Commissioner Bowie Kuhn stopped Edward DeBartolo from buying the White Sox in 1980 even though DeBartolo had vast resources and probably could have outbid anybody. The owners and the commissioner don't care how it "looks."
Cubs, Soriano, LF Theriot, SS Lee, 1B Ramirez, 3B DeRosa, 2B Monroe, CF Soto, C Murton, RF Hill, P Pirates, Morgan, CF Bautista, 3B Sanchez, 2B Nady, RF LaRoche, 1B Bay, LF Paulino, C Wilson, SS Gorzelanny, P
Now that Trachsel's line is in the books, the updated ERA on the Cubs' quality starts this year is 1.78. It was only the third quality start this year for the Cubs in which a pitcher has met only the minimum requirement (6 innings and no more than 3 earned runs). Given the Cubs' record, the overall ERA in quality starts and the record when they don't get one, I'd say the quality start, although not perfect, is a pretty good measuring stick.
It was his own fault. It's good they took a stand. Maybe it'll help the kid in the long run. So was the whole Monroe getting lost and not being able to find the park viewed as a valid excuse? Yes, as well as it should have been.
Do you have an opinion as to what has caused the apparent shift in organizational philosophy? I have postulated in the past that MacPhail loved Baker and his approach (which more or less was ignorant of the value of most statistics) and thus did not allow Hendry to point the team in that direction. Is there any validity to that notion? No, there's no validity to that; it's just that the Cubs' position has evolved over the last few years when the saw that certain things just weren't working. They named a full-time stats guy in late 2003, right after the division title. Since then, the Cubs have moved gradually toward a position of valuing statistical analysis in ways that are accepted by the sabermetrics community. But it takes awhile to turn that big a ship in a different direction.
I was talking to a baseball guy about all this, and he said: "Don't kid yourself about Billy Beane. He has good scouts, and he listens to them." One of the reasons the Cubs brought Kendall over was his history of high on-base percentage. They're doing a lot more with stats than they did even two or three years ago.
Wow, good catch! Thanks for re-posting! I've been thinking about this for a few days. I've been a proponent of having a nice balance between statistical analysis and scouting. Kendall's numbers weren't good in Oakland, but in talking with Gary Hughes (you'd like him if you met him, trust me), he said the bat speed was still there. I don't know if you can directly measure that in numbers. Speaking of numbers, they're looking pretty good with the Cubs, and that hit-and-run single last night was a thing of baseball beauty.