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The Cubs offense has looked pretty good the first 3 innings. A lot of deep counts and a lot of hard hit balls. Not everybody, but most of the people have had really good at-bats, and just haven't had a lot to show for it yet. They are driving Snell's pitch count up though. 58 pitches through 3.

:| That doesn't necessarily say that. It says that Canning was part of the original 9, not that he survived the cutdown to 5.

I've been very surprised that they're willing to move on this during the season, but here it is. The Cubs are part of only 3 series that start on Thursday, so it's possible that they could end up being the test case for the system. Note: This only starts Thursday for teams who are starting their series. Teams that are playing on Thursday as the final game of their series won't have replay until they start their next series on Friday. http://sports.espn.go.com/mlb/news/story?id=3554357

The big issue I see with that rotation is that you could easily have half your rotation down by midseason. You trade Lilly and Marquis, and suddenly you lose 2 of your guys who you trust to make every start. Harden, Marshall, and Hill are all huge question marks in one way or another. They give you the best production when things are going good, but they also have a high chance of being gone for at least 1/4 of the season. That's a major problem in the rotation when you have to start dipping down into your 7th and 8th starters for long stretches of the season. That makes me wary about going with that particular rotation. I'm not that interested in dealing away Lilly, but I wouldn't think twice about depth issues when trying to unload Marquis. If the Cubs could get somebody somewhat similar to Gallagher in a deal for Lilly, that would be a nice way to clear some payroll, but I liked him before they signed him and he's done nothing to make me like him less. Agreed. I don't mind dealing Marquis away, but I'm not particularly interested in dealing Lilly. I would put both their names in discussions over the winter. If you can get something great for Lilly, then trade him and keep Marquis. If you can't, then trade Marquis if you can and keep Lilly. I wouldn't trade both of them though.

The big issue I see with that rotation is that you could easily have half your rotation down by midseason. You trade Lilly and Marquis, and suddenly you lose 2 of your guys who you trust to make every start. Harden, Marshall, and Hill are all huge question marks in one way or another. They give you the best production when things are going good, but they also have a high chance of being gone for at least 1/4 of the season. That's a major problem in the rotation when you have to start dipping down into your 7th and 8th starters for long stretches of the season. That makes me wary about going with that particular rotation.

Fontenot came in the game last inning defensively.

He's been very effective in stealing bases since he came back though. He's really picking his spots well, and that has translated into 7 for 7 in just over a month.

In what is officially his first major league game. I think it also invalidates the fact that his first major league at-bat was a homerun (it's now a groundout).

The NL 1B/OF rankings are up (even though he forgot to change the heading when he copied it, so it says American league). The two Cubs free agents in this category both currently receive no compensation: Jim Edmonds Daryle Ward However, Jim Edmonds is currently just 2 places off of the Cubs potentially receiving compensation (if they dared offer him arbitration). A big month, or some other scenarios (if the pool of players becomes bigger before August 31st, for example) could get him into that B range.

He's also been one of the luckiest players in the majors, crappy LD% notwithstanding. Happy about his isoD though Theriot's BABIP is right in line with his LD%. How has he been lucky?

Unfortunately, it's true. Sometimes you don't want 5 high contract starters on a staff. The fact that the Cubs have 4 of them might influence them to not want another one. Now, I happen to think the Cubs are going to work through that and sign Dempster anyway because of their great relationship, and they'll do their best to trade Marquis to make that not as much of a concern. But the fact that they have 4 starters signed already and a couple of starters waiting in the wings is a very valid reason why they'd be hesitant to sign another one.

Well I understand the "purposeful out" thing... but regardless... not every time does a player go up there TRYING to Sac Fly... Purposeful or not, it's still an out. I think an RBI should be awarded and that's it. That's why it still counts against the players OBP, because he was not necessarily trying to make an out. SacBunts, however, do not count against OBP as in most cases the coaches are taking the PA away from the batter by telling him to make an out. Sac bunts also count against OBP, as they are also a plate appearance. That is not correct. OBP treats sac bunts as if they don't exist.

