CubColtPacer

This is likely very, very bad-at least a couple of runs. It's been a long time since the updates.

Floyd singles and is lifted for a pinch-runner-either there was an injury or Lou is furious with him to be lifted this early in the game this late in ST. Edit: Maybe not-there were a couple other substitutions as well.

Wuertz pitched a scoreless inning with a walk and two K's. I think that outing may have solidified him on the team again-if he had struggled mightily one more time, he would have been down to Triple A.

And there's a big reason that Prior had no chance to make the Opening Day roster no matter what he did today-he hasn't made it up to a high pitch count yet, and they are not ready to have him get up that high, instead going to let him slowly build up closer to 100. I like the approach-no need to have a setback now.

pretty good-a walk and a WP, but that's it with a strikeout at the end. Good inning Prior.

The NFL started awarding compensatory picks in 1993. seriously? are they all at the end of the draft? they must not talk about it much at all No, they start in round 3. You hear about them before the draft, but you don't usually hear them talk about a particular pick being a compensatory selection during the draft. It can really help a teams draft though-like this year, the Colts have an extra 3rd, 4th, and 5th round picks-they knew they were going to get good compensatory selections, which allowed them to trade their 2nd round pick for Booger Mcfarland who helped them win the title.

That pitch count isn't necessarily right-that's just gameday's usual thing in the spring of giving a strikeout as 3 strikes, a ball in play as one strike, and a walk as 4 balls. It doesn't tell you of all the pitches he threw before that.

That's officially his third error-of course, OF's can make misplays that don't get called errors, and I know there have definitely been a few of those. I'm concerned about it, but it's the price the team has to pay with going with offense first there-I hope the sinkers a couple of the pitchers are working on and the K's for a couple of the others work well during the season.

The outfield defense will likely be an adventure at times, especially with Floyd in the game.

I wouldn't say that-he gave up a single, a WP, and a walk-but that's it. It's possible that 1 run shouldn't have scored, and certainly not 2.

I thought about that too, but then I looked up the last year for Soriano. He had 90 singles and 67 walks-let's disregard HBP and getting on due to an error or fielder's choice for now. That's 157 times he was on first. Of that, he stole 2nd 32 times. So that's only 125 times that Murton would have put the ball into play behind him with Soriano on first base, and some of those come with 2 outs. When I thought of it that way with Soriano's power and speed, I realized Murton hitting into double plays is likely going to happen less at that spot in the lineup than at most of the others.

I'm sure it is-they've been giving him 5 days off between every start, and so this one is no different from the last couple times. Plus, do you really think they'd keep him from starting yesterday because the Royals had a radio broadcast? I doubt they look at if an opposing team has a radio broadcast when making pitching decisions.

I think this was the answer to an old LSAT logic game question. Logic problems are my specialty :D I love to see why things fit together the way that they do. Izturis is going to see some time at the 2 spot this year if he remains patient, but I can't see it being more than 1/8 of the games at most unless Lou decides he really doesn't like Jones in the 2 spot at all, and even if that's true Murton will likely play the majority of the time and be in the 2 spot if Theriot is not. Wow-I tried to make that last paragraph clearer, but I guess that came out a little confusing as well :D

Bruce Miles / Daily Herald Thanks for posting that I had not heard that he had options. That's the only way the waivers are revocable-if he didn't have options, he would have to be put on irrevocable waivers and the Cubs wouldn't be able to pull him back if somebody claimed him. Prior's just in that gray area where he has options, he doesn't have enough service time to refuse getting optioned, but he's been around long enough to have to pass through revocable waivers, which he should be able to do.

No, I believe that was game 2. Sosa's homer in game one was to left-a long shot into the mass of people that were standing on Waveland.

Exactly-in this lineup, Izturis makes sense in the 2 spot. From his usage patterns, here is what I think Lou has decided on a regular basis: If Theriot is in playing anything but short, he will bat 2nd (or if he's playing short and Blanco is playing, he would bat 2nd). Murton will bat 2nd when Theriot is not in, or when Theriot is playing short and Barrett is playing (this should be the majority of games). Jones will bat 2nd most of the time when he and Floyd play together, unless Blanco is playing. Izturis bats 2nd when Murton is not playing, Theriot is not playing, and Blanco is in the lineup. I haven't figured out yet when DeRosa will bat 2nd (he's only batted there once this spring IIRC). That pattern shouldn't always hold, but it's been pretty consistent over the last couple of weeks.

