UMFan83

The only poster you could say implied that only the Phillies pitching is awesome which doesnt make them an awesome team is Mojo, and he didn't come out and say it like that. You can certainly believe a team is awesome and point out areas where they are less than awesome.

If he's so ashamed he should drop his appeal to the players union and accept the ~$3 million loss of income during the next 30 days. For the more statistical inclined, how much is the value of a win? I always forget how that works. $4.5 mil per win? Zambrano is has a 1.0 WAR this year, so in reality he's pitching like a $4.5 million pitcher

And as I said above, a key thing to point out is that Soriano's contract would come off the books 4 years into Pujols' deal. Even if Pujols all the sudden started breaking down and turned into the later part of Griffey's career, the Cubs would not be strapped for cash. The only reason the Cubs had such a dire situation the previous couple of years is because of a flurry of high priced 30-some players the Cubs signed back between 2006-2008 where Zambrano, Dempster, Soriano, Fukudome, Lee, Ramirez, Lilly were all signed to 3+ year contracts all making 8 figures annually. And out of all those contracts, there is not one ace quality pitcher or one dominant .950+ OPS hitter gained from all that money thrown out. Assuming the Cubs don't go 0% in spending money for premiere talent, and assuming the Cubs space out the handing out of huge contracts, hypothetically there should never be an issue where the Cubs are both crappy and cash strapped at the same time. But then again, these are the Cubs we're talking about.

OPS+ at age 38: Ruth: 175 Williams: 233 Musial: 121 Aaron: 147 Mays: 124 F. Robinson: 141 Griffey: 119 Brett: 101 Schmidt: 112 Average (taking out the outliers): 134 If Pujols is giving us a 134 OPS+ at age 38, I think most of us would live with that. Obviously its a gamble, but history has shown that a majority of the best hitters in baseball history have played well well into their late 30s

126 110 93 80 78 74 53 Those are the OPS+ numbers of the non-Pujols regulars on the 2006 Cardinals. Despite that, the Cardinals finished 6th in the NL in R/G. If you can sign an impact bat that has the ability to pick up the slack of an entire offense like that, I think you have to go for it, even if its a risk due to age. If he starts a heavy decline 4 years into the contract, you at least have 3/4ths of that salary coming off the books in the form of Soriano's contract. And for Pujols, "heavy decline" probably puts him at the level Soriano was the first 2 years of his Cubs contract. The Cubs can afford to deal with one really bad contract on their books, and honestly looking at the careers of generational players like Pujols, it is highly unlikely that Pujols descends into Soriano territory even in the final years of his contract.

And yet that still doesn't make a lick of sense when trying to pretend the Phillies are not a very good team. The fact that their offense is only above average doesn't change the fact that the team is excellent. Of course they are. They are a fantastic team who will probably win the World Series. Who said anything but that? did you not read the thread? Yeah and no one is saying that the Phillies are anything but awesome as a team, just that its the pitching that makes them so elite. Their offense has been slightly above average and their pitching has been otherworldly. Sounds like a winning combo to me.

And yet that still doesn't make a lick of sense when trying to pretend the Phillies are not a very good team. The fact that their offense is only above average doesn't change the fact that the team is excellent. Of course they are. They are a fantastic team who will probably win the World Series. Who said anything but that?

I wonder how solid the interest in Colon was for the Bears. The beat writers seem to be throwing "well they went hard after Colon but couldn't sign him" around every time someone questions the lack of FA moves for the o-line. I'm sure the Bears liked him and would have signed him, but once they got rejected, why didn't they target anyone else? It's not like there was a huge talent gap between Colon and other FA G's and T's. I don't recall the Bears being in on any other FA OLer's besides Colon and Spencer, who they signed. So their plan was to....go hard after Colon and if they don't get him just stick with an inexperineced young line protecting the franchise QB for a team with Super Bowl aspirations?

