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Yup..and Lowe is one of only 3 right-handers in the next 7. Edmonds will be doing a lot of sitting the bench.

I thought he went to the bullpen? It ended up simply being a skipped start, not a permanent move.

I've been thinking of starting a thread on DeRosa soon, so I'll just put my thoughts here. He has quietly went about and did his job this year. He probably is the least talked about person in the starting lineup so far this year when you consider the big boppers that everyone focuses on (Lee, Ramirez, Soriano) the sparkling rookies (Soto, Fukudome) the surprise (Theriot) and the black hole (Pie/Johnson/Edmonds). So far he's off to his best start of his career. .315/.406/.461 while once again already having played 5 positions, most of them pretty well. He's the guy who lets us have such an unversatile bench, and therefore a bench with better hitters on it. So I just wanted to say my appreciation for his flexibility, both in the field and in the lineup (batting 8th recently!). In my opinion, he's already earned every penny of that 3 year contract we gave him, and he has a year and a half left to add even more value to the team.

He said he was working on a surprise that he was going to unveil as the season went along.

Carlos Marmol, imo. Yeah, I don't see how he gets left off. Setup men rarely get selected, and if they do, it's usually the teams only representative. Others have been selected, but I doubt Marmol gets the nod with the pitching so far in the NL. A couple of other relievers will have similar cases, and they'll probably all be left off. Taylor Bucholz, for example, is about even or ahead of Marmol in all the categories besides strikeouts.

Given Marmol's numbers as a starter over parts of 5 years in the minors, I'd say the likelihood he could put up a 3.50 ERA (which, honestly, is a high bar for even an above average starter) is decent, possibly even 50-50. His biggest deterrent right now from being an effective starter is his pitch efficiency. Really, if the guy's going to average 20+ pitches an inning, it'll be difficult to stretch him out into an effective starter. Oh, I realize it's a high bar. But it's the bar Marmol has set for himself with how unbelievable he's been as a reliever. And I would agree that pitch efficiency would be a big problem. Marmol is averaging over 4 pitches per plate appearance for his major league career. He's averaging 4.3 pitches this year. You can still be effective with a number around 4, but it doesn't leave you much margin for error. Only 3 pitchers in the majors managed to hit 200 innings with the number at or above 4 (Kazmir, Cain, Peavy). They typically manage to do it because they never come out early. The fewest pitches Peavy threw all season last year was 95. For Kazmir, it was 91. Cain's had a few short outings, but also several very long outings.

Why does Edmonds have to stay around to preserve a battle between Pie and Hoffpauir? While I could see waiting to call Pie back up, there's no reason Edmonds has to stay around to make that happen. I'm just looking at what would happen instead of what could happen. If they cut Edmonds now, Pie doesn't get called up. Hoffpauir starts starting against right-handers. He hits enough for Lou to at least be satisfied with him. Not great, but not horrible either. Now Pie keeps working down in AAA, and gets hot. The Cubs either keep him down in AAA, or they bring him up to the majors and he serves as a defensive replacement for Hoffpauir and a spot starter. This continues until Hoffpauir totally tanks and loses the job, which could take quite a while. Sure, the Cubs could stray away from this formula, and let Pie come up and take the at-bats as soon as he's ready if Hoffpauir has been somewhat effective or not. History says they won't though, and I want Edmonds to stick around for another little while to save the Cubs from themselves. So you'd rather get god awful performance from Edmonds than mediocre performance from Hoffpauir? I think the far more likely scenario is, barring a fantastic performance by Micah, they will only want Fukudome in center for a handful of games, thus making the Hoffpauir in right experiment short lived. I hope you're right, and if that is true, then I would want Edmonds cut today. We're still not going to see much of Edmonds either way this next week. 4 out of the next 7 are against left-handed starters.

