jjgman21

it's the Tim Tschida show. his corner calls may determine the outcome of this game.

where do you get this stuff?

I agree the D was shaky, but the first DP was not routine. when the ball was first hit, I didn't think they stood a chance at turning it. I think Theriot was playing short at the time, he had to field moving to his right and coming in (with the runner crossing in front of him) forcing a throw across his body. he executed well. DeRo made an outstanding turn with the runner bearing down and made a real strong throw. the only reasons a DP was even possible was DeRo's strong arm with a catcher running.

Why is the natural conclusion so obvious to us yet the Cubs management never seem to get it. Hundley practically screamed DFA me and yet the Cubs took on 2 bad players, one of whom blocked their best positon prospect at the time. If you add up Hundley's 2 years and compare that with Karros and Grudz 1 year apiece salaries added up, the Cubs really didn't save much money. It ended up working out great, but that was only by pure dumb luck. No one could have reasonably predicted both Karros and Grudz would have rebounded to produce what they did. even if they didn't rebound, that was a good move. when the trade was made, it was made in part to get the books cleared earlier. the team they had came pretty cheap outside of Sosa and Alou, so that was the year to clear the salary. Wood was going to be a FA at the end of the year, and there were plenty of other obvious holes that would need to be addressed. it was a rare case of foresight IMO. in addition, at the time the trade was made, the Cubs planned on having two rookies manning the right side of the infield. it is not a bad idea having veteran backups in that situation, especially Karros, who was still doing quite well vs. lefties when the Cubs acquired him.

can't stand Jones, particularly right now. however, I question the need to DFA him. I think the best think to do would be to hang on to him and hope that Perry can get him to make adjustments. like with most things, offense is cyclical, and I know these stats are following a particularly good run by the Cubs, and bad by the Mets and Braves, but with tonights 9-1 victory over the Braves and the Mets scoring 3 runs, the Cubs are now tied for third with the Mets (moving past the Braves) for most runs/game in the NL. of course the first counter argument is usually that the Cubs offense is inconsistent. I ran through this a couple weeks ago, and again I went through it quickly, but 0/1/2/3/4 run games Cubs 2/8/5/7/9 Mets 1/7/8/9/4 Fish 3/5/7/7/6 Phils 1/4/7/6/10 or 0-2 run games/3-4 run games Cubs 15/16 Mets 16/13 Fish 15/13 Phils 12/16 sustain the starting pitching and offense, get the pen straightened out, and the Cubs will be just fine, even with Jacque. give him a chance to raise his value a little bit, bite the bullet on his contract later if he doesn't turn it around and substantiate his contract in the eyes of another team.

anyone ever see the umpire crew change after the first game of a series before? definetely not a bad thing seeing Charlie's crew leave town, but I will say despite the beatdown, I thought the Braves got the benefit of the strikezone more often than the Cubs tonight.

please don't put runners on ahead of Andruw Jones. http://sports.espn.go.com/mlb/players/bvsp?playerId=4409

I don't think Aram should be a go all out kind of guy. his game isn't built on speed. all I ask is that he go 80-90% out of the box until he sees the fielder handle the ball cleanly, especially when there is a runner on base. if the fielder picks it and is in the process of making the play, fine, break it down, don't bust it so as to make the play close or just in case the throw pulls the first baseman off the bag. in other words, no need to hustle on a routine play, but don't judge a play's routineness prematurely. there's degrees of hustle, and there's times to hustle. he's been better this year about it, but this is clearly a play where if he doesn't give up on it once it left his bat, he wouldn't have aggrevated the knee.

looks to me like everybody flamed the Cubs organization for mere rumors about taking a guy that Billy Beane ended up taking, and yet no criticism was directed his way. it also looks like there is an aweful lot of anger at the Cubs for taking an approach to this draft that is not unlike the approach that Billy Beane takes to the draft, and the founder of this board got flamed for even pointing that out.

