Crooked Pitch

Today’s pitch count is 4.

1. At the Cubs Convention, Lou Pinella mentioned that Sean Marshall was the leading candidate for the fifth rotation spot. In seven starts, last season, Marshall was 1-4 with a 4.15 ERA and a 3.00 strikeout to walk ratio (36:12 K:BB). As a reliever his record was 2-1 with a 3.42 ERA and a 2.00 K:BB ratio (22:11). Hitters averaged .229 against him as a reliever and .255 against him as a starter.
2. The LoHud Yankees Blog gives some compelling reasons why the Yanks aren’t going to go after Ben Sheets and Jon Garland. For Sheets is a bum elbow. Garlands second half ERA (5.99), September ERA (7.18), and full-season 1.51 WHIP are detractors against him. Those are good enough reasons for your fantasy team to be equally uninterested in these guys.
3. If you haven’t seen Fantasy Baseball Hot Stove you need to go take a look right now. He started back on October 30, 2008 with the tag line “With 158 days until Opening Day I am ranking the top 158 players in fantasy baseball for the 2009 season. One player will be profiled everyday.”, and he’s putting out some incredible stuff. Today he profiled Chipper Jones who is #79.
4. The Fantasy Man is holding a fantasy t-shirt contest. There’s some good prizes involved. Go check it out.