How about some props for Maddux

[imb]

 

Why not? At least he plays. No one seems to be angry about paying 1/5 of our payroll for 2 guys who don't even play (one not even on the team and the other on the DL for 2/3rds of every season).

 

You're angry about Dubois? Which side of this argument are you on? You'd rather bring in an expensive underachiever rather then let Dubois play for much cheaper and give him a chance to devlop into a equal player?

 

If you think Maddux is the reason we didn't sign JD Drew, I don't even know what to say to you.

 

I think it's hilarious that people think Maddux is some sort of cash sucking albatross that is easily replaced by unproven rookies and keeping us from signing a LFer. I don't see why we would take away something that isn't a problem because he is mythically keeping us from signing left fielders.

 

Not wanting Maddux on the team next year has nothing to do with how he has pitched in the past, including 05 and 04. I would rather pocket that 9 million and try to put it towards a weakness (relief, outfield, whatever) than spend it on a strength.

 

The reason I'm not mad about the Nomar and Wood deals is because they were smart deals that didnt pan out. Wood looked like a future star that was over his injury risks and Nomar signed an incentive laden deal to be the shortstop that we have never had. Maddux's third year is stupid and unnecessary.

 

No I'm not angry about Dubois? I'm upset he hasnt really produced, whether you want to place the blame for that on Dusty or on him is up to you, but the fact is, to date, neither he or Hollandsworth has produced in left field. I never said Maddux isnt the reason we didnt sign Drew, but Maddux on the team next year is going to really hinder signing/trading for an outfielder in 06.

[UK1679666180]

Really, UK, Goony, JC, all you guys.

 

You kill me. Outside of Zambrano, Maddux has only been the most consistently good pitcher the Cubs have had since his signing. The Cubs are 9 games over .500 when he pitches (in 49 starts) and he is likely to pitch another 200 innings this year. You can hang your hat on ERA all you want but the name of the game is wins, team wins.

 

Can you honestly say that the same outcome would have occurred if Mitre, Guzman, Welly, would have started those games?

 

Before you mention Rusch, since the Maddux signing Rusch has started 27 games going 9 and 6. In that time he has 12 ND and the team has won 5 and lost 7 in those games. The Cubs are one game over .500 when he pitches.

 

But if it makes you feel better about lamenting over money that the Cubs don't seem to be concerned about go right ahead.

 

 

I still believe it would have been wise to give someone like Cruz the 5th spot and/or allocated that money on someone like Clement to a long-term deal as a better option than someone who will be getting paid for what he has done, rather than what he will do.

 

I still contend that if Maddux wasn't previously with the Cubs and had the talks with Himes end like they did, he would not have been an option for the '04 season.

 

This was a publicity move 1st and a baseball move 2nd.

 

I think the 24 mil allocated towards Maddux should've rec'd more value than it will likely rec. from a year and a half from now when the contract expires.

 

Wins and losses are as only as good as the team around him, Maddux would be closer to 225-250 wins than 312 wins if he stayed with Chicago his entire career. Why would there be a 50-75 win difference? B/c the Braves have been a much better team during the duration of Greg's departure and not all of that falls onto the hands of him.

[SouthSideRyan]

Will he be 8.7 million dollars better? Nope.

 

Is anybody on this team (their contract - 300K) better than one of our replacements in AAA besides Ramirez and Lee? Should we toss them all overboard and go with nothing but prospects? The money has to be spent somewhere, and in that offseason the only other spot to fill it on would've been SS. The only good SS out there iirc was Tejada, and iirc, there were a lot of people around here that didn't want him at that price either because of his iffy OBP.

 

And I think people are underestimating what Maddux did last year. A 113 ERA+ from a starter is not close to mediocre.

[Laura]

Everyone making over $5M should be replaced (except maybe DLEE).

 

 

 

Maddux was signed in the 03-04 off-season. Having to unload Sosa the way the Cubs did played a far greater role in the current makeup of the OF than any other factor. Don't blame Maddux for not getting JD Drew.

 

I'll just say again that Maddux's contract ranks far down the list of Cubs concerns for the future at this point. I assumed from the moment he signed that the option would likely vest because Maddux pitches 200 innings a year. I'm happy with the return on investment at this point, and I'm betting I'll be happy with the return on investment at the end of '05. Because I also assume Maddux isn't going anywhere unless the Cubs completely and totally collapse.

 

You can quote this and yell at me if I'm wrong, or you can forget about it if I'm right. :) That's my take, and I'm not going to get involved with every Maddux argument that occurs over the next year and a half.

 

GO MADDUX! GO CUBS!

[imb]

Will he be 8.7 million dollars better? Nope.

