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He was never hitting that low...at least, not according to his splits nor as far as I remember. They had him in RF while Fontenot was getting regular time. His lowest average point was .231 on May 19th. He still had a .346 OBP even then though. From looking over the game logs, he was never benched. He had a day or two off here and there, but never more than that.

What would be your reaction if the Cubs lost game 4 and the series with your best pitcher slated to pitch game 5? I'm guessing you would be mad like the rest of us for starting your best starter in game 2 instead of game 1 in hopes that your best starter would pitch game 5. Unless you believe in momentum from game to game, that doesn't matter. It just meant that you would have lost the series in 4 games rather than 5.

Neither time with a team that won 90 games So? Because that is the traditional standard of a good team. It doesnt mean anything but I would venture to say that every team that has ever made the post season with less than 90 wins probably have a very low percentage of returning the next season. That's an interesting question. Let's look at the WC era (I have no idea what the results will be until I type them out): 1995: only played 144 games 1996: Baltimore and St. Louis made it. Baltimore went back the next year while St. Louis did not. 1997: Cleveland and Houston made it, reached the next year 1998: Cleveland and Texas made it, reached the next year 1999: nobody made it 2000: Yankees made it, reached the next year 2001: Cleveland, Atlanta, and Arizona made the postseason with less than 90 wins. Atlanta and Arizona returned the next year, Cleveland did not. 2002: no team reached the postseason with less than 90 wins 2003: Cubs reached the postseason, didn't return 2004: nobody reached 2005: Houston and San Diego reached. San Diego returned, Houston did not 2006: St. Louis, Los Angeles, and San Diego reached, none returned in 2007. So 9 out of the 16 went back to the playoffs the next year. Of the 7 who did not, 3 of them were very close to making the playoffs (Cubs in 04, Houston in 06, San Diego in 07). Only 3 of the 15 had a losing record the next year (Cardinals in 97, Indians in 02, Cardinals in 07) Still not a lot of evidence, but it seems to show that if you make the playoffs with less than 90 wins you'll tend to have a pretty good shot of making it again. Pretty sure the 2001 Diamondbacks had 92 wins, but it is an interesting point anyway. You are correct, and I looked back and the Indians also had over 90 wins that year. I know what I did. I was looking at the standings on October 2nd/October 3rd for all the years because I know the season doesn't end after that. In 2001, the season was pushed back a few days because of 9/11, so I didn't look at the final season standings. So that makes 8 out of 14 that made the playoffs the next year. Thanks for the correction.

where did you get this? If so, it shows Lou's foresight as well. Thank god for Lou. Could you imagine this roster with Dusty? It's in Paul Sullivan's blog that was posted in the game thread. Here is the quote about it: http://blogs.chicagosports.chicagotribune.com/sports_hardball/2007/10/october-surpris.html

Marquis is the 8th reliever. They aren't going to use 8 relievers on a normal basis. The main reason he's on the roster is what happens if one of the starters gets hurt? You can't carry just 3 pitchers who are capable of starting, and the Cubs obviously believe right now that Marshall's arm is not capable of throwing the amount of pitches needed to start. So even if they believe Marshall is the better pitcher overall, the right move is still to take Marquis. He's the better insurance policy.

Neither time with a team that won 90 games So? Because that is the traditional standard of a good team. It doesnt mean anything but I would venture to say that every team that has ever made the post season with less than 90 wins probably have a very low percentage of returning the next season. Edit. So after shooting off my typing I looked up every team that won less than 90 and made the playoffs. A surprisingly high number of them made the playoffs the next year. 10 of them made it the next season and 14 didnt make it. I only went back to 1969. I figured before divisional play there probably wasnt very many non 90 win teams to make the World Series. I didn't see your edit before you made your post. I think the pre-WC era is so different in terms of records needed to make the playoffs that it's hard to take data from that and try to extrapolate to the future in the WC era. As much as a 12 year data sample of the WC era is still too small, I think that's the only thing we can go on right now.

