Lilly Rotation; Zambrano Bullpen

[Brownie]

There's really not any one line here that's any less stupid than the rest so I guess I'll just have to quote the whole thing.

1. Carlos Zambrano sure looked good working out of the bullpen Monday night. Let's not get too excited just yet, but if his arm holds up it's hard to see why Lou Piniella ever would let him out of that role.

Without Zambrano's 1 2-3 innings, the Cubs probably don't get that 10-inning win over Washington. They've been a different team since Piniella announced that Zambrano was going into the bullpen to fill the team's void from the right side, winning five of six games to reach .500 after opening the season 5-9, and just may have taken a radical action that produces amazing results.

Lots of people, present company included, weren't wild about the move when Piniella announced it last Wednesday. But Zambrano's 93- and 94-mph fastballs worked awfully well in front of Carlos Marmol's mesmerizing combination of fastballs and sliders against the Washington Nationals. It was also important for Piniella that Zambrano could be extended beyond one inning, which should be the case on something of a regular basis.
Let's see how well Zambrano holds up physically and emotionally to working as a set-up man. If he can handle it in both areas, and if the starting rotation remains solid enough that he's not missed in his usual role, then the Cubs could go from having the worst bullpen in baseball to one that's above average -- with lefties Sean Marshall and John Grabow joining Zambrano and Marmol in working the last three innings.

This could be an advantage for the Cubs in head-to-head matchups with St. Louis -- the team the Cubs must beat if they're going to be contenders -- but it can't be fully judged after only two outings in a span of four days.

Zambrano did a nice job talking about his feelings before the game Monday. He's right in saying that a willingness to make the transition shows he's a team player. If he can sustain that willingness -- something that shouldn't be that difficult for all of 2010, as it's the middle year on a guaranteed five-year contract, and thus of little long-term financial impact -- it could be huge.

Zambrano as a starter was never a leader. Zambrano as a reliever could become a leader. Who saw that coming?

Maybe Jim Hendry. Maybe Larry Rothschild. Maybe Greg Maddux. Maybe Piniella. And almost nobody else, including Zambrano.

What's your take, CFiHP?

R-V, why did you take out the good stuff? Like the bit where Phil Rogers congratulated himself on coming up with the idea for a Crosstown Trophy (And call it the Elwood Blues Cup-- so CLEVER!), or the real gem in which Alex Rios and John Danks along with a bunch of White Sox "prospects" would be an attractive centerpiece for the Brewers to deal them Prince Fielder.

I think the Desipio database can only hold 10.2 jigabytes of stupidity. I was afraid of crashing the site and depriving everyone of the ability to read the riveting Kurt Evans brouhaha.

That can't be right.  I'm sure we've exceeded that capacity long ago.

Are you stating that we're all a bunch of morans?

That's it. I'm suing Dolan!

[Gilgamesh]

There's really not any one line here that's any less stupid than the rest so I guess I'll just have to quote the whole thing.

1. Carlos Zambrano sure looked good working out of the bullpen Monday night. Let's not get too excited just yet, but if his arm holds up it's hard to see why Lou Piniella ever would let him out of that role.

Without Zambrano's 1 2-3 innings, the Cubs probably don't get that 10-inning win over Washington. They've been a different team since Piniella announced that Zambrano was going into the bullpen to fill the team's void from the right side, winning five of six games to reach .500 after opening the season 5-9, and just may have taken a radical action that produces amazing results.

Lots of people, present company included, weren't wild about the move when Piniella announced it last Wednesday. But Zambrano's 93- and 94-mph fastballs worked awfully well in front of Carlos Marmol's mesmerizing combination of fastballs and sliders against the Washington Nationals. It was also important for Piniella that Zambrano could be extended beyond one inning, which should be the case on something of a regular basis.
Let's see how well Zambrano holds up physically and emotionally to working as a set-up man. If he can handle it in both areas, and if the starting rotation remains solid enough that he's not missed in his usual role, then the Cubs could go from having the worst bullpen in baseball to one that's above average -- with lefties Sean Marshall and John Grabow joining Zambrano and Marmol in working the last three innings.

This could be an advantage for the Cubs in head-to-head matchups with St. Louis -- the team the Cubs must beat if they're going to be contenders -- but it can't be fully judged after only two outings in a span of four days.

