17 Seconds

Closers: For the right price, I wouldn't mind Mike Gonzalez or, forgive me, Valverde. Gonzalez is pretty overrated. Soriano is much better.

Nolasco has been really good lately. In his previous 10 starts he had an ERA of 2.71 and a WHIP of just barely over 1. And those numbers are pumped up by the one 7 ER start he had in there. In the other 9 starts, he had allowed 2 ER or fewer.

If he's the easiest pitcher to hit, then why don't his stats reflect that at all?

By the way, I blame the entire organization for Prior just as much as I blame Dusty. They should have stepped in and given Dusty orders on Prior's pitch count. That's done by a lot of oganizations with young stud pitchers now. Instead, the Cubs brass just sat back and watched him to continue to use the Cubs young superstar pitcher for 120+ pitches. Real responsible, guys.

Aaron Harang ERA/WHIP 2005- 3.83/1.26 2006- 3.76/1.27 2007- 3.73/1.14 2008 (through May 25)- 3.32/1.19 At this point Dusty used Harang for 4 innings (63) in an extra inning game when harang had started a game 3 days earlier. Then, 4 days after the relief outing, Dusty started him again. From this point on, Harang had a 5.88 ERA with a 1.52 ERA. So far this season- 4.50 ERA, 1.45 WHIP For 3 and a half years, he was consistently good and getting better each year. The second Dusty raped his arm for a full week, he turned into crap, and has been crap ever since. Coincidence? Also I'm not sure that "going strong" would describe Wood and Zambrano in the context of this thread. Wood is now a reliever, and Zambrano has been declining every single year. He was an ace, and now is maybe a solid number 2 starter. His injuries have also been mounting up in the last 2 years. I'm not saying it's Dusty's fault, but he's def. breaking down.

grabow has like a 1.50 WHIP this season. i wouldn't pull gregg yet since he had been pretty great for an extended period of time before this weekend, but if he slips up again in the next week i'd consider swapping the roles of guzman and gregg.

i knew that quote would be confused. i said he's not a strikeout pitcherl ike lincecum, meaning he's not at that level. he's not a strikeout machine like lincecum. i never meant that haren wasn't a strikeout pitcher. wait, really? then how come haren has a significantly better k/bb than lincecum? how come haren is allowing close to half the amount of walks as lincecum? as for babip, i think people go overboard on it. guess what? if you make good pitches that induce weak contact, your babip is going to be low. to discredit a guy because of babip is kind of silly. in pedro's legendary 2000, he had a .253 babip. i don't see people discrediting that season. like i said, i don't really care. you shouldn't be using era in the first place

Marshall?Guzman?Stevens? if you say so. Heilman sucks, but it's not like Lou has a pen of lights out middle relievers he just gave you 3 better options. Stevens is an unknown commodity, And Heilman has proven that he sucks How about one of the other pitchers that is better than Heilman? Marshall, Grabow, or Marmol would have all been better choices. You don't bring your second worst reliever (would be the worst reliever if Shark wasn't stupidly on this team) when you're trying to protect a 1 run lead in the 7th. Lou continues to use Heilman in meaningful situations even though he's awful. It's Bob Howry all over again.

only if the voters are morons. which they are. Except that the only stat Haren has an edge on is whip which is a result of how hit-lucky he's been this year (.251 BaBIP). The fact that he's still slightly behind Lincecum in ERA on the season despite posting a ridiculously high unsustainable LOB% of 82.3% up to this point should tell you something about the two of them. If that stuff doesn't convince you, maybe the fact that Lincecum's FIP is at 1.96 right now while Haren's is 2.80 will do it. Haren is a great pitcher, probably top 5 in all of MLB, but he's not better than Lincecum and he hasn't BEEN better than Lincecum this year. and what is lincecum's LOB %? not much better. oh, and haren also has a better ld% anyways, stop looking at era. haren has given up fewer hits, fewer walks, and has a better strikeout to walk ratio. babip is not a stat that erases all those. not to mention that haren isn't a strikeout pitcher like lincecum, so of course he's going to get weaker contact on balls put in play.

Seriously, is he brain-dead? who was a more viable option? Marshall?Guzman?Stevens? if you say so. Heilman sucks, but it's not like Lou has a pen of lights out middle relievers he just gave you 3 better options.

all the cubs needed was the ability to hit in the postseason. unless roberts made everybody else in the lineup turn into a playoff badass, then no, he wasn't exactly what the cubs needed.

only if the voters are morons. which they are.

Even if the package was better, I still wouldn't have believed the rumor. Why would the orioles finally sign Roberts to an extension and then eat 20 million of it to trade him? Why wouldn't they want Roberts at 4/20?

I could have stopped reading after this- so instead of trading him to the cubs a year ago, they wait....sign him to an extension, then less than a year later they trade him to the cubs for a lesser package AND have to eat an enormous chunk of salary righhhttt

He could stop bringing in Samardzija, for one thing. Shark is the worst reliever in the pen and by bringing him in it allowed the Marlins to immediately get right back in the game.

http://www.mouthpiecesports.com/blogmedia/2009/03/dustybaker.jpg

if the cubs miss the playoffs hopefully they just tank so lou will hang it up. he is atrocious. excellent bullpen management again tonight, lou

Even if Bartman doesn't attempt to catch the ball, it was a difficult catch and there's no guarantee Alou comes down with it. He may have caught it, but if you look at the tape is glove is just above the top of the wall. He could have hit the wall on the way down and the ball could have been knocked loose. Alex Gonzalez booting an easy DP ball bears 10,000 times more blame than Bartman. Alou wasn't mad that he didn't make the play. He was attempting to cheat once again by pretending like he had even a remote opportunity of going over the wall to make that catch when he probably would have realistically gave up about a foot or two before the ball hit his glove. He was trying to con the umpires into believing he was going to catch that ball. I'm not buying his act, and neither did the umpires who were standing right on the line of where the ball was coming down. seriously? he had no chance of making the play? how can you poissibly say that? it would have at the very least hit his glove. he was in perfect piosition. all that stuff that you say he couldn't possibly do because he was a horrible defender.... well, he did it. he jumped high enough. he timed his jump. he had his glove positioned perfectly. i'm not blaming bartman and i couldnt care less about him, but let's be honest. that ball was going right into his glove.

I suppose it would be easier if I believed that. I don't. He had it. yeah, he did all the hard stuff. he was there, he times his jump perfectly, the ball was going right into his glove.

MLB Network is just a PR machine. and worse than BBTN

yea to be fair, he probably would have caught it. the replay very clearly showed the glove right under where bartman touched the ball. it would have gone right into his glove.

Man, I was hoping the left handed reliever we were going to get would actually be good. Grabow sucks.

[expletive]

Not a good trade for the Giants at all.

I'm interested to see how Lee will do in CBP