Tim

if weaver ends up not making his second start, can i put someone else in after his start on tuesday? It sucks that the championship might be determined by who doesn't play.

According to sportsline quoting frank robinson, Cordero is "all but shut down for the year." Does that mean that I can reserve him and put someone else in there? Or since there's no injury and no definite end of his season should I leave him active? It might be academic as I can't imagine there are a bunch of great relievers out on the wire.

Manager Frank Robinson, who is as old-school as it gets, has shut down his starters for the remainder of the year, even though their play could impact the wild card race. According to Sportsline, Imagine that. And he's giving the rookies and kids a chance to play. huh.

Heh, no, get yourself a DH! basecloggers don't slump? Dang, I'll have to stop getting all those speed never slumps guys (or is it speed never hits?) Are you offering Hafner? 8)

I feel so much better knowing he only has a 5.54 era in the first inning. That's one way to look at it. Another is to say that in 18 of 26 starts, he's gone through the first inning unscathed. And until the last five starts, it was 17 of 21. Perhaps people are dwelling on a recent string of starts instead of something that is a persistent issue.

yeah...blalock had the kind of week i predicted for him. pretty close. No comments on the base clogging? :D I'm looking forward to obliterating the RK record for walks in a season with (hopefully) full years from Bonds, Berkman, Chipper, Weeks & Gomes to go along with Abreu, Pujols & Wright. I think going after this type of player is one reason my team is consistent - there's always a solid base of points. I also believe that players who are highly selective at the plate slump less often than swing the from the heels guys. The only guy on my team who doesn't walk that much is Barmes and he's gone as soon as Upton gets his due. Speaking of whom, can we make a new rule that a player who is being used at the Utility slot shouldn't have his errors count as negative points. 8)

Hmm... Lee + Rusch for Webb + Tracy + Quentin. Yeah, I'd do that.

Hoops, Interesting strategy, but I don't think it's that simple. For example, while the bullpen certainly hurt us at times this year, I think that the maturing of the guys who are there -- and better usage of them -- would improve that area without additional investment (though maybe not as shutdown as we would like it to be). Also, I think if you're going to do this with categories, the categories have to be mutually exclusive. In other words, there should be no overlap between the categories. Low OBP was an obvious issue all year long, so should I assign my points to the low obp category or the GM not filling obvious holes/needs category? To use the geeky operations research terms, the options need to be exhaustive (covers the entire set of potential issues) and mutually exclusive (no overlap). I'm not sure how to set up categories like that, though. However, I'd say the biggest issues that got us to where we are: 1.) Low OBP 2.) Low OBP 3.) Starting Pitching 4.) Bullpen 5.) Low OBP Obviously, I'd put my efforts into improving the ability of the team to get on base this offseason. ;)

Here we have Baker discussing his lineups again. Can anyone tell me when Baker has said we don't need to play the veterans now? Can anyone show me where he's said it's a good idea to see what we have with some rookies? Right. To be fair though, Theriot might maybe someday be a bench player. Soto also projects as a back up. If Cedeno was healthy and benched in favor of Macias I could see being upset. I would like to see Theriot and Soto too but I'm more upset that Baker is batting Macias & Perez 1-2 than I am that Soto and Theriot aren't playing. I'm honestly more upset about Macias being on the field. Although Baker is putting the lineup in the least effective order possible (other than hitting Lee eighth), I believe that the quality of hitters in the lineup makes a more significant impact than the order in which they bat. Theriot provides zero power, but I think he could put up a better OBP than Macias in his sleep. I also think he's a better infield defender than Jose, too. And he's faster on the bases. Give me a few more minutes and I'm sure I'll think of more reasons to put him in place of Jose.

Oh yeah, your 10 GIDP hurt you a lot, too.

interesting...i'm surprised that your offensive edge is so big. i outhomered you 12-8 and only had six fewer hits. you do hold an 8-0 lead in steals, but i'm surprised you're up nearly 25 on offense. the nats really hurt you this week. not only did their crappy play cost you in four starts from livan/patterson, but it kept cordero from getting points. and it's a good thing you sat guillen...0-14, 5 k's, gdp...ouch! speaking of benching players...some of my decisions really look bad now. i sat three QS and nearly 50 points in perez and bedard...bedard doing his work against the yanks and bosox... :shock: and of course i dropped gonzo and his 28 point week for dellucci and his -0.25. if i had made the right calls on those, i'd be up quite a bit going into the final week w/ a three start edge. but i don't feel too great about having that three start edge because none of my pitchers are any good. i also think the cards should rest pujols, carp and izzy this final week. Check the difference in walks, singles + the aforementioned SB to figure out the offensive edge. My team has a whole bunch of basecloggers (on purpose, of course! ;) ) I could have had 22 more points if I had gone with Cain over Bonderman the whole week. And if I had the stones to do so, sitting Abreu for Damon could have netted me an extra eight points, too. Of course, if you let me switch right now, I wouldn't activate Damon and sit Abreu even after his lousy week.

