BigbadB

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!

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.