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Swinging early in a couple at bats hardly qualifies as openly defying your manager by refusing to be patient. Patience can only be measured over time, 5 pitches in 3 at-bats is something that happens to everybody. Maybe Lou overreacted to it. I'm not sure as I don't know exactly what was said. But I'm pretty sure a story at the time was that after Fox had swung at the first 3 pitches he saw and made 2 outs that by the 3rd at-bat Lou had him taking until he got a strike and Fox swung at the first strike he saw. Lou immediately pulled him from the game and then the Cubs announced they were going to ship him out before the next game. Fox wasn't going to get many opportunities. He had to implement Lou's suggestion immediately, and instead he went and did the exact opposite. Obviously the Cubs felt strongly about it as they have completely barred him since then when it didn't make sense to not bring him up. Their dislike for him might be getting a little bit less now though with the recent quotes from Piniella that he is getting closer to being a major league ballplayer. There's a perfectly good reason not to callup/use a guy who is essentially a potential DH. This team stresses defensive flexibility above everything else when it comes to their role players. He has no chance of being a Cub. Oh, I completely understand the reasons for most of the year to not bring Fox up. I was talking more about the two Septembers the team has had since then. The Cubs have had a weakness having pinch-hitters who can hit left-handed pitching in the late innings. They had to turn to Blanco several times last year because they had ran out of those pinch-hitters. It would have made sense to bring up Fox both of those years in September when his defense wouldn't matter and pinch-hit him in those opportunities. It would have cost the Cubs very little to at least have him available to do that, but they passed both years. Tim does bring up an interesting point though. Fox was an expendable player at the time and was probably a good tool to show the entire organization that the philosophy needed to keep changing to be more selective.

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Swinging early in a couple at bats hardly qualifies as openly defying your manager by refusing to be patient. Patience can only be measured over time, 5 pitches in 3 at-bats is something that happens to everybody. Maybe Lou overreacted to it. I'm not sure as I don't know exactly what was said. But I'm pretty sure a story at the time was that after Fox had swung at the first 3 pitches he saw and made 2 outs that by the 3rd at-bat Lou had him taking until he got a strike and Fox swung at the first strike he saw. Lou immediately pulled him from the game and then the Cubs announced they were going to ship him out before the next game. Fox wasn't going to get many opportunities. He had to implement Lou's suggestion immediately, and instead he went and did the exact opposite. Obviously the Cubs felt strongly about it as they have completely barred him since then when it didn't make sense to not bring him up. Their dislike for him might be getting a little bit less now though with the recent quotes from Piniella that he is getting closer to being a major league ballplayer.

The problem with that bench is that it's basically a bench of That has two players, one right-handed the other left handed that are identical in Fox and Hoffpauir. Both can be put in the of, but bad defensively there. Fox might give you an option at third, and as much as I hate to quote Dusty, his "the ball will find you" quote probably would apply here. Fox might make the plays there, but it's likely he'd give up just as many as he could bring in. The only middle infielder in that group is Miles, and trusting him to back up short is risky at best. Johnson becomes the only bench outfielder with any defensive prowess at all. Let's look at it this way...if Aramis needs a day off, I don't think the Cubs would be comfortable with Fox starting at third. Miles would be there which means there would be no middle infielder on the bench those days. I can't see a team carrying two players that profile like Hoffpauir and Fox do. To sum it up, a basic bench should have a righty oufielder, a lefty outfielder, a corner infielder, a middle infielder, and a back up catcher. RH Outfielder-Reed Johnson Catcher-Bako/Hill Middle infield-Miles 1B-Hoff This leaves one more outfield position. That likely goes to gathright, as he is lefty, can play a semi competant oufield, as far as I know anyway, and he beings some great speed to the bench. The thing about spring training is that there are very few jobs up for grabs, especially with a team liek the Cubs. Maybe a bullpen spot or 2, and maybe 1 bench spot. When you pick up a free agent, usually, the assumtion is that that guy will be on the opening day rotster, unless they have an awful spring training. This leaves a bunch of other guys like Hoff, Fox, and Snyder playing their hearts out for that 1 remaining spot, and the others will go back to Iowa until someone goes down with injury. We are giong to keep 12 pitchers to break camp? I would think with a bullpen of Gregg, Marmol, Heilman, Samardizja, Cotts, (not sure who 6th would be) would be flexible enough to allow us to keep 6 bench players instead of 5. We are going with 12 pitchers along with the rest of MLB. The days of 6 bench players are unfortunately dying rather quickly. Last year there was exactly 1 team that dared to use 11 by mid-season. I feel too that those 6 could handle the bullpen just fine, but managers these days are more likely to want 13 pitchers at times than 11. As far as Fox, not only did he not do well in his limited time here, but he also openly defied Lou by refusing to be more patient. He was shipped quickly out after his last game here where he saw 5 combined pitches in 3 at-bats. If he had a position and was a necessary component of the bench, maybe the club would be more inclined to give him another chance. As it was, they didn't even invite him to come be a pinch-hitter last September when there were no roster restrictions and gave those at-bats to Casey McGehee instead. Fox could potentially do well in the major leagues, but he has at least two strikes against him in the Cubs organization and possibly three. I can only see the Cubs turning to him if they get really desperate for hitting and have multiple injuries.

