CubinNY

Hanley Ramirez is good I'm soooooo glad Furcal decide Chicago wasn't good enough for him.

The problem is, if you take this kind of argument to its logical extreme, you can pretty much make the following arguments: 1) You can't argue that A-Rod playing SS on this team would give this team any more wins than it has. 2) You can't argue that Neifi playing SS on this team would give this team any more losses than it has. In terms of probability, no, we can't say with absolute 100% certainty that Soto would have been given this team more wins than Hill/Bowen/Kendall/Blanco. There's always a possibility that Soto would perform as well as or worse than that quartet. However, given Soto's production in the majors and AAA, I think there's an incredibly good chance the Cubs' offensive production would have increased with Soto behind the dish as opposed to the four catchers mentioned above. With better offensive production, this team would have more wins. If the Yankess went 162-0 with Neifi at SS it would be pretty hard to say that A-Rod would have given them more wins. I think that is what TheDude is saying. If after the Barrett trade the Cubs went on a long win streak winning most of thier games, it would be hard to say that Soto would have yielded more wins since they already were winning most of the games at that point of time. I don't know if any of that is true since I didn't look it up, but that seems to be the point that is trying to be made. Execpt the Dude and you (if you are making the same claim) are wrong. The Cubs lost plenty of games from the time Barrett was traded up to 9/17/07. Opportunity cost are what it cost the Cubs to not have the better player playing. And as I said in the original, "who knows". But I'd bet it is at least one game. Where does this "good enough" mentality come from? Are we supposed to be happy the Cubs are in first and be thankful? According to runs scored and runs allowed the Cubs have won two games less than they should have. That difference can probably be attributable to luck. However, had they put in a better player(s), even with the playing two games under the pyth. record they would probably be six or seven games up.

Under no circumstances would I trade Pie for Tejeda. Are the Cubs going to have enough money?

Nicely put.

Yes. There's a lot to like about him from an image standpoint. Everybody likes the underdog or in this case undersized player. That doesn't make him a good player. It also dosen't mean he sucks either. It's too bad he's 27. If he was 24 or younger I might think he has a future.

Cardiac Cubs

He's on a hot streak (in "the zone"). When he's like this he hits lots of HRs too. It couldn't happen at a better time.

Shannon and Roony couldn't say enough great things about Soriano to start the game. They do a pretty good job on the radio. Shannon is funny but I wonder if he's always this drunk.

Probably zero. The Cubs were winning games between Kendall and Barrett. Hill had a winning record as a catcher, by a nice margin. I'm not saying Hill gets the credit, I'm saying the team was winning regardless, so I don't see any real opportunity cost. I suppose the team wins-more in the same game, which doesn't matter at all. The entire Soto craze is way overblown. It's like a bride anticipating a dream wedding that will never happen the way its projected. So, the Cubs never lost a game the entire time that Hill, Bowen, Kendall have been catching? ok That argument doesn't work on so many levels. You're essentially saying that Soto himself could have somehow "won" any games that the other catachers started...you're also discounting that he could have also somehow "lost" any of the games the others won or helped win. No, I'm saying we don't know. The Dude dude is saying none. The only way that is possible is if Soto would have done exactly the same as Kendall, Bowen, and Hill or preformed worse. We have no way of knowing, but I'd wager that it is near imossible to perform worse than the combination of Kendall, Bowen, and Hill. On so many levels? What the hell does that mean? It means there are so many different "woulda-coulda-shoulda" factors involved in this type of argument that it pretty much ends up negating either side. For one, how do you know if Soto playing any better than the other catchers would have still lead to the Cubs winning more games? What if he hit better statistically, but he didn't score or drive anyone in? Or didn't score enough or drive in enough runs? Or what if his better defense still resulted in the Cubs being overall outscored and losing the game? Or someone else still screwed up and lost it? Or the pitcher just stunk? Or the other bats were still turned off? And what if he played worse in certain games than the other catchers? The whole thing either way has little basis in realistic arguments to "prove" that Soto would have won or lost more games for the Cubs than the other catchers. For the record, I've wanted to see him play more for months, but this particular argument does little for or against him. It's meaningless. So, in other words the argument is meaningless but you agree that Soto should have been called up? Why do you think this? And before you answer you might want to think it over a little. is it A) Because he might preform better than who was playing Catcher for the Cubs B) The Cubs might be a better team with him catching C) What the hell, he can't be worse than who is catching D) All the above If you answer any of A,B,C or D, my argument doesn't look so meaningless because esentially you are saying the same thing. Perhaps you're like Mr. Dude and don't think the Cubs need potentially better players, becuase everything is just hunkydorey

Probably zero. The Cubs were winning games between Kendall and Barrett. Hill had a winning record as a catcher, by a nice margin. I'm not saying Hill gets the credit, I'm saying the team was winning regardless, so I don't see any real opportunity cost. I suppose the team wins-more in the same game, which doesn't matter at all. The entire Soto craze is way overblown. It's like a bride anticipating a dream wedding that will never happen the way its projected. So, the Cubs never lost a game the entire time that Hill, Bowen, Kendall have been catching? ok That argument doesn't work on so many levels. You're essentially saying that Soto himself could have somehow "won" any games that the other catachers started...you're also discounting that he could have also somehow "lost" any of the games the others won or helped win. No, I'm saying we don't know. The Dude dude is saying none. The only way that is possible is if Soto would have done exactly the same as Kendall, Bowen, and Hill or preformed worse. We have no way of knowing, but I'd wager that it is near imossible to perform worse than the combination of Kendall, Bowen, and Hill. On so many levels? What the hell does that mean?

