jjgman21

My problem with the article is that it's basically "yeah, they're all doing good, but it won't last." It just seemed like a very downer type of article for so early in the season. He could have done with same article with a different tone and called it "Early Season Surprises." Then I wouldn't have had a problem with it. He would have had it been Suppan with Maddux's numbers. There's no doubt that overall, Perry is a biased hack. are you implying that another author might have included Luna, Miles, and perhaps even Pujols .950 slg. and Carpenter's 1.91 ERA in such a list?

Woah woah. Are you saying those that criticise the Cubs organizations are rational and those that don't are irrational? I think he/she means rational in the philosophical sense. It is a clash of world views. http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/rationalism-empiricism/ Exactly. I do not have a philosophy background either, but as far as my limited knowledge brings me, you are still saying that those who are critical of the Cubs organization are the only ones being rational and those that don't criticize, are unreasoned drones. nonsense.

of course it never works the other way around. people that hate Neifi always just let it go when someone says a complimentary word about him.

I agree. but pointing out the flaws is not always done via critical thinking and making judgments based on logic and reason. sometimes there is quite a bit of off handed remarks made and analysis given that leaves out facts, makes logical leaps of faith, emphasizes the bad and de-emphasizes the good, etc. what is with people today anyway? the Cubs are on a three game winning streak, with our three best players hurt, two of those players appear to be coming back soon, our young guys are performing well, and a pitcher we all have anticipated seeing at Wrigley for 5 years now will be making his major league debut today. it's happy time people. there will be 60-70 loses this year to be pissed off after. It's been said before, but it's worth repeating. Every Cubs fan is happy with the win, but it's a marginal happiness. Until they win a world series, a regular season victory, or string of victories, just isn't going to cut it. Big picture stuff is what matters to those who still fret after a win. I think this is true, and the implications speak volumes. 100 win season, one out away from winning the World Series, .650 winning percentage, whatever degree of success on the field we see simply doesn't matter to some. they will continue to bitch until the ballclub is constructed the way they want it constructed. then, excuse the A's post season failures because the playoffs "are a crapshoot" but not be satisfied until the Cubs roll sevens all the way through. know damn well that the only teams in baseball with the payroll capable of building a WS team out of spring training are the Yankees and RedSox, then bitch that the Cubs 'only' built a team with a great shot at making the playoffs considering the division and the league. readily admit that the Cubs team as currently constructed, without late season additions and help from the minor leagues, can win 90-92 games this season, then bitch that the roster out of spring training isn't built to win 100 games. I want a World Series win as much as anyone, and I really hate the way the team plays at times. I hate their manager, I hate that they swing at balls, I hate Neifi Perez. but failing to win a World Series, especially failing to win the World Series in April, is not going to kill my joy of baseball and being a Cubs fan, or cause me to constantly piss and moan and crap in other people's cereal bowls, and it especially won't cause me to do so when things are going well and better than expected, all things considered.

I agree. but pointing out the flaws is not always done via critical thinking and making judgments based on logic and reason. sometimes there is quite a bit of off handed remarks made and analysis given that leaves out facts, makes logical leaps of faith, emphasizes the bad and de-emphasizes the good, etc. what is with people today anyway? the Cubs are on a three game winning streak, with our three best players hurt, two of those players appear to be coming back soon, our young guys are performing well, and a pitcher we all have anticipated seeing at Wrigley for 5 years now will be making his major league debut today. it's happy time people. there will be 60-70 loses this year to be pissed off after.

what about his Wrigley numbers? you've pointed that out several times, but I think sample size is a big issue. so he's had a couple of good games at Wrigley. no biggie. not enough to say it is a trend. he's been hit pretty well by the Cubs in Florida, a pitcher's paradise. the field will have little to do with the outcome.

Jones should have called him off, then. He's got the play in front of him. There wasn't a reason for Neifi to get involved. the point of my rather detailed description was to point out that it appeared Jones did not know he could could get to it until it was too late to call it, and regardless of where the play is, you don't call it unless you know you can get to it.

and here I was thinking my level of brooding, bitching, and whining finally reached the point where it was so annoying to my family that the Cubs turned it around for the benefit of family values.

I hate Neifi as much as the next guy, but I watched it a couple times on TIVO and I don't think Jones ever called for the ball. Not that it was a bad play for Jones not to call it either, because it looked like he wasn't sure he was going to get there, then lost sight of it right when he realized he could get to it, then saw it again when it was too late to call it. I think the little flip was also more out of exasperation at how close they were to colliding / letting the ball drop.

a very rare thing occurred to me tonight. I wished a Sox fan was sitting next to me, or maybe that I got a call through to Boers and Bernstein. the crowd was incredible. drinking beer and talking on cell phones my butt. Sox fans NEVER would have been into this game like the Cub fans were tonight, even when the Cubs were trailing and looking like total crap.

