CubColtPacer

Sure, at just under 5. Yes, but the CL is very offense oriented I understand, but it's still not something to brag about. Why not? If the Cubs are doing something better than every single one of their peer group, they deserve some credit. What is more important? The actual number of the statistic itself or how that statistic compares to the rest of their peer group? When it comes to the frequency with which they're giving up runs, I would lean toward the number itself. I don't put a lot of stock in ST numbers, but just because everyone else is not good doesn't mean you should be satisfied with being not quite as bad. Well then, if you just want the numbers, the Cubs 5 starters that are going to start ST have a 4.50 ERA or better, with 3 of them under 4 and 1 of them under 3. They have pitched really well for any type of situation, and especially well considering how offense-friendly the Cactus League is.

Couldn't disagree more. What'd be the point? To get rid of an undependable (or is it non?) and injury-proned pitcher who is trying to change positions on the staff. If he weren't a Cub but some FA off the street, would you want to sign him? probably not. but he's already signed, so your question is pointless. Why is that a pointless question? It gauges his value to us if he wasn't the former Kid K who many of us thought was the heir to Nolan Ryan. I would rather have a guy who is going to stay healthy and be decent than a guy who probably will get hurt (quickly) but has a chance to be excellent. The difference is that in FA, you can go ahead and either save the money and not sign him, or sign somebody else. The only benefit to releasing Wood now is a spot on the 40 man-but the Cubs don't need another spot on the 40 man, and even if they did they could always put him on the 60 day DL and get the spot anyway. They won't save any money by releasing him, and so there is no point to letting him go at this time.

You're right - so does that make Ronnie our backup-backup middle infielder?? In what situtation do you see him playing?? They want Ronny so that 1)Theriot can get some pinch-hitting appearances earlier in games-If you pinch-hit Theriot with him being the only backup infielder, then one injury to Ramirez, Izturis, or DeRosa later in a ballgame and you have absolutely no backup. 2) Theriot and DeRosa can play 2B and RF against left-handers-if you're planning to use either of those guys as a possible platoon with Jacque, then you have to have another backup IF. 3) If an IF is gone for just a day or two (tweaked a hamstring or something, like Izturis might do over the season) you need somebody to be able to be a backup infielder on those days without putting anybody on the DL. Cedeno might not get all that many starts as the 2nd backup infielder, but he definitely is needed so that people like Theriot can get off the bench more often.

So it's Cedeno or a trade now-my guess is that they will go with Cedeno to start the season, but now we know for sure that it will not be Perez.

Update-I picked up Corey Patterson and Tom Gordon off free agency, and I traded Carlos Lee and Edgar Renteria for Garrett Atkins and Frank Thomas. My team is really shaping up now I think.

He is trying to split the two left-handers in the lineup-it wouldn't be a big deal except that neither of them can hit left-handers very well. You don't want two people who are like that batting back to back where you have to pinch-hit for at least one of them in the later innings.

What's stupid is leaving this injury prone guy on this team. He's always injured. Watch, he'll come back for 2 weeks and then go back on the DL again. And if he does? Then the team will have two weeks of Wood and two weeks of a pitcher like Cherry. Since Wood is better than Cherry when healthy, isn't it better to have 2 weeks of Wood and 2 weeks of Cherry than 4 weeks of Cherry?

Couldn't disagree more. What'd be the point? To get rid of an undependable (or is it non?) and injury-proned pitcher who is trying to change positions on the staff. If he weren't a Cub but some FA off the street, would you want to sign him? He seems like a great guy who loves being a Cub, but he's just taking up space on the 25 and 40-man rosters. If that ST article is true, I think it's time... There's nobody at this point that is really needed to put on the 40 man roster though. If Wood is put on the DL, he won't need to be on the 25 man, so no worries there. Plus, any time Wood is healthy and pitching this season is a plus for the team, even if it's for just a month or two. Maybe these injuries start to signal that the team shouldn't re-sign him after the year, but he's not really taking up space right now that anybody else really needs to fill, so the team may as well take advantage of the times that he will be healthy this season.

should I be what the Colts probably actually need, or should I be Bill Polian and draft a reciever/tight end when my defense needs help desperately and get highly criticized on draft day only to be proven right 4-5 years later? I'll take the Colts-we'll see what happens.

Another question-do I think of trading Carlos Lee for someone like Garrett Atkins (or possibly Ramirez, but with his current owner I doubt I get him)-and have Atkins, and Corey Patterson/Michael Cuddyer as my 3rd and 4th OF's, along with Teahan as my backup 3B and 5th OF? Or should I stick with Lee and Teahan? I also forgot to say that I now have Bill Hall in my utility slot, so I could put him at OF after 10 games and put somebody else in the utility slot-in fact, I could trade for one of 2 DH's on one team (Thome/Thomas)-so many options.

When the Cubs players (past or present) were at Walt Disney World for the Cubs vacation promotion. It's on WGN right now-I'm not watching it that closely, but some of the interviews were interesting.

True, but Florida isn't exactly struggling either-they are shooting 48% right now. Also, Florida is 7-14 from 3 point range while Oregon is 3-10-you would expect those percentage numbers to move closer in the second half.

MLB.com (and all the team sites) actually has decent spray chart data. Click on the player you want to look at, and then go to hitting chart. You can then sort by year or ballpark, and look at where any player hits singles, doubles, triples, home runs, ground outs, or fly outs. To give you an example, here is one of Matt Murton's from 2006: http://mlb.mlb.com/stats/individual_player_hitting_chart.jsp?c_id=mlb&playerID=444875&statType=1

BP didn't pick us 5th-that was BA. BP picked us either 1st or second IIRC, and they love our offense overall.

