CubinNY

It is still not a benefit. He isn't playing for free. I really cannot understand this. Baseball shouldn't be a fraternity club.

That is mighty impressive for not playing. :wink:

Nooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo! a thousand times no.

Perhaps that's why it took the Trib until 1988 to put up lights. They probably spent the time between 1984 and 1988 pushing to destroy Wrigley, but eventually MLB won the argument. Kind of ironic that they then used Wrigley as a promotional tool. Sometime the best decisions are the ones that didn't work out.

Sand. It goes Clay Pipes Sand Pea gravel Top soil Grass Out of curiosity, what purpose does the sand serve? It helps the water to move from the ground to the pipes and cleans particulate matter that could clog the pipes from the water before going into the pipes. However: the white stuff could very well be lime and not sand. Lime stabalizes the ph level of the soil if it is too acidic. Also I could be wrong about the exact order. Sand may go on top of pea gravel. It's been a while since I did heavy duty landscaping.

I don't think he's holding his cards close to his chest in this scenario...that's wishful thinking, guys. The organization simply will not take on the AROD contract after committing so much to Soriano. I don't think he is here either, simply too much money. It was a more a commentary on that he was bashed in this instance for saying he wasn't interested, while at the same time he would have been bashed for expressing interest in Arod. Anyone bashing Hendry for showing interest in A-Rod should have their head examined. Personally, I don't know what function is served by keeping secret your intentions in the free agent market. I could see the need for secrecy during trade negotiations.

Sand. It goes Clay Pipes Sand Pea gravel Top soil Grass

I heard on ESPNYY this morning that the Yankees asked about Miggy and Binefest wanted Joba ++ They aren't going to give him away. This has a huge impact on A-Rod. It may just drive his price down that much more if the same teams who are looking for him can get Miggy at a fraction of the price + young talent. I'm thinking Angles and Dodgers.

I am far from the worst looking human on the planet, but that doesn't mean much either. I'm not really upset about this trade that much. More than likely, none of the players mentioned in this thread will be more than spare parts let alone difference makers. THAT IS WHAT BOTHERS ME. Hendry is the master of: A) Get the guy in a salary dump (Aramis, Kendall, Lee). B) Trade spare parts for spare parts. He may get taken, but really how bad can it get? C) Overpaying for mediocre free agents, especially middle relievers. He's shown nothing to warrent his continued employment as a GM. At best the Cubs have been decidedly medicore during his tenure. At worst, they've been horrible.

Hendry and the Cubs have "thrown under the bus" Prior more times than one during his time in the Cubs organization. If I'm Prior I'm not resigning with the Cubs unless it is an offer I cannot refuse. At the same time I don't think Hendry's demands are that outrageous. It's not like they haven't paid him for the last couple of years. I'm not good at these predictions, but I think Prior will be pitching elsewhere in 2008. I imagine somewhere on the West Coast. It's a shame.

Let's face it, he ain't gonna play in Chicago. What do you think Murton could bring either alone or in combination with others? Conversely, will Hendry keep him and use him as a bench player until he reaches free-agency?

I'm not talking about the playoffs. I'm talking about the regular season. But more importantly I'm talking about wins in the regular season. The Diamond Backs had to be doing something right to win all those games. I think I read somthing in heardball times to suggest that Pyth. is not a good model for teams with a shut down bullpen. Something to the effect that the bullpen will not be utilized in low leverage situations where the team is up or down by a significant amount of runs. It is just those variations that throw off a model like that. But anyway, I'd go for a little good process on the part of Hendry, who has displayed little of any process what-so-ever.

I'm not talking about the playoffs. I'm talking about the regular season. But more importantly I'm talking about wins in the regular season. The Diamond Backs had to be doing something right to win all those games. I think I read somthing in heardball times to suggest that Pyth. is not a good model for teams with a shut down bullpen. Something to the effect that the bullpen will not be utilized in low leverage situations where the team is up or down by a significant amount of runs. It is just those variations that throw off a model like that. But anyway, I'd go for a little good process on the part of Hendry, who has displayed little of any process what-so-ever.

