CubColtPacer

They set the poll to 3 days instead of 2-you might as well just let the poll run until tomorrow when it locks on its own to be fair.

I know it sounds ridiculous, but, hasn't Hill been Zambrano's personal catcher since Zambrano has gotten really hot. That alone may be reason enough for Hendry to want to keep Hill on the big league club (not saying that I agree with it). I'm guessing that unless Bowen or Hill get hurt, Soto is not going to see any action until the rosters are expanded. If Blanco, gets healthy, Soto's chances of seeing any big league action are reduced considerably. Hill's caught all of Z's starts in that stretch but one-Bowen caught the win against the White Sox.

You are correct. For some reason I thought there was some talk before the season of him being in right, but it never occured. Must've been thinking about conversations on the board. When Soriano signed, he was going to play right field, Jones was going to be traded, and some sort of stopgap center fielder was to be traded for until Pie, who they were very high on, could come up. However, Hendry never found that stopgap center fielder, and in January Soriano volunteered to play CF. The Jones trade talk stopped because now he was going to play RF. Then Soriano struggles out of the gate. Lou offers for him to play LF, but Soriano declines. Soriano probably would have stayed in center for another month or two if something else hadn't come up-the hamstring injury. At that time, management decided that to keep him healthy and to have a more productive bat they were going to stick him in LF (because he hadn't practiced in RF at all), which has caused the shift in positions and craziness in the OF since then.

Bad for my fantasy team, but it's not like I'm going to do anything this year anyway. Rain delay anyways. Does it look like a long delay, or will it be starting soon? I hope it doesn't get canceled, because if it does then we will have to face Gorzelanny. Ugh-that's a good point there. I just looked at the Pittsburgh radar-from what I can tell, the rain should stop in about 30-45 minutes.

Or interviewing someone and asking them how a dead guy is doing. I almost died that day from laughter. That was easily one of the funniest things I've ever heard. What happened? When Joe Carter was in the booth a few years ago, an NFL player was their guest one day (I can't remember which one). Carter said to the player "Hey, I know you and commissioner Rozelle didn't see eye to eye during your playing days...how's your relationship doing now" and the player responded "Well, I guess it's fine now..he died about 5 years ago"

I think he could as well, but the Cubs don't seem to want to do that (as I read the same thing as navigator). I'm hoping Z doesn't make the All-Star team and he pitches Friday.

Bergmann in 10 starts has only given up more than 5 hits twice this year-the Cubs were one of them. He has given up more than 3 runs 3 times-the Cubs were also one of those. Let's do it again. Although they did commit two errors to let runs score, and Lee hit a 2 run homer in the game. I'm not sure we can count on such rare occurrences :D

Sold. And where would Dunn play? Please don't say RF. And please don't say move Soriano to RF for Dunn in LF. So basically don't say anything. kthxbye. yeah, we wouldn't want to do anything to disturb this tremendously productive outfield situation we've got set up. Nice sarcasm there. Soriano and Floyd are putting up the #'s. At MOST, you're going to get someone to platoon with Floyd. Pie needs to be playing most of the time and adding another OF means he's likely demoted. And I don't want to see that. Catcher or SS is a much better position to focus on. i don't get why people are still saying floyd is putting up numbers. his 300 average and decent obp are both nice, but he is not hitting for power at all. His bat is worthless in a corner outfield position, especially since he's mediocre defensively. I thought you were talking about Murton there for a second with your description :D Seriously though, while Floyd puts up decent numbers, right field is the best place where there might be elite bats to be had at the deadline. The Cubs can use the upgrade anywhere they can get it, and right field, while not being the most pressing need, just might be the need that's available to upgrade, and the Cubs have to take advantage of that if they don't have to give up too much of their future (and if they are allowed to take on payroll).

Some might say Soriano missed the first 1/4 of the season too. Yeah, but if you say he missed 1/4 of the season then you have to say he has been a lot better than Ramirez for the other 3/4 of the season :D

The team thought they already had their RH hitting corner outfielder who could hit LH's real well. It hasn't worked out too well so far.

This Brewers game is like the classic game that everyone says is only the Cubs. The Brewers pick up 3 runs before an out is recorded, get 2 on in the first and don't score. They get 2 on with 1 out in the third and don't score. 1st and 3rd with 1 out in the 6th and don't score. Meanwhile, they slowly allow the lead to be given up. Now in the 7th they get a runner on 2nd, and he tries to advance on a groundball to SS and he gets thrown out at third and then get another runner on 2nd that doesn't score.

IDK his true skills but i've seen him make quality plays better than Izzy and izzy has a gold glove, that's what i'm going off of You are going off Izzy winning a Gold Glove? HAHAHA you realize the Gold Glove is the most meaningless award in baseball right? Not to mention he's trying to compare this version of Izturis, who has been through a serious arm injury and leg injuries that it's pretty obvious he hasn't recovered from. He simply is not the same defensive player as the one who won the Gold Glove, and is probably barely average defensively this year, which is what Theriot is also.

