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CubColtPacer

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Everything posted by CubColtPacer

  1. CubColtPacer
    Yeah, that's what I'm worried about as well. Signing a guy who won't even be ready for another 3-4 weeks to be your 7th starter is not a great sign for those two. It could be that the Cubs are being unbelievably cautious and they're selling these veterans on a chance that will be gone by the time they're ready but it definitely is concerning. I was worried that Davis had retired (because he pitched so little last year in either the majors or minors and was still available two weeks over a week after Opening Day) and was coming out of retirement for this chance but it looks like he is just getting healthy and was going to sign a minor league deal with somebody soon. That makes me feel better.
  2. CubColtPacer
    This will be an interesting preview on the Pacers side since their team philosophy changed so dramatically mid-year. It's hard to use their statistics for the entire year to define them. This was a team that was dead last in average free throws attempted in November and December and 1st in the league in free throws attempted in February and March. They went from a team who was averaging 22-24 3's a game to a team that only averages 16-18. Are they that much better after the change? Not enough to where they can put any serious challenge to the Bulls. But they have a lot of variable parts and they are hard to pin down.
  3. CubColtPacer
    I'm not off the Quade fan club yet: Pros He's taken close to the best 25 with him His lineups are pretty good (only things I take exception with are Byrd in the 3 spot and the times when Barney appears in the 2nd spot). His rotation for the leadoff spot is very good, and something many managers wouldn't do. He isn't forcing the action on the basepaths very much. Cons He tends to focus on batter/pitcher matchups a little too much As far as the pitching, he's been a little too trusting of his veteran starting pitchers. Sometimes it has worked (Z got an extra inning when he clearly could have been done that night) and other times it hasn't (Dempster last night). He hasn't quite got the right balance yet on how to try to win the game in front of him while trying to save his arms for the long season as well. As long as he doesn't abuse the young pitchers in particular, I care much more about the things on the pro list than the ones on the con list so I'm pretty happy with him so far.
  4. CubColtPacer
    He's really good against left-handed hitters. Last year in 20 2/3 innings against left-handers he had 29 K's to only 4 BB's and only 19 hits given up (pretty much the only bad thing was that he gave up 5 HR's against them). I'm not much of a fan of him starting though but because the Cubs chose to go with Cashner and let go/traded the other two starting options on the major league squad (Gorz and Silva) it has left them only Coleman as an alternative starting option. In 3 months they'll probably have more potential starting options but right now it's slim pickings for the 7th spot.
  5. CubColtPacer
    Baker is ahead of him if you count him but otherwise you are right.
  6. CubColtPacer
    3.14 ERA in 51 innings over 8 starts in the last 3 years. They've hit him well once or twice but not often. And besides, nobody beats Wandy at home. His ERA over the last 3 years at home is 2.59. He's an ace at Minute Maid.
  7. CubColtPacer
    The key is always going to be if Barney can hit for a little bit of power. He's not going to walk that much and so he's useless if he has no power whatsoever. If he can hit for a high average along with hitting 3-5 home runs and a decent amount of doubles he can be decent though. So far he's had no extra base hits but a couple strong contact flyouts. Baker against left-handers is always going to be a very good option. So this is still a wait and see position to see what Barney can do.
  8. CubColtPacer
    He's only had 11 at-bats against right-handers so far. I'm not worried about him just yet. Plus he's walking like he's supposed to and just hasn't hit the home runs yet to supplement his high strikeout tendency. He's going to be a guy who fails to get the job done a lot..that's just part of who he is even when he's going good.
  9. CubColtPacer
    True, but going 2 for 17 with RISP in a game where you have double digit hits is unusual. The offense played well today but just didn't get the key hits. It's frustrating but not really a big deal. Just hope to not get an above average share of these types of games because the team cannot afford it.
  10. CubColtPacer
    Coleman's stuff is not great normally but it's pretty bad today. Just getting way too much of the plate while he's normally a nibbler.
  11. CubColtPacer
    He will join Iowa and start for them on Monday. No idea if he's just minor league depth or if the Cubs see him as a potential option for the major league rotation. http://mlb.mlb.com/news/article.jsp?ymd=20110410&content_id=17601778&notebook_id=17601798&vkey=notebook_chc&c_id=chc#comment_container
  12. CubColtPacer
    Pena's probably going to hear he's having a poor start when people start paying attention to statistics in a few days but he really is just the biggest one being affected by the pitching matchups. After tonight, the Cubs will have faced 4 right-handers and 4 left-handers, but because of Pena's injury he will have faced all 4 left-handers and had only 2 starts against right-handed pitching. So far he is 3 for 7 against the right-handers and 0 for 7 against the left-handers going into the game tonight.
  13. CubColtPacer
    That we do. The bullpen is gonna be getting worked hard on the Coleman and Russell days. I don't know about Coleman. As long as he doesn't get absolutely rocked he should be able to pitch some innings because he tends to not have high pitch counts. They're only planning on pitching Russell 45-50 pitches though so the bullpen will need to be fresh for that game.
