..:Official 2008 NL Central Thread:..Congratulations Chicago Cubs...:

[arog27]

I think we're all pretty much in mid-season form.........

 

[stringer bell 32]

Originally Posted by AM 1 FIEND

That car looks like the way the Cubs play, great story.

Ruthless!

 

[arog27]

FB even takin shots at us in the Chicago Snow Thread.........i see you homie

 

[arog27]

[h1]Marquis is Cubs' 5th starter; Lieber to bullpen[/h1]MESA, Ariz. - Ryan Dempster began his spring in February by making national headlines, predictingthe Cubs would win the World Series.

Jason Marquis created a controversy after his first Cactus League start March 1, proclaiming that if the Cubs didn't keep him in the rotation, "Ithink I can take my services elsewhere."

And Jon Lieber?

The veteran right-hander pitched well in every start, kept his mouth shut and went about his business.

And when all was said and done, Dempster and Marquis wound up with rotation spots Monday. Lieber was sent to the bullpen to be the Cubs' long man.

"I completely understand the situation," Lieber said. "I've said it from Day One: Those guys have earned it just as much. I think it's agreat situation that we're in.

"My hat's off to them. It was awesome for us to go through that, and I was really impressed by the work ethic of Jason and Ryan during this spring.They worked their tails off and deserve it just as much."

Lieber signed a one-year deal for $3.5 million in January, choosing the Cubs despite knowing he was not guaranteed a spot in the rotation. He can earn another$3 million in incentives based on number of starts and innings pitched. Lieber compiled a 2.50 ERA this spring and walked only three hitters in 18 innings.

Dempster was virtually promised a spot when he switched from closer to starter, and the Cubs were unable to find a taker for Marquis, who is owed $16.25million over the next two years.

"Jon and I have had a long relationship, and I told Jon when we signed him there was a possibility we'd trade a starter before Opening Day, but youcan never guarantee that," general manager Jim Hendry said. "So he knew. He knew what we were getting into.

"The problem is everybody's pitched so well except Rich [Hill] the last couple of times, and hopefully he'll get on track, but he had such a solidyear last year, I think this was the right thing to do for now.

"We're glad we have [Lieber]. He can get loose in a hurry and give us innings out of the pen. He took it like a real pro. I spoke to him, and I thinkhe's genuinely thrilled he's back here."

Lieber could still wind up in the rotation if Marquis is traded or if Marquis, Dempster or Hill falters early on. Manager Lou Piniella said he told Lieber:"When things are all said and done, we're going to need more than five starters, believe me. That's always been the case with every club."

Marquis was rumored to be the odd man out because of his poor second-half numbers in 2007 and his bold comment about leaving, which prompted an angry Piniellato respond, "Let him go." But he put up strong numbers afterward and pitched his way into the fifth starter's spot.

Asked Monday if he regretted his remarks, Marquis replied:

"Yeah. I mean, you always try to keep things in house and not have ... not only your peers, but your [bosses] react like that. So it was one of thosethings where we turn the page and move on."

The Cubs finished second in the National League in starters' ERA last year, and Dempster is the only new addition. He replaces the departed Steve Trachsel,who supplanted Sean Marshall in September.

In his last four starts, Dempster has had two outings in which he has allowed only one hit and two in which he has allowed four and five runs, including Mondayagainst Texas. Dempster will pitch in the No. 3 slot, starting April 3 against Milwaukee at Wrigley Field.

 

[cincybcats22]

The Reds will compete this year... finally.

Im going to opening day too! Its been a few years since Ive gone.

 

[arog27]

Do the Reds have the pitching to compete???

 

[wildkycat]

Originally Posted by aRog27

Do the Reds have the pitching to compete???

to "compete"....yeah, i think so. Eddie V has been dealing all spring training.

Addition of Cordero could spark Reds' beleaguered staff

SARASOTA, Fla. -- Of all the franchise-changing acquisitions in baseball this winter, here's the one that might have gotten the least hoopla:
Nov. 28 -- Cincinnati Reds sign closer Francisco Cordero for four years, $46 million. Not the signing you were thinking of, huh? Well, hear us out.

Did the Reds spend more dollars than they probably should have on a guy who, by his own admission, has never even heard of the Nasty Boys? Absolutely.



