Mephistopheles

http://www.baseballamerica.com/blog/prospects/?p=58

If he plays gold glove caliber defense and hits about .280+ in the 8 hole, I think his health is definitely important. youre too optimistic

Izturis' health isn't all that important.

http://www.baseball-reference.com/teams/BAL/2003.shtml Jay Gibbons and Melvin Mora walked 49 times that year. Deivi Cruz got 150 games played and 13 walks as the starting shortstop. They also had no one score over 80 runs. http://www.baseball-reference.com/teams/DET/2002.shtml I believe the 2002 Tigers were the last team before the Cubs to not draw 400 walks. I might have glanced over one, but they had Robert Fick leading them with 46 walks. He also led them in runs scored (66). Simon led them in RBI (82) and no one hit twenty homers. The team scored 575 runs. With a DH. http://www.baseball-reference.com/teams/NYM/1995.shtml They only played 144 games, but it's unlikely they would have had 50. Brett Butler led the team with 43 walks. They actually had a good walk rate as a team but there four biggest walk guys {Everett, Butler, Bonilla, Hundley} didn't play the full season but each had about 40 walks in half a season. They drew 446 walks in 144 games. You can throw out 1994, only about 30 guys in the game had fifty walks that season. I stopped at 1990.

I'm with you. With Guzman and Hill possibly in Iowa, the I-Cubs may have nearly as good a rotation as the Cubs if Lilly and Marquis can't keep the ball in the park. Let's ask ZiPS.... 3.46 Zambrano 4.09 Prior 4.95 Marquis 4.26 Lilly 4.97 Miller Average ~ 4.35 3.65 Hill 4.90 Guzman 4.64 Mateo 5.34 Marshall 4.94 Gallagher Average ~ 4.69 I dunno if Gallagher will hold down the five spot in Iowa, but for the sake of argument let's include him. It's close but that's a very negatve projection for a healthy Angel Guzman. If you do the same averages using PECOTA it's: 4.64 ~ Chicago 4.83 ~ Iowa (only b/c of Mateo's 5.42 Last but certainly not least, Bill James Projections of Eternal Optimism would grant the Chicago Cubs with an average ERA of 4.06, thanks to the 3.98 projection to Wade Miller in all of 40 innings. Oh well. It is close. Which is sad. very sad.

The Yankees sound better. They know how to win. Sure they make stupid mistakes like the Cubs but they have a big wad of cash to bail them out. The Cubs throw the big wad of cash in the trash can to try to bail themselves out.

Are the Reds still sending Junior out to center? Because Soriano can't possibly be as bad as he is defensively.

Didnt somenoe say that they're looking at Cotts as the long reliever? If that's the case it'll probably come down to Cotts vs Miller vs Guzman vs Mateo, etc with Hill holding down the five spot. I don't see how the Cubs can give the spot to miller, they'll probably have to dump him if healthy.

It would be an embarrassment to the organization if their best starter the last two months of the season (better than Zambrano) does not have a rotation spot the following season because they signed someone who sported a six-plus ERA. If that happens the Cubs deserve to lose.

http://www.attheyard.com/PlayerJournals/adameverett.shtml A LITTLE E JOURNAL!

thats it! the cubs offense must have really sucked so he came in in tied games and when we were up by a run. hed let them tie the game whenever they were up and hit a game winning HR the next inning. HEd just hit the homer in the tied games

24 wins from Wood out of the bullpen. That's impressive. I'm more impressed with the 300 K's in less than 100 innings from the pen. I've seen Kerry strike out 4 in an inning a couple of times, but he'll have to do it quite a bit to hit those numbers! In order to get 24 wins out of the bullpen, just imagine the number of blown saves he'd have. but only have allowed 25 or so runs total. So the cubs offense must have really sucked and left a lot of one run leads.

