BigbadB

Looks awesome. But, I won't be golfing there at those prices. Heck, I can go to Torrey Pines for $45. If you can get us a good deal, I'll golf with ya.

My favorite will likely always be Juan Marichal. My least favorite is a lengthy list: Kent Tekulve Fernando Valenzuela Mike Gonzalez (Active with Braves) Gene Garber Mike Fetters Al Hrabosky

I don't remember who to apply the credit to, Meph or TT, but one of them provided a spray chart that showed a lot of Khalil Greene's fly balls at Petco to be home runs at Wrigley for the 2007 season. Obviously, each home run nullifies an out, which in turn improves his OBP, AVG and SLG. I'll take a quick look at his splits to see what visiting parks he's played in so far to see if a lot of them are more neutral than the one's he's yet to visit. Only 17 games have been at what I would call hitter friendly parks (Jacobs, Wrigley, MinuteMaid, Chase, Citizen's Bank), and he didn't play all that well there, either. There might be a little truth to a loss of intensity considering how horribly the Padres have been as a team this year. I'm not sure what to make of that, but the Cubs aren't playing poorly, so it probably wouldn't be a concern. As bad as he's been, I still like what he offers defensively and in power. Last year, he had 7 HR's at NL Central ballparks (at least one at each park) in 20 games.

Yeah, I like 16 if it's at all possible. No whiney bitches? That leaves me out. I also enjoy the H2H format. Nothing better than getting creamed by the last place team in the league because your team sucks that week.

Hey Raisin, It looks like you could use some help setting your rotation for week 16. I'd be happy to help.

Greene just needs a change of scenery.

Got any data to back up your claim?

I'm game. I leave for Idyllwild on Sunday for a week, but am available until then.

I'd love to, but I have to admit that mid-year is vacation time for me, as well as many other people. It might be hard to pull off during vacation time, but we can give it a try.

Just because its a question about baseball, doesn't mean that a scout should be the authority on the correct answer. Just because your sell computers for CDW, doesn't mean you know how to run a company. Agreed. Scouts aren't paid to determine where a player best fits into a line up card. Separating scouts for a minute with major league managers, I don't think the "good ole boy" network always makes the best decisions on line ups, either. My comments aren't meant to bastardize Theriot. I will give credit where it is due. He's having a great year at the plate and I'm happy to say so. My comments are fact based (right out of the Cub stat books). If you want to score the most amount of runs possible, Theriot just isn't the guy to look at to start off a game. If the Cubs didn't have Lee, Ramirez, Soto, Fukudome and Edmonds in the heart of the order, then I might lean your way and go with Theriot at the top of the line up with Soriano hitting 3rd. Soriano is a difference maker at the top of the order. How much do I like having a difference maker batting first? A whole heck of a lot. I like Jimmy Rollins batting first. I like Curtis Granderson batting first. Neither of these guys are OBP studs, but when they bat first, they make poop happen. If we didn't have Soriano and it was 2005 again and Dusty was our manager, I'd be screaming for Theriot to bat at the top of the order. OBP is no longer a problem with this team, however, as there is a great balance of OBP all the way through the line up. With that said, look very closely at Soriano's production at the top of the line up and show me how many other lead off guys are more productive than him over the course of a season. The answer. Not many. I know we went around with this discussion back when Roberts was a potential add-on, but if they did land Roberts, I'd still have Soriano leading off and Roberts hitting 2nd. One of my favorite things about Soriano leading off is when the bottom of the order gets a few runners on, you don't have to hope that the line up gets all the way to Lee for something to happen. Soriano can make it happen a few spots ahead of Lee. And when I say "something to happen", I'm referring to XBH's.

Yeah, you're right. No one wants exempt players at the end of the year. :roll: :D And how am I supposed to control the fact that many of my minor leaguers got promoted to the bigs this year? Stewart and Scherzer are still minor league eligible and I hope they stay that way. I've had others get promoted that I went ahead and dropped, also.

Which two are you dumping? I'll be dumping more than 2, since I'll be keeping Brandon Webb, Matt Holliday and probably one or more of Carlos Pena, Rickie Weeks, Milton Bradley, Vernon Wells or Javier Vasquez depending on who fits within the cap.

My waiver order was pretty obvious. Feliz>Inoa>Huff I don't know why I didn't have Alderson in my queue. Probably wouldn't have gotten him anyway, as he would have been 4th on my list. Also, I was surprised to get Dominguez as a free agent. A lot of slow activity on Roadkill, I guess. Also surprised that Betances went via free agency. Also, Raisin, I can't blame you for not dropping other minor leaguers for extra add ons. I'd trade my minor league team for yours in a heartbeat.

