BigbadB

I'm way inland and it's thick as heck here too...I haven't seen the sun in 3 days. There won't be many runs in the Dodgers series too. We had sun yesterday for about an hour. By the time the sun burned off most of the marine layer, it was starting to set and it just built right back up again. This will be a good game to play some small ball.

May gray is alive and well in San Diego. Do not expect many runs to score during this whole series. The marine layer is so thick, the sun still hasn't come out today. The sun usually burns it off, but not when it's this thick.

9th inning of yesterday had the closest encounter to an ejection Lou has had. The Cubs played yesterday? Who won? ESPN still hasn't updated the standings from yesterday's game. Who pitched? Why no box score? What was the batting order? How long did the starter last? How'd the bullpen do? I have so many more questions, but let's start with those. :D

Percival hasn't hit 97-98 in years. No way he comes back now and does it.

I'll be at this game tonight. Hill is going to dominate. There has been a very thick marine layer for the last week. Expect something like 1-0 or 2-1 for this game. Hill WILL NOT give up a home run tonight. Peavy will be the 2nd best pitcher on the mound in San Diego tonight. :wink: Look for me in the stands. <----That's me in my avatar.

This injury crap sucks. My DL is full. Every one of my reserves is on the DL. One of my starting relievers is now going to the DL and I have a starting outfielder who hasn't played in nearly a week because of some sort of illness. Geez.

Says the guy with the very large sig.

I am not sure what others are doing, but there has been a couple of weeks I had a sure victory as long as I didn't get negative points from a shaky starter, so I went with 6 starts instead. Wow. How chickenshit of you. :D

LOL

Exploded.

Yeah, I'm not overly fond of how the points are calculating. Although the pitching does appear to be somewhat close to the hitting. TBA takes too many points, IMO. Just some minor tinkering would probably get the job done. Maybe 1 point for a K and -.50 for a walk, or possibly even equal value? Maybe -.50 for a TBA. Maybe change an ER to -3? That would make a solo home run -2 for the TBA and another -2.5 for the earned run, nullifying the inning pitched. A triple, as it stands now is -3, which almost nullifies the inning pitched by itself. A pitcher who pitches out of the jam and prevents the runner from scoring should be rewarded a bit more than 1.5 for the inning pitched. Looking at it from another perspective, a triple that never scores should not cost a pitcher more than giving up a run. I guess what I'm seeing is too many points deducted for pitching, but just about the right amount added. An effective pitcher is getting an appropriate amount of points, but ineffective pitchers are really getting hammered in points. I think TBA is the root cause of the bulk of the deductions.

Abuck got it right. If you have issues with your pen, you do not create issues with your starting rotation to fix the problem. It's cutting off your nose to spite your face. Looking at Angel's minor league numbers and making the assumption that he can't be an effective starter in the big leagues is not a good idea either. The guy has had to work back from major arm problems. He's getting back to the form he had before the injuries and now they want to set him back by having him pitch out of the pen? STUPID! There is a reason starting pitchers are paid more than relievers. Great pitchers (Santana, Clemens, Zambrano) are not brought up as relievers for the simple reason that big league pitchers should pitch as many innings as possible. If they prove they can't go many innings and continue to get people out, then you subject them to the pen. Every team's pen is a collection of guys who aren't good enough to be starters. Some are guys who have stamina issues. Some are proven failed starters. The Cubs have been looking for a collection of 5 guys who can keep games close for the offense. They finally got that with Zambrano, Lilly, Hill, Marquis and Guzman. And now they are going to blow that up before it really had a chance to prove success. Zambrano is putting it back together. Guzman's stuff is very good and he shouldn't be the one punished because the pen has fallen apart. Every team's pen struggles. I think it will be fine once they work through their struggles. I completely agree that you move guys around in the pen and maybe call up a Marmol or Rapada if you need to make a change. Marshall probably has the best chance for success in the 5th spot over Miller, Dempster or Marmol. But, Guzman has the best chance for success over any of them. Stick Marshall in the pen if you need another bullpen arm. If Cesar Izturis is a problem in your line up, you don't move him from SS to RF to fix the problem. You take him OUT of the line up.

The pattern I see with Dempster is that he's actually pretty good in save opportunities and horrible in non save opportunities. Quit giving him work with leads that are not save opportunities. Guzman belongs in the rotation.

