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In my fantasy league, I have a trade offer. I am currently in 3rd place. My pitching has carried me-I am in the top 5 of the 10 teams in saves, ERA, WHIP, and wins. My hitting has been dragging me down in the areas of runs, HR, and RBI's. The worst position I have is 3B, where I have the struggling Garrett Atkins and Mark Teahan as my third basemen. With that said, somebody has offered me David Wright for Atkins and K-Rod. That would leave me with Todd Jones and Bob Wickman to close, although I still have both an excess of good starting pitching that I can try to trade for a reliever, or an extra roster spot where I can pick up-um-Alfonseca. Is Wright worth it to make the deal and hope that I can find a reliever somewhere else?

So why did his velocity suddenly go up during the middle of that supposed overworking? It would make sense for it to start going down, but instead, it has gotten better over that stretch. Plus his arm troubles that everyone thought for sure he was injured earlier in the season doesn't look like an injury now. Because he knew his day was almost done. Starters don't throw max effort when they know they have to get thru 6-7 innings. He needed to get through 2 batters and gave all that he had for a short period of time. I meant over that stretch of starts. He was throwing low 90's max the first month and a half. Now, he's hitting 96 and 97 at times and holding in the low 90's consistently. So he's thrown a ton of pitches in his starts, and his velocity has actually increased from start to start while he's doing that. A random question-does anybody know which season was the last year that Z stopped regularly throwing in the winter? I knew for a while he'd throw several games in the winter leagues-when did that stop (for example, I know he threw only 1 or 2 this offseason max)

So why did his velocity suddenly go up during the middle of that supposed overworking? It would make sense for it to start going down, but instead, it has gotten better over that stretch. Plus his arm troubles that everyone thought for sure he was injured earlier in the season doesn't look like an injury now.

I don't see any reason why he wouldn't. It's the pattern of his whole season-1 terrible outing followed by several good outings. He hasn't given up runs in consecutive outings yet this season (and I certainly hope he doesn't start now!).

I have to think he'll let him pitch at least part of the 8th, with Ohman coming in if Z gets in a little trouble and a good left-hander comes up.

Woody Williams is one of those pitchers that somebody like Soriano inexplicably struggles against-he's 2 for 15 against him now. None of the others are very good either, but that one's just strange.

Not quite, but close. Fontenot has more power, Theriot has more D.

Ziggy's not the only one who got accidentally left out (although I think the others problem was that they didn't make it to the list after signing up). It was a little crazy in that thread, and Derwood did the best job he could. Nobody has complained, so until Ziggy comes up and says something I would just leave things as they are. I haven't seen him around and he hasn't said anything about it, so I doubt it's a big deal to him.

huh. well I had 64 people sign up.....who the heck did I leave out then? I think you left out ZiggyTaxi.

That's because if you look at the list of 64, he's not even on there! I'll try to figure out the person who's actually on the list who didn't get in the tournament.

You are incorrect. http://chicago.cubs.mlb.com/news/article.jsp?ymd=20070611&content_id=2019342&vkey=news_chc&fext=.jsp&c_id=chc The newspaper is wrong. I both saw it with my own eyes, and every single Game tracker has it as a 2-0 count as well. I'm looking at one right now that shows exactly where the first two pitchers were high of the strike zone.

They were already pretty much there. Soriano pinch-hit on his 6th game gone. Aramis has already missed 4 games, so he would have had to pinch-hit tomorrow and start Wednesday to come back even as fast as Soriano did. I kind of expected this from the beginning-the way they were saying that he might play Tuesday or Wednesday on Friday and Saturday just told me they weren't very confident in his return. It's better to be conservative with him though rather than have him come back and get hurt again. This is going to be interesting-there's quite a potential for Ward, Blanco, and Ramirez to come back around the same time-there will be some roster decisions to be made by then.

It used to be two users. Now it's only one? :cry: It's still two. To clarify my promise, for every round I win, I will select two users to receive premium for one month. If I win all eight rounds, then 16 users will be selected. If the user is already a premium member, I will draw a random autoed card to give them. Sometime in the near future, I'll post a thread for those who want to be entered into the drawing to sign up. Is that clear? There's only 6 rounds Vance not 8-that's how it's only 60 dollars instead of 80 :D

It helps the site. It's only 10 bucks a round....so what's that around 80 bucks max if I win it all? Only 60.

I did too-it still might happen and just hasn't been reported yet. Also, if Floyd is back tonight, an announcement of who is going to be sent down also has to be coming.

So around an 80-100 point increase in OPS from the Floyd/Murton combo (less if Murton comes up like expected) for 10 million dollars of extra salary and the loss of at least one major league pitcher and a good pitching prospect. I don't think it's worth it-if the Cubs take on that much more salary in RF, they will have absolutely no money or prospects to put at SS (or a little bit C) at either the deadline or the end of the year, along with making the Z extension much more iffy then it already is. Dunn would be an upgrade, but I don't think he's a big enough one to be worth the price-there are other areas that the money and prospects need to go for first.

