CubinNY

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.

Charlie Marbles is going to be due for a surgery in the near to mid term.

Speaking of Miller, is Wade offically done?

It'd be nice if they didn't back into the playoffs. I'd love nothing more than to see a 8 of 11 winning streak. Go Woody!

She's going to be on "Dancing with the Stars" How are your dancing skills, Swayze?

I think you spelled that wrong.

One thing about Floyd. When he is hot, he is red soap-dropping hot. Stay hot.

He replaced the latest drummer for Spinal Tap. Go Cliff, Get hot, baby!

How do you mean?

Go see a doctor because you are ill.

Wholy Toledo Hamelton sucks. He's talking up Williams' performance tonight. If the Cubs hand anything in their sack they'd be ahead by 9 runs.