jjgman21

the walks are disconcerting, but as mentioned the big problem was yesterday with the small zone. however, Z was extremely lucky yesterday, particularly in the first inning, when he gave up two walks and several really hard hit balls that managed to find fielders.

not sure on the answer. what I am sure of is it would be very difficult to find the figure because it was tied up with Henry taking over the RedSox, while selling the Marlins to Loria, while MLB was bailing Loria out of Montreal. they had to be the least valuable franchise in baseball at that time, yet when someone recently posted an article from one of the financial rags, I think Forbes, about the most valuable baseball franchises, the Nats were magically ranked in the top five. #6 between the Cubs and the Cardinals in 2005. They were dead last in 2003. *sniff* *sniff* dems some tasty smellin books they be cookin.

not sure on the answer. what I am sure of is it would be very difficult to find the figure because it was tied up with Henry taking over the RedSox, while selling the Marlins to Loria, while MLB was bailing Loria out of Montreal. they had to be the least valuable franchise in baseball at that time, yet when someone recently posted an article from one of the financial rags, I think Forbes, about the most valuable baseball franchises, the Nats were magically ranked in the top five.

How do you explain the 80's, and early 90's? I don't see the point in using such absolutes. It's not remotely true. the 80's can be explained by Steinbrenner's meddling in baseball operations. the early 90's can be explained by Stenbrenner's ban from having anything to do with the operation of the Yankees. once his pocketbook was back into play and his nose out of the transactional side of running the team, the Yankees became perennial contenders almost instantly.

Trib is a corporation. the goal of corporation is to maximize profits. it's really that simple. if winning brings in more profits, I'm sure the Trib is all for it. if winning has nothing to do with profits, the Trib wouldn't give a damn about winning.

staying specific to my point, it is absurd because Prior was pretty much fully developed physically by the time he was on the Cubs, and because some of the players you scoffed at were only 8-14 months older than Prior, and as pointed out above, some were just as abused.

Mussina was used sparingly at 22, threw over 200 at 23, then under 200 at 24 and 25. Oswalt was used sparingly at 23, had a full season at 24, then missed significant time at 25. Pedro didn't cross the 200 IP threshold until he was 24. Schilling did it at 25. Clemens did it at 23. Mark Prior crossed the 200 IP threshold before all of those guys. And while I don't have pitch count numbers on all of them, I'd be willing to bet none of them were used like Prior. Oswalt, for one, who did it a couple years later in life than when Prior did, doesn't come close to Prior. He had 2 games of 120 pitches. He had 18 under 100 pitches and never went more than 3 games in a row over 100 pitches. And he averaged just 98 pitches per game. I agree with your general point in the thread, but as to this response, the notion that young pitcher abuse is more significant if it happens one year earlier in the life of the pitcher is rather absurd, especially when comparing Mark Prior, who has been groomed to become a 200-250 IP/year pitcher since he was 15.

there are pitchers who have been abused early in their careers who haven't suffered the same type of injury woes...Oswalt and Pedro were pretty much abused early on, and both of them are small guys with violent deliveries. so were Mussina and Schilling and Clemens. but one has to wonder what the hell is going on with pitchers these days. Steve Trachsel and Jon Leiber are 29th and 30th on the active wins list while nearly all of the young phenoms from the past decade and a half, particularly the power pitchers, haven't had any sustained success.

I've been trying all morning to get the hit charts at the official website to work for me, without success. another approach I thought of to determine where Aramis hits the ball was a simple internet search for "aramis ramirez 'all fields'" and "aramis ramirez 'pull hitter'" try for yourself and see what kind of results you get. Aramis found success by hitting the ball to all-fields, thus getting good pitches on the inside that he can drive. he's certainly not a 'dead pull hitter,' and he never has been until April 2006.

another difference...Pierre's play was dumb, but he was safe. he was only picked off because the umpire apparently had an overwhelming urge to raise his right arm. The point is Corey is no longer a Cub. He's no longer our problem. Pierre is our problem. Interestingly enough, Corey is hitting .295 and scoring runs at a pretty healthy clip. Yet, it's when he does something wrong people like to start threads about him. Corey's strike out rate is also only 1 per 6 plate appearances. But, I'm not going to start a thread about how well he's making contact. Just as I would expect that people wouldn't start a thread about him each time he does something that proves the anti Corey crowds theories. if corey was with the cubs he'd be hitting .095. dude has something wrong in his head. when he gets booed a few times in baltimore, that average will drop. looks like another anti-corey crowd vs. love every cub prospect crowd battle. ;) I was merely pointing out that one possibility of why there was no thread complaining about Pierre's play is the umpire blew the call. you guys are reading things into my post that simply are not there.

another difference...Pierre's play was dumb, but he was safe. he was only picked off because the umpire apparently had an overwhelming urge to raise his right arm.

a nice study, but I think it's crazy to say those spray charts show anything other than Aramis is pull happy. what would be particularly enlightening, and demonstrate what I am talking about, is comparing those charts to what he has down in past years. I also find it a little hard to believe that Aramis trying to pull more than half the pitches on the outter third is "good news." he's hitting in some tough luck, but last night I turned on the game precisely at the time he almost got run out of the game for arguing a strike call, when the pitch was right down the middle of the plate. he followed up that AB with a one pitch AB, popping up a shoe high sinker, to lead off the inning no less. please stop making excuses for Aramis. he's hit in some tough luck, but he's not doing the things he has done in the past to make him successful. he's thinking about pulling the ball and hitting 500 foot, 6 run homers.

yet another example of the closer a guy gets to Wrigley Field, the more he refuses to throw strikes?

so if the Astros are willing to give him an 18M deal that is pro-rated, and Roger will not come back until at least June 1, that means the offer is a maximum of 12M. this to me seems like the Astros owner setting up his excuse for after Clemens signs with an AL east team for more money..."well I offered him 18M per year"

yet another example of the closer a guy gets to Wrigley Field, the more he refuses to throw strikes?

