Sammy Sofa

Says a lot about Soto these days.

Nice, Lee!

Too much grit on that ball for him to handle it.

Good grief, can you please shrink that sig?

Nicely done, Eyre. Continue your hysterics, folks.

Where have you been over the last month?

Ah well. These things happen.

Good Lord, Theriot has Pierre's doll-arm.

Damn, DeRo is fi-yah these days.

I think it's awesome he brings his grandkids. He's Billy-freakin'-Williams. He can do whatever he wants.

Redemption for Theriot. BILLY RULES.

Destroy them, Marmol. And Lou, if Marmol gets the last out with no damage, be smart for once and use someone else for the 8th...especially if the Cubs score again.

I'm scared.

THERIOT... !##~231@!2!@!`!~~~~!!!

Sounds like he had a couple of hard hit shots that were unfortunately caught besides the homer. Is this the case? Yes, 3 line outs and a homer. Good to hear. Keep hitting 'em like and that and some are bound to punch through.

Sounds like he had a couple of hard hit shots that were unfortunately caught besides the homer. Is this the case?

Sure you can, it's not like if the one gets hurt you can't move the other there. You can, but it doesn't make sense. Why not? Soto's (hopefully) useful bat stays in the lineup, but he gets a break from having to pull catching duties for a few games. If something happens to Blanco, he just gears up and takes over.

This should be green.

I hear plenty of people on the radio going off on this tangent, and see people posting about it on messageboards and blogs, but is it really something "official" sports writers have gone off on? It's seemed more like a hysterical creation of the fans.

And Lou will say it is to save Sori's legs as not to hurt his fragile feelings. What fragile feelings? Oh, right. You completely made that up.

that snow ball has melted. It's funny to read, because I actually agree with some of the reasoning on that thread why DeRosa wasn't the best signing. He really bucked a lot of trends by being good for 2 years (assuming he continues this year) when it did sort of look like he had just had a career year. It's fun to be wrong when it means the Cubs are a better team for it. statistical analysis is great and IMO is more important than scouting, but derosa's success is a lesson to those who think they can sit and look at a player's baseball reference page or PECOTA projections and think they know what's going to happen. Looking at DeRosa's pre-2006 PECOTA projections was almost pointless, given that he'd probably had a 2006 that was at or above his 90th percentile expectation. Focusing on his lousy 2004 numbers was the wrong idea given his change in approach (toe tap at the plate). His EqA and OPS+ trends: 2005: .271, 97 2006: .280, 108 2007: .275, 102 So his performance in 2007 is basically right in line with what he did the previous two seasons. At some point, scouting needs to be part of the equation, and obviously the people doing the scouting for the Cubs saw that DeRosa's improvements at the plate were no fluke. his performance to this date isn't likely to continue (~.298 EqA, 126 OPS+), but he is hitting line drives at a solid rate and continues to add some extra-base power to the mix. The idea that $13M over 3 years was a gross overpayment for derosa was preposterous, and looks even more ridiculous now. looking at PECOTA's projection that derosa would be worth $6.9M this year, i'd have to guess that he was worth about $7.5-8M last year, so he's just about earned his $13M in half the length of the contract. in terms of value, the DeRosa signing has to be regarded as one of the bigger bargains of the 2006-07 offseason. So is it more or less of a sham than trying to predict the weather? HIIIIIIIIIIIIII-OOOOOOOOOOOHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH.

So we're essentially screwed. I'm not suggesting that Marquis has pitched well, but I wouldn't categorize these as horrible blowups either........... Marquis IP H R ER BB K HR PC BB/9 K/9 HR/9 WHIP ERA 04/05 vs. Houst 5.3 8 5 4 1 2 1 81 1.69 3.38 1.69 1.69 6.75 04/13 vs. Phila 5.0 4 2 2 5 2 1 86 9.00 3.60 1.80 1.80 3.60 04/19 vs. Pitts 6.0 6 1 1 1 7 0 102 1.50 10.50 0.00 1.17 1.50 04/24 vs. Colo 7.0 8 2 2 2 4 1 98 2.57 5.14 1.29 1.43 2.57 04/29 vs. Milw 5.0 10 5 5 1 2 0 98 1.80 3.60 0.00 2.20 9.00 05/04 vs. St. L 5.3 7 5 5 5 4 0 89 8.44 6.75 0.00 2.25 8.44 05/13 vs. S.D. 5.7 9 4 4 1 3 1 77 1.59 4.76 1.59 1.76 6.35 05/18 vs. Pitts 6.0 4 3 2 1 3 1 94 1.50 4.50 1.50 0.83 3.00 05/24 vs. Pitts 5.3 7 3 3 3 2 1 85 5.06 3.38 1.69 1.88 5.06 05/29 vs. Colo 5.3 7 3 3 2 3 0 95 3.38 5.06 0.00 1.69 5.06 06/03 vs. S.D. 4.7 4 3 3 5 2 0 105 9.64 3.86 0.00 1.93 5.79 After all, we have won 6 out of Marquis' 11 starts. They've won in spite of Marquis. With the bats seemingly quieting down for now, he's likely to not have that cushion. It was a miracle he only gave up 3 runs last time with how many guys he walked ad how many times he was in hitter's counts.

Sooooooooooooooo...0-4 today with 2 k's and 1 GIDP?

Maybe just sit him the rest of the series so he has that plus the off day to make sure the finger is as close to 100% as possible.

Well, hopefully that explains why he's been SO bad over the last month, but he still needs to lay off low and outside pitches.