I cannot wait for baseball

Spring training is finally here, and I've neglected to say really anything about the Cubs since Carlos avoided arbitration. Last week. Well, that's over for now, as I'm dying for the season to begin.

First, there was an article on Jason Marquis on chicagosports.com. The article was pretty stupid, and it was mainly Marquis making excuses for his performance last year. He pretty much blames his poor numbers on the start against the White Sox where he was left in to get a pounding. And, supposedly, his ERA skyrocketed just because of that. Not true. His ERA is still terrible if you take that out. His PERA for last year, taking into account peripheral statistics I don't even understand (Baseball Prospectus is fucking loaded with stats. It is literally insane) was 5.71. The PERA is less subject to luck, and 4.5 is average. Obviously, Marquis was well below average. What about his other numbers though? Well, the other two that stick out to me on his PECOTA card are his "Stuff," which measures his dominance, WHICH WAS NEGATIVE, -14 to be exact. The other is his VORP, Value Over Replacement Player, WHICH WAS ALSO NEGATIVE, at -5.7.

So Marquis sucked last year. In 15 innings, J.K. Ryu, whom the Cubs traded over the offseason, performed pretty poorly, and his VORP was only -3.7. Les Fucking Walrond had a better VORP than Marquis. Ok, Angel Guzman had a worse one. Seriously, I was looking at Cubs pitchers who performed poorly last year (in short stints) and it took me three to find one with a worse VORP than Marquis.

But what about this article? First, Marquis is pretty much blaming La Russa for his poor numbers last year. Didn't La Russa realize it was his contract year? How dare he.

Then, Paul Sullivan goes on to say that the Cubs expect big things out of Marquis this year. Not true at all. Well, if it is true, then we're up shit creek. He was brought in to be a 4th starter out of spring training, only because we have so many question marks at the end of the rotation. But we are not lacking in depth. So, if we can find two pitchers to perform better, Marquis probably moves to the bullpen. But, given the shitty, shitty, shitty contract we gave him, money matters might make us keep him in the rotation over, say, Sean Marshall, who, surprise!, has better numbers than Marquis. Definitely by mid-season though, Marquis should be our fifth starter, and if he's not, he will still be our worst starter.

Then Sullivan talks to Lou Piniella, who I'm liking more and more all the time. I really hope I don't start to hate him, because I've said a couple times that I actually think he could be a good manager. I guess that's easy to say before the season starts. Anyways, Piniella says if you take three or four of Marquis's bad starts away, his ERA drops to about 4.5. This is actually probably pretty close to true. Well, it probably drops to 5. But the problem is that you can't take 3 or 4 of those starts away. Lou also uses the phrase "malt-liquor-bull type of approach." I don't know what that means, but I like it.

So let's get off of how depressing the Jason Marquis signing is and to SPECULATION!

Well, first, I saw this article about a week ago, talking about how Felix Pie and Alfonso Soriano have been hanging out together a lot at camp. This is awesome news, because Soriano can help Pie with what to expect, and Pie can help Soriano with defense. And obviously, having Pie around keeps a very expensive Soriano happy.

Now to the speculation. Jacque Jones may spend a lot of time in center field this year. Perhaps the Cubs are showing him off a lot right now so they can build up his value as a team player. But why would they want to ship him off when there's really no viable replacement?

Well, first, there sort of is. We've got Angel Pagan who started out last year awesome, and who knows?, maybe he can hit a curveball this eyar. Pagan can play for when Cliff Floyd gets hurt, while we've got Soriano in center.

Second, Soriano is happy when Pie is around. It makes no sense to have Pie up with the team unless he's playing every day though. Why not give Pie center? Well, don't give it to him, but if he earns it, why not let him have it? PECOTA (STATS!!!) projects Pie will bat .289 this year, in his first year in the majors. That would be stellar. Hell, all Pie really needs to do is hit somewhere around .270.

I think that the spring games will show what direction the Cubs will move in. If Pie is hitting, because we all know he can do EVERYTHING else, then I say the Cubs intensify the plan to move Jones. If Pie isn't hitting, then they'll probably keep Jones around, at least for a little while. I really can't see the Cubs moving Jones to bring in another CF though, when basically everyone on our roster can play the outfield.

So, in review:

Jason Marquis sucks, and he's kind of being a bitch about his terrible numbers last year. The Cubs are not looking for big things from him. Unless you consider not getting hurt "big things."

Jacque Jones probably won't end the season with the Cubs, but will he begin it with them? I hope not.

What do I do now?

Now that my wounds have healed from the Bears loss in the Super Bowl (I'm awfully fickle), it's time to look ahead in this sports year of 2007. The Super Bowl just ended, the Pro Bowl(!) is just a couple days away, pitchers and catchers report in just over a week. But how are you supposed to fill in the spaces? Nobody cares about the Pro Bowl, and just beause pitchers and catchers report doesn't really mean anything. But here's how I plan on filling in the gaps.

1. Major coke/alcohol binge - I have developed a new method of time-travel, patent pending, in which I drink a lot of alcohol and then I don't remember anything when I wake up. So the alcohol would be for time-travel. The coke however, is to make the time (that I won't remember) go faster. Also, I could really use that two week coke-binge to do something good, like clean my apartment 45 times.

