Diffusion

Except "team chemistry" isn't a physical thing. It's an abstract, in the same mould as "love", "hate", "glory", "shame", "sorrow", "joy". Can you touch "love"? Can you see "hate"? Can you smell "glory"? Can you find "sorrow"? Can you measure "shame"? Can you buy "joy"? The answer to all of those questions is no. Does that mean that none of those abstracts exist? The answer to that question is no too.

An honest question more than a swipe at BA, but Billek made 8 starts at Peoria this year and put up the following numbers... 37.2 IP, 33 H, 6 HR, 10 BB, 25 K, 4.06 ERA If he's fully developed, shouldn't he have had a little less difficulty with HRs and Ks against Low-A ballers?

Jerome would give up a ton of HRs in that park. He's a flyball pitcher, and he walks a bunch of men. They're moving the fences back though, aren't they?

I agree with the top part, but disagree on the concept of not "holding" a spot for a rookie. What exactly is Phily going to do. They have one of the best prospects in the game sitting in AAA because the guy ahead of him is now old, oft injured and making a crap load of money for the next several years. Phily must be kicking themselves. No. The problem in Philadelphia is not they have two players at the first base position because Howard has developed into seemingly quite a fine player, the problem is that they gave Thome a contract that was at the time, is now and ever shall be a bad contract, they handed out too much money over too many years to a player that due to his conditioning was less likely than most to remain productive late into his career, and that has been obvious all along: after all, I spoke at great length on the subject of Thome's bad contract back in March. Had the Phillies signed Thome to a sensible contract, or, discerning that to be impossible, as it probably would have been, simply not signed Thome at all and instead chosen another option, they wouldn't be in this situation. Alternatively, they could have moved Thome last winter, when Ryan Howard was every bit as ready to take over as he was when he did eventually graduate upon Thome getting injured. That said, given that I was personally sceptical as to whether or not Howard could make the conversion from the minors to majors, I can't say that it was obvious to me that they ought to have made the move and then handed Howard the job last winter. All the same, it's something the Phillies themselves, with presumably a greater understanding of Howard's limitations, ought to have been considering. Maybe they did, and maybe they thought it a good idea, maybe they just didn't have the balls to pull the trigger because of what ESPN might say, who knows. But it's a bad situation they're in now (though I think the idea of a Beltre for Thome and Bell trade would be an excellent solution for them). Though you haven't accused me of doing so, I'd like to point out first of all that I'm not personally advocating going after Damon, firstly because he's not actually that good, secondly because he's likely to be too expensive relative to how good he actually is, thirdly because he has a skillset in terms of average and speed that doesn't age particularly well, and fourthly because, in light of that, he's going to be looking for a deal that extends too far into his thirties as far as I'm concerned. As a result, I could certainly see a Damon deal ending up as a bad contract, and as a result becoming somewhat unmoveable and therefore a significant problem regardless of whether or not Pie matures into the player that we all want him to become. Pie is irrelevant to the discussion as to whether Damon, or any other player, would be a good acquisition. And provided the player is a good acquisition, if Pie pans out, that's a bonus that gives you an embarrassment of riches. Therefore whether or not the player would be a good acquisition has to be the decisive factor, not whether potentially the acquisition would block Pie. Kenny Lofton. Bleh. It's my somewhat irrelevant and not really proven at all opinion that Lofton will hit about .262/.330/.345 next year, and that that combined with his defence, which is now average at best, will make him thoroughly useless.

...there are cigarettes?

I never liked the move in the first place. yeah i miss jody gerut too :( I actually thought Gerut would have been a decent gamble for 2006, because his knees should be OK then. Unfortunately we needed someone who could help in 2005, and Gerut wasn't it. Nor was Lawton. Yeh, we really really needed someone for 2005, seeing as the season wasn't at all over for the Cubs then, what with them being tied for fifth in the wild card race at the time of the trade and Lawton being a notoriously brilliant player, not least in the second half of every season, and the Cubs having absolutely no other options in left field, besides of course the useless red-headed kid with the .441 average at the time.

