biittner77

I'm really worried about the 1st round no matter who Illinois plays. They've been a terrible foul shooting team all season and that has been the undoing of many Illinois teams in the past. With a good showing in the Big 10 tournament Illinois gets a 3rd seed. The committee will reward the Big East and rightfully so. Plus, with OSU winning the regular season title (good thing Illinois saw fit to lose at home to Penn St. ](*,) a lot depends on where they wind up. Here on the East coast nobody seems to know what to make of the Big 10. Is it a really good conference where they've beaten each other up or are they as mediocre as some of the records suggest?

Part of the justification for keeping Hairston is that he can spell Pierre in CF.That alone would probably be enough to keep greenberg off the 25 man.

So here you are saying that Dusty's words do not mean much, only past action. Which means those who are looking at his quote and working from there, aren't on the same assumption-base you're on. Can you explain this? How do you look like you can play, and at the same time not play well? It seems to me that if you're not playing well, you won't look like anything but a ballplayer not playing well. Ask Dusty to explain it. He is the one looking at his legs and bat speed and not interested in what he actually does at the plate. It's funny, a lot of people who support Dusty want others to believe that his oft-repeated absurd words don't mean much. I've always believed that Dusty's actions mean a lot more than his words. He talks off the cuff a lot, contradicts himself repeatedly, makes no sense often. But his actions have been consistent, and they are not hard to interpret. Fair enough. The ghost of Lenny Harris lingers on in my mind too. It just seems to me that this comment was anything but that ringing endorsement usually given to ancient vets like Grissom.

According to Baker, he does have to show that he can still play/ has something left. I was actually encouraged by this quote. Baker could have said "Grissom will be a great assest to this team." or "If he's healthy, Grissom will be an important contributor off the bench" or even worse "Grissom will help push Murton"

he honestly can't be surprised when people say he doesn't like young players. his quote about how ST is for the young guys doesn't make any sense at all. I don't see anything wrong with this. With young guys the question is are they ready with old guys it's can he still play. If Grissom can hit LH pitching and doesn't expect to start he could be decent player to have around. The other part of the equation is who will he be keeping off the roster? Is someone like Sing better off riding the pine at Wrigley or playing every day in AAA?

Wasn't Marvel Wynn available?

:roll: Source It's a shame that Baker or now Patterson never explained what they meant by "clogging the bases". Alou, who ran like he had a piano on his back, would be better off trying to hit the ball hard than trying to draw a walk. In context the phrase isn't nearly as idiotic. It's still foolish to ignore plate discipline, especially in Patterson's case.

Emoticons are not gay. Sure, they experimented with other emoticons in college but hey, they were young and it was kind of a crazy time in their lives. But they're not gay. 8)

I take it your dad coached the baseball team? :D I see a lot of good athletes go to soccer and Lacross around here because there's a lot more action. I think it will pass soccer in 15 years in popularity because of the exciting nature of the sport. You can body check, score a lot more points and has the potential to get a very big TV base. There are so many "voluntary" practices in some sports and when the kids miss them because they are playing another sport they get shot down the playing time ladder and on that coaches poop list. There are just less and less of the 3 sport athletes out there because of it. Also, since baseball is the last sport in the high school season kids tend to tire of sports and want/need a break and baseball is the one that suffers. A lot of the times the kids regret not playing baseball but they just don't want to go into a third season so close to the one that just finished. Another thing are grades. By the the time spring rolls around some kids are buried in bad grades. Football doesn't even have to worry about any marking periods while baseball has many to deal with. I agree with most of this except the part about Lacrosse becoming popular. Without a professional league it will remain highly regionalized. Also, Lacrosse requires equipment and lots of space. Thus it seems like it will be a tough sell in the inner city. One other factor that takes away from baseball, at least at the HS level is track. If someone is fast and wants to play a college or professional sport, football might seem like a better bet. A kid that picks football will probably run track in the spring rather than play baseball as it is more likely to keep him in shape.

