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I would, but I doubt Lou will, especially since he's due up 2nd this inning. It's not a big deal either way though with 2 innings left and the fact that the Cubs have another off day coming up on Monday, so keeping the bullpen fresh isn't a big concern today.

That's what the Cubs are paying him. The Padres have some of the rest of his contract, and the Cardinals are paying the rest.

Marquis came into today with an ERA+ of 105, which is pretty consistent with his last few seasons. What more do people want from him? And honestly, both the Dye and Wise HR pitches weren't terrible. As a ground ball pitcher, it's not like he got the ball up to them. Agreed. I thought he had 1 inning where he was missing his spots, and that was the 5th. He was lucky to only give 1 in that inning. The 2 HR's, especially the Wise one, were bad results off a pretty good pitch. Overall it's been a decent outing. He probably should have given up 3, maybe 4 today. 5 has been a bit unlucky, but thankfully the offense has put up 10. It's just like his outing from last year against the White Sox. 8 baserunners over 6 innings, which is decent, but 5 of them have come around to score.

Edmonds current line with the Cubs: .315/.354/.603 Wow.

This reminds me a lot of last year with Marquis against the White Sox. Marquis only allowed 8 baserunners in 6 innings that day, but 5 of them scored. He also helped himself offensively that day last year. The Cubs ended up winning 11-6, with Lee's grand slam putting the game away.

not even close. Cedeno is way better. defensively. Exactly. Fontenot was projected to hit better before the season, and after that at-bat his numbers are better than Cedeno this season as well (by around 35 points or so). It depends on if you want the defensive versatility of Cedeno or the slightly better bat that Fontenot offers.

I was about to put a post in earlier today about how I was worried that Marquis and the home run today, but then I held back. It does look like he had pretty good stuff though in the first inning, so if he can keep the ball in the ballpark from now on he should still have a decent day. And really nice to see Patterson really drill one.

I'm almost sure it is. He's played 11 straight games, and this is a good day to give him a day off. He's not going to get many with Soriano out, so Lou needs to find a way to get him rest with pitchers like this who are tough on right-handers.

I'm surprised that Fontenot isn't where Patterson is in the lineup, and Hoffpauir isn't in LF batting 6th, but otherwise I can certainly see Lou making this lineup. Contreras's splits the last 1 1/2 years have been huge. 2007 vs right: .270/.329/.398 vs left: .333/.386/.496 2008 vs right: .222/.253/.268 vs left: .254/.320/.382

AH! Its Rothschild's fault. I just knew it couldn't be the beloved wunderkind Hill. How about maybe the previous year and a half were more of an aberration and the league figured him out? One good pitch, one average pitch and he wasn't able to be aggressive anymore. The league didn't figure him out, he was walking everyone because Rothschild changed his mechanics. MLB hitters were hitting .191 with a .683 OPS off him when he was sent down. Lots of assumptions going on here. Did Hill's arm slot change because Rothschild changed his mechanics? Or did Rothschild see his arm slot changed at the beginning of ST, so he tried to change his mechanics to get his arm back in the right slot? I'm certainly not going to give LR a free pass on it, but I'm not going to put the blame squarely on his shoulders quite yet either, because I don't know which is the true case. They said they changed it so Hill would be quicker to the plate, it wasn't a response to a new problem. Agreed, and I think it would be hard to argue that Rothschild didn't at least delay this process. However, I have to look at what Hill has been saying first. So far, he has repeatedly said three things. 1) The problems have been there since the very first time he showed up at Spring Training, 2) It's mechanical, and 3) He doesn't know where it came from. That certainly doesn't sound like he would come even close to believing that the tinkering from the coaching staff was the problem (considering they tinkered with him after he showed up at Spring Training, and he certainly would remember those changes). I have a hard time attributing the blame to the coaching staff when he clearly doesn't, especially since the basis for blaming the coaching staff is based on a 1-2 sentence blurb in a newspaper that was very vague IIRC. "i was great but then my major league coaches ruined me and now i am bad." - rich hill, in the universe in which you can state your true feelings about your employers and higher-ups and they won't hold it against you it's pretty unreasonable to say that, since hill himself has not blamed rothschild, it means it can't be larry's fault. I'm not saying that Hill had to come out and blame Rothschild. But Hill clearly is mystified that his mechanics have changed whatsoever from last year. If you think you know what caused it, you don't throw up your hands and say "For some unexplained reason, my arm path was different from last year". He would be quite an actor to put on this act if he thought he knew what was wrong. And remember, Hill would have no problem saying that it was the new mechanics because from all Hill's actions to date, he would probably blame himself for not picking up the new mechanics instead of Larry if that was the case. Hill would likely say something like "They tried to work with me on my mechanics in spring training, and I just have been slipping too much between the old way and the new way. I need to be more consistent with my mechanics and throw strikes". A statement like that would make me much more likely to blame Larry even if I can see Hill clearly isn't. But it's hard for me to blame the coaching staff when Hill nor anybody else in the organization or media has mentioned that as a possible cause of the control problems, no matter who the blame falls on. And that's especially true when Hill comes out and continues to reiterate quite strongly that he has absolutely no idea where it came from.

