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Wrong? Hendry did a terrible job at constructing a team that lost 90+ games, how were people critical of his moves wrong? They were wrong about Jones. Stick to the subject. Wrong about Jones for one year. Still a couple more left to go, so lets not go patting ourselves on the back yet. If he plays like last year for the next two years, I'll be happy. He wasn't great, but it's better than I expected. As for Marquis, he was a contributor for the Cardinals last year, just like you said. Of course, he was absolutely terrible for them, so im not sure what you're saying there. He didn't say that-he said that he was a contributor 2 out of the past 3 years, which would be referring to 2004 and 2005. Oops, I saw it as "a contributor for the past three years", my bad. Still, I don't get what's so offensive about predicting a player will continue his downward trend into awfulness. Do these people do this for every prediction? Do you not fill out an NCAA bracket, because you don't know what's going to happen? "Ohio State should win the tournament!" "They might not, though!" Well no kidding, thanks for the revelation. It's not a matter of the prediction-it's the people who are saying that Marquis has absolutely no chance to be decent to good (or a negligible chance). If you said "There is no way for anyone but Ohio State to win this tournament" I'd point out reasonable ways that other teams could win. Marquis is one of those players where it would be reasonable to say that he's going to be anything from good to horrible (I'm not sure that it would be reasonable to think he could be great, so I left that out)-the definitiveness of what some people think he's going to be to the point that they think that there is no way he could be anything else is what people were addressing.

During the football season, they complain about the Dolphins people doing it, and then when it comes to basketball season, what do they do? :D

Wrong? Hendry did a terrible job at constructing a team that lost 90+ games, how were people critical of his moves wrong? They were wrong about Jones. Stick to the subject. Wrong about Jones for one year. Still a couple more left to go, so lets not go patting ourselves on the back yet. If he plays like last year for the next two years, I'll be happy. He wasn't great, but it's better than I expected. As for Marquis, he was a contributor for the Cardinals last year, just like you said. Of course, he was absolutely terrible for them, so im not sure what you're saying there. He didn't say that-he said that he was a contributor 2 out of the past 3 years, which would be referring to 2004 and 2005. Also, Jones was one of the most under-paid right fielders that have already hit free agency in the league last year. He already has earned about half his money in just 1 of the 3 years-even if only 1 of the next 2 years are like last year, he'll earn his contract.

Of course it doesn't. But that's not the point at all. ok, so what is the point? The doomsday predictors don't know as much as they think they know. I love how everything someone says that they think someone will be terrible, someone else shows up to say that they "might not". Really geniuses? You're telling me that there's a chance he might be bad, and also a chance he might be good. Well, gee, that sounds, almost like every other player in baseball. Marquis last year was as bad as Pujols was good. If you start a thread about how Pujols is going to be great this year, I'm not going to come in the thread and say "Yeah, but he might be bad too! You dont know as much as you think you do!" It's not a question of possibilities though-it's a question of reasonableness. Could a healthy Pujols be bad this year? Sure-but it's so unlikely to be unreasonable. Could Marquis be a league average pitcher this year? Definitely-his track record, his possible return to being a ground ball pitcher, the fixing of his mechanical flaw, the Cubs infield defense and the high grass at Wrigley all give him a reasonable chance of being average. Was the 3.71 an aberration in 04? Probably-was the 06 an aberration? Probably as well. He is a pitcher that if he gets ground balls will most years be somewhere in between the low 4's and high 4's, which means that in most normal years Marquis is a just fine 4th-5th starter with some years being a good 3rd. Now-he might not have returned to throwing primarily ground balls, but I don't think anyone can definitely say that for sure, especially with the limited ST evidence that seems to suggest that he is throwing his sinker well again. Could that change? Sure-but it is perfectly reasonable to think that it may stay that way.

Well, a lot of people think he can make it to the 4.3-4.7 range this year, which would be a 3rd-4th starter type. If he does that, he could earn his money with the current pitching market. Besides at this point, his contract is not very important. It's done with for good or bad-now the question is what is Marquis going to do this year, and can he be productive for the Cubs? Comparing him to the other 4th-5th starters in the league is very useful for that question because Marquis is still an asset if he outperforms some of those other 4th-5th starters-maybe not 7 million good, but he might not be an overall drag on the team this year. Finally, Marquis is known as somebody who is receptive for a while to his pitching coaches and then he gets stubborn and refuses to take direction. Both the previous coaches managed to get at least 1 good year out of him-our hope is that Rothschild can do the same thing for a year, and then the team can decide what they are going to with him after the year.

