bukie

Really pumped for tonight's game. This one is huge for the class of bowl the Illini should get this year. Could be looking at 9-3 or better with a win tonight.

Garza is being pretty efficient today, 82 pitches through 7.

Considering how much of the Bears' D relies on speed, I wonder if this can only help them.

So because the Saints put up 34 points against a team some people thought would be the top defense in the league, it means that will be the low point for that offense this year? The Saints typically struggle against the Cover 2 defense, and the Bears run a better version of it than Tampa does.

Bears 16, Saints 13. Bears D shows up again, but doesn't get all the turnovers. Cutler gets the Bears in the red zone 5 times to get 1 TD, 3 FGs and an interception.

Teams were hesitant this year to give up anything of value for 3 months of a player. They're not going to give up anything at all for 2 weeks of a player. Because that would be stupid.

Well, we're coming to the close of another disappointing year of Cubs baseball, so let's use this thread to look back at the year to see what worked and what didn't (more didn't). What didn't work: 1. Replacement starters: Since Wells and Cashner went down the first week of the season, the rotation has been basically a train wreck all year. The Cubs have combined to go 4-27 in games started by Casey Coleman, James Russell, Doug Davis, or Ramon Ortiz, and are 6-7 with Rodrigo Lopez starting. Which means they're 55-51 with their planned rotation. 2. Organizational hitting philosophy: The Cubs system stresses aggressive swinging, and the results just aren't paying off. They're 29th in baseball at drawing walks, mostly because their hitters swing at 33% of pitches out of the strike zone (3rd most), and make contact with 64.9% of those pitches (3rd least). Oddly enough, they're near the top of the league at contact within the strike zone, so if they could cut down the swinging at crap, they'd probably be well above average offensively. It's not just any one player, either. It's basically everyone except Kosuke Fukudome (who is gone) and Carlos Pena (who will likely be gone). It's hard to imagine just three years ago, the offense was near the top of the league in walks and total offense. 3. Pitching Management: This is mostly on Quade, but there's been too much overuse of the quality arms in the bullpen and rotation, especially after the Cubs have been well out of the race. Dempster threw 131 pitches two days ago, and although he may not be a young arm the Cubs need to protect for 10 years, he's 6th in PAP behind Felix Hernandez, Verlander, Halladay, Lincecum and Jered Weaver. There's no reason for the Cubs coaches to put Dempster in that league of pitcher abuse in a season like this. Marmol was used surprisingly well until the end of June, used on three consecutive days only once (and one of those days was an 11-2 loss). Since July started, he's been used three straight days seven times, and a couple times he was used 5 times in 6 days. Add in unnecessary usage of Marshall, Wood and Samardzija, improper use of Russell, and unnecessarily frequent use of guys like Grabow and Davis, the pitching staff has been an absolute disaster this year overall. 4. Lack of a true offensive superstar: Although Aramis Ramirez is likely the best offensive 3B (in a serious down year at 3rd), the Cubs lack a single top 25 offensive player by any all-encompassing metric (OPS, wOBA, WAR, EQA). This would be fine if the entire offense was above average top to bottom, but it hasn't been. The entire outfield has been barely average across the board, with an outlier from Reed Johnson being the only really above average performance. 5. Darwin Barney as everyday starter: Yes, his defense is superb (to the point that he should probably play SS if he plays with Castro at 2B), but his hitting was subpar, even in a subpar year. If the Cubs had an outlier offensive superstar at a position or two, they could afford to scrap offense at a position in the name of defense (although preferably at SS, again), but they just don't have that this year. 6. Carlos Marmol as closer: It may just be a one-year blip, but Marmol was merely an average reliever this year. The walk rate is increasingly concerning, at 5th in the league this year, and he led the league in blown saves. He's still pretty unhittable with a .201 BAA, but he produced well below his salary this year. What did work: 1. Investing in the draft: The Cubs signed an enormous number of draft picks, including several over slot, thanks to a renewed investment in the draft from the Ricketts. Giving the Cubs the ability to draft high upside guys with signability issues in later rounds is like giving the Cubs extra high-round picks. It may not all pan out in player evaluation and development given what's in place, but it's a step in the right direction for building the system from within. 2. The Garza trade: Matt Garza has been the Cubs' lone above average starter (which is why it makes even less sense that Dempster is being abused so much). The record may not look it due to the lack of run support, but he's a top 15 starter in xFIP, and a top 20 starter in WAR, about the same as Tim Lincecum. Considering he's also the youngest regular in the rotation (younger than Wells), the trade has been a huge boost to an otherwise devastated rotation this year and going forward. 3. Starlin Castro's hitting: For age 21, his offense has been phenomenal from a contact standpoint. He'll need to develop either more power or more patience to really vault into the elite SS of the league, but to already be at the doorstep at such a young age says a lot about how promising the kid is. The power should develop on its own. The plate discipline is both fortunately and unfortunately largely a product of organizational development, so the chance that an organizational overhaul can improve that aspect of his offense is promising, and most of why I'm rooting for a complete organizational overhaul instead of merely switching up GMs. The defensive regression this year is a concern, but it seems to be a concern of focus rather than ability, so the hope is that team improvement will fix that on its own, too. 4. Aramis Ramirez: He gets a lot of undeserved grief for only being there "when it doesn't matter", but he's been easily the best offensive player on the team several years running, and he's the best offensive 3B in the league this year (thanks partly to injuries to the best 3Bs in the league). His offense took a while to get going early on, but he's been on an absolute tear the past 3 months solid, and at this point it wouldn't be a poor investment to take the option for next year. 5. Most of the bullpen: Marshall has been fantastic, Wood has been good. Russell is great when used properly (which has been a huge problem this year). Samardzija has developed to the point where he's finally an asset to the team and worth bringing back. That makes four quality arms in the pen this year. Marmol took a step back this year, but he's been phenomenal in the past, and this year could just be a one-year blip. Going forward, then, the Cubs shouldn't have to focus on improving the pen overall (aside from dumping useless arms and replacing them with cheap production). Anyone with other thoughts/opinions/disputes?

