jjgman21

sorry guys. can't do it. I hated him again as soon as he crossed the plate. I mean the guy allegedly plays because of his defense. since coming back from California, he's blown two different games because of late inning defense, so he's got at least one more hit like that to make up for those two games alone, much less being at the bottom of the barrell in so many defensive catagories. don't blame Neifi because he stinks, blame Baker? well, I do, more for putting him in the first, second and seventh hole all year instead of the 8th where he belongs, and for him not recognizing that he caught lightening in a bottle and moving on after it was obvious Neifi was stinking ... but I think Neifi deserves alot of the blame for Neifi sucking. afterall, he sucks. godspeed Nomar. 0-3 tonight. on to Peoria.

I absolutely cannot stand Neifi Perez, but that sure feels like a little bit of revenge for all the big HRs hit by crappy Cardinal hitters over the few years against us in the late innings at Busch. didn't Womack hit like all his HRs against the Cubs last year?

he was out. even Morgan agreed. but even if he blew it, it wouldn't make a right. this umping crew owes us plenty. for instance, like I mentioned earlier, the borderline strike call was about 14-0 in favor of the Cards tonight. but it goes back to last year too, ie when Rapuano called a foul ball when Agonz wrist was broken. this crew also blew a couple calls on the bases for us earlier this year, and has been responsible for a couple of the strike threes not called for Maddux that ended up leading to big innings. like I said earlier, why is it the Cubs always seem to have to overcome bad umpiring?

one of the many differences between LaRussa umps make the right call, and LaRussa argues umps blow the call, and Baker does nothing. that was the perfect time for an argument. Dempster is visibly upset over the call. why not actually stick up for your players for once, and have it serve the second purpose of giving your closer a moment to focus. I can't stand either one of these nimrods.

darn you djaxx. I tried to get here to preemptively state: this changes nothing regarding Neifi's suckitude.

looked to me like he gave the leg, took it away, and was safe. just as safe as Luna.

Roast. it's been awhile. can we do something about resizing those pics.

the question is, why do we have to overcome bad call after bad call. it's not been as bad these past couple of months, but bad calls cost us 3 or 4 games easily earlier in the year. most teams can attribute a bad call to one or two losses a year, max. and I wouldn't say we had to overcome A bad call. by my count, borderline strike calls are around 14-0 this game.

the 'worst hitter in 50 years' was not my statement. it was a common issue of discussion before the season started, and was pulled from some statistical analysis or article from one of the services. someone help us out. where'd this come from?

I'm not calling him a defensive genius, but I know for a fact that he got a throw from Patterson last year on a sac fly attempt for a succesful 8-2 DP So last year when we would have gotten him, you don't think his .383 obp would have maybe helped us in the playoffs. This year is the first time in like what 10 that his obp isn't .340? Whereas Barrett has only had one year above that marker. I am happy with Barrett as our catcher with the stick, but for some to think we are geniuses for passing on Pudge is just ignorant. I am sure he would have won us 4-5 games more last year with just his game calling and defense, let alone his .383 obp. Hey that prolly gets us in the playoffs. with Barrett's improvment defensively and offensively (keep in mind, his offensive numbers are kept down by a completely freakish stretch of bad luck hitting for the first month and a half), Rothschild calling half the pitches when he's catching anyway, and most importantly the difference in salary, I would rather have Barrett on the upswing of his career than Pudge on the downside of his. I don't like Barrett's ability to take throws either and block the plate either, but the fact is the play at home happens rarely, and probably 95% of the time is a function of the outfielder's ability, not the catcher's. but back to the topic Gawd Neifi Perez sucks.

I'm just bumping this up so people don't get confused and think Kerry had his shoulder scoped already if they come to this page. that was my reaction when I first read the above two posts.

