CubinNY

(a) One is a huge number when you're talking about something that only happens about 3.3 times per 9 innings. It's not a huge number. It's only large in relation to the number of walks they earn right now. They are averaging almost a walk more per game during the games they win. It's really not that hard at all. It's not like they are walking 5 or 6 times/game.

Greetings to the 21st century. The intenets sure are keen. The Cubs are 16-16. They've walked 101 times in 32 games, placing them in the bottom 1/3 of MLB and the 25th percentile in the NL. The Cubs are averaging @ 3 walks per game. During the 16 wins they've averaged 3.5 walks/game and 2.75 walks/game in the 16 losses. I did a Pearson R for walks and runs scored and the corelation is a miniscule .10. However, this could be due to the low number of walks the Cubs take. The Cubs are currently 2nd in BA, 11th in SLG, 10th in OBP, and 12th in OPS, placing them in the 75th percentile in MLB. I have to believe if the Cubs could just push their average walks/game up by 1 they would be right there among the league leaders in terms of wins. I haven't looked closely at the number of walks given by Cub pitchers, but I'm fairly certian that if they could just push their average walks given/game down by one, they'd be that much better.

For having the highest paid worst team in baseball year after year. For that he deserves a lot of credit.

Once again, I actually laughed outloud.

Can you name the truck with four wheel drive, smells like a steak and seats thirty-five.. Canyonero! Canyonero! Well, it goes real slow with the hammer down, It's the country-fried truck endorsed by a clown! Canyonero! (Yah!) Canyonero! [Krusty:] Hey Hey The Federal Highway comission has ruled the Canyonero unsafe for highway or city driving. Canyonero! 12 yards long, 2 lanes wide, 65 tons of American Pride! Canyonero! Canyonero! Top of the line in utility sports, Unexplained fires are a matter for the courts! Canyonero! Canyonero! (Yah!) She blinds everybody with her super high beams, She's a squirrel crushing, deer smacking, driving machine! Canyonero!-oh woah, Canyonero! (Yah!) Drive Canyonero! Woah Canyonero! Woah!

Brackman has fallen like an anchor.

How do you figure they should be top 6? 10th in OBP outweighs the 6th SLG and 6th OPS. At best, such a stat line should give you something like the 7th or 8th best teams. But this early in the season, it's hard to correlate what those stats say should be their record, and their record. One 12-run game throws everything off. The Cubs might be 6th in runs, but I know at one point they were 4th. The Cubs are 9th in runs scored right now, but one game could vault them to 6th or drop them to 12th. It's just not useful right now. The Cubs are 13th in walks taken this year, a trend that has gone on for far too long, and is likely to continue. And they have just 3 guys who aren't hitting poorly. Three guys, Lee, Ramirez and DeRosa, are propping up this lineup. It's not hard to understand why they fail so often "when it matters" because more often than not, the hitter at the plate "when it matters" isn't any good. One guy is getting on base frequently (Lee), one guy is getting on at a good pace (Ramirez). DeRosa and Theroit have gotten on at an okay rate, but for Theriot at least, that was all yesterday's doing. Everybody else has a terrible OBP. If you are counting on 2 guys to carry your team, then it's not hard for teams to avoid losing the game to them. THE CUBS ARE MAKING OUTS FAR TOO FREQUENTLY. That shouldn't surprise anybody, since that is the single category that has consistently dogged this team for years. they are a broken record that keeps going back to the same place.

The Lions are the worst run team in PROFESSIONAL sports. And it isn't even close. Before the discrace that is Matt Millen they once drafted a tight end in the second or third round when they ran a run and shoot offense. A team with Billy Simms and Barry Sanders running the ball for all those years should have at least challenged for the conference title, at least once.

I just lost my respect for DeRosa. No DH! Yeah, not cool Derosa. Not cool at all. I don't get that argument at all. It's simple, if I were a Cub fan I would want to see Floyd. If I were the fan of the team opposite the Cubs I'd rather see the pitcher. As a fan of baseball, a game played by 9 individuals against 9 others I am not a fan of the DH. Imagine if scorcer/football would let tan extra player only when a team is on the opposing teams side of the pitch?

Me too, given how little debate there really is in the scientific community. Frickin liberal scientists :)

It was a rocket. the I-Cubs were a lot more patient against a left handed starter. Fontenot is NOT a ss. In addition to his error there were at least 2 other balls he should have got to but didn't. Micah Houfpaur was in LF. He made a great throw to gun a guy out at home but Soto dropped it. JR Mathis looked fine until the 4th. He got two quick outs and then after a couple of hits and a walk had the bases loaded, and boom goes the dinomite! A grand slam. Not much else to report.

This has nothing to do with whether he should play SS specifically. The Cubs strongest lineup has Theriot at SS and Pie in CF and Floyd in RF defensively the Cubs strongest defensive lineup has Cedeno at SS, and Pagan in RF with Pie still in CF (and Blanco behind the plate) This tells me that the Cubs need to get rid of Izturis, Jones and find a PH-C so they can insert Blanco in later innings. I think Murton in RF makes for a stronger line-up than Floyd. Pagan isn't on the team and shouldn't be. Ever! A pinch hitting catcher is a waste. If he could hit worth a crap, he would be starting as a catcher. Pagan is hitting .239/.261/.343 in Iowa. He sucks, he's always sucked and the Cubs bought his contract for $10,000.

