Hairyducked Idiot

Sure we can. I'd project a lot worse out of Franklin, but a lot more out of Motte. Lohse and Wellenmeyer look like they could be better, too. On offense, the Cardinals have a ton of replaceable black holes where they could gain quite a bit of ground. As a team, they've gotten .211 .284 .324 from 3b, and .214 .299 .340. Unlike the Cubs, who will be trotting Soriano out there no matter what, the Cardinals look like they are in good position to upgrade those holes. The only question for them is whether Pujols can keep it up. I think we've been lucky for a few years that they haven't been better, because Albert Pujols and 24 decent players gives you a competitive team with even a little bit of luck. If he keeps hitting like this, I see no reason they can't keep up their current pace. And if they do that, the Cubs will have to really turn it on to pass them. But the problem is, things aren't going to go as planned for everybody. Even if the Cardinals drop off, the Brewers might play 5 games better than their Pyth wins for the rest of the season and pass us. Houston and Cincinatti aren't very good, but neither would be the worst team to scrape together a win total in the high 80s. I like the Cubs easily against the Brewers, Pirates or Astros, and I like them right now against the Cardinals (pending any trading deadline moves to fill those black holes). It's just picking them against the field that gives me troubles.

I'm not sure you know how regression works. And I'm quite sure you don't understand projections work. I'm not sure you do. You could, you know, post a point or something in there, and then we'd at least see where each other are coming from. Marmol had a good but not great minor league career, was awful as a starter at age 23 in the bigs, and then suddenly turned it on to be one of the most dominant middle relievers in the game for a few years. They've already gotten two years of mileage out of that, and historically, that's already pushing the limits of how long you can be a truly elite reliever. As for Guzman, the more times a pitcher gets injured, the less likely he is to return with his stuff intact. Projecting an injured pitcher is more than just waiting for him to get healthy and saying "See, he's just like we always thought he'd be."

Instead of piecemealing it, I'll try to look at it this way: Last year's Cubs were a 98 pythwin team. Plexiglass principle pulls them down a little, and I think the consensus was that they got worse this offseason, so that puts them at around 93 wins. Even if we ignore all the negative data points from this season, from Ramirez's shoulder to the loss of production and all, and we still project them to win at a 93-win pace the rest of the way, that only gets them to 89 wins. I'd say it's right around 50/50 that 89 wins would be enough to win this division.

Marshall is about the same, Gregg is a little better. Marmol has always been a good bet to regress, I'm surprised he's not regressed further. Heilman is better than last year, but below his career to that point, right where plexiglass principle says he should be. Guzman has a career ERA+ of 90 and WHIP of 1.504. He's putting up 176 and 1.073 to this point, and at his age and arm history, I think "washed up" was a good projection for him. All in all, I'd say yes, we've gotten much better than we had a right to expect out of our bullpen. Lilly is currently 15 points of ERA+ ahead of his career best. At 33 years old, I'd say that's a pretty big surprise. I'm not saying the Cubs can't win the division from this point. But in order to play better than they have at this point, I think they need a lot more things to go right than just showing up.

Assuming he can stay healthy. And assuming that no one else gets hurt and we lose just as much. This team has no depth at all. We've gotten a .262 .332 .435 line from our 3b this season. That's not what Ramirez would put up, but it's not like it's been a black hole.

Exactly how far below our ability are we really playing? We are getting better than "expected" performances from almost the entire bullpen. Randy Wells and Rich Harden balance out, Dempster and Zambrano are pretty close to ability, and Lilly is ahead. On the whole, we are pretty far ahead on our pitching. On offense, we've had the Ramirez injury, but it's reasonable to expect at least one major injury per season, and Fox's extra at-bats start to balance that out. So we're left with Lilly+bullpen vs. Soriano, Bradley, 2b, and Soto. Soto spent a lot of years as an awful-hitting minor-league catcher before putting up two spectacular ones, so I don't know if you can just assume he's going to come back. So while Lilly/bullpen vs. Soriano, Bradley, 2b probably puts us "below expectations," I don't think we're so far below them that it's a sure thing that we'll play better in the second half.

Are you saying it would be foolish to assume one of those second rate teams don't get insanely hot? Because I think that's a pretty safe assumption. The odds against any specific one of them getting hot or lucky is slim. But the odds of taking the field and having one of them get hot/lucky is pretty good. Four 20% chances combine to a 59% chance.

There are five teams within 5.5 games of first. Even if we assume the Cubs are playing significantly below their ability level (something I'm not sure I agree with), then we're left with assuming that no inferior team out of five gets freakily hot/lucky in the final 72 games either.

if they get Halladay, they will be repeat champions. That's an awfully positive statement. Nobody "will" be anything in a baseball playoff setup.

Probably, but that vesting option is ugly. Nobody wants to take that on.

Those weren't offers, those were insults. Sanchez's $10 million for two years, when his certain to vest option for next year alone is $8 million.

WTH is a "pure" hitter? It is the ability to hit for avg. What's pure about it?

There have been persistent sports radio rumors that Favre's arm rehab isn't going as fast as he'd like and is the reason he's delayed a decision.

So an aging quarterback who has had several bad seasons in recent times puts together half a good season before getting hurt?

Even if we believe your argument that he's good when healthy, he's not healthy, so no problems there.

In the last four seasons, he's had one where he met the very low standard of more TDs than INTs.

The hardest-throwing pitchers are about the same across eras. Today's big leagues have far more 90+ guys than the past ever did.

Looked safe to me.

Brenly called that bunt single. Let's make him teh GM!

This is not a good defense.

Lee's most awesome DP ever.

WTH is a "pure" hitter?

Why compare Gregg to Wood if you weren't even going to mention him? :)

Cardinals have lost.

On replay, that was a much better throw than I thought.