CubinNY

Ditto, every word is true. Let's not go down the chemistry road again, shall we.

I love the old, "you haven't seen him pitch argument". It is lovely. I haven't seen Fransico Larino pitch ever, but judging by his numbers I'd say he's pretty good. Judging by these two stiff's numbers, I'd say they are pretty bad. However, they are young and can get better. Overall, I'm not unhappy with what the Cubs got.

The Cubs will wait until the September callups to bring up any prospects. Then Dusty will insist on giving them limited playing time to protect the integrity of the playoff race. Then going into next year we'll all be wondering and arguing about which young players are good enough to make the team or to take a starting position. Different year, same old Cubs with exatly the same philosophy exhibited by whichever re-tread Baseball man is managing the team. I am in a dark, dark place concerning the Cubs immediate and midterm future.

Matt Nokes

The problem I have with it is not the fact that people would boo Dusty, it's the fact that the producers of the show were recruiting for people to boo Dusty.

I saw the Greenstein article. Well done Kurt. BTW I wish Teddy was still the Cubs beatwriter for the Trib. But I guess he was too goood at his job. In 2003 in an ask Paul Column I asked Paul if he could trade himself for Teddy and ALF. At the time Teddy was the beatwriter for the Sox. It didn't get printed.

I don't think he is "overrated" per sey, he started off miserable this year and has rebounded. He is a very good athlete and a very good pitcher. All the same, giving up that much talent would worry me if I were a Cardinal fan. I don't know why the Cards or the Marlins would do this deal. Maybe the Jockerty thinks the Cards window of opportunity is about to close, I don't know.

Neifi hates the walk.

Heh...a statistic stating how statisticians can't account for everything... No real point...just gave me a chuckle... :wink: Actually you made a good point. To qoute D. Rumsfeld There are the unknowables that are knowable in the sense that we know that we don't know and the unknowables that are unknown. It makes about as much sense as saying that statisticians say they can only account for 60% of the game.

Does she have a sweet pornstache and a penchant for the nose candy too?

The problem as "saber" people phrase it is that they don't have a good way to measure defense, not that it is unimportant. But some stat companies have now started to employ scores of young people to pour through video and plot a multitude of information. I think in a few years people who are interested in such things will come up with a usefull metric. Whether baseball men who played the game will see value in them remains to be seen.

Whether the offense is good or bad, I would expect a minimum of 360 from the leadoff spot. A quick glance shows 60 guys doing that right now. There are 119 players over 335. How many of those guys bat leadoff consistently? 2? 3? The position that the manager bats a hitter in is irrelevent to the discussion. See, that's the problem with the Cubs and the problem with your argument. There is no such thing as a leadoff batter. There are only position players. That is what pissed me off so much this off-season. Hendry went looking for a "lead-off" man when he should have been looking for the best player available to play CF after he gave away Patterson. No, because a large problem with his OBP is that he is a leadoff hitter. Although that may be a problem for Slappy, it's the manager and GM's fault for signing a guy to bat leadoff and keeping him in that spot when he wasn't getting on base simply because he has historically batted lead-off. Pierre is a one tool player, his entire game is dependent on his BABIP. I don't want a guy like that on the Cubs unless his name is Vlad or Ichiro.

Whether the offense is good or bad, I would expect a minimum of 360 from the leadoff spot. A quick glance shows 60 guys doing that right now. There are 119 players over 335. How many of those guys bat leadoff consistently? 2? 3? The position that the manager bats a hitter in is irrelevent to the discussion. See, that's the problem with the Cubs and the problem with your argument. There is no such thing as a leadoff batter. There are only position players. That is what pissed me off so much this off-season. Hendry went looking for a "lead-off" man when he should have been looking for the best player available to play CF after he gave away Patterson.

That is exactly right. That is the organization's philosophy right there. Agreesivness is great and if you are agressive and get lots of hits you'll get walked more by the pitcher because the hitter has nothing to do with getting a walk. Hendry and Co. don't believe in the concept of drawing a walk by being selective. They have the direction of causality exactly backwords. They are killing my love of the Cubs.

Look on the bright side, at least Glendon will get a chance to redeem himself. It will be grand.

This team will come close to 100 losses. If anyone else gets hurt and/or if Prior is sidelined for an extended period they will lose over a hundred. If Walker gets traded and they replace him with Neifi at 2nd and batting 2nd they will lose over a hundred games. If JJ cools off at all they will lose 100 games (he is on pace for his best season in a long time). IMO, the best case scenario is between 95-100 losses.

In anticipation of our cross country move in a few weeks I was putting away some old books and got sidetracked (as I often do) and started re-reading Baseball Dynasties by Rob Neyer and Eddie Epstein (2000). In the introduction I came across this gem:

:ball: :whistle: I'm waiting. Really and truely, if Hendry doesn't plan on re-uping Dusty he should do everyone a favor and end this soap opera.

I agree. And it's a damn shame.

It's a good thing. No such player exists. Even when the entire team in Philly hated Bowa, not one player came out publically and said it. The players on a team will rarely criticize a manager in public, unless he is a moron like Kline.

Remember before I say this that I like walks much better than Dusty seems to..but what if I came on the board last Sunday and said see...the Cubs took 0 walks, and scored 15 runs! It looks like they should keep preaching agressiveness. I would be roasted for looking at that one game as evidence, because the 2 stats are not well correlated. So it's silly to look at this game as evidence of the other side, however a help it might have been. except the stats are well correlated (that is obp and runs) Yes, but OBP is not exactly what we are talking about here. Most of the correlation between OBP and runs is inherent in the correlation between batting average and runs. For example..there are 11 teams with over 300 walks this season. 6 are in the top 10 of runs scored, 2 are between 11-20, and 3 of those teams are in the bottom 10 of runs scored. Out of the bottom 5 teams in walks, 1 of them is in the top 10 of runs scored, 2 are in between 11-20, and 2 are in the bottom 10. Also, look at this. The average number of walks by the division of 10 Top 10: 313.2 BB's 2nd 10: 277.2 BB's Last 10: 280.4 BB's Do walks have an affect on runs? Definitely. Does it have as much of an affect as a change in batting average? Not a chance. That's why OPS is such a good stat in evaluating runs for a team. The top 10 teams in OPS are also the top 10 teams in runs scored. That has direct correlation-while walks do not. And remember, it is walks alone we are talking about, since the original posted did not say that we had 9 walks and also had so many hits, which would be the components of OBP. Instead, he singularly wanted the Cubs to walk more, and walks have only a slight to moderate correlation to runs scored. except the stats are well correlated (that is obp and runs) Ok, that's fine. I will say that it is irrelevant to this discussion however, since the original poster was talking about the effect walks have on runs, not overall OBP. When I said that the stats were not well correlated, I was talking about walks as well, so therefore your statement is irrelevant to the current discussion and has no impact on my original statement. The primary reason that OBP and runs are decently well correlated is the difference in batting average (and still not nearly as well correlated as OPS). Differences in walks play a smaller role in run production, which is what I was saying to the original poster. What you are missing, and this is big, I mean really big, is that you cannot take walks out of OBP or OPS. Walks are important.

Bulls on parade We gonna rally round the family with a pocket full of shells. One of the best rock songs ever.

Brenly is a moron. I was going to start a rant, but why bother. I don't want him anywhere near a baseball field in congunction with the Cubs.

Steve Stone is just a bitter... Oh wait, he was right again.

I wish they would honor Dusty's wishes. It makes no sense to me whatsoever. If it is true he declined the offer for an extension. If his team is playing terrible and he won't be around next year anyway Then, why not get rid of him and get on with whatever the future holds?