jersey cubs fan

I could tell the Lennon part was a joke, but I could also tell the part about needing to show emotion was serious.

No, in fact this seems to be the only reason so many people hate him. who hates him? i have read people questioning his dominance here...but nothing verging on hatred... i will admit though that i would love to see a little bit of passion from the guy...i saw some from lilly the other night...that was nice to see...i used to think he was a robot last year until he slammed his glove in the NLDS what the hell does passion have to do with being a good major league starting pitcher? um...i think everything...if you don't have passion for the game...why would you be playing it? don't get me wrong...i know hill has passion...but he is also a perfectionist...who could probably just use a good yell...maybe he should go see that person that lennon saw before he wrote "mother" Seriously, this is ridiculous. The guy does not need to act like Zambrano or Lilly to be a good pitcher. But remember, the first time he showed any personality he was chastised by his manager and told to shut up and let the big boys talk it out.

In the summer it's the Bears, in the winter it's the Cubs.

No, I enjoy it very much actually. What I don't enjoy is your refusal to accept that Hill is "beloved" because he was very good for a sustained about of time. He had sustained minor league success and after a brief hiccup upon being called up (and yanked around) to the majors he sustained very significant success for a year and a half. Why you refuse to allow yourself to believe that is beyond me. The fact that you'd rather have Zambrano on the mound is inconsequential. I'd rather have Zambrano as well. And Chris Young has nothing to do with the discussion.

are we all thinking of the same Rich Hill? yes we are...i know he is beloved on here...but...i guess we will just have to agree to disagree no.....i.......refuse......to.....agree.....

when does this shindig get going?

No, the Cubs don't. They have an Ankiel in Iowa whose potential may yield number 2. Not even close to the same thing. thank you...at least i am not the only one who feels this way... don't get me wrong...i like rich hill...but all we truly have seen from him are flashes of promise...nothing sustained... That's just plain old wrong. Nothing sustained? Absurd.

Chicken salad isn't the opposite of tuna salad. Salmon is the opposite of tuna, because the salmon swim up the river.

I'm going to be cautious and think they can get Hill back and pitching well by July. Hopefully they get through June ok.

He's not a free agent until after 2009, and there's no telling how low his grade will be by then, or even if compensation will still be around.

I thought this said he's playing at 2nd tonight.

Comment section: Some dude working in Manhattan wants the Cubs to call him.

I think that's more Lou than the media. He's been sticking hard to the "it's early and we aren't that good" story.

It's probably my favorite thing about them right now.

Seems like a fit for the Tigers. Maybe on the surface. But Detroit is getting as many innings from their starters as the Cubs (in fact a fraction more). They kind of have the market cornered on warm bodies with 5 ERAs. And that's without Dontrelle pitching much yet. I don't see them as a fit. They need somebody who can pitch without sucking, not just a guy who can show up every 5th day.

He didn't play yesterday. He also sat the most recent Friday game in Pittsburgh, an April games in Philly and home to Pittsburgh. There was one other Pirates game he did not start but did get a late AB in.

The problem with most of that last is that they're either: A. a risk for injury (Burnett, Harden) B. not a certifiable number 2 There are no names out there that I would think would be worth trading Pie/Hill or any of the other Cubs names mentioned. How about Mussina? If the Yankees continue to tank, I'd think he would be available as a half-season rental. Maybe the shift to the NL would benefit him. Why do the Cubs need another 5th starter? He's 39 and has had 1 decent year in the last 5. He's a 5 inning starter who is very hittable and gives up the long ball.

Maybe if this was April 1 and you were still hoping for the flukish start to the season. If you move him to the bullpen tomorrow you won't be able to trade him tomorrow, but you won't be able to trade him as a starter either. At least moving him to the pen offers a chance that he'll show something there. He simply cannot throw a quality start. So why not see if he can throw 4 effective innings now and again? Teams are always looking for relief help even if starters are more valuable. Who cares if he doesn't want to do that? He's done nothing to warrent the coddling of his ego.

If a situation happens like the one you mention above that would still be against league rules. You cannot get a start from a pitcher in the RP spot. This rule change is more for players like John Smoltz, Joba Chamberlain, etc. I still don't get how this is even justified as a rule. A guy is eligible as a starter or reliever, but you can only use him in the role he's actually participating in. But when a guy is a reliever, but not eligible, you can't use him. It's completely asinine and arbitrary, as well as the opposite of how things were done before.

