Nomar Open to a Position Change?

[sonicdethmonkey0]

The pitching wouldn't be so shaky if Prior, Zambrano and Wood played up to their potential next year. Of course, what are the chances of that happening?

 

Its got to happen eventually doesn't it?

 

 

Doesn't it???

 

absolutely not

[CubfaninCA]

Fielding shmielding. A player's ability to hit is more important than fielding ability.

 

Is this you just living up to your name? Or do you really mean that?

 

While I'm not willing to do as far as to say that a player's ability to field is as important as a player's ability to hit, or even more important than a player's ability to hit, what I will say is that fielding definately matters and has at least some importance. So hardly "fielding schmielding" at all.

 

Pitching and fielding together is half the game, hitting being the other half. Actually, because in the long run good pitching/decent hitting wins more ballgames than good hitting/decent pitching, the pitching and fielding is slightly more than half. Why is it better? Well, if your starters allow less baserunners, they should throw less pitches, and if they throw less pitches, they should be able to throw more innings before they reach certain pitch counts. That in turn means less bullpen innings, which means that your relievers, on top of having better defence behind them, ought to be fresher, which gives you more effective pitching options, which can help you prevent further runs. If your starters and fielding is effective enough, you may not be able to find work for everyone in your bullpen, so you may be able to run with less pitchers on your staff, so you can have more bench options, which means more in-game flexibility, which, if exploited by the manager, can mean more runs for the offence, or still even better defence and less runs allowed. Furthermore, a pitcher that trusts his defence can be more effective at doing his job as a pitcher, partially because the confidence of his effective fielders rubs off on him, partially because there's no ineffective fielding to rattle him, partially because effective fielding can inspire him to raise his own game. An effective pitcher is often confident in himself too, and therefore better able to get over poor pitches, innings and outings, because he trusts himself and his own ability. Finally, an effective and efficient pitcher that throws less pitches is theoretically less likely to get injured or wear down as the season goes on, and fielders are less likely to get injured because there are less plays to make in the field and they spend less time in the field, which is less sapping for them too, especially catchers. The less tired your best players are the less off-days they need. And so on and so on and so on.

 

Anyway, the Cubs have a potentially great rotation with Zambrano, homerless Prior and healthy Wood, plus okay Maddux and Mr Who Knows. They need to do their best to make the most of that strength, and that means putting as good a defence behind those pitchers as possible without foresaking the required offence. What the optimal offence is relative to the optimal defence, I don't know, but I suspect that the Cubs right now are too offence orientated. Barrett at C, Walker at 2B, Nomar at SS, Ramirez at 3B, Murton and Hairston in the OF, there are 6 positions currently that at the very best are merely average, if not below. Of course, they all (with the glaring exception of Hairston) provide either excellent offence relative to their position or excellent offence relative to their position relative to what they're being paid, so it does give the Cubs a bit of a dilemna as to how to keep such excellent offence/value for money at the same time as improving their defence. I'm not convinced that it's possible.

 

Pitching and fielding's more than half the game. I'd say at least 60-70%.

[CubfaninCA]

How about Nomar in RF?? Doesn't he have a cannon for an arm for a SS?? Not sure how good it would be in the right though. Probably doesn't help that he can't make accuarte throws from SS & 3B to 1B anymore.

 

Just throwing this out there. Possibly the only offensive move they make it Furcal.

[AAApittsburgh]

How about Nomar in RF?? Doesn't he have a cannon for an arm for a SS?? Not sure how good it would be in the right though. Probably doesn't help that he can't make accuarte throws from SS & 3B to 1B anymore.

 

Just throwing this out there. Possibly the only offensive move they make it Furcal.

He's going to sidearm the ball to the cutoff man? I think Nomar's only value to this team is at SS. It's a position where it's hard to find good offensive players, so I'd be willing to take the risk. At RF, it probably wouldn't be very hard to find a player who can outproduce him and play at his natural position.

[CubfaninCA]

How about Nomar in RF?? Doesn't he have a cannon for an arm for a SS?? Not sure how good it would be in the right though. Probably doesn't help that he can't make accuarte throws from SS & 3B to 1B anymore.

