Vanilla Ice

Exactly how far below our ability are we really playing? We are getting better than "expected" performances from almost the entire bullpen. Randy Wells and Rich Harden balance out, Dempster and Zambrano are pretty close to ability, and Lilly is ahead. On the whole, we are pretty far ahead on our pitching. On offense, we've had the Ramirez injury, but it's reasonable to expect at least one major injury per season, and Fox's extra at-bats start to balance that out. So we're left with Lilly+bullpen vs. Soriano, Bradley, 2b, and Soto. Soto spent a lot of years as an awful-hitting minor-league catcher before putting up two spectacular ones, so I don't know if you can just assume he's going to come back. So while Lilly/bullpen vs. Soriano, Bradley, 2b probably puts us "below expectations," I don't think we're so far below them that it's a sure thing that we'll play better in the second half. You should not discount Ramirez's injury because "it is reasonable to expect at least one major injury per season". The fact is that he represents a big upgrade over what we had at third base for the first half and raises the talent level of the Cubs for the second half.

Out of curiosity, how did you find that? And that guy was amazingly bad. A high OPS of .518 for an OPS+ of 41. Year Age Tm Lg G PA AB R H 2B 3B HR RBI SB CS BB SO BA OBP SLG OPS OPS+ TB GDP HBP SH SF IBB Pos Awards 1901 23 CIN NL 87 326 308 15 55 6 4 1 17 2 8 .179 .199 .234 .433 29 72 0 10 2 1902 24 CIN NL 89 342 322 19 58 8 3 0 36 2 14 .180 .214 .224 .438 30 72 0 6 2 1903 25 CIN NL 58 218 207 21 47 4 2 0 19 2 7 .227 .252 .266 .518 41 55 0 4 2 1904 26 BRO NL 96 347 329 17 60 4 2 0 12 3 9 .182 .204 .207 .411 28 68 0 9 2/3 1905 27 BRO NL 79 265 247 12 47 3 2 0 22 4 7 .190 .213 .219 .431 32 54 0 11 2 1906 28 BRO NL 103 372 353 9 56 3 3 0 19 2 7 .159 .175 .184 .359 16 65 0 12 *2 1907 29 BRO NL 51 143 138 2 22 3 0 0 14 1 1 .159 .165 .181 .347 12 25 0 4 2 1908 30 BRO NL 99 320 302 8 53 8 2 0 15 1 5 .175 .189 .215 .404 31 65 0 13 2 1909 31 BRO NL 112 372 346 16 48 1 1 1 15 4 10 .139 .163 .156 .319 1 54 0 16 *2 1910 32 BRO NL 89 273 249 11 40 2 1 0 14 0 6 39 .161 .180 .177 .357 6 44 0 18 2 1911 33 BRO NL 84 250 227 8 30 3 1 0 10 2 14 42 .132 .183 .154 .337 -4 35 0 9 2 Career 947 3228 3028 138 516 45 21 2 193 23 88 81 .170 .194 .201 .395 21 609 0 112 Absolutely amazing. On the thread at Baseball Think Factory, somebody linked to his stats on BR

Chad Fox is on the 40 man roster also as a favor. It helps him get towards the 10 year mark for his pension, IIRC.

Oh no, Duke football isn't good.

Other than the HR rate, Harden hasn't been terrible this year. His xFIP (FIP + normalized HR rate) is 3.91. IIRC, xFIP is a better predictor of future performance than FIP and ERA.

Mizzou fan? Wow not a way to start. (Duke fan here)

Bill Bergen had 3228 plate appearances in his career and his career OPS was .395. Pena has quite a way to go

LOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOL

Lannan has a serious reverse platoon split so I might have played Fontenot or Fuku here. I like this lineup a lot from 1-6, though.

I'll rate it as Starters 2009 2003 2008 2004 2007 Relievers 2008 2003 2009 2007 2004 I bet the starters were pretty close, but the relievers were total guesses for me

http://img169.imageshack.us/img169/1763/sorianokillspattillmane.jpg

Even though I am an Atlanta fan, I will never forget this game. I was up 6 points in my fantasy football matchup that week. My opponent had 0 players left. My only player left was Rex Grossman (who was only starting because it was Peyton's bye week). I obviously thought I was going to win, but Grossman somehow got -7 points and I lost. I missed the playoffs by one game.

There are some reports that Andre Dawkins (6'4" SG) is going to graduate high school a year early and come play for Duke a year earlier than expected. This would be huge as it would give us a much needed third-guard on the team. Good move for Dawkins, too. He will get a lot more playing time as a result.

Richmond did beat Duke a couple of years ago, but Duke has gotten a lot better. There have been dreams of a bowl game this year for the first time in a long time. I would be very surprised.

As long as we face him, it shouldn't really matter

Why would you want Lee with Pujols but not Ramirez or Soto or Bradley

The Jays have already stated that it would be much more expensive in terms of prospects for a team in the AL East (Yankees) to acquire Halladay. Since the rumors are already stating the Jays would get probably 4 prospects for Halladay alone, I would think 2 more for Wells isn't out of the question unless they up the quality of the prospects. If adding Wells to the deal decreases Halladay's value, they would be crazy to include him. Nobody would trade 2 prospects for Wells. He absolutely decreases the value of Halladay, but it would still help them a lot to package them together.

Drop Bruce, Add Hunter. Would have added Werth, but need to make some ground up.

Good news lately with the farm system. I didn't realize Barney was such a good defender.

They wouldn't have to strip their minor league system if they took Wells

HAHAHAHHAHAHAHAHAHHA

I'd keep Jackson. The other spot depends on the league

AND Uggla only got in the game in the 6th inning or something

This and the IMB! one are my two favorite

We could also have a Ben Sheets situation on our hands though. How much do you expect him to get in arbitration? He's making $7M this year so I'd assume he'd get at least that much. With the ownership situation and how much money is already committed to 2010, I'm not sure the Cubs will want to risk having him accept arbitration and won't even offer it. I could see that, too. IIRC, the pitching market is really strong next winter. That could drive Harden's price down in the market and lead him to accept arbitration.