CubColtPacer

I was just looking over the ERA numbers-this has been a strange year for pitchers so far. 2 of the top 7 pitchers in the ML in ERA are pitching in this series. Before the season, several guesses at a combination of those 2 probably wouldn't have resulted in a combo of Jason Marquis and John Maine. Here are the top 10: Brad Penny, Jake Peavy, Jason Marquis, Tim Wakefield, John Maine, Tim Hudson, Dan Haren, Gil Meche, Kelvim Escobar, Braden Looper. If you would have told somebody during the offseason that Marquis, Meche, and Looper would be close to each other in the ERA rankings, most people would have believed you. If you would have said top 10, they would have committed you :D Add into that Maine and Wakefield, and this has been a little bit of a topsy turvy year so far.

Exactamundo. However, the one thing i disagree with you on CubColt (the highlighted quote) is that as i mentioned before, at least 6 teams are looking for closers at the moment and no one wants to trade big pieces this early in the season. So its going to be real pricey to go out and get a true closer. True you could send one of your starters for a set up man like a Farnsworth, but you would have to take a leap of faith that they are going to be able to close with regularity and consistency. Just dont see anyone selling a 30 save closer at the moment. Yeah, I don't think they can get a "proven closer", but I don't think they need to either. They have an option or two down in the bullpen to close-they simply need another good reliever who can throw a lot of innings down there, if it be a closer or a setup man.

Except that, dare I say it, moving Soriano down in the lineup might perhaps help the lineup by moving players who get on base more often into the 1 and 2 spots. I'll stop the crazy talk now. At the time he made his post (earlier today), Soriano was 3rd of the regulars in OBP. The other two? They bat 2nd and 3rd every time they play (Theriot/Lee). So far, Soriano's OBP hasn't been a problem at all, and he has been one of the players who gets on base more often.

From all I've heard and read, Fontenot would be a good backup option at 2B for a team with 2 backup infielders where the other backup can play SS. That's his biggest problem-he can't even be considered for a starting job in the major leagues at his age unless he gets a random chance to play regularly (an injury or a Theriot like situation last year). It's a little trouble to put him on the bench, because he really can't play SS on a major league level, and so is really confined to 1 position-which for a backup, you better hit really well if you can only play a position not named C, SS, or CF. If the Cubs were ever to figure out their OF situation and drop an OF and pick up a 2nd backup IF, Fontenot might be a good option to come up and be a pinch hitter/backup 2B to pair with Izturis or Theriot as a backup, but 2 of the 3 of Theriot/Izturis/Cedeno will have to be with the big league club as they are the only SS's.

Wow, this is a tougher dilemma that I originally thought. I was one of the ones laughing when Manuel originally made this move-to take out your best starter and put him anywhere in relief is simply really bad. However, I took a look at the Phillies bullpen, and sunnydoo's arguments do make sense. If you put Eaton in the pen, you have all the starters pitching well, and you'll have a lot of leads in the 7th inning-but the bullpen only has 2-3 decent pitchers in it, and no good pitchers, so they are going to blow a lot of leads. Putting Myers in the bullpen, now you are basically sacrificing 1 game out of 5 when Eaton starts. In the other 4 games though, your chances of winning go up, and possibly significantly up. Is that increased chance of winning worth sacrificing 1 out of 5? Normally, no-but for a team with as bad of a bullpen as the Phillies have, it might just be, because otherwise they are going to lose a lot of close games. Also, Myers is a very good starter, but so far he has been a dominant reliever-that increase in his production doesn't offset the drop in innings, but it does help. There's one big flaw in this argument though-the Phillies as a self-contained organization might get more wins with Myers in the pen. The best move though is to simply trade for a bullpen arm-as much as there is a lack of starting pitching available, there always is a relief pitcher or two that could be had, especially if they give up one of the starters. That would give you a bigger increase in win totals then moving Myers.

This is going to be a very interesting lineup. 3 of the 5 guys who have a 1.000 OPS or more against Glavine (min 10 AB's) are Floyd, Izturis, and Blanco-none of whom who would usually be considered to start tomorrow. It will be interesting to see if any of them start tomorrow, or if Lou goes with the lineup he had against left-handers last week. With Marquis in the lineup, it wouldn't hurt too much to have one of Blanco/Izturis to start. Blanco with his good numbers and three right-handers facing the team the next 3 days, and Izturis with his good numbers and recent good hitting. I don't think the team should have both of them in there though at the same time.

Murton's been playing a little better, and Floyd's swings have been getting a little worse (early in the season, most of Floyd's outs were screaming line drives, and he's been striking out and grounding weakly out a lot lately). This will probably continue through the season-whoever is swinging a little better will get the majority of at-bats for that week or two. Murton will pass Floyd in plate appearances either today or tomorrow, and I expect that statistic to continue to see-saw a little while longer.

Murton might be the Cubs second best offensive OF-that certainly is possible. He definitely is not the second best defensive OF though in right field. Soriano is better than him, Jones in center or right is better than him. I do believe Murton is better than Floyd there, although Floyd has been much better than Murton defensively in right field so far.