Well of course every team's ERA is going to be outstanding when they basically say "hey let's throw out the bad starts and keep the good ones." It's kinda worthless. We're talking about quality starts, period, here. I'm not talking about the bad starts, so there are no stats that we're "throwing out" here. In the Cubs' quality starts, a stat people like to malign, they have a 1.63 ERA. That's all quality starts combined, whether they meet the minimum requirement or not. In games the Cubs don't get a quality start, the team record is 11-29. Great, so let's change the requirement to 7IP 3ER. 7IP 3ER equates to a 3.86 ERA, which is actually good. I'm sure the quality starts with an ERA over 4.00 didn't produce nearly as good a record as all the quality starts combined, reason being that a 4+ ERA isn't particulary good. You aren't just throwing out 6 innings, 3 runs then. You're throwing out 6 innings 2 runs, 6 innings 1 run, and 6 innings 0 runs. Is that not worse then just leaving in the 6 innings 3 runs?

Is he a free agent after this year or after 08? (dunn) he becomes a free agent if traded. Ok then I agree. For this trade to happen dunn would probably have to sign an extension (i'd make him if I were hendry). The Cubs cannot sign an extension with Dunn because of the ownership change, just the same as they tried to sign the extension with Z and were denied.

but look how well the pitchers (hill especially!) have thrown since the trade. If we're going to draw conclusions about results since that trade, then it's important to add that the Cubs are 10-3 since it was completed. and they're doing it in spite of the catchers (see the sub .100 average) not because of them. True-and if Barrett had been good for the Padres, maybe we're calling the Cubs the clear losers already. Since the trade though, the Cubs catchers are 5/46 and have put up this line: .109/.226/.195 while Barrett has put up a .250/.250/.281. So Barrett has been better on offense, but not by enough to make it statistically relevant at this point.

None. And Hill should have a pretty long leash, seeing as he's *still* the Cubs second best pitcher this season. You could easily make a case for both Lilly and Marquis being better than Hill this year. But they're all pretty close so any difference between the three is a small one. Marquis has definitely been better after you put this start from Hill in. His ERA is half a run lower. His opponents OPS is probably 70-80 points lower than Hill's. The only thing Hill would have on him is WHIP, which isn't the best indicator when you consider that Hill is a fly ball pitcher who gives up lots of extra base hits and Marquis is a ground ball pitcher who gives up lots of singles. regardless, the cubs' starting rotation has been very good this year. Last year if we were having this conversation, we'd be talking about a bunch of guys with ERAs over 5.00 once you got past Zambrano. If Rich Hill is the Cubs 4th or 5th best starter with an ERA under 4.00 and a good WHIP, I'm fine with that. That's very true. The starting pitching has been very good overall, and that includes Hill's above average season so far.

Chico pitched 6 shutout innings in his last start. He's a rookie who has been inconsistent but he's better than his overall numbers show to this point. I am not surprised that he pitched well. I predicted it. Yeah, this is 5 out of 6 quality starts for Chico, and he has only given up 1 run in his last 19 innings.

None. And Hill should have a pretty long leash, seeing as he's *still* the Cubs second best pitcher this season. You could easily make a case for both Lilly and Marquis being better than Hill this year. But they're all pretty close so any difference between the three is a small one. Marquis has definitely been better after you put this start from Hill in. His ERA is half a run lower. His opponents OPS is probably 70-80 points lower than Hill's. The only thing Hill would have on him is WHIP, which isn't the best indicator when you consider that Hill is a fly ball pitcher who gives up lots of extra base hits and Marquis is a ground ball pitcher who gives up lots of singles.

Going into today the Cubs record against left-handers was 8-11. Against right-handers-.276/.337/.419 Against left-handers-.247/.303/.411

Yup, the trade has been a disaster for both sides so far. The Cubs catchers are 4-42 with 4 walks I believe and a HR, and Barrett is 4-32 all singles, no walks, and a ton of opponents stolen bases. It's been a wash right now, but not the wash I was looking for-I wish both sides were doing well, not both sides doing awful.

Len doesn't realize that since Aramis tagged up, Belliard would have had to tag him in order to double him off. Just stretching and catching it on the bag wouldn't have helped the Nationals.

It's not like the Cubs don't have an ace in Z. They're offense hasn't been great even during the winning. Not awesome, but 5.36 runs per game over the last 11 since Aramis came back.

Uh, first off, Hill has had several great starts that only didn't become wins because the Cubs didn't score any for him either, and 2) His last win was only 5 starts ago, not 10.

The official qualifications for a quality start are 6 or more innings, 3 or less earned runs.

I doubt anything is going on with him-they just haven't needed him lately. Wuertz is the 7th inning guy right now. Marquis pitched 7 on Sunday, and Marmol finished it up. Monday was a blowout, so they let Petrick pitch an inning, and then they let Howry get some work in since he hadn't pitched in several days. Then again last night Marmol came in for the last out of the 7th and the 8th, and then when it came time for the closer they decided to let Ohman and Howry split it (instead of Howry doing it alone) because of the left-handers due up. Wuertz was pitching quite regularly before the last 3 days (last week he threw 6 innings)-there just hasn't been a situation to bring him in during that time.