UMFan83

:shock: I thought this was a family board. Beat me to it. Long night last night drinking away the Noah pain. I don't know why I put that there.

The Cobs suck, there is no way they win this series. Time to go back to competing in the fecal league.

I stole this idea from the Brewers board, so if any Brewers lurkers are viewing this, thanks for the idea. I thought it would be fun to create your NL Central All Star team. Instead of the 30 man All Star rosters, just create a 25 man team (unless you really want to stretch it out to 30). Try not to be too much of a Cubs homer, although I probably am. Here is my list...there are probably some notable emissions from this list, I put it together rather quickly. C - Estrada, MIL 1B - Fielder, MIL 2B - DeRosa, CHC SS - Hardy, MIL 3B - Ramirez, CHC LF - Dunn, CIN CF - Pence, HOU RF - Griffey, CIN Bench: D. Lee, CHC (1B) Pujols, STL (1B) Soriano, CHC (OF) C. Lee, HOU (OF) Molina, STL © Phillips, CIN (2B) SP - Sheets, MIL SP - Snell, PIT SP - Zambrano, CHC SP - Hill, CHC SP - Harang, CIN CP - Cordero, MIL RP - Isringhausen, STL RP - Capps, PIT RP - Wise, MIL RP - Franklin, STL RP - Marmol, CHC (homer pick) Notable omissions: Jason Bay, PIT Chris Duncan, STL Chris Duffy, PIT Bill Hall, MIL Corey Hart, MIL Xavier Nady, PIT Roy Oswalt, HOU Sean Marshall, CHC Tom Gorzelanny, PIT By team: Cubs - 7 Reds - 4 Brewers - 6 Astros - 2 Cardinals - 4 Pirates - 2 Honestly, looking at that roster, I think that any other division's "all star team" would beat ours.

Neifi Perez Jose Macais Darren Baker Neifi Perez Anyone who doesn't clog the bases.

Can we make a list of players that were DFA'd that are better than Jacque Jones and Cesar Izturis? I'll start: Milton Bradley Shea Hillenbrand

This is me: http://www.mikewong.com/photos/buzzsaw72.jpg raw is the buzzsaw

Amazing what a few wins can do about your impression of the team!

Good to see Lou finally realizing, "hey Marmol is being groomed for our future closer. Our current closer is injured. Lets do this!"

Who knows, all I know is there was a similar threat about Theriot posted 2 months ago

And Lee with a double. RISP with 0 outs for the Stros

The Cubs have led by 5 in every game this series.

You should sponsor Sean Gallagher's in honor of the fame he brought to NSBB

I'd be cheering harder for a quick next inning or two

DeRosa is the man

Anyone who wants to vote for me in the NSBB bracket...well umm you guys are cool. /spam Go Cubs!

Brunlett singles 2-2 tie in Milwaukee

Is it raining out there yet? It's still clear downtown

C'mon cheap win!

Astros have runners on 1st and 3rd with 1 out for Ensberg

Inconsistent? I think he's one of the more consistent pitchers in all of baseball. I could be wrong, but I think you guys are talking different types of consistency. Buehrle is pretty consistently around the same numbers each year, but(and this is what I think UMFan meant), he's more prone to variations during the year. Simply put, Buehre may end up with similar numbers to say, Tim Hudson, but he's more likely to have a disaster start and get rocked on a given start. Exactly. But I must say when hes spotting his pitches, hes pretty dominant. Still, the Sox have a lot of young pitching talent come up. Buehrle was likely going to command a ridiculous haul from a team in need of pitching this summer. I would think the Sox would rather have that...but they don't look like they are too willing to accept their rebuilding mode.

Just because a team didn't 'grow up' through the farm system together doesn't mean that they have worse chemistry than the Brewers. Take for instance the fact that our popular DP combo of Theriot and Fontenot have played together in HS, college and now the majors. Lee and Ramirez, the corners of our IF are now playing their fourth full season together. Fontenot, Theriot, Pie, Hill, Marshall, Koyie Hill, Pagan, Wuertz and Marmol have all spent time in the minors together, does that mean they have good chemistry?