SLG isn't everything, despite what this site preaches. This site disregards the importance of OBP? That's one of the more original criticisms levied against it. Anyway, leaving aside the fact that I despise OPS, you're absolutely right that SLG isn't everything, but then again neither is OBP everything either. As a result, Ichiro just is not as good as might be supposed from his reputation and thus his salary. Certainly he's a very good player, and the best leadoff hitter in the game. But his lack of power does prevents him from rightfully being classed a great player. Furthermore, Ichiro's now 32 years old, and his skill set of average and speed isn't particularly well suited to ageing. If they slip, Ichiro won't have much left to his game. If he only hits .280, his on-base/slugging aren't likely to be much higher .330/.400. That's problematic. But don't get me wrong, Ichiro's worth every cent that he makes simply because of the Japan factor, and I'll take him as the Cubs CF every day! And I mean everyday, Ichiro has missed just 14 games in 5 years in the majors! And then put Brian Giles in right... CF Ichiro Suzuki, RF Brian Giles, 1B Derrek Lee, 3B Aramis Ramirez, SS Nomar Garciaparra, 2B Todd Walker, C Michael Barrett, LF Matt Murton !! All the same, you have to be aware that Ichiro alone wouldn't represent the necessary offensive improvement that the Cubs have to be seeking this winter. And that's why Brian Giles would be necessary too. One other thing I want to get off my chest: the absolutely irrationality of the concept of not doing anything particularly too drastic about the centre field position for the sake of "keeping it open for Felix Pie". Felix Pie is still nothing but a prospect, albeit a very good one at that. Prospect failure rates being what they are, sometimes because of a lack of talent, or a lack of talent compatible with the majors, sometimes because of a lack of effort or dedication, sometimes because of injury, it makes little sense to pencil Pie in at this stage as the Opening Day 2007 centre fielder. It makes a lot more sense to work on the assumption that Pie will not make it, or better yet that Pie doesn't exist. Then the worst that can happen is that the continguency plan proves unnecessary, and you have an embarrassment of riches and an in-demand trading chip, in an AJ Pierzynski/Joe Mauer/Joe Nathan/Francisco Liriano/Boof Bonser kind of way, assuming of course that you were sensible as always when it came to the contracts. On the other hand, if you work on the assumption that Pie will make it, it's possible that you can end up with absolutely no-one, and thus put yourself into a weak and disadvantaged negotiating position when it comes to filling the vacancy. The Cubs have continuously done this over the years: they've purposely held spots open for people that have never come. Especially after this last season, Hendry must learn that a continguency plan too many is better than none at all.

The Cubs should bring back LOOGY extraordinaire Mike Remlinger. The Cards will probably sign him & he'll has his best year of his career. Luck just seems to always go the Cards way. What?

Hit .262/.309/.433 over a period of 6 consecutive 450+ PA years (5 of those years featuring 530+ PA, 3 of them 590+) from 1999-2004 aged 23-28 in 4 different organisations.

Nomar Garciaparra Rafael Furcal

Not good enough. Need one more quality late inning reliever here, IMO, even with Dotel on board. With all our money this year, no reason not to add Howry or Eyre to your list, and subtract Novoa (who I think is trade bait anyways). yadda... The problem going into next season counting on Dotel and Williamson heavily is that they will have the Cubs medical team. I love both if healthy high reward , low risk. But counting on them to BOTH remain effective and healthy is too much risk. Thats why I advocate getting another proven arm Seanz would be a cheap option, Howry gets peolpe even if it's just with fastballs he still gets them out. Might come at a discount to return to Chicago. I still think Nova or Wuertz is dealt in a package for a big bat. Why even bother with a farm system if, in the event of two of your relief arms getting injured, you can't trust a single pitcher from the minor leagues to pitch out of the bullpen, to be your eighth/ninth relief arm? And even if you were to do all that sign Howry/Seanez and trade Novoa/Wuertz, but where does that get you? It means you add quite a bit of payroll for the sake of creating a trading chip and a possible upgrade that's only short-term (in that you'll have to get around to replacing sooner). And you're still have the "problem" that if two people go down, you're left having to call up someone from the farm system besides JVB. It just doesn't make that much sense.

ZiPs projections for this year just gone: Lee .280 .375 .512 Rammy .287 .346 .522 Dubois .272 .345 .500 Nomar 288 .339 .487 Barrett 278 .338 .463 Walker .278 .341 .419 Corey .275 .320 .449 Prior 2.79 ERA Hawkins 3.12 ERA Z 3.52 ERA Wood 3.91 ERA Maddux 3.98 ERA Borowski 3.63 ERA Remlinger 4.34 ERA Dempster 5.11 ERA Wuertz 5.05 ERA http://www.baseballthinkfactory.org/files/primate_studies/discussion/2005_zips_build_2/ So, whatever, basically...

A twenty second check via Baseball Reference says it's not. Indians made the WS in 1954, losing to the NY Giants, and the Brooklyn Dodgers won the 1955 WS. And the Indians made the WS in 1920, losing to the Brooklyn Robins, and the New York Giants won the 1921 WS. The Indians have made the WS three other times (54, 95, 97) and the Yankees won in the following seasons. So New York teams always win the year after the Indians make the WS, but not necessarily the Yankees.

