TruffleShuffle

The vast majority of free agents are concerned about one thing first and foremost, and that's how many dollars will be in their wallet after they sign. Believe it or not, Mike Hampton didn't really care that much about the quality of public schools in the Denver region. A-Rod didn't sign with Texas because they had exciting young prospects. Carlos Beltran didn't go to the Mets because he loves New York City and was excited about the team's future. It comes down to money. Guys know this is a business, they know their time as a professional athlete is limited, and they go to the place where they'll get the most money. Personally, if I were a free agent and wanted to win right away, the Cubs not allowing Maddux's option to vest would send me the right message, not the wrong one. The only thing it would make me leery of would be signing a contract with the team based on plate appearances, games or innings. I do think the Cubs were idiots for not putting a performance-based clause in the contract... Maddux has always been durable, but his effectiveness was starting to slip. Anyway, the Cubs will do the "right" thing and let his option vest, and he'll be a mediocre $9M pitcher next year. Which, I suppose, won't be that big of a deal since the Cubs probably aren't going anywhere in 2006 either.

Cedeno has a homer... nice to see him getting regular playing time again

The DJaxx would shoot that trade offer down in a minute, at least if they were smart.

Actually I can't speak for others on here, but last year was way worse than this year. I guess part of that is because I didn't expect anything out of this year's team, but at least they are getting it over with quickly and crapping the bed nice and early. Last year's team had no reason not to make the playoffs, going up against "playing out the season" teams like the Reds and Mets, but the Cubs collapsed the last 2 weeks... choked, basically. I was at the Cubs-Mets game last year where the Cubs blew a 3-run lead in the 9th inning, thanks to Dumpster and Latrocious. That was brutal. This year, it's just a mediocre team getting put out of its misery early. Besides, aside from baseball I root for the Philadelphia teams, so by this point I'm pretty numb to disappointment. I come into every season expecting the team I root for to lose in the most agonizing way possible... so by that measure, this season was relatively painless.

Hey don't leave! I actually like your posts, and as for ripping on the Cubs, I'm sure that whatever you say won't be half as bad as what most people on this board are writing about the sadsack losers otherwise known as the 2005 Chicago Cubs, or the $90 Million Dollar Mistake.. whatever you prefer.

You're not really looking at it analytically. The Cardinals over the past two years have, in the overwhelming majority, overachieved rather than underachieved. I've already listed all the stats to show that. Maybe it will even out at some point, but it didn't last year and it hasn't this year either. I'm not saying that to claim that guys will play differently... all I'm doing is pointing out that it's happening. Wolf's point is some are overachieving, some our underachieving, and some on right on par (Eckstein, Grudz). Underachievers include Edmonds, Rolen, and Walker. To repeat myself for the 100th time, far more guys are outperforming their projected numbers than underperforming, and this was the case last year as well. You throw out the three guys who could be considered underachieving - although Walker is basically the same case as Maddux, where it's more a case of hitting the expected slide due to old age than it is "underachieving". And while Edmonds' numbers are poor in the context of his Cardinal career, it could be noted that this would have been a career year for him in Anaheim. Considering his age and injury-riddled history, his days of 1.000 OPS might well be over. Overachievers: Taguchi, "J-Rod", Nunez, Sanders, Carpenter, Reyes, Tavarez, Flores... like I said, one list is a lot longer than the other. I'm not saying it as a rip on the Cardinals. I said before the season that they are the better team, and that's really obvious now. Be happy that your team has a lot of talent as well as some good fortune shining upon it. I wish that the Cubs had as many guys playing better than expected as the Cards do, because the Cubs would be in the playoff race rather than in the race to get a top 10 draft pick.

How emabrrassing. Hey the team on the field has mailed it in, why shouldn't the rest of the folks at Wrigley Field do the same?

You're not really looking at it analytically. The Cardinals over the past two years have, in the overwhelming majority, overachieved rather than underachieved. I've already listed all the stats to show that. Maybe it will even out at some point, but it didn't last year and it hasn't this year either. I'm not saying that to claim that guys will play differently... all I'm doing is pointing out that it's happening.

Look at the bright side, we've almost cracked the top 10 of next June's draft... if we keep this up we could be top 5!

Burnitz might be playing poorly lately but his BA is roughly equal to Corey's OBP. Burnitz has been average, which was what he was expected to be this year.... Corey has been really awful.

Wow this team is horrendous.... my prediction of 78-84 might turn out to be wildly optimistic.

And luck could have nothing to do with the fact that a guy is performing 50 OPS+ points higher than his career average. :roll: Fine, explain how you think luck is playing a role. Are defenders tripping? Is he closing his eyes when he swings and just getting "lucky" when he hits the ball squarely? I could only find statistics for his first 212 ABs for this, but his line drive percentage is 17%, which is just a shade under the MLB average of 19%. He hits slightly more ground balls than the average as well...47% to 44%. All in all, he's doing the things that an average MLB hitter should be doing. His career OBP is about .07 higher than his career BA...this year his OBP is .064 above his BA, so no surprises there. Neither his IsoP nor his secA are career highs, or even all that much above his career averages. The only things that have increased significantly are his BB/SO (at .90 now, career average .55) and his BA (up .065 points). Even his BB/PA is about the same. The difference between his career BA and his one extra hit every 13 ABs or so...hardly miraculous stuff. I don't have his line drive percentage from years past, but it's possible he's raised that this year (I speculate because his GB/FB ratio is the lowest he's ever had in a season with more than 100 ABs), thus leading to that one extra hit every so often. The two seasons he's had with the most games played and most ABs also happen to be the ones with his two highest seasonal batting averages. It's been shown that the more he plays, the better he does...and now he's on pace to beat his career highs in GP by 12 and his ABs by about 50 so the increased playing time could certainly be a factor in his success. Line drive percentage, playing time, enjoyment of the game, hitting in front of Pujols so he's getting better pitches to hit (he's hitting .422 in the #2 slot in 64ABs...everywhere else he's batting .279). There's just too many realistic possibilities to blithely chalk it up to luck. In fact, a lot of things are entirely within the realm of possibility...why does it have to be luck? And you're missing the entire point of my argument. I don't care if he's getting lucky this year or not. His career numbers are: .238/.306/.316/.622 His career highs in those categories are: .262/.326/.357/.667 His numbers this year are: .313/.376/.418/.794 So, he's hitting for higher average and therefore getting on base a lot more than usual; he's hitting for more power, and his OPS is over 150 points over his career average. Whether it's luck or not doesn't concern me... my point is that his performance this year was absolutely unforeseeable given his horrendous offense performance over his entire major league career. Whatever the reasons for his good play this year, the Cardinals were very fortunate to sign a bad player and have him perform above-average.