Never thought I'd hear that sentence about the Cubs, especially after the last few years. He was talking about the Brewers (Gorzelanny threw tonight against Milwaukee) but it sure is nice to see the Cubs mashing against left-handers. But that hasn't been highly unusual though. In the last 6 years, the Cubs have been better against left-handers 3 years (2003, 2005, 2008) and better against right-handers the other 3 years (2004, 2006, 2007). They were the best team in the NL against left-handers in 2005 in OPS, and they are 2nd best this year.

I was a little irked when I saw they were throwing him against us and Gorz against Milwaukee. The first thought that came to mind was in '03 or '04 when some of the Cards players were saying they were rooting for the Stros to make the playoffs over us. CCP, thanks for the info, that's some good info there. I wonder how it's going to affect their use of their pen playing it that way. I guess I don't quite understand your meaning there. Usually a team would have a problem going to 7 starters because it would leave them with too few bullpen guys. In this case though, it will be September and Pittsburgh is allowed to have their full 40 man roster up. So even though they have 7-8 starters, they'll still have their full complement of relievers, and will use them much the same as they usually do.

I bolded the ones and changed the ones that I felt were wrong. On the surface it may seem that way, but he has hit for a lot less power. I like the walks, though. Additionally, he has been far more inconsistent. His home/road splits have been more unbalanced than ever, and he posted sub-.800 OPS' in June and July, two of his best months historically. His OPS is his lowest in years, but his OPS+ is right on par with recent years. I think the relative inconsistency is what is bothering me. You expect that from Soriano, but not so much from Aramis. He's become a different type of player, yes. But not one that is any less productive. Just not quite as much of a typical #4 hitter. But that has been just fine, because he has set the table for the people behind him. And besides, we're talking about a 31 point drop in SLG from last year, and that has only been caused by a lower batting average and a couple of triples. It's hardly a steep enough drop to say that he's been underperfomring, especially when his OBP is up 19 points from last year. As for consistency, this is hardly the first year that he's had trouble in certain months. In 2006, he had 3 straight months of problems. In 2005, he had 2 bad months out of 5. I don't see how this is not expected from Aramis to have some really hot months and some colder months, just because he was relatively consistent for 1 year.

I never said those guys haven't overperformed, because they certainly have. But none of them have been impact guys, a la Ryan Ludwick. And while Theriot has been far better than expectation, his poor defense, poor base running (getting caught 40% of the time, multiple times at 3rd) and lack of power (he rarely puts himself in scoring position, and has only scored 68 runs in spite of being on base 210 times) takes away from that somewhat. And though some might not realize it, Soto wasn't all that great in May, June or July. Can you honestly say there have been more overperformers than underperformers? Let's see: Over: Theriot Soto DeRosa Dempster Edmonds Wood (questionable because he missed a stretch, and has always dominated) Fontenot Under: Lee (nearly .100 below last year's OPS) Ramirez (his OPS is all right, but his SLG is well down, his lowest in 5 years) Soriano (b/c of injuries) Ward Howry Hill Fukudome Lilly (slightly) And the names on the under list are a lot bigger than on the over list. Let's look at this list. Theriot. 90 points above the OPS of last year, and 68 of that has been in OBP. Soto-probably about 50 points ahead of projections, mostly in SLG DeRosa-62 points above OPS of last year, mostly in SLG Dempster-about 2 points of ERA better than projection Edmonds-Close to 200 points of OPS better than Cubs projected center field production Wood-hard to say. Probably not much of an upgrade except for about a month extra of time. Fontenot-around 100 points better than projection Total of starting lineup=400 points of OPS better than expected Total of bench players=100 points better than expected Total starters=2 points of ERA better than expected That doesn't even reference Zambrano, whose ERA is the best it's been in 3 years and his bat is over 200 points of OPS better than his next best year. He's definitely overperformed. Also Blanco is having the best year of his entire career off the bench at age 38. That's got to factor in somewhere. Now let's look at the other list Lee-85 points worse in OPS than last year, split between OBP and SLG Ramirez-10-12 points worse in OPS, but that's offset by the fact that his OBP is 19 points better than it's ever been. This is not a downgrade. Soriano-ok, loss of 150 at-bats or so Ward-196 points worse of OPS than last year Howry-2.15 points of ERA worse Hill-.5 point worse in ERA, loss of time (filled with trade of Harden) Fukudome-around 75 points worse than standard projection Lilly-Expected slight regression. Not really behind projection. Total of starting lineup= 170 points worse than projection (counting Ramirez, which is questionable). Loss of 150 at-bats Total of starting pitching=.5 ERA, loss of starter Total bench=196 points worse total bullpen=2.15 points worse (made up for by minor league callups and trades filling important bullpen positions) Now you can see why this looks worse than it is. The players who are overperforming are doing so by a great deal larger than the players who are underperforming. Their starting lineup is overperforming more than it's underperforming. There was almost no chance that the Cubs top 2 starters would have a 2.85 and 3.29 ERA, but they do. Dempster has been much better than Hill was projected to be, and Hill didn't flame out before he got removed like Dempster was projected to do. Add in the trade, and you see why they have done so well.