That is a debatable point on if it actually does give the Cubs the best chance to win. It's almost certainly not an easy enough decision either way to call it a dis-service if they decide to do it the other way. Because of his bad wheels we've seen him whiff on pop flies (in St. Louis) that, Reed Johnson, for example would have caught. Granted it wasn't in the bottom of the ninth, but, its going to happen again and with the Cubs luck, its going to cost them the game. True, but it's the same situation as Milwaukee had with Ryan Braun last year. If you take him out, and then the opposition hits a home run to tie the game, now one of your best hitters is out of the ballgame, and both Reed Johnson and Jim Edmonds are in your lineup. That doesn't spell good things for winning the ballgame in extra innings. It's close to decide if the glove now is more important than the bat later. I'd probably keep Soriano in, but I could see why somebody would take him out right now for a defensive replacement as well. I think it really is close enough to be based on how he is hitting/fielding that day, and to decide on a game to game basis. According to Lou though, he's not doing that. He said he simply won't do a late-inning replacement for Soriano. He even jumped down a reporter's throat for asking about it. I can see the other side of the argument though. If you pull him out, and the save is blown, you've just taken out one of your biggest bats and best chances to get the lead back. No question about that. The one thing that I didn't mention though is that with Soriano it's not ability. It's either confidence, or an injury. He proved last year that he has enough ability to not need a defensive replacement out there. If it's confidence, like he's saying, then Lou has to keep sticking him back out there. It's already a close decision either way for the short-term, and only by playing through it will this decision not have to be made anymore. If Lou starts pulling him from games, then Soriano is more likely to continue this behavior for longer. So the short-term is close either way, but for the long-term the Cubs need to have him out there so that he shapes up and starts trusting his running ability again.

Effectiveness is much more needed to get a team ahead in the first place. Sure, when a team has a 1-2 run lead late, it's nice to have effective pitching to finish out the game. However, effective pitching to start the game will lead to many more 1-2 run leads late than 1-2 run deficits late. I'd much rather have an 90% effective starter and a 60% effective reliever than the other way around. Sure, with an 90% effective reliever, you'd feel confident once you have the lead late, but with a 90% effective starter, you'd feel confident that you would have the lead late to begin with. I think we're talking in circles at this point, so let me reiterate one of my earlier points that wasn't addressed. The likelihood that Marmol can put up a 3.50 ERA as a starter is certainly less than 50%. Even if you think it is above 50, the chance that he is at least .5 below that is smaller then the chance he has to put at least .5 above that. Marmol+an average reliever would put up worse numbers overall than an average starter+Marmol most of the time. It just isn't worth it unless there was 90-100% assurance that Marmol would be an ace, and there is not anywhere close to such assurance with Marmol.

Why does Edmonds have to stay around to preserve a battle between Pie and Hoffpauir? While I could see waiting to call Pie back up, there's no reason Edmonds has to stay around to make that happen. I'm just looking at what would happen instead of what could happen. If they cut Edmonds now, Pie doesn't get called up. Hoffpauir starts starting against right-handers. He hits enough for Lou to at least be satisfied with him. Not great, but not horrible either. Now Pie keeps working down in AAA, and gets hot. The Cubs either keep him down in AAA, or they bring him up to the majors and he serves as a defensive replacement for Hoffpauir and a spot starter. This continues until Hoffpauir totally tanks and loses the job, which could take quite a while. Sure, the Cubs could stray away from this formula, and let Pie come up and take the at-bats as soon as he's ready if Hoffpauir has been somewhat effective or not. History says they won't though, and I want Edmonds to stick around for another little while to save the Cubs from themselves.

I hope I've done enough already in this thread to show that this is a false assumption. You have not. The two things I have an issue with are: You have made no distinction between leads and deficits. A reliever coming in constantly with a 1-2 run deficit is not nearly as valuable as a reliever coming in constantly with a 1-2 runs lead. Giving up 1-2 runs when you're already behind simply lowers your already low chance of winning. Giving up 1-2 runs when you're barely ahead decreases your chances of winning a lot more than that. There is no distinction made that top relievers come in sometimes (and if the manager is smart, a good percentage of the time) with runners already on, which makes the game closer than the score would necessarily indicate. Considering a starter never comes in with a 1-2 run deficit, this only further indicates the fallacy that relievers come in with more close situations. A starter is always entering a tie game. The only difference between a 1-0 game in the third and a 1-0 game in the ninth is that the team has fewer opportunities in front of it to score more runs to win the game. Plus, there exist possibilities earlier in the game that haven't come to fruition by late in the game. However, the pitcher himself has very little control over those possibilities. The pitcher can only be primarily concerned with what he does have direct control over, and that is limiting walks, HRs, and LDs and maximizing Ks and pitch efficiency. That job is the same in the first as it is in the ninth. A starter is always entering a tie game, but frequently an average starter will be behind by 1-2 runs but still pitching. Those are situations that a top reliever is not frequently pitching in, and that is why his on a per inning average, a top reliever will have more innings where an effective pitcher is essential than a starter will. Effectiveness is much more needed when a team is ahead than when a team is behind.

