CubColtPacer

How is he continually taken out in the 4th? Well, if he cramps up around 60 pitches then I'm sure there would be multiple times where he wouldn't make it out of the 4th/5th inning. I'd rather not have a starter who cannot make it past the 60 pitch mark. I saw Guzman pitch here in Memphis when he was getting "stretched out" to become a starter and he threw almost exactly 100 pitches and they took him out. He looked pissed. Let's not try to make too much out of his cramps. I would think any competent medical staff could aleviate this problem. Seriously. If it's dehydration, make sure he's drinking water or gatorade regularly between innings. If it's something more serious, get it checked out. And for the record, he's made it well past the 60-pitch mark in each of his three starts. That's true-it's been more around between pitches 75-90 that Guzman has hit a wall. Here are Guzman's pitch counts for the past 19 starts (dating back to the 8th of July last year, after he got stretched out to start again in the minors): 75 74 82 76 76 54 81 80 80 93 (in 3 innings) 95 68 94 27 84 104 66 86 65 19 starts, and he exceeded 95 pitches once, and only went past 85 pitches 4 times out of those 19 (there were about 4 of those starts where he was on a stricter pitch count that that, so it's not quite as bad as that). Guzman is simply not efficient enough to stay at that low of a pitch count. If he had stayed as a major league starter, he would have had to throw between 85-105 pitches just about every game-Piniella decided that his arm was not ready for that, and while I might not agree with his skepticism, I certainly can understand it.

How is he continually taken out in the 4th? Well, if he cramps up around 60 pitches then I'm sure there would be multiple times where he wouldn't make it out of the 4th/5th inning. I'd rather not have a starter who cannot make it past the 60 pitch mark. I saw Guzman pitch here in Memphis when he was getting "stretched out" to become a starter and he threw almost exactly 100 pitches and they took him out. He looked pissed. Let's not try to make too much out of his cramps. I would think any competent medical staff could aleviate this problem. Not quite 100 pitches-Guzman threw 76 pitches that night in Memphis. In fact, he hasn't thrown above 85 pitches since last August.

How is he continually taken out in the 4th? Well, if he cramps up around 60 pitches then I'm sure there would be multiple times where he wouldn't make it out of the 4th/5th inning. I'd rather not have a starter who cannot make it past the 60 pitch mark. So now he can't make it past 60 pitches? News to me. http://chicagosports.chicagotribune.com/sports/baseball/cubs/cs-070522cubsbits,1,4871807.story?coll=cs-cubs-headlines Read that, then it won't be news to you anymore. It sort of sounds like they had to pull him out of one of the first 2 starts with cramps as well and it just wasn't reported. That's what would have left Piniella frustrated if he had to pull him out of 2 of his 3 starts with the same thing.

I bet it is what he is thinking-this year's sample size is small enough still to not know if this stat is an aberration or not (there are still way too many variables in play for now)-here is the stat though: Soriano in LF, batting 1st-.333/.395/.564

He pitches tonight. So Cotts is going to start? That's a very interesting development to this whole 5th starter saga.

Randolf's set to make $13.34M next year. The Bulls would have to package more than Noc (sign and trade) to make the money work most likely. Boers and Bernstein said they could make Stoudamire work, so they could make Randolph work. They have the $8mil from PJ Brown plus their MLE to work with You can't trade a MLE, and P.J. Brown is a free agent. Neither of those would work in trying to match up salaries in order to make a trade.

Minnesota doesn't really have that option, especially with the Bulls. In order for a trade to work out now, the Bulls would have to ship out half their roster unless the T-Wolves agreed to take Wallace, which I doubt. Otherwise, they have to get 18 million somewhere, and none of their players really makes over 4 million. Gasol is possible, but again, the Bulls would have to give up too much talent to make the salaries match.

This is going to be a strange lottery for me. One bounce of the ball changes the Pacers fortune for the next 3-4 years-unfortunately, it's not likely to happen in a good way. The Pacers will either have one of the top 3 picks in the draft or no pick at all, in either the 1st or the 2nd round. What happens tonight probably decides if the team reloads or rebuilds.

