Sarcastic

There's a looong offseason ahead of us. I'm not looking forward to hearing "Are we there yet?" one million times.

Pierre is a FA after this year. If Hendry wants Pie to play in 2007 he can just let Pierre leave. Beaten by less than a minute. :evil:

I didn't hear it myself but this "WinWorldSeriesPlease" guy said that Levine sounded confident in saying it. Someone on this board might have heard it. I believe the guy who posted. Well, I guess if it is true, we'll know soon. I'm not going to hold my breath though.

Did you actually hear it yourself? Forums are often bad sources for trade rumors.

How much faith do you really think ought to be put into road splits? Moving from Pro Player to Wrigley Field will have an effect, but considering how much Pierre's (and pretty much all other player's) road splits fluctuate from year to year, are they really worth looking at seriously? EDIT: I see that in the last four years, his road splits have been at least a bit worse than what he's done at home. Still, this doesn't necessarily mean anything. If we are going to talk about ballpark effects, I'd rather look at his park adjusted numbers than his home/road splits.

It would be much better than having two guys who can never get on base only one of which has much speed to speak of. It doesn't matter if it is what Dusty wants or not, Furcal and Pierre would be a real improvement over Niefi and Patterson. Also, I think that if we got those two, Dusty would be less inclined to EVER let Niefi bat near the top of the lineup. I'd prefer a leadoff hitter with a .400+ OBP also, but where could the Cubs get their hands on one of those?

That's a nice bonus. How?

Jerry Hairston wouldn't be a terrible option, but I think looking only at the last two years skews the data. 2004 was Hairston's best year, and 2005 was Pierre's worst. Their career lines are: .261/.334/.371 and .305/.355/.375 Pierre's OBP and BA are significantly better than Hairston's. A smaller advantage of Pierre's is that Hairston is pretty much worthless for stealing bases, while Pierre can steal quite a few bases with at least a decent SB%. Also, how much talent do you really think it will take to get Pierre? I agree that giving up real talent for him is a bad idea, but we don't really know the terms of any deal yet.

He could have another bad year in 2006. Or, 2005 could have just been an off year for him. Any player you get would be a risk. Maybe I'm wrong, but I'd say Pierre has been reasonably consistent. In six seasons, he has hit under .300 twice, and only last season was he very far under that mark. We don't know for sure what he will do, but I think it is reasonable to say that he is likely to perform better in 2006. What am I missing? Whether or not he is a good acquisition would depend on the cost, in my opinion. If we don't have to give up much more than Patterson, I don't see how it would be a bad trade.

Has anyone actually even heard a rumor that the Cubs are planning on trading Cedeno and letting Neifi be the full time SS or 2B? Because everything I've seen says that Cedeno will be the starting 2B. I fully expect Neifi to see quite a few starts subbing for Cedeno, but you can't say for sure that Neifi will be the starting 2B or SS if you have no evidence.

If that happens, it won't be because Neifi got some at bats from the bench. It'll just be one of many factors. If they let him start at SS or 2B, that would be pretty bad, and he'll probably get plenty of at bats either way with Dusty managing, but it seems odd how so many people like to pretend that Neifi is going to bring the team down single-handedly. Maybe his greatest value is as a scapegoat. Then again, I'm confident we'd all find someone else to blame if he left.

Doesn't it make you long for the days when every Transactions thread turned into a thread about Carlos Beltran? :P Or, more recently, Adam Dunn? Maybe we should start a predictions thread to guess who will be next?

Of course allowing fewer hits helps, but good fielding helps a team less if that team doesn't allow many balls in play. I'd be interested to know what the Cub's ratios are for Ks, BBs, HRs, and balls in play per PA. I'd bet they allow fewer balls in play than many other teams. Here's something to consider. The Cubs have the second best H/9 in the NL. They have the fourth worst BB/9 in the NL. Which stat do you think looks problematic? Yes, but the fact that they give up homers is another reason that fielding becomes less important. Fielding only affects balls in play. The Cubs do not allow a ton of balls in play. You can't field a homer. Keeping baserunners off is important, but because they allow relatively few balls in play, the impact of an upgraded defense would be weaker than for most other teams. The problem isn't hits, it's walks, which our fielders have no control over. Sure, but once again, with the Cubs staff the impact of fielding on pitch counts is minimized. A good defense won't stop our aces from going into multiple 5+ pitch PAs in which the final result is a K or a BB, as it often is. Now if the staff was full of finesse pitchers, we'd be a lot less successful with shabby fielding, but power pitchers will rack up the pitches with or withoout a solid defense. I'm not saying upgrading the fielding isn't worth considering, but in practical terms, improving the fielding probably means downgrading the offense, and I don't think that is a good trade.