That is a debatable point on if it actually does give the Cubs the best chance to win. It's almost certainly not an easy enough decision either way to call it a dis-service if they decide to do it the other way. Because of his bad wheels we've seen him whiff on pop flies (in St. Louis) that, Reed Johnson, for example would have caught. Granted it wasn't in the bottom of the ninth, but, its going to happen again and with the Cubs luck, its going to cost them the game. True, but it's the same situation as Milwaukee had with Ryan Braun last year. If you take him out, and then the opposition hits a home run to tie the game, now one of your best hitters is out of the ballgame, and both Reed Johnson and Jim Edmonds are in your lineup. That doesn't spell good things for winning the ballgame in extra innings. It's close to decide if the glove now is more important than the bat later. I'd probably keep Soriano in, but I could see why somebody would take him out right now for a defensive replacement as well. I think it really is close enough to be based on how he is hitting/fielding that day, and to decide on a game to game basis.

I'd rather them wait a week or so on this. Pie seems like he's starting to turn it around. I want Pie to be ready to go , and for him to have proved himself again to management when Edmonds gets cut. I can see Hoffpauir hitting enough to keep that experiment going for quite a while, so I think the Cubs need Edmonds to stay around a little longer so that Pie can at least fight Hoffpauir for playing time before Hoffpauir becomes entrenched in the role.

That is a debatable point on if it actually does give the Cubs the best chance to win. It's almost certainly not an easy enough decision either way to call it a dis-service if they decide to do it the other way.

I hope I've done enough already in this thread to show that this is a false assumption. You have not. The two things I have an issue with are: You have made no distinction between leads and deficits. A reliever coming in constantly with a 1-2 run deficit is not nearly as valuable as a reliever coming in constantly with a 1-2 runs lead. Giving up 1-2 runs when you're already behind simply lowers your already low chance of winning. Giving up 1-2 runs when you're barely ahead decreases your chances of winning a lot more than that. There is no distinction made that top relievers come in sometimes (and if the manager is smart, a good percentage of the time) with runners already on, which makes the game closer than the score would necessarily indicate.

Marmol in his career as a starter - meh. Marmol in his career as a reliever - ridiculoawesome. Shrug. ] This. Plus: Marmol's Expected Wins Added Above Replacement: 2.516, second in all of baseball behind Brad Lidge. Support Neutral Win-Loss Above Replacement (essentially the equivalent stat for a starter): Zambrano: 2.6, Dempster: 1.8. A high-leverage reliever is every bit as valuable as an ace starter. You keep saying this, but you neglect to take into account that a reliever, even the most overworked reliever in baseball, is throwing about 90 innings. A solid starter is generally throwing at least twice that for the year. So, then, to maximize overall team value, the most effective pitchers on the team should be used in situations where they throw the majority of the innings. I'd rather see Marmol get 200 innings and Marquis get 90 than the other way around. Even if a Marmol 90-inning year is hugely effective. Let's make this a fair comparison (to help out the Marmol as a starter argument, as Marquis to the bullpen hurts the argument). Marmol at his current production with a league average starter, and a league average reliever + Marmol as a starter. Marmol for 90 innings (1.64 ERA) + league average starter (4.47 ERA) for 200 innings=3.59 ERA league average reliever for 90 innings (3.77 ERA)+Marmol as a starter= ? Marmol would have to have a 3.51 ERA for a team to get the same production out of his as a starter as a reliever. Most of the other factors then tend to balance out. Your top reliever throws more close innings than an average starter. At the same time, starters are harder to find, and more expensive to pay for. It's too big of a gamble IMO. Marmol would have to pitch like a borderline ace just to get it to even out. There's not even close to a guarantee he will do that. He could be that, but he could be a lot worse. The chance of him being better than that and being one of the best 10 starters in the league is small compared to the chance that he would just be a league average starter.

Tennessee scores 6 in the 8th and 1 in the 9th to win 8-7 over Carolina. Colvin went 1-3 with a walk and a sacrifice bunt. As impressive as his walks have been lately, the cutting down of the strikeouts has also been very impressive. Only 2 in his last 10 games now.