That's very questionable. Are you kidding me? Soriano is a terrible defensive player no matter where you put him. I think Soriano are about equal defensively-Soriano has superior range and the much better arm, while Murton takes much better routes to balls. Soriano's range doesn't mean crap if he can't figure out the right route to take. His poor play in the OF has probably negated the OF assists he's had. He's an absolute butcher. Now, add to that the fact that Murton will get on base at a better clip, and costs a fraction of what Soriano costs, and tell me that Murton is merely an average player in our OF. I wouldn't call Soriano a butcher out there-he hasn't been good out there (and probably the only thing improved when he switched to LF was his arm, as his routes got worse), but his range has allowed him to make up some mistakes he's made on his routes. In our outfield, Murton is one of the better players. I don't see him fitting in the Cubs plans long-term though-Pie/Soriano will get two of the spots, and I can't see them leaving Murton in the other spot for years, especially after this year when our plus offense at catcher disappears. I do think that they should play him a pretty good amount of the time this year, and only trade him if the right deal comes along-and if it's for one pitcher, it better be for either a dominant reliever (who I doubt people will want to give up, because there are only 10-15 names I'd put under this category), an average or better starting pitcher, or packaged together with pitching to get an impact bat. Otherwise I think he'd be a good option for an offseason trade-not because I don't think he's a good ballplayer, but only because he will start to get slowly squeezed out with the Cubs, and his value to the team might end up being higher trading him to a small market team than it would to possibly only be a part-time player with the Cubs.

That's very questionable. Are you kidding me? Soriano is a terrible defensive player no matter where you put him. I think Soriano are about equal defensively-Soriano has superior range and the much better arm, while Murton takes much better routes to balls.

That's my guess as well. The biggest thing for Soriano right now is that his ground ball percentage is way up and his fly ball percentage is way down. If he starts hitting his usual percentage of fly balls during the summer with the Wrigley wind, he'll hit a pretty good amount of home runs, and that will increase his OPS even if his average slips a little bit.

If Aramis continues to perform like he has over the length of his contract, he'll be just as deserving as Santo is now. I think it would take a little longer than Aramis's current contract to be just as deserving as Santo. Here are Santo's best 10 OPS+ years: Santo: 164, 161, 153, 146, 138, 131, 129, 126, 121, 115 Here is Aramis's 5 best: Aramis: 138, 137, 136, 126, 125 (only one other year above 100) If Aramis has a 130 OPS+ for the next 5 years, he'll be getting somewhat close to Santo-but those 3 great years of Santo's are still going to give Santo the edge. If Aramis plays about 8 years more and has 5 years 130 or more and the other 3 110 or more though, I think he could catch Santo.

That's the part that makes me chuckle. 8 freaking RBI's? That's terrible! His defense hasn't been all that bad. How many assist's does he have 5-6 already? His arm has been fine. His glove and his routes are terrible. I'm willing to bet that his defensive play has negated the OF assists as far as runs scored go. And 8 RBI on May 22 is pretty lousy. True. His routes are terrible. I still can't get over the 8 RBI's...Unreal! Who would've thought that Sammy Sosa would be more productive at this point in the season. Oh man... I'm not surprised, typical Cub, if something bad can happen, it will, if a player who has put big numbers is going to struggle, he will. Not really. Barrett, Lee, and Aram where all better then expected... Some of those weren't good at the beginning of the season though. The big time position players that the Cubs acquire during offseasons have had a habit of struggling early in the season in their first year with the team. If you look back at the past 6 offseasons, the 6 newcomers who I think had the most expectations placed on them were this: 1) Soriano, 2) Alou, 3)Lee, 4)Pierre, 5) Burnitz, 6) Jones. Only Burnitz had a good start to the season, and even he had an awful May. Everybody else had to overcome their horrible starts with the club to try to salvage a good year. I'll wait to see if Soriano can do the same.

I believe he came up last year for observation before he got called up. He definititely was there when the minor league season ended, but from looking back through the minor league logs, his last start was on August 23rd in the minors. After this start must have been when he joined the major league team (Iowa's season didn't end until September 4th, so he would have had another turn or two if he had stayed), and he wasn't officially called up in order to start on September 9th. So, even if he joins the team, that won't necessarily mean he gets activated right away, and hopefully never.

A large part of his walk rate ballooning is the fact that nobody else is behind him. Vlad has been walked 12 times intentionally already, and a few of his other fifteen walks were probably the unintentional intentional walk.

I agree that a high AVG with RISP is luck, but when voting for MVP, I think it has to be taken into consideration. For example, Hanley Ramirez is hitting .420 with the bases empty and .160 with runners on. While it will probably even out over the course of his career, during the first quarter of this season he has been a poor hitter in more important situations, and that's a big reason that he only has 9 RBI. All other things equal, a guy who hit better in the clutch should win the award over a guy who didn't hit as well, even though in the long run, it's just luck that will even out. Hardy is hitting over 100 points better with RISP, thus another point for him. also, for me, MVP doesn't mean "best player", it means "most valuable", meaning you HAVE to take his team and lineup scenario into account. OPS and such doesn't happen in a vaccuum exactly -- you take the fact that the 40 R, 50 RBI guy had a better team around him. example: andruw jones scored more runs and drove in more runs in 2006 than derrek lee did in 2005. are you going to tell me that jones' 2006 was more valuable to his team than lee's 2005? derrek lee was #1 in VORP in all of baseball in 2005. andruw jones didn't crack the top 30 in 2006. In this case though, that doesn't apply. Hardy is putting up greater RBI and run totals in Milwaukee even though his team's offense is slightly worse than Chipper's Braves.

