ThePenguin11

Barrett AB R H 2B 3B HR TB RBI BB SO BA OBP SLG OPS 04/25 - 06/10 113 15 42 10 1 5 69 22 5 11 0.372 0.408 0.611 1.019 07/05 - 07/10 13 4 5 1 0 0 6 2 7 2 0.385 0.619 0.462 1.081 Burnitz AB R H 2B 3B HR TB RBI BB SO BA OBP SLG OPS 04/04 - 05/01 92 15 28 7 2 5 54 17 6 20 0.304 0.337 0.587 0.924 06/02 - 06/22 73 16 27 7 0 4 46 12 7 12 0.370 0.425 0.630 1.055 Walker AB R H 2B 3B HR TB RBI BB SO BA OBP SLG OPS 04/04 - 04/10 21 3 8 2 0 0 10 3 2 0 0.381 0.435 0.476 0.911 06/09 - 06/29 53 8 21 4 1 0 27 6 4 4 0.396 0.431 0.509 0.940 07/08 - 07/10 13 6 6 2 0 1 11 4 2 1 0.462 0.533 0.846 1.379 I don't want to enter into an argument over what constitutes "carrying a team", but over the course of a long season, every player will have their hot streaks and their cold streaks. That applies pretty much without exception. Even the dregs like Macias and Perez have their hot streaks. Making determinations based soley on one's recollection of events is indeed dangerous.... but making a determination based on the lack of recollection of events is just as risky. Good research, Fred and thanks for the back up. I've been feeling like I was on an island about Patterson until you and ZZ showed up.

SP: Ron Cey RP: Ron Cey 3B: Ron Cey :idea: MGR: Ron Cey

The good ones can do it on accident. He can't do it if he tries. The point is he doesn't have the physical strenght or the discipline to hit a ball hard on the outside corner and drive it deep. I dont know how you can say he doesnt have the strength for it. He's the strongest guy on the team, upper body strength wise, he just doesnt have the swing or discipline to go the other way. I agree Corey's main problem is discipline---and I would add to that his bat speed needs to improve, or at least the length of his swing (it's just too long & loopy). But there's no way in hell Corey possesses more upper body strength than Derek Lee & ARam. Corey's a pretty strong kid for his size, but he's not in Lee or Ramirez's class strength-wise. You mean those guys can hit 400 foot homeruns, too?

I don't recall Barrett, Burnitz, or Walker "carrying a team" for any stretch this year. That's a ridiculous way to determine anything, completely based on each individual's recollection of events Barrett and Burnitz never really hurt the team either. Burnitz has never really slumped and produced all year long. Barrett despite not having a great year was terriffic defensively at the beginning, throwing out a bunch of attempted basestealers, as I pointed out before. He'd probably have kept it up if not for an ailing shoulder. Neither has been a player that is hurting the lineup. So you can call it ridiculous, but the point that you can't debate is that despite maybe three good defensive plays and two meaningful home runs, he's been awful consistently.

Hmmm.... As I recall, neither was Carlos Zambrano a Carlos Zambrano. It wasn't until he his first full season at AAA that his numbers started to make people notice. 2000: 2-5, 3.97 ERA, 7.3 K/9 2001: 10-5, 3.88 ERA, 9.3 K/9 Baseball, like life, is like a box of chocolates... you never know what you're going to get. You forgot to mention that in 2000 Zambrano pitched in AA for 9 starts and went 3-1 with a 1.34 ERA. He won 13 games for the Lugnuts in 1999 in his first season as a starter in professional baseball.

The good ones can do it on accident. He can't do it if he tries. The point is he doesn't have the physical strenght or the discipline to hit a ball hard on the outside corner and drive it deep.

I guess my point was that Corey thinks he has the power to be a slugger in this league. Our debate started running a bit of a tangent when you defended his ability to hit homeruns vs. my comment that he has warning track power. I exaggeraged a bit with my comments, but he's just not strong enough to consistently hit homers. He can't drive it to left center, let alone go opposite field, so I characterize him as a mediocre, or average homerun hitter. I don't ever see him being more than that. That's my opinion and you are certainly entitled to yours. I put him in category 2. I dont think he'll ever hit more than 30 homeruns and I believe he thinks he's in the 3-4 range on your scale.

I'm sorry but I tried to do my best to support the fact that he's not a power hitter. He's a tiny player who puts everything he can into a ball and every once in a while it goes 425 feet. 80% of the time he's barely clearing the fence or hitting it to the track. Todd Walker hit one 425 the other day - is he a power hitter? If he did anything but try to hit it as far as he could every time he batted he'd be a better hitter and probably even hit more home runs.

