BigbadB

Nah, they've done it before.

I certainly have no attachment to Bynum in any way. After watching him loaf after that fly ball last night, I'm perfectly fine with him being gone. What does Dusty do? Rewards him with a start. And there was Aramis standing there admiring his deep fly ball that DIDN'T clear the fence. If he was thrown out at 2nd, I would have been sitting him today as well. I get so sick of the lack of hustle. I don't care who it is. Aramis is one of my favorite players, but there is no excuse for standing there admiring a ball that isn't even going to leave the park. This is not an individual performance contest. This is a team event. For the good of the team, you hustle. Plain and simple. And I'm peaved at Dusty for rewarding laziness.

The problem with Patterson's philosophy can be found right in his own sentence. THE OTHER TEAM KNOWS you will swing early and often, therefore they are not going to groove one for you. Until he learns to layoff the pitchers pitch, he's not going to improve. I hope someone eventually helps him figure this out.

After watching the last few games, I'd like to see Restovich hold down a bench spot for a couple of weeks.

I'm not surprised to see Wuertz go down this quick. It's obvious he has some things to work on, and I'd much rather see him working on things in a minor league game.

While I agree that if long relief was needed, Novoa would be the better choice, I don't necessarily see Aardsma getting in any closer work with this team. If Dempster fails or suffers an injury, one of Howry, Williamson or Eyre would probably get the nod ahead of Aardsma.

He has the best approach at the plate of any Cub hitter. He's going to be a really good #2 guy once they stick him there.

This thread went downhill in a hurry.

So, you know for a fact the mod didn't send a private message to the person who used the inappropriate language? If you don't know something as fact, you shouldn't assume anything about the moderators of this site. And when a moderator said that the bickering should be dropped, are you sure he/she wasn't referring to EVERYONE who was doing the bickering? Or are you assuming that because the moderators response directly followed yours that they were only speaking to you? Don't assume.

Since Kinsler has already been mentioned, and he was the 41st pick, I have to say that I'm really liking Chris Shelton with the overall 40th pick. I'm quite pleased with Kenji Johjima as well.

Here is your winner, folks. :cheers:

They were playing a DH. The points updated. Not sure when, but they are there now.

You might not have been hanging around when the site was crashing regularly, and operating extremely slow when it wasn't crashing. Archiving old threads and disconnecting the search function is what helped resolve some of those problems. This place has tremendous traffic. The average poster here has thousands of posts, and makes several posts per day. This is definitely not a rinky dink operation. I'm sure Tim would much rather have enough support from the advertising to not have to charge anyone for visiting this site. But, he needs revenue from somewhere and he definitely isn't getting enough from there. Worse yet, he's not even getting enough hits to the advertisements that he has been able to convince to pay for a portion of what it costs to run this site. If he loses them, he's either going to need more premium subscriber support, or risk losing more money out of his pocket. Tim has created a great place for Cub fans of all ages to visit and share everything Cubs. The minor league section is far and away the best source of minor league information around. They have done player interviews, management interviews, interviews with local sports journalists, sportscasters, etc.., and some of these folks are regular visitors of this site now as well. This isn't a lecture. This is just a reminder that you are part of something special here. If you are donating for premium membership, you're not just getting a few extra features that others aren't getting, you are a contributor to the continued existence of this site. And if you are contributing, I can assure you we are all very much appreciate it. So, send Tim a check! :D

I don't think comments like this are welcome here. You don't know anything about what I value or don't value, and you don't know anything about what other people who rely heavily on stats value or don't value. So, rather than toss insults at your leisure, how about sticking to defending your own point of view.

I see 3 choices here: 1) Pay a very nominal fee to help keep this site operating. By helping keep this site operating, you are entitled to extra bells and whistles. 2) Don't pay a nominal fee to keep this site operating. Whether you can't afford to or just don't want to, Tim hasn't turned this site into a "required" payment to be a part of this community. 3) We all find a new site when Tim decides it is no longer worth paying money out of his own pocket to keep this site operating. If you want the bells and whistles that come with this message board, you'll have to pay for it. If you don't want them, you most certainly don't have to pay. I sort of compare how Tim operates this site with ESPN. You want ESPN Insider, which offers much more than plain ole ESPN? Pay for it. I pay for it. And I'm not complaining.

Ha. His end stat line was not nearly as good as the one I posted above. But, he should be accumulating points, plus or minus.

Taylor Buchholz doesn't seem to be accumulating any points. Any ideas? As of this writing: 2 IP, 1 HA, 2 K's.

What would you rather see with the players we have available? Jones and Aramis are not able to play at present. Barrett should be starting, and maybe Walker. Without either of them, and with Ramirez and Jones out, the lineup is pretty weak. Mabry at third would be nice. Not sure how Mabry does against lefties, but I don't have a problem loading up the line up with RH hitters against a LH starter. Which is why I wouldn't mind seeing Barrett over at 3b.

I certainly couldn't understand crippling your entire farm system for a guy who takes the mound once every 5 days. Now, if the player was someone who could play in every game, that might change things a little bit. But, he would have to be a no doubt about it stud, and all of his "cheap" years would have be ahead of him. An A-Rod type player.

It wouldn't hurt my feelings if they put Barrett at 3b. The way he's hitting, he needs to be in there.

An argument can be made that the pitcher becomes more focused on the hitter because there are runners on base, also. But, once there is a runner on base, the defense has to make adjustments, which opens up more holes for the hitter, so some things are out of the pitcher's control once there is a runner on base.

I'd like to point out that my response above was more a reflection of which player I'd rather have on my team, the guy who provides a much higher OBP or the guy who can steal bases much better. I'd love to have a guy with tremendous OBP and excellent speed. But, if I have to have a trade off, I'll take the guy with good OBP. I've said all along in this thread that it's way too early to make a judgment on Pierre. If he goes 4-4 today, his AVG will increase nearly 100 points in one day. But, I really wasn't that big of a fan of trading for him in the first place. He provided a .326 OBP last year. He also got caught stealing many times last year, which doesn't even calculate into that lousy OBP for a lead off hitter. If all he can provide as a .326 OBP, Pierre is a glorified Tom Goodwin, and that's not good enough. He's put up better numbers in the past, and I hope he comes closer to those numbers, but we are barely over a week into the season, so giving a grade to Pierre at this point is a bit premature.

Actually, 10,000 posts has absolutely nothing to do with it. My post about foul language neither quoted you or was directed only at you. It was directed at anyone who was using it. I'll thank you for not assuming in the future that you are being targeted. I really don't care how many posts someone has. NSBB guidelines does not state that once you have achieved so many posts that you can skirt NSBB guidelines. If you need an NSBB guideline refresher course, please visit my sig. Thanks!

Gateway to the west. But, no other than St. Louis being west of the Mississippi, that's about the only thing west you can call them.

Alright. Not only is it not acceptable to use foul language here, it is also unacceptable to use symbols to skirt the rules. Please respect that this is a family site.