Good News and a Mid-Day Buzz-Kill
Tonight when the Braves visit the Mets, former Cub Rick Sutcliffe will be in the ESPN broadcast booth for the first time since he was diagnosed with colon cancer during spring training. Sutcliffe, who has been receiving chemotherapy and radiation, is scheduled for surgery on June 16th, which he hopes will lead to a clean bill of health.
On an infinitely more mundate note, Dayn Perry at foxsports.com argues that the Cub Express must be seen as wobbly, given that Ryan Dempster appears to be pitching with a rabbit's foot or similar in his pocket--Dempster's .211 batting average against on Balls in Play is way below the normal .290-.300 range--Carlos Marmol is on pace for an ungodly number of innings pitched, and Jason Marquis is just not very good.
Perry does, however, end on this semi-upbeat note:
If they do get to the postseason, then they'll have the kind of team
that's built to succeed in that environment. Teams with good defenses,
high-strikeout pitching staffs, and dominating closers tend to do well
in the playoffs, and all of that describes this year's Cubs model....the team defense has been exceptional, and the
pitching staff ranks third in the NL in whiffs. As for the closer
thing, Kerry Wood has looked strong save for two isolated bad outings.
If he continues to grow into the role, then the Cubs will have a real
shot at ending their comically long title drought.Of course, unless the pitching holds up, they won't get the chance.
Twitter RSS for TCR
#1 Re: Good News and a Mid-Day Buzz-Kill
Jason Marquis is just not very good.
Wait... you mean our 5th starter is not very good? Shocking.
How many teams have "very good" 5th starters?
And of course Perry ignores the fact that Hill (who WILL probably get better) and Marshall are in AAA and can step in to the rotation, and Kevin Hart isn't far behind.
#3 Re: Good News and a Mid-Day Buzz-Kill
I don't think the issue is that we need a Cy Young candidate pitching in the fifth spot.
The issue is that, if one assumes Zambrano and Lilly are solid, then you have: the control-challenged and arguably very lucky Dempster; the unproven Gallagher and Hart: Hill, who, by his manager's own acknowledgement, is so messed up that he could benefit from a stress break on the Disabled List; and Sean Marshall.
That's why I think at least a little anxiety is warranted.
#7 Re: Dempster
To call Dempster "lucky" simply because of his BABIP is not entirely accurate since he is ignoring the fact that Ryan has gotten 53 of his outs in 63IP through K's which means he is in full control of those outs and not dependent on luck.
#25 Re: Dempster
Yeah, and Dempster has thrown 63 innings, that's 189 outs. It's a large enough sample size that no statistician is going to easliy conclude that mere luck is involved.
Put differently, at this point in the season it seems more reasonable to conclude that something has improved in Dempster's game than to conclude that he's simply been lucky for 2 months.
And while we're at it, going into the 2008 season, the odds of Dempster being this good/hot were probably about the same as Hill crapping the bed and being dumped down to AAA. Similarly, the odds of Howry sucking and Eyre being injured were probably about the same as Wood staying healthy and Marmol continuing to be excellent. This stuff tends to even out -- it's not like the Cubs have caught nothing but good breaks this year.
#27 Re: Dempster BABIP
a .211 BABIP is virtually impossible....
The league leader the last two years was Chris Young (Welcome to Petco) and he had a .237 in 2006 and .265 in 2008. Most pitchers are around the .300 mark. Even if he bucks the trend to something like a .270 to .280 BABIP, that'll do considerable damage to his ERA.
#2 Re: Good News and a Mid-Day Buzz-Kill
I wonder how many more "not very good" outings we will have to wait until Marshall is added to the rotation. I have been a fan of Marshall for a while, and I believe that he has more upside than does Rich Hill. Maybe it wont be too much longer and the Cubs will be willing to eat that terrible contract of Marquis.
#31 Re: Good News and a Mid-Day Buzz-Kill
marshall should be here in another week or 2.
gallagher is holding the slot for him. he's gonna have to be impressive to keep the job vs. marshall.
#4 Re: Good News and a Mid-Day Buzz-Kill
Who in the division has better overall pitching?
Astros have Oswalt, Valverde and nothing else, Brewers have Sheets and nothing else, Cards seem to be doing it with mirrors and Izzy is a mess.
Maybe the Reds -- if Arroyo gets turned around and the kids keep pitching well, plus they've got Cordero in the pen.
#5 Re: Good News and a Mid-Day Buzz-Kill
So which SP will we acquire before the trading deadline? It's never too early to speculate about this. ;-)
/go go sledge-o-matic
#9 Re: Good News and a Mid-Day Buzz-Kill
If I were to rank them as of today, my guess would be (in order)
1. AJ Burnett
2. Joe Blanton
3. Andy Pettitte
4. Greg Maddux
5. Mike Mussina
6. Roger Clemens
7. Mark Prior (turns and runs away from the keyboard)
#23 Re: Good News and a Mid-Day Buzz-Kill
You'd better run, punk!
