rawaction

If this half of the inning is finished, it can't be called until after the Cubs bat.

No, that is why sacrifice bunts that aren't executed well are stupid. It's stupid to even try. 2 straight hits, fell behind Marquis. Theriot hitting .336 and is red hot. No reason for him to be bunting.

Seriously dude his hitting .336. The pitcher sucks, why let him off the ropes?

http://z.about.com/d/baseball/1/7/r/4/-/-/cubs16.jpg http://www.durfee.net/oz/images/Adebisi.jpg Oh snap!

y the f is marquis batting?

Padres have hit the ball hard enough that they could still be batting in the 1st inning with some luck.

Estes singles? C'mon Lou, pull the MF

Are they taking away runs from the Cubs now?

first batter of the inning.

Been a while, only 1 extra base hit since he was hit on the wrist. Damn, I hate wrist injuries.

He would already be out of a job if he was terrible and right handed.

If Marquis ever wants another CG Shutout, his best chance is if this game ends after 5.

Marquis showing Zambrano how to pitch to Jody Gerut!

I never wanted a leadoff HR so bad. Estes had a 0 ERA before that pitch. That's just not normal.

Interesting boxscore for Iowa. Top 4 (Patterson, Fuld, Murton, Hoffpauir)- 6 for 13, 2 BBs, 5 runs, 5 RBIs (all by Hoffpauir). Bottom 5- 0 for 16 with 6 of the team's 7 strikeouts.

Carlos Marmols more making a crazy manager look out of his soap dropping mind. Theres no question Marmols the best reliever alive, but pitching him in some of the situations Lou has is just downright ridiculous. Did you catch that this was a fantasy discussion?

Because he's not. He's still a somewhat worthwhile major-leaguer to some teams. He's worthless to the theoretical SmartCubs that start Pie, to be sure. He's in a grey area to the actual Cubs that are starting Reed Johnson vs. righties. I'd argue he's worthwhile to them, but it's close enough that I can respect the opposite opinion. But he's still good enough to be a worthwhile major-leaguer somewhere. The ideas that Edmonds isn't completely washed up and that the Cubs are idiots for not starting Pie aren't mutually exclusive. I see your point. I still think Edmonds is worthless. He hasn't shown that he can even get back to that .755 OPS vs. RHPs. He was one of the worst players in baseball thru July last year w/ an OPS under .700. He's a year older. A year worse defensively. He was just cut from the worst offensive team in the MLB for Jody Gerut! Edmonds is done.

Didn't see Dusty. But I picked Kaz Matsui. He was actually gonna start at 2B over Derosa and hit leadoff people and get a multiyear deal (3 years, I believe) to boot! Edmonds can be cut for minimal. Neifi was signed as a 25th player, who Dusty used as a starter. The rest of those guys (other than Marquis) were cheap, short-term contracts either real or potentially.

This is just straight up absurd. He's worthless based on his age, health, rapid and steady decline over several years, horrible 2007 and atrocious start to 2008. Don't pretend people are basing this on 100 PA, it makes you look ridiculous. If Edmonds 2007 was horrible, then you guys have a different definition of horrible than me. A CF who puts up a .755 OPS vs. righties is a valuable half of a platoon. No, he's not really. Especially when Felix Pie could conceivably come close to that number if playing everday vs. RHPs and have the added benefit of gettign the growing pains over with instead of going thru the same thing next year or whenever the Cubs determine Pie to be ready. I completely agree that Felix Pie is loads better and the Cubs are idiots for not giving him the CF job. A .755 OPS is on the extreme low end of what I'd expect from him vs. righties on an everyday bassi, and he'd play loads better defense to boot. So, why are you arguing that Edmonds is not worthless?

This is just straight up absurd. He's worthless based on his age, health, rapid and steady decline over several years, horrible 2007 and atrocious start to 2008. Don't pretend people are basing this on 100 PA, it makes you look ridiculous. If Edmonds 2007 was horrible, then you guys have a different definition of horrible than me. A CF who puts up a .755 OPS vs. righties is a valuable half of a platoon. No, he's not really. Especially when Felix Pie could conceivably come close to that number if playing everday vs. RHPs and have the added benefit of gettign the growing pains over with instead of going thru the same thing next year or whenever the Cubs determine Pie to be ready.

I'm 2-0 in the stands. Will be there next Friday.

I wouldn't shed any tears. Although what do you do with him? I guess he'd first be demoted to the bullpen. If he stinks there, I don't know if the Cubs would be willing to send him to the minors with that contract. I don't know if they'd eat it by DFA'ing him, so I guess the most logical choice would be to trade him for whatever you can get. It would be either garbage for garbage, or we'd have to ship off some good young talent along with him if we wanted his salary completely off the books. I guess it would probably be garbage for garbage, and hope we strike gold again like we did in the Hundley for Karros and Grudz trade. I'd be surprised if Marquis is demoted for another pitcher if he does bad tonight. So far the swapping hasn't worked very well. Lieber and Gallagher both sucked in their starts. My guess is if we don't think he is a starter anymore we will immediately try to trade him but keep him in the rotation until we do. You demote him he has zero value you keep him in rotation he has at least some value. Either way he would be coming off of a crappy outing in a season of crappy outings from a recent history of crappy outings. If Marquis doesn't pitch well, he doesn't have any value other than an innings eater. And if he does pitch poorly again, he better be removed from the rotation for Rich Hill.

You can do that.

You act as if this team can't win with Felix. That's nonsense. The Cubs offense has been perfectly fine while getting nothing from CF against RHP. Clearly they can succeed with Pie in CF against RHP. Edmonds doesn't even offer an upgrade in that regard. Early in a season when you are scoring lots of runs and winning lots of games is the absolute easiest time to try and let a kid develop on a contender. This isn't low risk. The risk is that Edmonds hits in the 5th spot, keeps sucking, but keeps playing because the Cubs are absolute failures at realizing when a veteran is done. Jason Kendall kept blowing chunks for months while Soto was destroying the ball, yet the Cubs did nothing. This move could easily cost a game, not to mention delays Pie's development and reduce his trade value. There's no rational support for this move, only nonsensical "proven veteran" conventional wisdom BS. Let's not forget what Pie brings defensively compared to Edmonds. It almost seems to me that the Cubs want a 5 hitter more than anything. The Cubs continue to have these obsessions based on what batters box a guy stands in and where he has hit in the lineup. We've seen them sign Burnitz and Jock because they were LH with pop enough to either break up Lee/Ramirez or hit behind them. We've seen them overpay for Pierre, because he is an experienced leadoff hitter. We've seen them spend a large part of the offseason obsession over Furcal and Roberts.