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Oh, I'm sure there's almost nothing to it (there might be a minimal effect of Soriano being more comfortable, but it's not large at all). I'm not saying that having Pie on the roster for all of 2008 will make Soriano have a monster year. At the same time, Soriano is fascinating because of how many times he can be the exception to things. Consider the facts talked about on this board: hitting with nobody on and hitting with RISP should equal about to about the same production over time. Soriano is 99 points better over his career with nobody on than with RISP, which is a huge difference for how long he has been playing. batting in a certain spot in the lineup doesn't affect production. Soriano is 66 points better in the 1 spot than any other spot with at least 100 at-bats (he's had at least 100 in the 1, the 3, the 5, the 8, and the 9). hitting production is not affected by what position you are playing. Soriano has a career .908 OPS as a LF while having only an .820 OPS as a second baseman. prime is between 27 and 29. soriano has now his 2 best overall OPS seasons at 30 and 31. production is not affected by outside influences (such as who else is on the roster). Soriano's production with Pie on the roster has to be at least 300 points better than when Pie is not on the roster. Soriano's career just doesn't quite make sense. He is one of those different kind of players that cannot quite be explained. Not only are certain things about him anomalies, I believe his entire career is an anomaly.

Also another interesting note with Soriano is that the Pie being on the roster helping Soriano continues to hold true. Soriano struggled the first two months except for the couple weeks that Pie was up. When Pie came back up on the 3rd of June, Soriano went on a tear. Pie was sent back down in early July, and Soriano had a horrid July and August. Since he came back in late August though, Soriano has once again been hot with Pie on the roster. I'm not saying it means anything per se, but it is interesting to note.

Catching up? I know I'm biased to a point, because I'm of a younger generation that never saw Santo play, but I'd say that the Ramirez we have right now at least matches up (I hate to say better/worse because it's tough to compare eras) with Santo in his prime. Whether Ram puts up an entire career to match up/exceed Santo's remains to be seen, but I'd say he's pretty well on his way with the way he has performed since 2004. OPS+ would disagree with you. Santo's best 5 seasons were 164, 161, 153, 146, and 138. Ramirez's best 5 so far are 137, 136, 132, 126, and 125. So Santo's peak was a lot better than Ramirez's at least according to that metric.

How do the playoff look? Will the Cubs face the winner in the west or possibly the wild card team? It seems unavoidable at this point that the Cubs will face a West team. Arizona is the team we'd play right now since the Padres lead the wildcard. If the Phillies were to get the wild card, the Cubs would play the Mets, but it's highly unlikely. Either matchup doesn't inspire confidence. How is it highly unlikely that a Phillies team that is currently 0.5 games out of the WC will win it?

How do the playoff look? Will the Cubs face the winner in the west or possibly the wild card team? It will either be the west winner or the east winner, depending on which team wins the WC.

Yea, i would put in Hart over Ohman, Cedeno over Fontenot (backup SS and has been hot in limited appearances). I do NOT want Monroe on the roster, although I think I would put him on. I would put on Fuld. He and Pie can be the pinch-runners and defensive replacements. By adding Soto we get one more pinch-hitter, so I think we could add Fuld and still have enough people on the bench. Huh? Noway you have 2 guys on the roster for defensive purposes only. Fuld wont, and shouldnt be on the roster. Woops :oops: I fixed it in my original post. I figure that Fuld will not be on, and Monroe will. Although, we would have enough pinch hitters to survive. Ward, Soto, Murton, Cedeno/Fontenot. How many times do you need more than 4 pinch hitters in one game? If Soto isnt starting he wont be used as a pinch hitter it would leave us with no catchers if Kendall gets hurt. Cubs catchers have pinch-hit 17 times this year (Koyie Hill 5, Blanco 4, Barrett 4, Kendall 2, Bowen 1, Soto 1) and have been double-switched a few other times. Lou isn't nearly as concerned as some other managers about using his second catcher. He still doesn't usually use it as the first option, but he won't hesitate to use the catcher, especially if the catcher is a good hitter (look at Barret's 4 pinch-hit appearances in just over 2 months even though he didn't sit out all that many games). How many of those have came when we were carrying 3 catchers? It's hard to say without looking at each game log. Considering the Cubs have only carried 3 catchers for 24 days this year (2 days in July and 22 days in September) I'd say not many of them.