Yes, but Eyre's contract gets in the way. If he refuses to go on the DL, they either have to trade or release him. They aren't likely to be willing to eat that money for this year and next year unless they absolutely have to-they'd rather keep him, hope he gets better, and then either keep him or raise his trade value.

Ok-if Dempster is staying in the bullpen, then this whole picture becomes a little easier. One person from the bullpen has to go. The most obvious choice who one would think the Cubs would select would be Marmol-but Lou has been talking him up for 3 days about how they are going to load up the pen with power arms, so one has to assume he's safe for now. Cotts and Wuertz are probably also still safe even though neither have been very good lately. So that leaves Ohman, Howry, and Eyre. Eyre is the obvious choice here-he has really fallen out of favor with Lou. The only big question is if they can find a way to send him to the DL, a trade to a team, or an outright release (the first one being the most likely, the last one being the least likely). The second question is of course who the fifth starter is going to be. It seems to be down to 2 choices-Sean Marshall or Wade Miller. If Marshall comes up as a starter and Eyre is put on the DL, then the pitching staff overall got a little better. If Miller comes up, then the Cubs are in a slightly better position then when they started the season with both Miller and Eyre, but still in a very bad position and in a worse one then they were in a few days ago.

Bring Rapada if you want a lefty reliever. Leave Marshall stretched out in case you need a starter. Piggy for LH reliever. :lol: True enough, Rapada's L/R splits are worse than Ohman's. He's more of a LOOGY than Ohman and if you want a lefty reliever who can face righties, you'd be better off with Piggy. Maybe Lou is pulling a joke? Dempster would be more than willing to be in on a joke like this. With all of Lou's comments about the Chicago media asking him too many questions over and over again, it is at least plausible that he'd be pulling everybody's leg. This is certainly one strange situation.

Um, wow. This has a chance of working out, but that doesn't make it a good move. It looks like Lou's insistence on tinkering with everything this year has in this instance interfered with the good of the team. I don't like this move whatsoever.

And that explains the guys who creamed the ball after AJ? Cotts didn't have anything today.

Floyd went around, West didn't need to ask for help. And why is it disgraceful that he tossed Floyd? He followed Floyd back to the dugout, then tossed him. Floyd was complaining and yelling the whole time and probably had some choice words for West. And West didn't follow him all the way back to the dugout. West made the right call. Floyd complained. Floyd got tossed. Plain and simple. Which game are you watching? He followed him back to the dugout. Plain and simple. Like I said: West made the right call, Floyd complained, Floyd got tossed. It's not rocket science. He followed him part way because Floyd was complaining. Floyd had no business arguing that call. If a player is walking away as he is complaining, the ump is supposed to just let him go. An umpire is supposed to try to defuse a confrontation, not make it worse by following him.

Hendry's extension? That's number one on the short list. Signing Baker? That's on there too. Nolasco and Mitre for Pierre? Nolasco, Pinto, and Mitre for Pierre. And Corey Patterson for Nate Spears. Since CPatt outperformed Pierre last year, the deal is looking awfully more and more lopsided. $136 million for Alfonso Soriano is far worse than any of these, except maybe the Hendry extension. Are you serious? Sure. In time I think it will most likely land on the short list of the worst contracts in the history of sports. I don't even think it will be one of the worst in baseball in several years. For example, Soriano would have to average a .700 OPS or worse the next several years to be as bad as Hampton and Chan Ho Park were with their big contracts for the teams that signed them. Barry Zito's contract has a good chance to be just as bad or worse than Soriano's. Mo Vaughn's 6 year deal ended up with 2 years of production. The Ken Griffey Jr. deal. The Darren Dreifort deal. Even if Soriano is bad, and ends up with an 800 OPS the next 3-4 years, and then starts slowly falling after that, he still will be better than those deals.

This is a move I would be very, very against-it doesn't make any sense to do that.

Actually that's backwards. He hit for a .753 OPS against right-handers, and a .596 OPS against left-handers. He hasn't shown an ability to hit right-handed until this year, both in the minors and majors. It will be interesting to see if that lasts or not.