Wow. That is ridiculous paranoia. So you're saying that these umpires who more than likely could care less about the Cubs or the Cards have a deeply ingrained bias towards the Cards due to the history of the two teams? That is preposterous. In no way is that elementary psychology there Freud. But if you want to get technical and psychoanalyze this we can: What is elementary psychology is the inferiority complex being displayed in this thread. What some of you are exhibiting is known as "cultural cringe" which is an inferiority complex that exists throughout members of a group or entire culture. Inferiority complexes lead to neurosis in many cases. Neurosis is a mental imbalance that leads to distress and anxiety (IE - paranoia: the umps, media, and Tony LaRussa are out to get us/Maddux) but doesn't interfere with the person's ability to function in everyday life. That being said, I think all of this does not apply. I think some of you are just taking this incident far too seriously. what a wildly inappropriate response. and it's Pavlov, not Freud. check in with me the next time any corner call ever goes against the Cardinals.

and that very well could happen. he just needs to find out what Maddux did last off season! do you know just how highly unlikely it is that it will happen? a couple years ago I looked through the stats of almost all of the greatest all time sluggers to see if we could expect Sosa to have some more good years. in all of this research, I found two players in the history of baseball that had a significant slip in numbers in their late to mid 30's, like Edmonds last year, then resurged to have good years. they are Hank Aaron and Barry Bonds, and neither of them had as significant of a dropoff as Edmonds did from 04-05. if Edmonds gets in for his defense, the Cards will have two of the three players in the entire HOF elected because of defense, and the only two elected by the writers, and the only one in the HOF because of severely overrated defense. on that note, Omar Vizquel, certain HOF'er? if Ozzie was, Omar is.

depending on his year, I'd like to see the Cubs offer him arby, and actually go and fight it if he accepts and tries to high ball. if he refuses, take the draft pick(s). if he accepts, even in a good year, he doesn't have the numbers to make a legit case for a huge pay increase. then set about doing everything you can to dump Jones.

I'm still simply flabbergasted that so many posters here wanted to sign him. add me to the list who saw this coming, or if nothing else, who knew it wouldn't be a wise idea to spend a ton of money on a guy who presents the same frustrations our current pitchers do.

Way to convince him Berkman! There's one Astro that must not want him back that much :wink: Or thinks he might play for a different team, and would rather see him retire than see him on another team. or...we were sick of the special treatment he got last year, and now he wants to miss 1/3 of the season and then return as if he's doing us some sort of favor. screw him. back to the 'Clemens just openned a restuarant' theory, Chelios openned a restuarant about a year before the leaving the Blackhawks for their most hated rival. generally atheletes don't open restuarants. financiers open restuarant's, and pay the atheletes to put their name on it and supply the bric-a-brac. in other words, if the restuarant tanked, it probably would't effect Clemens' bank account one iota. he already got his money. further, it takes alot of local endorsements to make up the extra millions the Yankees or RedSox would throw at him. all that said, I wouldn't be surprised at all if he came back to the Astros. I don't particularly care because power pitching doesn't treat 43 year olds particularly kindly. I highly doubt he keeps up the pace of the past two years. I for one would love to see the Astros pony up 15M on a guy who most likely will put up numbers similar to those he put up for most of his time with the Yankees.

Good post. I would also add the absurd Murton "out" call and the Pierre "check swing" from the Wrigley series to that list. I wonder if it's the same conventional wisdom that leads ESPN to excuse the purely and simply awful calls on Murt and Pierre as they did in the Wrigley series. and keep in mind that checkswing call by the home plate umpire came the day after the previous home plate ump did the exact same thing. made the call himself, without checking with the corner ump, and got it wrong.

do you buy what I said about the calls on CPatt and Murton? no have you been to an eye doctor lately? seriously, Murton has gotten hosed on several calls as of late. I admire your desire to be a stand up guy about officiating, but how you can deny that some of the pitches Murton was called out on in LA and St. Louis were clearly balls is beyond me.

do you buy what I said about the calls on CPatt and Murton?

obviously I do think the Cards get some favoritism, and there really isn't much that can change my mind about it. see the examples I gave above, throw in a little Aram being called out when he was safe, and there's the swing in the series. go back a couple weeks and see the strikezone Ponson got, then compare to Rolen's 6 strike AB in the first inning against Marshall. claim it was the way the ball came out of Marshall's hand and that it 'confused' the ump, and I'll point to the Cubs relievers that didn't get the same calls Ponson got. go back in time and see Darryl Kile getting a strike called every time he threw the curve anywhere near the plate. see the call that prevented the series in 2003 from being a 5 game sweep. I could go through player after player that had their BB and K rates significantly improve once they became a Cardinal, only to have them return to their career norm after they leave the Cardinals. but everytime I bring it up, I see the obligatory knee jerk labeling of 'conspiracy.' I never claimed there is a conspiracy. I've never said anything about the umps being in cahoots with each other or any certain team. but the fact is, we all know that certain players get special treatment (Clemens, Bonds, Maddux/Glavine back in the day, Schilling beating up Questech because he wasn't getting the corner calls he was used to). it is not a stretch to say that may go for certain teams as well. I don't believe it is even a conscious thing that makes the umps give favorable calls to certain players or certain teams, much less a conspiracy. it is simply an ingrained mindset of everybody who follows baseball. "Clemens good. hits corners." "Bonds thinks not strike. must not be strike." similarly "Cards make big play/pitch when need, Cubs fail." it's an ingrained mindset we've all heard all of our lives. that subconscious thought translating to results during a baseball game is not an absurd notion at all. it's pretty much elementary psychology.