I thought that I won the AI competition-I was up by 1 point entering the Finals, and then in the Finals I picked Jordin to win and Banedon picked the opposite of me in order to try to catch up, and so I won by 2-is that right? i knew i'd get that wrong No problem-I just wanted to be sure :D

I thought that I won the AI competition-I was up by 1 point entering the Finals, and then in the Finals I picked Jordin to win and Banedon picked the opposite of me in order to try to catch up, and so I won by 2-is that right?

more here. http://chicago.cubs.mlb.com/news/article.jsp?ymd=20070611&content_id=2019342&vkey=news_chc&fext=.jsp&c_id=chc I hope somebody askes Wolf why he decided that with 2 strikeouts in the first inning, nobody on and an 0-2 count would be a perfect time for Lilly to hit a batter. people keep saying this and I don't know why. it was a 2-0 pitch. I have no doubt in my mind it was intentional, just as there is no doubt in my mind Hudson's was intentional. that element isn't even needed to question exactly what the umpires were thinking and coming to the conclusion that they were out to screw the Cubs. what someone should ask is why Tschida wasn't "expecting it" the night before. if you're going to pre-judge one team, you should pre-judge the other. what also must be asked is why Wolf issued warnings, then decided to kick Lilly out after escorting Renteria to first. I missed that start of the game and all of the events that lead to Lilly's getting kicked out but everyone has said it is a 0-2 count including newspapers. Cubs starter Ted Lilly had no idea what that something was, but quickly found out when his 10th pitch of the game, an 0-2 inside fastball, hit Atlanta shortstop Edgar Renteria and caused both benches and bullpens to empty. It was an ejection, much to Lilly's surprise. are you sure it wasn't a 0-2 count? Seems like a big detail to be missed by everyone but you It was definitely a 2-0 count, not an 0-2 count. Lilly missed pretty badly with his first two pitches, which gives him a little credence that the third pitch just happened to miss badly as well. Here's a link to the play by play that confirms that: http://www.sportsline.com/mlb/gamecenter/playbyplay/MLB_20070610_CHC@ATL

It's been a variety of factors. In April, the bullpen was pretty good, but the offense couldn't score in the late innings. Since May 1st, the offense has been great at scoring in the late innings, but the bullpen was awful during May. In June now, it looks like the bullpen is coming back- Howry's last 6 outings-6 1/3 IP, 4 H, 0 R, 6 K/1BB Wuertz's last 5-5 IP, 4 H, 1 R, 2 K/1BB Ohman's last 11-6 2/3 IP, 7 H, 2 R, 11K/2BB Marmol's last 11 outings-12 IP, 7 H, 2 R, 13K/4BB Dempster's last 10 outings-9 1/3 IP, 7H, 3 R, 7K/5BB Even Eyre has been slightly better lately (only 2 runs in his last 5 innings and 5 in his last 13 1/3 innings-not good, but better than April Eyre). Those top 5 together have been very, very good the last couple of weeks. If that continues at all, the Cubs record in 1 run games should improve.

Yes. Pitching to Andruw Jones was something he never should have done. The interesting thing is Andruw was not getting good swings every time against Marquis. Several balls that he fouled off he just barely got a piece of. When he put it fair though, they were rockets. Marquis just struggled finding the zone last night. Combine that with 1 hitter who just torches him, and an error by Marquis, and it led to disaster. I think you could say he pitched worse than his line. 1 2/3 (does anybody else hate the 1.1 and 1.2 distinctions? If you want decimels, write 1.3 and 1.7) and 2 ER saves his ERA quite a bit. Oh definitely, the 2 ER is not indicative at all of how badly he pitched. If they had left him in longer, he could have given up the 12 or 13 like he did last year in an outing or two.

*cues twilight zone theme* Yes, ESPN. Find a way to deflect blame like the tools you are. They didn't try to deflect blame-that's just why they said the Braves were angry. They showed Soriano getting hit yesterday, showed Renteria getting hit and then the conversation between Lou and the home plate umpire about why Lilly got thrown out of the game (and it was obvious from the way the anchor said that Lilly got tossed that he didn't agree with it at all) and then showed Renteria's forearm hitting Fontenot. They did a pretty good job of it-I just wish it had been further up in the show so maybe more people could have seen the highlights and be outraged themselves.

Sportscenter said that the Braves were more angry about Soriano trying to stretch a single into a double during a blowout in Friday night's game.

I love that Fontenot is doing this, but why does everyone want to get rid of DeRosa? He certainly has played well. Now-if DeRosa can somehow play SS again, and DeRosa and Fontenot can play together until Fontenot has a long cold streak like Theriot is in the middle of right now, I would be on board for that.

Lou double-switched him out in the 4th to try to keep the relievers from coming up in the order too quickly.