An update on the breakdown: Off SP RP NSBB 189.0 57.05 13.35 GHS 165.0 43.25 33.00 - A big offensive edge for me, all piled up over the weekend. - I had an edge in SP points, but considering I had four extra starts, that's pretty crappy performance. - Big edge for Adam in relief pitching. Batista had a -10 point performance and Cordero only got one inning the whole week.

I'm fine with benching Delucci. After week 1, I'm up by 18.15 points. Which is good, because I only get 5 starts in week two compared with eight for the Sanitizers. At this point, with that edge in starters, I'm going to have to predict that Adam takes the championship unless I go about 5-5 in QS and Bonds does to SD what he has traditionally done to SD.

I'd love to have Marcus...but only if he promises not to run into Prior during workouts.

http://chicagosports.chicagotribune.com/sports/baseball/cubs/cs-050925cubsbits,1,7820932.story?coll=cs-home-headlines I've seen something about this at least twice in the Trib. Thx. I'm actually pretty pissed about this. For an organization that tries to paint itself as player-friendly, the Cubs sure have an awful way of dealing with things like this. I wonder if Corey could sue under HIPPA laws. I don't know what confidentiality laws have been broken with this. From what I read, this has nothing to do with a medical condition. How would you feel if your employer went to the press and said they were considering sending you to a psychologist? I'd be livid. But maybe that's just me.

http://chicagosports.chicagotribune.com/sports/baseball/cubs/cs-050925cubsbits,1,7820932.story?coll=cs-home-headlines I've seen something about this at least twice in the Trib. Thx. I'm actually pretty pissed about this. For an organization that tries to paint itself as player-friendly, the Cubs sure have an awful way of dealing with things like this. I wonder if Corey could sue under HIPPA laws.

Links please. I don't recall seeing anything like this in any paper.

He cracked the "calcium deposits" around his knee. The bone structure itself is reportedly fine.

As I was reading the Nen piece, I realized how much I truly despised Dusty Baker. Guess he found out how far Nen would go before he "broke." This makes me so damn mad. Yeah, that quote from Dusty (he's said it more than once) inspired me to relate the story about my son after he got a box of flexible pencils. He was so excited by them and thought they were the coolest pencils he'd ever seen. But the curiosity just killed him and he had to figure out how far he could bend them before they broke. One by one, he bent each and every one of those cool pencils until he found the breaking point of each one. Of course, he ended up crying because all he had left was a floor littered with the shattered remains of broken pencils. But at least he know where they would break.

Is being a .500 team THE goal of Hendry, Baker, MacPhail & so forth? Obviously not. If you asked any of them, I'm sure they would all say that they're terribly disappointed with the way things turned out this season. However, I think it is important to note that the front office has often talked about the difficulties in turning around a "culture of losing". I think that with the playoffs out of reach, they are still trying for any victory they can achieve, however meaningless it might be to us right now. I think they believe that winning is a habit that one has to cultivate. I think they believe that ending with a .500 record will do more for the franchise in the future than giving a "fringe" guy like Theriot 5-6 starts to end the year. Or the possibility of losing their first round pick next June because they get ranked outside of the top 15 picks. Who am I to say that they're wrong? It is certainly my opinion that they're incorrect. I don't think it means all that much to end up 82-80 instead of 79-83. I think the draft pick means a lot. I think it would be nice to get a better feel if Ryan can handle a backup MLB job next year. But it's close enough that I can see their point of view and understand it. I just can't understand the rationale that Macias gives a better chance to win these games than Theriot. I'm lost on that one.

Somewhere on the site is the full study I did back in 2003 that got quoted in Will Carroll's book on pitcher usage. Wood was pretty bad in starts following "high stress" outings.

To be fair: One of the things that Dusty was brought in here to do was to turn around the perception of the franchise. I'm quite confident that in the minds of Hendry, MacPhail, Baker and the rest of the organization that reaching .500 on the year and finishing with a winning record is very important. And I honestly think that Baker feels that hitting Macias/Neifi in the top two spots in the order helps accomplish that goal. That last sentence is the part that makes my head spin around.

I'm all about bringing Nomar back and using Ronny to back up Nomar & Walker in 2006. I just don't like handing Furcal the deal I think it's going to take to sign him. No matter how few teams are out there looking for SS, I just don't think he's going to get a smaller deal than Cabrera. And even Christian Guzman got a four year deal. Nomar on a one year deal does more for the team if he stays healthy than any other option at the position. And I like Cedeno as the backup in case Nomar gets another boo-boo.

I want to see the riot play second and lead off the rest of the season. With Murton in the #2 hole.

When I look at the list of players that I dropped this year, it gets a bit depressing. Just starting with Giambi and Peralta is bad enough. Cain throws up a QS in Coors, and the pen blows the lead the very next inning. Oh well, at least I'm now 2-9 in QS%.