BigbadB

So, Hendry's long term guy is currently unemployed and waiting on Hendry to call him? Sounds like a great candidate.

Huh?

Please enlighten us as to how well Jered Weaver plays 3b. I must be totally out of the loop on that.

I'm 2000 miles from his circulation area, and I'd happily offer my assistance for free. I have no motivations outside of wanting the Cubs to be a good, competitive team. I have tons of resources at my fingertips. This is the same organization that once employed the "college of coaches", and now currently employs "the 3 ring circus". How crazy would it really be in comparison to some of the brilliant ideas of yesteryear? Hmm...ideas like instead of mixing mayo and tuna feed the tuna mayonnaise. Yeah, but if you're going to do it right, feed the tuna mayonnaise AND relish.

That oughtta cost him a few cool mill.

I'm 2000 miles from his circulation area, and I'd happily offer my assistance for free. I have no motivations outside of wanting the Cubs to be a good, competitive team. I have tons of resources at my fingertips. This is the same organization that once employed the "college of coaches", and now currently employs "the 3 ring circus". How crazy would it really be in comparison to some of the brilliant ideas of yesteryear?

Of course, Neifi went like 3-4 or something that game which is all Baker needs to see to give Neifi another month at the top of the lineup. :pukel: If I recall correctly, just about everybody went 3-4 that day. :P

One of my favorite Dusty line ups had Neifi batting 2nd and Walker hitting 8th in a game that featured a DH.

1. Yep. Bynum starts against RHP, which means he plays about 2/3 of the time. 2. Neifi. Who else would you have guessed? 3. Nevin is the back up catcher, but Hank has been inexplicably on fire of late. 4. Wood has had further set backs. He can't shake the pains from throwing 60+ pitches. 5. Prior only had 1 effective pitch in the first inning meltdown he had, which was a straight 92 MPH fastball that he wasn't locating very well. 6. Pierre isn't any different than you remember since the last game you watched. Aramis is heating up. 7. Neifi. Who else would you expect? :D

The Bucs are letting us down :wink: Just kidding ... no matter how bad things get I will never, ever root against the Cubs or hope they finish in last. I think I'm in the minority on this board in that respect... :oops: I said that once myself. However, if losing would mean changes, I'm all for it. If 81-81 means more status quo, no thanks. Losing has never meant changes for this franchise, why should it now? I'm not in the "I hope they lose camp" just because of that. Where were you in 2002? Losing definitely meant change. Baylor was sent packing. Hendry was brought in as GM and an interim manager finished up one of the most pathetic seasons in Chicago Cub history, one only comparable to the current 2006 season. Hendry made some bold moves in 2003 to right the ship. Unfortunately, it's been a downhill slide ever since. He had the right idea in 2004, but injuries were part of the undoing. But, not the entire undoing. Since the end of 2004, it's been nothing but a debacle. Hendry has attempted to shift the team philosophy to emulate other teams that showed a short stint of success rather than use his team strengths and resources to further strengthen the team. And I'm not attempting to sway your opinion. Just stating mine. I'm not a hater. I just want change. The threat of a Dusty extension hits too close to home with me.

The answer to this question can be found on page 1 of this thread, a post made by Warpticon. Last year's league leader in RBI had a .207 AVG with RISP. The real reason he was the league leader in RBI is more likely that he had more RBI opportunities than anyone else in the league. Specifically, 60 more at-bats with RISP and 61 more at-bats with runners on than Lee. Lee had 124 at bats with RISP. In those 124 at bats, he had 64 RBI's. So, assuming he keeps up his averages, he'd have another 32 RBI on top of the 107 he had if he had 60 more at bats with RISP. That's 139, and earns him an RBI title. Interestingly enough, that's about how many RBI would be expected (and maybe even still a bit low) from a guy who has 99 XBH's. It would definitely be much more in line with all the other guys who have achieved that total of XBH's.

