Mephistopheles

the cubs should just tell him never to swing unless he has 2 strikes on him

Let's do an average ERA of 4 over 7. Our bullpen ERA will probably be around 3.80-4.00. So let's assume a 3.90 bullpen ERA. Let's also assume .40 unearned runs per 9 innings (which is league average from last season). That means our team is going to give up an average of 5.27 runs a game when he's our starter. Last season ONE team in the National League averaged more than that many runs per nine innings, the Phillies at 5.30. The Cubs don't have the good an offense, so we would expect the Cubs to lose more than half of the games started by him - also known as a majority of his games. Just because we have a half-way decent offense it doesn't mean we should be content with a piece of crap like Marquis.

God some of you just don't get it. I'm not one to name a starting pitcher's role. The simple fact (FACT, NOT OPINION) is that every single starter in baseball has the same damn job. What difference is there between an "ace" and a "5th starter" when it comes to baseball? Are the Cubs spotted a run when their ace goes? No, they have the same job. Naming them means absolutely nothing and is a waste of time. When I say dominance, I don't mean going out there and pitching like an "ace." K:BB dominance is no more than being the best pitcher you can be. There's maybe one or two other factors, but K:BB is one of the most important if not the most important thing when evaluating how good a pitcher is. Quite frankly, Marquis is not very good at it, never has been and never will be. The ability to strikeout guys without walking them is by far the most important skill a pitcher can possess. It has nothing to do with his "role" it has everything to do with his job - getting people out. Capable to living up to his contract? Come on, let's not be naive, I'm not looking at his contract and saying he sucks. I'm looking at him and saying he sucks. It doesn't make a difference if he's making seven million or 1/7th of a million. At the end of the day he's the same pitchers so I am going to evaluate his pitching looking at that, not the number of zeroes on his paycheck. Does it really make a difference? For the love of God it's nine innings. We all saw what Ryan O'Malley could do for about the same time. :lol: K/BB ratio is not one of the most important stats for pitchers. Maybe walks but not K/BB. Some pitchers just don't strike a lot of guys out and have good success. Look at Chien-Ming Wang from last year. He had one of the lowest K/BB ratio's but was one of the better pitchers in the league. You have to pitch to your strengths. Your job as a pitcher is to prevent runs. If you do that by striking out 15 guys then good job. If you do it by inducing 15 ground balls then good job. Just get the batters out. wang is the exception not the rule. just because one person did it, it doesnt mean another one can. And Wang is a bad comparison on a couple of levels. 1.) His ERA is probably going to be in the mid 4s next season, not mid 3s. His HR rate was too low, even for his GB tendencies. 2.) Wang didn't walk anyone and had a lot of groundballs. Marquis walked 23 more guys in 20 less innigns. 3.) Chien Ming Wang is in the 100th percentile when it comes to getting guys to hit groundballs. Marquis will be lucky to touch the top quarter. That's a HUGE difference.

the cubs scored more than four runs a game last season, but for 4 ER over 7 innings to be useful, it would mean that the bullpen would have to have an ERA of zero. Under no circumstances is an ERA of 5.14 good enough for the Cubs, Yankees or '27 Yankees.

I got my point across and didn't call anyone stupid or [expletive]. I guess I shouldn't have said some people don't "get it" or some people are naive. It's nothing personal, as some of you know I almost never read who I am replying to. I guess that's bad.

God some of you just don't get it. I'm not one to name a starting pitcher's role. The simple fact (FACT, NOT OPINION) is that every single starter in baseball has the same damn job. What difference is there between an "ace" and a "5th starter" when it comes to baseball? Are the Cubs spotted a run when their ace goes? No, they have the same job. Naming them means absolutely nothing and is a waste of time. When I say dominance, I don't mean going out there and pitching like an "ace." K:BB dominance is no more than being the best pitcher you can be. There's maybe one or two other factors, but K:BB is one of the most important if not the most important thing when evaluating how good a pitcher is. Quite frankly, Marquis is not very good at it, never has been and never will be. The ability to strikeout guys without walking them is by far the most important skill a pitcher can possess. It has nothing to do with his "role" it has everything to do with his job - getting people out. Capable to living up to his contract? Come on, let's not be naive, I'm not looking at his contract and saying he sucks. I'm looking at him and saying he sucks. It doesn't make a difference if he's making seven million or 1/7th of a million. At the end of the day he's the same pitchers so I am going to evaluate his pitching looking at that, not the number of zeroes on his paycheck. Does it really make a difference? For the love of God it's nine innings. We all saw what Ryan O'Malley could do for about the same time.

He isn't a strikeout pitcher. He goes into most every at bat trying to induce a ground ball. just because he tries to do something it doesnt mean its the right thing And what did you say the times when someone like Kerry Wood was at 100 pitches after five innings because he was trying to strike everyone out? He has to pitch to his strength. It makes little sense for him to waste more pitches in an effort to strike more people out if that isn't what he does best. ugh its not just strikeouts when i point that out. specifically it's dominance measured by K:BB. Kerry Wood's not that ---> high pitch counts. Ditto for Zambrano and to a certain extent Prior. Other strikeout pitchers in the league don't rack up the pitches all that much more than your standard pitcher. the only reason the cubs ones do is because they walk too many.