Wrong. The better team does not always win. That's absurd. There's so many examples that blow this idea out of the water that I won't even bother listing them. Aside from that, you missed the point, entirely. BS. How do you judge who was better. How do you judge good process. Baseball isn't a beauty contest. Do the Mets get a pass from their fans becuase they were supposed to win? It's just ridicilous. Good outcomes are function of good process, most of the time. You cannot ignore outcome. I guess you can, but I wouldn't know why you'd want to. It goes if A then B not if B then A A= Outcome B = process

That is just silly. The proof of the process is in the product. Process is never more important than outcome. Never, not in a million years, and not in any way, shape, or form for any aspect of life. I think this is a horribly misguided and wrong way of thinking that will never lead to any long-term success in any avenue of life. EDIT - and it's the exact same type of thinking that leads to Jim Hendry trying to somehow copy the latest lightning in a bottle team every year. No the Cubs are a bona fide example of process over product, unless I am reading your "they should've won" supposition incorrectly. Forget the Cubs. That's a separate argument. Process is more meaningful than outcome. Period. Variance can impact a single outcome. Sound process is the only way to ensure long term success in anything. I'll use a poker (Hold 'em) analogy. If you have pocket aces, and somebody acting before you goes all in, you call. 100 times out of 100, the correct play is to call. Now, say the other guy flips over 6 3 offsuit. The board winds up being 4 5 7 9 Q and he wins this hand with 6 3 offsuit. This doesn't mean that calling with AA was the incorrect play. It means that the best hand didn't hold up. Long term, you will win far more often than not when you make this same play. The outcome of the hand (a loss) means nothing (other than the fact that you lost some money in the short run). The math says that you made the correct play, and that is all that matters. Now apply that to baseball. If team A is better constructed than team B but, due to variance, winds up winning fewer games than team B in a given season, that does not mean that team B was the better team. In terms of GMing a team, what matters is how the team is put together, not necessarily how that team winds up performing. If my team were looking at two candidates for GM, one who has sound baseball philosophies but, for whatever reason, has an under .500 record, and one who has a .600 record, but has flawed philosophies, I would take the former every single time. I liken this to a bad pitcher with a good W-L record vs. a good pitcher with a bad W-L record. There's a far better chance that the good philosophies will lead to future success than the naked bottom-line success. Obviously, I'm talking extreme ends of the spectrum here, but it does a good job of illustrating the point. I'm not sure what universe you live in but unless we are talking about college football, beauty contests, and figure skating the better team is the one who won. To suggest otherwise is to suggest that we live in a universe in which cause and effect do not exist.

That is just silly. The proof of the process is in the product. Process is never more important than outcome. Never, not in a million years, and not in any way, shape, or form for any aspect of life.I think there's about a million counter examples to this. I guess you're a really, really big fan of cheating. And I can probably think of about a million counter examples to your examples. Cheating as a process invalidates any outcome unless you are suggesting that there are no inherent rules by which we people agree to abide. Criminal go to jail, most of the time. The better team wins, most of the time.

That is just silly. The proof of the process is in the product. Process is never more important than outcome. Never, not in a million years, and not in any way, shape, or form for any aspect of life. I think this is a horribly misguided and wrong way of thinking that will never lead to any long-term success in any avenue of life. EDIT - and it's the exact same type of thinking that leads to Jim Hendry trying to somehow copy the latest lightning in a bottle team every year. No the Cubs are a bona fide example of process over product, unless I am reading your "they should've won" supposition incorrectly.

That is just silly. The proof of the process is in the product. Process is never more important than outcome. Never, not in a million years, and not in any way, shape, or form for any aspect of life.