Look at how many just barely made it over the fence... And how many were solo??? 1st of all, your dead ball comment is wrong. In 1910 Frank Schulte of Chicago lead the league with TEN homers. Corey surpasses those with ease. And, WHAT DOES IT MATTER IF THEY ARE SOLO. Sweet mary and Joseph. How is it his fault that no one is on when he goes deep. Jesus. Also, not many of them "just made it over the fence". I can count four (numbers 1,2,7,11). And besides, what does it Matter if they just go over the fence. They went over, did they not? I was talking about the most recent dead ball era in the late 70's and early 80's. The point of the solo comment was that they're not in pressure situations. But fine, you win, he's gonna be a great slugger. One of the best. If you want to believe that its okay.

Look at how many just barely made it over the fence... And how many were solo???

That is absurd. Are you really telling me that HR's arent as good if they dont go as far? Are you really saying he has only warning track power? If so, you need to go check out some stats. In the last four years (02/03/04/05) Corey has hit 14, 13, 24, and 11 HRs respectivley. Obviously, the 05 number is dwarfed by the fact that its only the midway point. That is not warning track power. Your argument simply doesnt hold any water. Majestic hr's dont mean squat. All you have to do is get them over the wall. Those weren't power numbers in dead ball era. /holding water. 2004 ~24 home run players: Craig Biggio Jason Bay )LOL Sean Casey Alex Gonzalez Marquis Grissom Granted guys like Burrell, Giles ( If you still want to call him a power hitter) and Beltran were in that range, but you can hardly call these guys sluggers.

Exactly. Thats why I just looked for his homer games in the game log for those examples. No question he was having a difficult season, but it doesn't need to be overstated. Two or three games with contributions. You still can't argue the fact that he did not contribute nearly as often or for any long periods of time to help this team succeed. He's been awful. His defense has always been slightly above average. This year, his speed is still great, but he regularly misplays balls. You cannot argue the fact that of anyone who started regularly for this team, COREY PATTERSON has been the WEAKEST LINK. You cannot dispute it. *Macias doesn't count BTW. For the record, I never disliked Corey Patterson, I was very excited for him when I was at Spring Training this year. I watched him probably more than anyone else on the team. The fact is he's been a letdown this year. I hope he gets it back but it's going to take some time. He's going to have to realize that the best he'll ever be is a doubles hitter who can steal bases. He's nowhere near as strong as he thinks he is. One thing to leave you all with: Think about the last time Corey Patterson really nailed a majestic homerun. You know his last home run that was just blasted... You can't. He's got warning track power. He'll never be the power hitter he believes he is. The sooner he realizes that, is the sooner he get's his career back.

I look at it this way: Corey Patterson is the only player on this team that has not carried his weight in the lineup or in the field. All 7 other hitting positions have gotten hot and helped carry this team, including Neifi Perez. Patterson never sparked the lineup or made any kind of impact at any time. He did more damage than he did good. Even a guy like Barrett who hasn't had an awesome year went through a period of time where baserunners couldn't steal second base. Patterson's defense has been a letdown and to say his offense was a letdown would be a huge understatement. I think he deserves a larger share of the blame than anyone else on this team. Latroy, Rem and Borowski are the only players who've been worse.

I'm guessing either his father or a family member. Wasn't Bobby's little brother in the Cubs' farm system once upon a time? No, the C21 guys just wearing the hat I think. That guy looks related. I'm almost positive that he had a little brother named Henry.

24 freaking home runs in one freaking round. 500 foot blasts. You missed it all.

If you read this thread and knew nothing about the current state of baseball and it's players, you'd think Adam Dunn was horrible. Now is the time to get him. Strike while the iron's hot. I believe he's on the cusp of blowing the league away with his ability. If his average was .270 and the rest of his numbers were exactly the same (take some of his walks away and make them base hits) people would trade anything for him. It's all the same in the end. Only 6 NL players score more runs than he does. He gets on base and reaches home plate. He knocks in runs. He takes pitches and wears pitchers out. He's very, very talented. I hope this isn't supposed to be a characterization of my argument. Partially. You were one of a number of posters who made it seem if there was something wrong with his ability. For his one weakness, striking out, he has many more strengths. He combines plate discipline, speed and power. The way I see people talking about him makes him out to look like a scrub. Calling him a flawed hitter when he takes more walks than 99% of the league is inaccurate and unfair. So which part of me saying that he'd be a huge upgrade in our OF is calling him a scrub? Or do you just feel that you need to miscast my argument to make yours look better? Just to be sure I'm understood: - I think Dunn is a very good player, one of the better offensive OF's in baseball - I would be really happy to have him on the Cubs - I also feel he does have holes in his game that somewhat limit his value - Therefore, I'd be a little cautious about the package I put together to acquire him Also, for those that say Dunn would do better in a superior lineup...The Reds have significantly outscored the Cubs so far this year. He's already in a better lineup than the Cubs have. ----- One last note: Can we stop talking about trading a pitching prospect whose one big flaw at this point is giving up too many HR's to Cincy? I think they'd be more interested in a pitcher who can keep the ball in the park. I said "partially". The point is he's as good an outfielder as we are going to be able to acquire. His plate discipline and power lead me to believe he has the potential to be one of the great hitters in the league, if not already. He's gone through a number of coaching changes, all of whom have been awful. I didn't say you called him a scrub. As you can see, I stated that a great number of posters make it seem like he's barely above average. And for the record, I don't believe that I miscast your argument, I merely refuted your statement that he's a flawed hitter. He's a young hitter with a lot of great qualities that don't usually set in for many great major leaguers until later in their careers. I think he's ahead of the game in my opinion. They can't all be Pujols. Think about Derrek Lee's progress, he wasn't even as patient as Dunn until this year and still walks half as much. Imagine if it clicks even half as much for Dunn.