 

Just throwing this out there. Possibly the only offensive move they make it Furcal.

He's going to sidearm the ball to the cutoff man? I think Nomar's only value to this team is at SS. It's a position where it's hard to find good offensive players, so I'd be willing to take the risk. At RF, it probably wouldn't be very hard to find a player who can outproduce him and play at his natural position.

 

I think Gammons recently wrote that Nomar may be moving to the outfield. A lot less wear and tear in the OF I guess.

[CuseCubFan69]

IMO the only way Nomar moves to the OF is to stay with the Cubs. I think he'll go to third or SS for some team otherwise.

[Magnetic Curses]

How about Nomar in RF?? Doesn't he have a cannon for an arm for a SS?? Not sure how good it would be in the right though. Probably doesn't help that he can't make accuarte throws from SS & 3B to 1B anymore.

 

Just throwing this out there. Possibly the only offensive move they make it Furcal.

He's going to sidearm the ball to the cutoff man? I think Nomar's only value to this team is at SS. It's a position where it's hard to find good offensive players, so I'd be willing to take the risk. At RF, it probably wouldn't be very hard to find a player who can outproduce him and play at his natural position.

 

i completely agree. bring back nomar at SS and forget an overpriced furcal.

[brinoch]

How about Nomar in RF?? Doesn't he have a cannon for an arm for a SS?? Not sure how good it would be in the right though. Probably doesn't help that he can't make accuarte throws from SS & 3B to 1B anymore.

 

Just throwing this out there. Possibly the only offensive move they make it Furcal.

He's going to sidearm the ball to the cutoff man? I think Nomar's only value to this team is at SS. It's a position where it's hard to find good offensive players, so I'd be willing to take the risk. At RF, it probably wouldn't be very hard to find a player who can outproduce him and play at his natural position.

 

This offseason, it will be difficult to find any OF's who can out-produce Nomar. Simply put, there aren't many free agents available on the market; its a very weak class. Moving Nomar to the OF isn't a tremendous solution to the production problem, but it could be a part of a good solution. Moreover, I think it's very possible that Nomar will take a "lesser" contract figure to play another year in Chicago -- even in the OF. And for the record, I really don't care how he gets it to the cut-off man, so long as he *hits* the cut-off man. ;)

 

Using Nomar is a stop-gap to get you to the really good 2006/2007 free agent winter.

 

As for Furcal vs. Cedeno vs. Walker, I think we have a good, cheap player in Cedeno, and that's not something to sniff at. We can't afford, even with the funds available, to have expensive players at every position. It's important that we have cheap yet solid production from at least one everyday position -- and we have two possibilities with Murton and Cedeno. Prior and Zambrano aren't going to be cheap anymore, so we need to replace that. With Walker, what's there to complain about? His offensive production far outweighs his supposed defensive short-comings.

 

Personally, if he can do it, I'd love to see Murton given a chance to learn CF, hold it until Pie steps up, and then transition back to LF or be replaced by someone like Carlos Lee or Adam Dunn in 2008 (the Reds can't afford him, more than likely). Something like:

 

2006: Garciaparra-Murton-Giles

2007: C. Lee/Murton-Pie-Giles

2008: C. Lee/Dunn-Pie-Giles

2009: C. Lee/Dunn-Pie-Harvey

[AAApittsburgh]

This offseason, it will be difficult to find any OF's who can out-produce Nomar. Simply put, there aren't many free agents available on the market; its a very weak class. Moving Nomar to the OF isn't a tremendous solution to the production problem, but it could be a part of a good solution. Moreover, I think it's very possible that Nomar will take a "lesser" contract figure to play another year in Chicago -- even in the OF. And for the record, I really don't care how he gets it to the cut-off man, so long as he *hits* the cut-off man. ;)

 

Using Nomar is a stop-gap to get you to the really good 2006/2007 free agent winter.