If I were the White Sox, I would have traded him. Buehrle has shown to be inconsistent in the past, and he was by far the most sought after name on the trading block. Teams were likely setting up to bid on him with the White Sox getting to choose the highest bidder. The Sox aren't going anywhere anyways...doesn't make sense why they didn't trade him and get a boatload of talent in return.

And yes, I hate position by position comparisons, especially because lineup order comparisions would be better yet still flawed. I just think they are fun to put together.

Could easily be a push though I agree I'd put my money on ARam. This is a push, Graffanino is close to DeRosa so even when they rest Weeks wrist its not a clear advantage. There is no reason to believe this, Sheets has been better over the past 4 seasons (albeit with an injury) and he's been better this year. At best its a push, at worse its advantage Sheets. I'd call this a push myself, Bush has pitched better than his ERA and Marquis has pitched worse than his. These types of things never really mean much but I don't think your list is really unbiased at all. The Brewers are as good a team as the Cubs and they have a big lead, the Cubs really need to do well in the head to head games to have a chance in my opinion. The one advantage the Cubs do have is the Brewers are a young team and young teams tend to fade a bit down the stretch. Not sure how you think Sheets is better. I do give credit to sheets, he is a phenomenal pitcher, but Zambrano is one of the best in the league when his head is on. Yeah you can say his head isnt on a lot, but thats like saying Sheets can't stay healthy. ERA+ comparison: Zambrano: 2003: 136 2004: 165 2005: 131 2006: 136 2007: 103 Sheets: 2003: 98 2004: 154 2005: 127 2006: 118 2007: 138 I guess I can't take too much credit in that, considering his injury concerns, but what else can I go on? How about BAA? Zambrano: 2003: .239 2004: .225 2005: .212 2006: .208 2007: .246 Sheets: 2003: .268 2004: .226 2005: .237 2006: .259 2007: .245 Yes, Z's biggest problem is always WHIP, but since his BAA is so low, his runners rarely score, so it is not as big of a problem as it would be for most pitchers. Statistically, Zambrano is a slight to moderately better pitcher than Sheets is. If Sheets stays healthy for 2-3 straight years and puts up a consistant track record of being statistically similar to Zambrano, then we can talk.

How can you have any outsiders perspective about the Cubs chances in the Central when your team is the team we are trying to catch? Lets go over the Brewers and Cubs position by position: LF: Soriano over Jenkins CF: Hall over Pie RF: Hart over Floyd (could change) 1B: Fielder pushes Lee (yeah you will probably argue that) 2B: DeRosa over Weeks (stay healthy for a few weeks) SS: Hardy over Fontenot/Izturis/Theriot 3B: Ramirez over Braun C: Estrada over Bowen SP: Zambrano over Sheets SP: Hill over Vargas SP: Marshall pushes Gallardo (for now) SP: Lilly pushes Suppan (although Lilly has better numbers at this point) SP: Marquis over Bush (if Cap is healthy, I might considering giving him the nod) Bullpen: Brewers over Cubs Bench: Brewers (Mench, Gross, Graff, Counsell, Miller) slight edge over Cubs (Pagan, Theriot, Murton when in the bigs, Izturis, Ward) So my surely unintentional bias puts the score at Brewers 6, Cubs 6, Push 3. The point is, the Brewers are not at this point 7.5 games better than the Cubs. You can argue that my rankings should be judged in one of several hundreds of other ways, but if you simply look at pythag standings, the Cubs are right behind the Brewers. It's pretty obvious to say that the Cubs have way under performed this year, while the Brewers have slightly over performed. Whether or not that will matter after 162 games because of the big lead the Brewers built up, thats an entirely different story.