jersey cubs fan

Except Lou has said he's going to be a late inning power arm, but he isn't going to throw on back to back days. And this made 3 of 5 days pitching for the kid since his call-up, and there are guys rotting in the bullpen, for whom, a blowout is the perfect opportunity to get them in the game.

I can't understand how anybody could have a bigger complaint than he willfully destroyed young starting pitchers. The bad fundamentals didn't make them underperform. They stunk after they killed arms and because they could not score due to a complete inability/unwillingness to draw walks and get on base.

That was predictable following the amount of bullpen usage they've had.

Assuming they are just doing whatever they can to not waste money on him next year (ie. trading him for nothing but the ability to clear his contract) that may be the best course of action. However, three consecutive seasons of being left off playoff rosters is going to add to the difficulty in moving him this offseason, and the desperation for pitching by contenders is much higher in July than in November. I think it will be much easier to move him now, and therefore, if they find anybody willing to take his contract, they should.

Unfortunately, that's not the case.

Over the first two months, no closer appeared in more games or pitched more innings. At one point, he and Marmol had pitched in the same amount of 4+ run leads. He hasn't pitched in a very long time, so it's easy to forget, but Wood was being used quite a lot, especially for a guy that Piniella said would need to be monitored. By the time June and July rolled around, he appeared to be easing up on him a bit, but Lou did not do a good job of limiting Wood to the role he was assigned to early on.

That's how I looked at it, and although I'm not thrilled about it I do understand at least. I don't understand it and I don't think that's the case either. What value could their be in letting the hitters see the pitcher you've dubbed as your new late inning weapon? Lou used him because Lou locks into certain decisions and sticks with them, like using Marmol, Wood, and now Samardzija, in blowouts. The reasonable thing to do would be to save him for today, when you may actually need him.

Rupert Murdoch, I think. That's what I was thinking it was, but it didn't sound right when I typed it up, so I replaced the last name with "somebody". At least I didn't say Rupert Holmes. :grin: I don't believe Rupert Murdoch (FOX) spent beyond his means and then cut costs after purchasing the Dodgers. That may be what some people believe the current owner (McCourt did), but I'm not sure.

No need to hold out for a prospect. Getting his awful contract off the books would be more than enough value. His level of performance can be filled by guys making $400,000, and then you'd have money to apply to actual players of worth. The problem is they probably can't get anybody to bite on that contract. If the Cubs are constricted by his contract, i.e. hurting for money, I will agree with you. But at the moment, they don't appear to be, and if you take financial concerns out of it, then the choice comes down to which would you rather have, the depth of having Marquis around and the chance (however slim it may be) that he might be the best performing starter out of Lieber, Gaudin, Samardzija and Hill or getting a prospect of a certain value. Having him as an option amongst that group has enough value that, so long as money isn't an issue, it makes more sense to keep him than it would to just DFA him. However, because the Cubs have so much depth there Marquis would likely have even more value to a team that was lacking in starting pitching depth and still in the race. Unfortunately, there are only a few teams out there that fit that description. I'm not talking about DFA. There's no value in DFA because they still owe the money. And it has nothing to do with hurting for money. It's about opening up $12m in payroll space. Marquis's value as depth is not near worth the $10m owed next year.

Considering they have two of the best corner OFs in the league (at least for this year) in Carlos Quentin and Jermaine Dye, I'd have to say no. Do they have a good DH too nilo? I wonder since Manny wants to leave if he'd accept being just a DH as well. Thome is no Manny but he's pretty good.

seriously, and carlos zambrano is one of our pitchers. every team has at least one or two players who showboat; get over it. I wouldn't have minded if Braun showboated after his homer. It's the idea that a curtain call doesn't mean anything if you're still quite possibly going to lose. Are you kidding me? With all the curtain calls Cubs players have done in Wrigley, I have to imagine many of them occurred in games the Cubs lost, and I'd bet quite a few took place as early as the 6th inning. This is a ridiculous complaint.

Luckily, the great GM gave him a no-trade clause, eliminating a huge amount of the value any prospect has.

.260/.287/.446 Especially when you aren't actually getting any production from him.

I guess that depends on who the "people" are that are doing the expecting. If you pay attention to most media types, you'd think this team was going to finish with the top 5 draft pick again. But Vegas still has this team with an over/under of 8 wins, which to me, is suprisingly high. I've said before I don't have a great feeling either way. I fear they could be really bad, but I also think 10-11 wins isn't out of the question if a few things break their way - namely, defensive health and offensive line quality (not to mention Grossman being decent). Unfortunately, they don't have a lot of room to play with, as it wouldn't take a lot to make the bottom fall out.

