TruffleShuffle

team unity/chemistry, which is bigger than a pitcher missing a start or a position player being suspended for a couple of games.

i don't think d-bag or dodger fans are really afraid of anyone. that division sucks and whoever wins it is lucky to even be in the playoffs, so a first round loss against a cub team that's 15 games better would be no surprise. they're kinda playing with house money once they're in.

the playoffs in general scare me, because it's easy to lose 3 out of 5 games in any given stretch against an average to above average team. it's scary that the cubs can be easily the best team in the regular season and then bust out against the wholly average NL west. but yeah, i'd think that anyone who would rather face webb, haren, r. johnson and webb again in a 5-game series is insane.

last year was really a crap shoot in the nl. the cubs being the favorites was a defensible position; there's no way to know that the cub offense is going to collectively poop itself against pitchers who were, beyond brandon webb, pretty mediocre.

my man-love for geo is well known, but i'm not sure how you can give him credit for the cubs' pitching. the cubs have pitched like one of the best staffs in baseball because they're talented, not because soto knows how to handle a staff. blanco's CERA - a bull crap stat if there ever was one - is roughly the same as soto's. if you're giving the award based on overall play, berkman and pujols should probably be the two finalists. if you're restricting it to teams contending for the playoffs, in the mix should be hanley ramirez, chase utley, maybe david wright.

yeah, i believe their payroll expanded past $90M with the acquisition of sabathia. they've spent like a mid-market team, not far from the phillies, astros and blue jays.

The thing I like is that the Cubs have all the pieces that you need to weigh things on your side and give you better odds of succeeding -Great top end starting pitching -Very good bullpen -Balanced patient offense But even still, we see teams with all those crap out in the first round. The Angels have been doing it for years. In fact, look at the 2007 Angels and tell me that team doesn't remind you a little bit of this year's Cubs team. the angels were 9th in the AL in walks last year and middle of the pack in OPS... that's the big difference between last year's angels and this year's cubs; the angels' offense wasn't patient and good pitchers were able to exploit that. nate silver created something called "secret sauce" - basically, what he found was that playoff success was most likely for teams that were proficient in three areas: * A power pitching staff, as measured by normalized strikeout rate. * A good closer, as measured by WXRL. * A good defense, as measured by FRAA. a lot of people don't like BP's fielding metrics, and i'm not a big fan either. still, boston was the runaway winner of the secret sauce totals last season, but colorado ranked last among the playoff teams - their K-rate was the lowest in the majors and their relief pitching wasn't good either. the wholly mediocre cardinals were last in special sauce in 2006, and they won the WS. still, the analysis has some merit i think - power pitchers would seem to be more likely to beat good hitters than guys who get by on guile. here's how this year's playoff contenders rank in special sauce: cubs: 20 red sox: 20 angels: 24 white sox: 30 devil rays: 31 d-backs: 32 mets: 33 phillies: 35 brewers: 36 marlins: 39 twins: 50 even if you don't like FRAA, you have to think that the cubs are a very good defensive team. they're 3rd in baseball in defensive efficiency; the only teams better are oakland and tampa. so yeah, the cubs are favored over most of the teams that will make the playoffs, but their chances of winning the world series are probably no better than 25%.

I just wonder if he is tiring at all. He seems to be at the turn slightly below the leader, then blows past them on the last 50. He doesn't have much margin for error tonight. 100 is just real short for all of these guys. i don't know that he's tiring... it's not like he has been struggling to finish; he's starting out slow and then reeling everyone in. i don't think phelps can afford to go out at 24.24 or 24.41 like he's done in the heats and semis. cavic is gonna go out somewhere around a 23.5 and you don't want to have to make up nearly a second deficit in a sprint event. last year in melbourne he went out 23.99 and finished in 50.77, barely touching out crocker. i think he will have to be faster than that to win tonight, so i think he needs to go out around 23.8 and keep the sprinters within reach. i said all along that 100 fly and 400 free relay were the biggest threats to not winning 8 golds... one of them we eked out a miracle win, and now comes big challenge #2.

i am very, very nervous about the 100 fly tonight.

cubs now stand at 84.9% to win the division, 13.5% for the wild card, 98.4% overall. brewers are 81.7% for the playoffs (67.8% wild card). cards are 16.6% for the playoffs. there's like a 95% chance that the wild card comes out of the NL central, and similar chances that the wild card comes out of the AL east.

speaking of this, bp's kevin goldstein says that negotiations between the nationals and aaron crow are "a mess" and there's no better than a 50/50 chance that he signs with them. the pirates absolutely HAVE to get pedro alvarez signed. their fans might burn down the ballpark if they don't sign him.

i'm guessing that i didn't make up the 21 home run deficit in 3 days.

this is kind of depressing, that a 16 year old was going to end her "career" in gymnastics. but i guess they might want to do things like eat food and have friends.

http://deepdiscount-content.vcommerce.com/products/fullsize/836/5740836.jpg can mods ban other mods? if so, i demand that NCCubFan be banned.

http://pysih.com/wp-content/uploads/2008/04/chris-hanson-nice-to-see-you.jpg are you suggesting that i want to have sex with underage girls AND puppies?

shawn johnson is so cute, i want to adopt her like a puppy or something.

well, it's slightly less boring than the brett favre story.

gee this sounds awfully familiar.

i doubt it. he's not a great sprinter; he pretty much always has to come from behind in the 100 fly (which scares me, he's going to have to go 50.5 or under to win tomorrow morning, i think). he's a great mid-distance swimmer and i think he could be great at distance if he worked on it, but the long, lean body generally does not lend itself as well to sprinting. those are usually the shorter, more muscular swimmers. plus, phelps works too hard to be a sprinter.

boy, the cubs completely pantsed the braves in this series.

he certainly has plenty of time to think up the conspiracy theories on the bench after not getting on base.

I'd like to nominate the State College Spikes for this dubious honor. I attended my first Spikes game of the year tonight, and watched them get pounded 13-4 by the Staten Island Yankees. That dropped their season record to a less-than-stellar 11-42, or a .208 winning percentage. they're 4th from the bottom of the league in runs scored, last in home runs and 2nd from the bottom in walks. that's bad, but their pitching is just another level of bad. The new york-penn league is a league that favors pitchers, yet the spikes have managed to post a 5.68 ERA. the closest team to them, in ERA, is 4.19. they've allowed the most home runs (38) and have a team whip of 1.54 - nobody else is worse than 1.41. your state college spikes... ugh.

you're not accounting for (a) the number of times that he doesn't reach base via the error, and (b) the number of times that any other baserunner is able to move up because the ball is put into play.

yeah either enforce the rule or just remove the rule and let the best gymnasts compete, regardless of age. if a 5 year old is the best gymnast, so be it.

But an out is still an out and a strikeout is no worse than other outs, they all suck from an offensive standpoint. this just isn't true. i'm having trouble finding what i read that disproves it, but the value of an out put into play is marginally greater than the value of an out not put into play.