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Just from taking a quick look through last year, here is one game where the Cubs had 16 baserunners and only scored 1 run: http://sports.espn.go.com/mlb/boxscore?gameId=260503129

No they aren't. They are justifying that he's barely playing at all. Again, complaining about a lack of playing time isn't complaining about a not getting all the playing time. Just like complaining about a poor pitching performance isn't complaing about a lack of a perfect game. There were at least 8-10 people complaining Friday night about Murton not playing in only his 2nd game that he didn't start. This thread was started when Murton had started 4 out of the 6 games decrying his lack of playing time.

They have 3 home games though that have a pretty decent chance of being flexed to a night game (broncos, giants, saints). What's the limit for primetime games? It's not much more than 5 is it? There's actually a good shot at starting 5-1. I'm chalking up the Chargers game as a loss, the Eagles game will be really tough. Well, I doubt you get more than 1 flexed (I think you'd hit the limit then) but the likelihood is that at least 1 of those 3 games will become a night game. I think you got a break by having SD first. That's the game that would be the game you'd almost have to chalk up as a loss, but the first week tends to equalize things out. So you can maybe steal a win there. I could see you starting 4-2 or 5-1, but there could easily be 4 competitive or better games in there (chargers, chiefs, cowboys, packers).

They have 3 home games though that have a pretty decent chance of being flexed to a night game (broncos, giants, saints). Also, that's the same the Colts got. After the opening game they get on primetime at home, their last 4 primetime games are all on the road.

Here is a link to the entire schedule of the Bears: http://www.chicagobears.com/news/NewsStory.asp?story_id=3278

Seriously? You're commenting on his SLG right now? That's the same as Jacque Jones, who has started everyday and doesn't appear to be anywhere close to losing his job. That's basically one single worse than Soriano right now. The absurdity in the Murton critiques is just beyond ridiculous right now. The guy hasn't played. He's been given the least amount of opportunities of any supposed regular, and is basically being used similar to how Ryan Theriot has been used. He's had one instance where he's started back to back games, and was substituted out after 2 at bats in that 2nd game. All they are doing is responding to the people who are very upset that Murton is not starting every game-they are just saying that Floyd is deserving of plenty of playing time as well, and to do that, they have to point out Murton's struggles so far this year.

December 17th, Bears at Vikings-Monday night game

The only reason I can think of it is this. They are very concerned about keeping Z on as close to correct rest as possible. So they have a motivation to pitch him on Friday. Then comes the question-do you change the order on Saturday and pitch Hill, then Marquis, then Lilly-or do you pitch Lilly, Marquis, Hill (maintaining the R/L/R order)-it is certainly possible then that they would just maintain the order they went with at the start of the season and pitch Z on Friday, Lilly Saturday, Marquis Sunday, and Hill Monday. It all revolves around how much rest they want Z to get.

Do the Bulls have another pick? As far as I know, when they trade picks they will only have the Knicks pick and their own late 2nd round pick. They wouldn't have a pick in the late 1st/early 2nd in order to take Afflalo.

BTW, one of the biggest impacts on how a team does in the year happens today-in case anybody missed it, the schedule comes out at 1:00. With the way variables change in the NFL from week to week, when and what order you play teams can have a definite impact on a team's record.

If they get all the way to the 5th slot, they have an 18.44% chance of getting one of the top 2 picks.

Even if it doesn't hold up under appeal, it sends a big message that the commish isn't going to tolerate this stuff. I'm fine with the message, I just don't really like how he's going about enforcing it. This sort of ex post facto enforcement is just a bit troublesome to me. I'm fine with year long suspensions for certain actions, I just think the lack of precedent will cause problems, and could ultimately undermine the whole movement towards stricter enforcement. You are basically forcing the union to fight you on this, as opposed to coming to a mutual agreement. I'm not sure it will force the union to fight. Goodell and Upshaw worked closely on these cases before the decision, and the 6 man player council that was just created met to discuss these cases. So the commissioner already had significant input from the players and the player's association before coming to this decision-if they had all told him that these sorts of punishments for these two were unacceptable, you'd wonder if the commissioner would have proceeded anyway or not. My guess is that the player's council advised Goodell to suspend them for this long, and Upshaw probably isn't as happy about this-but the player's association has a very tight tightrope to walk now because the fans and probably many of the players support this.

Right now the Knicks are 9th from the bottom. But with 4 games remaining they could end up as low as 5th from the bottom. What kind of odds do they have for the 5th-9th slots? Here are the chances of the #1 pick from those slots 5th-8.8% 6th-6.3% 7th-4.3% 8-2.8% 9-1.7%

No-this actually negates a little of the good in skipping Miller if this game is snowed out because he'll only have 6 games in between starts instead of 7. It wouldn't help in skipping Marquis as the Cubs have 13 straight games starting Friday, and since Marquis was the last pitcher to pitch anyway even if he pitches the 5th game of that he would be taking his normal turn.

It's going to be cold in October, too. I guess we're playing the season for nothing. If we ever make the playoffs, it will be too cold. The Astros are built to rely on Berkman and Lee, and they seem to be doing alright. Our best power, Lee & ARam, are having good starts to their seasons in this cold weather. I'm not going to make too much of the comments. Actually I hope they'll just go away and he doesn't make more Dusty-esque missteps. Nobody blames the weather. If I didn't know better, I'd call that a rookie manager mistake. It's warmer in October than it is in April for one thing. The Cubs should be a little better on offense than they are right now despite the weather, and the rotation would of course be shortened helping things out as well. I'd be upset by these comments if I thought that Lou thought this was the whole problem and that he thought his team was just fine otherwise. He came out and said something you really shouldn't say out loud because the perception of making an excuse is sometimes much bigger than the reality. However, he is right. Cold weather tends to work towards equalizing SLG numbers. Without the SLG advantage, it's going to be much harder for the Cubs to win. The only problem is-when the weather warms up, it will also hurt some of the Cubs pitchers-specifically Lilly, Marquis if he doesn't get ground balls, and Hill (I think he still will be very good, but he won't be quite as good as now when he can make a mistake pitch and have the ball stay in the ballpark).

I wish Lou hadn't said this, but I could have told you in January that this team was not built well to play in the cold-especially at Wrigley. Basically, Lou is saying that in conditions like this which take the SLG way down for both teams, you have to rely on your OBP and speed, and the Cubs fall short in that department. The Cubs are built to rely on SLG only, and the conditions can sometimes make that impossible (like a football team who relies on its passing game playing in bad weather-the conditions may be the same for both teams, but it hurts the team that relies on the thing being taken away the most). When the weather heats up, the Cubs are supposed to be able to hit for power well enough in order to overcome their OBP and speed deficiencies (not saying those two are equally important). Unfortunately, Lou saying this makes it seem like this is the only reason for the offense not doing well-it's not. Some people just aren't performing, and that's a big reason-this does play a part though. My question to Lou is-if you realize this, then why don't you put in some of your better OBP/speed hitters-you have two of them on your bench ready to go.

It's hard to call an 8 million dollar investment a steal. Even if he pans out and makes it to the bigs as a starting pitcher it won't be a steal. I'm not sure. The money definitely won't be a steal, but from where he was taken in the draft it will be.

Works for me if everybody else is all for it. I'd say 24 hours. I think 12 hours is better - but don't count 12 am - 8 am CT during that time limit. That's exactly what I was trying to figure out how to say as well-it basically adds up to 24 hours, but not quite.

I am in-not sure how far we'll get in the draft with only a little over 17 days until draft day. It took us 5-6 days to go through the 2nd, so if we continue on that pace I guess we could possibly get to around the end of the 5th.

Wow-that surprises me. His strikeout numbers are high, but his 2.11 WHIP and 1.90 HR/9 percentage have me definitely wondering how an ERA under 5.50 could be reasonably expected last year. the walks were the problem. its something hes never done before. all through the minors he had shown good walk rates so eventually its more than likely going to go down. the main thing last year was a spiffy .381 BABIP. umm that just screams fluke. LD% was ridiculously high, though. He needs to control his pitches better within the strike zone too. um LD% is another VERY inconsistent statistics with little to no year to year correlation yeah i guess it's just a coincidence that good pitchers usually have low LD% and bad pitchers usually have high LD%. Guzman threw way to many pitchers in the middle of the plate last year. I don't think I was imagining that. If you are imagining it, then so am I. There were plenty of his starts in the majors last year where most of the balls hit off of him were hit very, very hard. Thinking off the top of my head, he was the worst of the rookie pitchers in that respect (the ones that got more than 2 starts at least). In spring it was kind of the opposite. Guzman was much better at locating his pitches and avoiding that hard contact, but he couldn't get the bite on his pitches to get as many swings and misses as he did last year.

Do you really think this for the long term betterment of theteam how long term are you talking? The Cubs are (supposedly) built to win now, so no, I don't want a struggling-yet-promising hitter in the lineup over an aged-yet-producing veteran if it costs an already struggling offense runs Also I wouldnt go as far as saying hitting .250 in 4 games in struggling. If we are going to use that mentality than Barrett needs to be benched also. Murton earned his time last year. A .800 ops in his first almost regular season. Only the stupid Cubs would even bring in a player to take time away from a young player who had that kind of first season. I dont see them taking time away from Jock. Why not? Whats the difference between him and Murton. AGE. Until the Cubs let young players play without hindering them with MEDIOCRE at best veterans they are not going to win a Championship. First off, Floyd is not necessarily mediocre at best. Against right-handed pitching, he could be very dangerous (of course, the injuries could continue to cause him to decline as well). So far, his swings have shown him to be closer to the former, although the numbers haven't been completely there yet. Second, there is one fundamental difference between Jacque and Murton besides age. Jacque plays a position that the only other players who can play it are infielders. Murton, however, plays a position that 3/5 of the bench can also play, including their most dangerous guy off the bench who can only play LF. Therefore, Jacque is going to see a good amount of playing time because there simply aren't that many options for RF if he doesn't play there. If they felt Murton could play RF, I'm sure they would start him against some right-handers there just like they are starting him against some of the right-handers in LF.

Wow-that surprises me. His strikeout numbers are high, but his 2.11 WHIP and 1.90 HR/9 percentage have me definitely wondering how an ERA under 5.50 could be reasonably expected last year.

oh, NOW i see what no ones saying he did well. he just didnt do as bad as his ERA indicated. His ERA should have been around five or so. Is Miller any better than that? probably not. guzman probably is. I'm really just curious here-if you sort out just his innings as a starter from last year-what do his peripherals say his ERA should have been?

Looking over the batter/pitcher matchups-if they play, Murton will get the start. He has 4 HR and 7 hits in 19 at bats against Wandy. If you are going to give Ramirez a day off (which I don't now how many days Lou wants people like Ramirez to sit if at all) this would be the day to do it-he's 1 for 15. Lee is 8 for 14 with 2 HR and 8 BB's, and it's too bad Marquis is not pitching tomorrow as he is 5 for 7 with 2 HR.

Fine, he might have pitched into the 6th, but there's no way to guarantee it would have been scoreless. You can't just assume a scoreless inning trend will continue, especially with a bad pitcher on the mound. True, but the 8/9/1 spots were due up and they were a combined 0-7 against Marquis on the day. It's at least likely that he goes scoreless in the 6th if Lou had left him out there.