 

As for Furcal vs. Cedeno vs. Walker, I think we have a good, cheap player in Cedeno, and that's not something to sniff at. We can't afford, even with the funds available, to have expensive players at every position. It's important that we have cheap yet solid production from at least one everyday position -- and we have two possibilities with Murton and Cedeno. Prior and Zambrano aren't going to be cheap anymore, so we need to replace that. With Walker, what's there to complain about? His offensive production far outweighs his supposed defensive short-comings.

 

Personally, if he can do it, I'd love to see Murton given a chance to learn CF, hold it until Pie steps up, and then transition back to LF or be replaced by someone like Carlos Lee or Adam Dunn in 2008 (the Reds can't afford him, more than likely). Something like:

 

2006: Garciaparra-Murton-Giles

2007: C. Lee/Murton-Pie-Giles

2008: C. Lee/Dunn-Pie-Giles

2009: C. Lee/Dunn-Pie-Harvey

The only way it would make sense to have Murton and Nomar at the corner OF spots is if we're getting better production from CF just to bring the OF to league average in production. I don't see us getting Giles. There are about 50 other teams he'd play for before the Cubs. Maybe make a trade for someone like Lew Ford or Coco Crisp to play CF?

[CuseCubFan69]

Why not just put Murton in CF? He would have below skills on defense but his hitting would be above average.

[LuckyPup]

This offseason, it will be difficult to find any OF's who can out-produce Nomar. Simply put, there aren't many free agents available on the market; its a very weak class. Moving Nomar to the OF isn't a tremendous solution to the production problem, but it could be a part of a good solution. Moreover, I think it's very possible that Nomar will take a "lesser" contract figure to play another year in Chicago -- even in the OF. And for the record, I really don't care how he gets it to the cut-off man, so long as he *hits* the cut-off man. ;)

 

Using Nomar is a stop-gap to get you to the really good 2006/2007 free agent winter.

 

As for Furcal vs. Cedeno vs. Walker, I think we have a good, cheap player in Cedeno, and that's not something to sniff at. We can't afford, even with the funds available, to have expensive players at every position. It's important that we have cheap yet solid production from at least one everyday position -- and we have two possibilities with Murton and Cedeno. Prior and Zambrano aren't going to be cheap anymore, so we need to replace that. With Walker, what's there to complain about? His offensive production far outweighs his supposed defensive short-comings.

 

Personally, if he can do it, I'd love to see Murton given a chance to learn CF, hold it until Pie steps up, and then transition back to LF or be replaced by someone like Carlos Lee or Adam Dunn in 2008 (the Reds can't afford him, more than likely). Something like:

 

2006: Garciaparra-Murton-Giles

2007: C. Lee/Murton-Pie-Giles

2008: C. Lee/Dunn-Pie-Giles

2009: C. Lee/Dunn-Pie-Harvey

The only way it would make sense to have Murton and Nomar at the corner OF spots is if we're getting better production from CF just to bring the OF to league average in production. I don't see us getting Giles. There are about 50 other teams he'd play for before the Cubs. Maybe make a trade for someone like Lew Ford or Coco Crisp to play CF?

Well, guys I really think the perfect piece for our OF situation is definitely coming via trade- I know there are alot of people here who don't want Juan Pierre but he would solve alot of problems for us- He would be the perfect stopgap for PIE to give hima full year in AAA -plus give us a leadoff hitter with speed-I know alot of people proclaim him to suck but he would be a very sensible decision for the Cubs- He is not much more expensive than Corey and he will be moved this offseason because the Marlins are going to lose their butts again in revenue-With talk of moving Delgado and clearing payroll Pierre is a very logical choice to get moved plus they aren't going to re-sign Burnett so they will need pitching-we got that-3 or 4 rule 5 guys might look good to the Marlins or maybe the O's would move Mora-he's look good in our OF batting 2nd-maye both those teams would like to work a deal around Delgado/Lowell?

[CubfaninCA]

How about Murton, Hunter and Nomar in the OF. Lee, Walker, Furcal and Ramirez in the IF. Barrett @ C. This lineup should produce some runs and be top 5.