Right before they called him up somebody, Dusty or Hendry, said they were not going to give Corey the yo-yo treatment, but that is exactly what they did. They did all sorts of things like make him sit for days at a time for no good reason, then get sent to AAA to work on slapping the ball and being a bunter. Patterson started 72 out of the first 79 games in 2005. I'd hardly call that jerking him around. His line after July 2nd of that year when he lost his job: .236/.274/.387 in 305 AB's. I don't agree with what they had him work on in the minor leagues, and believe that was a mistake. But I don't think they gave him the yo-yo treatment. They also didn't start him as much as I'd like after he came back, but he did start 37 out of the 50 games. Baylor and the injury were the worst things to happen to Patterson. He got a fair shot in 05. And, btw, fixing Pie's swing this early is a mistake, no matter how bad he looked. They're taking a huge gamble before even seeing how well he can adjust on his own. That's nice, but Corey was first called up to the majors in 2000. He went back to AAA in 2001, then got called up where he platooned for a while and then more or less turned into a pinch hitter for 2 months. The names you mentioned were Dusty and Hendry. I would agree that Patterson was yo-yo'd back in 2000-2001, but you said that Dusty and Hendry did it, and neither of them were in the key decision maker spots back then. Did you mean Baylor and MacPhail?

Right before they called him up somebody, Dusty or Hendry, said they were not going to give Corey the yo-yo treatment, but that is exactly what they did. They did all sorts of things like make him sit for days at a time for no good reason, then get sent to AAA to work on slapping the ball and being a bunter. Patterson started 72 out of the first 79 games in 2005. I'd hardly call that jerking him around. His line after July 2nd of that year when he lost his job: .236/.274/.387 in 305 AB's. I don't agree with what they had him work on in the minor leagues, and believe that was a mistake. But I don't think they gave him the yo-yo treatment. They also didn't start him as much as I'd like after he came back, but he did start 37 out of the 50 games. Baylor and the injury were the worst things to happen to Patterson. He got a fair shot in 05. And, btw, fixing Pie's swing this early is a mistake, no matter how bad he looked. They're taking a huge gamble before even seeing how well he can adjust on his own.

The problem with Soriano at second now is that he is having a problem getting started. His first few steps are taking longer than normal. His range at 2nd would probably be even worse than his range in left. Then of course that would make him dive for more balls, and that would cause a lot more stress on his legs. I think he would struggle there and get hurt more. It's not a thing the Cubs should really be considering until DeRosa's contract runs out, anyway. With questions with both the starting rotation and bullpen after this year, I'm not sure the Cubs could afford to take on another 13-15 million dollar offensive player, and that's what it would take to be an upgrade on the current setup.

No Russell Martin tonight, so that should help Gallagher a little bit.

It'd help a lot if Pie was hitting at all in the minors though. When does Ward come off the DL? Maybe they'll cut Edmonds then to make room? Ward's still waiting for the medical approval to start swinging a bat. It will still be a little while.

Teams had wanted to make him an OF for a long time because of how terrible he was at second. The Nationals finally forced the issue because they already had a second baseman. The problem with Soriano right now is that before, he had good range and rather poor instincts. Combined with that great arm, it made him a well above average fielding left fielder. Since he doesn't trust running on his leg, his range is poor and combined with those poor instincts, makes him really bad out there. He can't even use his arm as much out there because he cannot get to balls fast enough for his arm to become a factor. And don't forget that he's afraid of fences and walls. He either stops or starts flinching when he comes within 25 feet of the fence or wall. Yup. I was throwing that in as a big part of his poor instincts, although he has shown other smaller signs of poor instincts as well.

True, but it makes me worry less seeing the other road records around baseball right now. At this time last year, road teams were 341-386. That's a winning percentage of .469. This year, road teams are 321-437. That's a winning percentage of .423. The Cubs definitely need to play better on the road, but so do most of the teams in the league. Last year at this time, Milwaukee's road record was good for 12th out of 16 teams in the NL. The Cubs road record, albeit slightly worse than Milwaukee's last year at this point, is 7th best.

Teams had wanted to make him an OF for a long time because of how terrible he was at second. The Nationals finally forced the issue because they already had a second baseman. The problem with Soriano right now is that before, he had good range and rather poor instincts. Combined with that great arm, it made him a well above average fielding left fielder. Since he doesn't trust running on his leg, his range is poor and combined with those poor instincts, makes him really bad out there. He can't even use his arm as much out there because he cannot get to balls fast enough for his arm to become a factor.