Neither time with a team that won 90 games So? Because that is the traditional standard of a good team. It doesnt mean anything but I would venture to say that every team that has ever made the post season with less than 90 wins probably have a very low percentage of returning the next season. That's an interesting question. Let's look at the WC era (I have no idea what the results will be until I type them out): 1995: only played 144 games 1996: Baltimore and St. Louis made it. Baltimore went back the next year while St. Louis did not. 1997: Cleveland and Houston made it, reached the next year 1998: Cleveland and Texas made it, reached the next year 1999: nobody made it 2000: Yankees made it, reached the next year 2001: Cleveland, Atlanta, and Arizona made the postseason with less than 90 wins. Atlanta and Arizona returned the next year, Cleveland did not. 2002: no team reached the postseason with less than 90 wins 2003: Cubs reached the postseason, didn't return 2004: nobody reached 2005: Houston and San Diego reached. San Diego returned, Houston did not 2006: St. Louis, Los Angeles, and San Diego reached, none returned in 2007. So 9 out of the 16 went back to the playoffs the next year. Of the 7 who did not, 3 of them were very close to making the playoffs (Cubs in 04, Houston in 06, San Diego in 07). Only 3 of the 15 had a losing record the next year (Cardinals in 97, Indians in 02, Cardinals in 07) Still not a lot of evidence, but it seems to show that if you make the playoffs with less than 90 wins you'll tend to have a pretty good shot of making it again.

After September 1st, Soto started against every left-hander the Cubs faced in the month (8 times in a row). It seems very likely that Soto will start game 2 as well. I don't know why Lou would change to Kendall now when he obviously likes Soto against left-handers. With that said, I do agree with you that if Kendall is going to start, you start him in game 1. His ability to make contact helps with Webb (and Soto's power advantage will be somewhat negated by Webb's sinker), and Z is the one pitcher that can hold runners which means Soto's arm isn't needed as much in game 1. So if they are going to start Soto in this game (which they announced they were), they need to start him the rest of the series.

That doesn't mean they'll actually use him. It's just saying that he's on the roster but won't start, and to tell everyone that he's being put on the roster just as an insurance policy doesn't sit well with people. So Marquis is technically available out of the bullpen, but the only place he likely would be used is the long reliever.

I'll take Chip over Joe I'll take Chip over Stockton. Dick Stockton is brutal. every time I hear Stockton's voice I think Bears and Lions for some reason I'll take him over Joe Buck for a season. Even if he is brutal. I just don't want to hear Joe Buck call a Cubs game, at all costs. If it were up to me, I wouldn't mind Joe Buck calling a few Cubs games yet this year. Really? I just can't take him anymore. I'd take Chip over Buck, any day. Let me think of a hyperbolic example. I'd take that Brewer play-by-play guy over Buck (Brian Anderson) :P "and the Cubs are within Grand Slam range!!" I think he meant the only way that the Cubs will get Buck is if they make the WS, and he happily would hear him in order to watch Cubs WS games.

same problem as blanco - getting dempster's salary off the books is a nice idea; getting someone to take the whole thing on will be damn near impossible. Why? Dempster has 1/5.5 left on his deal. Even the most SABR-savvy GMs have turned to much worse than Dempster in the name of getting a "true closer", and of course the not-so-bright GMs would probably see him as a bargain. Getting someone to take Dempster wouldn't be a problem, it'd be a matter of getting an appropriate return. If you believe he's so awful it's addition by subtraction. Be satisfied if they just take his contract. I'm not sure it's addition by subtraction because Dempster's awful, it's more that the Cubs simply have a surplus of relievers. If they re-sign Wood and trade Dempster, their top 5 relievers still are Marmol, Howry, Wood, Wuertz, and Eyre. That's a good bullpen, and Dempster's marginal value is not worth the 5 million to the Cubs. It might be to another team who has very few good relievers.

There is very little doubt in my mind that this is the Brewer's division for the next several years. I wouldn't say that for sure. Most of their young players are not going to get much better because they started out so well this year. I don't know if they have too much room to expand payroll after they have gone from 27 to 70 million in the last 3 years.. In 2-4 years they might have to trade off some of their talent because it will be so expensive to keep Fielder, Braun, Gallardo, Hart, etc. intact even during their arbitration years.

I completely agree with this statement. Hendry is very mediocre, and a big reason why is that he is reactive. He reacts to a need and tries to fill it. A great G.M. knows what his future needs are going to be and makes sure to fill it beforehand to get the best value and player. Hendry waits until the need is there without backup plans, and by then there aren't nearly as many options to fill that need, and you get trades like the Monroe and Trachsel deals. I think Hendry is overall a pretty decent talent evaluator, and everybody says that he's a good salesman. He just has a hard time seeing the big picture, and until he does he won't be able to rise above being mediocre.