Nobody could argue against the opportunities side of the equation. But, if we can't use OPS w/RISP as a tangible measure of "clutch", how can we use OPS/OBP, etc. to determine who is a "good hitter" overall? They are ALL valuable. There are two parts, getting on and getting in. Putting some value on the latter doesn't lessen the value of the former. But, if Andrew Jones was the RBI champ with an AVG with RISP of .207, we should all agree that Jones was not very good in the "clutch". If Derrek Lee hit .400 with RISP, yet still couldn't surpass Jones in RBI, does the "clutch" argument hold water? The fact Andruw Jones had more than 60 more opportunities to drive in runs is the real tell tale stat. Would I rather have Jones than Lee because Jones drives in more runs? Nope. Driving in runs is a team stat. Lee would have won the RBI title handily if he had 60 more opportunities to drive in runs in 2005. If two players are equal and the hitters in front of them get on base equally, sure, take the guy who hits better with runners in scoring position. But, it's really an insignificant stat in the big picture. A guy could be good with RISP one year and bad the next. It's unpredictable. What is much more predictable is plate patience and presence. Valuing the at bat and limiting the amount of outs you make.

That's an interesting choice. Personally I don't care if the new manager is an ex-Cub or not....I just want a good manager. Agreed. I'd also look at managers who have been part of a winning tradition. That's why I've very high on Fredi Gonzalez. I hope the Braves way of doing things has rubbed off on him. Yep. You're likely not going to get a Fredi Gonzalez in midseason. I'd prefer a guy who honored his commitments. An interim is just a guy who is going to finish out a lost season. At the same time, if the interim does a good job, you have opened up the door for future employment. Hiring someone from within makes the most sense for what may only be a part time gig. Not that it matters a whole lot, but Chris Speier played for the Cubs in 85-86.

Derrek Lee spent most of his time batting 3rd 1 - 299 2 - 314

The worst thing in the big picture is that the people in charge are still in charge. If NSBB would have done a poll on what would have been the worst management decision going into the Friday game against Detroit, starting Glendon Rusch probably would have won the poll in a landslide. In all of your wildest imagination, I don't think anyone could come up with a more ludicrous decision. Yet, Cubs management made that decision. Wind blowing out. All righty, powerful attack. Lousy lefty that gives up homers in droves. That decision would have blown away: Batting Pierre and Neifi 1/2 in the order. Sitting Todd Walker and Phil Nevin. Playing Bynum in left and Mabry in right. Etc... I can't think of a decision more worthy of dropping the axe.

I've read that a couple times now and I still can't think who it was that led the league. I assume NL. Was it Andruw or Pat Burrell? I assume it wasn't Pujols because he couldn't hit that low in any split that included as many chances as RISP would include. Andruw. Ortiz led the AL, but was over 350 with RISP. And what were the collective OBP's of the guys who hit directly in front of Jones?

I've read that a couple times now and I still can't think who it was that led the league. I assume NL. Was it Andruw or Pat Burrell? I assume it wasn't Pujols because he couldn't hit that low in any split that included as many chances as RISP would include. I don't know who it is. I'm assuming Warpticon wasn't just making that stat up.

Neifi Perez was cut by the San Francisco Giants. No one else wanted him. That's how he became a Cub.

Seriously. What kind of time does it take to pull this stuff up. 30 seconds? How can paid professionals, whose job it is to evaluate baseball players, not investigate every way to evaluate them? It's your job. If someone said, "Hey, something interesting to look at when evaluating a ball player is X." Isn't it your duty to at least investigate the matter? What do these guys do all day? Do MacPhail and Hendry just serf the internet all day or watch old movies? When someone interrupts them to ask, "Why does your team suck?" They just spout off some garbage that could be disproved in about 30 seconds by going to ESPN.com? How is this acceptable on any possible level? It's infuriating. Actually, I probably spent about 20 minutes putting that post together. But, your point is well taken. :wink: That's just due to formating the post. The information can be pulled up in seconds. AMIRITE? Yes. UARITE. :D

The answer to this question can be found on page 1 of this thread, a post made by Warpticon. Last year's league leader in RBI had a .207 AVG with RISP. The real reason he was the league leader in RBI is more likely that he had more RBI opportunities than anyone else in the league. Let us go back and look at Derrek Lee's wonderful 2005 season. Derrek had 99 XBH's and 107 RBI. No player in the history of the game had so many XBH's and so few RBI. Is it that Derrek is not clutch? NOPE. It's because the brilliant manager of the Chicago Cubs put Neifi Perez, Corey Patterson and Jose Macias at the top of the order. The sign should read: Top of the order hitter employment opportunity with the Chicago Cubs. Career .340 OBP or lower need not apply. The Cubs had the opportunity last year to have a .350+ guy at every position throughout their line up. They had an opportunity to deepen the bench. They failed so badly, that they are now getting exactly what they deserve.

