BigbadB

I could possibly make Rolen available.

This week, my team is the suckiest bunch of sucks that ever sucked. My bats were hitting less than .200 for the week going into today. They've decided to add an 0-14 to start off this day. But, have no fear. Richie Sexson and his .165 AVG and Scott Rolen with his .200 AVG haven't taken their bats out of the bat rack yet today. Team batting average of .155 so far this week and d r o p p i n g

I don't hate Jones, I hate Hendry for signing him. :D Actually, what drives me nuts is Jacques plate approach. It's horrible.

Seconded.

Good post. I was viewing the Cubs pitching stats about the same time you were. What really jumped out at me is Carlos Zambrano's ERA in relation to walks, and the rest of the rotations ERA in relation to walks. Hill, Marquis and Lilly have all shown outstanding control, which keeps runners off base and prevents too many runs from scoring. If you go back and look at last years team, you can see the same correlation of walks and ERA. I think Hendry finally got a bit of a grasp about the importance of not giving up walks, and I think he also understands the importance of your hitters drawing them, but this line up is loaded with guys who just don't draw walks. Jones, Soriano, Barrett and Izturis is half a line up of hackers. It would be okay to have 1 or 2 guys in your line up that don't have much patience at the plate, but 4 of them is just asking to lose games. Getting back to the pitching, I sure hope that Rothschild is praising these guys who are keeping their walk rates down. If Carlos just bears down and throws strikes and starts trusting his "stuff" instead of nibbling the corners and giving up walks, he'll be right there with the rest of the staff in WHIP and ERA. Angel Guzman is doing very well in that regard so far as well, looking at his combined starting and relief records. It's exciting to see.

That's a pretty funny defense. A guy can't hit lefties and needs a platoon partner. So the GM is trying to get rid of him. And since he spent so much time trying to find anybody to take him, he didn't try to get a platoon partner. But, because nobody would take him, we have to keep him and play him everyday even though he's a blatant platoon player. HAHAHA. Seriously, Jacque Jones looks to me as clueless at the plate as Corey Patterson did, just with slightly better results. He hacks at everything. With that said, Hendry made that bed when he signed him to a 3 year contract. The team isn't going to win or lose based on Jacque Jones being in the outfield. But, he's nothing more than a platoon player playing everyday.

This is what caught my eye in your post. Yes, the Cubs have had some injuries. Some were completely out of the teams control. However, there has been endless discussion that the organization itself was responsible for some of those injuries, including Prior, Wood and to a lesser extent, Chad Fox. I'm not saying they are innocent or guilty of ripping Wood and Prior's arms off of their sockets, but if you pretend for a moment that they were guilty of this, then can you really include those when viewing someone's overall performance as a GM? And if we pretended again that it was Dusty and not Hendry who kept running them out there way too long in games, Hendry was Dusty's boss. Hendry had the power to inform Dusty not to burn the starter's arms.

Do you mean "The Ryan Theriot Game" or "The All-Star Game presented by Ryan Theriot"? YES!

The Rockies very quickly nestled into the spot they will likely fill all season. Last place. Might as well pick on other teams when there isn't much more that can be said about your own team, I suppose.

How about we just name the All Star Game after Ryan Theriot?

I'm already giving up on this week. My pitchers are all suffering from dead arm and my hitters are going to the plate without bats. 5 for 52 at the plate so far. That has to be a new world record. At least take a glove up there to the plate, would ya?

A GM has one job. Put a team on the field that wins. It is that simple. GM's get fired all the time for NOT putting a team on the field that wins. GM's who put teams on the field that go out and win keep their jobs for as long as they want them. Hendry has not put a team on the field that wins. For that, he should have been fired already. No one wants to hear excuses. But this guy was injured and this guy had an off year and that guy wasn't as good as anticipated and this other team played over their heads. Anyone can run off a long list of excuses, but no one wants to hear excuses. They want to hear that their team is going to the playoffs. If you don't get your team to the playoffs, then the GM should voluntarily resign from his job for failing at his job or he should be fired. It's ridiculous that someone who fails at their job continues to get paid to do that job. I suppose a contract requires you pay him for that job whether he works or not, but what's the point of continuing to allow him to do a job he clearly is not good at doing? It would be better to pay him to sit at home on the couch and put someone in charge who will get the job done. There aren't only 32 people in the world qualified to be a GM. When the one you got sucks, go out and find someone who won't. There are many great baseball minds in this world, start interviewing them for the job. With that said, Hendry is still here even though I've been screaming for his removal. I did give him a pretty good grade for his offseason moves and I do have high hopes for this team this year, but he never should have been given this opportunity. All I can hope at this point is that he rights this ship, because if they don't win this year, he's really gotta go.