 

Furcal, Walker or Cedeno, Lee, ARam, Nomar, Hunter, Murton, Barrett

 

Of course, doesn't sound like Walker will be back.

[Neuby]

Could we pull off a deal with the Red Sox For Manny? We have the prospects and Cash to make something happen along with Hendry and Epstein having a good working relationship (Nomar, Remlinger).

 

Walker 2B

Nomar SS 3 million

Lee 1b

Manny LF

Aram 3B

Murton RF

Barrett C

 

Cubs let Cedeno be the back up infielder at short , 3b,second.

Van Buren, Wuertz, Nova, Willamson, Guzman fight for bullpen spots .

Ohman Dempster are locks. Can they bring in a BJ Ryan or Billy Wagner and let Dempster set up?

 

Prior

Zambrano

Wood

Maddux

 

Could Williams, Patterson ,Mitre, Wellmeyer, net us Manny?

 

Do u bring in Rusch to battle it out with Hill and Guzman for that fifth starters role or break the bank and land Burnett or Millwood?

Can Hendry find a defensive center fielder with speed that hits left handed .

[Backtobanks]

Could we pull off a deal with the Red Sox For Manny? We have the prospects and Cash to make something happen along with Hendry and Epstein having a good working relationship (Nomar, Remlinger).

 

Walker 2B

Nomar SS 3 million

Lee 1b

Manny LF

Aram 3B

Murton RF

Barrett C

 

Cubs let Cedeno be the back up infielder at short , 3b,second.

Van Buren, Wuertz, Nova, Willamson, Guzman fight for bullpen spots .

Ohman Dempster are locks. Can they bring in a BJ Ryan or Billy Wagner and let Dempster set up?

 

Prior

Zambrano

Wood

Maddux

 

Could Williams, Patterson ,Mitre, Wellmeyer, net us Manny?

 

Do u bring in Rusch to battle it out with Hill and Guzman for that fifth starters role or break the bank and land Burnett or Millwood?

Can Hendry find a defensive center fielder with speed that hits left handed .

 

I don't think the Tribune wants to pay anyone $20 million for 1 year. Manny is as good a hitter as you can find, but I think $20 million could be better spent. He might be worth it if he could guarantee a World Series title, but nothing can be guaranteed (especially in Chicago).

[CubfaninCA]

Could we pull off a deal with the Red Sox For Manny? We have the prospects and Cash to make something happen along with Hendry and Epstein having a good working relationship (Nomar, Remlinger).

 

Walker 2B

Nomar SS 3 million

Lee 1b

Manny LF

Aram 3B

Murton RF

Barrett C

 

Cubs let Cedeno be the back up infielder at short , 3b,second.

Van Buren, Wuertz, Nova, Willamson, Guzman fight for bullpen spots .

Ohman Dempster are locks. Can they bring in a BJ Ryan or Billy Wagner and let Dempster set up?

 

Prior

Zambrano

Wood

Maddux

 

Could Williams, Patterson ,Mitre, Wellmeyer, net us Manny?

 

Do u bring in Rusch to battle it out with Hill and Guzman for that fifth starters role or break the bank and land Burnett or Millwood?

Can Hendry find a defensive center fielder with speed that hits left handed .

 

My guess is that Manny ends up w/ the Mets. Perhaps the Cubs can help facilitate a deal between NY and Boston and get either Floyd or Cameron though. Recently read that NY and Boston may swap Beltran for Manny. Altogether, the Trib probably doesn't have the guts to make a deal for Manny. They'd rather put their money into injury prone players.

[AAApittsburgh]

Could we pull off a deal with the Red Sox For Manny? We have the prospects and Cash to make something happen along with Hendry and Epstein having a good working relationship (Nomar, Remlinger).

 

Walker 2B

Nomar SS 3 million

Lee 1b

Manny LF

Aram 3B

Murton RF

Barrett C

 

Cubs let Cedeno be the back up infielder at short , 3b,second.

Van Buren, Wuertz, Nova, Willamson, Guzman fight for bullpen spots .

Ohman Dempster are locks. Can they bring in a BJ Ryan or Billy Wagner and let Dempster set up?