NSBB: picking player X would be absurd, especially if player Y and Z are available. Bud Selig: Oakland A's select player X. NSBB: *crickets* pause..... NSBB: how could the Cubs pass on players Y and Z. they're so stupid. pause.... NSBB: Billy Beane is such a genius. Or you could have checked the reaction in the draft thread. ... Why should he do that when ignoring the facts so clearly supports his agenda much better? lol at "his agenda." unfortunately the claim you guys are making just isn't supported by what actually happened in said thread. viewtopic.php?t=41280&postdays=0&postorder=asc&start=420 just look at all that scathing criticism.

NSBB: picking player X would be absurd, especially if player Y and Z are available. Bud Selig: Oakland A's select player X. NSBB: *crickets* pause..... NSBB: how could the Cubs pass on players Y and Z. they're so stupid. pause.... NSBB: Billy Beane is such a genius.

I've heard this several times now and still don't know what it means. he was declared long man about mid ST. I don't think he worked a stint longer than 3 innings all spring. in April, he got one batter on the 5th, then went 4/6 two inning 4/10 three innings 4/16 two innings. nice regular intervals between pitching. then he was sent to Iowa to be stretched out at a nice normal pace. he was recalled and went into the regular rotation on normal rest. at one point he was made to pitch over 15 innings in just 11 days!. then he was moved to the pen, and was not overworked. in essence, his pitching pattern was pretty close to what a starter would do if you consider a starters day to throw between starts. there is no overly abusive pitching pattern here. nothing happened that has not been done literally thousands of times without the player getting injured. the guy has been blowing out one thing or another for years on end now. what's so difficult about accepting that the guy gets injured with regularity and this just fits the larger pattern of his entire professional career?

if I am not mistaken, you instantly become liable for the taxes on the value of the ball. nobody would have any choice but to sell it, unless the person who catches it also happens to be a millionaire.

wouldn't it be great if everyone was lined up on Sheffield, but Bonds goes the other way, it bounces on Waveland, starts rolling down Kenmore, right into a sewer drain, lost forever.

what a load of idiotic BS. he gets moved to the pen and gets hurt shortly thereafter, and it proves the cubs were right to move him to the pen? seriously, what a stupid post. Abuck, I think he was kidding. It's hard to believe that someone with that long a history of posting here would, in seriousness, produce a post as insipid as that one. I mean, the board has gone through the Wood/Prior debates so often that only absolute retards could continue to insist that a talented and cheap pitcher should be considered valueless just because he's often injured. Just a few weeks ago, this board- not to mention almost every respectable baseball analyst- crucified the Phillies for the Myers-to-bullpen move. When Myers broke down, the issue was even more widely discussed. To believe that Soul was serious, you'd have to believe both that he doesn't follow major news stories in the National League and that he's one of these posters who thinks that his feeling such as disappointment or frustration or disgust at hype should be given significant weight in personnel decisions. Neither of those seems particularly plausible, and since, together, those claims amount to the suggestion that Soul is a remarkably stupid baseball fan, it seems far more reasonable, not to say generous, to conclude that he was joking. I'd probably be banned for writing that.

That's a huge red flag for me. The guy isn't going to learn plate discipline with the Cubs, and he isn't going to handle those pitches against pros. If we have another 4:1 K:BB guy on our hands, he won't help at all. FWIW Keith Law and espn.com has his plate discipline graded out higher than Dominquez, Moustakas and Heyward (although they were just raving about his discipline earlier). in the Baseball Analysts article he lists his biggest influence on developing his baseball skills as his father, and talks also about his brother, who was an A's draft pick. if the fruit doesn't fall far from the tree, I have a feeling he has a good idea about the strikezone.

that will be one ugly scene on Sheffield if the Giants come in with Barroid one back and/or tied.

turns out the version of the facts originally dispensed by the media have been in dispute all along. wonder what Soup will have to say. http://sports.yahoo.com/mlb/news;_ylt=ApMWOfMBEBWkk3.qP9haEWoRvLYF?slug=ap-hancockinvestigation&prov=ap&type=lgns

one potential huge hidden problem I have with this move is what it signals regarding the relationship of the GM and manager. I get the feeling this move was made because Lou decided he won't have Cherry or Cotts or any of the other pitchers on the 40 man that he saw in spring on his team. once again we seem to have a manager that has too much influence over the roster.

