Rob

The Phillies did a pretty good job of dealing with having both Jim Thome and Ryan Howard. I'd rather have the option to deal from strength later than hope and pray the worse hitter we drafted develops into a starter at another position we haven't already filled.

Lee, Aramis, and Z are all top players for the next couple of years... though they are getting darn close to their decline phases. Soriano, Lilly, Hill, Marshall, Marmol, Gallagher, Wuertz, Pie, Murton, and Soto all have strong chances to be above-average contributors at their positions. Theriot, Fontenot, DeRosa, Moore, and Fox all have a good chance to be fairly valuable if used properly. (Still not sold on Theriot and DeRosa as hitters... at least not #1, 2, or 5 hitters) Only Marquis and perhaps Cedeno are likely to have fairly significant roles while being a drain on the pitching or offense. The trick is going to be in trusting the young guys... instead of paying for overpriced junk to fill in. (I could see us re-upping Floyd, and signing LoDuca).

Ummm... Look at the total they have listed above the teams for that season? Team name is called "TOT"

There's no harm in calling him up in case a game goes 30 innings, or we need a pinch runner. You just have to trust Lou to use him right... and... uh... well, nevermind then.

Soriano wont be the face of the franchise until he's officially become an albatross, and everybody needs something to point to as a sign of the Cubs' futility.

Jones: "Hey, we won, I'm happy." Murton: "Me too." Murton: "This guy from the interweb is stalking me." Jones: "That sucks." Murton: "You can do it, put your *** into it." Jones: "Ya know, this is why that guy gets those ideas..."

No he didn't. If Lee was traded to Baltimore then Florida wouldn't have been able to trade him to the Cubs. He was essentially traded to Baltimore, who balked at the last minute. Florida then called up Hendry hoping to dump DLee and his salary and Hendry capitalized on their impatience.

If memory serves, the Cubs (and by extension, Jim Hendry) were dead last in the majors last year as far as what they spent per marginal win. If Hendry had inherited a bunch of horrible old contracts and a bad farm system, and was still fairly new to the Cubs GM position, it would be understandable. He didn't, and it isn't. Just like any other GM, he has strengths and weaknesses. He does seem fairly good at convincing players he wants to sign contracts with us (and for hometown discounts). He's also capable of making fairly good trades. However, he completely lacks an understanding of the values that make the game tick... preferring instead to rely on the conventional "wisdom" of things like the importance of a speedy leadoff hitter, and having high batting averages. As is, Hendry's skills are not enough to outweigh his deficiencies. I do applaud the signing of Z to an extension, but it is not nearly enough to redeem him.

Also, something i didnt know: If a game is suspended before it becomes a regulation game, and is continued prior to another regularly scheduled game, the regularly scheduled game with be limited to seven innings. yea, that isn't true. I took it right off MLB.com. Games that would normally be suspended before regulation are just cancelled out and postponed now.

I'm reading the official rules right now... and unless I'm mistaken, this game would not be suspended.

This is only make-or-break for the Cards, not us.

Actually, save one inning, he had a good start today. Yea how does a run shy of a quality start qualify as sucking? It's a 6.00 ERA

Yankees: Wang Mussina Hughes Petitte Chamberlain Kennedy Red Sox: Beckett Matsuzaka Buchholz Wakefield Lester Neither one of them exactly needs help with their starting rotation.

All of a sudden, he became very hittable. Not quite sure why... though I wouldn't gamble on him during the postseason run to find out.

Tomorrow is the deadline, right? What time?

Oakland isn't going to see the postseason this year. If Beane can artificially inflate Embree's value and hope to get a nice prospect for him in the offseason, there's no reason he shouldn't. It's just being smart. If there's one thing I've learned in fantasy baseball, paying attention to which players are going to be on competing teams is perhaps the most overlooked aspect of it all. You aren't going to rest your star young players in the middle of a playoff hunt... but teams like the Marlins and Mariners last year had no reason not to rest Miguel Cabrera when he came up a bit gimpy and King Felix when his innings total for the season got up there. If you pay attention to that, and nobody else does, you're gonna be a lot better off than you would have been otherwise. That being said, nobody was really predicting the A's collapse like this... I about got burned by Street myself, til I noticed somebody left Howie Kendrick available that late in the draft.

Maybe John Lennon, but the avi is Sean Lennon I believe, whose in the same boat as the 97 Marley kids who somehow continue to multiply and whore off their fathers name. you're right, you're right, it's the second generation musicians who are REALLY to blame for the Cubs weaknesses EDIT: while we're on the subject of avatars, how can Little Lord Fontenot bag on mine when he has the walking Cub logo getting backdoored by some other creature? Board rules? Board rules? You do as The Scorpions have done before you. That is the only rule that must be abided.