There wouldn't be a point to taking out his best starts, because what you really want is a guy who consistently goes out there and puts up quality starts. I don't know that Marquis fits that description, but I find it reasonable to remove a few real stinkers and leaving his best starts in there as an evaluation tool. To look at it from an extreme, a pitcher who shuts out his opponent 30 times in a season, but has 5 starts where he gives up 30 runs each is actually a pretty valuable pitcher, even if his ERA is going to be way up there because of those 5 starts. Why exclude his 5 best starts if you are just attempting to see what his body of work looks like if you exclude a small handful of really bad games?

After nailing that prediction, I was hoping the next prediction would be a 4-0 sweep in the World Series. But, 1st place on June 1st wouldn't be bad.

Shagging fly balls is probably the more appropriate terminology. A lot of pitchers do it. Some act like they enjoy shagging balls more than they like stepping onto the mound.

With Crawford, Young, Baldelli, Gomes and Dukes patrolling the D'Rays outfield, do you really think they care about Josh Hamilton anymore? They have plenty of outfield depth with or without Hamilton. With the Cubs recent history of poor performing outfielders, do you think they were really in a position to test a guy who hasn't played above A ball and had only a small handful of at bats in the last 4-5 years as their 5th outfielder? Prior to what Hamilton has done with Cincinnati, would anyone have preferred Hamilton over any one of Floyd, Murton, Soriano, Pie, Jones and DeRosa going into the 2007 season? Does anyone think the Cubs were in a position to hide a Rule 5 draftee in their line up all season? I'm certain that teams are putting together scouting reports on Hamilton that will eventually target his weaknesses. He has had great success to date and I would love to see him keep it going, but the likelihood that he continues the level of success he's had so far is pretty bleak. There just isn't much of a history of guys missing complete seasons of baseball while they feed their addictions with their entire signing bonuses, who then turn around and walk into a major league environment after never playing a single game above A ball and dominate major league pitching over an entire season. Like I said, I hope he continues his success, especially since I drafted him in my fantasy league. But, the odds are pretty overwhelming against him continuing at this level. I'll wait until the scouts identify his weaknesses and attempt to expose those weaknesses. If he passes that test, he should probably win more than just a come back player of the year award.

Randy Johnson will probably help with Arizona's numbers. I think San Diego has been playing over their heads a little bit. They do have solid pitching, but the offense is not good.

Arizona is a better team than San Diego.

Not a bad idea, except where would The Riot play? I think, in my opinion, that there's no need to move The Riot, considering how well he's been performing. Again, the entire idea is predicated on the idea that Theriot will come back down to earth sometime. I think he is already come back down to earth. His SLG is even way down compared to last year, so I'm actually expecting him to show a little more power than he has so far.

very dumb post If this is the best you have to offer, my suggestion would be to say nothing at all.

How ironic. I never noticed that before. To have the same first letter in the last name, and such a seldom used letter at that, just proves your theory.

And he was carted off the field by the obstacle he fell over? HAHAHAHA!

Didn't someone go through Jason's game log for last year and determine he would have had a lot better numbers except for a handful of real stinkers? Granted, I certainly didn't want him on the Cubs and I'm not quite ready to step on the bandwagon just yet, but he has shown to be an effective pitcher at times in the past, even if it was 1/3 of an inning at a time. :D I certainly like what he's done so far. And I won't complain if he keeps it up.

Miscalculation. I think Greinke is losing 21 points. Relievers offset, so a net TBA deduction of 21, Fuzzy Logistics WIN, Fuzzy Logistics WIN!

Utley with a double that knocks in Rollins. My lead is back down to 5 points.