Hill is my choice. Z has become too much of a high strikeout/high walk pitcher to complete many games, Marquis goes deep a pretty good amount of the time but rarely goes 9, Lilly doesn't go deep enough on a regular basis to be considered, and Miller doesn't have the arm strength to go a complete game.

Which is the difference between signing a FA from another team and getting a hometown discount from your own team. The two pitchers were signed to similar salaries as players like them signed in the same offseason, and Soriano was probably overpaid relative to the market but not that badly so.

1. 88 wins +250 2. 9 wins +75 3. 838 runs +25 4. 791 runs 0 5. 1st place +200 Player stats 1. 36 HR 0 2. 44 SB 0 3. .302 +10 4. 128 0 5. 17 +40 6. 4.47 +50 7. 193 +50 8. 184 +30 Bonus 1. Z's batting average +30 2. Aramis's HR +30 3. Cesar's OBP 0 4. Barrett +30 5. Hill 0 6. Hill +30 Bonus Part II 1. Soriano +30 2. Lee +30 3. Zambrano 0 4. Dempster +30 Tiebreaker-834 OPS Total: 940

More of a short reliever-he had 48 2/3 innings in 31 appearances in double A last year. He put up good numbers in double A-2.22 ERA, 1.17 WHIP, over a strikeout per inning, and he was added to the 40 man roster over the winter. He has also impressed during spring training-10 1/3 innings, 1.74 ERA, 15 K/6 BB.

When Urbina faced Sammy in game 1, I told the 40 half Cubs fans/half Marlins fans watching the game with me that if Urbina didn't throw an inner half fastball, Sammy would strike out. The first inner half fastball he threw would be deposited on Waveland. Sure enough, 3 pitches later it became reality :D

Wuertz must be one of those guys who just starts the year slowly, kind of like Ryno back in his days. He never was great in March or even the first half/all of April. I agree that I think Wuertz is our best reliever, but he's opened the last couple of years in AAA, and has not looked sharp this spring. We haven't really gotten much of a look at him in April before. It might be best for him to start there for 2-4 weeks then come up. I'm optimistic that Lou won't forget about him down there the way Dusty did for half of the season. I'm doubtful that Cotts will hang around too long, I think he's going to pitch his way out of a job and make an opening for Wuertz. I'd like to eventually see a pen of Dempster, Howry, Eyre, Ohman, Wuertz, Cherry, and Guzman for the long man. That could be an awfully tough pen. Actually, we have gotten a decent look at Wuertz in April-he spent the whole month here in 2005 and got 3 appearances in April before being sent down. You're exactly right in that he is a very slow starter. Last year-he had an outing where he came in with the bases loaded and 1 out, and allowed 2 runners to score. Second outing was 2 scoreless innings last outing he came in with a guy on first, gave up home run, home run, single, and then was lifted and sent down to the minors. He was not good in April either in 2005-4.38 ERA and 1.57 WHIP. This is a guy who says that he's had this arm problem for 3 ST's in a row. He then has come out and not preformed well at the beginning of the season. I am in favor of sending him down for now, as long as the team brings him up and keeps him up when he gets over this like he has the last couple of years, because he is very effective when that happens.

They are going to give Izturis some time to get back to playing everyday coming off of the 2 years of injuries. Unless Izturis goes on the DL for a period of time, I doubt you'd see a starter change until at least the midpoint of the season, and then only if Izturis really struggles. Also, Cedeno hasn't made up much ground this spring anyway because Izturis is also having a very good spring (OBP wise anyway, which if you're going to get something out of Izturis this year it will be in OBP, not SLG).

I interpreted the question as more of-how long do you give Hill? And what happens to him? I have to give Hill a longer leash than a couple of the other starters-at least half the season. If he's doing terrible at the break though, I really don't know what they would do with him. They could send him to Iowa-but if he dominated, wouldn't that just be the same thing? That would be really difficult on what to do with him at that point. However, I think a healthy Hill will be a lot better than that, so I really hope it never comes to that.

Big C doesn't slow down, no matter the longitude. I think you mean the latitude, although we will have a longitude change once we go east :D-I hope you're right also. With all the division games in April, it would really help the team to get off to a good start.