In general, that has been his problem but that really wasn't evident today. Frandsen got a bloop hit ahead of the homer. It can happen to any pitcher. He finished off more hitters today than recent memory. 3.1 IP/ 4H / 2R / 2 ER/ 4SO/1 HR Yes, more hitters than in recent memory. But he's still not at 03 levels. The changeup would help a lot with that. I mentioned this earlier. I haven't seen him use it much at all this spring. I really wonder why. I said a few pages back that he may be keeping it in his back pocket for the regular season. Have a new wrinkle to show hitters. Plus a change up is more effective the second time through the order. Might be his starters mentality not wanting to show it off right away to hitters when he comes into the games. But why? Why wouldn't he work on it in spring training? How is he going to throw it effectively if he isn't practicing throwing it now? And why hold it back? It's not like he's been facing the Astros or Cardinals in spring training. He's been pitching against the Angels or the Giants, teams that he won't see at all this year or will only see once or twice. The whole point of spring training is to work on your pitches. I really do wonder why he isn't working on his changeup. The Cardinals and Astros might not be in in Arizona, but the scouting department is. Including the guys who normally would be looking at the draft right now. They are getting double dipped. As Bob Sanders said the change is there and he is working on his other pitches. Trust me, the pitching staff is doing enough throwing in the side sessions to work on anything they want. Then the daily throwing is another time to work on change ups and fastballs. I taught a guy to throw a split finger and let him toy with it during daily throwing for two weeks. We worked in the pen a week, including not tipping pitches, and then turned him lose with it. It was a nasty pitch and replaced his curve as his out pitch. The moral of the story is that you dont always need to work on things in a game setting to develop them. I don't know why Guzman was holding back though when he was trying to win the fifth starter position. One big reason why he dropped out as a candidate was because he couldn't finish hitters off in games-the change would have helped with that. If he wanted to win the fifth starter job, why would he willingly choose to not use a pitch that could be a big benefit to him winning that job?

Wow-I thought that my bracket was messed up, but somehow I'm up to #2 in that pool. The only game we have differently now for the rest of the tournament is Florida-Oregon-if Oregon wins that game, then I think that's worth 4 points, which is the number I'm behind.

I think she meant that he has a better idea of how to work the hitter, change speeds, and move the ball around the zone instead of using his fastball to just overpower hitters. I think that's how she'd define being a "better pitcher"-to use much worse tools to achieve the same results. The part I disagree with her about is that Miller is close to that form that he was in 2001. I think he has the capability of that, but he needs to show me many more good starts before I think he's that good-right now, I'd classify him as adequate at being a 5th starter.

I don't buy this. After playing and coaching for many years, I just don't think "acting" jobs happen that often, especially in the heat of a moment of a tight NCAA game. Things are happening too quickly to stop and think like that. Now, once players hit the ground, sure some acting goes on. But its giving Xavier's player a ton of credit to think that in a split second upon being hit he decided to put on the act while flying out of bounds. Yeah, I don't think he was acting-but I do think the way his body was positioned it set him up for a harder fall then Oden actually pushed him with. It also needs to be taken into account that this was at the end of a long scramble where there were at least a couple trips and pushing that the refs swallowed their whistle on, so they already were letting some contact go.

I think that illustration was just an example of the larger point. When I talked to my Mariners friend when Lou was hired, he said that he liked young players but that he would quickly deal with anyone who refused to listen to him. He specifically brought up the example of how Boone was defiant towards Lou a lot, and that got him traded to the Reds. This illustration seems to reinforce that point of the consequences of defiance on this club.

When looking at DeRosa, remember also that 1) The fifth spot is not at all foreign to him-he spent almost as much time there as any other spot for the Rangers last year. 2) As Laura said, against a left-hander he is definitely a better option than anyone else for the 5 spot in this lineup. 3) He hasn't gotten very many hits against Zito, but he has drawn 6 walks in 26 PA's and out of his 4 hits, 2 have been HR's.

Theriot in LF and Floyd in RF? Seems to me it would be a better defensive alignment if they switched-of course, they might just be testing Floyd in RF so they can decide if they ever want to think of putting him there during the season or not.

The question is though, why would a team give up anything knowing now that the Texans pretty much had to cut Carr if they couldn't work out a trade. Why give up a pick needlessly and then go through having to re-structure the deal? On to your other points: 1) Not from what I was hearing. What I gathered was that either Williams or AJ Hawk would be the first defensive player to go. But both would likely be gone in the top 5-7, not really worth the risk to trade down if Williams was truly the man the Texans wanted. 2) No disagreement here. That was an awful trade for the Texans, despite the good return they got. 3) I don't see anything that even hints that they didn't make an effort to trade him. Everything I've heard is that they tried all offseason making it known he was available and trying to ship him off. It's just everybody knew he would be cut and were willing to pick him up on a 1-2 year deal. I thought the Jets really wanted Bush and wanted to trade up? It's true, the Jets were at least somewhat interested in trading up-every mock draft had Mario Williams going #2 to New Orleans though, so if Houston had dropped down to #4 they would have missed their chance to draft him.

CBS never switched the game-that was bad. Oregon was up 2 shooting free throws with a second to play, and they never even switched over. They ended up hitting both, so it didn't matter, but UNLV almost had a shot to try to tie that game at the buzzer.

UNLV is coming back quickly-this was a 12-14 point game that now has a small chance of being a close game-6 point game, 1 minute left.

Wow-I was sceaming for Green to kick that out, but he somehow knocked it in anyway. Great shot for him, and it just seems like the top seeds cannot lose this year. 3 1's and 3 2's are already in the Elite 8, and it could be 4 1's-this is just ridiculous. The silly person who picks chalk every year will actually probably win this year.