Could they find themselves, by the fourth year of this contract, wondering what in Rob Dibble's name they were thinking? Sure, they could.

Does this deal come with any "40 saves a year or your money back" guarantees? Sorry. Not happening.

But if the criteria for this debate is "franchise-changing acquisition," you'd have a tough time arguing with the team-altering impact of this deal. Why? Here's why:

• This is a team that led more games at the end of the fifth inning last year (75) than the New York Mets, Chicago Cubs and Arizona Diamondbacks (among others). You could look it up.

• This is a team that got outscored by 71 runs after the seventh inning last season and by 92 runs after the sixth.

• This is a team that lost eight games it led after seven innings and went a ridiculous 7-17 when it was tied after seven.

• And this is a team that was last in the National League in bullpen ERA (5.13) -- and allowed the highest opponent batting average (.282), on-base percentage (.360) and OPS (.807) of any bullpen in the league.

Those are ugly, ugly numbers, ladies and gentlemen. But not just your ordinary, run-of-the-mill ugly numbers. Pretty much any astute baseball observer in this world (like us, for instance) will tell you there is a bigggg difference between ugly bullpen numbers and just about any other size, shape or flavor of ugly numbers. And that difference is …

Ugly bullpen numbers blow up entire teams.

When your bullpen is a mess, said Reds starter Bronson Arroyo, "There's just a cloud hanging over you. You know how teams like the Red Sox feel like they're always in a game, because when it gets late, they feel like that's their point in the game? Well, when you have a club that kind of feels the opposite, you're thinking, 'Uh-oh. We're up by five, but can we hold it?' And that's a bad feeling. Once you feel like you can't get the job done at that end of the game, you never feel confident."

And Arroyo ought to know. He had more quality starts last year (22) than Johan Santana, Roy Oswalt or Josh Beckett -- and still wound up 9-16. Part of that was due to five blown saves. But just as much was due to one of the pitching profession's most dreaded afflictions -- Fear of Leaving the Game Disease.

"When you've got 105 pitches and you've thrown six [innings]," Arroyo said, "and you feel like, 'All right. I've got the game where I want it, but maybe I don't have enough stuff right now' … the last two years, I felt like I still had to take the ball because we had so many problems in the seventh and eighth innings. … Now, hopefully, I'll be confident enough to come out after six innings, maybe being a little tired, and hand the ball over to the bullpen, instead of trying to muster up an extra inning."

Think it's some kind of accident that Arroyo and Aaron Harang have thrown more innings over the past two years (451 1/3 and 466, respectively) than any two teammates in baseball? Yeah, sure it is. In the same kind of way it's an accident the sun sets in the west every night.

That, in a nutshell, is just one of the many under-the-radar ripple effects of broken bullpens. But before we continue down this trail, we need to detour for a moment. We need to because we're required by the Justice Department to point out that virtually none of this relief crew's problems were the fault of last year's closer, David Weathers.

Before last year, Weathers had never saved 30 games in any of his 16 seasons. But there he was, at age 37, transforming himself into a veritable one-man bullpen rescue squad. He saved 33 games, got at least four outs in 18 different appearances, blew only one save after July and became "by far our MVP last year," said Adam Dunn.

So there's zero justice for poor Weathers in a signing that essentially demoted him to set-up work. And the proof is that, after the Cordero signing, he got personal we-still-love-you-man phone calls from general manager Wayne Krivsky, manager Dusty Baker and owner Bob Castellini.



"I don't have a problem with this," said Weathers, one of the all-time class acts, "other than the fact that sometimes in the game of baseball, the reward system is a little flawed. You go out and have your best year and get demoted. Yet [other] guys are signing extensions. So all those selfish thoughts go through your head. But I know the bottom line is [Cordero] makes our club so much better."

And he does. So even though the Reds recognized Weathers wasn't the culprit, they were determined to deepen their bullpen. And the brass was in massive agreement that Cordero was the No. 1 difference-maker in the free-agent market.

So from the moment the free-agent negotiating sweepstakes opened, the Reds took off after Cordero like Ryan Freel takes off after foul balls bound for the 17th row -- full speed ahead.

By the time they finished off that pursuit, they had made the 32-year-old right-hander the highest-paid free-agent closer in history. They since have taken their share of heat for what one GM calls a "ridiculous" contract. But Krivsky said his club feels no need to defend itself over the money it spent to fix its late-inning nightmare.

