Diffusion

Of course, you know what they say about the best-laid plans... If the Jaxx even drop one of games 2-4 and Billingsley is on in 1 and 5, then it's series over for us too. Then again, it's just as possible that Ryu beats Billingsley, I suppose. Ryu's no bad pitcher, not at all. And Billingsley has his blowups from time to time.

Novoa, Wuertz, Van Buren, Ohman, Hill, Williamson, Dempster, please. I actually really quite like our bullpen, though because we employ a lot of inexperienced pitchers and rehabbers there, there's a learning/recovery curve that often means pain before the gain. That's why this year was a good chance to get as much of the pain out of the way, get the kids the experience they need. The Cubs have managed that with Ohman, Novoa and Wuertz. While I'm a bit disappointed by the fact that Ohman's given up 4 home runs to lefties this year (Hideki Matsui, Adam LaRoche, Luis Gonzalez and Jim Edmonds), and that needs to come down, and while all three of them desperately need to show better control, I love their dominant stuff and the fine strikeout and hits allowed rates that are the result of that. I don't have that much concern about Novoa and Wuertz's control long-term, Ohman, hmm, he's been wild all his life. But a lot of lefties are. Anyway, I do like these three. I think Hill's fastball-curve combination is perfect for the bullpen. He's pretty much refused to throw his cutter or change in the majors, and he's not going to make it as a starter without them. Hanging around in the minors isn't going to do him any good either, I don't think. So stick him in the bullpen and use him as a LOOGY, and force him to work on his secondary stuff there. He could end up being a BJ Ryan-like reliever is he can find a way of getting righties out regularly enough. Big JVB fan. He's got the stuff and he's done with the minors. Give him a shot, and I think he can be up there with Wuertz. Williamson's the wild card gamble, but when healthy he's probably the best of all of these seven relievers, and I think that actually says something. And Dempster. I have no idea what he's going to be asking for, but while I'm not a huge fan of his, I don't see a better option at the same kind of price that's not called Kyle Farnsworth, and I think we all know that that's just not going to happen. Besides, he's been alright for us out of the bullpen. There are two issues with this bullpen. One, control, walks. Two, outfield defence. What to do about the first I'm not sure, besides fine them every time they throw a ball four. About the second, because a lot of these pitchers are flyball-ish (all of them apart from Ohman and Dempster), we need a good defensive CF, someone with a lot of range. Not Hairston in other words.

Is this you just living up to your name? Or do you really mean that? While I'm not willing to do as far as to say that a player's ability to field is as important as a player's ability to hit, or even more important than a player's ability to hit, what I will say is that fielding definately matters and has at least some importance. So hardly "fielding schmielding" at all. Pitching and fielding together is half the game, hitting being the other half. Actually, because in the long run good pitching/decent hitting wins more ballgames than good hitting/decent pitching, the pitching and fielding is slightly more than half. Why is it better? Well, if your starters allow less baserunners, they should throw less pitches, and if they throw less pitches, they should be able to throw more innings before they reach certain pitch counts. That in turn means less bullpen innings, which means that your relievers, on top of having better defence behind them, ought to be fresher, which gives you more effective pitching options, which can help you prevent further runs. If your starters and fielding is effective enough, you may not be able to find work for everyone in your bullpen, so you may be able to run with less pitchers on your staff, so you can have more bench options, which means more in-game flexibility, which, if exploited by the manager, can mean more runs for the offence, or still even better defence and less runs allowed. Furthermore, a pitcher that trusts his defence can be more effective at doing his job as a pitcher, partially because the confidence of his effective fielders rubs off on him, partially because there's no ineffective fielding to rattle him, partially because effective fielding can inspire him to raise his own game. An effective pitcher is often confident in himself too, and therefore better able to get over poor pitches, innings and outings, because he trusts himself and his own ability. Finally, an effective and efficient pitcher that throws less pitches is theoretically less likely to get injured or wear down as the season goes on, and fielders are less likely to get injured because there are less plays to make in the field and they spend less time in the field, which is less sapping for them too, especially catchers. The less tired your best players are the less off-days they need. And so on and so on and so on. Anyway, the Cubs have a potentially great rotation with Zambrano, homerless Prior and healthy Wood, plus okay Maddux and Mr Who Knows. They need to do their best to make the most of that strength, and that means putting as good a defence behind those pitchers as possible without foresaking the required offence. What the optimal offence is relative to the optimal defence, I don't know, but I suspect that the Cubs right now are too offence orientated. Barrett at C, Walker at 2B, Nomar at SS, Ramirez at 3B, Murton and Hairston in the OF, there are 6 positions currently that at the very best are merely average, if not below. Of course, they all (with the glaring exception of Hairston) provide either excellent offence relative to their position or excellent offence relative to their position relative to what they're being paid, so it does give the Cubs a bit of a dilemna as to how to keep such excellent offence/value for money at the same time as improving their defence. I'm not convinced that it's possible.