I'd be interested to see if Hairston's OBP last season was inflated by his HBPs. He'd definitely be a better option than Neifi. AB R H 2B 3B HR TB RBI BB SO BA OBP SLG OPS Hairston 380 51 98 24 2 4 138 30 31 46 0.258 0.332 0.363 0.695 If you subtract out Hairston's 11 HBP's, that OBP drops to .314. what if he's just good at getting hbp? a walk is a walk. should people count that against guys like Bonds or Biggio too? I second that. On Base Percentage is not a statistic looking forward, it's a statistic that looks at what you've done. It doesn't matter if getting hit by a pitch is a skill. All that matters is that you were hit by the pitch and that you got on base. Getting rid of HBP from on base percentage would be like taking triples out of batting average because triples are fluky, lucky hits that don't happen often. If Hairston had gotten hit 30 times, then it would be a valid point in projecting what he could do going forward. The hitter has much less control over a HBP than hitting a triple, or even drawing a walk. If a guy has a high number of HBP, then it's a logical and worthwhile point to see if it's flukish. Is it that much more flukish than BABIP? Couldn't that fluctuate just as much if not more than getting HBP? Doesn't it seem like the same guys always seem to be getting HBP? It may not necessarily a skill but it seems like it would be a result of an approach to hitting. If a player is not likely to change his approach to hitting shouldn't his HBP remain relatively constant?

Except Corey was early every year. Maybe he'd be better off coming late to camp then. While he was with the Cubs every day that he came to camp early was another day of 6 different people trying 6 different approaches to turn him into Brett Butler. Hopefully the O's will have enough sense to have him work with one and only one hitting coach that works with his skills and not against them.

Apologies if someone has mentioned this before: The biggest difficulty in comparing eras is that the approach to the game was different. Players used to be embarassed to strike out. During the dead ball era the emphasis was on small ball and making contact. That would drive down the number of Ks but would also drive down slg% against in terms of number of HRs but might very well even out in terms of extra base hits in the more spacious ballparks. I suspect someone has already mentioned the effects of segregation on baseball. Iseen a lot of debate regarding the quality of play in the Negro League. What I would focus on is not whether the Satchel Paige's of the world would be as effective so much as the average, non superstar player. How good was he? That seems like it would be pretty hard to quantify (in terms of the Negor League which didn't keep very good stats)

Looking at the O's lineup: 2nd Roberts CF Patterson SS Tejada DH/ C Lopez 3rd Mora 1st/ LF Millar RF Gibbons C Hernandez LF/ 1st Conine (or Matos or Newhan or ....) Patterson hurts them less batting 2nd because of the DH. I think it's more likely that Mora bats 2nd and Patterson 9th which is probably the ideal use of his speed and power.

Because they're hockey players and if they can walk they'll play. :D Actually, isn't olympic hockey a lot cleaner than NHL action? I haven't had a chance to see any games this olympics but it seems to me that they don't hit as hard, they don't get into fights and there aren't any dirty players there. In a sense, these guys are actually less likely to get hurt than they would during the NHL season.

I read that quote and see that it says Murton and Cedeno will bat 7th & 8th. Given Baker's preference for not disturbing the lineup, it sounds to me like whomever is playing 2nd will be batting 2nd. At the risk of sounding positive, at least each of the 3 brings something different. Walker provides power and is the best hitter. He's also a LH bat. Hairston provides speed and reasonable defense. Neifi plays the best defense of the 3. Hopefully, this will mean that on days when Perez is playing SS he will be batting 7th or 8th with Walker/ Hairston remaining in the 2nd spot.

Why would the Cubs sign Hidalgo when Gonzalez is older and more injury prone err..... I mean more proven?

What's better, having Walker bat 2nd and Jones 5th or having Soriano bat 5th and Cedeno/ Murton/ Perez batting 2nd? Both approaches have big flaws.

How many times do you think people have called Jordan Gerk, Gordon Jerk? Shouldn't Jake Thrower be a pitcher?

The White Sox have another one: Mommas don't let your babies grow up to be Sox fans they'll never wear a shirt or wash off the dirt and there mullet will seem such a shame I can't remember the rest of the words

Does anyone think the Cubs might bring Maddux back next year? Considering the uncertainty around Kerry Wood and legit concerns about some of their younger pitchers (Hill, Guzman, Williams) resigning Maddux might not look like that bad of an option.

I think this is a legitimate question given the way the offseason has gone.

I almost never look at rivalries or game threads. Off Season= transactions druing season= baseball discussions or minors

Just so long as he's not doing 8 sit ups with Moises Alou. :smokin: Does Pecota differentiate between CF and corner OF? Also, shouldn't there be a rule that if a player has a 1.7 VORP they should not make more than 1.7 million? So a player that made say 2.5 million would have to give back some of his salary.

There are probably some unwritten rules or understandings that kept Hendry from claiming Beltran. Breaking those rules could come back to haunt them later on.

Dormats or City-Rollers