Fun fact: 12 teams in MLB have left more men on base than the Cubs. 9 teams have wasted a higher percentage of chances than the Cubs (LOB/Total Chances). Even the most efficient scoring teams in baseball, though (the Yankees, Red Sox and Rangers) do it almost exclusively with more HRs than anyone else, and they still fail well over 50% of the time.

A bit of both, and many, many other things. They're average in hits, bottom of the league in walks, swing at the third most pitches outside the zone and contact the fourth least pitches outside the zone. They don't get the opportunities with runners on that almost every other team does. Considering the rest of the offensive numbers are basically middle of the pack (or better), it's the lack of opportunities that kills the offense. As far as killing the team overall, look no further than the starting rotation, and guys like Coleman, Russell and Davis being forced to eat up too many starts. The Cubs are 4-25 when one of those three started the game. Consider that the Cubs are 2 over .500 when anybody else pitched, and even considering Wells' slow return to effectiveness, Dempster's early struggles, Zambrano's late struggles, and Garza's total lack of run support, the team has done decently otherwise.

The problem with the team is the lack of chances, not wasting them when they have them.

Or someone not from Pittsburgh who is a Pirates fan.

This is definitely a logical approach, but is the most effective use of the bench really just to give yourself the best odds on bye weeks? There's a reason those players are bench players, to me. Injury recovery being the primary reason. Sure, if two players are really close in ability you may play matchups, but the only time Roddy White should be benched is if he's on a bye or playing on one leg.

Pick 1: Green-Ellis v SD Starks @ CAR Garcon v CLE Massaquoi @ IND

Roddy White and Mike Williams. Don't overthink it, just use the best two players.

Wait, duh, Jason Hanson. The other one is two cities then...same franchise, two cities?

McCoy and Hillis.

Sean Landeta?

There's no need to jettison veteran players just because they're veteran players. This is not a small market team, here, and they don't have to go bargain basement at 20 roster spots just to make room for an Albert Pujols.

This week's FO AGS article is Bears over Falcons: http://insider.espn.go.com/nfl/story/_/id/6965723/nfl-atlanta-falcons-pick-right-where-left-last-season (insider only). Any Given Sunday is an article they write every week about the week's perceived biggest upset. Highlights for those who don't have insider: - Atlanta had more big plays than last year (5 plays of 20 yds or more), but didn't get many of those to translate to points. - Atlanta's biggest new addition (Julio Jones) didn't do much to help until the game was already decided. - Bears' offensive strategy was to spread targets out to all receivers, sacks and INTs be damned. All receivers had 4-6 targets each. - Forte was doing his best Marshall Faulk impression. - Henry Melton was awesome.

Easy there, spaz.

Nope. If this was a different organization I'd probably be cheering for it just for the fun of it. But I don't like having a guy with patience issues trying to get to an arbitrary number of hits by year end. Production isn't about a specific number of hits and Castro still has a lot of learning to do. But oh well, he's good enough to not get screwed up by it. He's probably good enough not to get screwed up by it. Still, it makes me nervous that he's taken exactly 2 walks in September. I'm encouraged that he's averaging a walk per game over the last 24 hours.

It was a Cade McNown trivia... ...actually, it probably should've been in the other NFL thread. Sorry.

I can't wait to take a flyer on the worst hitting 1B in baseball in his age 31 season two years removed from severe concussion problems. Sign me up.

They are now 60-59 in games not started by Coleman, Davis, or Russell. And that includes our heaping helping of Rodrigo Lopez. At this point, I'm more concerned about the Cubs upgrading the pitching rotation in the offseason than the offense. Yes, a star 1B would be great, but the pitching is what made the team atrocious all year. Injuries hurt, of course, but the system was ill prepared to deal with the injuries, which was the big season killer.

Charlie Batch is the last one, yes. What does this all mean? Well, it's national Jump to Conclusions week in the NFL, and even the worst draft busts in history can be good for one game. Not that it means a whole lot for Cam Newton at this point, since there are plenty of good QBs on the list too.