jjgman21

Scott Rolen, three more years, $36 Million Jim Edmonds, one more year, $8 Million Chris Carpenter, five more years, $72 Million Encarnacion, Mulder, Spezio, Kennedy, at least one more year each, several more millions of dollars no help from the farm on its way, good GM fired, years of NL Central obscurity forthcoming.... Priceless.

There is a lot of that now being tracked. THT has been recently writing an article every few days including pitch break/speed charts that allows differentiation between those pitches. As UK said, its the way analysis is going. To expand, the data mining of this stuff is going to be great. As everyone has observed, pitchers throw in patterns. A pitcher will throw a certain pitch in certain counts, or rely on a his curve, when he can't get hsi fastball over the plate. Everyone inherently "knows" these things, but with the availabilty of the data teams can better prepare their hitters to have a gameplan against a pitcher. In essence, good data mining should result in the same outcome as when a pitcher is tipping his pitches. Conversely, hitters will be able to analyze what pitches they hit well, where those pitches are in the strikezone, etc. In essence, this will allow teams to create a Ted Williams chart for each hitter not only on pitch location in the zone but on what type of pitch. Pitchers can use this to their advantage as well. I think the new wave of play by play information will do more to allow players/teams who embrace it to play smarter and better. I would like to see more emphasis on measuring the speed and trajectory of the ball off the bat.

I've always agreed with the point that obp is undervalued in OPS, but you putting it into these terms really raises a doubt in my mind about that 1.6-1.8 multiplier. plugging those numbers into a real world situation, Mark Grace's obp in 1998 was just as important as Sammy Sosa's slugging when it came to the Cubs scoring runs? no way. or how about this. Eckstein's obp in 2005 was .363. multiply that by 1.6, you get .581. Pujols slugging in 2005 was .609. so Pujols slugging was only slightly more valuable than Eckstein's ability to get on base? this just isn't passing the smell test.

It's not about having no effect, it's about having a big effect in one year. DLee was a Cubs for a full year before his 2005 turnaround. He also had that season in his age 29 season, much like Sosa. So he was still in his peak range. Perry had one spring and one season to work with these guys. Many of them are in their 30's with well established track records and entranched methods. That's hard to crack. Hopefully he does some good with the Cubs younger players, and maybe he can even get a little more out of Ramirez, who is already a great consistent hitter. But guys like Jones, Soriano and DeRosa, on the wrong side of 30, probably aren't going to see much improvement no matter how coaches them. great. another off season of misuse of the already over-generalized "peak seasons." hurrah. in any event, I was not bashing Perry, so I don't know why you even went there. of course it's tough to crack, but it's been done many times with many players on many teams with many different hitting coaches. several posters said or implied that hitting coaches have little to no effect on veteran hitters, and despite your splitting of hairs, that's wrong.

who knows about Perry at this point. I am a little disturbed that they lead the word in bad g/f ration until the outburst in September. I'm also a little disturbed that the same types of pitchers dominate them over and over with no adjustment. whether that's the players or the coach, who knows. but how can fans of this team say 'not much you can do with a veteran hitter' when Sammy Sosa became a superstar in his tenth year in the league after learning a timing mechanism from Pentland, and Derrek Lee had an MVP season after Clines taught him to open his hips and start pulling the ball in his ninth season in the league? I don't expect Perry or any hitting coach to pull this off every year, but saying a hitting coach will have no effect on veterans is wrong.

and where is our Josh Beckett and Mike Lowell that will land such a talent. Great answer, thanks. more than happy to put fantasy transactions to rest before they become cumbersome in these threads, so no problem.

what I would do about shortstop would be an extension of what I would do about left field and second base. yes, a few runners thrown out on the basepaths is thrilling, but if Soriano had a clue on what angle to take to flyballs and had the ability to control his body in order to make a running catch, the Marlins and DBacks series possibly turn out quite a bit different. I would put DeRo at short, Soriano back to the infield, Murton in left or right, depending on who is acquired for the other outfield corner spot.

and where is our Josh Beckett and Mike Lowell that will land such a talent.

this absolutely sucks. on the bright side, better right behind the pole where you can peak around and catch all the action then being a few rows back and having that pole directly covering the pitcher, flight of the pitch, or home plate. that's much worse.

Andre Dawson was once 'yet another in a long line of broken down players who won't do crap.'

just go with 'use your brain morans.' far more cutting than anything someone creates in photoshop.

Hahahaha, i love it. strange thing is, after stating Kendall has no use, he goes on to describe two of the roles that Kendall helps fill off the bench and that those abilities are handy against a team like the DBacks.

so is this fixed and that's the roster? edit - so now it's fixed.

it's also likely that the Cubs won't have to deal with the culprits that cost us a chance win a couple ballgames in Atlanta. both Tschida and Wolf are working other division series, so I don't think they will be in later series.

not alot of friendly names here going into the Marlins series, the Cubs were 2-8 in their last 10 with Reilly behind the plate. umpires love my Schwede Weiners