#29 Re: Good News and a Mid-Day Buzz-Kill
Heh. I came up with some of those names. I was quick to drop Prior and Trachsel from consideration, though. ;)
Burnett seems possible. Others in the maybe pile are Jason Jennings (really doing badly this year, but so are the Rangers), Odalis Perez (ditto, s/Rangers/Nats/), and if the White Sox put away their division, perhaps we'll see Livan Hernandez (actually doing pretty well this year) or CC Sabathia (change to the NL might do him good). More... Randy Wolf, Kip Wells, Brett Tomko...
All of a sudden, our Iowa crew is looking pretty competitive. :-)
#6 Re: Good News and a Mid-Day Buzz-Kill
Well, I would argue with Dayn about the pace the Cubs are on. It seems to me that if we keep the present winning percentages (19-8, 9-10) up we would win ~57 at home and ~38 on the road and that adds up to a more reasonable 94-95 not 100+.
#8 Re: Good News and a Mid-Day Buzz-Kill
Yesterday the winning percentage was .622, which equates to 100 wins. The Cubs won't be able to sustain that, but it's a nice dream.
#10 Re: Good News and a Mid-Day Buzz-Kill
the biggest & brightest of the red flags waved in the article is Marmol's workload; he is money that can't just be spent; some of it [him] must be saved for later, but how do you NOT use him?
#11 Re: Good News and a Mid-Day Buzz-Kill
Apparently Lou can't!
My hope is that this José Ascanio kid takes a step forward into Lou's good graces. That along with Angel Guzman's late season return should be enough to make Lou lighten Marmol's workload.
Hopefully it won't be too late.
#12 Re: Good News and a Mid-Day Buzz-Kill
Counting on Guzman is like the Padres counting on Prior.
Lou using Marmol to protect a 6 run lead like he did a couple of weeks ago is stupid.
#13 Re: Good News and a Mid-Day Buzz-Kill
Was that the day that he pitched after not pitching in 6 days?
#14 Re: Good News and a Mid-Day Buzz-Kill
Could be I'll check.
#24 Re: Good News and a Mid-Day Buzz-Kill
Yes. Even then people were mad about it, but I don't see how you justify NOT pitching him after 6 days.
#15 Re: Good News and a Mid-Day Buzz-Kill
I was half joking.
Stranger things have happened though. Woody has been healthy all year!!!
#16 Re: Good News and a Mid-Day Buzz-Kill
Understood Doc!
After three days rest-
Apr 22 NYM W 8-1 - 1.0 0 0 0 0 0 2 0 0 1 14.1 1.88
Apr 21 NYM W 7-1 - 1.0 0 0 0 0 0 1 0 0 1 13.1 2.02
After 4 days rest-
Apr 30 MIL W 19-5
#17 Re: Good News and a Mid-Day Buzz-Kill
Okay to be fair and correct
Cubs scored 4 runs and 5 runs respectivley the inning after Marmol pitched in both Mets' games.
#19 Re: Good News and a Mid-Day Buzz-Kill
Thanks... I was just going to point that out.
The only "bad" situation I saw was May 10th, where he pitched with a 5 run lead after pitching the day before.
#20 Re: Good News and a Mid-Day Buzz-Kill
I know he had time off before, but the 19-5 Milwaukee game was irritating too.
#18 Re: Good News and a Mid-Day Buzz-Kill
So to finish my thought, Lou needs to plan that the Cubs will finish big in games and there for does not need Marmol in some close games.
GOT IT!?!!?
I just hope the kid's arm doesn 't fall off.
#21 Re: Good News and a Mid-Day Buzz-Kill
Me, too - I worry that his overuse in the early part of this season may reap bad dividends if someone else doesn't step up soon. It'd be nice if our veterans like Weurtz and Eyre could start to show something - Weurtz has almost as many innings as Marmol at this point, but his performance has been kind of fugly.
#40 Re: Good News and a Mid-Day Buzz-Kill
Weurtz has a 3.13 ERA. Not exactly Marmol, but who is? Hardly ugly.
#22 Re: Good News and a Mid-Day Buzz-Kill
why can't a reliever pitch 100 innings? this concept is so strange.
#26 Re: Good News and a Mid-Day Buzz-Kill
I think this is a very fair question. If I remember correctly, PAP is not a Chadball™ approved stat; nonetheless, I would be interested in some sort of PAP-like stat that looked at relief pitchers. PAP relies heavily on pitch count which for a relief pitcher is obviously not a reliable thing to measure when attempting to gauge potential for injury.
Any of you freakin' geniuses have any ideas on how this could be assessed?
Return to Homepage