CubinNY

Really? You called Wrigley Field for this information? With a phone? Next sweet swingin billy? Yes, I also called Theo and told him he was the cat's meow.

Really? You called Wrigley Field for this information? With a phone? Couldn't find it on the Web.

I called Wrigley Field this morning. Single game tickets go on sale at 10am on Friday, Feb. 26. I'm going to be in town on around Memorial day and I'm going to try and get May 27th and May 30th.

Victor Caratini will be a star if Montero and Ross go down. People will be like, "who the horsefeathers is he and where the horsefeathers did he come from?" Learn his name. Say his name.

Collins is lucky that they caught lightening in a bottle or he wouldn't be managing the Mets.

Yep, multiple HD streams going at once in our house is an issue. Also, 4K and its successor are coming soon. Data caps are being implemented in a lot of areas. There's no free lunches in media consumption. Eventually, costs are going to rise a good bit on streaming if everyone transitions over to that. For most of my customers, that issue is related to the throughput limitations of the AP not the bandwidth of their ISP. Of course, I have zero knowledge of your set up, so I'll just say this as a general comment. To fix that streaming issue of 2 to 3 people seeming to max out the ability to stream, I usually install a couple of access points to distribute the traffic over multiple devices. My AP of choice right now for consumers is Ubiquiti's Unifi APs. They run about $70/AP, you can set up the same SSID throughout the house on different APs and it will hand off from 1 AP to the next as you move through. By splitting up the traffic like this, it has fixed that issue for all but one of the people I work with and that guy had a router that was causing his issue. Side note, if you go this route, creating multiple SSIDs (like enabling the guest network feature) forces the AP to split itself in to multiple virtual APs which reduces the throughput by about 65% for any one SSID network. So, are you saying I should get rid of extra Netgear log ins. For example of Netgear5G1, Netgear5G2, ext. If I got rid of those other ones would it stop all the freezes and whatnot?

I only read the reviews.

Here in the 3rd world country of Alabama we have terrible everything, but most of all terrible internet. I have the best bandwidth available from the cable company and on evenings and weekends we have to watch streaming video on 720p or less or we get freezes and stops. It is maddening, but that's what I get for living in a 3rd world place.

I know he was limited by his defense and didn't have as much power as some like in their corner OF, but I still have a hard time understanding why he didn't get more of a shot. Not just with the Cubs, but in MLB in general. Yeah, I'm surprised nobody took a chance on him these last few years. He's not that old and his numbers were never bad. Who didn't love Murton? Teams might have tried to take a chance on the big Murt but he was making a small fortune in Japan mashing and raking. He could never make that sort of money here. I'm sort of surprised he came back, but I think he might have got black balled or something. I think I remember him getting in a fight with a coach.

I propose a fighting league with two divisions. Still Members vs Banned Members. I call Mizzou I got next.

The best MIF prospects usually play SS in the minors, so there usually isn't as much talent at 2B. Right. Faint praise at best. Many 2nd baseman in MLB are defectors from another position.

There are bars in Chicago that still do it on Thursday and even Friday nights. well that's BS. all the bar owners in greenville got together about 5 years ago or so and spiked their prices. I mean, crap beer still has decent deals at some places on some nights, but rarely (if ever) do I see anything sold less than 2-3 dollars. All that said I usually end up getting an IPA or something on tap so it's whatever. Antitrust laws say they shouldn't be able to do that.

I like it. New Year, new board.

The Cubs are likely to trade a familiar face away this off season who will be the guy(s)?

I hate the Mets only slightly less than the Cardinals. Dong them into submission. Cubs sweep.

http://deadspin.com/report-troy-tulowitzki-had-no-idea-he-was-being-traded-1720571293 Rockies got back some fireballers. I'm not sure if this trade makes sense for the Jays.

I know all the caveats about prospects. And I know Boras is Bryant's agent, but if the only thing keeping him down at the start of the season is "team control", couldn't and shouldn't the Cubs take control of the situation by offering to buy out his arbitration years plus a couple of years into free agency? I don't really see the purpose of keeping him down when they are going to have to pay a premium to keep him anyway. It just seems penny wise and pound foolish to me. Flame on

July is upon us and so begins the bi-annual silly season. Prediction time, who gets traded? Doesn't have to be just Cubs. My guess Shark, Hammel, Russell, Nate. Surprise long shot- Starlin Sure bet- Price from the Rays

This article better summerizes my problems with WAR than I have time to articulate here. http://www.realclearsports.com/articles/2013/09/30/going_to_war_with_baseball_statistics_97870.html What is not mentioned is that the model is able to account for only .85 of the variance in data, meaning it has a 15% margin of error. So, although I think WAR is useful in the aggregate, the way it's used most of the time goes well beyond what the statistic can account for. For example, declaring Mike Trout was a more valuable player the Miguel Cabrerra in 2012.

Three choices. No pictures please, use the googles to search

Saw it on Yahoo.

What are your thoughts? For me it's hard to judge given the lack of talent, but I don't think he handled the bullpen very well and I don't really care for his comments after the game, he comes of like a prick. I do think he either was told or learned that "aggressive" doesn't necessarily mean stealing bases. At the beginning of the season he ran the Cubs into a lot of outs, but that nonsense went away rather quickly. Overall, I don't think he distinguished himself in anyway good or bad so I guess I have to give him a gentleman's C.

I don't like VORP or WAR because the valuations those metrics use are for non-existent entities. In other words, they are wholly a function of math. Also, and perhaps most importantly, the mythical replacement player is not someone most teams would use on their roster for any length of time. So while I was in the shower this morning I got to thinking about some other way to value a player and factor in salary, because we all know the salary calculation that fangraphs and other websites use are mostly absurd. So here is my idea. 1. Take the OPS for all the players of a particular position (i.e., 1st, 2nd, etc.) who have at least 200 PAs at that position and get an average for that year. 2. Take the OPS from the person you are interested in (e.g., Geo Soto) and divide his OPS from the average of all the player 3. To get a ratio or percentage you subtract 1 by that numberto get how much better or worse the player is vs. the average player for his position Not real numbers, just an example: Soto's OPS = .800, average catcher OPS = .640= (.640/.800 = .80). 1-.80 = .20, So Geo is 20% better than the average catcher in terms of OPS. To factor in salary: 1. Take the salary or all the players of a particular position (i.e., 1st, 2nd, etc.) who have at least 200 PAs at that position and get an average. 2. Take the salary from the person you are interested in (e.g., Geo Soto) and divide his salary from the average of all the players to get a ratio or percentage 3. To get a ratio or percentage you subtract 1 by that number to get how much better or worse the player is vs. the average player for his position Again, not real numbers, just an example: Soto's salary = 4,000,000 salary, average catcher salary = 950,000 (.950/4.00 = .24). 1-.24 = .76 So Geo's salary is paid 76% higher than the average catcher's salary. This is where it gets a bit dicey. We could look at the ratio of OPS to salary, and in this case it would be .23:.76. We could subtract the ratios and it would be -.56, but I think most established players would have a negative value compared to league averages b/c the salary structure is so bimodal. Or we could divide the numbers and get .302, so his value as a player for his position and salary is .302 That would mean players approaching 1 in terms their relative performance to their relative pay for their position would be highly valuable. Also, I'm not sure what to do about pitchers. Anyway, this was fun for me to do.... So FLAME ON.... I can take it.

What do you think?

Wasn't sure where to put this but the Daily Herald has seen fit to make Bruce's Blog a subscription only service. Sign of the times I guess.