1-1) Albert Pujols 1-2) Jose Reyes 1-3) Johan Santana 1-4) Alfonso Soriano 1-5) Alex Rodriguez 1-6) Carlos Beltran 1-7) Ryan Howard 1-8) Miguel Cabrera 1-9) Carl Crawford 1-10) Chase Utley 1-11) Derrek Lee 1-12) Chris Carpenter 2-1) David Wright 2-2) Lance Berkman 2-3) Grady Sizemore 2-4) David Ortiz 2-5) Vladimir Guerrero 2-6) Manny Ramirez 2-7) Mark Teixeira 2-8) Travis Hafner 2-9) Derek Jeter 2-10) Carlos Lee 2-11) Matt Holliday 2-12) Carlos Zambrano 3-1) Jake Peavy 3-2) Aramis Ramirez 3-3) Justin Morneau 3-4) Joe Mauer 3-5) Paul Konerko 3-6) Miguel Tejada 3-7) Jason Bay 3-8) Hanley Ramirez 3-9) Jimmy Rollins 3-10) Roy Halladay 3-11) Brandon Webb 3-12) Dan Haren 4-1) Garrett Atkins 4-2) Ichiro 4-3) Vernon Wells 4-4) Brian McCann 4-5) Roy Oswalt 4-6) Felix Hernandez 4-7) Ben Sheets 4-8) Bobby Abreu 4-9) Jeremy Bonderman 4-10) Andruw Jones 4-11) Victor Martinez 4-12) Jermaine Dye 5-1) Michael Young 5-2) Robby Cano 5-3) Rafael Furcal 5-4) Francisco Rodriguez 5-5) Bill Hall 5-6) Cole Hamels 5-7) Brian Roberts 5-8) Joe Nathan 5-9) Adam Dunn 5-10) Ryan Zimmerman 5-11) Carlos Guillen 5-12) Chone Figgins 6-1) Daisuke Matsuzaka 6-2) Jim Thome 6-3) John Lackey 6-4) B.J. Ryan 6-5) Carlos Delgado 6-6) Billy Wagner 6-7) Rocco Baldelli 6-8) Rich Hill 6-9) Troy Glaus 6-10) Justin Verlander 6-11) Aaron Harang 6-12) John Smoltz 7-1) Ian Kinsler 7-2) Johnny Damon 7-3) Mariano Rivera 7-4) Jered Weaver 7-5) Huston Street 7-6) Brett Myers 7-7) Matt Cain 7-8) Scott Kazmir 7-9) Curt Schilling 7-10) Felipe Lopez 7-11) Hideki Matsui 7-12) Nick Swisher 8-1) Bobby Jenks 8-2) Jason Schmidt 8-3) Rickie Weeks 8-4) C.C. Sabathia 8-5) Dan Uggla 8-6) Juan Pierre 8-7) JJ Putz 8-8) Randy Johnson 8-9) Howie Kendrick 8-10) Rich Harden 8-11) Prince Fielder 8-12) Michael Barrett 9-1) Brad Lidge 9-2) Chris Young 9-3) Chipper Jones 9-4) Jeff Francoeur 9-5) Pat Burrell 9-6) Scott Rolen 9-7) Erik Bedard 9-8) Gary Sheffield 9-9) Trevor Hoffman 9-10) Richie Sexson 9-11) Barry Zito 9-12) Dontrelle Willis 10-1) Todd Helton 10-2) Takashi Saito 10-3) Mike Piazza 10-4) Delmon Young 10-5) Chad Cordero 10-6) Josh Beckett 10-7) AJ Burnett 10-8) Jonathan Papelbon 10-9) Tom Gordon 10-10) Julio Lugo 10-11) Barry Bonds 10-12) Corey Patterson 11-1) Chad Tracy 11-2) JD Drew 11-3) Francisco Cordero 11-4) Ervin Santana 11-5) Chris Ray 11-6) Coco Crisp 11-7) Stephen Drew 11-8) Bronson Arroyo 11-9) Jason Giambi 11-10) Brian Fuentes 11-11) Brandon Phillips 11-12) Alex Rios 12-1) Michael Cuddyer 12-2) Jason Isringhausen 12-3) Chien-Ming Wang 12-4) John Patterson 12-5) Magglio Ordonez 12-6) Eric Gagne 12-7) Tadahito Iguchi 12-8) Ryan Freel 12-9) Torii Hunter 12-10) Frank Thomas 12-11) Kelvim Escobar 12-12) Adam LaRoche 13-1)Willy Taveras 13-2) Joel Zumaya 13-3) Raul Ibanez 13-4) Adrian Gonzalez 13-5) Scott Podsednik 13-6) Bob Wickman 13-7) Nick Markakis 13-8) Nomar Garciaparra 13-9) Mike Mussina 13-10) Brad Hawpe 13-11) Dave Bush 13-12) Russell Martin 14-1) Mark Prior 14-2) Eric Chavez 14-3) Kenji Johjima 14-4) Anthony Reyes 14-5) Ramon Hernandez 14-6) Roger Clemens 14-7) Lyle Overbay 14-8) Scott Olsen 14-9) Nate Robertson 14-10) Derek Lowe 14-11) Jonathon Broxton 14-12) Chuck James 15-1) Hank Blalock 15-2) Aubrey Huff 15-3) Jorge Posada 15-4) Chris Capuano 15-5) Javier Vazquez 15-6) Octavio Dotel 15-7) Joe Crede 15-8) Josh Willingham 15-9) Josh Barfield 15-10) Brad Penny 15-11) Ivan Rodriguez 15-12) Jhonny Peralta 16-1) Adam Wainwright 16-2) Andy Pettitte 16-3) Jose Valverde 16-4) Alex Gordon 16-5) Anibal Sanchez 16-6) Solomon Torres 16-7) Keith Foulke 16-8) Bengie Molina 16-9) Dustin Pedroia 16-10) Pedro Martinez 16-11) Moises Alou 16-12) Ryan Dempster 17-1) Ray Durham 17-2) Josh Johnson 17-3) Mike Gonzalez 17-4) Chris Young 17-5) Ted Lilly 17-6) Greg Maddux 17-7) Mark Teahen 17-8) Jon Garland 17-9) B.J. Upton 17-10) Clay Hensley 17-11) Scott Shields 17-12) Edger Renteria 18-1) Eric Byrnes 18-2) Jeff Kent 18-3) Kevin Millwood 18-4) Philip Hughes 18-5) Chad Billingsley 18-6) Jason Varitek 18-7) Tom Glavine 18-8) Freddy Sanchez 18-9) Adrian Beltre 18-10) Orlando Cabrera 18-11) Nick Johnson 18-12) Ken Griffey Jr. 19-1)Tim Hudson 19-2) Edwin Encarnacion 19-3) Todd Jones 19-4) Freddy Garcia 19-5) Jose Contreras 19-6) AJ Pierzynski 19-7) Dave Roberts 19-8) Jim Edmonds 19-9) Morgan Ensberg 19-10) Matt Garza 19-11) Jeremy Hermida 19-12) Mark Buehrle 20-1) Shane Victorino 20-2) Brian Giles 20-3) Curtis Granderson 20-4) Corey Hart 20-5) Conor Jackson 20-6) Jeremy Sowers 20-7) Joe Borowski 20-8) Kevin Youkilis 20-9) Zach Duke 20-10) Kerry Wood 20-11) Akinori Ostuka 20-12)Joel Pineiro 21-1)Taylor Tankersley 21-2) Mike Jacobs 21-3) Gary Matthews Jr. 21-4) Seth McClung 21-5) Ian Snell 21-6) Cliff Lee Unfortunately Rocket took my pick so I will had to think long and hard at another SP to take...then I thought, oh well I have {Glavine, Maddux, Burnett, Myers, Hamels and Sheets} so I don't NEED a SP, but I figured Cliff Lee is good for 15 wins for the Indians with a semiaverage ERA. My other choice was a guy no one here will take and Ill pick him up considering that I have no 16th round pick no more :(

