Rob

If it was stopped right now, then I think the Cubs would be able to get a continuation right? We haven't batted fully yet. Nope. The game would essentially reset to before the Padres batted this inning.

No, that is why sacrifice bunts that aren't executed well are stupid. no, bunting with your #2 hitter is stupid. or, having a #2 hitter who you'd rather bunt with in that situation is stupid. That makes no sense. Bunting with your #2 hitter - essentially trying to put 2 runners in scoring position for your 2 best hitters is stupid knowing full well this game may be called very soon? http://www.tangotiger.net/RE9902.html Slightly more runs expected with runners on 1st and 2nd with no outs than runners at 2nd and 3rd with 1 out. plus that assumes that the bunt is executed properly. there's a much better chance of a failed bunt that results in a double play, pop out or fielder's choice than there is of a throw into the stands or theriot beating the ball to first. so actually the decision to bunt is going to cost you even more than that very small amount. It's not that hard people. The only positive from a sac bunt when everyone knows a sac bunt is coming and the defense doesn't botch it is moving runners over and getting an out. There are several positives if you actually try to get a hit, which is what hitters are used to doing in every single AB. FWIW, I have no problem with the bunts Fukudome lays down. But those are bunting for a hit... not letting everybody in the ballpark know that you want to give them a free out before the pitch is even thrown.

Especially when a successful bunt would have resulted in a free pass that would have kept our best hitter from getting to swing.

Well that was just swell. Honestly, I'm more pissed at Lou for the stupid call than I am at Theriot for the bad bunt.

I could see it happening. We are going to need a roster spot tomorrow.

+1

If memory serves, didn't Henry Blanco cost us a draft pick?

Where has anybody in this thread welcomed him with open arms? Some people are waving their torches and pitchforks; some are looking for a silver lining. I haven't seen anybody saying "this is awesome!"

You and I have very different thresholds for "horrible." The man posted a .261 EqA last season, where .260 is the definition of league average.

took an insult right out of the bill plaschke playbook there. I think we now know what Jay Mariotti's screen name is on this board. He finally made my ignore list. At this point, all of his posts are just coming in here and mocking the people smart enough to understand numbers. It's probably a self-confidence thing. He hasn't added anything productive... ever.

We can watch the games now? I just wait for my spreadsheets to update.

Carl Crawford plays LF. In terms of CF, I'd absolutely prefer the following players: Carlos Beltran BJ Upton Grady Sizemore Curtis Granderson Josh Hamilton Chris Young

Well that's just patently untrue.

what does "smoothed out " mean here? Adjusted his line to reflect his expected BABIP based on his LD%, as opposed to his actual BABIP. Basically, I'm just trying to remove luck from the equation. right but you can't assume that everyone with the same LD% is going to end up with the same BABIP. Ichiro is very fast, gets out of the batter's box very quickly and has excellent bat control. jim edmonds is old and slow, and has an upper-cuttish type swing (which would tend to slow one's speed out of the batter's box). his babip has declined for five years in a row, while his LD% has gone: 2004: 21.2 % 2005: 18.7 % 2006: 20.5 % 2007: 19.5 % 2008: 22.4 % chances are the guy is just a low BABIP guy at this stage of his career. At the same time, that only applies when Edmonds hits the ball on the ground... which he does at a rate of about half the time that Ichiro does. If you want to adjust his numbers down a tick on account of his declining speed, I wont put up a fight. But to act like it even comes close to approximating his actual drop in production would be foolish. Any way you want to cut it, he's been hurt pretty badly by luck the last three years. You can argue as to the extent of it, but you can't argue that his perceived decline has been greatly exacerbated by the bloops just not falling in as often as they should.

what does "smoothed out " mean here? Adjusted his line to reflect his expected BABIP based on his LD%, as opposed to his actual BABIP. Basically, I'm just trying to remove luck from the equation.