I want the Cubs to be more patient and swing at better pitches and take more walks. with that said, there's some truth to this comment, all kidding aside. the hitter has no control over an umpire's right arm going up in the air on those pitches that Morgan calls "acceptable strikes" (aka balls that are called strikes). you can claim that those calls "all even out," but I've watched enough Cubs baseball to know with a high degree of certainty that those calls do not even out when you wear the big red C. so what, just swing at everything and let God sort them out? nope, a hitter CAN control what he swings at and what he doesn't. and, as Tim alluded to before, he can control if he swings at a pitch that he can't hit effectively. for example, i'd rather have a guy like adam dunn than a guy that doesn't strike out very much and puts the ball in play very ineffectively--ala juan pierre (who doesn't walk either). it's not about putting the ball in play, it's about putting it in play effectively. all i hear on the radio is "just put the ball in play, good things will happen" (from the same baseball insider-geniuses that would tell their non-sinkerball pitchers to "just let them put the ball in play, good things will happen"). one does not put pressure on an opposing pitcher or defense by slapping at a bad pitch (if the ump is going to call that bad pitch a strike, then so be it, if it's not strike 3 at least you didn't get yourself out prematurely and will make the pitcher throw a few more pitches). the more i think about it, the more i believe that it's the coaching and upper management that needs to go. either hendry's stupid, stubborn, or blind to not recognize the plate discipline problems that this team has--and dusty's probably all 3. would i make a better GM than hendry? how couldn't i? if all i did was issue a mandate to all of my farm teams that they must lead their respective leagues in walks or the manager gets fired--i'd be doing the major league team a huge service just in that. however, hendry insists on finding increasingly more archaic ways to win--which makes him a terrible GM. my thought is mostly directed to when there is a full count and other 2 strike counts. it seems to me the ability to lay off close pitches in those at bats is incredibly important when it comes to drawing walks. I am by no means saying it is the exclusive cause of the Cubs inability to draw walks. swinging early in the count at good/borderline pitches is probably the main cause, but the uncertainty of what an ump does is a cause. I recall numerous times last year where CPatt earned a walk when a 3-2 sinker stayed inside, yet the ump rung him up anyway. now that Corey is no longer the Cubs whipping boy for umpires, it seems like they are giving Murton the same treatment, even though he has great strikezone judgment. there is an organizational problem, it don't think as deep as many imply, but it really is a Catch 22. let the pitch go and hope the ump makes the just call, or swing at a pitch you can't hit hard anyway. I really don't have a suggestion. the point of my post was more 'damned if you do, damned if you don't.' what I would like to see is the Cubs taking those close pitches, building a reputation as a selective hitter and eventually 'earning' some calls. unfortunately I have no confidence the umps will ever turn it around for players wearing the big red C, with the exception of the occassional players who suddenly earn superstar treatment because of swinging the bat, who have seen those calls going their way a little more consistently after becoming premier players (ie. Sosa and Lee).

I want the Cubs to be more patient and swing at better pitches and take more walks. with that said, there's some truth to this comment, all kidding aside. the hitter has no control over an umpire's right arm going up in the air on those pitches that Morgan calls "acceptable strikes" (aka balls that are called strikes). you can claim that those calls "all even out," but I've watched enough Cubs baseball to know with a high degree of certainty that those calls do not even out when you wear the big red C.

maybe the guy that made 2 errors, 1 costly, should just shut up. this is the type of thing I was referring to earlier. the Cards get the benefit on several calls during the first two games of the series (see inside and low pitches by Mulder; high pitches by Ponson; Rusch 3-2 to JRod when compared to pitches to Blanco and Murton in the half inning before and after respectively), then complain about Maddux's strikezone when I didn't see a single pitch called a strike that should not have been (granted I didn't see the whole game). the MO is this...the majority things go their way, then they complain and play the victim. they are the republicans of baseball.

I agree 100%.

what is with you? why do you constantly make comments like this to people. the poster obviously doesn't want Pierre signed long term, and used Kenny Lofton's career as a reason for one year contracts, when Kenny Lofton's career indicated that it may be wise to sign Pierre to a long term deal. my post raised a valid point. if you don't like it, move on. if you want to raise a counter point, do so without the prickish comments.

His one tool is speed. I see his career path kind of Like Kenny Lofton's. Yep, I was thinking exactly the same thing. There's a good reason why Lofton has been on one year contracts for a while now. It's because at his age he's liable to lose another step any day now and become utterly worthless. He does deserve one year offers, but that's all. In another couple of years Pierre will be the same. actually, by that logic, the Cubs should sign him up for three or four years. Lofton put up fantastic numbers the first three or four years after he was first eligible for free agency, and at a similar age. not that I advocate such a thing, but it is logically inconsistent and/or premature to say 'his career path will be like Kenny Lofton, therefore only sign him to one year contracts.'