CubbieBum

I totally agree no team should ever be playing better at home than on the road.

It linked to the wrong video. Click on the link again and find the video that says "Crisp exchange words with Maddon" that is 2:48 long. It's the second slide in the video. Wow. What Crisp did was bull. That slide was ridiculous with intent to injure Iwamura. IMO the ump should have thrown him out. Especially after the way he stalked off proving his intention. Then the yelling F you twice at someone else. Those add up to an automatic ejection in my book. If I was on the Rays I would thrown at his head and done it again the next time he comes up. Simply put what he did was bush league and no one (the league, or other team, or his team) should put up with it. I can't think of a single thing that's happened on the field in the last 25 years that would warrant throwing 1, let alone 2, fastballs at a guy's melon. The slide was bush-league and Shields was right to drill him in the hip, but to suggest he should aim for his head is crazy. Once you try to hurt one of my teammates you become fair game. In most sports its that way. You try to hurt my teammate I'm going to hurt you. You see it in football, hockey, basketball, soccer .. etc. In baseball its you try to hurt my teammate I'll give you a little bruise. You can give someone a little bruise (and a lot more) without aiming at someone's head. When you go for the head you risk killing them, or hurting them so badly that they can never play again (Juan Encarnacion). No, aiming for the head is never justified, period. and neither is kicking your legs up at a guys knees while sliding because he made a good defensive play your last time up. If I was on the Red Sox I would tell Crisp to stop being a j-hole. The way he struted and everything he did does nothing to help the team.

No way this trade happens or even gets discussed. The Brewers use a A's type philsophy. They are going to trade a young prospect who they have for a few more years for a guy they get for the remainder of the season and then gets bought a way by a different team. That's the exact opposite philosophy they use. Again any good journalist would sit back and realize this before putting the rumor out there.

It linked to the wrong video. Click on the link again and find the video that says "Crisp exchange words with Maddon" that is 2:48 long. It's the second slide in the video. Wow. What Crisp did was bull. That slide was ridiculous with intent to injure Iwamura. IMO the ump should have thrown him out. Especially after the way he stalked off proving his intention. Then the yelling F you twice at someone else. Those add up to an automatic ejection in my book. If I was on the Rays I would thrown at his head and done it again the next time he comes up. Simply put what he did was bush league and no one (the league, or other team, or his team) should put up with it. I can't think of a single thing that's happened on the field in the last 25 years that would warrant throwing 1, let alone 2, fastballs at a guy's melon. The slide was bush-league and Shields was right to drill him in the hip, but to suggest he should aim for his head is crazy. Once you try to hurt one of my teammates you become fair game. In most sports its that way. You try to hurt my teammate I'm going to hurt you. You see it in football, hockey, basketball, soccer .. etc. In baseball its you try to hurt my teammate I'll give you a little bruise.

Meche has sucked this year but I think the no one cares about teh always losing Royals is taking a toll. He's nothing great but he's a reliable around 4.00 ERA guy who can dominant at times. Now his contract is massive for that type of starter so I wouldn't prefer we get him but I wouldn't mind at the same time. Oh and and he's not injury prone. There's no question Burnett is the best of the bunch. He has had sub 4 era in every year 2002 except the year he made only 4 starts. Speaking of number of starts that is his huge problem. He is extremely injury prone. Since he has become a full time starter at the beginning of the season he averages less than 22 starts a year. Wolf is likely the worst of the bunch but is also the cheapest both salary and value wise. We could get him pretty cheap and would be a very good 4 or 5 guy. A rotation in the playoffs of Z, Demp, Lilly (I assume he starts pitching), and Wolf would be very good. We could probably get Wolf for Marquis and mid level prospect.

