big_shooter17

if this were the case, he'd be out of the game right now........ok, i see your point

this may not be the best time and all, but...tomorrow's starting pitcher for the chicago cubs will be RYAN DEMPSTER!!!!!

"It's a miracle!" - Ernie Banks

Yeah, but how many players do we need to give MacPhail to get the job done? I heard the last offer was Gallegher, Ceda, Veal and Cedeno, which is more than fair. that might be how the game would start, but by the fifth, it'd be roberts fukudome lee ramirez soriano pitcher soto pie fontenot that looks far less threatening

lou is one of those managers who makes the best of decisions at all times. why in the world is hart in instead of lieber? also, why would you bring in a player who has just as good a chance of getting a hit as hart to be the new 9 hitter in the 5th inning. this move looks like lou knows how little the offense is capable of.

i heard double switch and the first name that popped into my head was theriot, but then i realized that that was a dream

the problem wasn't the running, the strategy is my issue

i had hope because i think that they can score 2 if they get a couple of bounces, but now if it happens, we will have to bring ernie in to say "it's a miracle." in fact, they should play that sound clip every ab in which theriot doesn't embarass the franchise.

yeah, bring in lieber, it's all lilly's fault.

i hope that was sarcasm. Well...he hasn't... Neither has Tom Gordon. And why exactly are people against Marmol closing? Marmol and Wood were used in the exact same situation today. Ok? So why are you talking about Marmol being a closer based on what happened today? Wood still has to pitch somewhere. Wood pitched in the 9th today because he is the closer. Umm, that makes no sense. Wood pitched in the 9th because he is a reliever. Anyways, what difference would it have made if he gave up those 3 runs in the 8th instead of the 9th? Umm, it makes perfect sense. First game off the year, and an off day tomorrow, once that game went to the 9th 0-0 the Cubs were never going to have a save opprotunity therefor your closer pitches then 9th. The Cubs did it with Wood, the Tigers did it with Jones, and the Reds did it with Cordero. So no, he didn't pitch the 9th "because he is a reliever." It turned out not to matter today, but the difference is you have 6 outs to make up those 3 runs instead of 3. Still nobody has answered why people don't want Marmol closing over Wood. It's certainly not because Wood is better than Marmol, because we all know that is false. i prefer having marmol available when he would be most valuable personally. marmol is definitely the best bullpen arm and although i doubt that this is lou's rationale, but it would be mine. why isn't joba chamberlain the closer for the yankees? i know that you'll say that it's a different situation, but right now i don't think that it is a stretch to say that joba is the best reliever in that bullpen. same could be said for other teams.

aramis. not much of an early season hitter. hits .259 in march/april. theriot will be playing everyday from the beginning of the season and pie likely will not put up numbers as good as jones/floyd. plus there is margin for error and other teams will put up better offensive numbers. we didn't improve as much as most.

i think that derrek lee is overrated to some extent. not a lot, but i agree that he sometimes gets a free pass because of 05. i will give him some blame and i think there'll be more if he keeps this up.

i don't feel like i am overreacting when i question when/if this team will score enough runs to compete in this division. last year, down the stretch, when they were winning, very rarely did they score enough to feel safe. every game was a nail biter, which is exciting, but i wouldn't bank on that this year. the offense is anemic once again. the top of the lineup features streaky hitters as someone else already mentioned. the middle of the lineup has one guy who can't hit until it gets warm and then if by some magical miracle, the team makes the playoffs, won't be able to hit in october. i have hope for some of the bottom of the order guys, but it just seems that this team has trouble against too many types of pitchers. the ace of a staff, the crafty lefty, the crafty veteran, the rookie. every type of pitcher seems to be the kind that a lot of these guys can't hit. maybe it is the hitters. i can't blame theriot for this one although he'll be the source later in the season. the team just cannot hit that well. in this division, with the pitching that the cubs have, league average offense would probably be sufficient. i personally don't know if they are capable of that. this just looks too much like some of the times last year. i also don't think that the brewers would blow a potential divisional lead like they had last year. when/if the cubs are swept in this opening series (remember that dempster is pitching the 3rd game), the cubs may not be able to get back. i know that i sound like i am taking this one loss to seriously, but the brewers won't collapse the way that they did last year and you can't even expect the 27 yankees to go on a run like the cubs did after lou's ejection. they need to start hitting starting on wednesday. at least show some signs of life.

on wednesday, derrek lee will still march towards his 2008 strikeout crown.

Joel Sherman's soap dropping skills are underrated from what i gather. In fact, he made it into the top 5 on that list. Seriously, this destroys the guy's credibility. Kerry has been the one that has been dumped on more than the others on that list.

well, the thing is that johnson is a platoon guy only. as soon as he plays too regularly, the numbers drop off too much. the thought of him being an everyday guy is scary. when you look at his 06 numbers, he had his best success with fewer than 80 ab's per month (when he was platooning with catalonotto) and when he wasn't starting every game. looking at 05, it appears to be the same thing. as soon as he started 75% of the games in a month (or so) or more, the numbers typically dropped off. He doesn't have a terribly large sample size, but from a mix of looking at the statistics and from seeing him perform, the more that he pays, the less effective that he becomes. i also have a feeling that if pie struggles and they send him down, they would at least let fuld have a shot against rhp. i don't know how much better he'd be than johnson, but i doubt that they'd just hand the job to johnson when lou so badly wants a lh bat in the lineup, something that fuld could supply if pie cannot get the job done. that said, i think that pie will be effective enough that it won't come to that.

from the box score on mlb.com, reed struck out, but who knows what the at bat looked like

