Base Clogging version 2.0

[RynoRules]

I hope no one is in shock over this quote.

[sherwood921]

I hope no one is in shock over this quote.

 

I'm just frustrated, because not only is it idiotic, it contradicts what he says about his pitchers giving up walks. It's one thing to be stupid, it's another to be stupid and ignorant.

[YearofDaCubs]

Dear Tribune,

 

Please fire MacPhail, Hendry, and Baker. That is all..

[stitchface]

I hope no one is in shock over this quote.

 

I'm just frustrated, because not only is it idiotic, it contradicts what he says about his pitchers giving up walks. It's one thing to be stupid, it's another to be stupid and ignorant.

 

the explanation is dusty thinks walks are entirely controlled by the pitcher. hitters have no say in whether they walk or not - only the pitchers. yes, I am serious.

[frostwyrm]

Does he also think a slow, singles hitter is bad, since they're clogging the bases too?

Funny thing is Dusty asked Hendry to re-sign Eric Karros and Randall Simon for 2004, and they were both slow singles hitters. Maybe he liked their veteran moxie or gamerishness.

[Butterscup1679666578]

Dear Tribune,

 

Please fire MacPhail, Hendry, and Baker. That is all..

 

And then sell the organization.

[Drew Doughty]

Dear Tribune,

 

Please fire MacPhail, Hendry, and Baker. That is all..

 

And then sell the organization.

 

i don't get why we want to ditch the trib. they dole out plenty of money for Hendry to spend, and he screws up.

[NCCubFan]

Here's some simple math, Dusty; see if you can grasp this. If a player hits a home run with the bases completely clogged, that's 4 runs. If a player hits a home run with the bases completely unclogged, that's 1 run. 4 is greater than 1. Got it?

[barryfoote]

Another aspect about taking walks (or at least working the count) is that you make the pitcher throw more pitches and therefore are more likely to get to the middle relievers, which tend to be the weakest part of many clubs.

[soapy]

You would think we would have the best pitching staff in baseball because we lead th league in walks. The bases will always be clogged.

 

Does Dusty think his pitchers giving up walks is bad? just a question, because if so he is trully not qualified for the job.

He hates when his pitchers gives up walks. Same with Hendry. That makes this all the more confusing/maddening/idiotic.

That's the first thing that jumped out to me as well. Dusty sees his pitchers give up tons of runs because of walks, but doesn't make the correlation to his own team's offense. I just don't see how it can be laid out in front of him any better.

 

1. Power wasn't a problem in 2004 and 2005 and they still couldn't score (in fact, I think Dusty complained that the only way they scored was via the homerun).

 

2. The Cubs pitchers give up walk after walk only to constantly watch it come back to haunt them.

 

I really can't even comprehend how anyone with any kind of intelligence can't put these things together and realize this team needs to improve its OBP.

[CubColtPacer]

After reading this again, these are my thoughts.

 

Dusty never said improving the team's OBP was bad in this article-in fact, he's all for it-but he believes it is secondary to increasing the team's slugging percentage. As he said, a good OBP is great, but the team needs to improve their slugging first-implying that they would then need to improve their OBP. You and I may disagree, saying that we need to improve our OBP first and foremost, but all Dusty is doing here is reversing the order of what we need to do. This article could be a lot worse-Dusty could be talking about trying to improve our RISP numbers. Instead, the one bad point he made was that a great OBP is wasted by bad slugging-but improving the slugging first is hardly a terrible thing, although not ideal.

[soapy]

After reading this again, these are my thoughts.

 

Dusty never said improving the team's OBP was bad in this article-in fact, he's all for it-but he believes it is secondary to increasing the team's slugging percentage. As he said, a good OBP is great, but the team needs to improve their slugging first-implying that they would then need to improve their OBP. You and I may disagree, saying that we need to improve our OBP first and foremost, but all Dusty is doing here is reversing the order of what we need to do. This article could be a lot worse-Dusty could be talking about trying to improve our RISP numbers. Instead, the one bad point he made was that a great OBP is wasted by bad slugging-but improving the slugging first is hardly a terrible thing, although not ideal.

And he's right that the SLG needs to improve, but the SLG was not a problem in 2004 and 2005 while the Cubs were still poor offensively. He of all people should be able to see that.