Zambrano did a nice job talking about his feelings before the game Monday. He's right in saying that a willingness to make the transition shows he's a team player. If he can sustain that willingness -- something that shouldn't be that difficult for all of 2010, as it's the middle year on a guaranteed five-year contract, and thus of little long-term financial impact -- it could be huge.

Zambrano as a starter was never a leader. Zambrano as a reliever could become a leader. Who saw that coming?

Maybe Jim Hendry. Maybe Larry Rothschild. Maybe Greg Maddux. Maybe Piniella. And almost nobody else, including Zambrano.

What's your take, CFiHP?

R-V, why did you take out the good stuff? Like the bit where Phil Rogers congratulated himself on coming up with the idea for a Crosstown Trophy (And call it the Elwood Blues Cup-- so CLEVER!), or the real gem in which Alex Rios and John Danks along with a bunch of White Sox "prospects" would be an attractive centerpiece for the Brewers to deal them Prince Fielder.

I think the Desipio database can only hold 10.2 jigabytes of stupidity. I was afraid of crashing the site and depriving everyone of the ability to read the riveting Kurt Evans brouhaha.

That can't be right.  I'm sure we've exceeded that capacity long ago.

You'd be amazed how much current stupidity compression can be done with very little loss.

[Oleg]

There's really not any one line here that's any less stupid than the rest so I guess I'll just have to quote the whole thing.

1. Carlos Zambrano sure looked good working out of the bullpen Monday night. Let's not get too excited just yet, but if his arm holds up it's hard to see why Lou Piniella ever would let him out of that role.

Without Zambrano's 1 2-3 innings, the Cubs probably don't get that 10-inning win over Washington. They've been a different team since Piniella announced that Zambrano was going into the bullpen to fill the team's void from the right side, winning five of six games to reach .500 after opening the season 5-9, and just may have taken a radical action that produces amazing results.

Lots of people, present company included, weren't wild about the move when Piniella announced it last Wednesday. But Zambrano's 93- and 94-mph fastballs worked awfully well in front of Carlos Marmol's mesmerizing combination of fastballs and sliders against the Washington Nationals. It was also important for Piniella that Zambrano could be extended beyond one inning, which should be the case on something of a regular basis.
Let's see how well Zambrano holds up physically and emotionally to working as a set-up man. If he can handle it in both areas, and if the starting rotation remains solid enough that he's not missed in his usual role, then the Cubs could go from having the worst bullpen in baseball to one that's above average -- with lefties Sean Marshall and John Grabow joining Zambrano and Marmol in working the last three innings.

This could be an advantage for the Cubs in head-to-head matchups with St. Louis -- the team the Cubs must beat if they're going to be contenders -- but it can't be fully judged after only two outings in a span of four days.

Zambrano did a nice job talking about his feelings before the game Monday. He's right in saying that a willingness to make the transition shows he's a team player. If he can sustain that willingness -- something that shouldn't be that difficult for all of 2010, as it's the middle year on a guaranteed five-year contract, and thus of little long-term financial impact -- it could be huge.

Zambrano as a starter was never a leader. Zambrano as a reliever could become a leader. Who saw that coming?

Maybe Jim Hendry. Maybe Larry Rothschild. Maybe Greg Maddux. Maybe Piniella. And almost nobody else, including Zambrano.

What's your take, CFiHP?

R-V, why did you take out the good stuff? Like the bit where Phil Rogers congratulated himself on coming up with the idea for a Crosstown Trophy (And call it the Elwood Blues Cup-- so CLEVER!), or the real gem in which Alex Rios and John Danks along with a bunch of White Sox "prospects" would be an attractive centerpiece for the Brewers to deal them Prince Fielder.

I think the Desipio database can only hold 10.2 jigabytes of stupidity. I was afraid of crashing the site and depriving everyone of the ability to read the riveting Kurt Evans brouhaha.

That can't be right.  I'm sure we've exceeded that capacity long ago.

You'd be amazed how much current stupidity compression can be done with very little loss.

That's called data deduplication.  It's a way for storage systems to store only one copy of teh bits that make up the data, instead of an individual copy of each bit.  So, if we e-mail a pdf to 100 people, the Exchange database will only store one copy of the pdf.

