Rob

If we're looking at Braves players to fill a utility hole, I should hope we take a nice long look at Yunel Escobar.

Throw in Wade Miller and it would make sense to me.

Ianetta is pretty highly regarded as a catching prospect and is worth using as a starter right now. I'm just surprised they didn't want lopez as a backup.

The question of Jones versus Pie is a "this year" or "next year" argument. There's no doubt this is a flawed team still. And it would take everything going right to take this team from last to first. The rest of the NL Central must falter, and our own team has to overcome a myriad of issues to allow us to win the division crown this season. Is it possible? Certainly. The NL Central is undeniably weak, and early returns on some of our more pressing issues have been promising. The team, and perhaps most notably Cesar Izturis, have been walking at a much improved rate from previous seasons. Our bullpen looks solid, and the starting pitchers have almost all been doing well. Personally, I lean towards keeping Jones and making a run at it this season. He can most likely be more useful this season than Pie. However, we are not historically lucky as Cubs fans. I understand the desire to go ahead and trade off Jones and give Pie a year to adjust to MLB pitching. If we are not in the position we think we are, and are more like the 2005 Mets, in being much improved after a big spending spree but still a year away, it would be folly to not hand the job over to Pie. If Jones and the team falter, we could always bring up Pie and play him in right through the rest of the season.

Not even XM? This is the first game to be this way. Maybe Bruce can provide PBP. I checked the XM schedule and there's nothing there about it.

Bill Buckner

Plenty of ground balls. Plenty of contact in general. He really needs to keep the ball down or he's gonna be in deep trouble.

I went with the MyFi and a pair of really old computer speakers. It's not quite as nice as the boombox, but I can take it anywhere with me.

No bathroom breaks, Vance. This is serious stuff. Wear an astronaut diaper next time. I just keep an empty gatorade bottle laying around.

Unless I'm reading the espn chat wrong, Illinois made it into the tourney as a 12 seed.

I'm thinking it wont matter who is #1 on the Cubs' board. I think the odds of somebody outside the group of Price, Brackman, and Weiters going in the first two picks is virtually nil. Basically, it comes down to who is #1 on KC's board, as I feel very confident TB will take Price with #1.

There is absolutely nothing I hate more in baseball than the hit and run. Quick baseball lesson from "The Book on The Book" by Bill Felber. "In each category, we begin by calculating the manager's success percentage...The next step is to compare that success percentage to the league average... " Moving some decimals around, you come up with a number that looks like win%, where the average manager must have .500. All these numbers taken from the 2003 season. Sacrifice Bunts: Macha - .448 Piniella - .442 Steal: Macha - .553 Piniella - .551 Hit-and-Run: Piniella - .637 Macha - .616 "Given Macha's evident abilities at both the steal and hit-and-run, what would be the effect on run production of A's management unleashing him? Let's assume each success nets a base and each failure costs on (at twice the penalty in terms of run production). If Macha had used both tactics at the frequency of the league average (130 steal attempts and 72 hit-and-run attempts) wih no performance decline on the part of either himself or his runners, the A's would gain seven-tenths of one run over the course of the season." As you can see, Piniella rates out slightly above Macha in terms of success, and I'm sure he probably attempted many times more steals and hit-and-runs than league average. Based on what Macha would have gained, I'd say it'd be a stretch to say Piniella gained 4-5 runs over the course of the entire season, in what would be rated as a very good season of managing. It's a very risky play, and it only takes Lou being wrong 6-8 times more over the course of the season to drive it into negative territory. In other words, unless Lou is absolutely sure it's the perfect thing to do, it's a pretty horrible idea.

I'm real pleased with Izturis's plate discipline to this point, though. And please God, allow Fox to stay behind the plate.

Lou's pulling out the hit and run a lot... I'm not a big fan of that.

Same here. I realize now I love Pat and Ron, but I prefer it when I'm listening to them while watching the broadcast. Pat and Ron are entertaining but Ron is a bad broadcaster. He usually sounds lost Ron is not technically proficient as a broadcaster, no. But I'd say his enthusiasm and emotion certainly saves him from being "bad."

Same here. I realize now I love Pat and Ron, but I prefer it when I'm listening to them while watching the broadcast.

It's still early, but it appears that Perry has changed this team's approach. Lee doubles off the wall over Hall, but Theriot slips and holds at third. Runners on third and second, no one out. I'm still leaning towards the "the hitters are ahead of the pitchers in the spring" school of thought. Does anybody know how our raw walk total compares to other squads?

So, Pat ate a lot of potatoes this inning or something?

He was trying to escape. :lol: "Uh... uh... I don't..." "We'll make it a quick half inning"

I'm fairly certain the Cubs don't actually have to pay if he files for free agency.

That's great news.

Bud Selig standing up for Ron... I actually respect the man now.

Just more proof that Fox is making Barrett look like Bench... I was hooting and hollering until I realized it should be a relatively common occurance.

It's about the amount of time it takes you to type it behind mine. I love XM.

Is the game on 720? That's what the title of the thread says. I'm listening to it on XM178.