[wastra]

I....he....but....he can't really.....

 

 

 

 

AAAAAAAAAAARRRRRRRRRRGGGGGGGGGHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!

 

 

 

(wastra'a head exploded afte reading the article this morning)

[CubColtPacer]

After reading this again, these are my thoughts.

 

Dusty never said improving the team's OBP was bad in this article-in fact, he's all for it-but he believes it is secondary to increasing the team's slugging percentage. As he said, a good OBP is great, but the team needs to improve their slugging first-implying that they would then need to improve their OBP. You and I may disagree, saying that we need to improve our OBP first and foremost, but all Dusty is doing here is reversing the order of what we need to do. This article could be a lot worse-Dusty could be talking about trying to improve our RISP numbers. Instead, the one bad point he made was that a great OBP is wasted by bad slugging-but improving the slugging first is hardly a terrible thing, although not ideal.

And he's right that the SLG needs to improve, but the SLG was not a problem in 2004 and 2005 while the Cubs were still poor offensively. He of all people should be able to see that.

 

I don't think he would have had a problem improving the OBP in 2004 and 2005 while the SLG was good (except for having the middle guys of the order walk more, which would probably reduce SLG, which he wouldn't want-but I think he would be just fine to have the other people walk more, and he'd always be fine for increasing OBP by increasing people's AVG). We were average offensively in 2004 (16th) and below average in 2005 (20th) while being 3rd and 6th in SLG respectively. All Dusty is saying is that we need to improve our SLG, get to average offensively, than we can improve our OBP and become a great offensive team.

[Tomarken]

if Dusty goes fishing and he doesn't catch anything, it's because all those fish were clogging the pond for the ones that can swim.

[goonys evil twin]

After reading this again, these are my thoughts.

 

Dusty never said improving the team's OBP was bad in this article-in fact, he's all for it-but he believes it is secondary to increasing the team's slugging percentage. As he said, a good OBP is great, but the team needs to improve their slugging first-implying that they would then need to improve their OBP. You and I may disagree, saying that we need to improve our OBP first and foremost, but all Dusty is doing here is reversing the order of what we need to do. This article could be a lot worse-Dusty could be talking about trying to improve our RISP numbers. Instead, the one bad point he made was that a great OBP is wasted by bad slugging-but improving the slugging first is hardly a terrible thing, although not ideal.

And he's right that the SLG needs to improve, but the SLG was not a problem in 2004 and 2005 while the Cubs were still poor offensively. He of all people should be able to see that.

 

I don't think he would have had a problem improving the OBP in 2004 and 2005 while the SLG was good (except for having the middle guys of the order walk more, which would probably reduce SLG, which he wouldn't want-but I think he would be just fine to have the other people walk more, and he'd always be fine for increasing OBP by increasing people's AVG). We were average offensively in 2004 (16th) and below average in 2005 (20th) while being 3rd and 6th in SLG respectively.

How would walking more reducing SLG? It wouldn't.

 

Quit making excuses for Dusty. He undervalues OBP, and undervaluing a valuable commodity is as bad as saying you don't want it.

 

OBP is a problem, OBP has been a problem, and OBP will remain a problem because Dusty and Hendry put so little emphasis on it. It's not good enough to be willing to have a higher OBP, after SLG improves. That's simply not good enough. They have to actively work to improve OBP, not just be open to the notion that it might improve on its own.

 

The Cubs offense's number 1 problem, without question, without doubt, without debate, has been a lack of OBP. Fail to address that problem, and you fail the team.

 

All Dusty is saying is that we need to improve our SLG, get to average offensively, than we can improve our OBP and become a great offensive team.

 

No he isn't. Quit trying to give him credit for stuff he's not doing. He has no interest in improving OBP. The Cubs had great SLG, but were a mediocre to bad offense when they had it, and they did nothing to improve OBP. There is no possible justification for claiming Dusty wants to improve OBP after SLG. He had the SLG before and ignored OBP, he will always ignore OBP because he's an ignorant dinosaur.

[goonys evil twin]

You would think we would have the best pitching staff in baseball because we lead th league in walks. The bases will always be clogged.

 

Does Dusty think his pitchers giving up walks is bad? just a question, because if so he is trully not qualified for the job.

