws. Maybe you want to argue that he'll miss cutoff men with wild innaccurate throws, but don't question how hard the guy can throw a baseball.

Hindsight is 20-20. I completely agree about the hindsight 20/20 thing. Except it's not hindsight at all, it's foresight. I was arguing for re-signing Nomar last October/November (with a view to play him in right field), and it's still my opinion that we should have done exactly that, and at no stage between then and now has it not been my opinion that that's exactly what we should have done.

Nomar's hitting .306/.386/.571. Would look awfully good in RF. Or 1B with Lee out. But no, the Cubs gave him and his hometown discount the hard shoulder.

Earl Weaver just turned over. in a stunning development, the move leads to zero runs. 1st/2nd 0 outs, for 1999-2002, on average you had a 0.421 chance of scoring two runs or more. 2nd/3rd 1 out, for 1990-2002, on average you had a 0.41 chance of scoring two runs or more. The only way it becomes worth it is if Patterson somehow manages to get on while bunting. Perhaps it's just the perfect bunt, or the fielder fumbles it, or throws the ball away. However, against that there's the risk that Patterson will pop the bunt up, or make a poor enough bunt that the Mariners can force the lead runner at third. So, especially with a hot bat at the plate like Corey Patterson, plus a badly struggling reliever like Eddie Guardado, the move really was indefensible. You've got a difference in your expected values here of 0.01. That means you have to replicate this circumstance 100 times in order to lose (on average) 1 instance where you don't score the two runs. Yes. And what, thereby you'll score the two runs, on average, once more often in every 100 tries? You can't have it both ways. Getting on base via the bunt play is a possibility, I even explicitly mentioned that. However, if you go up to the plate and you offer bunt right away, obviously trying to sacrifice yourself, your chances of beating out a hit are greatly diminished. When the defence is expecting to bunt, it's a lot easier to handle than the same attempt aided by the element of surprise. It would have to be either the perfect bunt, or the fielding team would need to somehow mess up. You know, like I already said. Otherwise, no matter how speedy the runner, major league defences gobble up the sacrifice bunt just about every time. So, I think it's unlikely that Patterson is able to beat out sacrifice attempts at a rate that much above average. Especially not when the third baseman is Adrian Beltre, who's superlative defensively. And especially Corey Patterson as we all know isn't a particularly good bunter. I don't see any reason to think that Patterson is going to get on at such a rate so as to make the bunt the percentage play. And, obviously, mitigating against the possibility that Corey does get on, is the possibility, like I also already said, that the bunt play might go wrong, Corey could strike out bunting, or pop it up or lay down a bad enough bunt that the Mariners force the lead runner at third. Yes, I call the strategy indefensible. You have a hot hitter at the plate and a closer on the mound that right now seemingly doesn't know how to get outs. So what, you try and give him an out? If it works, which I'd guess is something like nine times out of ten, you've not improved your chances of scoring the runs in the inning. If it doesn't work, maybe one in twenty, you've greatly harmed them. And if you luck out, maybe one in twenty again, the lead runner probably doesn't score anyway. Corey doesn't have much of a platoon split, so the fact that Guardado's a lefty isn't that relevant. But being a lefty himself, and one that loves to pull the ball at that, Corey could easily get the lead runner over, if not the trail one too, just by putting the ball in play and not having it find a hole. Being fast, he's extremely tough to turn two on. If it finds a hole it's a hit, quite possibly one for extra bases. He could strike out, but he's been better at that this year. The move just doesn't make any sense whatsoever, and that's even before you look at the statistics which back that up. Like I said, probably nine times out of ten you don't improve your chances of scoring the runs. Are the odds of Patterson doing something that helps less than one in ten?

Ohman still hasn't been as bad as Rusch, and he was a lot more effective last year as a lefty reliever. Sending him to the minors would also burn his last option. The best move right now really is to let Rusch keep starting, like he wants...in Iowa.

You can DFA Rusch and send him to the minors. If he's claimed off waivers or he refuses the assignment, the Cubs lose him but they don't owe him the rest of his contract. Otherwise, while they'll still owe him the rest of his deal, they won't lose him, but won't have to put up with him on the 25-man roster right now.

I'd be willing to part with Glendon Rusch.