He isn't a strikeout pitcher. He goes into most every at bat trying to induce a ground ball. just because he tries to do something it doesnt mean its the right thing

this may be cliche, but im not counting on it: 4 SO in 9.0 IP. Though just two walks is encouraging.

ill take a wild guess Pitchers 1. Carlos Zambrano 2. Rich Hill 3. Ted Lilly 4. Jason Marquis 5. Wade Miller 6. Neal Cotts 7. Rocky Cherry 8. Kerry Wood 9. Scott Eyre 10. Will Ohman 11. Bob Howry 12. Ryan Dempster Catchers 13. Michael Barrett 14. Hank White Infielders 15. Derrek Lee 16. Cesar Izturis 17. Aramis Ramirez 18. Mark DeRosa 19. Ryan Theriot 20. Daryle Ward 21. Buck Coats Outfielders 22. Jacque Jones 23. Alfonso Soriano 24. Cliff Floyd 25. Matt Murton

payne? yuck....

Well given the parallels between Andrew Brackman and Jeff Samardzija (i think they are essentially the same person), it seems to me like the writing is on the wall. Wilken had Samardzija #1 on his board last season, ahead of Andrew Miller who is comparable to David Price. There's no one comparable to Matt Wieters, but he did select Jeff Neimann ahead of Stephen Drew and Josh Fields in 2004, not that those are great comps.

i did it myself.

Adkins really struggled last season, but I doubt he falls out of the first or supplemental round - thats what? 61 picks this year or something ridiculous. anyways Im thinking Brackman will be #1 on the Cubs board.

god i have no idea anymore. i made that in 2005.

the font sucks. ill suggest digging through here http://1001freefonts.com/ and adding some border around it. I dont know how to do it in photoshop, i do my work in the GIMP. ive made a few in my days. i made a similar one as these two for mark prior, but i cant find it. http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v467/kctigers2323/Icons3/Mariners3.jpg http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v467/kctigers2323/Icons3/Braves.jpg i then showed my love for jake peavy http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v467/kctigers2323/Icons3/25fe39c0.jpg

ill throw my guess out there Felix Pie, CF Eric Patterson, 2B Matt Murton, LF Daryle Ward, DH Mike Kinkade, 1B Angel Pagan, RF Scott Moore, 3B Henry Blanco, C Ronny Cedeno, SS

I dont think you can change the scoring once you have entered the draft results.

He's 10 for 21 with 1 HR, 2 2B and a 3B. He's walked four times to just three strikeouts. I havent followed the Reds enough to know who he is facing, but it is an interesting spring storyline nonetheless.

its jason anderson not matt anderson

meh i cant watch either and i cant watch the wgn cast either

it's also a "mock" mock (mŏk) adj. - Simulated;

0 percent to 100 percent. It's built on a standard distribution. so basically it means that if you have a 50% score youre better than half the teams out there. If its 75% it means youre better than 3 out of 4 teams, etc. It's all rough estimates based on PECOTA, ZiPS and Bill James with predicted playing time shares. Yes, it's a h2h league so I have one "swing" roster position (currently Broxton) which means if for whatever reason i need a hitter I can drop him for it. My hitting is strong enough i dont need them all playing 7 days a week, six is enough. Since it is h2h theres no ip limit, so having a lot of sp to rack up Ws and Ks is useful. ive also managed to do it with guys who are good in ERA and WHIP so my staff is dominant. as i said above the system is based off three of my leagues. I calculated all of the stats for their teams using an average of PECOTA, James, and ZiPS with an adjustment for an arbitrary expected playing time that I chose (ie not Lee with 440 PA). I then ranked them as if it was roto, so 12 points to the winner of a stat, 11 for second and so on. I ran a regression on all the leagues (36 teams) to get a stat to points estimate. In the system, 218 HRs gets you 6.5 points based on the regression from those 36 teams. So that puts you around 7th in an average league. I did this for all twelve stats. I then summed up your expected points in a nuetral league to get your teams expected score. I then took all of these teams and got their expected scores. I then found the standard deviation of these scores and the average so I can then find the distribution. Since there is a set number of Rs, W, etc in a league we can expect the distribution to be normal. That means we can then find out the percentile each team is in (roughly of course). It's very hard to move up once your good. For example one team has an expected point score of 92.6, which puts there percentile ranking at 98.3%, Another team has an expected point score of 103.8, a difference of a whopping 11.5 points (basically going from worst to first in a category), but there percentile rank went up just 1.5% to 99.8%. If you make that same 11 point jump from 69 to 80 points, your percentile ranking increases 24%!. So in otherwords I am saying the system isn't linear, and it shouldnt be. There should be a lot more teams that the system spits out as a 50/100 (average) than it does a 70/100, above average. Also you can use this to estimate where you rank in the league. There are 12 teams in each league, so that means youre probably the best if your score is above 92%. Yeah, I probably analyze this stuff way too much.

i wouldnt have drafted eight starting pitchers with my four relievers if i knew that. that's like 1900 innings when the max is what? 1250?

well shucks my teams isnt fit for roto