 

Prior

Zambrano

Wood

Maddux

 

Could Williams, Patterson ,Mitre, Wellmeyer, net us Manny?

 

Do u bring in Rusch to battle it out with Hill and Guzman for that fifth starters role or break the bank and land Burnett or Millwood?

Can Hendry find a defensive center fielder with speed that hits left handed .

 

My guess is that Manny ends up w/ the Mets. Perhaps the Cubs can help facilitate a deal between NY and Boston and get either Floyd or Cameron though. Recently read that NY and Boston may swap Beltran for Manny. Altogether, the Trib probably doesn't have the guts to make a deal for Manny. They'd rather put their money into injury prone players.

How about both Floyd and Cameron? Is that possible?

 

walker

murton

lee

aram

floyd

nomar

cameron

barrett

[Sarcastic]

Fielding shmielding. A player's ability to hit is more important than fielding ability.

 

Is this you just living up to your name? Or do you really mean that?

 

While I'm not willing to do as far as to say that a player's ability to field is as important as a player's ability to hit, or even more important than a player's ability to hit, what I will say is that fielding definately matters and has at least some importance. So hardly "fielding schmielding" at all.

 

Pitching and fielding together is half the game, hitting being the other half. Actually, because in the long run good pitching/decent hitting wins more ballgames than good hitting/decent pitching, the pitching and fielding is slightly more than half. Why is it better? Well, if your starters allow less baserunners, they should throw less pitches, and if they throw less pitches, they should be able to throw more innings before they reach certain pitch counts. That in turn means less bullpen innings, which means that your relievers, on top of having better defence behind them, ought to be fresher, which gives you more effective pitching options, which can help you prevent further runs. If your starters and fielding is effective enough, you may not be able to find work for everyone in your bullpen, so you may be able to run with less pitchers on your staff, so you can have more bench options, which means more in-game flexibility, which, if exploited by the manager, can mean more runs for the offence, or still even better defence and less runs allowed. Furthermore, a pitcher that trusts his defence can be more effective at doing his job as a pitcher, partially because the confidence of his effective fielders rubs off on him, partially because there's no ineffective fielding to rattle him, partially because effective fielding can inspire him to raise his own game. An effective pitcher is often confident in himself too, and therefore better able to get over poor pitches, innings and outings, because he trusts himself and his own ability. Finally, an effective and efficient pitcher that throws less pitches is theoretically less likely to get injured or wear down as the season goes on, and fielders are less likely to get injured because there are less plays to make in the field and they spend less time in the field, which is less sapping for them too, especially catchers. The less tired your best players are the less off-days they need. And so on and so on and so on.

 

Anyway, the Cubs have a potentially great rotation with Zambrano, homerless Prior and healthy Wood, plus okay Maddux and Mr Who Knows. They need to do their best to make the most of that strength, and that means putting as good a defence behind those pitchers as possible without foresaking the required offence. What the optimal offence is relative to the optimal defence, I don't know, but I suspect that the Cubs right now are too offence orientated. Barrett at C, Walker at 2B, Nomar at SS, Ramirez at 3B, Murton and Hairston in the OF, there are 6 positions currently that at the very best are merely average, if not below. Of course, they all (with the glaring exception of Hairston) provide either excellent offence relative to their position or excellent offence relative to their position relative to what they're being paid, so it does give the Cubs a bit of a dilemna as to how to keep such excellent offence/value for money at the same time as improving their defence. I'm not convinced that it's possible.

 

Pitching and fielding's more than half the game. I'd say at least 60-70%.

 

Wow. Look, I never said fielding was irrelevant, it just isn't as important as a player's ability to hit. There's no need to write a book to tell me that fielding has some level of significance. All I meant was, I'd rather take Nomar at SS than Furcal, mainly because Furcal will brobably be much more expensive, and he isn't a really great hitter. For a shortstop, he's good, but if Nomar is healthy (I know it's a risk) he could be much better. More importantly the money saved might allow the team to go after another need.

 

That's all I was saying.

