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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.

Great job Cedeno, and another very good Cubs win! Let's not lose the momentum when you go up north, and I'm not talking about Vegas :D

Actually, I think that's 9 walks for Izturis now-7 entering the game, and 2 today. I also find it interesting that 3 MIF's lead the team in walks-DeRosa, Cedeno, and Izturis.

Thanks Toupee for doing this-anyone know who's coming up for the Cubs?

How many outs are there? Can anyone do pbp just for the end of this apparently close game please?

Could #90 be Norwood, the guy who is apparently playing 1B for the Cubs right now according to the box score? He would be the only one I haven't seen before, so it's possible he's the guy you're looking for.

My guess is that they didn't see the race as that close. Even if Prior was brilliant tomorrow, they were more comfortable with starting Miller in the rotation at the beginning of the season. Because of this, they announced it now so the controversy wouldn't be as large if Prior does pitch great tomorrow.

Wuertz got one of the two spots-the other spot is between Guzman/Cherry, with Guzman having the inside track.

The NFL started awarding compensatory picks in 1993.

To give you an idea, AJ Hawk drafted at #5 last year got 6 years, 37.5 million.

I'm not sure he will win now. The fact that the Padres waited until the end of ST (they paid Walker about 300K more by waiting until after March 15th) plus their insistence that they would take the 25 best people regardless of contract with them, plus Walker's ST performance gives the Padres now a good argument that they gave him a chance to make the team and that he didn't do well enough to do that.

It's not either or though. The Bears can re-sign Briggs AND keep Tommie Harris. And what 4th-6th round pick has replaced an All-Pro and got close to the same production? Not saying it can't happen, but I think it takes a lot more talent than what you are giving and it definitely takes a similar caliber player in order to uphold one of the best defenses in the league. They can probably keep both of those players, but at some point some of those key players will have to be released. It will be hard to sign Briggs to a large contract, Harris to a large contract, Grossman or another QB to a large contract, and Benson to a large contract-and even if you get those 4, you probably lose practically everybody else. There are more examples than this of the Cover 2 and replacing weak-side linebackers, but let me go to the Colts here for an example. Mike Peterson-2nd round pick-2002 in the cover 2 system at weak side linebacker-137 tackles including 113 solos, 9 PD, and 3 INT. David Thornton-5th round pick in 2002-entered the lineup at weak-side in 2003, had 145 tackles including 112 solos, 2 INT, 5 PD Thornton was so good in 2003 that the coaches decided not to waste him at the easy weak-side position, so they promoted him to strong side. Cato June-6th round pick in 2003-entered in 2004, 110 tackles including 84 solos, 2 INT, 9 PD-better numbers at weak-side then Thornton had at strong-side that same year, and that continued in 2005. Thornton's numbers went up when he got out of Indy in 2006. June made the Pro Bowl in 2005 with 103 tackles, 5 INT, 2 TD, and 7 PD. In 2006, June had 142 tackles, 3 INT, 2 FF, 4 PD, and 1 sack. The Colts plan to replace June with Freddy Keiaho, a late 3rd round pick that is 1 year into the league. The Cover 2 inflates the numbers of the weak-side linebacker and deflates the numbers of the strong-side linebacker. Weak-side linebackers drafted in the middle rounds can usually enter the lineup after a year and be almost as good as the high-priced player they are replacing.

This what I have been saying the last month to you crazy kids. The Bears cant CANT cant invest 120 plus million at the linebacker position with Tommy Harris, and the starting cb all due for extensions in the near future. Has nothing to do with how good Briggs is. So moving up to a top ten pick for a guy who does not want to be here is gravy, IMO. 7 million gets freed up, we draft a young impact player... LB is not one position. It's 3. They should invest heavily in their best defensive players. LINEBACKER IS 3 POSITIONS????? DEAR GOD THIS CHANGES EVERYTHING I HAVE EVER KNOWN ABOUT FOOTBALL!!!! congrats on missing the point completely. Congrats on a childish comeback. That's not necessary. His point was that you are worried about spending that much money at the LB position, when it's not just 1 person. They would be spending the money on 2 of the top 3 players on the defense, the strongest unit in the NFC. Whether they spend it on 1 LB and 1 DB doesn't make a difference, if they are spending on the DB who is a worse player than the LB. They both play at the same time. It's not like the Atlanta situation with Vick and Schaub where they could only play 1 of them. Actually, which position they spend it on makes a huge difference. Briggs position in that scheme is the most easily replaceable position. To pay big money to a player who could be replaced by a 4th-6th round pick after one year and get close to the same production (which has been done plenty of times in that scheme across the league) and losing an impact player on the defensive line for example would be a really bad scenario. People who can make an impact on the line are rare-weak side linebackers in the Cover 2 who can make a significant impact are not rare at all, so that position becomes one that should be one of your lower salary positions, not one of your higher salary positions.