 

Is anybody on this team (their contract - 300K) better than one of our replacements in AAA besides Ramirez and Lee? Should we toss them all overboard and go with nothing but prospects? The money has to be spent somewhere, and in that offseason the only other spot to fill it on would've been SS. The only good SS out there iirc was Tejada, and iirc, there were a lot of people around here that didn't want him at that price either because of his iffy OBP.

 

And I think people are underestimating what Maddux did last year. A 113 ERA+ from a starter is not close to mediocre.

 

Im not saying play every position on the cheap, im saying there is no need to spend all of our money on a strength and ignore our weaknesses. You know I'm not saying that, so cut it out.

 

If, in the offseason, it turns out that there were no possible upgrades available, and 9 million spent on Maddux is the best value for the money, I'll happily eat crow, because I love Maddux and I love watching him pitch.

 

To elaborate on my feelings, the 2/12 part of the contract I have no problem with. its the 1/9 on the end that I hate. I think if it came down to the contract, as is, or no contract at all, then I would have declined.

[fearthecubs]

Can't anything be said for wins being a pretty good reflection of a pitchers ability to get the job done? I don't buy into the fact that wins are only a team statistic, Randy Johnson managed to win 16 with the 2004 D'Backs, did he not? Clement is doing a lot better with the Red Sox than with us, due to clubhouse environment. Wins are a measure of skill, comfortability, and the ability to keep your team in a game no matter how their offense is doing in that particular game.

[imb]

Clement is doing better because his numbers are all basically the same, except he's giving up fewer HR's this year, which has nothing to do with clubhouse environment (he loved it in Chicago and he loved the other pitchers on our staff)

 

Quick, who do you want

 

Player A who has 9 wins in 16 starts

 

or

 

Player B who has 4 wins in 15 starts

 

Player A right? I mean, after all, "Wins are a measure of skill, comfortability, and the ability to keep your team in a game no matter how their offense is doing in that particular game"

 

Well good job buddy, you just picked Doug Davis over Carlos Zambrano.

[TruffleShuffle]

Clement is doing better because his numbers are all basically the same, except he's giving up fewer HR's this year, which has nothing to do with clubhouse environment (he loved it in Chicago and he loved the other pitchers on our staff)

 

Quick, who do you want

 

Player A who has 9 wins in 16 starts

 

or

 

Player B who has 4 wins in 15 starts

 

Player A right? I mean, after all, "Wins are a measure of skill, comfortability, and the ability to keep your team in a game no matter how their offense is doing in that particular game"

 

Well good job buddy, you just picked Doug Davis over Carlos Zambrano.

 

I've got another one:

 

Player A, who has 9 wins in 16 starts

 

or

 

Player B, who has only 6 wins in 15 starts

 

 

Obviously, player A is Doug Davis, with his 4.44 ERA and 1.37 WHIP.

 

Player B is Roger Clemens, with his 1.51 ERA and 0.95 WHIP. Apparently the 300 game winner has just forgotten how to win in his old age.

[TB_11]

Can't anything be said for wins being a pretty good reflection of a pitchers ability to get the job done? I don't buy into the fact that wins are only a team statistic, Randy Johnson managed to win 16 with the 2004 D'Backs, did he not? Clement is doing a lot better with the Red Sox than with us, due to clubhouse environment. Wins are a measure of skill, comfortability, and the ability to keep your team in a game no matter how their offense is doing in that particular game.

 

Randy Johnson was the best pitcher in the NL last year, better than Clemens in every major stat except one - wins. Johnson finished with 16 wins and Clemens with 18.

 

Wins are not an accurate statistic to compare pitchers - there are too many other factors conrtributing to a team winning a game to attribute it all to the pitcher.

[XZero771679666304]

Why is Clement winning more in Boston? Maybe it's because he is recieving an average of 7.45 runs of support a game. Last year with the Cubs, he got 4.03, and 4.20 the year before that. You are going to win alot of games when your team scores seven and a half runs a game for you.

[TB_11]

Why is Clement winning more in Boston? Maybe it's because he is recieving an average of 7.45 runs of support a game. Last year with the Cubs, he got 4.03, and 4.20 the year before that. You are going to win alot of games when your team scores seven and a half runs a game for you.

 

Yep. While Clement's K/9 are down this year vs last, so are his walks/9. Overall his BAA, OBP allowed, and SLG allowed are comparable to last year.

 

XZero where do you get your run support numbers from?

[CubinNY]

Wins are a team stat not a pitcher stat, per sey. But the stat is not unimportant either. Like all data they are just another piece of information that aid in judgment. It is important to analyze performance using all the data at hand. If a pitcher pitches well enough to keep his team in most ball games then he is a good pitcher IMO. The best way I know how to judge that is by looking at team wins when the pitcher is on the mound. It certianly is not a perfect metric but it is a pretty good indicator of overall effectiveness.