The boat left a few days ago. You're talking about a guy that when fully healthy has a mid- to high-nineties fastball, a hard-breaking slider and very reasonable command of both pitches, plus considerable closing experience. Williamson though has had terrible injury problems with his right elbow. In light of that, it's remarkable that his numbers are so good. For his career, Williamson has allowed just 6.4 H/9 and 0.7 HR/9 while striking out 10.5 K/9 with a 3.08 ERA. Those are superb numbers by themselves, they are simply sensational when you consider what he's gone through. There's no doubt that the injuries have hurt him though, most noticeably in terms of his control. Williamson has had completely healthy periods where he's walked just 30 in 81.2 IP (pre-injury in 1999) and 14 in 42.1 IP (second half of 2002 after recovering from TJS), and he preceeded his major league career with just 78 walks in 207 minor league innings, albeit them as a starter. There's reason then to believe then that his career 5+ BB/9 rate does him a huge injustice. 2000 aside, when Williamson just went crazily wild, a lot of his control problems seem to have been linked to periods when he's either pitched through injury (the end of 1999, 13 BB in last 11.2 IP when he had elbow tendinitis, 2003/04 when he knew that his elbow wasn't right, 52 BB in 91.1 IP) or been recovering from surgery (first half of 2002, for instance, when he walked 22 in 31.2 IP, 6 BB in 14 IP this year). Talking of this year, 2005, the Williamson we saw was not the same Williamson - he was clearly a different pitcher. His fastball topped out in the low-nineties, and his slider wasn't quite as sharp. And obviously he couldn't be used as regularly as might be desired, simply because you don't want to rush him back. All the same, quite remarkably, Williamson managed to whiff 23 in 14 innings. If his velocity returns, if the sharpness to his pitches returns, if the control comes back, if Williamson gets fully healthy and stays fully healthy, Cub fans have every reason to get extremely excited. Now there's no guarantee that any of that will happen. Recoverees from Tommy John do tend to find that velocity, control and sharpness take their time to come back. But Williamson may not fully recover, the five six mph of velocity that he's missing may not come back, the control may not come back, the bite to his slider the movement on his fastball may never be seen again. Even if Williamson does fully recover, there's no knowning how his elbow will hold up in future. All the same, in spite of all that, for $2.3m and a roster spot, it's worth the gamble. The risk is that it all goes wrong again. The upside is that you end up with a reliever that is somewhere up there with the likes of Brad Lidge.

Not good enough. Need one more quality late inning reliever here, IMO, even with Dotel on board. With all our money this year, no reason not to add Howry or Eyre to your list, and subtract Novoa (who I think is trade bait anyways). No reason not to whatty what? Novoa has major league stuff (a big heavy fastball that comfortably hits the mid-nineties and a hard late breaking slider), and as such his excellent K (9.5 K/9) and HR (0.8 HR/9) numbers in his first year with the Cubs are hardly a surprise. Furthermore, the control problems that plagued him in 2005 (5.0 BB/9) were somewhat out of character based upon his entire minor league career, where at no stage did he ever walk more than 3.2 per 9 innings, although those numbers were primarily put up as a starter. He also suffered a .333 average on balls in play against in 2005, so it would hardly come as a surprise if that dropped in years to come. All in all, I feel pretty safe in suggesting that Novoa is not very far from becoming a very fine reliever, though it somewhat pains me to say that given I detested the Farnsworth trade. If Novoa's the fifth best reliever in our bullpen, we have absolutely no problems in the bullpen department whatsoever. Oh, and Novoa will next year earn league minimum. Bob Howry isn't a bad pitcher. But demand for his services this winter is going to be out of all proportion with his actual abilities as a reliever. The guy has two very good fastballs, a four-seamer that he hits the mid-nineties with and a two-seamer, and now he controls both of them extremely well, but beyond that he doesn't really have anything, and that's a significant problem. It meant that in 2005 he only managed to record 48 strikeouts in 73 innings, and so the reason that he allowed just 49 hits was not because Howry was restricting balls in play, but because hardly any of the many balls in play turned into hits: hitters hit just .215 on balls in play off him. .217, .296, .253, .312, .274, (2003), .267, .215 Those are what hitters have hit off Howry from year-to-year. See a pattern? No, I didn't think so. That's because from year-to-year, with the sample sizes so small, the numbers jump around, up and down, and that's why buying on a reliever after he's had an out of line good year really isn't that great an idea: his next year's perhaps more likely than ever to be the regression to the mean bad year. All in all, for his career, hitters have hit .268 on balls in play off Howry, or the equivalent of 11 extra hits on top of Howry's 49 in 2005. Prior to 2005, hitters had hit .278 on balls in play off Howry, equivalent to another 2 hits on top of the 60. And Howry's home run rate in 2005 was comfortably his best ever, at the age of 31? Something tells me that's headed upwards too, especially if you move him from Jacobs Field to Wrigley. Tag on a couple more homers as well then. All of a sudden, you're talking Howry being about 15 hits of which say 3 homers lucky this year. You've got to believe that that made a huge contribution to his ERA, not to mention keeping inherited runners from scoring. Good for the 2004 Indians. Not necessarily any good at all for whoever then goes and slurges a sizeable investment on him. Scott Eyre? Are you frigging kidding me? He has completely average stuff (bleh fastball, plus-ish slider), and his numbers through the age of 32 were absolutely atrocious, never once featuring a strikeout rate of anywhere close to one an inning, a walk rate much less than one every other inning, only once featuring a balls in play against of less than .270 (and that was in 2004). Are you trying to tell me that one decent/flukish year in a pitcher's paradise in the worst division in baseball changes at the age of 33 changes that to the extent that you'd throw money at him and move a talented young pitcher like Roberto Novoa to make room for him? Please don't get the impression that I'm opposed to the Cubs spending money: I want them to have a payroll in excess of $105m next year. There are just far far better ways off getting to that figure than depositing it in the bank accounts of one-year relief flukes, particularly if we have better in house options, and that's what the situation with Howry/Eyre/Novoa represents. What other names did Neuby throw out there? Sauerbeck? He throws nothing but junk, I'll take my chances with a proper pitcher. Gordon? Great arm, but extremely old and criminally overworked in these last few seasons, almost guaranteed to break down soon. Mota? We'd have to trade players to get him, he's expensive, and he's coming off a terrible season. Definately worth a shot then if the Marlins are giving him away and selling low on a quality arm. Basically, I'm not seeing anyone out there that's worth the money/years given their age and ability all relative to what we already have, besides BJ Ryan that is, with Guillermo Mota an idea worth exploring.

