he’s a bonafide lefty leadoff hitter with alot of playoff experience. i love johnny damon and would love to have him.

..NOT Damon

I was going for the sarcasm effect.

you are mistaken. His bat leaves me wanting more and if the Cubs are in the market for a LH OF slugger, this means they are willing to spend the money necessary to get someone better than Damon. So as for the argument against, why would the Cubs grab an aging declining OF when they have all but been given the green light on a younger and likely more productive one?

Damon isn’t the worst OF out there but the Cubs can do better.

that’s 6 innings, only three left. With our starters, that should be a common occurence.

that Marshall hasn’t shown that he can handle a season in the starting rotation without hitting the DL. I’m not necessarily in favor of Johnson but I do prefer seeing Marshall as long man/#6 right now.

it doesn’t look like “he’s done” when you look at the numbers.

I don’t think there is any way we should give up Marmol. Save for a few hiccups, he has been great. And, considering our bullpen woes in the past (Bob Howry anyone?), it would be nice to have a reliable back end of our bullpen. We started to get a taste of that with Woody.

Hawpe is a great pitcher, but uI think we give Marmol a chance and see if he can handle the closer role.

But RJ was pretty good last year, I think it could be worth it on a one year deal, so no long term financial commitment

WAAAAY to early in his career to even think about it

It’s pretty noncommittal, says “exchanged pleasantries”. If my choice is Bradley or Dunn, obviously, I take Dunn. At least he’s healthy— played 150 or more games six of the last seven years, and the last five in a row.

What will be the down-market pitching pay this year? If the Mets overpay for Redding, it will be very good for Hendry in trading Marquis.

As for your question:

Why on earth do we want to do that when the alternative is to hang onto Jason Marquis and let him continue to take the ball every 5th day and log valuable innings?

Because Lou doesn’t let Marquis log valuable innings. When Marquis is pitching, Lou has an itchy trigger finger for the ‘pen. It’s understandable. Marquis can go from prince to pumpkin in a half-inning. But what that does is put strain on the bullpen. Marquis would earn his money if we used him to soak up innings and save the ‘pen. We don’t use him that way. If you’re going to have a 5th starter go 5 innings, you might as well use Sean Marshall, who can do that with a lower ERA than Marquis.