A few points to add to the discussion: Maybe Marquis was lucky in 04-that certainly is likely. For a pitcher like himself who lets the ball into play so often, he's at the mercy of when the ball bounces for a hit and when it goes for an out. Some years he's very lucky with that, some years he's very unlucky with it. 06 doesn't factor in to that part of the equation there though-he stopped being a ground ball pitcher in that year, and he got hammered because of it. So far, he seems to have corrected that so he won't be the same pitcher that he was in 06. The question is, do the Cubs need him to replicate the luck of 04 in order for him to be successful? My answer is no, they do not. They don't need him to have a 3.71, but more of around a 4.5. He needs a lot less luck for that to happen. The Cubs also have several advantages for Marquis. The high grass will keep some of those grounders from getting through. The infield defense is mostly excellent with a quick DP combo. For Marquis to take advantage of those advantages though, he has to return to being a ground ball pitcher like he was in 04 and 05. So far, he's been unbelievably good in GB/FO ratio. He doesn't have to be as good as he has been in ST or even close to it, but he does need to be in the top 1/3 of ground ball pitchers in order to be successful. The last issue is his BB percentage. That has been slowly improving for Marquis with the exception of 2006 (which again, we hope has been erased by the mechanical flaw). If he just continues to slowly help his BB percentage, than Marquis can be a guy that depending on luck will usually have an ERA somewhere between 4 and 5.

He was sidelined with a minor injury at least part of that time.

He's a special teams stud, but is one dimensional as a player. He's good against the run, but he can't cover, and he can't rush the passer either. He's a good backup ILB/special teamer, but that's about it. Eh, sounds ok. No idea why we're going to pay him $4 mil and didn't have interest in similar dollar amounts for Stallworth, Bennett and Travis Henry, though. Oh, don't worry. You guys aren't the only team not to do anything in FA :x You've at least been rumored with a player or two even slightly haven't you? The only news I hear out of the Colts camp is who's leaving-the only thing I've heard is that Chris Brown wants to come to the Colts-that doesn't mean that the Colts have any interest or any Colts fans have any interest either. It could be possible that the Colts biggest free agent move of the entire offseason is signing Rob Morris-that's almost comical to think that's the biggest.

I will be on my honeymoon the next 2 weeks so that way I dont want to know how bad I will do this year! Last year was brutal... Stupid George Mason! i had the same thing happen to me in 2002. i was in tahiti for IU/Maryland. from what i understand, i didn't miss much. Wow-that was either a win-win for me that year or a lose-lose. I had Maryland picked in 2 nice pools, so I either won a pretty good amount of money or watched my team win the national title. I've never been so upset to get money before-Coverdale's ankle was just not good enough to match up with Dixon that night.

From your descriptions, sounds like pretty bad luck in that inning-a single that bounced into a DP, and a possible double went foul in an at-bat that resulted in a K. Not too bad.

Lou did say that he wanted Samardzija to face Bonds-Bonds is up 4th next inning, maybe Lou will intentionally walk somebody :D

and I'm confident that Izturis can get close to Theriot in that department :D I guess we can come back and actually find what happened after the year.

Soriano single, Theriot double, Lee reached on Visquel error scoring 1, Ramirez singled, Jones singled in 1, Floyd singled in 2, Blanco got out, Izturis got an RBI out, and Z tripled in another run before Soriano got the last out of the inning. That's how you like to see a game get started! Did they chase Morris off of the hill, or is he still in the game? He stayed in.

Soriano single, Theriot double, Lee reached on Visquel error scoring 1, Ramirez singled, Jones singled in 1, Floyd singled in 2, Blanco got out, Izturis got an RBI out, and Z tripled in another run before Soriano got the last out of the inning.

Without looking up numbers, Theriot pretty much is David Eckstein. Kennedy's career line: .280 .332 .398 If Theriot develops a little more pop with an every day chance, he could be there. I chose Kennedy as he is a 2B and seems to have a similar game. I think he's saying that Theriot has a little more OBP in him than Kennedy does-.332 would be low for Theriot if he played well. He would be much closer to Eckstein (.351 OBP/.359 SLG) numbers wise as far as OBP/SLG breakdown.

I think there's a decent chance he would be worth 21 million over 3 years compared to the other pitching salaries that were given out this year-now, he may not be worth his contract each year, but he may be worth more than his contract in 1-2 of those years (for example, people were paying 10 million for 4.2-4.5 ERA's this year-so if Marquis can do that, he makes up 10 of the 21 right there). Now, you can certainly argue that all the pitchers were overpaid this offseason, but that's going to be a league problem-we'll see what happens with the market next year.

I think he could be better than that-but if there are any ties right now about which one is more likely to flame out, the tiebreaker for the job has to go to DeRosa-not only for the contract, but for the simple fact that they promised him the job. You don't want to send a sign to other free agents that the team may go back on their word this early into a contract unless you are sure that the other player can do better, and Theriot and DeRosa seem to have an about equal chance of succeeding right now.

Well, if we do that, we better hope the whole team cools down-Theriot has had a very good spring so far, but if you compare him to the 8 starters he would only be having the 6th best spring out of the 9 players. How do you say? AVG wise only Lee is better. He is tied with Barrett at .400 but has a higher OBP. I havent looked at OPS. Izturis and Lee are better in AVG Izturis and Lee are better in OBP Lee, Izturis, Ramirez, Barrett, and Murton are better in OPS.