I wish Jon Miller had the beans to engage in this discussion: Joe - Pujols is the mvp because his teams is winning. Jon - last year the Cardinals won alot of ball games, but you thought Barry Bonds was mvp over Albert Pujols Joe - of course I did. he had the best numbers. and his team was winning. Jon - yes he did, and the Giants were winning, but fell short of the playoffs by a couple of games. Joe - yes, Barry put them on his back, but they fell just short. Jon - now this year, Derrick Lee has the best numbers, but you think Pujols is mvp. Joe - yes because its all about winning, and Albert's team wins. Jon - so what if the Cubs make the playoffs or fall just a game or two short? who's your mvp then? Joe - its still Pujols because he does the little things to help you win too Jon - LEE WITH A DIVING PLAY TO HIS LEFT, THROW TO SECOND, THERE'S ONE, RELAY TO FIRST, SCOOPED OUT OF THE DIRT - DOUBLE PLAY!!! AN INCREDIBLE DEFENSIVE PLAY ON BOTH ENDS BY YOUR TRIPLE CROWN CANDIDATE!!! ...we'll get back to this next inning Joe. Cardinals strand one, we go to the ninth with the Cubs still leading 3-1 behind that man's two run double.

and what's funny about that is his swing reminds me of Larry Bowa's in his Cub days. it's about as week as it gets. Neifi needs to realize that his team would be much better off if he never took the bat off his shoulder and wore 100 lb. boots so he's not so adept at getting out of the way of the inside pitch. the one pitch he can hit as a lefty he's bailing out on 95% of the time. it drives me nuts. and some how he has a knack to GIDP when a strikeout would have been better and K or pop up when a GIDP ball would have been fine. Neifi is second to bottom of all ML batting title qualified players in BB/PA. Pudge is worst (anyone really think not signing him was a mistake?). he's behind Corey, Jose Reyes, and Alfonso Soriano. he's nearly doubled his career total in HBP this year with 3. his P/PA is 5th lowest in all of baseball. He's allegedly fast, but is tied for 13th in GIDP when most of his ABs have come after the pitchers spot or Corey (the only middle infielder ahead of him is Renterria batting behind Damon's .400+ OBP). last winter alot of people mentioned how, by some measures, Neifi is the worst hitter in 50 years or something like that. I was skeptical, but Neifi's made a believer out of me.

well it took me about 30 hours to cram my stomach back down my throat and comment on Friday night's game. deja vu. I've seen this game 30 times in my life. Cubs basically dominate the Cards the entire game, but let them stay in it, only to lose it late on a fluke. at least it was a unique fluke. crazy bounce off the wall. I guess its better than the usual error, bad call, inability to throw strikes (or as is often the case at Busch, inability to get strikes called) or bloop/seeing eye/broken bat hit that we usually see make the difference in these games. what a relief to score those two early runs today. only the Cubs can make you say "anything but a guy on third with less than two out."

and in further news, Farnsworth struck out 2 of 3 hitters in the 9th to earn his 4th save in a 2-1 game and in further further news, the Cubs don't win this game if not for Aramis Ramirez, Derrick Lee, and a really gutsy performance by Jerome Williams. Michael Barrett's RBI single was handy too. I don't like all of Hendry's moves either, and I'm not sure if this is a jab at him, but if it is, do we really need to do this everytime an ex-Cub has a good performance?

You're surprised that we want a great pitcher the day after one of out big three goes down? I understand what you mean, burnett gets injured. But....so? Should we dump prior because he's been injured in the past. I think all this stuff is self evident, but.... there's a difference between getting rid of someone who has suffered a few fluke injuries, most of them unrelated to pitching, and giving up a bunch of prosepcts to acquire a rental that has suffered arm injury after arm injury. I think you made a similar response when I made this point in another thread, only that time you used Ramirez. he's a free agent after this year, so that means six years in the big leagues right? I think he has averaged 17 starts per year in his career. he's made more than 27 starts in a year exactly 1 time. saying Burnett gets injured is a total understatement. when a team is expected to go to the playoffs and fails to do so in large part because its starting staff can't stay healthy, I just don't see the logic in going out and getting a starting pitcher that has had a harder time staying healthy than the guys you already have. I for one just don't think we should keep banging our head against a brickwall thinking that we can break though the wall if we bang our head a little harder.

no, because I don't want Burnett. I'm completely amazed that the day after Kerry Wood had to leave the game because of arm issues that anyone is still wanting AJ Burnett.

chuckling at all the employers out there. I don't think I have ever seen so many people logged on in the middle of the day like this.