I bolded the ones and changed the ones that I felt were wrong.

They're trying to limit the innings of Karstens because he pitched so few last year. So they are giving him extra days of rest when they can. This is the start of something the Pirates are going to be doing with a few of their starters the rest of the year. When September 1st comes around, they'll be giving 7-8 different pitchers starts from time to time.

This is Gorzos first start since being recalled from the minors That's true. And he was pretty dominant in the minors. After his final start (7 innings, 1 hit, 0 walks, 6 K's) they recalled him. It doesn't look like he's doing too badly tonight.

We have a blogger who claims to have mostly figured out how the Elias rankings work. Here is the explanation: http://tigers-thoughts.blogspot.com/2008_07_01_archive.html Scroll down a little bit to Thursday, July 24th to the post entitled: (Almost) How the Elias Sports Bureau Rankings Work Since then, he's done a little more digging and found out what is likely to be the disabled list adjustment, and with that info in hand he's started the job of projecting how Elias will rank the players this year using their up to date statistics. Here are the results of that (still in progress): http://tigers-thoughts.blogspot.com/2008/08/projected-elias-rankings.html He's done a lot of work on it. From reading a few of the the posts, I'm inclined to believe it. Either way, it will be interesting to see if it's true, as it could be a great resource in future years.

It's probably a combination of the long string of consecutive games that the Cubs are in, and the fact that Gaudin threw 52 pitches yesterday. It's not like they're stretching Dempster out in this game..they're just not taking him out early.

Lets hope not I think it's a great scenario IF Lee is not hurt seriously, and could come back soon after those 15 days without any ill effects. It helps the Cubs roster situation because Hoffpauir will be on the roster on August 31st, just in case the Cubs on the DL find their way back in September. It also gives some rest to Lee, and allows him to come back fresh for the last couple weeks and playoffs. I don't think those assumptions in the first line can ever be definite though, which makes it incredibly risky. So I'll rather hope that he is absolutely fine, but a minor injury wouldn't be bad either. The Cubs will need Lee in the playoffs.

15 at home, 3 on the road. Taking a quick glance at the wind, it looks like 3 home runs against the wind, 5 or 6 with a cross wind, and 6 or 7 with the wind blowing out at home.

He walked the bases loaded. Yep, that would be falling behind! Was he missing by a lot or did he suddenly get squeezed after getting calls he had earlier? All 4 balls to Guzman were just a little bit off the outside corner. He didn't miss by much, but he wasn't getting squeezed either. 2 of the ones to Zimmerman were close, and the other 2 were way out of the zone. From watching Marquis, it seems like he doesn't want to give in to the middle (close too) of the plate until he struggles and then it's too late. Maybe I'm wrong but it seems to me he works his own way and then when he starts to struggle, puts it down the middle or continues to walk batters. Does he usually give up big innings and not 1 or 2 at a time? I haven't looked up the stats myself, but Len and Bob talk every start about his propensity to give up the big inning after cruising for a while. I do agree with you Cuse on that. It appears that he is comfortable and just making pitches..but when he gets thrown out of that, he gets cute and tries to be perfect with every pitch, which causes him to fall behind and put more runners on. Then he gets afraid of walking the next hitter, so he lays one in there that gets pounded. Typically, as soon as he gets out of his big inning, he returns to cruising along.

He walked the bases loaded. Yep, that would be falling behind! Was he missing by a lot or did he suddenly get squeezed after getting calls he had earlier? All 4 balls to Guzman were just a little bit off the outside corner. He didn't miss by much, but he wasn't getting squeezed either. 2 of the ones to Zimmerman were close, and the other 2 were way out of the zone.