Of course that just means we keep saying the same stupid thing over and over.

[Richard Chuggar]

There's really not any one line here that's any less stupid than the rest so I guess I'll just have to quote the whole thing.

1. Carlos Zambrano sure looked good working out of the bullpen Monday night. Let's not get too excited just yet, but if his arm holds up it's hard to see why Lou Piniella ever would let him out of that role.

Without Zambrano's 1 2-3 innings, the Cubs probably don't get that 10-inning win over Washington. They've been a different team since Piniella announced that Zambrano was going into the bullpen to fill the team's void from the right side, winning five of six games to reach .500 after opening the season 5-9, and just may have taken a radical action that produces amazing results.

Lots of people, present company included, weren't wild about the move when Piniella announced it last Wednesday. But Zambrano's 93- and 94-mph fastballs worked awfully well in front of Carlos Marmol's mesmerizing combination of fastballs and sliders against the Washington Nationals. It was also important for Piniella that Zambrano could be extended beyond one inning, which should be the case on something of a regular basis.
Let's see how well Zambrano holds up physically and emotionally to working as a set-up man. If he can handle it in both areas, and if the starting rotation remains solid enough that he's not missed in his usual role, then the Cubs could go from having the worst bullpen in baseball to one that's above average -- with lefties Sean Marshall and John Grabow joining Zambrano and Marmol in working the last three innings.

This could be an advantage for the Cubs in head-to-head matchups with St. Louis -- the team the Cubs must beat if they're going to be contenders -- but it can't be fully judged after only two outings in a span of four days.

Zambrano did a nice job talking about his feelings before the game Monday. He's right in saying that a willingness to make the transition shows he's a team player. If he can sustain that willingness -- something that shouldn't be that difficult for all of 2010, as it's the middle year on a guaranteed five-year contract, and thus of little long-term financial impact -- it could be huge.

Zambrano as a starter was never a leader. Zambrano as a reliever could become a leader. Who saw that coming?

Maybe Jim Hendry. Maybe Larry Rothschild. Maybe Greg Maddux. Maybe Piniella. And almost nobody else, including Zambrano.

What's your take, CFiHP?

R-V, why did you take out the good stuff? Like the bit where Phil Rogers congratulated himself on coming up with the idea for a Crosstown Trophy (And call it the Elwood Blues Cup-- so CLEVER!), or the real gem in which Alex Rios and John Danks along with a bunch of White Sox "prospects" would be an attractive centerpiece for the Brewers to deal them Prince Fielder.

I think the Desipio database can only hold 10.2 jigabytes of stupidity. I was afraid of crashing the site and depriving everyone of the ability to read the riveting Kurt Evans brouhaha.

That can't be right.  I'm sure we've exceeded that capacity long ago.

You'd be amazed how much current stupidity compression can be done with very little loss.

Giga what?  Giga who?

[Bort]

There's really not any one line here that's any less stupid than the rest so I guess I'll just have to quote the whole thing.

1. Carlos Zambrano sure looked good working out of the bullpen Monday night. Let's not get too excited just yet, but if his arm holds up it's hard to see why Lou Piniella ever would let him out of that role.

Without Zambrano's 1 2-3 innings, the Cubs probably don't get that 10-inning win over Washington. They've been a different team since Piniella announced that Zambrano was going into the bullpen to fill the team's void from the right side, winning five of six games to reach .500 after opening the season 5-9, and just may have taken a radical action that produces amazing results.

Lots of people, present company included, weren't wild about the move when Piniella announced it last Wednesday. But Zambrano's 93- and 94-mph fastballs worked awfully well in front of Carlos Marmol's mesmerizing combination of fastballs and sliders against the Washington Nationals. It was also important for Piniella that Zambrano could be extended beyond one inning, which should be the case on something of a regular basis.
Let's see how well Zambrano holds up physically and emotionally to working as a set-up man. If he can handle it in both areas, and if the starting rotation remains solid enough that he's not missed in his usual role, then the Cubs could go from having the worst bullpen in baseball to one that's above average -- with lefties Sean Marshall and John Grabow joining Zambrano and Marmol in working the last three innings.

