Are you kidding?

As he said, he has a family to consider. How are they expected to survive on the mere $16,000,000 he was owed at that point when he was in danger of becoming a reliever?

wanna hear a word out of a 5th starter. do what your told,when you told. kinda like a kicker on a football team. shut your mouth and do the job we assign you to do.marquis is garbage and i want him off this team badly!

That’s BS.

Saying “I’d prefer to remain a starter, as it’s what I’ve always been” would’ve been fine.

His “start me or trade me, I’m NOT going to the bullpen” attitude was complete crap.

But it is a risk. There’s no reason to think Marshall is going to be better or even as good as Marquis. The one thing you get with Marquis is a guy who will consistently give his team a chance to win.

I’m not sure I’m ready to take that risk.

The minimum salary in 2009 is $400,000.

that hasn’t shown he can handle the workload. I’m not saying Marshall shouldn’t be given his chance but be careful for what you wish for.

and I’ll gladly take your $375K. In exchange, you can have all the balls I catch next year. We got a deal?

First, because he was apparently out drinking after a game, tripped on a curb (or something), and slammed into the dumpster bruising his lower back.

Second, because he tried to cover it up at first and say that he had been hurt working out.

Since we all know what the escape rate is from Lou’s doghouse, it is plausible to assume that he would be non-tendered if they can’t trade him this week.

Lou gave Jason an early hook often.

As an example, there’s the June 14 game at Toronto. The Cubs were up 6-0 when Jason was pulled having thrown 78 pitches, 49 for strikes. Marquis gave up three singles in the top of the 8th and Lou went to Carlos Marmol. Sure the bases were loaded and Marquis hadn’t recorded an out in the 8th. But he also hadn’t been hit hard, either, and he had handled the Jays easily the whole rest of the game.

I totally understand why Lou doesn’t trust Marquis. But Marquis is capable of pitching more innings than the Cubs have used him for. You just know that for every two innings he’s out there, he’s going to give up a run.

Marquis only once didn’t make it past 5.

In comparison, Z didn’t get far 4 times.

Going into a regular season every team will win 1/3 of their games——period.

They are going to lose 1/3 of their games——-period.

The rest is the mix where the standings is determined. One of that is managing your bullpen where innings eating is part of that. You look for your starters to provide you 6 IP per start…that is why it is called a quality start where the starter performs giving up less than 3 runs in those 6 innings.

That means you are in the game…..in those 1/3 or those 54 games (plus the other 54 games you should win). Last year the Cubs won 97 or almost 80% of those games that was statistically in doubt.

Marquis gave the Cubs 167 IP over 29 starts or 5.2 IP per start—-almost a perfect 6 IP per start. He had 13 quality starts and won 11 of those games. Therefore Piniella can manage his bullpen in front of him (to prepare for the 3 innings Marquis leaves) and the start after him.

It is not propaganda it is reality. Now the problem is if you have a team that is win now….then you look to close up the weak links in the chain…..If you can field a 5 man rotation that takes the mound is better in each pitcher than the one they are facing this changes the above formula by percentage points. The Peavy-Z-Dempster-Lilly-Harden rotation if it remained healthy 32 times 5 starts would be extraordinary (2 to a swing)…..but let us be real. Harden has not done that so his starts should be expected 25——(roughly 3 below the 5th starter’s normal rotation), thus placing one start on the 4 starters plus plus 3 to a swing or 5 starts.

If Marshall is the swing than he averages less than 5 IP per start and that will add more pressure on bullpen. Then you have Z and Peavy also should not be expected to go 33 starts, let us say each are skipped 3 times in the year or 6more games. Now the swing starter is looking at 11 starts through the year and possibly not distributed equally.

So now an Innings eater is really critical for during the grind part of the season Mid-May through September you need to manage your bullpen.

Finally the biggest reason why professional athletes get hurt is fatigue—-

He is rumored to have offered significantly more than anyone else for Soriano. I’d also like to know why he overpays these guys then also gives many of them no-trade clauses.

Marquis was expected to be #4 behind Z, Lilly, and Hill. He was nominally the “#3” because Lou wanted to split up Lilly and Hill.

outside of cubsluver22’s bizarre hatred, is that we can move forward with other needs once we know if we can shed some or all of his salary. Even if we get back junk, perhaps getting rid of Marquis is a prelude to the Peavy deal. Or his slot is given to Marshall and the money goes towards Furcal/Dunn/etc. We have some pitching depth right now, so an average Marquis is expendable.