[CubfaninCA]

Could we pull off a deal with the Red Sox For Manny? We have the prospects and Cash to make something happen along with Hendry and Epstein having a good working relationship (Nomar, Remlinger).

 

Walker 2B

Nomar SS 3 million

Lee 1b

Manny LF

Aram 3B

Murton RF

Barrett C

 

Cubs let Cedeno be the back up infielder at short , 3b,second.

Van Buren, Wuertz, Nova, Willamson, Guzman fight for bullpen spots .

Ohman Dempster are locks. Can they bring in a BJ Ryan or Billy Wagner and let Dempster set up?

 

Prior

Zambrano

Wood

Maddux

 

Could Williams, Patterson ,Mitre, Wellmeyer, net us Manny?

 

Do u bring in Rusch to battle it out with Hill and Guzman for that fifth starters role or break the bank and land Burnett or Millwood?

Can Hendry find a defensive center fielder with speed that hits left handed .

 

My guess is that Manny ends up w/ the Mets. Perhaps the Cubs can help facilitate a deal between NY and Boston and get either Floyd or Cameron though. Recently read that NY and Boston may swap Beltran for Manny. Altogether, the Trib probably doesn't have the guts to make a deal for Manny. They'd rather put their money into injury prone players.

How about both Floyd and Cameron? Is that possible?

 

walker

murton

lee

aram

floyd

nomar

cameron

barrett

 

Perhaps, but I think the Cubs would have to give up Walker.

[Guest]

Pitching and fielding's more than half the game. I'd say at least 60-70%.

So you think that Neifi Perez (assuming he is/was the best-defending SS around) is more valuable than Manny Ramirez? Should Ozzie Smith be considered the best player of all time instead of Babe Ruth?

 

'Cause if you think that defense is that much more important than hitting, you pretty much have to answer yes to both questions.

[Diffusion]

Pitching and fielding's more than half the game. I'd say at least 60-70%.

So you think that Neifi Perez (assuming he is/was the best-defending SS around) is more valuable than Manny Ramirez? Should Ozzie Smith be considered the best player of all time instead of Babe Ruth?

 

'Cause if you think that defense is that much more important than hitting, you pretty much have to answer yes to both questions.

 

He said that pitching and fielding was more important than hitting. PITCHING AND FIELDING. Not just pitching by itself. And not just fielding by itself, as you've ridiculously tried to suggest that he's saying. Both of them together. No one here is saying that Neifi Perez/Ozzie Smith are better than Manny Ramirez/Babe Ruth.

 

Personally I think the game is 45% hitting, 40% pitching and 15% fielding. Something like that. I don't have any numbers to bear that out, but that's my suspicion. But that doesn't mean that you can say that for any hitter hitting is 3 times more important than fielding. It depends on the player's position.

[Diffusion]

Fielding shmielding. A player's ability to hit is more important than fielding ability.

 

Is this you just living up to your name? Or do you really mean that?

 

While I'm not willing to do as far as to say that a player's ability to field is as important as a player's ability to hit, or even more important than a player's ability to hit, what I will say is that fielding definately matters and has at least some importance. So hardly "fielding schmielding" at all.

 

Pitching and fielding together is half the game, hitting being the other half. Actually, because in the long run good pitching/decent hitting wins more ballgames than good hitting/decent pitching, the pitching and fielding is slightly more than half. Why is it better? Well, if your starters allow less baserunners, they should throw less pitches, and if they throw less pitches, they should be able to throw more innings before they reach certain pitch counts. That in turn means less bullpen innings, which means that your relievers, on top of having better defence behind them, ought to be fresher, which gives you more effective pitching options, which can help you prevent further runs. If your starters and fielding is effective enough, you may not be able to find work for everyone in your bullpen, so you may be able to run with less pitchers on your staff, so you can have more bench options, which means more in-game flexibility, which, if exploited by the manager, can mean more runs for the offence, or still even better defence and less runs allowed. Furthermore, a pitcher that trusts his defence can be more effective at doing his job as a pitcher, partially because the confidence of his effective fielders rubs off on him, partially because there's no ineffective fielding to rattle him, partially because effective fielding can inspire him to raise his own game. An effective pitcher is often confident in himself too, and therefore better able to get over poor pitches, innings and outings, because he trusts himself and his own ability. Finally, an effective and efficient pitcher that throws less pitches is theoretically less likely to get injured or wear down as the season goes on, and fielders are less likely to get injured because there are less plays to make in the field and they spend less time in the field, which is less sapping for them too, especially catchers. The less tired your best players are the less off-days they need. And so on and so on and so on.