like most everyone else, I was tricked on the Colorado game one. I was out of town for the weekend of the Boston series, so I had no idea who was asking 'did you hit a HR today.' other than that, the rest seemed like no brainers. didn't even need multiple choice for most of them, with the exception of what Lee did after his walkoff. the rest of the answers stated acts that Lee is way too classy for, so that was pretty easy too.

in the last ST game, which you may recall was televised, Corey hit a line drive homerun to rightcenter. incredible swing. short, compact. he looked like a mini Carlos Delgado when Delgado is going good. that AB gave me great hope after his spring struggles, but come the regular season it was back to the full arm whirly bird swing.

just as loses should never be put on one player, neither should wins, so I know what you are saying with that. I don't think he is solely responsible for anything, but I think his presence at the lineup has helped quite a bit. the sample size you are using to make your point is too small to be significant. ie. if Hairston goes 2 for 3 with a walk tonight, his OBP for July is up to .333. if he goes 2 for 4 the next night, his OBP for the month is up to .354. if he did that and the Cubs won both games, would you grudgingly give him a little more credit?

BUMP Hairston, other than that grand slam, hasn't done squat as our leadoff hitter. He's been slumping for a while now. He has definitely not been the reason for our recent good offense. He may be doing a tad better than CP in the leadoff spot, but that's not saying much at all. how is an OBP of .367 batting leadoff "not doing squat." isn't it more that a "tad better" than Corey's .268 OBP in the leadoff spot? he's in a little mini-slump since the All star break. no big wup.

Vance please elaborate, as much as you are comfortable doing so, about your source and the likelihood that what he said was true.

alright, let's track this discussion. yes, I did say "looking at how a team does against .500 teams is really a useless measure of how a team performs." I went on to make a tangential point that maybe we shouldn't be so quick to judge the Cubs possibility of winning the wildcard based on how they have performed to this point because their starting staff has not been together this caused you to go on some rant about what happened during the 8 game losing streak and since June 11 to make a point about not seeing "an inordinate number of losses coming from Wood/Prior fill ins". last I checked games in April and May count as much as games in June and July. somebody else pointed out how not having our starting staff may have taxed the bullpen and lead to some lossses. contemporaneously I posted a message that pointed out how not having our aces lead to alot of losses post June 11, and at the same time made a mention of pen possibly being effected. you responded to the other poster by inaccurately characterizing what I said in a previous post. I pointed out the inaccuracy, and concurred with the assessment of the bullpen. which brings us to where we are now. why? the original point was the difficulty in beating the good teams without your best players. I still don't understand why your analysis was limited to post June 11. if the staff was intact, maybe the Cubs are 12 games above .500 at that point. make up your mind. was your analysis about fill in starters, or was it about the bullpen?? before it was clearly about the fill ins, and you were pretty much wrong about that as I pointed out earlier. I see you ignored where I said, "it is not unreasonable to attribute some of our lack of success during the eight game losing streak to wear and tear on the bullpen caused by prior overuse." MY primary point about the bullpen was how it performed during the eight game losing streak. and again, make up your mind. are you making a point about the pen or the fill ins? just wondering because the Cubs were 4-9 between June 11 and Prior's return. here you seem to be admitting that the fill-ins were "putting the team in a hole" where before you seemed to be arguing that the Cubs were fine without their aces and not having them had little to do with the teams struggles. seeing how this point was so completely tangential and minor in the scheme of these discussions, I don't really care to get into it. looking at it a little further, perhaps they have held up better than I thought, with alot of the damage during the eight game losing streak coming against Rusch and Mitre. but back to the main point - I don't need to analyze or research a damn thing to know that the Cubs would have done better against .500+ teams, and .500- teams for that matter, had they had their starting staff intact all year. not only would they have actually been the starters for those games, they would have pushed Maddux back so he wouldn't have started 20 games already this year. reasonable minds would generally tend to agree, unless of course they were on an endless search for things to p and moan about when it comes to the Cubs or simply interested in arguing minutae. and back to the main point of the thread, I iterate that we don't need to add anything cuz our starting pitching as it is right now kicks butt. if we keep getting anything close to what we have seen lately, the wild card is ours (not that I wouldn't mind an addition). Thank you for letting me set things straight. jg

anyone else sick of seeing opposing catchers pulling balls back into the zone and the ump falling for it? that second pitch to Hairston was not a strike. way to go Todd.