Also, there are more things to consider regarding BABIP than just line drives. Flyballs, infield flyballs, groundballs, foulouts, quality of pitchers faced, quality of defences faced, how pitchers are pitching him, how defences are playing him, ballparks, and confidence has a lot to do with it too. Because so much of that is untracked statistically, that's why you see huge variations in BABIP, and therefore in BA, and why it's so impossible to predict exactly what a player will hit in the future. Sure, you can have a natural level which over thousands of at-bats you'll trend to, but over any given sample size of tens or (low-)hundreds of at-bats, half the time you can just throw natural level out of the window because there are just too many variables. It's just about impossible to predict what'll happen. Who'd have predicted that Todd Helton would have a 17-for-112 slump this year?

2 good offensive seasons back to back is luck? He wasn't hitting as a catcher because it wore him down to much...ever since he started playing different positions aside of catcher (CF, LF, and mainly 3B) he's been a good offensive player. No, hitting 30 points better than your BABIP says you should makes you lucky. Erm, Inge's BABIP this year is .315, and his BABIP last year was .316. Not only are those numbers somewhat consistent (though his strikeouts and home run rates have both deteriorated significantly enough this year, which is why his average has dipped to a bleh .263), but they're not particularly high or lucky. Huh, THT has him at .320 this year and .322 last year, both at least 25 points higher than his 18% LD% might predict. THT use the wrong formula though. They use the formula (H-HR)/(AB-K-HR). However, a sacrifice fly is a ball in play, so the proper formula is (H-HR)/(AB+SF-K-HR). That correction always knocks a few points off BABIP, that's what's accounting for the slight difference there. As for line drives, I just don't trust them any more. THT themselves proved that the correlation between line drive percentage in Year X and Year X+1 for any given player isn't particularly strong. So either hitting line drives isn't an ability, which I don't believe, or the way that Baseball Info Solutions score balls in play is unreliable. Define a line drive. That I suspect is the problem, that that definition changes from scorer to scorer and over time too. Anyway, I don't see anything much in Inge's numbers that suggests that him hitting .264 now is a fluke. I think his strikeout rate is marginally high relative to where it should be, so even if his BABIP is marginally high too, I don't think he's got that much to worry about average wise. Besides the fact he's a natural .265 hitter or whatever, which isn't great, obviously.

Sounds like BA recycling out-of-date info and "what they've heard" as opposed to having watched any of the three recently.

What do you guys make of the decision to go with Ryu rather than going back to the top of the rotation again? I have to be honest, I'm not entirely comfortable with Ryu starting twice against Chad Billingsley. Billingsley's last seven starts, by the way... 46.2 IP, 17 H, 3 HR, 15 BB, 46 K, 0.96 ERA (5 ER) That's right, 17 hits in his last 46.2 innings. Or 12 hits in his last 40.2 innings, if you prefer. He's also won his last six decisions.