why? Because he gets on base 50 pts higher & scores more runs than Soriano? The main measure of a leadoff hitter is runs scored. With 76 last year, he was near the bottom in MLB in runs scored for leadoff hitters. Why? Because he does not have a leadoff mentality at the plate. He has more of an rbi producing mentality. Actually, he wasn't. Out of the players with at least 250 plate apperances at leadoff, Soriano was 13th out of 29 in runs scored. He had more runs scored than these people with a leadoff mentality at the plate: Orlando Cabrera, Jimmy Rollins, Chone Figgins, David Dejesus. And that only is a list of the people who had around the same number of AB's or more than Soriano did. Every person who finished higher than Soriano in runs also had more AB's than him (remember: this is only AB's and runs scored out of the leadoff spot. Runs scored when these players are hitting in other spots aren't counted). Of course, the fact that Soriano had 2 big DP threats directly behind him (Theriot and Lee) didn't exactly help his run scoring ability either.

And just because he did that last year, that doesn't make him an above average hitter today. You can't define players simply by their previous season. Theriot doesn't give you a .380 OBP, he did it last year, but that doesn't guarantee he does it this year. In 2007 he was bottom of the barrel. That's true, although bottom of the barrel is really exaggerating it (a .672 OPS was still better than 9 other teams that season and 1 point off a 10th). Theriot was definitely below average though that year. Last year, Theriot's production at SS was better than 20 teams. Even accounting for the fact that a couple of teams had their backups probably pull down their numbers of their starters that might have been above Theriot, that still leaves him as above average. It especially is so when you consider that he's 40 to 50 points better in OBP than other SS's around that production level. Theriot would have to come close to repeating last year to be above average. A .290/.350/.355 line would put him at average though. Cubs shortstops were worst in the league, and once Theriot took over the SS job his numbers were nearly identical to total Cubs shortstop numbers in 2007. Cubs SS's were the worst in the NL. Since players move leagues all the time and the sample size is so small it doesn't seem wise to eliminate half of your sample right off the top. Just to show the variability, in 07 only 2 out of the last 8 in SS production were in the NL, while in 08 4 out of the last 8 were. And the only reason Theriot was not much better than the other SS's was because his hot streaks were when he was playing 2B and 3B Looking at his overall numbers from that year, he was good enough to be comparable or better than 4 NL teams that season (San Fransisco, Houston, Arizona, L.A.). That's well below average in the NL and below average in the overall majors.

And just because he did that last year, that doesn't make him an above average hitter today. You can't define players simply by their previous season. Theriot doesn't give you a .380 OBP, he did it last year, but that doesn't guarantee he does it this year. In 2007 he was bottom of the barrel. That's true, although bottom of the barrel is really exaggerating it (a .672 OPS was still better than 9 other teams that season and 1 point off a 10th). Theriot was definitely below average though that year. Last year, Theriot's production at SS was better than 20 teams. Even accounting for the fact that a couple of teams had their backups probably pull down their numbers of their starters that might have been above Theriot, that still leaves him as above average. It especially is so when you consider that he's 40 to 50 points better in OBP than other SS's around that production level. Theriot would have to come close to repeating last year to be above average. A .290/.350/.355 line would put him at average though. It would be a few points light on the OPS, but would make up for it because of the above average OBP.