 

ERA is not perfect either. A pitcher could give up several runs after an error, for example. In fact, there are a number of factors that could skew the data. In general I'm not a big fan of measures of central tendency (i.e., averages, etc.) as the only metric when looking at overall performance. I think they are often accurate but don't tell the whole story.

[XZero771679666304]

Why is Clement winning more in Boston? Maybe it's because he is recieving an average of 7.45 runs of support a game. Last year with the Cubs, he got 4.03, and 4.20 the year before that. You are going to win alot of games when your team scores seven and a half runs a game for you.

 

Yep. While Clement's K/9 are down this year vs last, so are his walks/9. Overall his BAA, OBP allowed, and SLG allowed are comparable to last year.

 

XZero where do you get your run support numbers from?

 

ESPN.coms stats. It's under individual pitcher rankings, expanded II.

 

I remember so many games Clement started and dominated, only to get one or no runs. Kerry has had the same problem. I remember getting in a argument with a Cards fan on the Cards.com site a year or two ago about Wood vs. Morris, and if you transferred Morris' run support to Kerry, he would have had 22+ wins 2 or 3 times, conservatively. If you go back and see how many games Wood and Clement started over the past few years in which they went 6+ innings allowing 3 or less runs and either lost or got a ND, it's mind boggling.

 

Wins are so overrated, just ask Clemens this year. The fact that Johnson won 16 last year is a testament to how totally dominating he was. Or how Astros fans were talking about how Pettitte was a legit #1 because he won 20+ games...well, things arent going so well in Houston for ol' Andy without the Bronx Bombers behind him. I could go on and on about how overrated wins are, but I digress.

[XZero771679666304]

Wins are a team stat not a pitcher stat, per sey. But the stat is not unimportant either. Like all data they are just another piece of information that aid in judgment. It is important to analyze performance using all the data at hand. If a pitcher pitches well enough to keep his team in most ball games then he is a good pitcher IMO. The best way I know how to judge that is by looking at team wins when the pitcher is on the mound. It certianly is not a perfect metric but it is a pretty good indicator of overall effectiveness.

 

ERA is not perfect either. A pitcher could give up several runs after an error, for example. In fact, there are a number of factors that could skew the data. In general I'm not a big fan of measures of central tendency (i.e., averages, etc.) as the only metric when looking at overall performance. I think they are often accurate but don't tell the whole story.

 

I just look at the overall stat package. WHIP, ERA, BAA, K/BB are all indicators for me. When they are all good, it indicates that that pitcher is good. Sometimes that equates to wins, sometimes not. Sometimes you get pitchers with excellent peripherals and few wins, and other times you get pitchers with a boatload of wins and poor or average stats.

 

IMO, if there is a consensus among most of the stats, you should consider the mismatching stats to be anomalous, even if it is the win total.

[SouthSideRyan]

Will he be 8.7 million dollars better? Nope.

 

Is anybody on this team (their contract - 300K) better than one of our replacements in AAA besides Ramirez and Lee? Should we toss them all overboard and go with nothing but prospects? The money has to be spent somewhere, and in that offseason the only other spot to fill it on would've been SS. The only good SS out there iirc was Tejada, and iirc, there were a lot of people around here that didn't want him at that price either because of his iffy OBP.

 

And I think people are underestimating what Maddux did last year. A 113 ERA+ from a starter is not close to mediocre.

 

Im not saying play every position on the cheap, im saying there is no need to spend all of our money on a strength and ignore our weaknesses. You know I'm not saying that, so cut it out.

 

If, in the offseason, it turns out that there were no possible upgrades available, and 9 million spent on Maddux is the best value for the money, I'll happily eat crow, because I love Maddux and I love watching him pitch.

 

To elaborate on my feelings, the 2/12 part of the contract I have no problem with. its the 1/9 on the end that I hate. I think if it came down to the contract, as is, or no contract at all, then I would have declined.

 

Why was it more important to fill in one hole on the offensive side compared to one hole on the pitching side? Just because our pitching was the strength of the team doesn't mean you shouldn't evaluate the cost benefits of upgrading the weak offense compared to reinforcing the strong pitching. A run saved is a run earned.

 

Asking if Maddux will be worth the 9 million in '06 is not evaluating the situation fairly. It's disregarding the fact that Maddux was probably a bargain last year at 6M, and the jury will still be out on his 9M for this year. It's easy to say now that you'd decline, but at the time the contract was signed, Maddux looked like a stablizing force in the 5 spot. If things worked out the way things were envisioned when the contract was signed (Team wise, not Maddux's stats) then nobody would be complaining. It's hard to blame Maddux for the rest of the team not performing as expected either.

