CubColtPacer

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

I believe you are actually talking about Alex Cora, who hit a home run on pitch number 18 against the Cubs. Wow, I really screwed that one up, eh? :D What year was that? It sounds strikingly familiar and is probably the at bat I was referring to. Thought for sure it was Izturis. Here you go: http://www.thebaseballcube.com/box/2004/LAN200405120.shtml May 12th, 2004. Cora was the last batter Clement faced in that game.

I believe you are actually talking about Alex Cora, who hit a home run on pitch number 18 against the Cubs.

Obviously last year Marquis was not a groundball pitcher. The two years before that though, he finished 2nd and 16 in the NL in ground ball/fly ball ratio. The mechanical flaw that they supposedly fixed was to allow him to throw more ground balls. So far in ST, he's had 16 ground ball outs to only 5 fly ball outs. That's why people are saying that if he continues to get ground ball outs at anywhere near the ratio of what he's doing so far (over 3 is ridiculous-he could get that down to 2 to 1 and still be very good) then he'll be a very effective pitcher.

Guzman was apparently granted another option because of medical reasons, so he does appear to have one more option year.

Not complaining about Marquis. Just holding my breath, that's all. Yes, he's shown the ability to last an entire season. He's also shown the ability to royally suck. I think that sums up Jason Marquis. So far, he has shown indications of the former, and the fact that it appears that it was a mechanical change that caused this change is also hopeful. At the same time, it is acknowledged that he when he starts to struggle, it is hard for him to bounce back from that. The Cubs do have a few advantages for Marquis as long as he keeps up his ground ball ratio. The high grass, the good range of most of the Cubs infield, and what seems to be a quick DP combo so far should be able to get him out of many jams. The big question is if he can keep up that ground ball ratio-some years he's been near the top in the league in that, and some years he hasn't been. Which one he turns out to be this year will be a key indicator in his success, along with continuing to throw strikes and keeping his walk rate at least as low as it was his 3 years with the Cardinals.

On discussion of the #1 seeds, remember that at the time that the bracket was completed it was not known if Kansas would lose their game or not. They had decided to not move Kansas off of a #1 regardless, but that may have factored into their decision to put them in the West. Besides-only NC is in the region they wanted anyway, everyone else got sent off to a different region.

I understand why Izturis could possibly make a jump in patience like he has as well. When he came over last year, I watched him closely to see why he was not very patient. What I found is that his lack of patience was more one of philosophy than anything. Izturis actually has a pretty good eye at the plate (it's not nearly the best I've ever seen, he'll still chase pitches from time to time, but it's above average). When he got deep into counts, he would take pitches that were just off the plate, and would usually not swing at a ball. The problem was that he had been taught to go after the first strike he saw-all that he needs is someone to teach him what pitches he can line and what pitches he needs to take. With his natural talent (his good eye) and a bit of training, he'll be able to catch on to that quite quickly, which should result in both an increase in his AVG and BB totals.

no, and it's because of a little stiffness in his shoulder.

I like this quote as well from the same article as the previous post: I do too Lou-I do too :D

Well, I doubt we have the best number 8 hitter ever, but I do think we'll have one of the better 8th hitters in the NL. He is taking pitches because his developing patience got combined with coaches who stress patience-a great combination. He is absolutely on fire right now-he can't keep this up, but the signs of him being healthy and closer to his just before pre-injury level are there so far. All we can do now is wait and see if that continues to translate to the rest of spring and more importantly the regular season. I can tell you one thing-I'm sure most people didn't expect him to be tied for the team lead in walks right now even with having the fewest at-bats of any of the starters :D.

Dammit, Dick. (I'm a bit surprised that people would pick UCLA over KU.) Raisin-I gave your team high respect. As soon as UCLA came up with the 2 seed, I told my wife that I was really hoping that IU would not be the 7 or 10 in that region-unfortunately like usual, some of my worst bracket wishes come true. Hopefully they'll get to match up on Saturday if they can get past their first round games-that would be an interesting game, apparently if IU's 3's were falling that day.

I'm glad the committee resisted the urge to put the 7 seed Indiana vs the 10 seed Texas Tech-that would have just been an unnecessary ratings storyline.

It's still early, but it appears that Perry has changed this team's approach. Lee doubles off the wall over Hall, but Theriot slips and holds at third. Runners on third and second, no one out. I'm still leaning towards the "the hitters are ahead of the pitchers in the spring" school of thought. Does anybody know how our raw walk total compares to other squads? Nope-all I know for sure is that the Cubs have a positive walk differential (more walks by their hitters than walks surrendered by their pitchers) which is amazing for this staff.

You don't see that double play very often, that's for sure-good job Lee making it a much easier inning.

Yeah, is it 1-0 or 2-0? I don't see where the second run came from. I think it scored on the error that allowed Marquis to be safe. However, Pat and Ron aren't always clear on these things. That would make sense-it was a bouncer to second, and the runner from 3rd almost certainly went home on a grounder to the middle infield (I'm sure the infield wasn't playing in during the 2nd inning of a ST game).

Yeah, is it 1-0 or 2-0? I don't see where the second run came from.

Are you wanting Jones packaged because you feel Pie should be in CF on opening day? no, because i want murton to play everyday. So you're willing to make the season much harder to do that? If you trade Jones now, you either have Pie in CF (where the offense almost certainly suffers) or you have Murton in RF and Floyd in LF everyday, which is a disaster waiting to happen-if it be from terrible defense or Floyd breaking down. depriving murton of playing time now is a disaster waiting to happen. the guy looks like he could be on the verge of a breakout season. if he's not getting plate appearances, that doesn't bode so well for the team. i can live with below average defense in the outfield if it means that murton continues his progression. if floyd is healthy enough by opening day, i doubt murton gets many PA's. Murton will get 400 PA regardless-he'll get all the AB's against left-handers, some of the right-handers, and pinch-hitting appearances-besides, now that he's Lou's number 1 option for a number 2 hitter he's going to get a good amount of playing time.