$9.5 million is not a lot of money for a free agent year option. It makes sense for the guy to sign a deal that allows him to be set for life. But he's leaving a lot of money on the table by agreeing with this. It's not just injury concerns for Floyd that is the problem though. He's still a big question mark as an effective pitcher. He struggled in AAA until his 3rd significant time there (4th overall time there). His ERA+ last year was good, but his peripherals were pretty lousy. He could just as easily flame out as continue to progress. This deal is pretty much exactly what the Twins gave Scott Baker and Baker has been better than Floyd. Floyd would have to break out in a major way to be leaving a lot of money on the table. At this point, he's maybe sacrificing 5-7 million in a very good scenario for him in order to pocket 15 million guaranteed. That's a great deal for him and he should be very happy the WS offered it.

What more does he need to build on? Theriot is cheap and gives you above average offensive production at SS. . Defense. Theriot might give you slightly above average offense for the shortstop position, but well below average defense. that's wrong. he's not well below average defensively. Nor is he slightly above average offensively. OPS+ under of 72 and 93 in his only two full seasons. They said slightly above average for the SS position. An OPS+ of 93 might be lower than the average player overall, but Theriot was 31 points better in OPS than the average major league SS last year because he was 61 points better in OBP than that average SS. Offense has to be broken down by position just as much as defense does or else the people in the harder positions (C, SS, 2B, CF) will never get their value to the team properly evaluated since 80% of the hitters at those positions are below average when compared to the league as a whole and not just their positions.

I've seen a couple of those instances, and they seem to not be calling it if the shooter has to leap way out of his way to get to the contact. If a guy can go pretty much straight up and still get hit, then it's getting called, otherwise you're just playing for the call and they aren't going to give it to you. YMMV of course with the variety of officials and their interpretation of the rules. . Agreed, but offensive players look specifically to draw the foul all the time. Even when they're driving they'll contort the body to draw the contact. I would agree with Truffle that if the defender goes straight up that's not a foul. I think if they meet in the middle though (both players jumping towards each other) the foul should be called even if it isn't the most natural way for the shooter to jump.

Totally agree ... Selection committee should select more mid-majors. I'd tend to agree with that but this year the committee is somewhat justified with their last few at-large teams by their performance. Arizona-Sweet 16 Wisconsin-won first game, competitive in 2nd Dayton-won first game Maryland-won first game Michigan-won first game, competitive in 2nd Minnesota-lost first game The problem this year is that all the minor conference winners (plus Miss. State) couldn't pull off enough upsets. The only 2 conference winners in the last 5 seeds (12-16) that won a game were Western Kentucky and Cleveland State. I do agree that the tournament is infinitely more interesting when you have a bunch of major conference-minor conference matchups than two middle tier major conference teams going at it. The committee though can't think about what will be the most interesting for the fans..they have to have a combination of who deserves to go/who is most likely to succeed in the tournament. And this year, it's become hard to argue against any of the teams that made it even though there were also deserving mid majors that were left out.

I thought it was an obvious no-call even though the Missouri defender was silly for getting anywhere close to him. The offensive player had to jump way out of his way to initiate the contact. Refs are already hesitant to call it when the person is jumping forward a little too far. Sideways is really pushing it. That does remind me though. Apparently the getting the guy in the air call on the perimeter is not being consistently called anymore. I've seen 3 different plays this tournament where the player ball faked, got the defender in the air, then jumped forward in taking the shot and got drilled and had no call made. I have no idea why they aren't calling it anymore.

I think the fact we think this tournament is slightly boring partially because we had a couple great tournaments in the middle of the decade and now pretty much everything is compared to those. For example, I randomly pulled up the 2004 tournament. In the 1st round, 10 of the 32 games were 6 point victories or less In the 2nd round, 9 of 16 games. In the Sweet 16, 2 of 8 In the Elite 8, 2 of 4. In the Final 4, 2 of 2. 0 of 1 in the Championship game Total: 25 out of 63 So far this year: 9 out of 32 3 out of 13 so far (3 left) So far: 12 out of 45 So to match that year's tournament, you'd have to have 13 of the final 18 games be tight games. That would be pretty unlikely. Here's 2003's numbers: 15 out of 32 3 out of 16 6 out of 8 1 out of 4 0 out of 2 1 out of 1 Total: 26 out of 63 This years tournament is hardly unusual but it isn't going to match up to tournaments like that. And especially since we got those 2 years in a row we subconsciously think every tournament should be like that.