Built-in excuses for Lou? Yes, it's stupid to keep a reliever on the active roster but not use him, in part because it's easy to get rusty over those long breaks. Why would he be wrong for criticizing Lou about Eyre being rusty? he would be right, i'm just saying that Keener98 is going to complain either way. Either he doesn't put him in and Lou is dumb, or he puts him in and Lou is dumb You are assuming a lot there. I don't think it's fair to say he's going to complain either way, but even if he did, he'd be right. Why can't you complain when a manager does something stupid? If a manager doesn't use a reliever he has available, that's stupid, both because he shouldn't have been pitching then, and because it may cause him to lose effectiveness whenever he is finally used again.

I know. But how many other guys on that team have had a run like that? I'm just frustrated, I guess, at how all this transpired. The Pennant Race is great. But if Edmonds continues to be hobbled, or even for next year, are we going to do this all over again? Give him the job and then give up on him if he's 3/16 after four games? Probably.

howry has at the very least performed up to the amount of his contract, and probably has outperformed it. Not sure how you can figure that. He's very much on pace to absolutely suck for 33% of the contract's duration.

They were still pretty good offensively, at least for half the season. I think if you took out the ST scores, the offense still ranked high. The yards weren't huge, but part of that was the field position they got, which, obviously, also helped with scoring. My point is that I don't think a "decent" offensive line results in a top ten scoring offense or 13 win season. I think they will need to be pretty darn near excellent on the line to see those rankings.

I see it more like 2005 on the upside, and 2004 on the downside. I don't see anyway they finish 2008 as the 2nd highest scoring team in the league. Perhaps they won't rank as low as 2005 did offensively, but it will be closer to the mid-point than the top, and I really doubt they win 13, even on the upside. The line would have to be fantastic, not decent.

that would be stupid Yea, i guess it would be silly to pay more attention to a baseball game(while at one) than just get wasted. Yes, it would be stupid to purposefully curtail your drinking (ie, fun). Well, if you can't control your bladder, maybe you should(or if you drink so much while at a game where you fill your bladder, you obviously have had way too much anyways). If you wanna get really drunk and watch a game on the side, i'd recommend going to a bar. The drinks would be cheaper. I guess i'm old fashioned in the way that if you are going to a baseball game, you should probably pay a bit of attention to it. Aren't you the one complaining about the troughs? I'd recommend you worry about yourself and get off your high horse. Going to the games should be fun, if people like drinking at games fine. If you want to sit on your butt for 3 straight hours, great, if others don't mind getting up every once in a while for the 3-4 minute task of pissing, why do you care? You aren't being old fashioned, you're being ridiculous.

I don't care very much about numbered designations for receivers. 3-4 WR sets and frequent rotations/replacements can make such distinctions all but meaningless. The rookie RB is fine. And Grossman is probably going to be the starter with Orton ready at any given time. The real problem is the line, and that is mostly on Williams' shoulders now. If he does the job, the line should be okay, if he doesn't the line could be a disaster.

that would be stupid Yea, i guess it would be silly to pay more attention to a baseball game(while at one) than just get wasted. Yes, it would be stupid to purposefully curtail your drinking (ie, fun).

that would be stupid

They have the 40-man spot available, so I would be fine with them adding Hill again. He's perfectly functional as a defensive catcher. He probably holds some value to the franchise to keep around in case of emergencies. Perhaps giving him a Sept call-up makes him consider signing with Iowa again next year. An emergency C's only real value is the off chance that he'll need to catch a couple innings in extra innings at some point. I think I'd rather have that guy be a solid glove with no bat, so as to not lose that game by bad catching.

Yes, it's hard to judge after a week. But the problem I have is that the line is in shambles. Kreutz and Williams have missed a week. Kreutz himself should be fine, but he's already shown signs of decline, and with a new RT and LT, there's been no chance for the assumed starting five to practice together yet. And the offensive line is the most crucial component for determining how well this offense runs. This, by no means, ruins any chance for the team. But it definitely makes things more difficult. The Bears coaches have a tough enough time figuring out how to make an offense work, I don't like their chances of figuring it out with spare parts on the offensive line.