Soriano's been a pretty good leadoff hitter. Is he an elite leadoff hitter? No. Remember though that Soriano was put at leadoff to maximize his production because that's where he feels most comfortable. So far, his numbers are more in line with his better years where he has hit leadoff rather than his worse years where he did not. So, I still believe Soriano at leadoff is best for the team, even though his skill set would naturally slide him in the middle of the order.

Lou brought him in because he already have up winning this game. I don't blame him though. This team always finds a way to make huge mistakes which cost them runs. It is absolutely pathetic. He certainly shouldn't have given up winning a game down two runs in a hitter's park. That's absurd. Second, Eyre has pitched in many close games, surely Lou hadn't given up winning all those too? This is only Eyre's 4th appearance in the past 2 1/2 weeks. One of those was the final out of a 7-1 win, and 1 of those was in extra innings when the Cubs were running out of pitchers. Lou hasn't been using him in many close games lately.

The team does have 1 on the season. It's going to be tough going now.

Not really-he wasn't expected to be ready for most of this year, and he has a .318/.358/455 line so far-which is good, but not worthy of promotion especially for someone who is very questionable defensively as well.

Theriot had started 6 in a row before this one-the only other Cubs to do that during that stretch have been Soriano, Lee, and Ramirez. This is probably a good day to give him one off.

Murton had a great day today, which makes me think otherwise. I don't think that will overcome the fact that Murton has started 3 straight days, a right-hander is on the mound, and Floyd has 2 HR in 4 at-bats against him. I'm pretty sure that Floyd will start-and maybe he should, considering he's hardly played-he's got the exact same number of plate appearances as Murton, and that's what counts as hardly playing right? :D

Barrett? No. But you can add Marquis, Lilly, Theriot... And Soriano, who's going to have a very good OPS after today's game.

If they are doing a fire sale, they are not going to want major league players back in return-they'll want top prospects-especially for a player of the caliber of Wells.

(a) One is a huge number when you're talking about something that only happens about 3.3 times per 9 innings. It's not a huge number. It's only large in relation to the number of walks they earn right now. They are averaging almost a walk more per game during the games they win. It's really not that hard at all. It's not like they are walking 5 or 6 times/game. If they had walked 1 more per game until now, they would be on pace for 678 walks on the season. There have been only 2 NL teams to hit that total in the previous 6 seasons. That pace is not very easy to maintain, even for the best of walking teams, which the Cubs are not. It's an mean not a mode. Exactly-it's a mean. Current Cubs pace-102 walks/32 games=3.1875 walks per game add 1 to that, and you get 162 games x 4.1875 walk average=678.375 walks on the season. If the Cubs simply added 1 to their average from now on, it would be 646.375, which would still be 20 walks higher than any other team in the NL.

(a) One is a huge number when you're talking about something that only happens about 3.3 times per 9 innings. It's not a huge number. It's only large in relation to the number of walks they earn right now. They are averaging almost a walk more per game during the games they win. It's really not that hard at all. It's not like they are walking 5 or 6 times/game. If they had walked 1 more per game until now, they would be on pace for 678 walks on the season. There have been only 2 NL teams to hit that total in the previous 6 seasons. That pace is not very easy to maintain, even for the best of walking teams, which the Cubs are not.

They spent a lot between 2003 and 2004. From the data that I've seen, they went from 74 to 91 between those two years. From 2004 to 2005, they dropped to 87, and then from 2005 to 2006 they raised it back to 94.

I haven't heard anything about Eyre leaving the Blue Jays on bad terms, so my guess is that they would not be one of the 10 teams he would designate in the NTC.

I do like that it gives us a little more information about what Hendry was telling Dusty, and his strong suggestion of playing youngsters, keeping appearances down for Eyre and Howry, and to not worry about wins and losses do make me feel a little better about Hendry. I wish he would have said a little more, but it at least shows that Hendry was trying to see what young talent he had and trying to protect at least some of the arms so that they'd be ready this year (and it could be that he said to protect all of the arms, but Dusty simply didn't mention that part).

I believe domestic violence has always been a problem. It's simply that awareness has been lifted considerably, and so many more women feel safe enough to report it, which is quite a good step.

Yeah, he had an error (an easy fly that he dropped) and a misplay (ball bounced past him-this was more due to his inexperience in RF, not as much of a problem). I think you're remembering last year a little wrong though. Murton had the fulltime job until June (through June 4th Murton had started all but 4 games of the season) When he started slumping badly, he got sat down for 6 days in a row for Nevin. In July and August, Murton split time with Pagan-it was during these months when he was splitting time that Murton really got hot. He got more of the job in September, although he still was splitting time a little bit, and he remained hot. Murton didn't get hot though when he got the everyday job-he got hot when he lost the everyday job and starting sharing LF.

Was Lenny Harris's OPS higher than .316 in 2003? Okay I know it was but I am thinking it was below .500 in something like 140 ABs. Yeah-if you have 100 AB's as your qualification for a bench player (which seems reasonable) Lenny Harris almost has to be the 2003 representative. .183/.255/.229

BTW, I thought the quote from the same article was interesting. This is what Hendry said about Pie and what he could work on in the minors: