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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.

Really though, the Cubs biggest thing missing from their offense is the home run. They've kept their SLG all right so far because of some doubles (some that were singles stretched into doubles-Soriano and Izturis with 4 doubles, Lee with 3), but they only have 4 HR overall and only 1 that wasn't a solo HR. That is not going to continue all season long-they are on pace for 81 HR, and they likely will hit more than double that. That's not the only thing wrong with the offense so far, but that is by far the biggest thing right now.

But that doesn't affect those stats. You can't give up 3 earned runs in the first and pretend to not share in the blame of a loss. Sure, but it wasn't a poor outing. No, it wasn't poor, it was terrible. cool, so anyone who doesn't pitch complete game shutouts is terrible? Just so I know so we can move forward That's a freaking stupid thing to write. Just stupid. There's a very big difference between 5 IP, 4 R, 3 ER and a 1.60 WHIP and a complete game shutout. Don't respond with that nonsense. well my exaggeration aside, what satisfies you from a guy like marquis? my guess is nothing, since you always find something bad to say about every situation No but as we're learning any pitcher having a bad game is subject to being chased with pitchforkes and torches until he turns arround and pitches a good game when he is lifted up and given the key to the city until he pitches a bad game and is chased with pitchforkes and torches......... Well thats not the case with Goony, he is generally one of the more impartial posters on this board. He is only pointing out facts, that a 5.40 ERA is NOT GOOD under any circumstances. I think most people are encouraged because without the errors, Marquis probably has a low enough pitch count to go another inning or two-and the way he was going with not giving up any hits in the last 4 innings he pitched, he had a pretty good chance to get another scoreless inning. When 1 scoreless inning turns from a bad outing to a pretty good outing (5.40 ERA to 4.50 ERA), then the outing really couldn't have been that horrible.

But that doesn't affect those stats. You can't give up 3 earned runs in the first and pretend to not share in the blame of a loss. Sure, but it wasn't a poor outing. No, it wasn't poor, it was terrible. So giving up 3 ER's is terrible? Sure. It's all subjective labels. But it's not 3 ERs it's 3 ERs in x innings. Anyway, he ptched well after he gave up the runs in the first and before he started walking people. Overall, not a good outing, IMO. I don't mind the walks in the 5th as much. He had to be a little shaken after all the errors. Walking Berkman with a man on 2nd and 1 out was all right considering how good Berkman has been against Marquis. Lee was the damaging walk on that questionable pitch, and the walk later in the inning to Burke to load the bases with 2 outs was just fine to get to Everett. So Lee is the only one in the inning I was really upset by, and he could have easily been called out on strikes as well.

I can understand the duality of the performance of Marquis. He definitely was one of the factors for the loss, and it wasn't a good outing by him. At the same time, it was an encouraging outing for the future by the way he bounced back-no hits after the first is a nice sign to see. So if you're just looking at the performance as how it affects today's game, then Marquis wasn't good-if you're looking at an indicator for Marquis as a whole, then I think it was pretty good.

They've done that 7-8 times already this year-of course half of them were called strike 3. how many times have they had full counts? they're only working the count so that they can swing later. Like I said, at least 7-8. Barrett and Izturis took pitches on 3-2 counts yesterday, for example.

They've done that 7-8 times already this year-of course half of them were called strike 3.

I can't really fault Marquis too much for any runs he gives up from now on the rest of this game-this awful ridiculous display by Izturis has to shake any pitcher up.

I'm well aware that Jones had a good year last year, at least against RHP. That's why we should have traded him in the off-season. I'm more than happy to put Murton's .350 OBP in the 2 hole against RHP or LHP. Please stop with the Murton man crushes! I like the guy too but goodness, he'll get his chance. It's not like has been killing the ball or getting on base any other way. It's game 8. exactly the reason he should be playing. No it isn't. Murton isn't a lock in the lineup but he will get plenty of at bats. the reason he may not look great is that it's game 8, which is my point. give him time means give him some plate appearances. so far, it looks like floyd is going to get most of them. Why does it look like Floyd is going to get most of them? They have each started the same number of games even though they have only faced 1 left-hander. That suggests Murton will get more starts, not Floyd. the trend appears to be floyd playing more and murton playing less. The trend? It's gone Murton/Floyd/Murton/Floyd/Murton/Murton/Floyd/Floyd. That's not much of a trend just to have two Floyd's in a row after two Murton's in a row.

I'm well aware that Jones had a good year last year, at least against RHP. That's why we should have traded him in the off-season. I'm more than happy to put Murton's .350 OBP in the 2 hole against RHP or LHP. Please stop with the Murton man crushes! I like the guy too but goodness, he'll get his chance. It's not like has been killing the ball or getting on base any other way. It's game 8. exactly the reason he should be playing. No it isn't. Murton isn't a lock in the lineup but he will get plenty of at bats. the reason he may not look great is that it's game 8, which is my point. give him time means give him some plate appearances. so far, it looks like floyd is going to get most of them. Why does it look like Floyd is going to get most of them? They have each started the same number of games even though they have only faced 1 left-hander. That suggests Murton will get more starts, not Floyd.

The team faced left-handers 1/3 of the time they played last year. This year, they have only faced left-handers 1 out of 8 games. Considering that Murton will start against every left-hander, the fact that after today he'll still have half the starts means that he's likely to get more than half the at-bats once the Cubs start playing against more left-handers. I'm not worried about it right now.

It was reversed in his very limited innings in the major leagues last year, but Sampson's splits in the minors indicate that his right/left split is a decently large one.

His peripherals weren't bad at all until his injury in August-he never really recovered from that last season. He was good most of the year until then.