I'm thinking they have to be shopping him and hoping he'll do something that would make him attractive to a team that is desperate for starting pitching. Once he goes to the pen, every once of value he had would be gone, not even the goofiest of GM's would bite then. There's two types of teams that could justify interest in Marquis. 1) Those who just don't have any warm bodies in their rotation. 2) Those who with badass offenses that will make up for his sucking. We already see that he's still a problem for the 2nd type (the Cubs have a great offense but still struggle to get even the mediocre innings they need from him). So you'd need to be able to find a team that's just crazy desperate for a warm body out there. Going by starters' IP, the Yankees and Mets could be candidates. Texas is a pseudo contender who also doesn't get many innings from starters. But I still don't see much room for trade. The best way to showcase him may be to show he can be an effective long man, and then hopefully entice another team to think they can stretch that out into being an effective starter.

With Lee and Soto, I wonder if it's something along the lines of what Ichiro has always said, where he's talked about how he could hit more homers but the rest of his offense would suffer. To me, I agree that it looks like Soto and Lee have been unleashing the big swing more often than not over the last few weeks...that's not saying that it's definitely the case, because my observation can easily be completely wrong...but I wonder if something like that is going on, because they both seem to still be hitting homers or near homers at a decent clip despite their other numbers dropping. My impression has been Lee has been plagued by a load of weak ground balls, not a swing for the fence recklessness.

So at what point to they stop caving in to his threats about going to the bullpen and just assign him to a relief role? He's scheduled to go Sunday and is probably the only option (unless Hart takes that turn), but then the Cubs have three straight weeks with a Monday off-day. If they don't make a move he'd start again on Saturday in Toronto, but then they could start finding ways to skip him. They should be able to find a way to mix-in something like Marshall/Marquis sharing an 8-9 innig load in a few games, as neither is a strong candidate to go 6+ but both are decent bets to last 4 fairly effective innings.

No wonder they make no sense when they can't understand the basics. Non-Save Appearances--11 Saves-16 Blown Saves -4 Save %-75% That's an 80% rate. Wow. That is some tasty irony. That's well beyond basic math.

I'm certainly not defending him, but doesn't that make him the best 5th starter in baseball? Yeah, I threw that in there to say that while perception may make all of us think one of he's the worst we've ever seen, he's really not quite that bad. Right now his numbers are in that frustrating middle zone. He's not good enough to really be productive or to be able to trade him, but he isn't really bad enough to get cut either. That is just a horrible way to look at it. There may be 37 other starters with a worse ERA, but are they spread across all 30 teams? Are the just filling in temporarily. Are those ERA's park adjusted? And are they signed to the type of contract Marquis is signed to? I got news for you, Jason Marquis is not the Cubs 5th starter. He was signed to be more like a 3, and as far as guaranteed spots in the rotation he's a 4 right now. A 5th starter is in danger of losing his job at all times. Marquis has been handed his because of his ridiculous contract, and that ridiculous contract cannot be removed from the discussion. Yeah, I certainly wouldn't argue that Marquis is the best 5th starter in the league. Most of the names behind him are not temporary fill ins though, but many of them aren't usual 5th starters either. They're big money guys having bad years. Verlander, Buerhle, Meche, Penny, Oswalt, Myers, Lilly, Arroyo, Zito, Batista, Snell, Silva are just some of the guys. And no, those ERA's are not park adjusted, but if they were, that is a huge benefit to Marquis. The number grows closer to 50 pitchers if you look at ERA+ rather than ERA. And yes, I realize that Marquis was not signed to be the 5th starter. He certainly wasn't signed to be the 3rd though. In this market, you don't sign somebody for just 7 million dollars to be your 3rd starter. That's more like 4th starter money. 3rd starters have been getting 10-13 million per year. I'm not removing the contract from the discussion either. It's what makes the Cubs decision really hard right now. The decision making would be a lot easier one way or the other if he didn't have that crazy year 3 on there (which is the main thing that I have not liked about the contract...I'd rather have signed Marquis to 2/15 or even 2/16 than 3/21. His career with other coaches and tuning them out after a certain period of time made this type of situation very reasonable to happen after the decent first year that Marquis delivered). The thing is, 5th starter, like leadoff hitter and super utility player, is not actually a position. You employ starting pitchers and relief pitchers. And Jason Marquis is a really bad starting pitcher. Saying there are worse is meaningless, as there will always be worse players at any position.