I don't see how that is possible. The only way that happens is if they go with 1 backup middle infielder, and I don't see anyway they pull that off. .... With the normal 5-man bench, if one is a catcher and you burn one on a 1B-man (Ward), that leaves you 3 guys to cover infield and outfield. Either it's one outfielder (Johnson covering all three spots, supplemented by Ward or Cedeno), and two infielders (Cedeno and Cintron). Or it's one infielder (Cedeno) and two outfielders (Murton and Johnson). Personally I don't see why going with Cedeno only wouldn't be just fine. When's the last time a team went into a season with 1 backup infielder? When's the last time the Cubs even considered it? It's not going to happen. Cedeno only is impossible because of the "what happens if 2 go down in the same game" question. You can always throw Ward into the OF if need be, or DeRosa, but there's nobody on that roster that can step in at 3rd, SS or 2B if needed. The smart thing to do is not waste a roster spot on a 7th reliever. Exactly. As strong as our bullpen should be and with Lieber back there able to pitch several innings if necessary, there's no reason for 12 pitchers. Adding to that, it sounds like Lou will be giving Marshall every opportunity to be the lefty in the pen. I know you don't want to where out a guy who you will need to bring in frequently to get out the lh batters, but if need be, he can go more than one inning as well if required.

Scott Rolen already is out. I thought that he'd at least play the first week of the season before something would happen. I know that it most likely isn't that serious, but it sounds like he'll definitely be missing some time. http://thestar.blogs.com/baseball/ edit: Here is a better article that has just been posted: http://www.thestar.com/Sports/Baseball/article/349970

I really like the idea of getting Johnson if they are dead set on having Pie platoon. Living in Canada and not always being able to watch Cubs game, I am forced to watch the Blue Jays quite often. I remember in 2006 in the first half of the year when Johnson and Catalanotto were a platoon tandem. At this time, Johnson was dominant and Catalanotto also did well. As the season progressed, Gibbons (possibly dumber than Baker in my mind) thought that he should just use the guy who has a higher batting average on a daily basis, not recognizing that he actually had a legitimate platoon system, which is rare these days (both had real strengths with what they were doing). Soon after, Johnson began to fade. In my opinion, it was because he is not an everday player. He has that GRIT factor going for him, but for him it actually isn't just a joke. He gets on base and works counts well. He also has an absolute cannon for an arm. His defense has been overlooked in Toronto because of the somewhat overrated defense of Vernon Wells (don't get me wrong, he's good, but come on) as well as what Alex Rios has shown that he can do in the field in the last couple of years. Johnson also has decent speed. I know that he doesn't end up looking a lot different than Matt Murton, but if the Cubs feel that they need someone to platoon with Pie, Johnson is probably one of the best choices out there, in my opinion.

...Or they expected Dempster to be unable to get out of the 2nd inning and they were able to schedule all of these pitchers without worries.

At this point, does Dempster have any trade value, though? As a closer, he isn't in that elite company of guys who may be on the block like a Nathan or others. To teams not in the running, they obviously will go with a young guy. Then in middle relief, I don't think that he'd be good enough that anyone would be willing to give anything more than a box of balls for him with his price tag. I don't know about that, but I wonder how substantiated some of those trade rumours were of him going to Toronto to begin with (or how serious they were if there were talks). Teams also usually, if they are trading for bullpen help, tend to be looking for that dominator. As a starter, if he can't cut it as a 5th starter here, why would anyone else who needs a starter think that he can cut it there. If Boston felt that Marquis wasn't enough for Crisp, how much value does Dempster have? I don't know, I just really wonder what they can do with the guy because they will have to find some use for him somewhere. I know that a lot of my assumptions involve all of these rumours, which who knows the extent of the validity is to many of them after all of the speculation through this offseason.

At this point, does Dempster have any trade value, though? As a closer, he isn't in that elite company of guys who may be on the block like a Nathan or others. To teams not in the running, they obviously will go with a young guy. Then in middle relief, I don't think that he'd be good enough that anyone would be willing to give anything more than a box of balls for him with his price tag. I don't know about that, but I wonder how substantiated some of those trade rumours were of him going to Toronto to begin with (or how serious they were if there were talks). Teams also usually, if they are trading for bullpen help, tend to be looking for that dominator. As a starter, if he can't cut it as a 5th starter here, why would anyone else who needs a starter think that he can cut it there. If Boston felt that Marquis wasn't enough for Crisp, how much value does Dempster have? I don't know, I just really wonder what they can do with the guy because they will have to find some use for him somewhere. I know that a lot of my assumptions involve all of these rumours, which who knows the extent of the validity is to many of them after all of the speculation through this offseason.

This is typical of Dempster. He's a walking machine. I never understood why they wanted him to start any way, back when they tried it (I think in 2005) he was terrible at it. Good thing we have depth there though. well, i agree. i haven't been a big supporter of him in this role from the start, but he had a couple of nice outings before this. i just don't know where you put him. i guess that he could be a middle reliever. i know that money should play a role in the decision as it is a sunk cost at this point, but it'd suck to have 5 million (i know i know, not my money) tied up in some middle relief guy. and if that is where he would go, i would almost rather give a young guy a shot. i say this while liking dempster himself, but i worry about him and although i have no idea, i almost wonder if marshall doesn't end up getting that 5th spot when we're going down the stretch yet. he is capable of the best of the bunch, probably.

I don't want to write Dempster off quite yet even though i am pretty frustrated with what i have been listening to today on the radio. I hope that Marquis can be given a fair look after all that happened between he and lou earlier this spring.