2. Watch college basketball - As an Illini fan, it's my job to root for the Illini. It's not so much root for the Illini as dread any sort of loss that will completely destroy their season. Tonight they play at Northwestern. Northwestern is terrible, and yet I'm not confident that the Illini will blow them out, which is what they should do. Following that there are games at Indiana and Iowa. I'm almost positive we'll lose to Indiana but the Iowa game is the real terror. Iowa is a shitty team, and yet they beat Indiana. So I'll be spending this time basically waiting for the Illini to fall apart, while secretly hoping that they don't. Anyways, if you don't have any rooting interests in college basketball, the least you could do is watch every game Texas and Ohio State play, and then draw your own conclusions about the better player to draft would be or why. Or at least watch Kevin Durant's domination of the college game. Your call. Well, the least you could do would be nothing at all.

3. Watch hockey - Hey! They play hockey still. Good for the NHL. I really don't watch hockey, but if you do, then good for you. You can spend this break between popular sports by rooting for your favorite teams. If there's anything I remember from playing NHL 94, it's that the Hartford Whalers were a can't-lose team. I bet they're destined for great things this season as well.

4. Help fix your favorite baseball team - Maybe you're not entirely happy with your team's offseason moves. I've been very vocal on here about how much the Cubs signing Jason Marquis sucks. It sucks so bad. Well, why not help them modify their roster? How can you do this? You can put a hit out on Jason Marquis. If he "mysteriously" doesn't report to spring training, then he can't ruin the team, which he is almost certain to do. This can work for probably just about every team in baseball also. (Note: If you're worried about the ramifications of murder/collusion/attempted murder, you can probably just cut off their arms or something. Anything as long as they can never play again.)

5. The NBA is on! - We're actually just getting to the heart of the NBA season. Well, I actually consider the heart as the playoffs, because that's where everything is really interesting, but we're near the All-Star break, which is a little past the halfway point. There are a number of interesting story-lines to follow. Will Gilbert Arenas be the MVP? Is there any chance anyone can beat the Suns or the Mavericks? Who's the gay Net? Is it Vince Carter? Vince Carter? It's Vince Carter, isn't it? How good of a draft pick will the Knicks get hosed for this year?

6. Kill a hobo - It's not like you actually get charged with anything. Hobos are disappearing all the time. The police don't seem to care. It's a good way to practice your killing techniques too, just in case you ever get in a fight or something. And people say hobos are good for nothing.

So this is just a short list of things I will be doing to pass the time until March Madness, which is really the next great thing in sports that people actually care about.

Why does he lie?

So I saw this this morning and I immediately puked. Not just a little, oops I puked in my mouth but swallowed it back down. I mean I used like two or three garbage bags to contain the massive amounts and almost projectile vomit.

Perhaps it was metaphoric vomit, but nonetheless, Jim Hendry is disgusting me with his comments on the Marquis deal.

So Paul Sullivan, the Cubs beat writer for the Tribune, apparently was struggling to come up with something to write about. Jason Marquis finalized his contract yesterday, and he thought surely this warrants an article.

But, Jim Hendry is just blatantly lying about the Marquis deal. Well, not lying per se, but he's putting his own spin on the contract, and on Marquis's statistics.

So I'm just going to point out some of Hendry's lies here, since really no one should believe what he's saying on this matter.

"He was going to get $20 to $21 million from three or four different [teams]; that was a definite."

Wrong. There were no rumors that Marquis was getting any deals. The only team rumored to have any interest in Marquis was the Cubs. Also, Marquis had some of the worst numbers of absolutely all of the starters in the MLB, let alone free agent starters. Hendry's next lie was that this was deal at market value. Which is a lie! You can set the value of a shitty starter. Because no one wants him! Also, why would you give a shitty starter 3 years? It's entirely unnecessary. What a liar.

"Certainly over a three-year look back, Jason's statistics, and wins, certainly validate that kind of a salary."

You're fucking wrong again. Wins are the most misleading statistic when it comes to deciding the value of a pitcher. Sure, they're important, but if you judge just by wins alone, they're not important. Basically you could have shitty numbers, say, almost the worst in all of baseball in terms of ERA and still rack up, about, oh, 14 wins if you get enough run support. All you have to do is last 5 innings for a win as a starter. When evaluating a player's value, salary or otherwise, you have to look at all of his statistics: ERA, innings pitched, home runs given up, opponent batting average, run support. Also, when evaluating starters' records, it's important to look at how many leads were lost by their bullpen. Or runners stranded by the bullpen. Wins alone are almost meaningless, unless you are single-handedly going out, giving up 2 runs and pitching 8 innings everytime (props to Johan Santana, who I think is the most dominant starter in the game currently. I know, I'm going out on a limb).

"Over the last three years [Marquis] won more games than Zito and Schmidt."

Of course he did, he didn't play on underachieving teams. Maybe it should come as no surprise that he was able to win games for a team that has had one of the most potent offenses in the past three seasons, especially in a division that normally has at least 3 teams well below average every season. This technically isn't a lie, but it's misleading nevertheless.

I mean, I suppose if hell freezes over and Rothschild is actually able to help a pitcher improve, then there may be a chance that Marquis will perform well and be worth this kind of money. Will he be considered a bargain? Hell no. If he is ever considered a bargain at this price, I will shave all of the hair on my head.

STILL. There is no reason to give this kind of pitcher this kind of money when he's basically had one good season in the past 3. ESPECIALLY WHEN HE WAS ARGUABLY THE WORST STARTER ON THE MARKET. We fucked up the market value when we offered him that kind of money. So I refuse to buy any of Hendry's bullshit about this being the market rate. Give him a one year contract, perhaps laden with incentives should his ERA crack 5 (doubtful) or if he gets to 13 wins (questionable), and then we can re-evaluated him next season or extend him before the season's over.

Really this should not have been a complicated deal. It never should have happened at all, that money would be better spent on, say, Jeff Suppan. But, it's done (poorly). But luckily if we only look at, say, half the stats, it looks kind of ok, right?