My short exempt list: :grin: Ryan Braun: 323.5 points James Shields: 302.5 points Geovany Soto: 271 points Jacoby Ellsbury: 259.25 points Stephen Drew: 233 points Ubaldo Jimenez: 231.5 points Johnny Cueto: 197 points Alexei Ramirez: 157.5 points Carlos Marmol: 140.5 points Carlos Gonzalez: 90.8 points Max Scherzer: 89.5 points Ian Stewart: 31 points

So, what you're saying is I wouldn't have gotten Huff if I didn't grab him through waivers? When I saw him go to me, I was curious if anyone else had put a bid on him, and was a bit disappointed I didn't try to wait it out and grab him via free agency.

Yeah, Hendry long has a reputation of being a straight shooter, so I believe him when he said it was in the works for a month. Plus the Cubs were linked to Harden going back that far in the rumor mill, which is stronger evidence than a nameless AL executive trying to make Hendry sound desperate. Yep. Sounds like sour grapes to me.

The main job of a lead off hitter is to score runs. You are way too hung up on the OBP thing, but I'm going to try this again, anyway. DeRosa: 362 PA, 57 runs, .283 .377 .453, only 14 of his at bats have been higher than 5th in the order all year, so he's had bottom of the order guys hitting behind him most of the year. Theriot: 392 PA, 52 runs, .320 .394 .369, most his his at bats have come at the top of the order where Lee, Ramirez, Fukudome and Soto have hit behind him, yet with more plate appearances than DeRosa and a better OBP, he's scored much less. That's because he doesn't hit for power. DeRosa has twice as many XBH's than Theriot. Thus, DeRosa makes for a better top of the order hitter than Theriot. I'm not advocating DeRosa to hit 1st, just pointing out how DeRosa would actually be better in that role than Theriot. I have yet to see a box score where the winner of a game was decided by who got on base the most rather than who had the most runs. Those same scouts would probably say that Curtis Granderson, Jimmy Rollins and Grady Sizemore shouldn't be leading off, either. It's not just about getting on base. It's about getting in scoring position. Because Theriot is not good at getting himself in scoring position (poor XBH power and poor stolen base percentage), he is better off hitting towards the bottom of the order. Yesterday's game was a perfect example. Late in the game with runners on 1st and 2nd, the Cubs had Reed Johnson, Ryan Theriot and Mike Fontenot hitting with the game on the line. Hardly any power at all there. It sure would have been nice to have Soriano coming up (top of the order hitter) in that situation. It's also interesting that you drag Soriano's defense into the discussion. Why such venom towards a guy that has been very productive for the Cubs thus far? Theriot's defense nearly cost the Cubs the game on Saturday, yet he gets a free pass with you?

He wasn't met with 100% scorn. I wouldn't have minded Fuld earning the 5th outfield spot.

Any time you are dealing away Brandon Webb, it is not a "no-brainer". I wouldn't give up the pitching. As weak as your pitching is, I wouldn't trade either Volquez or Webb. You have Uggla at 2b and you have plenty of OFers, but very little quality pitching. I think you should just sacrifice the SB's and hope you can win the other categories.

Micah Owings and Tim Hudson's relief appearances have been adjusted along with Andrew Miller's start. Pretty easy fix.

The objective is to score runs.

Golfnow.com offers some really great discount tee times on courses all over the place. If you haven't checked it out, do yourself a favor. I'm playing one of the nicer golf courses in San Diego County on Tuesday for $27 (greens fee and cart) through golfnow.com. That's a 51% savings.

I like 5, mainly because 1 dominant starter can really devastate an opponent with a good start, but after surveying a few rosters I noticed Buddiga only has 5 starters, and there could be others, I think I'm cool with 4 starts.

No it doesn't. The offense seemed pretty maximized to me with Soriano batting first. Soriano batting 1st: .297 .344 .574 .918 36 runs scored in 46 games, 26 XBH's and 40 RBI Theriot batting 1st: .341 .383 .341 .724 4 runs scored in 10 games, 0 XBH's and 3 RBI This includes Soriano's woeful start and playing injured.

Hey Juan, Personally, I'm okay with playing the short week, but are there going to be any special rules for the short week, like limited starts? Not everyone has the same amount of starters, and I think the rules for the short week should be defined before the week starts. Also, will teams have until Wednesday night to set line ups/make roster additions for the week? Inquiring minds want to know.