Yea, i would put in Hart over Ohman, Cedeno over Fontenot (backup SS and has been hot in limited appearances). I do NOT want Monroe on the roster, although I think I would put him on. I would put on Fuld. He and Pie can be the pinch-runners and defensive replacements. By adding Soto we get one more pinch-hitter, so I think we could add Fuld and still have enough people on the bench. Huh? Noway you have 2 guys on the roster for defensive purposes only. Fuld wont, and shouldnt be on the roster. Woops :oops: I fixed it in my original post. I figure that Fuld will not be on, and Monroe will. Although, we would have enough pinch hitters to survive. Ward, Soto, Murton, Cedeno/Fontenot. How many times do you need more than 4 pinch hitters in one game? If Soto isnt starting he wont be used as a pinch hitter it would leave us with no catchers if Kendall gets hurt. Cubs catchers have pinch-hit 17 times this year (Koyie Hill 5, Blanco 4, Barrett 4, Kendall 2, Bowen 1, Soto 1) and have been double-switched a few other times. Lou isn't nearly as concerned as some other managers about using his second catcher. He still doesn't usually use it as the first option, but he won't hesitate to use the catcher, especially if the catcher is a good hitter (look at Barret's 4 pinch-hit appearances in just over 2 months even though he didn't sit out all that many games).

Aramis doesn't have quite as good of numbers as some of the MVP candidates. He still would be considered except he doesn't have the plate appearances because he has missed so many games. For example, for the 3 guys you mentioned, Fielder and Wright have around 100 plate appearances more than Aramis. To win MVP and play in only around 130 games like Aramis is going to do, you have to have easily better numbers than anybody else. Aramis simply doesn't have that.

I'd want Marmol and if Lou hadn't used him already, my guess is that it would be Marmol. That says nothing about the overall closer situation though.

My brother told me that a win against a D1AA team doesn't count towards the necessary amount of wins (6) that you need to qualify for a bowl. I don't believe him, but is he right? It used to not count, but now you can have 1 win over a I-AA count towards your win total.

I'll just provide some stats in this argument with little conclusion. Here are the Cub veterans and their stats in different situations. I am only including players who have had at least 3000 at-bats to try to get a good sample, and these are all career numbers: Cliff Floyd Nobody on .268/.336/.479 Runners on .291/.383/.491 RISP .289/.395/.510 Jacque Jones Nobody on .271/.313/.442 Runners on .291/.348/.470 RISP .289/.354/.487 Alfonso Soriano Nobody on .290/.330/.535 Runners on .267/.320/.478 RISP .250/.317/.445 Jason Kendall Nobody on .291/.359/.383 Runners on .308/.398/.411 RISP .290/.398/.374 Aramis Ramirez Nobody on .276/.321/.487 Runners on .292/.353/.516 RISP .294/.366/.531 Derrek Lee Nobody on .282/.357/.512 Runners on .278/.379/.482 RISP .279/.393/.488 6 players total. difference between bases empty and runners on is: 5 people with a 50-100 point difference between the two OPS's, and 1 person with less than a 50 point difference. difference between bases empty and RISP is: 1 person with over a 100 point difference, 3 people between 50 and 100 points difference, 2 people with less than 50 points difference.

mark derosa should be there too. .297/.376/.423 he had a career year at 31, and is now doing even better at 32. I wouldn't call this year better than last year. His OBP is up 19 points, but his slugging is down 33 points. It's pretty close to a wash with maybe a tiny edge towards last year. I definitely agree that some regression was expected though, so he should be on the list. I disagree with Hill on that list (because most people had high expectations for him), and Theriot (because he hasn't been that good). Other then that, I'd agree with it.

