Transmogrified Tiger

Great stuff. Did anyone else notice Stockton had no idea what direction pitches were missing? I swear, half a dozen times Webb and Zambrano would miss low and Stockton would say "that's a ball inside/outside". It's like he'd never done a baseball game before.

Yeah, that was my first thought. How does a Boston station with no motivation to find this story wind up breaking it/being the only ones to report it? Smacks of the New York Daily News telling us who's about to sign on the west coast during the offseason.

Premium Regular

The Cards are not going to be good again for a while if they don't replace him with someone capable.

Someone at FSN needs to realize that they need more national programs, and that they should be pushing the Final Score hard as a Sportscenter alternative.

The Soto thing needs to happen. Dozens of them scattered throughout the stadium that simply say "Geovany Soto".

Young signed a 2/10 extension in July. Link

He also balked when they pulled the hidden ball trick.

Chad Bradford

I'll go with "all of them". Interesting. So you think the Cubs won't come to regret the three year $21 million contract they game Marquis and aren't concerned about his 6.21 ERA in September. Aren't the least bit concerned with Dempster's 9.82 ERA in September. Don't think the backloaded contracts Hendry handed out may limit flexibility in the future. Will be satisfied with a 85 win season if the Cubs don't make a deep playoff run. No, I said I disagreed with the points he made, please don't try to make my argument for me. Marquis was a necessary evil. 2006 showed that we can't just hope for the best with multiple young players in the rotation(for several reasons) and expect to be competitive. 3/21 is a stiff price for Marquis, but 33% of the way through the contract he's proved one of the better gambles, and with the way the market has gone it wouldn't be a surprise that he's considered appropriately or underpaid after a couple offseasons. Dempster is fine. He had a horrible month. So did Bob Howry in may. He's not going to be completely lock down, but we knew that going in and he's paid appropriately. Bob Cook is really over dramatizing Dempster's performance. The point about backloading hurting the team is a weak one. First of all, if the new owner spends money, it's a moot point. If he doesn't, then we were screwed anyway. The contracts with the most severe backloading are the shorter ones to the likes of Marquis and DeRosa rather than Ramirez or Zambrano. It's silly to think that the team will be forced to unload someone like Hill or Marmol(who will either not be arbitration eligible or first year by the time Marquis, Howry, Eyre, DeRosa, etc. are through with their contract) because of those middling FA deals. Never mind the fact that forecasting payroll problems 3 years in advance is a fruitless exercise for many reasons, not the least of which is that we don't know who's going to be available as a cost-effective option from within. Who saw Theriot as our everyday SS this year after the collapse in 2004? And finally, the "trying to buy a world series" gimmick is cliche and tired. The Cubs aren't even close to being at the top of the payroll ladder, and their run this year is heavily influenced by their own system with players developed by the team or traded for with those players.

I'll go with "all of them".

They might have a good record against left-handers this year, but that might be coincidence. Arizona is 15th in the NL in hitting against LH's. In fact, look at this: Batting against LHP: Cubs: .263/.325/.431 Arizona: .250/.319/.402 The Cubs have a 16 point advantage over Arizona facing right-handers, and a 35 point edge against left-handers. Lilly and Hill also each had stellar outings in their only starts against Arizona this year.

same problem as blanco - getting dempster's salary off the books is a nice idea; getting someone to take the whole thing on will be damn near impossible. Why? Dempster has 1/5.5 left on his deal. Even the most SABR-savvy GMs have turned to much worse than Dempster in the name of getting a "true closer", and of course the not-so-bright GMs would probably see him as a bargain. Getting someone to take Dempster wouldn't be a problem, it'd be a matter of getting an appropriate return.

:( Is it for sure not going to happen? I'd love it if they played a weekend series in KC. Absolutely love it. Yeah. KC released their home schedule and we're not on it.

To whet the appetite: Preliminary BCS Rankings Really liking that Mizzou is in the Top 10 of 3 of the 4 computer polls.

Because it's a stat. Dealing with real numbers and occurrences to estimate what will most likely happen in the future. You're just wildly spraying random statements with no factual backup Yes, but stats aren't always the truth, just check out that link. Our mop up men aren't good, resulting in blowouts which makes our run diff. in the negatives. I talked about this a couple pages ago. It's an explanation, but not a predictor. Especially when it's the bullpen we're talking about.

Talk about looking for the easy answer to a problem. It's nonsense like this that allows for people to accuse anyone and everyone of steroids. As jjgman21 pointed out earlier, there were some injuries to some of the games big HR hitters that most likely cost them quite a few HR. Sure, there was probably a small effect of the PED crackdown, but I really think it amounts to a fluke year more than anything else. If in 2 or 3 years the numbers are still this low...then we'll see. Small effect? Your head in the sand, naive attitude about the steroids issue is nonsensical. I think it's more nonsensical to paint PED issues in terms of offense. Pitchers look for the edge just as much as hitters.

This myth needs to die RIGHT NOW. I'm completely sick of hearing it. Yeah, we got swept by Florida and it was pathetic...however, we did NOT back into the playoffs. The cubs have gone 13-7 in their last 20 games. That's hardly "backing" backing in? I think not crushing Brewers had a chance to tie by winning two straight vs a depleted Padre team, IIRC. They went on to win their last two games, it could have resulted in a tiebreaker. I may be wrong, but I think that's what I heard. The Cubs also could've won the division by 10 games if they had pulled out a game they didn't win every other week or so. The Cubs never had a huge lead in the division, of course they could've been in a different situation with the results of a couple games swapped.

The stuff about the bipolarity of Arizona's bullpen is an explanation to why they've been able to outperform their pythag, but it's not a reason why that should continue. Bullpens, regardless of their composition and quality, are the most wildly unpredictable components of a team. Using bullpen ability/composition to explain why they'll continue to outperform their RS/RA is just playing roulette with the small sample size of reliever's workloads. Even more so in a 5 game series. Even more so when they have 73 IP from Brandon "BABIP" Lyon thus far as one of their 3 bullpen aces.

The game was in Missouri, was it in Columbia, no, but it was still a road game for IL. It was in a major city nearly equidistant from the schools. The crowd was split down the middle exactly. Illinois wore their home uniforms. It was like a bowl game, neutral for both sides. I don't know why I'm continuing to talk about it since it really doesn't matter, but it is what it is.

Nitpick, Illinois/Mizzou was a neutral game. Right now, they're grouped in with a bunch of teams in the minds of pollsters. They'll either get forgotten for a while or shoot easily into the Top 25 depending on how they fare against Wisconsin.

I'm so sick of seeing this nonsensical distinction. With the exception of today and the Sept. 14 game @ St.L, every single one of his blowups in "non-save situations" have come in high-leverage spots (i.e. tie games in the 9th or 10th inning). It's utterly absurd to think that Dempster's approach when pitching in a tie game in the 9th or 10th inning is different than it is with a 1 run lead in the ninth. He's been bad in all kinds of high-leverage spots and it's blissful ignorance to pretend like his failures in those situations are somehow irrelevant to whether he's the best option in a "save" situation. Yep. Dempster overall: .240/.319/.394/.713 Dempster close and late: .239/.325/.388/.713

I mean you're record is consistent with the number of points you've scored. You're dead last in points by a huge margin, it's not like you went up against the number one scorer for the week a couple times. That's what I was getting at.

You haven't even been unlucky. How do you only have 100 points after 3 weeks?

How in the world is Boston College pushing the Top 5? That's insanity.