 

Anyway, the Cubs have a potentially great rotation with Zambrano, homerless Prior and healthy Wood, plus okay Maddux and Mr Who Knows. They need to do their best to make the most of that strength, and that means putting as good a defence behind those pitchers as possible without foresaking the required offence. What the optimal offence is relative to the optimal defence, I don't know, but I suspect that the Cubs right now are too offence orientated. Barrett at C, Walker at 2B, Nomar at SS, Ramirez at 3B, Murton and Hairston in the OF, there are 6 positions currently that at the very best are merely average, if not below. Of course, they all (with the glaring exception of Hairston) provide either excellent offence relative to their position or excellent offence relative to their position relative to what they're being paid, so it does give the Cubs a bit of a dilemna as to how to keep such excellent offence/value for money at the same time as improving their defence. I'm not convinced that it's possible.

 

Pitching and fielding's more than half the game. I'd say at least 60-70%.

 

Wow. Look, I never said fielding was irrelevant, it just isn't as important as a player's ability to hit. There's no need to write a book to tell me that fielding has some level of significance. All I meant was, I'd rather take Nomar at SS than Furcal, mainly because Furcal will brobably be much more expensive, and he isn't a really great hitter. For a shortstop, he's good, but if Nomar is healthy (I know it's a risk) he could be much better. More importantly the money saved might allow the team to go after another need.

 

That's all I was saying.

 

"Fielding schmielding" sounded to me very much as if you were saying that it was irrelevant.

[Tim]

Pitching and fielding's more than half the game. I'd say at least 60-70%.

So you think that Neifi Perez (assuming he is/was the best-defending SS around) is more valuable than Manny Ramirez? Should Ozzie Smith be considered the best player of all time instead of Babe Ruth?

 

'Cause if you think that defense is that much more important than hitting, you pretty much have to answer yes to both questions.

 

He said that pitching and fielding was more important than hitting. PITCHING AND FIELDING. Not just pitching by itself. And not just fielding by itself, as you've ridiculously tried to suggest that he's saying. Both of them together. No one here is saying that Neifi Perez/Ozzie Smith are better than Manny Ramirez/Babe Ruth.

 

Personally I think the game is 45% hitting, 40% pitching and 15% fielding. Something like that. I don't have any numbers to bear that out, but that's my suspicion. But that doesn't mean that you can say that for any hitter hitting is 3 times more important than fielding. It depends on the player's position.

I think those percentages vary based upon who is on the mound. When you've got Kerry Wood out on the mound and he's on top of his game (or a younger Unit, etc.), fielding is less important because there simply aren't as many balls in play. When you've got someone like Suppan on the mound that "pitches to contact", fielding may be equal in importance to pitching.

 

Blanket statements are always hard.

[Sarcastic]

 

"Fielding schmielding" sounded to me very much as if you were saying that it was irrelevant.

 

Sure, but what I said, to be precise, was that, "A player's ability to hit is more important than fielding ability." I don't think anyone here is contesting that, right? So we have nothing to argue about. I'm just clarifying.

[Sarcastic]

Pitching and fielding's more than half the game. I'd say at least 60-70%.

So you think that Neifi Perez (assuming he is/was the best-defending SS around) is more valuable than Manny Ramirez? Should Ozzie Smith be considered the best player of all time instead of Babe Ruth?

 

'Cause if you think that defense is that much more important than hitting, you pretty much have to answer yes to both questions.