 

And I had forgot to mention earlier, somebody mentioned that Maddux was CLEARLY declining. In '99 people said the same thing. His IP dropped, and all of his rates suffered, his K rate especially. Maddux was 33 that season, and it looked like he was entering a decline phase. Still a real good pitcher, but not vintage Maddux. He came back from '00-02 with ERA+ of 155, 144, and 157. Taking Maddux's one year in '03 as a surefire representation of a decline is some real revisionist history.

[goonys evil twin]

And I had forgot to mention earlier, somebody mentioned that Maddux was CLEARLY declining. In '99 people said the same thing. His IP dropped, and all of his rates suffered, his K rate especially. Maddux was 33 that season, and it looked like he was entering a decline phase. Still a real good pitcher, but not vintage Maddux. He came back from '00-02 with ERA+ of 155, 144, and 157. Taking Maddux's one year in '03 as a surefire representation of a decline is some real revisionist history.

 

I may have been that person.

 

Revisionist history? Explain that claim. Doesn't make sense. I'm talking about the present and future. Maddux has been in a decline since the late 90's, and it'll just continue.

[Tim]

And I had forgot to mention earlier, somebody mentioned that Maddux was CLEARLY declining. In '99 people said the same thing. His IP dropped, and all of his rates suffered, his K rate especially. Maddux was 33 that season, and it looked like he was entering a decline phase. Still a real good pitcher, but not vintage Maddux. He came back from '00-02 with ERA+ of 155, 144, and 157. Taking Maddux's one year in '03 as a surefire representation of a decline is some real revisionist history.

those ERA+'s did represent a decline, though. Consider that his previous five years looked like: 273, 259, 162, 191, 191. I think the people who said he had decline and that "vintage Maddux" was gone forever were correct. And since then, the 105, 113 ERA+ Maddux of 2003, 2004 is probably the best you can hope for in 2005 and 2006.

 

BTW - Maddux is my single favorite player of all time and I love having him back on the Cubs from a fan's point of view. From a baseball point of view, I believe those dollars could be invested more wisely.

[BleedCubbieBlue81]

I'm going to stay out of this debate today, as it just went in circles yesterday. But I saw this article, and thought it was interesting. So I'll post it here for all the Maddux fans, and Cub fans, to enjoy.

 

http://sports.espn.go.com/mlb/columns/story?columnist=rogers_phil&id=2095672

[TruffleShuffle]

I'm going to stay out of this debate today, as it just went in circles yesterday. But I saw this article, and thought it was interesting. So I'll post it here for all the Maddux fans, and Cub fans, to enjoy.

 

http://sports.espn.go.com/mlb/columns/story?columnist=rogers_phil&id=2095672

 

 

Yeah, Exhibit 800 in why Phil Rogers sucks. Maddux has been average at best this year, but sure, he's been as valuable to the Cubs this year as he was to the Braves when he had some of the best pitching seasons in history. Sorry Phil, but his 4.86 ERA is not as indispensible as you seem to believe. Being able to take the ball every 5 days and throw it for 5 or 6 innings in a mediocre fashion does not make a guy indispensible... otherwise Jeff Suppan and every other #3-4 pitcher in the league should be considered indispensible.

[Knightlife_in_Lubbock]

bump.

[Soul]

Mad Props for the Mad Dog.

 

If only he hadn't won that World Series with the Braves, he might go into the Hall of Fame with Cubbie blue on his noggin. Oh well.

 

Just when we needed this guy to come through, he's been dynamite. AWESOME.

[KatJ]

Mad Props for the Mad Dog.

 

If only he hadn't won that World Series with the Braves, he might go into the Hall of Fame with Cubbie blue on his noggin. Oh well.

 

Just when we needed this guy to come through, he's been dynamite. AWESOME.

 

Don't forget 3 out of 4 Cy's, NL East Division champs ad infinitum, and the majority of the best of his career.

 

He came through last year, too, when needed, although not to this level. But then, Z wasn't stinking it up last year early.

[goonys evil twin]

He came through last year, too, when needed, although not to this level.

 

I'm not sure what you mean by "came through" but he was a sub .500 pitcher with 4.24 ERA and slightly above average peripherals. This fantastic start to 2006 doesn't erase his unimpressive first 2 seasons back with the Cubs. Although if he maintains this pace and helps this team to some postseason success, I'll be more than happy to pretend.

[Chocolate Milk]

If Maddux can maintain his ERA+ of 350 for the rest of the year...I'll be marginally satisfied.

[srbin84]

He came through last year, too, when needed, although not to this level.

 

I'm not sure what you mean by "came through" but he was a sub .500 pitcher with 4.24 ERA and slightly above average peripherals. This fantastic start to 2006 doesn't erase his unimpressive first 2 seasons back with the Cubs. Although if he maintains this pace and helps this team to some postseason success, I'll be more than happy to pretend.

 

He wasn't great the last two years, but he was still better than both Prior and Wood in both years, so that is why people hold him in high regard.