St. Louis getting worked over pretty good by Detroit. Miller's tossing a shut out.

Hey Chris. Not that it really matters much at this point, but I think your substitution of Valverde for Pena would be considered illegal. I suppose I could be wrong, but if you have 3 healthy relievers on your active roster, trading for another doesn't necessarily mean you can automatically insert a new one into your active roster. If you traded an active reliever for another reliever, which left you short a reliever, then it would be appropriate to insert your new reliever in. Or if you dropped one of your active relievers to make room for your new reliever, that would be okay, too. Isn't that right? And if it is right, I propose a 150 point deduction for an illegal roster move. :D I'd still be losing. :cry:

At least you only have one of those on your roster. I have a whole roster full. I'm dead last in overall points and my division lead is heading for the toilet.

My DL is looking pretty good these days. Pedro Martinez Roy Halladay Jeremy Bonderman Mike Gonzalez Rocco Baldelli

The 2005 team did not surprise me. I knew they were horrible. The 2006 team did not surprise me. I knew they were horrible. I have to admit that the 2007 team does surprise me. I thought they had the talent to win this division. And it's really not too late to have a complete turnaround. But, given this organization's history, I don't like their chances. I'm speechless about today's game. Glad I missed it. Heads need to roll.

How is Jones going to be traded? That leaves us with Floyd as the only LH threat. Not going to happen. Last time I looked, the Cubs didn't have a threat from the left side. They appear to be pretty limited in threats from the right side as well, lately.

I have 3 closers. That's not the point I'm trying to make. All I am saying is that because I was lucky enough to get 3 closers through the draft, and not every other team can afford that luxury (48 reliever spots and 32 closers), I can get 3 more points than my opponent each day for each closer. To me, that doesn't seem right. For example, look at Scott Linebrink and Trevor Hoffman. Set up man and closer for the same team. Linebrink has pitched 4 more innings, has an ERA that is 1 run less than Hoffman, comparable WHIP and Hoffman has a slightly better K rate. Hoffman is 24 points ahead of Linebrink. 30 of Hoffman's 65 points for the season have come from saves. They'd be comparable in points without the saves and they would be comparable in points if you gave Linebrink Hold points, which is basically the same thing as a save. So what if Linebrink isn't a closer? He's been a better reliever than Hoffman, but isn't nearly as valuable in Roadkill because he never qualifies for saves. To me, it just doesn't make sense. For the record, I don't have Hoffman or Linebrink on my roster. I just used them to make a point. And if you really are fine with scoring saves as 3 points, why are blown saves 0 points? Shouldn't it be -3? By making it zero points, my closer can blow a game and it doesn't cost me anything besides the same points a middle reliever would lose, but I can earn 3 extra points daily by protecting a 3 run lead. Just doesn't seem right. And with that, I'm done with my whine.

BS - Blown Saves 0 points From the rules page at Roadkill. Agree to disagree on the points. I think it's strange that a closer can get points for a save, but a set up man gets nothing for a hold. HD - Holds 0 points When you have 3 reliever spots on each team and some teams might have 3 closers while another team has none, I just don't think it's right that a closer can accrue extra points by recording a save while other relievers can't get extra points.

Speaking of whine, why does a save or a hold get a reliever extra points, but not a win or a loss? Come in with a slight lead and preserve the victory, extra points. Come into a tie game and hold the opponent while the offense gets the win, no extra points. That seems odd. I have 3 actual closers, so I'm not really complaining. It just seems odd to me that there is no penalty for blown saves, no points for a hold, no points for a win, but there are points for a save. Also, with 16 teams in the league and 3 reliever spots and a total of 32 MLB teams and 32 closers, there aren't enough closers to go around. I can get 9 points daily that a team with no closer has an option to match.

There is no way my team plays as badly this week as they did last week. Baldelli- .041 Hamilton- .050 Pudge- .066 Rollins- .080 Rolen- .133 Upton- .227 Overall Team AVG.- .180 Overall Team OBP.- .269 Overall Team SLG.- .299 Very Neifi like.

Raisin...... I offered you a trade.

I watched that game last night. Freakin' hilarious. On the jumbotron, they flashed each hitter up on the screen with a 70's retro look. Mike Cameron was laughing so hard after seeing his sillouette on his first at bat that he had to step out of the batters box. They gave him one of the biggest afros you've ever seen. Good stuff!