 

He said that pitching and fielding was more important than hitting. PITCHING AND FIELDING. Not just pitching by itself. And not just fielding by itself, as you've ridiculously tried to suggest that he's saying. Both of them together. No one here is saying that Neifi Perez/Ozzie Smith are better than Manny Ramirez/Babe Ruth.

 

Personally I think the game is 45% hitting, 40% pitching and 15% fielding. Something like that. I don't have any numbers to bear that out, but that's my suspicion. But that doesn't mean that you can say that for any hitter hitting is 3 times more important than fielding. It depends on the player's position.

I think those percentages vary based upon who is on the mound. When you've got Kerry Wood out on the mound and he's on top of his game (or a younger Unit, etc.), fielding is less important because there simply aren't as many balls in play. When you've got someone like Suppan on the mound that "pitches to contact", fielding may be equal in importance to pitching.

 

Blanket statements are always hard.

 

This is another reason that fielding is less important for the Cubs team specifically than it is for some others. They have a staff that strikes out a ton of batters and walks a ton of batters, minimizing the number of balls in play. I don't know how large of an effect this has, but it may be worth considering.

[Diffusion]

Pitching and fielding's more than half the game. I'd say at least 60-70%.

So you think that Neifi Perez (assuming he is/was the best-defending SS around) is more valuable than Manny Ramirez? Should Ozzie Smith be considered the best player of all time instead of Babe Ruth?

 

'Cause if you think that defense is that much more important than hitting, you pretty much have to answer yes to both questions.

 

He said that pitching and fielding was more important than hitting. PITCHING AND FIELDING. Not just pitching by itself. And not just fielding by itself, as you've ridiculously tried to suggest that he's saying. Both of them together. No one here is saying that Neifi Perez/Ozzie Smith are better than Manny Ramirez/Babe Ruth.

 

Personally I think the game is 45% hitting, 40% pitching and 15% fielding. Something like that. I don't have any numbers to bear that out, but that's my suspicion. But that doesn't mean that you can say that for any hitter hitting is 3 times more important than fielding. It depends on the player's position.

I think those percentages vary based upon who is on the mound. When you've got Kerry Wood out on the mound and he's on top of his game (or a younger Unit, etc.), fielding is less important because there simply aren't as many balls in play. When you've got someone like Suppan on the mound that "pitches to contact", fielding may be equal in importance to pitching.

 

Blanket statements are always hard.

 

Of course, but by "the game", I'm talking about the game as a whole, as in looking at all of major league baseball over a significant period, as opposed to the game relative specifically to the Cubs as they're currently constructed with a high strikeout staff. It's very much a blanket statement, but I don't think the variance from team to team is so enormous that it makes the blanket statement not worth saying.

 

Sarcastic, I think you're clear with what I was saying, and I'm clear with what you were saying, so all's cool as far as I'm concerned.

 

This is another reason that fielding is less important for the Cubs team specifically than it is for some others. They have a staff that strikes out a ton of batters and walks a ton of batters, minimizing the number of balls in play.

 

Not necessarily. As you say the Cubs also allow a lot of walks (and therefore baserunners). That could mean that while the strikeouts mean less balls in play, the importance of converting those balls in play into outs may be greater simply because not doing so will directly result in more runners scoring relative to teams that allow less baserunners.

 

The Cubs this year have also allowed a lot of home runs, so keeping runners off the bases is potentially more important than usual, because I suspect that the Cubs allow a greater percentage of baserunners to score relative to what the usual team would allow with the same baserunner/strikeout ratios. In fact, I don't suspect, I can pretty much say that for a fact. The home run is by far the single worst thing a pitcher can allow if his aim is to keep runs off the board.

 

One other thing. A high strikeout/high walk staff obviously works very deep into counts, and therefore throws plenty of pitches as it is. That makes the pitch limiting effects of good fielding even more important, because you if you give away outs and baserunners in the field and you have pitchers that naturally work deep in counts, you're likely to see your starters out of games by the fifth and sixth innings. That has been the case lately with Prior quite often.

 

So it's not as simple as saying lots of strikeouts = fielding less important, because in the Cubs' case the strikeouts have a negative byproduct in terms of the walks.