He hates when his pitchers gives up walks. Same with Hendry. That makes this all the more confusing/maddening/idiotic.

 

I don't think that's true about Hendry. He's never been afraid to acquire pitchers who walk everybody, and the staffs he puts together routinely give up the most walks in baseball. He's much more interested in hard throwers that miss bats than guys who don't walk people. He's never put an emphasis on pitchers who don't walk, and went out and got guys who do give up walks, so my guess is he doesn't really care about the walk in general (at least in comparison to how much the rest of the league cares).

 

Dusty, he cares. He hates pitchers that give up walks, because he thinks the only person that influences whether or not there is a walk issues is the pitcher.

[C.C.]

Dusty's just sounds so old school. The game has pasted Dusty by. I'm just amazed that Jim Hendry doesn't see the importance of OBP? He's a young GM that has coached and been around baseball his whole life. I can't believe he's not looking at the past 4 years and not seeing the one consistent this offense has lacked? I'm not really surprised by Dusty midset, but Hendry has really been a disappointment.

[goonys evil twin]

Dusty's just sounds so old school. The game has pasted Dusty by. I'm just amazed that Jim Hendry doesn't see the importance of OBP? He's a young GM that has coached and been around baseball his whole life. I can't believe he's not looking at the past 4 years and not seeing the one consistent this offense has lacked? I'm not really surprised by Dusty midset, but Hendry has really been a disappointment.

 

Hendry isn't a young man. He's 5 years younger than Dusty. And he was around the college game most of the time. As far as I can tell, college baseball is even more "old school" in its approach than MLB. There aren't too many Beanes in NCAA. Hendry is a "baseball man", the kind of guy with relationships throughout the sport, and a complete unwillingness to think his contemporaries are anything but the best at what they do.

 

I had high hopes for Hendry, largely because I ignored all the signs that he completely undervalued the walk (both in terms of negative value associated with giving them up, and positive value when taking them).

[RynoRules]

Dusty's just sounds so old school. The game has pasted Dusty by. I'm just amazed that Jim Hendry doesn't see the importance of OBP? He's a young GM that has coached and been around baseball his whole life. I can't believe he's not looking at the past 4 years and not seeing the one consistent this offense has lacked? I'm not really surprised by Dusty midset, but Hendry has really been a disappointment.

 

Hendry isn't a young man. He's 5 years younger than Dusty. And he was around the college game most of the time. As far as I can tell, college baseball is even more "old school" in its approach than MLB. There aren't too many Beanes in NCAA. Hendry is a "baseball man", the kind of guy with relationships throughout the sport, and a complete unwillingness to think his contemporaries are anything but the best at what they do.

 

I had high hopes for Hendry, largely because I ignored all the signs that he completely undervalued the walk (both in terms of negative value associated with giving them up, and positive value when taking them).

 

C'mon now, Goony, I think we can all agree that "the game has pasted Dusty".

[wastra]

Once again, Dusty has shown that he simply doesn't understand what OBP really is.

 

he seems to think that SLG and OBP are mutually exclusive- that you can't get a guy with a good OBP who can hit the ball hard. he's just totally clueless. All guys with high OBP are not slow fat guys who walk a lot. Some are atheltic, powerful hitters who hit the snot out of the ball. Some are hard nosed doubles-tiples kidna guys. Some are dumpy little singles hitters.

 

The point is not that we want or need one or the other, it's that we've totally ignored that part of a player's game for many years.

 

Oh, he hit 30 homers last year? let's sign him to a 2 year deal.

 

He stole 50 bases? Go get him!

 

Our leadership has totally missed the point that hitting 30 homers doesn't help your team if you make an out 70% of the time you come to the plate. THAT'S why we cean't get good "Situational" hitting...because we frankly can't get just "good hitting." We make too many outs.

 

Our leadership ignores the fact that a guy's 50 stolen bases occurred on 50 of the whole 110 tiems he reached base, showing that he limited the number of times there WERE men on base.