What makes Walker more valuable than Ward? Ward had the better year last year by far. Before that, Walker had the better years-but if Ward regresses back to his usual year and Walker keeps declining, then Ward will likely be slightly better. Both can play 3 positions-Walker the 3 in the infield, Ward the two in the OF and 1B. What is there to justify eating a million by dropping Ward and signing Walker? Please read what I wrote. I said, pretty clearly, that it was worth considering. I did not say that Walker was better than Ward. You should always look to improve your team, and if Walker is an upgrade, then it might be worth it. I would agree with that-I just don't see any argument out there that would make Walker a better option than Ward at this point. Because of that, I was just looking for a reason why it should be considered-sorry for the confusion, I didn't mean to imply that you thought that Walker was better than Ward. To me, you should only release a player and sign another when there is either 1) a clear upgrade or 2) no downside (the player you're releasing is so terrible that the second player cannot be worse). Walker IMO is not a clear upgrade-in fact, he's most likely a small downgrade.

The Bears have a lot of interesting decisions to make-they have drafted really well over the last few years, and that is going to cause the dilemma. Taking a quick look at the roster, in the next 2-3 years starters such as Briggs, Berrian, Tommie Harris, Tillman, Vasher, and Benson will all want to be compensated. The Bears won't be able to keep nearly all of them, especially since Grossman is either going to get a big deal after 1 year or 2 years if they pick up the club option or else the Bears will bring in somebody else to play QB and give them a big deal. It's going to be very interesting to watch. BTW, as far as the rumored deal, it's a strange deal. For Washington, it doesn't make sense other than it's the splash that they couldn't deliver in FA this year. For the Bears, it makes sense-it's probably favorable to the Bears, but it's not an out and out steal. I do think the Bears should take this unless they decide that they want to wait to try to get something like the Patriots first round pick instead-a pick with less value, but an extra pick that could possibly fill a need.

I thought that with the injury that will put him on the DL for part of the season (but in this case the full season), he either had to be on the roster 90 days this year or else he would have to stick the full year next year.

What makes Walker more valuable than Ward? Ward had the better year last year by far. Before that, Walker had the better years-but if Ward regresses back to his usual year and Walker keeps declining, then Ward will likely be slightly better. Both can play 3 positions-Walker the 3 in the infield, Ward the two in the OF and 1B. What is there to justify eating a million by dropping Ward and signing Walker?

There wasn't that much criticism for what we got for Walker if I recall correctly. He had marginal value and we ended up with a very solid guy in Jose Ceda. In fact the only trade that I wasn't happy with was the Maddux deal. In all the other deals we pretty much got decent players for crap like Neifi Perez, Scott Williamson and Phil Nevin. Here, there was a lot of complaining about the Todd Walker trade-it was a split opinion on if people thought he was worth more than what the Cubs got. Part of that though was just the complete lack of information on Jose Ceda (which is completely understandable) and I think more people are all right with the trade now that Ceda came in and impressed in the minors last year. Edit: I'm editing this post because I looked at the thread from last year and there were more positive things that I remember (opinion is pretty well split)-guess I'm remembering the Izturis thread and all the Izturis/Cedeno threads a little too well from that time. :D Here is a link to the thread-before it got to the Hendry debate, there is quite a few great predictions about the 2007 season that are fun to read :D viewtopic.php?t=34283&postdays=0&postorder=asc&start=0

I haven't seen him around lately-I'm sure he'll pop in and choose them sometime. Of the 7 teams left, I know the board has a Panthers, Seahawks, and Bengals fan-so if those 3 step up, that only leaves 4 teams that I'm not sure there are any fans of on the board.

Are you talking about this offseason? Some of my list will be general, and some of it will be this offseason 1. His defense has never been the greatest-teams are more willing to accept a lack of defense at other positions, but for the 4 positions in the middle, usually good defense is desired unless it's a very good hitter. 2. His numbers-His power dropped quite a bit last year, and teams are understandably concerned because he'll be 34 this year. It might be back, but you can never know for sure when a player has a down year after 30 if it's a sign of decline or just an aberrant year. Also, his numbers last year match up or are worse than some of the other second baseman on the market, even though Walker has been protected from some bad matchups for the past three years (he's been able to sit against more left-handers than he would if he were a starter like some of the others who signed, for example, and that inflates his numbers just a bit). 3. His clubhouse concerns-I have no idea how major this is, but GM's do talk. This doesn't eliminate him from all teams, but it does always thin the market for a guy who reportedly has some problems in the clubhouse. My guess this was not a major factor to 3/4 of the teams. 4. His FA status-he was a type A FA this offseason, which means that anybody who signed him depending on how good they were would have had to give up one of their top 2 picks in the draft. Walker simply wasn't worth that much to give to anybody.

The wind is also blowing out. Man, with run support like this Marquis might win 18 games. Exactly-so the only difference between Marquis and a very good outing so far is a wind-aided Arizona homer. I'll take that. So this latest run is b/c of the Arizona sun? Let's take that one off too. I'm just saying that everyone's numbers are inflated in Arizona because of conditions like this-for Marquis to have a 5-5.50 ERA in Arizona is not terrible by any stretch because of HR that would not be HR almost anywhere else like that one. He's not having a terrible outing, no matter what an Arizona homer and a misplay that wasn't called as that might say.

The wind is also blowing out. Man, with run support like this Marquis might win 18 games. Exactly-so the only difference between Marquis and a very good outing so far is a wind-aided Arizona homer. I'll take that.