Probably zero. The Cubs were winning games between Kendall and Barrett. Hill had a winning record as a catcher, by a nice margin. I'm not saying Hill gets the credit, I'm saying the team was winning regardless, so I don't see any real opportunity cost. I suppose the team wins-more in the same game, which doesn't matter at all. The entire Soto craze is way overblown. It's like a bride anticipating a dream wedding that will never happen the way its projected. So, the Cubs never lost a game the entire time that Hill, Bowen, Kendall have been catching? ok

These types of post still amaze me.

Opportunity costs are a helluva thing. Who knows how many wins Lou has cost the Cubs by not bringing up Soto after the Barrett trade. The crazy thing is, he may never be this good again. We may have missed his "career" year while he was wasting away in Iowa. I have some serious concerns that he's not nearly as good as he is this season. Enough with the Geovana Soto quotes, most people now know who he is.

ND, hahahahahahahahahahahaha! How long until the genuis gets a win this year?

Do you mean TLR getting into arguments or do you mean people arguing about TLR in the game thread? Option 1: TLR v Umps: 2 Option 2: Poster v poster re: TLR: 17 (number of posts) Option 3: Posts pointing out how meaningless argument is: 15. You can take either over under, the line is set.

I definately agree with everything you've written.

Interesting statement. Are you saying this from the point of view of the scouts/coaches involved in the process or the initial quality/improvement of the players themselves? Given the context, I'm assuming you are saying that the coaches are an order of magnitude more important than the scouts. Which would seem to say one of two things: 1) coaches can turn water into wine (coaches are great and therefore 10x more valuable) or 2) with the occasional exception, it's so easy to tell a quality player from a bad one that scouts are pretty superfluous to the process (scouting is fairly irrelevant and therefore 10x less valuable). Is that a fair read? Yes, it's 2. I don't know if I would call them superfluous though. I think they serve an extremely important function. In a real sense, they are the initial "player developer". I think scounting is a real skill, but not necessarily a hard one to pick up. However, I tend to agree with Meph, How hard is it to pick in the top half of the first round? I guess I don't want that answer since I'm a Cubs fan, but again I think that has a lot to do with development and the nature of drafingt pitchers early too.

Take that reverse jinx stuff back to Tempe, I ain't buying any.

I used to bring cub scouts to games all the time and you're right, most of the time they were running around and mostly focused on food. I've talked to many scouts and they are all different on what they look for, well, more of how they breakdown certain aspects of a players game. Of course they look for things at different levels, HS, college, Minors, and Majors but they know their stuff. Could they learn and maybe do something different to improve how they evaluate, probably. But, listening to them talk and what they see was and is a very good experience for me as I've learned a lot from these men* (*Disclaimer, I have yet to met a female scout so get out there ladies and show your stuff!). you know what i meant. sometimes they get lost in looking at players physical appearance and athleticism they fail to notice that for whatever the reason the guy cant hit. The work of scouts is the ultimate expression of small sample size. How can they know about a player based on seeing them a couple times? Not really. Their "sample size" is large. They see lots of players all the time. When you've seen thousands of kids over the years it doesn't take much to see the standout. They might only see one particular kids a hand full of times, but the pool they are compaing him agaisnt is quite large. I think a problem comes in the linear ranking of players. I think that is near impossible. However it has to be done due to the draft. I think a second problem comes when they try to determine a ceiling of a player. It's a ridiculus notion not based on anything but "beauty". Third, I think the uneveness of competition, even in college make any ranking of players a difficult task. I suppose if I were to be in charge I'd put them in pools by position or by physical skill sets (the mythical tools) instead of ranking them. I don't know. The entire process is extremely difficult, that's why using objective data will only help the "art" of scouting. EDIT: Scouting is also probably an order of magnitude less important than player development, IMO.

8-8

Albert "Joey" Bell. He used to work out at gym I used to go to when I lived in S. Florida. The soapdropper had a permenent scowl. I made eye contact with him for about 1 second and it shortened my life by like six months. http://www.s-t.com/daily/06-96/06-04-96/forearm.jpg

From one newbie to another......welcome! :lol: I am so exhausted already from these games. Please let the ninth be easy tonight! What did you do with the hot girl avatar?

Welcome. Take nothing serious in game thread.

I don't understand, cheating should be tolerated as long as it only shows results for one season? he got the shipment in 2004 before MLB banned it BFD. It is, was, and remains illegal.

All I have is Ring Lardner (1920s sports and short story writer) and I'm not even sure if he went to HS in my town. Stupid hicks.