5 ip, 3 h, 2 bb, 0 r, 8 k on 80 pitches for Brackman

it doesnt bother me, the cubs dont wear those in the season and dont even wear them in many ST games.

and here's the big one of Jimbo http://images.sportsline.com/u/ap/photos/AZMG207021716_1024x768.jpg

http://images.sportsline.com/u/ap/photos/AZMG209021715_1024x768.jpg a bigger one so you know its not photoshopped by the cubs

http://images.sportsline.com/u/ap/photos/AZMG209021616_1024x768.jpg http://images.sportsline.com/b/ap/photos/Cubs_Spring_Baseball0637068_lower.jpg http://images.sportsline.com/b/ap/photos/Cubs_Spring_Baseball0238289_lower.jpg i should be able to get larger photos of the news ones (similar size to the Prior Jeff one above) off the sportsline site soon.

pfp? pitcher's fielding practice

http://images.sportsline.com/b/ap/photos/Cubs_Spring_Baseball0633747_lower.jpg PRIOR THROWING

http://us.news2.yimg.com/us.yimg.com/p/ap/20070217/capt.azmg20502171950.cubs_spring_baseball_azmg205.jpg http://us.news2.yimg.com/us.yimg.com/p/ap/20070217/capt.azmg20402171947.cubs_spring_baseball_azmg204.jpg

Unfortunately its pfp.

http://chicago.cubs.mlb.com/news/article.jsp?ymd=20070217&content_id=1805222&vkey=spt2007news&fext=.jsp&c_id=chc BIG NEWS HE THREW TEN COUNT 'EM TEN PITCHES OFF THE MOUND TODAY!

http://us.news2.yimg.com/us.yimg.com/p/ap/20070217/capt.azmg20202171943.cubs_spring_baseball_azmg202.jpg