Ibanez and his 88 OPS+ can sure rake it. I think Cub like offense is a pretty good description, outside of the fact that the Cubs have no one hitting like Victorino is It's also about what these guys are capable of. Utley, Rollins, and Howard are all in the primce of their careers, and have been underperforming for the most part, as opposed to our guys, like Soriano, Byrd, and Pena, who are putting up the numbers that can pretty much be expected of them at this stage in their careers, although Rollins is somewhat more questionable judging by his past 2 seasons. Utley is 32, Rollins is 32, Howard is turning 32 this year. Not all that different from the Cubs you mentioned. Pena is 32, Byrd is 33, Soriano is 34. In the post-steroid era 32 is around the time the downside from peak performance starts for many, but not all players. But the fact remains, these are better players than the ones we have, and really can't be compared to our guys. Yeah, they don't have a ton of talen built around those 5 guys, but looking around the NL, there arent exactly a lot of offensive powerhouses like they have in the AL. This Phillies offense should be good for at least 4-6 runs per game, and when you have the pitching they have, that should be good enough. I'd hope they'd be good for 4-6 runs per game, since the top 19 offenses in baseball fall into that range (including the Cubs). Saying they are similar to the Cubs is not an insult, its basically saying they are mediocre. And in terms of Utley, Howard and Rollins being better prime players than Soriano, Pena and Byrd, this is true but the margin is not huge. Howard always struck me as the kind of guy that when he slips he's done, so it doesn't exactly shock me he's been hovering around .800 OPS most of the year. That said, he's had a lot of seasons where he's been mediocre well into the summer only to get hot the rest of the year and carry the team. As a hitter, Rollins has always struck me as a little overrated. In terms of WAR, Byrd has actually outplayed Rollins over the last 4 seasons (11.3 WAR for Byrd, 9.6 for Rollins), and that includes defense. But yeah, even including what I said about Howard, both him and Utley are clearly better players, and are both performing better than Pena and Soriano this year. Despite that the Phillies offense is right around the same level as the Cubs. Cubs have the higher OPS, SLG and PA. Phillies with a higher OBP. And that includes taking into account Victorino's MVP caliber season, of which the Cubs have no match. If you look at the Cubs lineup by OPS+, the Cubs have/had 6 of their 8 regulars above 100, with Soto at 95 and Barney at 89 being the lowest regular. The Phillies have 4 regulars below 100, with 2 players with a worse than Barney's 89, Ibanez at 88 and All Star 3B Polanco at 85. Even if you factor in improvements to Utley and Howard, it doesn't really do much to discredit the statement "I think Cub like offense is a pretty good description, outside of the fact that the Cubs have no one hitting like Victorino is"

Anyone who wouldnt have megatron in their top 10 WRs is a complete moron. Calvin Johnson is probably my favorite non-Bear NFC North player, he is just a beast. With a real QB (stafford?) he would put up Randy Moss 2007 numbers.

Ibanez and his 88 OPS+ can sure rake it. I think Cub like offense is a pretty good description, outside of the fact that the Cubs have no one hitting like Victorino is It's also about what these guys are capable of. Utley, Rollins, and Howard are all in the primce of their careers, and have been underperforming for the most part, as opposed to our guys, like Soriano, Byrd, and Pena, who are putting up the numbers that can pretty much be expected of them at this stage in their careers, although Rollins is somewhat more questionable judging by his past 2 seasons. Utley is 32, Rollins is 32, Howard is turning 32 this year. Not all that different from the Cubs you mentioned. Pena is 32, Byrd is 33, Soriano is 34. In the post-steroid era 32 is around the time the downside from peak performance starts for many, but not all players.

Ibanez and his 88 OPS+ can sure rake it. I think Cub like offense is a pretty good description, outside of the fact that the Cubs have no one hitting like Victorino is

omg Soriano cleared waivers! Shocking!! Did they even have to wait the normal time period, or did Hendry just say, 'hey Soriano's on waivers', and they replyed "cleared".

Yeah you can afford to let 1-2 players at a time on your line develop. What the Bears are trying to do is develop 4/5ths of their offensive line, 2 of them being late round picks noted for their rawness when drafted. And the 5th guy is mediocre and playing out of position.

Or maybe he's referring to this:

I'm guessing you're referring to Bradley spending two weeks on the M's restricted list last year (wikipedia says he asked the M's for time off to do that, but it being wikipedia and all, whatever... I'll concede the M's). I don't see anything for the Marlins in the last couple years, so I'm gonna guess you're trying to compare a 1-2 game benching for hustle to a 30 day suspension without pay for being a dick... which seems a bit off. As to the Orioles, the only thing I can figure is Alfredo Simon spending time on the restricted list because he was being held in the Dominican Republic on murder charges... which again, feels like a bit of a different situation. Did Hanley Ramirez get suspended for a game or two for dogging it last year?

Yeah last year everyone thought they'd probably start 0-4 or 1-3 with a schedule of Detroit, @ Dallas, GB, @ NYG but they started out 3-1. Who knows in this parity driven league. The only thing I can say is that 2 of those first 3 are at home, so I think its likely they win at least 1 of those games. I think all 3 of those teams are better than the Bears, but not by a ton.

I would not want to be a coach in the Rockies organization.

Exactly. And while the run blocking did a lot better, how many extra yards did Barber earn from breaking tackles on his rushes? He did a really really good job of that. That said, the run blocking did a good job of opening up enough of a hole to get up to speed to make those moves possible.

Again, they picked it up a bit after first 2 possessions (strangely enough, right when the bills started taking our their starting defense....), but in the first 2 possessions with the first team D out there, you got about 5 yards on 4 carries, if you include the Hester end around, and not the Cutler scramble.

