abuck1220

like papelbon. :D oops...thought i read somewhere that he had a bad second half. or maybe it was a bad second half of the second half. either way, he's a bit of a question mark. :D

But flexible! because you never know when you're going to win or lose a game based on how many guys you have that can play middle infield and the outfield. and they're fast!

that's a bad bench.

i picked up all four of those guys in a fantasy league where comradery is a category.

i wouldn't really call it analysis... infield: seems like everybody's got at least one weak point/question mark/middle of the road guy. buddiga has arod and ortiz at the corners, but belliard and adams in the middle. NSBB has pujols, wright and weeks, but barmes is somewhat of a question mark and estrada's middle of the road. tootie has kent, tek, and aram, but johnson's not a top flight 1b, and renteria's coming off a bad year. GHS has barrett, teix and tejada, but cano's iffy and blalock sucked last year. alamo has posada, helton, soriano, but encarnacion and hardy/drew are questions. PofM has thome, glaus, and jeter, but pudge is slipping. the best IF's are probably DB (javy, dlee, utley, and young) and HBC (vmart, delgado, cantu, chavez, and lugo). if rolen's healthy, lynx is pretty tough too (konerko, giles, crosby, mccann). outfield: lot of good ones...GHS has matsui, drew, clee, and bradley. FL has griffey, ichiro, baldelli and clark. both teams have injury risks in their OF, though. lynx has wells, bay, and crisp...pretty solid (and healthy). if delmon comes up this year, HBC's already good OF gets better. class of the league (OF wise) are raw dawgs (vlad, sizemore, holliday, and wily mo) and NSBB (bonds, dunn, sheff, gomes, and abreu). i'd take NSBB even though bonds is a risk and gomes had a bad 2nd half last year. if wily mo was playing full time in cincy, raw's could possibly be better. SP: GHS's rotation is made up of teams' #1 and #2 starters (sheets, beckett, ollie, myers, patterson). sheets, beckett, and ollie are BIG risks though. NSBB has a better (and more reliable) top two in oswalt and halladay, not to mention webb. cain and liriano are young, but certainly have a ton of potential. alamo (buehrle, cc, lackey), HBC (z, pettitte), buddiga (zito, willis), BB (felix, peavy), FL (smoltz, hudson), NCC (pedro, aj), and tootie (prior, colon) are all tough at the top, but lack the depth of GHS and NSBB. the difference b/w GHS and NSBB may depend on each team's respective wild card -- wood for NSBB and clemens for GHS. RP: only a few teams have three closers. DB (dempster, wagner, and weathers), GHS (turnbow, street, nathan), quakers (cordero, hoffman, krod), and buddiga (jobo, foulke and gordon). nc only has two, but they're tough (cordero, bj), same goes for SofS (izzy and rivera) and BB (armando and gagne). let's face it, weathers sucks, so that eliminates DB ( :D ). and i'm not betting my life on jobo. both GHS and quekers will rack up a bunch of saves, but cordero's peripherals aren't that great, so GHS probably gets the edge. though turnbow has the potential to be a one hit wonder, so that evens it out a bit.

so you're saying that group A (jones, pierre, eyre, howry, rusch and marshall) are not only as good as group B (burnitz, corey, remlinger, hawkins, prior and wood), but are SEVEN WINS BETTER? now who's being ridiculous?

also, you guys seem to be assuming that everything that went right for the cubs last year (cedeno, murton, lee, ramirez, dempster, ohman, wuertz) wasn't a fluke, but everything that went poorly last season (expected W/L, injuries, pierre's performance) was just the result of bad luck and will reverse course this year.

where did this woe is me, everything that could have went wrong did theory come from? barrett and neifi had career years. lee hit 60+ points above his career average. ramirez (when healthy) was better than his career #'s. dempster had been mediocre at best before catching fire last year. ohman, wuertz, novoa all exceeded expectations. murton, while he was up, played amazingly well. quit acting like the only reason the cubs fared so poorly last year was because they were sooooo terribly burdened w/ bad luck.

No, they're not. Not even close. We didn't have Wood and Prior for most of last year, and we didn't lose 90, and we're better this year. you gotta be kidding me. they lost 83 last year when the two of them combined for 37 starts. you really think that if they started ZERO that the cubs wouldn't lose seven more games? with this offense (and the fact that their replacements would be rusch/williams/hill/marshall) the cubs could lose 95-100 w/o those guys. Even without Prior and Wood all year, the Cubs are nowhere near a 100 loss team. For a frame of reference, no one in the entire NL lost more than 95 games last year. well, not many teams had a back end of a rotation as bad as maddux, rusch, williams, and marshall could be. they probably wouldn't lose 100 w/o prior and wood, but it'd be a miracle if they lost less than 92-95.

thanks for the insults (regardless of they were spelled correctly or not). the article said that the cubs were a 90 loss team w/o prior and wood. i agreed. in fact, i think they could be a 95 loss team if they don't have either of those guys. they lost 83 last year (w/ those guys making 37 combined starts). i don't know how it's 'ridiculous' to say that if they made ZERO the cubs would lose a mere seven (or twelve) more games. in fact, to say that the idea that a prior and wood-less team could lose 90 games is ridiculous is, in itself, ridiculous.

No, they're not. Not even close. We didn't have Wood and Prior for most of last year, and we didn't lose 90, and we're better this year. you gotta be kidding me. they lost 83 last year when the two of them combined for 37 starts. you really think that if they started ZERO that the cubs wouldn't lose seven more games? with this offense (and the fact that their replacements would be rusch/williams/hill/marshall) the cubs could lose 95-100 w/o those guys.

he was at fitch when i was there on the 21st. i'll miss boot cut bacon.

i wouldn't put the tigers so high, but i don't know what's so terrible about his predictions. the cubs are a 90 loss team w/o wood and prior.

quite the elaborate prank

proof positive that walks don't work.

marshall's control hasn't been that much better than hill's this spring. though he certainly has a history of better control. you're right though, if i had to pick a guy to jump all the way up, it would be him. good inning right there.

His spring #s still look better than Guzman, Hill or Ryu's. his AAA #'s don't. It's a definite gamble, but the Cubs really have no one else (besides Jerome, who should be the 4th starter - but I'd rather have Marshall get consistant outings as the 4 starter). my preferred course of action would be to leave williams as the #4, and send guzman, hill, and marshall to west tenn or dm and see who's pitching the best when the 15th rolls around. if a decision had to be made right now on the fifth starter, i would have went w/ hill, just b/c of the success he had last year compared to the lack of innings thrown by gooz and marshall. it's dumb to make a decision like that based on 10 ST innings.

Yes! 1 appearance will determine it! I'm going to love rubbing the obvious in your faces when he fails. The prospect love puts blinders on a lot of you. don't be a dick. unless you want people rubbing it in your face when rusch sucks.

His spring #s still look better than Guzman, Hill or Ryu's. his AAA #'s don't.

Yes! 1 appearance will determine it! the problem is, four appearances determined that he was in the rotation. this is a bad decision by the cubs.

marshall's spring #'s don't look quite so hot now. i'm afraid this may be a failed experiment.

it's funny that if you bunt a lot people say you're a good bunter...even if it never works.

...and get madson off your minor league roster. that's been driving me nuts since before you were the manager.

anybody see latroy hawkins freaking out on sportscenter? 'it's bs. it's [bleep]. nobody's guilty.' something along those lines.

who's parlayed a short stretch of above average play in a meaningless season into more...rusch or neifi?