So Albert is going to hit more than 100 homeruns, and a pitching staff that finished second then first respectively in the past two seasons won't? We shall see. Do you want me to run through exactly who's on your pitching staff besides Carpenter and Mulder? I meant that Pujols would hold up as by far the best hitter in the game, someone capable of putting four or five members of the rest of your sorry lineup on his shoulders and just carrying them.

All those numbers mean is that he is due for a hot streak to get back to career norms. The team has been winning despite his struggles, so hopefully they continue winning when he comes around. Same canbe said for Aramis Ramirez. Even if his numbers were much, much worse than what you could expect for him, there's no reason to think he'll get a hot streak to average it out. Averages do not work that way. Yes, they do. That is exactly why they are called averages. I wonder, do you just realize what you said? You just said that if you flipped a coin 10 times and it came up heads 10 times in a row, it would come up tails the next 10 times. A better way of putting it would be... You flip a coin 10 times and it comes up heads 10 times. You flip it another 90 times and you ought to end up nearer 50/50.

Earl Weaver just turned over. in a stunning development, the move leads to zero runs. 1st/2nd 0 outs, for 1999-2002, on average you had a 0.421 chance of scoring two runs or more. 2nd/3rd 1 out, for 1990-2002, on average you had a 0.41 chance of scoring two runs or more. The only way it becomes worth it is if Patterson somehow manages to get on while bunting. Perhaps it's just the perfect bunt, or the fielder fumbles it, or throws the ball away. However, against that there's the risk that Patterson will pop the bunt up, or make a poor enough bunt that the Mariners can force the lead runner at third. So, especially with a hot bat at the plate like Corey Patterson, plus a badly struggling reliever like Eddie Guardado, the move really was indefensible.

Dempster, Eyre, Howry, Williamson, Wuertz, Novoa, Ohman. Quit messing around and get our seven best relievers out there. I think everyone's in agreement about the first four. The last three combined last year for... 163.2 IP, 139 H, 16 HR, 89 BB, 181 K, 3.74 ERA (majors only) 199.2 IP, 163 H, 19 HR, 102 BB, 211 K, 3.70 ERA (Iowa included) ...and so far this year they're at... 19 IP, 23 H, 4 HR, 11 BB, 16 K, 8.05 ERA (majors only) 31.2 IP, 32 H, 4 HR, 15 BB, 24 K, 5.68 ERA (Iowa included) Yes, they've given up a lot of runs, but for guys that have obviously been struggling, those peripheral numbers just aren't THAT terrible, and, for crying out loud, it's 19 innings (because they've been fine at Triple-A). Just quit messing them around, up down up down, quit judging them on one or two bad April outings, and just trust in them, because they will come around. Yes, they walk too many guys, but how many bullpens are perfect top to bottom? The three last year combined for a 3.70 ERA. Anyone here want to argue that was a fluke? Rotation of... Zambrano, Maddux, Marshall, Guzman, Hill/Rusch/Williams At some point you've got to believe Rusch is going to stop giving up a home run every two innings. But he's just got to be DFA'd.

I don't know about that. I know what you mean, Furcal signed with another team opting not to come to Chicago, but he only did so because the dollars per year were better in LA. It was the Cubs who "resisted the urge" to match or better the Dodgers offer. Revisionist history once again. What actually happened was the Dodgers said that their $39m/3yr offer was only good for as long as it took Furcal to try and use the offer as leverage with other teams. Effectively, the Dodgers put the pen in Furcal's hand, and said, sign now, or don't sign. And, it being $39m/3yrs, he signed. The Cubs at no point had the opportunity to improve their offer, which was already plenty expensive enough at $47m/5yrs.

I was a Glendon Rusch fan until he showed up to Spring Training in terrible shape.

For what it's worth, there's a slightly wider angle shot of the throw at ESPN. You can see Young turn his body to throw just as he leaves the frame. And the bat seems to be going a lot slower than in the more tightly cropped shot, the one that's been doing the rounds, which I think exaggerates things. Check it out.

For the ten thousandth time, it's not lying, it's war strategy.

As with any Minor League promotion, the idea is to get people out to the park that normally wouldn't be there. The fans will be there regardless of what promotions are going on. With that being said, teams have to figure out ways to get the others out there. Of course. I just don't think that a 1 in 130 chance of any money being paid out is going to achieve that.

Middle of next week, apparently.

The Cardinals pitching won't hold up. Albert Pujols probably will.