Seriously. What kind of time does it take to pull this stuff up. 30 seconds? How can paid professionals, whose job it is to evaluate baseball players, not investigate every way to evaluate them? It's your job. If someone said, "Hey, something interesting to look at when evaluating a ball player is X." Isn't it your duty to at least investigate the matter? What do these guys do all day? Do MacPhail and Hendry just serf the internet all day or watch old movies? When someone interrupts them to ask, "Why does your team suck?" They just spout off some garbage that could be disproved in about 30 seconds by going to ESPN.com? How is this acceptable on any possible level? It's infuriating. Actually, I probably spent about 20 minutes putting that post together. But, your point is well taken. :wink:

By the way, HUGE THANKS to Bruce Miles for helping to spread the word. If OBP never left NSBB (not that we actually invented this important stat or anything), our message would probably go unheard. That it is being published in newspapers almost weekly is the one true way to educate more fans and maybe even a few front office guys. Maybe even a few Trib shareholders. Wouldn't it be great if a couple of Trib execs waltzed into Hendry's office and laid my spread sheet from above on Hendry's desk and started asking for some answers? My one big problem is that even though you can find it in print now (thanks to Bruce once again), why isn't Hendry being asked these tough questions? Why isn't he being shown these stats and forced to answer?

ESPN.com is blocked where they work? Good point. It's exactly where I got all of my information. I moved some stuff around and did some basic adding and percentage calculating, but it was all taken from the ESPN stats pages. Last time I looked, I wasn't the only one granted access to this secret society that is ESPN. LOL.

By the way, if anyone would like to copy my statistical analysis above and flood Hendry's in box with it, be my guest. :wink:

St. Louis: 675 hits + 233 BB + 33 HBP= 941 baserunners Cincinnati: 649 hits + 301 BB + 27 HBP= 977 baserunners Houston: 641 hits + 254 BB + 31 HBP= 926 baserunners Milwaukee: 644 hits + 234 BB + 34 HBP= 912 baserunners Chicago: 629 hits + 171 BB + 19 HBP= 819 baserunners Pittsburgh: 661 hits + 221 BB + 39 HBP= 921 baserunners St. Louis: 941 baserunners= 360 runs= 38% of baserunners score Cincinatti: 977 baserunners= 366 runs= 37% of baserunners score Houston: 926 baserunners= 337 runs= 36% of baserunners score Milwaukee: 912 baserunners= 340 runs= 37% of baserunners score Chicago: 819 baserunners= 290 runs= 35% of baserunners score Pittsburgh: 921 baserunners= 338 runs= 36% of baserunners score I did this with just the NL Central, but I could sit here and do it with every team in MLB, and the Cubs would be dead last in baserunners. And it's because their dead last in baserunners that coincides with being dead last in runs scored. They actually rank 22nd in hits. But, dead last in walks. That tells me that at least the other lousy hitting teams 23rd-30th in hits know that they suck, and at least value walks much more than the Cubs. Is the real problem timely hitting? While it can't be discounted completely, it is nowhere near the problem Dusty and Hendry make it out to be. The Cubs have the lowest percentage in their division at bringing home baserunners, but not by a huge amount. Significant is that Cincinnati has had 158 more baserunners than the Cubs. Only one team in the NL Central has less than 100 more baserunners than the Cubs, and not by much (Milwaukee). Looking back at the stats, the team that has had the most baserunners in this division has scored the most runs. The team with the 2nd most baserunners in this division has scored the 2nd most runs. Looks like better timely hitting has given Milwaukee a slight edge in runs scored over Houston and Pittsburgh, but the edge is insignificant. What is significant is that the Cubs aren't even in the discussion. They are pathetically horrible at getting runners on base, which explains why they are nearly 40 runs off the pace from the 2nd worst offense in that division. A 2nd worse offense that has next to nothing offensively outside of Jason Bay and a red hot Freddy Sanchez. Yet, Pittsburgh has drawn 50 more walks than the Cubs. Cubs are dead last in the league in baserunners and dead last in runs scored. IT IS NOT JUST A COINCIDENCE, HENDRY!!!!!!!!!!!!!!