AH! Its Rothschild's fault. I just knew it couldn't be the beloved wunderkind Hill. How about maybe the previous year and a half were more of an aberration and the league figured him out? One good pitch, one average pitch and he wasn't able to be aggressive anymore. The league didn't figure him out, he was walking everyone because Rothschild changed his mechanics. MLB hitters were hitting .191 with a .683 OPS off him when he was sent down. Lots of assumptions going on here. Did Hill's arm slot change because Rothschild changed his mechanics? Or did Rothschild see his arm slot changed at the beginning of ST, so he tried to change his mechanics to get his arm back in the right slot? I'm certainly not going to give LR a free pass on it, but I'm not going to put the blame squarely on his shoulders quite yet either, because I don't know which is the true case. They said they changed it so Hill would be quicker to the plate, it wasn't a response to a new problem. Agreed, and I think it would be hard to argue that Rothschild didn't at least delay this process. However, I have to look at what Hill has been saying first. So far, he has repeatedly said three things. 1) The problems have been there since the very first time he showed up at Spring Training, 2) It's mechanical, and 3) He doesn't know where it came from. That certainly doesn't sound like he would come even close to believing that the tinkering from the coaching staff was the problem (considering they tinkered with him after he showed up at Spring Training, and he certainly would remember those changes). I have a hard time attributing the blame to the coaching staff when he clearly doesn't, especially since the basis for blaming the coaching staff is based on a 1-2 sentence blurb in a newspaper that was very vague IIRC.

On one of the easiest positions on the field to provide cheaply, and Murton isn't dirt cheap for too much longer. I just don't think Beane would assign a lot of value to him, especially since Murton isn't really the type of player that Beane could spin in a year or two as he became more expensive.

I'm not sure about that. Beane values defense right now more than just about any other club out there. I'd bet Oakland has very mixed feelings on Murton. Sure, they'll jump on him if they feel he is undervalued, but I doubt they have that high of a value on him.

he was very good last year. at this point one would have to think it's some mental block. his command was fine the last two years. i suspect that he's going to have to figure it out himself at this point. His control was more than fine last year. His K rate, control and WHIP were excellent for a full year and a half, a period during which he was better than Z. I don't believe he's lost it for good, as he was able to recover from several demotions in the past. But, I'm certainly losing faith in his ability to contribute this year. I wonder if they had not screwed with his dead by sending him down this year, whether he would have righted the ship with up here. He wasn't pitching that badly at the time, but the demotion started this ridiculous spiral. I'm not sure the minor leagues have made him spiral any worse. His control hasn't been that much worse overall (9.45 BB per 9 in the minors, 8.24 in the majors) and a large part of that minor difference is on his bad control days, he was given a quick hook in the majors, while in the minors he's been given a little more slack and allowed to continue walking batters. As far as him not getting out of the first last night, at some point with that bad of control problems you're going to give up a couple of lucky hits and give up a huge inning, even if your stuff is nasty. That's why people said his ERA was a mirage in the majors. It's just very improbable that you can continue to be productive with that high of a walk rate over a decent sample. With his control, one of these disaster starts was going to come eventually whichever level he was at.