Well, if we do that, we better hope the whole team cools down-Theriot has had a very good spring so far, but if you compare him to the 8 starters he would only be having the 6th best spring out of the 9 players.

because in 2005 and 2004 the metaphorical Juan Pierre hit 25-30 HRs per year. Marquis G/F was 16 in the NL of all pitchers with 140+ IP in 2005. Marquis G/F was 2 in the NL of all pitchers with 140+ IP in 2004. look, I don't like his signing, but some of you are just taking the hatred of the guy too damn far. yeah, there was a lot of hate in my post. so he was very good (w/ regard to his g/f ratio) in '04, average in '05 and terrible in '06. i guess i see the trend as getting progressively worse...but that may just be me hating marquis. I wouldn't call 16th out of 80 or more starters average. Also, did you see my post about how they supposedly fixed a mechanical flaw, and so far in ST he has 16 ground ball outs versus 5 fly outs? That's why people are referring to him as a ground ball pitcher-he was a ground ball pitcher in the past, they supposedly fixed a flaw, and now the very early indications says that he is a ground ball pitcher again.

We all know that one half of one region blows up every year. What are the candidates this year? For me, it's: the bottom half of the Midwest-IMO, Wisconsin, UNLV, Georgia Tech, Oregon, Notre Dame, or Winthrop could possibly all come out into the Elite 8. bottom half of south-you have Memphis, A&M, Louisville, Nevada, Creighton, Stanford-all of those teams are talented enough, but they are all beatable as well. honorable mentions: top half of West, top half of East. My two most likely choices for the bracket to stay relatively clean are the top halves of the Midwest and South-don't see too many upsets happening in those two sections.

Here go the Patriots again-they sign Kelley Washington now-5 years, 22 million-but this deal is like the Stallworth deal, which definitely means that at most they are keeping one of the two after the season and cutting the other one. http://www.nfl.com/nflnetwork/story/10033511

ah, but let's look at the context of that 4.55 ERA. if in a different argument, let's say one about Andy Pettitte, folks like Mephistopheles will banty about how league average ERA in 2006 was 4.63. thus, Marquis' career ERA makes him better than the league average pitcher last year. further than that, Mephistopheles would add in a different context, relievers have better ERAs, so since Marquis is a starter, he would have been a borderline number 2 last year had he put up his career ERA. But the league average for MLB hasn't been 4.63 each year of his career, so you are confusing context by making this assertion. doesn't really matter. a 4.55 in 2005 would have made him an average number 3 starter. in 2004 it would have made him a very good number 3 starter. in 2003 it would have made him an average number 3 starter. we need Marquis to be an better than average 4th or outstanding 5th starter. I don't agree with your numbers. Just picking 2005 and recognizing there's some wiggle room in this analysis due to playing time (but I picked the guy who was there for the majority of the year. In some cases, the fill in did one heck of a lot better than the replacement, sometimes not): 1 P Houston Oswalt 2.94 2 C Florida Burnett 3.44 3 P Atlanta Tim Hudson 3.52 4 P StL Mulder 3.64 5 5 WAS Livan 3.98 6 5 Milwaukee Capuano 3.99 7 5 Mets Benson 4.13 8 L LA Dodgers weaver 4.22 9 L Chicago Maddux 4.24 10 C Philly Wolf 4.39 (Lidle 4.53) 11 L SF Tomko 4.48 12 L Arizona Brad Halsey 4.61 13 P SD Lawrence 4.83 (made playoffs, but 82-80) 14 L pitts fogg 5.05 15 L Cincy Ramon Oritz 5.36 16 L Colorado Wright 5.46 P = Made playoffs C = contender 5 = .500+ team L = losing record Marquis at a 4.55 ERA in 2005 would have placed him 12th out of 16 NL teams for third starter ERA. There's also a very clear correlation here with having a superior third starter and record / likelihood of making the playoffs. I agree that we don't need Marquis to be a quality 3 for us this year, but suggesting that a 4.55 ERA would have been one in 2005 is a fallacious argument. He just said an average 3 starter, not necessarily a quality one in 2005. Here's the study from Hardball times using 2006 numbers: http://www.hardballtimes.com/main/article/how-good-is-your-4-starter/ The average number 3 was 4.57 in the NL in 2006. Now, I know that in 2005 the league ERA was .13 lower-even if you take .13 off of the average number, that still leaves 4.55 within .11 of it-which means he would be much closer to being a 3 than a 4.

IU has to play the last game of the night-again. I think that's 7 straight times that they've made the tournament where they played one of the last games of the night-I'm not exactly sure why that is.

I at least appreciate the effort-I hope and I think that Izturis will give you more reasons to like him very soon now :D