This could be an advantage for the Cubs in head-to-head matchups with St. Louis -- the team the Cubs must beat if they're going to be contenders -- but it can't be fully judged after only two outings in a span of four days.

Zambrano did a nice job talking about his feelings before the game Monday. He's right in saying that a willingness to make the transition shows he's a team player. If he can sustain that willingness -- something that shouldn't be that difficult for all of 2010, as it's the middle year on a guaranteed five-year contract, and thus of little long-term financial impact -- it could be huge.

Zambrano as a starter was never a leader. Zambrano as a reliever could become a leader. Who saw that coming?

Maybe Jim Hendry. Maybe Larry Rothschild. Maybe Greg Maddux. Maybe Piniella. And almost nobody else, including Zambrano.

What's your take, CFiHP?

R-V, why did you take out the good stuff? Like the bit where Phil Rogers congratulated himself on coming up with the idea for a Crosstown Trophy (And call it the Elwood Blues Cup-- so CLEVER!), or the real gem in which Alex Rios and John Danks along with a bunch of White Sox "prospects" would be an attractive centerpiece for the Brewers to deal them Prince Fielder.

I think the Desipio database can only hold 10.2 jigabytes of stupidity. I was afraid of crashing the site and depriving everyone of the ability to read the riveting Kurt Evans brouhaha.

That can't be right.  I'm sure we've exceeded that capacity long ago.

You'd be amazed how much current stupidity compression can be done with very little loss.

That's called data deduplication.  It's a way for storage systems to store only one copy of teh bits that make up the data, instead of an individual copy of each bit.  So, if we e-mail a pdf to 100 people, the Exchange database will only store one copy of the pdf.

Of course that just means we keep saying the same stupid thing over and over.

Which explains why their is so little variation on the posts in the Clusterfuck threads.

[CubFaninHydePark]

There's really not any one line here that's any less stupid than the rest so I guess I'll just have to quote the whole thing.

1. Carlos Zambrano sure looked good working out of the bullpen Monday night. Let's not get too excited just yet, but if his arm holds up it's hard to see why Lou Piniella ever would let him out of that role.

Without Zambrano's 1 2-3 innings, the Cubs probably don't get that 10-inning win over Washington. They've been a different team since Piniella announced that Zambrano was going into the bullpen to fill the team's void from the right side, winning five of six games to reach .500 after opening the season 5-9, and just may have taken a radical action that produces amazing results.

Lots of people, present company included, weren't wild about the move when Piniella announced it last Wednesday. But Zambrano's 93- and 94-mph fastballs worked awfully well in front of Carlos Marmol's mesmerizing combination of fastballs and sliders against the Washington Nationals. It was also important for Piniella that Zambrano could be extended beyond one inning, which should be the case on something of a regular basis.
Let's see how well Zambrano holds up physically and emotionally to working as a set-up man. If he can handle it in both areas, and if the starting rotation remains solid enough that he's not missed in his usual role, then the Cubs could go from having the worst bullpen in baseball to one that's above average -- with lefties Sean Marshall and John Grabow joining Zambrano and Marmol in working the last three innings.

This could be an advantage for the Cubs in head-to-head matchups with St. Louis -- the team the Cubs must beat if they're going to be contenders -- but it can't be fully judged after only two outings in a span of four days.

Zambrano did a nice job talking about his feelings before the game Monday. He's right in saying that a willingness to make the transition shows he's a team player. If he can sustain that willingness -- something that shouldn't be that difficult for all of 2010, as it's the middle year on a guaranteed five-year contract, and thus of little long-term financial impact -- it could be huge.

Zambrano as a starter was never a leader. Zambrano as a reliever could become a leader. Who saw that coming?

Maybe Jim Hendry. Maybe Larry Rothschild. Maybe Greg Maddux. Maybe Piniella. And almost nobody else, including Zambrano.

What's your take, CFiHP?

http://www.southparkstudios.com/clips/154479

Papers are coming in the morning.  But Andy's uncle got me to see the error of my ways.  Kinda.  I just wish I were better at math.