...or at the same time. I think the Blue Jays would like to get out of Vernon Wells' contract. Burnett and Wells for every spare part we have. That'll be going all in for this year. Didn't Vernon Wells sign an extension well over $100 mill with Toronto? Yes. After this year, he's due 117 million over the next 6 seasons. To compare, Soriano is due to make 106 million over the same 6 years left on his deal. This for a guy who hasn't had better than a .762 OPS on the road in the past 5 years. He had a .706 OPS overall last year and has a .761 so far this year. There's no way I would want Wells. He might put up 2 years out of 6 that are in line with his contract. Plus, adding a contract that is higher than Soriano's makes the Cubs adding payroll anytime in the next year and a half iffy, and adding an overpaid Wells is not worth that.

I would hardly define getting Jerry Blevins and Rob Bowen for Kendall as screwing us. I think the screwing us part comes when we get Jason Kendall. I think Kendall was exactly what the Cubs expected last year. A .350 OBP catcher with no power and defensive problems. The part where the Cubs erred was taking that over Soto, not having anything to do with Beane. As I said a couple of weeks ago, in 3 deals with the club, the Cubs were the only one to get a pretty good player (Barrett). So far when the two of them have hooked up the Cubs have gotten Barrett, Bynum, and Kendall. The A's have gotten Damian Miller, Koronka (sent to the Rangers instead), Bowen, and Blevins. Blevins is the only one with future potential in that list, and he's a 24 year old reliever not having a great year in AAA. I'd say the Cubs have gotten the slightly better end of the deals so far. The Cubs also got a compensatory pick for Kendall. I'm not sure if the A's did for Miller or not.

It is? When you consider that he's been very good against left-handers this year, and that the fact that he cannot start probably means the Cubs have 3 bench players today (including Henry Blanco), I would say it isn't particularly good that he didn't appear in the starting lineup.

Pretty much split down into 3 different categories, actually: 1) Overuse 2) Marmol isn't sharp when he isn't used much, especially when he has several days off before an outing. 3) It simply was going to come eventually. Marmol is a guy with nasty stuff, and has had control problems in the past. 1 or 2 times he's not going to be able to locate either of his pitches and just absolutely blow up. I've seen people with all 3 interpretations. I tend to believe number 3, although I'm open to both of the others being contributing factors.

I hope Patterson isn't recalled because that means somebody is headed to the DL, and the only one that is likely to be serious enough to do that would be Z. Pie could come up for Murton though.

I should have put this at the end of the first post, especially since I got beat to the punch anyway. Certainly not the best hitting lineup to have Blanco in there. But I think it's a great move. You accomplish 2 things: to continue resting Soto, who needs to remain fresh. And, the Cubs have to be very careful to slow down the Rays running game tonight. Blanco does a good job of accomplishing that, and since there's the DH, you don't have to take Soto out of the game to do that. Plus it's not like the 2 healthy Cubs who are on the bench tonight have been killing the ball either. So Blanco isn't that much of a downgrade offensively, and really helps the Cubs defensively tonight. I like the thought process here.

Can't wait to hear the comments about this lineup: Cubs Fukudome-CF Theriot-SS Lee-1B Ramirez-3B Soto-DH Hoffpauir-LF DeRosa-RF Blanco-C Fontenot-2B

The club has pretty broad discretionary powers on what times games are. Blame TB for this, not MLB.

Sorry to nitpick, but what the hell does a good arm have to do with hitting leadoff? Lou's getting old. I was suprised nobody mentioned this little fact in the game thread when Len casually mentioned it a few minutes ago. That's a huge change, although Fukudome better have a little success there early or Lou probably will change his mind. He doesn't need to be great, but he can't be terrible there. And Kosuke putting the 1st pitch in play isn't surprising in the slightest. He leads the Cubs in that catgory.

I think he probably meant has a team ever decided to not use the DH and just let the pitcher hit from the start of the game. As for using a pitcher to hit period, the Cubs would have had a somewhat small chance of having to do it last night if Johnson's bunt had been successful. They would have had the pitcher's spot be 8th in extra innings, and had only 1 bench player left before they would have had to use Zambrano and Marquis to pinch-hit.

Looks like the minor leagues need to get into the "21st century" and have pinch runners for every batter. Seriously though, that's too bad for him in his first professional game. I'm sure it makes him feel a little bit better that his replacement got to have the thrill of a walkoff homerun in his first major league at bat though.