Speed? Dunn is many things, fast isn't one of them. He's exceptionally fast for a 275 pound man. He stole 19 bases two years ago and has 6 this year. However, you don't have to be a great base stealer to be fast and smart around the paths. That's why there's a 43% chance when Dunn hits first base, he's going to end up scoring. That's the same percentage as Derrek Lee. It's not a Bill James stat, its mine and I like it. Runs/(BB+H)=scoring percentage. It shows that he has a knack for finding home plate despite all of those awful, awful strikeouts. It doesn't consider errors or fielder's choices, but I'm no sabermetrician either.

If you read this thread and knew nothing about the current state of baseball and it's players, you'd think Adam Dunn was horrible. Now is the time to get him. Strike while the iron's hot. I believe he's on the cusp of blowing the league away with his ability. If his average was .270 and the rest of his numbers were exactly the same (take some of his walks away and make them base hits) people would trade anything for him. It's all the same in the end. Only 6 NL players score more runs than he does. He gets on base and reaches home plate. He knocks in runs. He takes pitches and wears pitchers out. He's very, very talented. I hope this isn't supposed to be a characterization of my argument. Partially. You were one of a number of posters who made it seem if there was something wrong with his ability. For his one weakness, striking out, he has many more strengths. He combines plate discipline, speed and power. The way I see people talking about him makes him out to look like a scrub. Calling him a flawed hitter when he takes more walks than 99% of the league is inaccurate and unfair.

If you read this thread and knew nothing about the current state of baseball and it's players, you'd think Adam Dunn was horrible. Now is the time to get him. Strike while the iron's hot. I believe he's on the cusp of blowing the league away with his ability. If his average was .270 and the rest of his numbers were exactly the same (take some of his walks away and make them base hits) people would trade anything for him. It's all the same in the end. Only 6 NL players score more runs than he does. He gets on base and reaches home plate. He knocks in runs. He takes pitches and wears pitchers out. He's very, very talented.

:oops:

He's lefty, he knocks in runs, he scores a lot of runs, he's a patient hitter. He's proven at the major league level. Let's not go so far as to say he's flawed. Corey Patterson is flawed. Adam Dunn is a gamer.

Doesn't this sentence describe 99% of MLB hitters? And not that this disproves or proves your theory, but a quick glance at that link above shows that Dunn has moderate to amazing success against quality pitchers like Clemens, Wood, Lieber, Prior, and Clement. Though Ben Sheets has absolutely owned him...yikes! Obviously that's not scientific, but I think it shows that it's very possible that Dunn is at least league average against quality pitchers, especially when compared to all the other hitters in baseball. That reminds me of the "great fastball hitter" comment I always hear. A guy is great at hitting fastballs because he can't hit anything with break on it. Alex Gonzalez was one of those 'great fastball hitters'. Ill. Swing hard at fastballs - hit them out of the park. Swing and miss at curve/slider/fork = Great fastball hitter. See also: Hernandez, Jose

To get you started: http://sports.yahoo.com/mlbpa/players/6763/batvspit?year=career&type=Batting

If you're going to say that, then you should also mention that if Dunn had say, hypothetically, Aramis Ramirez protecting him, that Dunn would see better pitches to hit...meaning his AVG and SLG would likely increase. Yes. His slugging could as well as his strikeouts. But I don't see his average rising significantly because of the strikeouts. I would consider batting Dunn third because of the OBP. and let Lee, Ramirez and Burnitz reap the benefits of his ability to score runs.

I would trade Pie for Dunn. I was thinking that too. But for fear of persecution, I omitted that thought.