 

 

So the problem isn't devaluing obp, and it's not being stubborn. They just don't understand what people mean when they talk OBP or statstics to them. When a reporter asks about OBP, they THINK they know what they mean, but the truth is, hendry and Baker simply are on a different page with the very basic concept of NOT MAKING OUTS. They don't understand that no one is telling them to go get a fat, weak, slow guy who walks a lot. They dont' understand that no one is saying they need 8 leadoff singels hitters with high OBP and no power in the lineup. When Bruce or another writer asks about OBP, the reason he gets such baffling answers isn't because Baker and Hendry devalue it intentionally, it's because they just don't know what the reporters are talking about, and most alarmingly from my perspective is that they don't seem to even have a clue that they're ignorant about what they're commenting on.

 

At nearly $100 million, there's simply no excuse NOT to have 3-5 studly type of hitters in the order who can BOTH hit it hard as hell and take a walk when the pitcher gives it to them. Those players exist- Hendry and baker just don't recognise them as more valuable than a guy with a touch MORE power but less ability to lay off bad pitches.

 

Hence Jacques Jones for 3 years in right field. :roll:

[goonys evil twin]

Dusty's just sounds so old school. The game has pasted Dusty by. I'm just amazed that Jim Hendry doesn't see the importance of OBP? He's a young GM that has coached and been around baseball his whole life. I can't believe he's not looking at the past 4 years and not seeing the one consistent this offense has lacked? I'm not really surprised by Dusty midset, but Hendry has really been a disappointment.

 

Hendry isn't a young man. He's 5 years younger than Dusty. And he was around the college game most of the time. As far as I can tell, college baseball is even more "old school" in its approach than MLB. There aren't too many Beanes in NCAA. Hendry is a "baseball man", the kind of guy with relationships throughout the sport, and a complete unwillingness to think his contemporaries are anything but the best at what they do.

 

I had high hopes for Hendry, largely because I ignored all the signs that he completely undervalued the walk (both in terms of negative value associated with giving them up, and positive value when taking them).

 

C'mon now, Goony, I think we can all agree that "the game has pasted Dusty".

 

I'm not questioning his pastedness.

[CubColtPacer]

After reading this again, these are my thoughts.

 

Dusty never said improving the team's OBP was bad in this article-in fact, he's all for it-but he believes it is secondary to increasing the team's slugging percentage. As he said, a good OBP is great, but the team needs to improve their slugging first-implying that they would then need to improve their OBP. You and I may disagree, saying that we need to improve our OBP first and foremost, but all Dusty is doing here is reversing the order of what we need to do. This article could be a lot worse-Dusty could be talking about trying to improve our RISP numbers. Instead, the one bad point he made was that a great OBP is wasted by bad slugging-but improving the slugging first is hardly a terrible thing, although not ideal.

And he's right that the SLG needs to improve, but the SLG was not a problem in 2004 and 2005 while the Cubs were still poor offensively. He of all people should be able to see that.

 

I don't think he would have had a problem improving the OBP in 2004 and 2005 while the SLG was good (except for having the middle guys of the order walk more, which would probably reduce SLG, which he wouldn't want-but I think he would be just fine to have the other people walk more, and he'd always be fine for increasing OBP by increasing people's AVG). We were average offensively in 2004 (16th) and below average in 2005 (20th) while being 3rd and 6th in SLG respectively.

 

How would walking more reducing SLG? It wouldn't.

I wasn't saying there it would decrease his percentage-more that it would decrease his slugging numbers, which Dusty wouldn't like (although I would rather take the walks)

Quit making excuses for Dusty. He undervalues OBP, and undervaluing a valuable commodity is as bad as saying you don't want it.

 

Undervaluing it is very much different than putting no value on it. Neither is what you want, but one is much better than the other. Also, I'm not making excuses for Dusty-the quote is not the right way to go, it's just not as bad as even usual for him or nearly as bad as its being made out to be.

OBP is a problem, OBP has been a problem, and OBP will remain a problem because Dusty and Hendry put so little emphasis on it. It's not good enough to be willing to have a higher OBP, after SLG improves. That's simply not good enough. They have to actively work to improve OBP, not just be open to the notion that it might improve on its own.

 

The Cubs offense's number 1 problem, without question, without doubt, without debate, has been a lack of OBP. Fail to address that problem, and you fail the team.