[Dr. Nguyen Van Falk]

Halladay is in a world all by himself as far as SP's go these days.  I'd be surprised, but not shocked, if he threatened 30 wins this season.

http://www.versus.com/shows/the-daily-line/

   

[CubFaninHydePark]

Halladay is in a world all by himself as far as SP's go these days.  I'd be surprised, but not shocked, if he threatened 30 wins this season.

http://www.versus.com/shows/the-daily-line/

   

An 8% probability occurring is still within my realm of surprised...you need to get to a one or two-outer on the river to get shocked out of me.

[ChuckD]

Halladay is in a world all by himself as far as SP's go these days.  I'd be surprised, but not shocked, if he threatened 30 wins this season.

http://www.versus.com/shows/the-daily-line/

   

An 8% probability occurring is still within my realm of surprised...you need to get to a one or two-outer on the river to get shocked out of me.

I don't think you understand how this "probability" thing works.

[Yeti]

So, it's been, what, 19 days since they sent him to the pen? And Z has pitched in 4 games for 5 innings. In that same time, Jeff Gray has logged 6.1 innings, Grabow has 7.0 innings, Justin Berg has had 7.2 innings, and James Russell has 5 innings. So, Zambrano has pitched fewer innings than 3 other relievers and same as the other. Now, I realize 2 of those guys have done well, at least according to their ERA (and not looking at other things), but it is fucking ridiculous that they haven't gotten Z in there for more innings. I also know he's their setup guy so his role is supposed to be 8th inning of close games, which I know they haven't had lately. However, the point remains that the Cubs have allowed at least their 2nd or 3rd best pitcher to only pitch 5 innings in 19 days when, if he had been starting, he would be making his 4 start tomorrow and have 23-27 innings pitched. This is like sabotaging the team. The whole thing of "Let's win now" completely conflicts this move.

[Brownie]

So, it's been, what, 19 days since they sent him to the pen? And Z has pitched in 4 games for 5 innings. In that same time, Jeff Gray has logged 6.1 innings, Grabow has 7.0 innings, Justin Berg has had 7.2 innings, and James Russell has 5 innings. So, Zambrano has pitched fewer innings than 3 other relievers and same as the other. Now, I realize 2 of those guys have done well, at least according to their ERA (and not looking at other things), but it is fucking ridiculous that they haven't gotten Z in there for more innings. I also know he's their setup guy so his role is supposed to be 8th inning of close games, which I know they haven't had lately. However, the point remains that the Cubs have allowed at least their 2nd or 3rd best pitcher to only pitch 5 innings in 19 days when, if he had been starting, he would be making his 4 start tomorrow and have 23-27 innings pitched. This is like sabotaging the team. The whole thing of "Let's win now" completely conflicts this move.

It's been far too long. That's all we got? Five goddamn innings?

Time to declare this a flop, move Gorzelanny to the bullpen (or Iowa) and put Z back in the rotation.

[Internet Apex]

So, it's been, what, 19 days since they sent him to the pen? And Z has pitched in 4 games for 5 innings. In that same time, Jeff Gray has logged 6.1 innings, Grabow has 7.0 innings, Justin Berg has had 7.2 innings, and James Russell has 5 innings. So, Zambrano has pitched fewer innings than 3 other relievers and same as the other. Now, I realize 2 of those guys have done well, at least according to their ERA (and not looking at other things), but it is fucking ridiculous that they haven't gotten Z in there for more innings. I also know he's their setup guy so his role is supposed to be 8th inning of close games, which I know they haven't had lately. However, the point remains that the Cubs have allowed at least their 2nd or 3rd best pitcher to only pitch 5 innings in 19 days when, if he had been starting, he would be making his 4 start tomorrow and have 23-27 innings pitched. This is like sabotaging the team. The whole thing of "Let's win now" completely conflicts this move.

It's been far too long. That's all we got? Five goddamn innings?

Time to declare this a flop, move Gorzelanny to the bullpen (or Iowa) and put Z back in the rotation.

I'd much rather see Silva booted. He's starting to fall apart.

[Slaky]

This particular appearance is working out really nicely.

[Internet Apex]

This particular appearance is working out really nicely.

Due to the generosity of the middle infield and the home plate ump the Reds received three extra outs that inning. Awesome.

[Armchair_QB]

He'd probably get to pitch more if they were in more games in the eighth inning.