I didn't really make any assertion that I was trying to prove right. rather I thought it absurd that the poster stuck to an assertion that wasn't born out by the facts. our GM sucks, but that doesn't mean other GMs are flawless. on the one hand we have complaints of two different young pitchers mishandled in a different way, on the other we have an assertion that one organization doesn't mishandle pitchers, when in fact they have a single pitcher that embodies both the mistakes made on the two pitchers.

well not really, but why is it so preposterous if they are?

The Indians don't do stupid things like call up their best pitching prospect before he's big league ready for stupid reasons like "need more control in middle relief", or "we can just extend him later". I agree, they didn't have Carmona up last year getting shelled in the pen... Carmona was pitching better than Gallagher is at a higher level when he was called up. It was also his second season at AAA after 2 seasons at AA. Not even remotely comparable. just noticed this. not sure how you can have it both ways between your defense of the way they broke in Colon, and the way they broke in this guy. Carmona was not pitching very well before being called up. nice peripherals, but a 5.53 ERA in six starts. how that's all that much better than Gallaghers start at AA this year, I don't know. You said it yourself, peripherals. Better walk rate with a similar K rate and WHIP, and again, at a higher level after he spent a full year in AAA, and large parts of 2 years in AA. looking at it a little closer, so other than his work the previous year, which was nice, but not overwhelming, I'm not sure how he was 'pitching better than Gallagher before being called up' because he debuted in mid April. not a great sample from which to declare he was pitching better, compared to Gallagher's 11 starts this year. he was allowed to start. the Indians moved him out of the rotation after his May 20 outting when the Indians were 7.5 out of first, sitting in third place. on May 23, they were 9 out of first. did the Indians send him back down to start? was that stupid? then he was made the closer. then he went back to AAA and went back to starting. then they brought him back up in September and kept him in the rotation. on Sept. 9, after being brought back, he had a 65 pitch outting, followed by a 91 pitch outting. I heard Meph and Raisen and Roto saying how Guz's injury is probably from being bounced around in his role, so that was a stupid move? considering all of this, did Cleveland do something stupid with bouncing him around, or are Meph and Raisen and Roto wrong and there isn't anything wrong with bouncing a young pitcher around in his role?

The Indians don't do stupid things like call up their best pitching prospect before he's big league ready for stupid reasons like "need more control in middle relief", or "we can just extend him later". I agree, they didn't have Carmona up last year getting shelled in the pen... Carmona was pitching better than Gallagher is at a higher level when he was called up. It was also his second season at AAA after 2 seasons at AA. Not even remotely comparable. just noticed this. not sure how you can have it both ways between your defense of the way they broke in Colon, and the way they broke in this guy. Carmona was not pitching very well before being called up. nice peripherals, but a 5.53 ERA in six starts. how that's all that much better than Gallaghers start at AA this year, I don't know.

The Indians don't do stupid things like call up their best pitching prospect before he's big league ready for stupid reasons like "need more control in middle relief", or "we can just extend him later". will first, we don't know yet exactly what reason he is being brought up for, those reasons probably aren't it, and the Indians brought up Sabathia at a far younger age, with far fewer minor league innings and far worse results than Gallagher. The Indians also let Sabathia continue to start games, and it was at the beginning of the season when they decided to give him a rotation spot. as I said earlier, I want them to stay on the poddy. if Gallagher goes to the pen, he should stay there until next spring.

The Indians don't do stupid things like call up their best pitching prospect before he's big league ready for stupid reasons like "need more control in middle relief", or "we can just extend him later". will first, we don't know yet exactly what reason he is being brought up for, those reasons probably aren't it, and the Indians brought up Sabathia at a far younger age, with far fewer minor league innings and far worse results than Gallagher. edit, and come to think of it, Cliff Lee had fewer minor league innings as well, and while he was older, he had about as many innings above high A as Gallagher at this point.