And luck could have nothing to do with the fact that a guy is performing 50 OPS+ points higher than his career average. :roll:

Here's my problem with this argument, and I have tried to poke holes in it before... but repeat myself. A guy like Ray King, who has been used as a LOOGY very effectively by LaRussa, I can buy that he is being used in a position where he will succeed. But here's a list of guys who are playing the same role they played through most, if not all, of their major league careers: -Womack (last year) -Edmonds (since he signed with the Cards) -Tavarez (both years) -Nunez -Carpenter -Al Reyes -Flores -This John Rodriguez clown And that's why I can at least see the point of better coaches making a difference. These are all guys who are established major league players who are being used in their natural roles with the Cardinals, and improving significantly off their career norms or in most cases, their career bests. Macias has only played a couple of games in CF, but in general there's no way to put him in a position to succeed because he's a terrible player. In the case of Nunez, sending him up to home plate with a bat in his hand was, up until this year, setting him up to fail. Abraham Nunez was a worse career hitter than Jose Macias before this season. Yet somehow at age 29 he's gone from atrocious to above-average? I'm sorry, there's a large element of unforeseeable luck in there. And this isn't to say that I don't respect the Cardinals' team. I said before the season that I thought they were clearly the best club in the division and would win it by at least 5 games. What I didn't expect was that they'd be this good this season, or that scrubs like Nunez and Al Reyes would prove to be integral parts to the team's success. It's possible for a team to be lucky and good, and the Cards are both of those things. In order for the Cubs to catch the Cards in future seasons, the Cubs will need to construct a better team with a better coaching staff, and hope that the Cardinals are not as fortunate as they've been over the past 1.5+ seasons. Otherwise, the Cards will win the division every year.

I hope he can play similarly in Chicago again. I've always liked him and I would hate to see him go somewhere else and prosper if he's capable of playing well in Chicago. I hope if he starts off slow, the fans don't get all over him again. Give him a chance to play stress free once he's back. It'll be interesting to see how the fans react the rest of the way in. Some of the booing now is probably a reflection of the disappointment in this club relative to expectations. The Cubs are basically out of it, so after the initial disappointment, will the booing continue the rest of the year? Or will fans just show up to the park feeling apathetic? I really don't know.

And a team can't get lucky for two years in a row? If you're talking about the Braves, then you can't talk about luck because they have been so good for so long. But the Cardinals? Different situation. Who knows, maybe the hitting coach is so good that he turns Tony Womack into a better player at age 34, and teaches Abraham Nunez how to be good and not awful at the plate. But if that's the case, why sign Pujols, Rolen and Edmonds to long-term deals? Why not just sign a whole team of Tony Womacks and Abraham Nunez's and turn them into good players? All I know is that the Cubs lineup these days, on paper, should be a lot better than the Cards: Lee < Pujols Walker > Grudz Nomar > Eckstein ARam > Nunez Barrett > Diaz/Mahoney Lawton > John Rodriguez Hairston/Macias < Edmonds Burnitz > Mabry/Taguchi The Cubs SHOULD be scoring a lot more than the Cardinals, but somehow it's the Cardinals who are scoring runs by the boatload despite all their injuries. I can buy that Eckstein and whoever are hitting #2 should be overperforming due to having great hitters protecting them, but what the hell is with a 5-8 of Grudz/Nunez/Taguchi/Mahoney lighting it up? There isn't a good hitter in that lot. Maybe it's just amazing coaching, but I for one refuse to believe that the Cardinals figured something out in Abraham Nunez that 10 previous years of coaching couldn't figure out - i.e., how to be a better-than-bad hitter. And how does Julian Tavarez stay a decent pitcher for 10+ years and numerous organizations, and then get better all of a sudden in St. Louis. Does Dave Duncan know something that nobody else knows? If so, the Cards should just pay their coaches $60M a year and have all their players be guys making the major league minimum.

Man I have to pay attention to the new members... seeing "The Troll" was pretty funny but this one is really bizarre!

We actually have a board member named "The Troll"?!?!?

At this point, the best thing to do with Corey is to just not coach him. Whatever they were telling him to do this year wasn't working. He's a gifted enough athlete that he can do OK but just going off his instincts at the plate, and he can't be any worse than Macias in CF.

Isn't it kind of poor form to intentionally walk players on the other team when you're losing 8-0? Seems like it should be.

I'm starting to think the Cubs might not win the World Series this year...

No kidding... the Cubs don't need another selfish ballplayer. I wouldn't trade Rich Hill for Adam Dunn either, Jim Hendry!

Hey try to think of this in a positive light... like the Cubs' draft position is improving almost every day!

He has only 33 HRs but 118 strikeouts.... 118 is a lot bigger than 33! He's overrated.

Why call up Reyes when they could call up a thirty-something journeyman who would pitch lights out until he wasn't needed any more?