Considering that he's started 5 out of the last 8 games and Blanco hasn't even had had 1 inning behind the plate since September 3rd? I would say that it is definite that Soto will be on the playoff roster.

How bad of a team is Louisville this year? 3 weeks in a row: Give up 42 to MTSU lose to Kentucky Now they are down 21-7 to an awful Syracuse team at halftime at home. I fully expect they'll come back and win the game, but I'm not sure Louisville is a top 25 team this year.

I don't see why not. He got that this year. Clemens is doing the exact same thing and he got 20+. Bonds got that this year, but only after fishing around for offers from all the other clubs including showing up at the winter meetings and finding that nobody else would take him. Now, his good year this year might change that for somebody.

In addition to his comments about Soto, Lou had this to say about Hart: This could be an interesting situation for the offseason if Hart earns a spot on the team. The first question would be if Hart would be a starter or a relief pitcher. Here are the Cubs pitchers currently locked up for next year: Starter: Z, Lilly, Hill, Marquis Relief: Dempster, Marmol, Wuertz, Howry, Eyre, Possible starting options: Marshall, Gallagher, Hart Possible Relief options: Wood (if he's re-signed), Ohman, Hart Now the question is, does Hart mean the end of Marshall or Wood on the Cubs? Or does Hart simply become the 12th pitcher next year and Ohman is traded? Or does somebody else entirely get traded? It does mean that the Cubs don't need to go into the market for pitching whatsoever this year. They have an extra pitcher to trade even if you send Gallagher to AAA.

Kendall or Soto would pinch-hit anyway. Lou likes to use a lot of his players, and after the 6th inning or so isn't worried as much about injuries. Remember all those times earlier in the year when Lou ran out of players? He has pinch-hit with the backup catcher a decent amount this year. Of course, I think you'll see Monroe back in the starting lineup today, but I wouldn't be shocked if Lou pulled him again as soon as the Pirates go to their bullpen.

Lou on Dempster and the closers situation before Friday's game: That is definitely one area where Lou understands the situation better than most managers. http://chicago.cubs.mlb.com/news/article.jsp?ymd=20070921&content_id=2221866&vkey=news_chc&fext=.jsp&c_id=chc

The Cubs are 5-1 with Soto in September. They lost 6-1 to the Pirates on the 7th of September.

what are we doing with Blanco and his atrocious $2.8M (essentially $3.1M once you include the buyout) contract? I don't know, but do you have a healthy veteran player who you simply bench for all of September and then bring him back the next year? I would be surprised by that, but then again the other options are not all that likely either (cut-possible, trade-no, retire-probably most probable)

This is the game I give Theriot his last day of rest before the playoffs. He could use another day, and a day where Cedeno has hit well against the scheduled starter and Theriot has not is the perfect opportunity.

Lou had decided early on that Hill was going to be pushed back to the final weekend, and the final start of the season by the #5 options was going to be Thursday. Nobody knew who that starter was going to be though until now. Marshall hasn't gone above 85 pitches since July, a span of 8 starts. His arm almost has to be worn down because a couple of those starts he got taken out in strange situations. He also has been pretty terrible in August and in his limited innings in September Because of that, I don't mind them not starting Marshall. I would have started Hart over Trachsel, but it's a close enough decision that going with the veteran doesn't make me upset. Hopefully they'll keep Trachsel on a very short leash (and Marshall can come in and relieve if Trachsel struggles early).

That was the one game the big 4 couldn't pitch for the rest of the year. Personally, I would have gone the risky route and picked Kevin Hart to start that game. Trachsel was decent, awful, and then a little lucky in his 3 starts with the Cubs, and Marshall has been awful his last couple starts as well.

What do you mean? It's still Dempster, unless he's out with the flu again like the other night.

He hasn't pitched since Sunday. I really wouldn't want him coming in tomorrow on 5 days rest.