 

Agreed on that it has been a problem and is still a problem..of course, now SLG is a problem as well-both need to be addressed in the offseason. The problem has been 1 and 1a for most of the season-only a late season slugging increase has made the slugging number only below average while the OBP has been in the bottom 3 teams in the league.

I also think that they have actively tried a little bit to improve OBP. Why did they get rid of Patterson and get rid of Pierre? Patterson has about the same speed-he has more power, and probably better defense. The only thing Pierre did better than Patterson was get on base. The same with the Nomar trade-what does Nomar do better than Gonzalez first and foremost? get on base. You can certainly argue that they do not do enough to increase OBP (which would be a correct argument, they need to do more), but they have taken steps to try to acheive a higher OBP.

 

All Dusty is saying is that we need to improve our SLG, get to average offensively, than we can improve our OBP and become a great offensive team.

 

No he isn't. Quit trying to give him credit for stuff he's not doing. He has no interest in improving OBP. The Cubs had great SLG, but were a mediocre to bad offense when they had it, and they did nothing to improve OBP. There is no possible justification for claiming Dusty wants to improve OBP after SLG. He had the SLG before and ignored OBP, he will always ignore OBP because he's an ignorant dinosaur.

 

I'm taking the wanting to improve OBP straight from that quote. He wants to improve SLG more than anything, which could certainly mean that OBP is a problem. He also said a great OBP is great if you have good SLG numbers-which is not right, but it does mean that he would like to have a great OBP after he gets good SLG numbers. Again, Dusty is not correct on the order, but he is not nearly as far off as is being said-all he's saying here is that you need to have a good SLG to make a good OBP worth it, which is again not correct but at least better than many things he's said before.

[goonys evil twin]

The same with the Nomar trade-what does Nomar do better than Gonzalez first and foremost? get on base.

 

Dusty is not correct on the order, but he is not nearly as far off as is being said-all he's saying here is that you need to have a good SLG to make a good OBP worth it, which is again not correct but at least better than many things he's said before.

 

Again, you're giving him too much credit. He's proven he doesn't care about OBP. He's proven it over and over. Why somebody would be willing to give the guy the benefit of the doubt that he actually wants better OBP is beyond me. He doesn't care about OBP. If he has more of it, great. If he has less, so what.

 

 

Nomar is not know for OBP ability. He's as big a free swinger as there is. The difference is he's really good at it and has a great SLG. He's one of the very few players that actually fit the Hendry/Baker mold, and are successful. The problem is those guys are very rare.

 

 

 

Undervaluing it is very much different than putting no value on it. Neither is what you want, but one is much better than the other.

 

No, it really isn't. MLB is about competing against 29 other teams. It's not enough to win games. You have to win more games than everybody else. It's not enough to score some runs. You've got to score more runs than the others. Everything in baseball is about how you stack up against the others. You could make that argument that Neifi Perez is actually a really good baseball player. The problem is he's one of the worst players in MLB. You could pretend Dusty would like a little more OBP, the problem is he doesn't place enough value in it to get more of it than everybody else.

 

Dusty doesn't value OBP, it's clear as day. To think otherwise is to lie to yourself. There's evidence that he actually thinks OBP is bad, hence the clogging, but that's debatable. What is not debatable is that Dusty doesn't see the value of OBP, doesn't see the need for OBP and that the lack of OBP has been killing this team's offense.

[C.C.]

Dusty's just sounds so old school. The game has pasted Dusty by. I'm just amazed that Jim Hendry doesn't see the importance of OBP? He's a young GM that has coached and been around baseball his whole life. I can't believe he's not looking at the past 4 years and not seeing the one consistent this offense has lacked? I'm not really surprised by Dusty midset, but Hendry has really been a disappointment.

 

Hendry isn't a young man. He's 5 years younger than Dusty. And he was around the college game most of the time. As far as I can tell, college baseball is even more "old school" in its approach than MLB. There aren't too many Beanes in NCAA. Hendry is a "baseball man", the kind of guy with relationships throughout the sport, and a complete unwillingness to think his contemporaries are anything but the best at what they do.

 

I had high hopes for Hendry, largely because I ignored all the signs that he completely undervalued the walk (both in terms of negative value associated with giving them up, and positive value when taking them).

 

Ummmm...So we agree that Hendry has been a disappoinment?