I can't believe I went to all the trouble of proving Marshall is a fantastic fifth starter even for a playoff team, and all I got back was a "He is OK." All this to be followed by two pages of goofiness. I'm not gonna waste my time looking up the numbers for Pie and everybody else I'd need to make a comparison.

1%??? Those dirty racists. Get em outta here.

if the worst case scenario has him putting up a .786 ops during a slump, where do i sign up? Combined with being one of the worst regular OF's in the game? I guess I have higher standards for $14M. I'm not saying I wouldn't want him under any circumstances and he is a pretty good bet to get you around an .850 OPS. However there are things that make me hesitant and I would want them to eat some of that money. If not, I'd rather go with Murton (and Jones if necessary) and allocate that $10-$13M to Z and a possible shot at A-Rod. again, defense is not our problem, our problem is OPS. burrell provides that. i'd take him in a second. You're right, defense isn't our problem. But awful defense changes a player's worth. I think there's a very reasonable chance that we can come up with an in-house option(s) that provides an .800 OPS for a low cost. Is Burrell going to be able to produce enough offensively to make up that $10-$13M AND the defensive drop off? The marginal wins between 86-90 (IIRC) are worth more than any others. If Burrell could help us win a net of two games from here on out, the 10-13 mil would be greatly reduced.

That's a bit too broad. Soriano had plenty of cold streaks/slumps/whatever you want to call them during the two months the Cubs were dominating because he is and always has been a very streaky hitter. Yes, he's missed now, but his injury combined with Lee's slump and Aramis being hurt/out is the much larger issue. If the latter two weren't happening, or even just one of them was mashing, Soriano's absence wouldn't be nearly as obvious. Yeah - that's terrible analysis Soul and you know it. There were a lot of factors that went into our terrible start. Soriano didn't help but Z was crap too. And Soriano isn't the only player hurt or not playing well now. Mojo mentioned Lee and ARam, but our SP has been suspect recently (Marquis was good in his last outing, bad the one before it, Marshall's had 2 bad turns in a row, Z and Hill both got rocked this week - all hail Ted Lilly, eh?). When Soriano finally got hot, he wasn't the only one. Lee and ARam have been consistent basically all year, but DeRosa had a great June and good July, Jones had a good July, Fontenot had a great June, Theriot was great in July (our SS position was pathetic for 3 months). There's a lot more analysis needed. "As Soriano goes, so go the Cubs" is far, far, far from accurate. There's no other analysis needed in terms of Soriano being important to this team. Or didn't you realize there are people lurking around here who think losing Soriano meant nothing? Hell, if Murton keeps hitting like he has in August, we make a big gain by losing Soriano... providing that's what it took to get him into the lineup (assuming we weren't gonna pull the plug on Floyd anyway)

Not having looked yet, I have to agree that the spin on Pie probably wont be near so positive. I'm praying for a BABIP discrepancy, otherwise I'll have to resort to preseason projections. Though I don't imagine I'll have a hard time making a case for him over our other options we'd bring up.

Health is a skill.

It's not working. Looks like we'll need the commercial-grade image. Probably not working because while you may not like the wording of the original post, you can't argue the validity of the arguement no matter how many goofy pictures you put up. Yeah, we can. Everybody is arguing how valid your so-called "point" is. Marshall is still a fantastic fifth starter at this point. Potential playoff teams, their fifth starter, and his ERA: AL: Red Sox - Julian Tavarez, 5.20 Yankees - Hughes, 4.64 (was Igawa, 6.79) Indians - Aaron Laffey, 5.73 (Cliff Lee, 6.38) Tigers - Andrew Miller, 4.42 (DL) Angels - Bartolo Colon, 6.72 (DL) Mariners - (for both fourth and fifth starters, pick two of Jeff Weaver, 6.20; Horacio Ramirez, 7.12; Cha Seung Baek, 5.74; Ryan Feieraband, 8.47) NL: Mets - Mike Pelfrey, 5.92 Braves - Jo Jo Reyes, 8.72 Phillies - JD Durbin, 4.12 (just four starts) Brewers - Claudio Vargas, 4.97 Diamondbacks - Yusmeiro Petit (just removed for Kim, 4.93) Padres - Clay Hensley, 6.18 Rockies - Jason Hirsch, 4.81 Dodgers - Matt Tomko, 5.49 I tried to avoid injury cases as best I can and go with the guys who would be predicted to be the #5 starters near the beginning of the season, but in cases like Philly and Atlanta, injuries and trades have made it pretty hard to ignore all of them. Either way, Marshall and his 4.17 ERA more than stand out in the group. I'm tired of putting out the numbers now, so I'll come back with some Pie stuff later.

This is bad news. Most of the time, the highest leverage situations are earlier in the ballgame... I don't want Dempster pitching then, and I sure don't want us saving Marmol or Howry until the 9th when we may or may not have a lead.