That wasn't struggling, that was flat out embarrassing. As I said, struggling is ok and understandable, and who knows ultimately it might just be some preseason footnote on the way to a much improved season. Most of the angst is that I like many Bears fans desperately wanted to see upgrades on the line, and while Carimi was a nice pick, I'm dumbfounded why we have money just sitting there waiting to be spent, while we try to create a line where you are starting a 7th round 2nd year player who was really bad at times last year at the most important line position, a 2nd year 5th round pick that only played 2-3 games last year, a Center who has played almost his entire career at guard, a rookie 1st rounder, and a 4th year 1st round pick that is only mediocre to poor season away from unanimously being declared a bust. So while I was holding out hope that this crazy plan to have Mike Tice magically assemble a passable line out of mostly scraps, I wasn't exactly expecting it. Yeah I'm probably putting too much emphasis on 2 measily preseason possessions, but man did that not look like a flashback to last year's O-line? It's not like I have any sort of past performances to look back on to reassure me that the line will be anything but awful. I mean I guess I could believe in Mike Tice or something. But maybe I'm wrong but I don't seem to remember him taking marginal talent and turing them into a cohesive line in his previous stops. I don't know why all the sudden Angelo is giving him very few of his plentily available resources and asking him to do just that.

I think I selected 7-9, thinking 9-7 would be my guess, but I could easily see them going 6-10 or 12-4. Who the hell knows. All I know is that the schedule looks fairly daunting, especially to begin the year. Just like last year, our performance in those first 3 games might set the tone for the rest of the year. My guess: vs. ATL - Win (just a feeling) 1-0 @ NO - Loss 1-1 vs. GB - Loss 1-2 vs. CAR - Win 2-2 @ DET - Win (respect the lions just think they won't bring it in a rare prime time appearance but will get us back at SF) 3-2 vs. MIN - Win 4-2 @ TAM (in London) - Win 5-2 @ PHI - Loss 5-3 vs. DET - Loss 5-4 vs. SD - Loss 5-5 @ OAK - Win 6-5 vs. KC - Win 7-5 @ DEN - Win 8-5 vs. SEA - Win 9-5 @ GB - Loss 9-6 @ MIN - Loss 9-7 Looks like I'm predicting a streaky and ultimately disapointing year.

Thanks Erik. sure it wasn't cubbievirus? Oh wait, he's a Pats fan, nm.

Weren't there 9 sacks? I think it was 4 (5?) allowed by the starting OL, and 2 of those were arguably Hanie holding onto the ball too long. Also they didn't do any chip blocking with the TE or RB. They did run block pretty darn well...obviously pass protection is a work in progress, to say the least. I mean they cleaned it up a bit by the 3rd possession, but the 1st two offensive possessions were about the worst you could possibly see an o-line play. It would have been more effective if there was no o-line and the defense had to count three mississippi's before rushing. Off the top of my head, this was the first 2 possessions 1st possession: -End around to Hester for 2 yards -Drop back to pass, coverage collapses within 2 seconds causing Cutler out of the pocket where he underhands a pass to Forte for no gain. -Drop back to pass, again the pocket collapses quickly, causing Cutler to scramble for a first down. -Handoff to Taylor for 1-2 yard gain -Handoff to Taylor for 1-2 yard gain -Drop back to pass, rusher immediately blows by Louis, while another rusher has to be noticably held by Webb to not get to Cutler. End result is both a sack and a holding penalty on Webb. 2nd possession: -1 yard loss by Taylor -Hanie sacked -Hanie sacked Yes Hanie held onto the ball too long but at the same time, the blocking broke down rather quickly in both cases. It took until the third possession, and the 6th drop back to pass before the Bears were able to successfully get off a pass beyond the LOS. I've give them credit for picking it up in that 3rd possession which led to a few nice runs, and allowed Hanie some time to drop back. And its no doubt with 4/5th of the line being either new players or a new position for returning players, with 2 weeks of practice, it wasn't expected to be perfect, but I don't think I can excuse that bad of a performance. It looks really bad considering 4/5ths of that line is returning from a o-line that was almost historically bad last year. People all wanted to see some money spent in upgrading that line, and it was ignored despite still having plenty of money to spend. So the last thing people wanted to see was that type of performance. The other thing that bothers me is that they've done all this stuff to implement the Martz offense, including trading Olsen and going with blocking TEs, but they don't seem to want to adjust for one of the most important part of the Martz offense, which is allowing the QB to consistently use a 5 step drop. If we're forced to limit Cutler to a 3 step drop, then it's not the Martz offense, its some modified hybrid that may or may not have the same effectiveness as the offense he ran in St. Louis.

I thought for sure this post was going to end with "and wins the Cy Young next year".