Here is what I think, the playoffs are a crapshoot. However, a team that wins close to 100 games a year has a better shot at winning the playoffs than a team that wins close to 90 games. I think the statistics bear that out. Sighting Pyth. records in this case is really, really, really, not very smart for the simple fact that to the extent that a team like the D-Backs exceed their pyth. record, the model is not a good predictor. People who don't really know much about science or statistics say that the results are due to luck, but when the model is off by that large of an amount the chances that it was luck are reduced significantly. Remember one fits the model to reality and not the other way around. Reality is never wrong and the usefulness of the model is its convergence wtih what actually happens. For example when a hurricane goes off in a directon that is not predicted by a model, the model is discarded as not usefull. Most of the time the pyth. model is a good predictor, but sometimes it is not. The answer to your question about the Mets is quite obvious, no the Mets weren't becuase they didn't make the playoffs and only won 88 games.

This is ridiculous. You can't make these determinations in hindsight. Even if you want to go the hindsight route, then how was the 2003 (mediocre as it was) team not a contender? It was 5 freaking outs from the big dance. You can't have it both ways. Personally, I look at the 2003 team as a non-serious contender that got lucky. The 2004 team was a serious contender that was unlucky with injuries and poorly managed. What is ridiculous is to judge a team by the names on the back of the Jersey and statistics that have little usefulness outside of a theoritical model used to predict wins. I judge a team by their actual wins over the course of a season. Not one of the teams the Cubs have fielded in recent history has won 90 games. None of those teams were in the World Series and only the 2003 teams managed to get past the Wild Card round in a crapshoot playoffs.

But the numbers show that it was a shock that they finished with 89 wins. Their pythag shows that they should have won 94 games that year. Who knows how differently it would have been if they didn't go 1-5 in their last 6 games. Not to say that you can't count that, but if someone had told you after game 156 that the Cubs wouldnt win 90 games with 6 more against the bad Reds and the already clinched Braves, you would believe them? I think it was very surprising that they didnt win 93-94 wins. Obviously they had some major fundamental problems, but I don't think many expected them to win under 90 games after getting Lee, Walker, Maddux, and later Nomar and Dempster to add to a team that won 88 games the year before. It doesn't matter what people expected to happen, or what their pyth. record was. They finished 3rd. Winning is what matters. The only constant besides a handful of players is Jim Hendry. And he is the very definition of mediocre, as are the Cubs. But if it makes you happy to believe that the Cubs were victims of bad luck or what have you, go right ahead. I will say this, no amount of luck explains why the Cubs haven't fielded one or two championship calibur teams in most of our lifetimes.

Is this a joke? Drew maybe a weirdo but he's a career 128 OPS+ hitter and still relatively young. To compare Drew to Floyd at the stages in their careers is really foolish.

While I understand and mostly agree with you point........It sure sould suck ti have Arod and Crawford wouldnt it? :lol: I'd cream if they got both, but judging from the PR story by Muscat and Hendry's quotes about Theriot being an "everyday guy" I tend to think ARod won't be in the Cubs plans. Crawford, I'd love but I don't know if Hill + is a good deal.

I think TB would want Hill + more young pitching for Carl. I guess it depends on if they can sign/trade for a legit #2 or #3 pitcher. I know Lou loves Crawford. That's the thing with Hendry. He seems to morph himself into a GM based on who he hires as a manager instad of having an overriding philosophy and finding people who fit into that philosophy.

Didn't ARod have the same PR problems when he was a Free Agent the first time? I remember some really weird clauses in his contract that made him look kind of foolish when he signed with Texas. I'd think it's worse, now, don't you think? Yes, by far. I am curious on how much of this is a NY Press thing. They could over blow grass growing. They are. I read a column in the NYT yesterday intimating that A-Rod really wants to return to the Yankees, becuase, well, they are the Yankees. The NY sports writers know no level of humility. I don't think it is as bad as the media are portrayiing it. Also Boras is doing exactly what he is supposed to be doing, playing bad cop. I think A-Rod will get what he wants, @ 260million over five or six years.