2 good offensive seasons back to back is luck? He wasn't hitting as a catcher because it wore him down to much...ever since he started playing different positions aside of catcher (CF, LF, and mainly 3B) he's been a good offensive player. No, hitting 30 points better than your BABIP says you should makes you lucky. Erm, Inge's BABIP this year is .315, and his BABIP last year was .316. Not only are those numbers somewhat consistent (though his strikeouts and home run rates have both deteriorated significantly enough this year, which is why his average has dipped to a bleh .263), but they're not particularly high or lucky. The trouble with Inge isn't BABIP (although it was earlier this year, but that's corrected itself as tends to happen), it's that he strikes out loads, which suppresses his batting average and I suppose doesn't make him a particularly good situational hitter. However, his power is pretty decent and he walks often enough, so he's definately someone you have to consider as a backup 3B/third catcher type if he comes cheaply enough and is available. But the trouble with that is that Inge isn't a free agent until after the 2007 season, and the Tigers aren't likely to non-tender him because he's a useful player (unless there's something off the field that I haven't heard of). Furthermore, if he ever became available, he probably would have offers to start at 3B, not just be a backup.

It was the Suns that the Jaxx beat in 2000 to win the title as well. Regarding the 2-6 in the regular season, there was a 2-2 series split in late June at Pringles Park. The Jaxx won 2 of the first 3, winning the first game 7-4 behind Ryu, losing the second that Marshall started 5-4 in extras, and winning the third that Nolasco started 7-6. In the final game of the series, the just promoted awful Marmol was smacked around, and the Jaxx were blown out 11-2. The starters for the Suns in those games were Hull, Hanrahan, Orenduff and Edwin Jackson. Chad Billingsley for some reason was working out of the 'pen at the time, it seems. The big offensive forces for the Jaxx in that series were Greenberg, Coats and Bacon. The Jaxx were then swept 4-0 by the suns in Jacksonville in mid August. It was a series of terrible bullpen work by the Jaxx - Baez (twice), Searles (twice) and Aardsma all guilty - and not much offence from the bats - they managed just one extra base hit the entire series. O'Malley, Nolasco (unhelped by his defence) and Marmol all made quality starts, though Ryu in the final game was roughed up a bit. The starters for the Suns were Juarez (pitched to just one batter), Hanrahan, Edwin Jackson and Orenduff. Again, the Jaxx missed Chad Billingsley. When does this series start, by the way? The Suns seem pretty adamant it starts on Tuesday, but the Jaxx have been saying Wednesday all along, and that's what the schedule says...?

WOOOOOOOO!! 4-3 on the last out too.

Nice play E-Pat, 4-3, 1 out away!

K swinging, 2 outs away.

Randy Wells in to finish it off. 3 outs away.

Aardsma was money, 4 batters faced, 3 K, 1 GO.

Jerry Hairston and Wilson Alvarez for Aaron Harang (07/15) Shannon Stewart and Shingo Takatsu for Brandon Webb (06/15) Jon Lieber and Mark Kotsay for Lance Berkman and Danny Graves (06/08 ) Raul Ibanez, Orlando Hudson and Brad Hawpe for Huston Street, Michael Cuddyer and Matt LeCroy (05/25) Wade Miller and Kevin Gregg for Bobby Crosby and Trot Nixon (05/08 ) Those I'd rate as my best trades this year. Playing in an extremely deep league with scoring pretty much in line with real life value (so no fantasy rubbish about SB being the be all and end all).

11-2!

Sac fly Adam Greenberg, 10-2!

E-Pat RBI 2B, 9-2 Jaxx!

Another triple, Theriot leads off the bottom of the seventh with one. E-Pat in to PH.

Are all these triples really misplayed doubles?

at least Marmol's playoff batting average is 1.000. :) He just lost .500 off that :( :p

Jaxx starter's ERA in the playoffs no longer 0.00 :(

GRAND SLAM, 8-0!

Loaded for Sing!

Fastball, slider, changeup. The first two are both big plus pitches, among the best in the system. FB normally in the 92-94 range with a lot of downward movement, he can dial it up higher, slider is sharp and has a lot of break to it.