Angel Guzman's numbers now since coming back from his injury (12 IP at Rookie Ball, 6.1 at Low-A, 15.2 in the AFL)... 34 IP, 38 H, 2 HR, 8 BB, 40 K, 4.24 ERA And half of those walks came in one uncharacteristicly wild three inning outing in the AFL last week, from which he bounced back resoundingly in his last start. Obviously Guzman's not playing at the levels he's used to, and that "he rarely used his curveball and his changeup wasn't as good as it was before he got hurt" suggests he's not all the way there yet, but very encouraging stuff from Guzman...

Dempster Williamson Dotel Wuertz Novoa Ohman (JVB) Please.

.349 OBP .370 SLG .346 OBP .378 SLG For the record, those are the composite numbers for the last four years for Pierre and Hairston. But which is which? Those two numbers, on-base and slugging, incidentally, are the two most significant when it comes to the creation of runs. I'd guess that for a position player, OBP and SLG make up about 60% of the game. And in that 60% or so, there is absolutely nothing between the two of them. Of course, in the other 40% - AVG, speed, fielding etc. - Pierre has Hairston comfortably beat. And then there is the issue of Hairston's "health", which actually overlooks the fact that for as much of the time he "missed" he was benched behind Brian Roberts as opposed to injured.

Why didn't you list their stats for 2001? Also, Player A gets hurt alot unlike Player B. There's a pretty signifcant difference between the two. I want a little more for Patterson and Hill than just Pierre though. Where's the significant difference? That Hairston is injury prone? The point is that Pierre isn't good, no one's calling for Hairston as the leadoff man we've been searching for, but for some reason people are enamored with Pierre. And I didn't list 2001 for the purposes of showing that they have been similar. The same way I didn't use their numbers from 2000, that favor Hairston in a similar sample size. But if you would like to post them and use the numbers from 5 years ago to prove that Pierre is significantly better than Hairston be my guest. Someone being injured consistently versus someone who isn't is pretty significant. Player A has 8 years a career .334 obp, 102 stolen bases played 644 games Player B has 6 years a career .355 obp 267 stolen bases played 845 games 96 CS for Pierre too, for a 73.6% success rate, only just above the breakeven point. In other words, those 267 steals are nowhere near as valuable as you might think. Of course, Hairston is worse, with 48 CS for a 68% success rate. So Hairston would have been better off having not once attempted a steal. And Pierre is a better fielder than Hairston, simply because it's hard not to be. And Pierre is a better hitter too. All the same, the point is that the difference isn't particularly big.

