brinoch

Last August Sean Marshall's ERA was 6.21 over 27.2 innings in six starts. He'd pitched 70 innings, and pretty good innings, leading up to that, starting in late May. Now, I suspect another year of experience will generate some extra knowledge and endurance, but banking on him to be effective from mid-May through October 2008 would be a foolish gamble. It is reasonable to prefer to live with an ERA around 5 and maybe better from Jason Marquis (4.45 in April) up until July, when they think they'll have both more knowledge of their younger pitchers, and more confidence that they won't fade before the end of the year. Why turn a bunch of young pitchers into Jason Marquis? A bet on Marquis to be an average bottom of the rotation starter for the first half of the season is a pretty good bet. One that is actually paying off. They are 3-4 in his starts. In one victory they bailed him out. In one loss, a good outing was wasted. One under .500 in games by a number 5 starter suggests something dramatically better than .500 in games by the starters who are better than he is. (edit for W-L thru 5/14) Holy selective stat use, Batman!

1. It's easier to win games when your pitcher keeps the other team from scoring a bunch of runs. 2. Having more wins is better than less wins. Thus, having the pitchers in your rotation who keep the other team from scoring bunches of runs would be the correct approach to winning lots of games.

those stats (save bb:k) are skewed in part by a .356 BABIP, good for 7th worst in all of baseball His BABIP is that high because he's giving up a staggering amount of line drives, 24.8%. So, let's see... a LD% against of .248+.120=.368 In other words... Marquis has been a little lucky.

And yet the Cubs have a better option than Marquis in Marshall, too. The simple fact is that Marquis is terrible, has been terrible, and will continue to be terrible. It was a bad signing at the time, and it remains a bad signing today. Frankly, of all the starters, Marquis should be consider as the last option. Zambrano Lilly Hill Marshall Dempster Gallagher Hart Marquis

those stats (save bb:k) are skewed in part by a .356 BABIP, good for 7th worst in all of baseball Okay. Hitters are also slugging .484 against Marquis. Hill? .324. Hill's struggles are control-inflicted. Once he stops walking people, he'll be very good again. But, Marquis? He'll still be terrible.

Everyone deserves to be respected, but healthy discussion -- including the exchange of ideas in the form of debate -- is why people post here.

I think it's fairly clear from the tenures of both Lou and Dusty that the manager has an awful lot of say over roster decisions. How much? No way to know. Did Hendry keep Soto in the minors over Lou's objections? Did Lou really want Soto and Hendry kept saying no? I'd say that both are doubtful. But, again, there's no way to know. More likely is that Lou didn't think much of Soto, and, given Lou's history of veteran preference and snap determinations, the record of futility posted by the 2007 catching corps resulted. All of last season (538 AB), Cubs catchers (excluding Soto) hit 11 HR's, scored 53 times and drove in 62 runs. Already this season (124 AB), Soto has 6 HR, 16 runs, and 26 RBI. The fact that Soto languished in the minors last season despite the futility of the catching corps was a travesty of leadership by some combination of Hendry and Lou. We'll never know how to accurately apportion that blame. With respect to this season, we've received no production from CF, for all intents and purposes, and the Cubs still are tied for the best record in baseball and have scored the most runs (223 in 38 games). Why not give Pie an actual everyday chance? There's no burning need to upgrade there because the offense, while perhaps a little inconsistent, is getting on base and scoring a lot of runs. This is the time to have patience with Pie. There's never going to be a better opportunity than this. And, yet, we have a case of Lou demonstrating absolutely no patience with a struggling rookie. That's poor leadership and decision-making by Lou, and Lou alone.

The Reds' K totals will begin to fall once Baker pitches the arms off of Volquez and Cueto like he did Prior and Wood.

Somehow I just can't give Lou any credit for Soto. I don't know why. Maybe its because Soto is Soto and is leading the Cubs -- and is 8th in all of MLB -- with a 1.000 OPS. I could be wrong, though, since the Cubs preferred to play Michael Barrett, Henry Blanco, Rob Bowen, Koyie Hill, and Jason Kendall over Soto last year until Soto came up at the end of last year and posted a 1.110 OPS and hit the same number of HR's in 53 AB's as the Blanco/Bowen/Hill/Kendall monster posted in 331 AB's.

And this is different from Edmonds how? What a seriously bad idea. Edmonds is old and washed-up. Please, someone else claim him and save us the agony. Ricciardi, I'm looking at you.

Let it go, Derwood.

Wuertz has 6 walks in 17 innings. Marshall has 7 walks in 8.2 innings.

I really want to see Gallagher succeed and Hill get his stuff back together so Lou can send Marquis to the 'pen/PH duties. Or Hendry can trade him.

I thought Sean did pretty well, not great, but decent. When he fell behind in the count, he struggled a bit and occasionally was hit hard. In addition, he wasn't helped by a relatively inconsistent zone in the first two innings. I think the wind's impact was neutral. When Sean looked good, though, he looked very good. There were a few sequences that were very impressive. I thought Lou left him in too long, and while I appreciate that he was trying to get him the win, it contributed to the inning getting out of hand. First of all, Sean was hit really hard in that inning and Lou should have taken note and gotten the BP up and running ASAP. Normally, I wouldn't necessarily advocate this, but Sean's been in the 'pen for a bit now, and I imagine his endurance is down. I think at least a part of Fox's problems can be attributed to the abbreviated warm-up session (as well as being old and not good).

I accepted... I couldn't believe the offer, frankly, and I wanted to make sure I wasn't missing something. Offensive categories are BA, RBI, HR, Runs, SB. No penalty for K's other than that which you suffer from the reduced BA.

So, I'm in an 11 team roto keeper league. I just received an offer from another team. They would give me Ryan Howard and Aramis Ramirez for Mark Teixeira and Blake DeWitt. To me, this seems like a no-brainer. Much as I love Teixeira, I lack a solid 3B since DeWitt is no guarantee to stick. I just want to make sure I'm not crazy here, with my thinking.

And the eyeliner in his locker.

Yeah, it wasn't even inside... just high.

Could Soto throw out Chuck Norris? Chuck Norris wouldn't dare cross Soto.

Until he proves that he can hit ANYTHING else, it's pretty crazy to throw him a FB anywhere near the zone. I might try and throw some really high fastballs out of the zone when I'm ahead in the count, but that would be it.

Another hit and run? I'm getting quite tired of hit and run attempts.

Bonds wouldn't get out of bed for that much. For a chance to win the WS? He might very well do so.

I actually think Ankiel's ascent back to the majors is a great story. He's an incredible athlete, and I'm not all that surprised that he made the conversion. He also showed great loyalty to the Cardinals organization -- which fully reciprocated that loyalty. I don't really care that he did HGH. It was wrong, and I think it was very unwise, but it doesn't make him the devil. I don't have a lot of room in my life to hate other players or organizations just because they are rivals, personally. Rivalries are good for both teams, and they are better, all in all, when both teams are good.

Wow. Just wow.

No question... it'll be a tough season, and they'll lose a lot of games. But, I'm willing to take a down year or two to properly re-establish IU after the Davis/Sampson debacles.