For what it's worth... I've smoothed out his BABIP for the last few seasons. 2004 - .296/.414/.643 2005 - .261/.383/.540 2006 - .273/.364/.491 2007 - .275/.346/.432 2008 - .263/.340/.330 Yes, Jim Edmonds is certainly on the decline. But there are three important things to note. 1.) That decline is much more a loss of power than BA and OBP. 2.) 2004 and 2005 were spent in Busch 2. 2006 and 2007 were spent in Busch 3, which hurts flyball hitters a bit more than Busch 2 did. And 2008 has been spent in PETCO, which is hell for flyball hitters. 3.) Edmonds is an extreme flyball hitter. With the move to Wrigley just before the winds typically start blowing out, it's not inconceivable that he might replicate his 2006 line from here on out.

That's not the point he's getting at at all, really. It's just the fact that Soriano has been terribly unlucky when it comes to balls in play actually dropping in for hits - thus causing the pathetic numbers early. Exactly. Put quite simply, Soriano has had about 7 or 8 hits get robbed from him. With less than 100 AB on the season, that's going to have a huge effect on his line... a line that doesn't accurately portray how well he' hit the ball.

We are all aware of the troubles of our slumping left fielder at this point. Much has been made of his cold streak to start the season. After watching a few few people make snarky comments about his BA only going up due to "bloop hits" during Saturday's game, I decided to dig a little deeper. Then I spent all my money on booze and strippers Saturday night, and forgot all about it for a while. But now my insomnia is back, and one of Colin's insightful posts triggered my memory... so this is what I came up with. THT still hasnt been updated with yesterday's stats, so I was left to my own devices to figure out Soriano's current LD%. Since gameday only counted one of his drives last night as a liner, that's what I used as well. Alfonso Soriano is currently hitting line drives 21.95% of the time at the dish, which is a tick above his career marks. In spite of this, his batting average on balls in play is a mere .244. On 78 balls put in play this season, he's collected base hits on only 19 of those. With average luck, he would have collected hits on 26.5 of those to match up with his expected BABIP of .340. (It's generally accepted that BABIP should be about LD% +.120) We could take the easy route out and give him 7.5 extra singles to see how he'd be hitting. But that wouldn't be very accurate, as Soriano has been robbed of extra bases on occassion. We can easily keep his ratios intact of hits on balls in play when we add those 7.5 hits back in. (Sori is a little more than twice as likely to hit a single as a double). What we end up with is adding 5.1 singles onto his tally, and 2.4 doubles. What we're left with is a player who, with neutral luck, would have put up a .308/.350/.514 line this season as well as he's hit the ball to this point. That's significantly better than his actual .232/.280/.414 line, and does an excellent job of illustrating the point that we need to be more patient in evaluating players with such tiny sample sizes to this point. Is he worth his contract? Almost certainly not... but he's not a problem on this team right now.

I'm sure that's exactly how Hendry and company are thinking about this move. I wouldn't put it past them to be able to recognize that the numbers don't reflect how well he's been swinging the bat. Personally, I think he's lost a good chunk of the power left in his bat. But I wouldn't be terribly surprised to see a Brian Giles type of season out of him, which would certainly have some value.

Quick calculation here... Edmonds has gotten 15 hits on balls in play. Given his LD%, he's missing out on 7.7 hits. If we were to add those to his line (entirely as singles), it jumps up to .263/.340/.319 That's ignoring for a moment that PETCO park has a hugely negative effect on flyballs, and Jim Edmonds (like Khalil Greene) is an extreme flyball hitter. As such, Edmonds would seems to have the potential to gain much more from a move to Wrigley (which significantly inflates home runs) than your average player. I don't support this move... but the front office has some justification for being willing to explore signing him at the league minimum.

Let's cling onto the positives for dear life. I'm turning over every stone here looking for them.

So... since the players have covered for Lou's mistakes, he's excused for all of them?

Also... Edmonds has a 22.4% LD% and a .227 BABIP. It also appears he was a bit unlucky last season, with a 19.5% LD% and a .285 BABIP. Granted, his HR/FB has dropped very steeply, but it appears his decline hasn't been as bad as a casual glance at his numbers would have suggested.

PECOTA's projection: .239/.326/.414 overall .216/.295/.364 vs. LHP .247/.342/.456 vs. RHP I'd say how fried his bat looks probably cancels out any upshot we should give his projection heading from PETCO to Wrigley. Discuss.

This game has taken some of the sting out of that Jim Edmonds fiasco on the horizon.