That was what somebody said, but I can't find any confirmation of it. It doesn't really make sense anyway. The reason he was scratched from his start is because he was too weak. They would send him home to rest not ask him to throw a simulated game instead. They want to build up Harden's arm strength slowly and his late start to ST and his illness have hurt that. I'm not worrying that it is anything more than the clock is ticking on building up that endurance in time for his first start of the year.

Sorry, I forgot we might be up today. I think it has to be a DT with this pick (especially with the way this draft has gone). I also think dew is correct and that pretty much means Sen'Derrick Marks at this point. He may not be exactly ideal, but he's a good player who would instantly help. I'd go Marks. The only other one I considered was Gilbert because he has production, he's from a small school, and he's small. Those of course are all things the Colts love. I do think the Colts are actually looking for one DT with decent size though and so their typical player might not be the best pick in this spot. With that said, the Colts select Sen'Derrick Marks from Auburn.

They should dominate the first round. They have less than half their teams in the tournament, but the conference was still strong because the teams they do have in are all really good. 5 of the 6 Big East teams are a 3 seed or better. They better win their first round games. They also should have the best tournament record when all is said and done. They have the fewest percentage of teams in the tournament of the four best conferences and have the best seeds. That's why total tournament record is such a flawed stat because it automatically says that it is better to have 3 great teams than 6 good teams. The key for the Big East in this tournament will be in the next 2 rounds. By the seeds, they are supposed to have 5 Sweet 16 teams and 3 Elite 8 teams. If they only get 3-4 in the Sweet 16 and 1-2 in the Elite 8 and no national champion it will be a disappointing tourney for them even if they do have the best overall record. If they can get 4-5 Sweet 16 teams, 2 final 4 teams, and a national championship, it will be a really good year for them.

I'll give Exile a few hours like last time to chime in. Would you agree Exile that the Colts almost have to select DT at this spot? And which one/two would you recommend if you do agree with that? If there was a much better player at LB, OL, or WR, I'd consider them, but unless I'm missing something I don't see anybody that I'm dying to have at those positions.

What jamok is saying this? It comes from this article: http://www.indystar.com/article/20090317/SPORTS0605/903170361/1073/SPORTS0605 Here are a couple quotes:

I wish Butler had won only to slow down the SEC arrogance..I couldn't believe they had the audacity to complain about only getting 3 bids to the tournament and to already be talking publicly about how LSU would do against North Carolina.

Two more today: http://chicago.cubs.mlb.com/news/article.jsp?ymd=20090318&content_id=4012978&vkey=news_chc&fext=.jsp&c_id=chc They probably just wanted Caridad to get a little more work and get ready to start once again in the minors. He did a good job though and showed that he might be able to contribute to the squad at the end of this year or next.

that's just 100% not true. Which part of it? The definition of "good" is subjective, I suppose. I'd probably say he's good, but not all that good. He's good for the amount of money he makes, I guess. As far as the ceiling part goes, how much further can he possibly take his game than he already has? How much more can he get out of his relatively limited abilities? i was referring to the "he's still not good" part of it. i consider the guy who lead the best offensive team in the nl last year in obp to be "good". but it's not out of the realm of possibility for him to actually improve. he's 29 and entering his 3rd full season. i don't get why his 2nd full year is automatically his best that he'll have. It's more because to improve Theriot would have to fundamentally change some part of his game. He hit .307 last year. That's getting close to the limit of what any hitter can do consistently, and especially one where the outfielders can cheat in slightly for. There's not much more chance for him to get more singles than he already is. He had an ISOD of .8 last year which is above average. And he did that by being very consistently patient on balls outside the zone. He can't really improve his walk rate much more because pitchers throw him so many strikes. His ISOP is the one thing that could possibly be improved. But to do so, Theriot would have to become more of a gap hitter to get those doubles and triples. And his swing style (in which he modified before 08 to help his low line drive ability) doesn't allow him to hit those gaps very often right now. So unless he wants to completely change his swing and possibly lose his ability to get singles, his power isn't going to skyrocket. So really the only things Theriot can improve in are defense and baserunning. Since his problems in defense are mostly talent based (lack of rage and below average arm) and not instinct based (good reaction time, good fundamentals catching) that makes defense hard to improve. Baserunning however could be improved with a little better of instincts and being a little more judicial on the basepaths. Most ballplayers have a path to improve because of a lack of consistency. Theriot's very consistent and so his improvement would have to come from a change in swing that would increase his power potential. And that's much harder to do than simply get a little more consistent as other players have to do.