What killed the Cubs' pitching this year just as much as the walks, if not more, was coming 25th overall in HR allowed. 1st in K, 24rd in BB, 25th in HR.

One kind of big difference: Lidge had a great postseason last year and has had a good one until that pitch this year. Farnsworth has imploded in his only two chances (Game 6 in 2003 and Game 4 this year). Kind of a big difference. Actually, Farnsworth has pitched in 10 postseason games, not just 2. That means he's had 10 chances to implode.

Biggest lie in baseball.

Last time I checked we included me. Look, if anyone thinks things are just peachy keen on Addison and Clarke they are deluding themselves. Hendry has done a piss poor job this past year handling resources as determined by turning the rescources into talent. Because of that the Cubs performance was medicore at best as determined by wins. Sometimes people need a kick in the ass. There is no crying in baseball. Last time I checked the "and myself" thing comes across as an absolute throw-away afterthought, and the "we" is used extremely vaguely to refer just to the Cubs, as opposed to the GM in particular. Sure, sometimes people need a kick in the ass. But you do all of that in private. Behind closed doors. You don't think that I'd be slaughtering Baker and making it clear to him that his job is on the line in my office? But it's completely different to take things out into the public arena. Completely different, and sensationally stupid too. Learn something about PR. As for the job that Hendry did, he's had by far his worst season this last year. He gave away a lot of talent last off-season for the sake of warm and fuzzy feelings in the clubhouse, he was seemingly part of a disgraceful anti-Sosa campaign that consumed far too much of his off-season, and only resulted in a pathetic haul for Sosa, all while limiting the job that he did filling other starting positions, he insured against injuries terribly on the whole, and he signed too many players that he should have known Dusty was likely to be tempted to misuse. During the season, he seemingly allowed a lot of Dusty's ridiculous moves (top of the order, jerking around with LF, the Ronny Cedeno debacle, the Matt Murton over-cautiousness, ) to go too far, and he made just two good deals all season, Dubois for Gerut, which he promptly two weeks later or so undid with one of a good number of bad ones, and the Hawkins deal, though that was in part only ever necessary because Hendry didn't insist more rigorously on his gut instinct of Dempster for closer. He also failed to move talent at the deadline (or earlier) that he really ought to have been selling as high as possible on (Mitre, Wellemeyer and Hill in particular), on numerous occasions he got the Cubs bench and Iowa mixed up, and he didn't fire Dusty Baker or insist on any coaching changes. And that's just off the top of my head. I'm sure I've forgotten stuff.

1) Find me some similar quotes from other GMs, because I don't find what you're saying about other GMs taking it on the chin themselves to be true. 2) The guy's honest not just when the Cubs aren't playing baseball, but all the time. He's as straight as they come. And he's respected for that across baseball. Not only will that never be said, but it never should be said, and I thoroughly commend Hendry further for not having said all that stuff. Good luck getting any kind of positive response out of people after you've publicly sacrified them as scapegoats while, at least seemingly, saving your own skin. Whether or not all those things are true or not is an absolute irrelevance. There you're ripping to shreds the job that everyone else has done, telling them they have to improve, while completely ignoring the job that you yourself have done. And again, whether the GM's done a good job or not is absolutely irrelevant. If he's done a bad job, he's hanging others out to dry for his own failings, not the surest way of inciting respect. And if he's done a good job, you just end up looking like you're full of yourself. It's simply best to tip-toe around the issue publicly, and deal with things privately instead.

How on earth can you insinuate that this phrase involves Hendry shifting the blame to someone else? What he says is that, regardless of whether of not they've suffered an undue number of injuries, which I personally find to be true, the job that the Cubs (of which Hendry is part) have done has not been good enough, and that's also true, and pretty honest and frank of Hendry as well. Unless you think that Hendry regards being significantly because the Cardinals by the month of May good enough. Jeez. The guy goes as far as any GM can towards saying "the job that I have done, the job that we have done has not been good enough", and people here criticise him for trying to shift the blame onto others? Your grievance seems to be that he says "whether we had misfortune or not injury wise", that he even brings up the topic of injuries at all. I personally fail to see how any honest assessment of the last two years for the Cubs can neglect to mention the injuries that this ballclub has suffered which go well beyond what could reasonably be expected, even taking into account that Hendry is not afraid to gamble on players with a history of injury (which isn't actually a weakness in itself: rather the weakness is that Hendry doesn't insure himself against possible further injuries sufficiently). And there's nothing that Hendry is that isn't honest. How many other GMs do you see at this stage of the season saying "we haven't lived up to our own expectations, our performances have been unacceptable, and we have to improve", quite clearly including himself in all that?