"I don't, because we weren't the only team that wanted him, and there was another team [Cordero's former employers, the Milwaukee Brewers] that was offering him $42 million," Krivsky said. "So that's what it took. At that point, I had to go to ownership and say, 'This is what it's going to take.' And they said, 'Get it done.'"

So the Reds added a million bucks a year to their offer, and presto. They had themselves a closer.

But how good a closer? That's the $46 million question.

When we polled two dozen executives last month on the best moves of the winter, no player split the group more than Cordero. For every exec who called this one of the best signings of the offseason, there was another shooting it down as excessive or criticizing Cordero as a closer of "questionable" reliability.

So how reliable is he? Well, over the past five years, only four pitchers -- Mariano Rivera, Billy Wagner, Jason Isringhausen and Trevor Hoffman -- have saved more games than Cordero (167). And of the six closers who averaged 30-plus saves a year over the past five seasons, just two -- Joe Nathan and Wagner -- had a higher strikeout rate than Cordero (10.39 per nine innings).

On the other hand, Cordero had the highest walk rate (3.73 per nine innings), the most hits allowed (7.76 per nine innings) and the most baserunners allowed (11.76 per nine innings). Matter of fact, he permitted nearly two more hits and three more baserunners every nine innings than Nathan.

So maybe he isn't quite in that elite-closer strata. But he still is in the next tier. Which means he is a major bullpen upgrade for this team. And we can sum up what a relief that is to the entire city of Cincinnati with two words:

Chocolate cake.

So what's up with that chocolate cake? Here's what: Cordero said that after he finished dinner in Cincinnati the night of his news conference, "all of a sudden, this guy comes with dessert, and he goes, 'This is on the house.' And I say, 'Why?' And he just said, 'Welcome to Cincinnati.' It was a big chocolate cake. Pretty good, too."

Hey, we're glad he liked it, because earning his paycheck in this town will not be a piece of cake. Not when the home ballpark in which he has to pitch these next four years has produced the second-highest homer rate in baseball over the past three years.

"You know, I pitched in Texas," Cordero said. "I know it's not the same. But in Texas, the ball flies. All you've got to do is keep the ball down and make your pitches, and you'll be OK."

Well, that sounds simple enough. So who wants to break it to him that Harang had roughly the same, essentially flat, fly-ball/ground-ball split that Cordero had last season -- and still gave up 28 gopher balls (15 at home)? Hey, not us. Nevertheless, that's not the only reason Cordero is likely to miss Milwaukee. Checked out his home/road splits lately? Uh, here goes:

Cordero in Milwaukee last season: 1.09 ERA, .143 opponent batting average.

Cordero in towns not named Milwaukee last season: 6.55 ERA, .337 opponent batting average.

"Everyone else looks at that way more than I do," Krivsky said. "I was aware of it. And it certainly stood out. But there wasn't a history of it. The two years prior to that, his road numbers were better than his home stats. So I looked at it as some kind of aberration."



What isn't an aberration, though, is the energy and optimism Cordero has injected into the Reds this spring. If he takes care of the ninth inning, and Weathers can handle the eighth, and one-time Rule 5 pick Jared Burton (1.84 second-half ERA last year) can stabilize the seventh, it's not so tough for this group to envision a season with a much happier ending than last year.

When your bullpen is rolling, Baker said, "It gives your team more confidence. And it gives the other team less confidence that it can come back on you, because you know, what you think will happen will happen. When you start thinking about, 'How are we going to lose this one?' you will lose it."

The manager doesn't have to explain that concept to this team, though, because these guys have been there, thought that. Then again, he also doesn't have to explain what might happen if there's a pitching staff in town that can complement a lineup that hit 203 home runs last season and scored more runs than the Mets or Cubs.

Suppose this rebuilt bullpen stops the bleeding. And suppose Harang and Arroyo get help in the rotation from eye-popping spring phenoms Johnny Cueto (13 IP, just 8 hits) and Edinson Volquez (13 IP, 19 strikeouts).

Look at the Reds that way, and they're far from hopeless -- if their new closer simply helps all those pitching pieces drop into place. So no wonder his new teammates are so jacked up to have Cordero around.