Right. That's why many here complain about Jones, Pierre, and Perez. They're mediocre players. They'll probably do better than they're doing right now, but they'll still be mediocre players who are getting paid a lot of money. Jones, Pierre, Perez, and Rusch make more than $15 million combined. That's more than the entire Florida roster. It's enough to pick up a top tier free agent. Okay, so we blame Ramirez for his slow start. So what? Do you think he's playing poorly on purpose? He started slow last year and ended up with a great season. It's fair to blame Ramirez for his struggles, but it's not fair to blame him for the team's struggles. Cubs management, ownership, and coaching gets credit for that. Its not like the top of the order is getting in scoring position anyways. 39% of his plate appearances this year have been with runners in scoring position 51% of his plate appearances this year have been with runners on. it is fair to blame Aramis in part for some of the Cubs failure. the people in front of him are doing their jobs for the most part. he is failing. find me a successful team with the cleanup hitter doing as poorly, and you found yourself a team with really good pitching.

the excuse of "slow starter" people keep giving Aramis has got to stop. there's been a couple seasons where April was one of his best months. he's pull happy and trying to hit everything out of the park. it would not surprise me if he's been coached to do that, because the Cubs have turned many good, natural all-field hitters into pull happy freaks, but he needs to make the adjustment and return to driving outside pitches to rightfield right fricken now. Cubs OBP #1 .292 #2 .370 #3 .409 Aramis RBI - 10 PATHETIC! he's killing us.

yet another example of the closer a guy gets to Wrigley Field, the more he refuses to take a walk?

again, in the month after Choi returned, Karros had an OPS around .930. its pretty damn hard to maintain those numbers while only hitting lefties well, so he was probably doing something right against righties. it may have been difficult to be worse that Karros against righties, but Choi sure gave it a run with his pathetic numbers. and again, a three team pennant race is not the time to be working back into shape. if he'd done anything with his opportunities, I'd think the argument is valid, but he didn't. he failed miserably actually. and beyond the stat sheet, it didn't take a baseball guru to see that Choi simply was not catching up to fastballs after his return and was being fooled badly by almost every off speed pitch.

I've seen that post, and put up my own analysis of the game logs, which I thought presented a pretty persuasive argument could be made that Baker was sticking with the hot hand, yet still giving Choi opportunities, of which he completely failed to take advantage. when Choi went down in early June 2003, Karros had about .870 OPS the rest of June. Choi returned at the beginning of July, and his OPS for that month was something like .570 in about 33 ABs. Karros's OPS that month was something like .930 in about twice as many at bats. the question should not have been "why isn't Choi getting more ABs," the question should have been "why is Choi getting any ABs." it was a pennant race. you stick with what is helping you win ballgames, and at the time, Karros was helping the Cubs win ballgames, and Choi was not. sure, maybe Dusty didn't give him enough of an opportunity to regain his form, but that was not the time nor place to let Choi toil away and try to find his groove while Karros was pounding the ball. it was the time to put the guy out there who gave you the best chance to win each and every game, and like it or not, Karros and Simon were the guys, not Choi. now Karros completely sucked in August and September, but so did Choi. believe in clutch or not, Randall Simon got huge hit after huge hit at that time, so again, you stick with the hot hand. the bottom line is, if a young player isn't making the most of his opportunities, however limited those opportunities are, he should not be playing in a pennant race when the veteran options are performing well.

my first post ever on NSBB was an attempt to start the "FireSarge Bandwagon." it didn't pick up any steam, but he was fired at the end of the year, only to be "replaced" by Clines, who is probably worse. let's face it though, Sarge, Clines and Baker are all hitting coaches on this team. I just wish Sarge and Baker would teach these guys to be like they were as players. why they all preach over-aggressiveness when they both attained success by being patient hitters is beyond me.

what exactly did they do? I haven't seen anything. what is shameless is the MiLB wanting these guys to dedicate their lives to this profession, but paying them peanuts to do so.

Hill '03 ST: .154/.274/.173/.447 Cedeno '05 ST: .218/.271/.327/.598 Cedeno's obviously better, but both were pretty abominable, and since both came in about 50-55 ABs, there's not much difference in the performance aside from an XBH or two. fine. you're only reinforcing my point about Dusty having some foresight and ability to evaluate young players. Hill was sent down and will never be more than a marginal bench player. Cedeno was kept as the starter and appears to be heading to a fine career.

I am not as anti-bunt as many, but with Cedeno's ability to line the ball to right field, there is no reason in the world to bunt him to third. unfortunately Ronny keeps reaching base when he bunts Pierre over, thus lending positive reinforcement to a bad managerial decision.

Hill's numbers that ST made Cedeno's 2006 ST look all-star caliber. he was terrible, not only offensively, but letting routine groundballs between his legs, lawn darts to first, etc. he was just horrid. I remember it well because I was so disappointed. he went back to Iowa, dealt with a sickness, and then abosolutely sucked for a month and a half in Iowa as well. again, I followed closely because I was really excited about his future. with all my defense of Dusty, please don't get me wrong. I believe the criticism is just, but overblown because I think there is something to his claim of 'I haven't had any good young players.' most managers that are expected to compete are going to choose the thing they know over the thing they don't know. so I agree. thank god that Cedeno is off to a good start, because I think Neifi probably would have been in there if he didn't. as for my answer to the question that started this thread, I get the feeling that Hendry and Baker made a deal. Baker agreed to play the kids, Hendry agreed to stock the back end of the roster with players that Baker likes in case those players fail.