I don't think that team would have won 85 games this year. You've tied up 47 million of your 100 million already in 3 players. Beltran has been close to Soriano offensively this year, Drew is identical to Cliff Floyd this year, and Schmidt has pitched 25 innings of over a 6 ERA. Your other 53 million would have to be very well spent in order to get a team that won over 75 games with that start.

They might have a good record against left-handers this year, but that might be coincidence. Arizona is 15th in the NL in hitting against LH's. In fact, look at this: Batting against LHP: Cubs: .263/.325/.431 Arizona: .250/.319/.402 The Cubs have a 16 point advantage over Arizona facing right-handers, and a 35 point edge against left-handers.

Ok, I'm going to give Jim Hendry appreciation for one thing in this thread. Yes, he did spend a lot of money in the 2006 offseason. The big thing was though, he spent it on the right players! There were a ton of horrible contracts thrown out last season. Here is what Hendry did: got the best second baseman on the market, but didn't pay him anywhere near that level. got the best outfielder on the market got the second and sixth best pitchers on the market, and avoided every disaster in the pitching market (for those who are understandably upset about Marquis's contract, think about having Padilla, Eaton, Igawa, Scmidt, or Zito's contracts instead). If you look at the pitching market and look at the 1 year deals, they either were hometown deals or they were absolutely awful pitchers. Most of the long-term deals failed as well, and the only person that you could say Hendry missed on was Gil Meche. got the best bench player by quite a bit on the market for an affordable price. A lot of teams threw around money, but the Cubs were the only team to significantly improve through free agency. The Cubs overpaid for some productive players, but they got the best players. Most teams overpaid for bad players. The Hendry mistakes are well known and some of them are still continuing. The reason they needed such a major overhaul in 2006 was because of Hendry's mistakes. At the same time, if he hadn't done a brilliant job picking the right players to give contracts to in the 2006 offseason the Cubs wouldn't be in the playoffs now. In fact, let's not even look at the total value of the players. Did any team get more value for their money then the Cubs last offseason?

I can't remember if they put her at 60'6" or not, but I know they had a little competition to see how she could do against a major league hitter a few years ago. Richie Sexon got the chance to try to hit about 20 pitches from her. I think he made contact with 2 or 3 of them and generally looked awful at the plate.

You have to protest a rule-the umpires didn't follow this rule or that rule. Subjective calls on the field cannot be protested.

Peavy said he had his worst stuff of the season last time out even though his results were good. Now his stuff is once again bad tonight, and the results are reflecting that. This year is a career high in innings for him. If he is starting to lose his stuff, that makes me want to root for SD tonight because if Peavy isn't dominant, that simply isn't a very good team out there right now.

Thanks for the info. I was wondering about that. As for why they are doing that, there are probably 4 times as many ND fans as PU fans in the Indianapolis area. I agree that the PU-OSU game will be a better game, but ND-UCLA will still draw more local viewers. The Purdue fans are going to be furious though, and I really don't blame them. That's really bad scheduling to put the two biggest programs in the state on at the same time, same channel.

Shouldn't those games start at 9:35 instead? I know a lot of you might not like the late start but for once it works for me! Well the lastest possible start on wednesday is 7:30. The 9:30 one is going to SUCK. Yup. I have the first day of a new job soon. Of course the first day is Friday morning early and I have a 45 minute drive to get there. I really wish the Cubs game wouldn't start at 10:30 here the previous night, but I guess I'll manage.

Now that I think about it, for the reason CubinNY stated and some others, I think Marquis probably will make the roster anyway for a long relief option, another starter in case of injury to one of the starters, and another option just in case some other disaster happens (Chase can be closed right?). I like going with 3 starters though because I don't think Z's stuff was affected that much by the short rest.

It depends how many starters the Cubs go with. If they go with 4 starters, Marquis will certainly make it. If they go with 3, then they probably leave him off in favor of another reliever.

I have the same feeling, and it pissees me off. If Monroe isn't the starting CF v. LHP, he's pointless. Definitely agree on that. If you're not starting him, the only situation I can think of where he would play is if the left-handed starter for Arizona is still in and the Cubs need a pinch-hitter. If that happens, Cedeno can fill in and Cedeno's versatility otherwise is worth a lot more than that one specific situation.

I think they are taking the not happy part by Piniella's actions during the game and how upset he was. By the time he was quoted, his quote was that he was unconcerned.