Yeah, but I think we'll rise up in the K totals as the year goes on. Z is only averaging about 4 K's a game this year, where-as last year he averaged over 5 and the year prior more than 6. Some of this may be a change in his style of pitching but I'd be willing to bet it just has more to do with it being early in the year. Howry has a career avg of just less than 1 K per inning (.858) - this year it's at .72. Granted that isn't a huge change - but as Howry begins not to suck and come out of his slump he's going to strike out more batters. Kerry Wood has a career avg. of 1.14 K's per inning - this year he is at .89 - again, not a huge difference and a reliever isn't going to pile up a ton of strikeouts anyway; but when combined with Howry and Z it begins to tell the story of why we're so low on the list. And for the record Marmol is also slightly behind the K numbers he put up last year. In 07 Marmol struck out about 1.4 batters per inning, this year he sits at 1.33. My point is this - the guys that usually K a ton for us are not quite up to their career avg's. It's entirely possible that this has something to do with some kind of change in philosophy; but I'd be willing to bet that as the year goes on we'll rise up in those standings as some of our pitchers get closer to their career norms. I was about to correct your Wood K-rate and then I saw the post date. They need to have like a red mark on posts older than a week.

Rays will fade (started already) I still say it will be Boston. Manny hasn't been great this year and Big Papi has been woeful. He will likely be better when he gets back from DL and they will play even better.

wow dude. It's a stat because we are the only ones to have done it so far. You could say a team has a .666 win percentage but hasn't won more than 2 in a row all season. You can do this with just about any stat. What is great about it is we are the only ones and it shows we haven't been on a losing streak.

I would imagine it would be very hard (pun intended) to play with a boner so I agree with the thread title.

According to the magazine article on him (I think it was the Mag) he's not married so I say yes he is available for the people interested (not me).

I wouldn't be opposed to throwing a couple mil his way just so we never have to face him again.

oh yeah, one of them is me there is only one that is completely full of himself. Probably thinks he's Superman or something like that ...

can people please grow up. It is a sweet stat and one we should be able to talk about. This is a message board meant for people who want to talk anything and everything Cubs. Why don't people go crazy when we brag about having the best record or when any player hits a home run. I'm sure some people talking bout the day DeRosa had go rag on them about jinxing him for teh next few games.

So I think Lou has Lieber ready for a possible long outing. Judging from his talk on the mound with Marquis last outing Marquis could be on the leash Hill was when he got pulled.

It linked to the wrong video. Click on the link again and find the video that says "Crisp exchange words with Maddon" that is 2:48 long. It's the second slide in the video. Wow. What Crisp did was bull. That slide was ridiculous with intent to injure Iwamura. IMO the ump should have thrown him out. Especially after the way he stalked off proving his intention. Then the yelling F you twice at someone else. Those add up to an automatic ejection in my book. If I was on the Rays I would thrown at his head and done it again the next time he comes up. Simply put what he did was bush league and no one (the league, or other team, or his team) should put up with it.

I think the team has been playing fine. Have we been so spoiled this season that a little two or three game lull will make people start to question the team's fire?

I think he was pretty clearly just buying into the idea that referring to people by their full names is funny. glad someone is paying attention

Best part of it all is the ump (you see it best at about 4:14) begin to warn the benches. Nope not gonna work this time. And I don't see what was bad about the slide. Coco didn't do anything to the second baseman that I see. He had put his kneee down and blocked the bad and Coco used his hand to get to the base.

Is this game ever going to start. Seriously 10:40 start time on a Friday night.

There's nothing little about Geo change the thread title.

fixed

Nah, both Beckhams will be gone. Casey Kelly (HS) should be there when we pick, but he's going to take a little time with the bat. Nice package of raw power for a SS though. Might be the best overall defender in the entire draft. Should be a Khalil Greene type (when he's actually playing good). I'm sure there is some SS out there that will turn into a good major level player but being the lucky one to draft him is unlikely.

I'm going to go with speaking English

So what should we be for the next games thread? Are we just going back one step to Super Cubs or all the way to Cubs?

A good starter is much more valuable than a good bullpen arm. That's why they get more attention and get paid more. Of course you need both a good rotation and good bullpen to win. Now if you want to argue taking Joba into the rotation where he could be average and thus losing is well above average bullpen work I won't stop you. That's the real argument to me. Starters are more valuable but where do you draw the line in making a superb bullpen guy an average starter.