  14. CubColtPacer
    Aramis' career numbers when going after the first pitch: .313 .315 .573 .889 Though I'm not even sure what you're complaining about. Wow. I'm shocked by those numbers. For a slugger like Ramirez those numbers are really bad. Most sluggers absolutely destroy the first pitch. For example Soriano's 1.151, Pena's 1.141, or Soto's 1.271. And of course what those numbers don't say is that a certain percentage of the time he misses that first pitch and he's only a .751 career hitter after the count goes to 0-1.
  15. CubColtPacer
    then i would have pitched in a prospect who was farther away from the minors or pulled back hak-ju lee, and if they still say no then just walk away. i don't see that as being a good trade when you're getting back a #3 pitcher from a cash-strapped team that's eager to clear space from their rotation. Well that could be true (about it not being a good trade). But that's another debate for another thread. For the purposes of this thread, having Archer wouldn't have helped because that would have meant no Garza. The only way the Cubs would have had pitching depth is if they either kept Gorzelanny or Silva. But if they had kept those guys Cashner probably wouldn't have been in the rotation. They had a 6th starter ready to go but clearly weren't ready to have a 7th starter until some of their AA pitchers got a little more experience.
  16. CubColtPacer
    This is where he has been batting against left-handers. And probably Soriano and Soto should be flipped with how they're both hitting right now but that's a very minor quibble.
  17. CubColtPacer
    We would be in a bigger hole than we currently are if they hadn't traded for Garza. i'd argue that they could have gotten garza without giving up archer. the rays are a cash-strapped team with a loaded farm system (especially pitching) and everyone knew they wanted to dump a starter to make room for hellboy. i don't think it was necessary to give them three of our top 10 prospects for garza, especially when one considers what kansas city - a team with similarly limited resources but an atrocious rotation - got in return for a superior pitcher. Of course that would dispute with every media report that said the Cubs had to give up one of Archer or McNutt in order to beat out the 2-3 other offers for Garza and that the trade negotiations were extremely long. Tampa Bay having very little leverage doesn't matter whatsoever when there are multiple teams bidding. It could be possible that all those reports are wrong or being fed misinformation but it's probably not that likely. Archer is barely more ready than McNutt is anyway. Archer has done it at a higher level but still is more raw than McNutt is in some ways.
  18. CubColtPacer
    Right before the crossover is the worst carry IMO. He dribbles it pretty much straight up and down and he's a couple feet to the left by the next time the ball goes down again. It's hard to tell exactly what happens on the actual crossover but that could be a carry as well.
  19. CubColtPacer
    LOL Red Sox. Theo is a great GM, but the John Lackey experience is almost as bad of a contract as Soriano or Zito, albeit fewer years. That guy sucks balls. What are the terms? I didn't realize his contract was that level of awful. 5 years, 82.5 million.
  20. CubColtPacer
    let me answer that for you - he cannot. I don't know about that. He could very well be another guy like John Lannan or even Aaron Cook. One big thing that all 3 have in common is that they have a pretty low home run rate for how many balls they let in play. They also keep the ball on the ground (although the other two I mentioned do a little better than Coleman on that). Coleman could easily land somewhere between a 4.3 and a 5 ERA and anywhere in that range would be a decent 5. The thing that jumps out at me after the K/BB ratio is the number of hits Coleman gives up and why it is consistently low. How does a pitcher who only strikes out 5.2 batters in their minor league career keep their number of hits allowed to just under 1 per inning? How does that pitcher continue to do that in the major leagues even when his strikeout rate slips to 4.26? And why does he allow less extra base hits than a normal pitcher? (his OPS allowed last year was actually quite good). It could be a massive string of luck or it could be something else. I don't think it is fair to think that given enough time he'll inevitably slip into being a 5.25-6 ERA type of pitcher. There's enough evidence to wonder if there is something beyond the K/BB ratio in Coleman's case.
  21. CubColtPacer
    Great point. I completely forgot about the Cashner inning issue. That does put somewhat of a silver lining on this as Cashner was going to have to miss some time this year no matter what.
  22. CubColtPacer
    Iowa wasn't scheduled to start until tomorrow. Coleman will probably throw some sort of limited outing/side session in prep for his start on Sunday. If the other pitcher is getting called up from Iowa, they can start in Iowa tomorrow to be ready for their start in the majors on Tuesday.
  23. CubColtPacer
    Apparently no Pena again today and Soriano has been moved up at Soto's expense: Fukudome Castro Byrd Ramirez Colvin Soriano Soto DeWitt Dempster
  24. CubColtPacer
    I guess maybe Thomas Diamond for the 5th spot or maybe they ask Looper to unretire? If Silva hadn't thrown that tantrum when he was cut he would have a major league job again but that rules him out.
  25. CubColtPacer
    Well so much for the Cubs biggest advantage over their rivals (the back end of the rotation being so good). I think I've counted that the 5th starter would only have to pitch twice in the next 20 days or so and Coleman maybe only 3 times? if they want to continue to move the other 3 to pitch on as much normal rest as possible every start.
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