Heck, it's the highlight of their day just watching him lean in for the sign between pitches -- scrunching himself so low that it's tough to tell whether he is about to manicure the mound with his fingertips or launch into a somersault.

"I think when he throws, his arm moves so fast that all the blood rushes out of his fingers, so he has to get it back down there," Dunn said, laughing. "That's my guess. But you know what? He can do whatever he wants -- he can stand on his head -- if he goes out there and saves 30 for us."

 

[tylerdub]

I dont think the Reds have the manager to compete. However after taking a good look at them i would have to say they are definitely a darkhorse within thedivision.

 

[arog27]

Just a few days away guys......its gonna be like 56 and rainy here on Monday...=(

 

[theotherai9]

Originally Posted by tylerdub

I dont think the Reds have the manager to compete. However after taking a good look at them i would have to say they are definitely a darkhorse within the division.

 

[bkmac]

Originally Posted by tylerdub

I dont think the Reds have the manager to compete. However after taking a good look at them i would have to say they are definitely a darkhorse within the division.

I have a feeling they might win the Wild Card. They look like they have a solid, fairly young team.

 

[pacmagic2002]

The MAJOR LEAGUE cardinals just lost 10-3 to their AA affiliate.........wow. At least they have some young players good enough to beat a "majorleague" team.............Its gonna be a long season cards fans

 

[wisconsin 4 life]

Sheets vs. Zambrano @ Wrigley Field on National TV to kick off the season.
I mean really, does it get any better than that to open the season?
Can't wait to see Zambrano lose his cool and go nuts after a home run by Fielder.
Less than 24 hours away.

 

[joe billionaire]

LETS GO CUBBIES!!!!!!!

 

[am 1 fiend]

Originally Posted by aRog27

FB even takin shots at us in the Chicago Snow Thread.........i see you homie

I was wondering if any of you would pick up on that

The MAJOR LEAGUE cardinals just lost 10-3 to their AA affiliate.........wow. At least they have some young players good enough to beat a "major league" team.............Its gonna be a long season cards fans
I have the dumpster ready to go on opening day

 

[rhcp729]

anyone else from saint louis going to be at opening day?

 

[dacomeup]

Johnny Cueto- ROY

Aaron Harang NL Cy Young

Lets get it!

 

[wildkycat]

Originally Posted by DaComeUP

Johnny Cueto- ROY

Aaron Harang NL Cy Young

Lets get it!

sounds good to me. if Cueto wins ROY, we'll be in good shape.

 

[pacmagic2002]

AM 1 Fiend.........I almost won tickets from my job to the game, but for some reason i couldnt think of the dudes name in the trivia question they asked us.

They asked who is the most popular Cardsl player that also played for the Oakland A`s.............I knew it was Dennis Eckersley, i just couldnt get the damnname out until RIGHT after the time ran out

.......Coulda been sitting in CPI corps lux box too

, oh yea, im HIGHLY upset.

 

[wildkycat]

They asked who is the most popular Cardsl player that also played for the Oakland A`s.............I knew it was Dennis Eckersley
Eck? Mulder ain't popular with the Cards?

 

[bkmac]

Originally Posted by wildKYcat

They asked who is the most popular Cardsl player that also played for the Oakland A`s.............I knew it was Dennis Eckersley

Eck? Mulder ain't popular with the Cards?

McGwire isn't liked either?

 

[mjfresh]

Cubs takin it

 

[pacmagic2002]

Well.........The question was more specific.............Was a pitcher in the 90`s

 

[arog27]

I hope we can get the game in on Monday. I the forecast has been calling for rain.....its gonna be warm though, in the 60's.

I hope Big Z goes 7 innings, 4 hits, 1 run, 9k's, 1 BB, and 2-4 at the plate. Cubs win 7-1

 

[CP1708]

aRog27 wrote:

---

I hope we can get the game in on Monday. I the forecast has been calling for rain.....its gonna be warm though, in the 60's.

I hope Big Z goes 7 innings, 4 hits, 1 run, 9k's, 1 BB, and 2-4 at the plate. Cubs win 7-1

I take that. For the helluva it, let Z hit a couple batters to get the season off to a big start. Too much love goin on these days, we need a good olfashioned rivalry this season. No earholes or nothin like that, but maybe a pitch or two in the ribs to get us all excited.