Which player is which? Player A: spent parts of 10 seasons with the Cubs. Best 5 seasons ERA+: 142, 131, 127, 126, 119 Best 5 opposing OPS (not adjusted for era): .606, .619, .628, .640, .642 1 Cy Young and 3 other top 5 finishes Player B: spent parts of 10 seasons with the Cubs. Best 5 seasons ERA+: 166, 128, 119, 115, 114 Best 5 opposing OPS (not adjusted for era): .552, .634, .637, .658, .673 1 Cy Young and 1 other top 5 finish. Jenkins was better as a Cub than Maddux. But he wasn't that much better. I included opposing OPS because they are so different kinds of pitchers that it was a better all encompassing stat than trying to break down six stats at once. They are certainly close enough that you'd have a really hard time honoring one without the other. Jenkins has the advantages of being his best with the Cubs and being a little better during that time than Maddux was, and Maddux has the advantage of being a Cub farmhand and being a better overall pitcher. Both are loved by the fans. If they were wearing different numbers, it would be a good discussion on if one should be retired without the other. Since they wore the same number, it absolutely should be for both of them.

i like it. the more i think about it, the more i get po'd by the fact that a team can dominate their regular season and then have a bad game and be out of the dance. totally unfair, but you don't want to lessen the excitement of the conference tourney games. however, there needs to be some sort of exemption for ranked, major conference teams. The conference champion would not have to play the at-large game, so there is still an incentive to win the conference tournament. For lower-level conference teams, it is a HUGE incentive. But that means that you have typically 8 of the top 10 teams in the nation having to win 1 more game than a minor conference school who played well over a 3 day span to win the national title. That's pretty unfair. There would be very little incentive to be in a major conference that way. Why would you want all that competition when you could dominate a minor conference and get an automatic bye every year in the tourney? Plus..then you have a bunch of situations where a Pittsburgh for example has a decent at-large game to start, and then their second round game after the re-seeding is a cakewalk. You never want a tournament where the second round opponents are likely to be easier than the first for the top seeds, and this one would have that. I would love to see more mid-majors get in as well and I think the scheduling issue is a big problem (if more teams were willing to schedule decent mid majors, they would have more big wins to take to the committee at the end of the year). But I see this as a solution that tilts it far further in the other direction then it is right now.

you are missing 1992, apparently. Whoops, nice sort job, USS. Fine, I'll just use Mark Prior's 2003 and 2005. 178 and 120. Or Ryan Dempster's 2008 (151). My point is that Greg Maddux's Cubs performances don't merit the retiring of his number. I think pretty much everyone agrees with you. But retiring #31 without Maddux involved doesnt really make sense either. Why not? What says he has to be included? He wasn't consistently great for us. Yes, it sucks we had him and he walked due to a stupid management decision, but the fact is, the vast number of his great seasons (including his best) came in a different uniform. Leon Durham wore the number 10 shirt, yes? Did anyone say he should be involved in the retiring of Santo's number 10? No. Why? Because that would have been idiotic. This is sort of the same. I recognize he had 2 strong seasons for us, and was one of the best pitchers of this era, but retiring his number at the same time as Jenkins seems wrong somehow, like trying to bootstrap the Cubs onto his legacy as something more than wasted opportunity. It's not unprecedented for a Hall of Fame player have numbers retired by two different teams even if he was better with one team than another. Rod Carew has his number retired by both the Twins and the Angels even though his whole prime was with the Twins. Nolan Ryan is retired by the Rangers (along with the Angels and Astros) even though he only played for them 5 seasons and didn't have a stellar season with them. Maddux played portions of 10 years with the Cubs. He won a Cy Young in Chicago, had another top 3 Cy Young finish, and won his 300th game there. He is also loved by Cubs fans (which definitely has some consideration on retiring numbers if the case is close). His numbers as a Cub are not strong enough to retire his number without taking into account his other years, but the fact that he's a Hall of Famer and that his Cubs career helped contribute to that helps his case. Even then, he might not be a strong enough case to get his number retired by himself. But he certainly shouldn't be ignored when the number is going to be retired anyway.