I agree.

Rather than throw off the alignment of the page. (A LOT OF EYE ROLL SMILEYS.) Stats behind it: Rangers fall to 2-3 in games Sosa homers in. Orioles in '05: 7-4 in games Sosa homered in. (O's were also a TERRIBLE team) Cubs in '04: 20-12 with Sosa homer Cubs in '03: 24-10 Cubs in '02: (even worse than the '05 O's) 23-21 Should I keep going or should I wait for the anecdotal evidence of "all those times Sammy hit those meaningless HRs in the 9th and kissed the camera and walked out early on the team and corked his bat and did steroids" Cause if that's all that's coming, I'd rather not sit and count the games in which he hits is 64 HRs in '01 just to show they had a great record in those games. Wow, you caught some serious feelings there. Did Sammy pull you out of a burning car? All I was talking about was the fact that Sosa was on a lot of bad teams with the Cubs, and they tended to lose a lot. No, I don't think that was all KingCubfans were talking about. Nice post ryan

He hit the ball real hard on his first two ABs. The first drove in a run on Guzman. However it hit the sprinkler head behind the mound and bounced over the 2nd baseman or it would have been an easy out. The second hit was a no-doubt hard-hit single. He did try to throw a runner out at the plate on a weak single. He had to run to about 30 feet behind second and his arm looked less than I'd extpect from a former pitcher. He had a clean singel against Webb. Against Piggy (LHP) he looked overmached but did make contact.

-doesn't have great tools -too many walks Then why did Theriot make it over him, and then they were planning to bring up Augie Ojeda before him? I was willing to believe that explanation until those two things happened. Fontenot, doesn't have a position. He cannot field. Greetings from Memphis. Observations form tonights game. Johnny Bench is a jerk. Or is he? you be the judge. A bunch of adults were hanging out trying to get his autograph. Instead of giving them his autograph he ran to the dugout. Funnily enough after the game started the autograph hawks were nowhere to be seen in the stands. pretty pathetic. Pitchers Guzman looked good but was on a pitch count. He didn't seem to like that. He worked in the low 90s but touch 96 on several occasions. He used mosty fastball and chang-up. He threw a handfull of curve balls, none of them sharp and most of them for balls. Overall, very strong outing against an overmached team full of non-prospects. Ankeil had two hits, the first was on a luck hop, but he hit the ball hard. Webb relieved Gooz and he is not a prospect. Piggy looked pretty good working in the low 90s and keeping hitters off their stride. He made Ankeil look bad. Batters The I-Cubs are much like the C-Cubs. They go up to the plate hacking. Eric Patterson saw six pitches in his first three ABs and swung at 5 of them. He did have two hits, one should have been an error. Fontenot had a dinger. Not much else to discuss. Lots of singles and some that should have been caught. The Redbirds have a terrible in-field, terrible. It's tough to judge because I don't think I saw anything on the Redbirds that I would consider a prospect except for the reliver in the 9th, don't know his name. Anyway, that was fun. We will be there tomorrow too.

I'm sure someone will, plus you can follow the game on MiLB's Gamecast. The game isn't for another 6 hours though. I'm off to see Gooz pitch!

It is really a shame...And I do believe it came from that collision with Giles. I think it all stems from that. Nope. http://www.baseballprospectus.com/article.php?articleid=6151 In other words, yes, we can blame Dusty. Ahh....Interesting! Yeah, I think it's interesting, too. I've probably never been so interested in someone else's medical history. My completly unprofessional opinion is that his injuries stem from the second half of 2003 when he pitched on a bad heel and changed his mechanics ever so slightly. Then tried to come back several times with the same sort of issues. Imagine what a wuss he would have been called had he missed the second half of 2003 with a sore heel?

The majority of tools that operate on predicting wins work off of Runs scored for the season. I think all folks are saying is that, extrapolated across the season, you'd expect the Cubs to win more games on the current Runs trend. The problem is the extrapolation. There isn't enough data to extrapolate.

He's been really, really good this year. Far better then I thought. Hendry deserves some applause so far for Lilly, Marquis, and Derosa, all criticized signings. I think I'll hold my applause until after the season. The Cubs suck right now. For that he deserves the door (if it continues).

I'm crossing my fingers in hope you are correct.

http://chicago.cubs.mlb.com/images/players/mugshot/ph_435039.jpg "Beans and franks! Beans and franks! Beans and franks!"

I'll be at the I-Cub games tonight and tomorrow. I'll give everyone my very unprofesional scouting report.

Especially since Mark Prior is a Cub. I really don't like how people blame this all on Kerry and Mark. They don't want to be hurt. They are also responsible for some great memories for most cubs' fans. How quickly we forget. I agree.

http://www.baseball-reference.com/o/ontivst01.shtml http://www.baseball-reference.com/t/tidrodi01.shtml http://www.baseball-reference.com/teams/CHC/ The 1979 Cubs, 80-82. I was 10 and they broke my heart. 80-82 marked the high water mark until 1984 when they re-broke my heart