So you think that Neifi Perez (assuming he is/was the best-defending SS around) is more valuable than Manny Ramirez? Should Ozzie Smith be considered the best player of all time instead of Babe Ruth? 'Cause if you think that defense is that much more important than hitting, you pretty much have to answer yes to both questions. He said that pitching and fielding was more important than hitting. PITCHING AND FIELDING. Not just pitching by itself. And not just fielding by itself, as you've ridiculously tried to suggest that he's saying. Both of them together. No one here is saying that Neifi Perez/Ozzie Smith are better than Manny Ramirez/Babe Ruth. Personally I think the game is 45% hitting, 40% pitching and 15% fielding. Something like that. I don't have any numbers to bear that out, but that's my suspicion. But that doesn't mean that you can say that for any hitter hitting is 3 times more important than fielding. It depends on the player's position. I think those percentages vary based upon who is on the mound. When you've got Kerry Wood out on the mound and he's on top of his game (or a younger Unit, etc.), fielding is less important because there simply aren't as many balls in play. When you've got someone like Suppan on the mound that "pitches to contact", fielding may be equal in importance to pitching. Blanket statements are always hard. This is another reason that fielding is less important for the Cubs team specifically than it is for some others. They have a staff that strikes out a ton of batters and walks a ton of batters, minimizing the number of balls in play. I don't know how large of an effect this has, but it may be worth considering.

Sure, but what I said, to be precise, was that, "A player's ability to hit is more important than fielding ability." I don't think anyone here is contesting that, right? So we have nothing to argue about. I'm just clarifying.

Is this you just living up to your name? Or do you really mean that? While I'm not willing to do as far as to say that a player's ability to field is as important as a player's ability to hit, or even more important than a player's ability to hit, what I will say is that fielding definately matters and has at least some importance. So hardly "fielding schmielding" at all. Pitching and fielding together is half the game, hitting being the other half. Actually, because in the long run good pitching/decent hitting wins more ballgames than good hitting/decent pitching, the pitching and fielding is slightly more than half. Why is it better? Well, if your starters allow less baserunners, they should throw less pitches, and if they throw less pitches, they should be able to throw more innings before they reach certain pitch counts. That in turn means less bullpen innings, which means that your relievers, on top of having better defence behind them, ought to be fresher, which gives you more effective pitching options, which can help you prevent further runs. If your starters and fielding is effective enough, you may not be able to find work for everyone in your bullpen, so you may be able to run with less pitchers on your staff, so you can have more bench options, which means more in-game flexibility, which, if exploited by the manager, can mean more runs for the offence, or still even better defence and less runs allowed. Furthermore, a pitcher that trusts his defence can be more effective at doing his job as a pitcher, partially because the confidence of his effective fielders rubs off on him, partially because there's no ineffective fielding to rattle him, partially because effective fielding can inspire him to raise his own game. An effective pitcher is often confident in himself too, and therefore better able to get over poor pitches, innings and outings, because he trusts himself and his own ability. Finally, an effective and efficient pitcher that throws less pitches is theoretically less likely to get injured or wear down as the season goes on, and fielders are less likely to get injured because there are less plays to make in the field and they spend less time in the field, which is less sapping for them too, especially catchers. The less tired your best players are the less off-days they need. And so on and so on and so on. Anyway, the Cubs have a potentially great rotation with Zambrano, homerless Prior and healthy Wood, plus okay Maddux and Mr Who Knows. They need to do their best to make the most of that strength, and that means putting as good a defence behind those pitchers as possible without foresaking the required offence. What the optimal offence is relative to the optimal defence, I don't know, but I suspect that the Cubs right now are too offence orientated. Barrett at C, Walker at 2B, Nomar at SS, Ramirez at 3B, Murton and Hairston in the OF, there are 6 positions currently that at the very best are merely average, if not below. Of course, they all (with the glaring exception of Hairston) provide either excellent offence relative to their position or excellent offence relative to their position relative to what they're being paid, so it does give the Cubs a bit of a dilemna as to how to keep such excellent offence/value for money at the same time as improving their defence. I'm not convinced that it's possible. Pitching and fielding's more than half the game. I'd say at least 60-70%. Wow. Look, I never said fielding was irrelevant, it just isn't as important as a player's ability to hit. There's no need to write a book to tell me that fielding has some level of significance. All I meant was, I'd rather take Nomar at SS than Furcal, mainly because Furcal will brobably be much more expensive, and he isn't a really great hitter. For a shortstop, he's good, but if Nomar is healthy (I know it's a risk) he could be much better. More importantly the money saved might allow the team to go after another need. That's all I was saying.

Boy, is this thread packed with brilliant wit or what? I am so glad that someone decided to start this thread. It was completely impossible to find any sarcasm here before.

Why is the sky blue? Macias is the team, man. Without him these losers suck. And since they already suck with him, they could probably power a million vaccum cleaners without him.

No, no, no. The Cubs will tie the Astros for the Wild Card and lose in the 15th inning of Game 163. So how are they gonna do it? Walk in the winning run? Dramatic walkoff homer? My money is on at least one error being involved in the play.

Fielding shmielding. A player's ability to hit is more important than fielding ability. A few extra balls will become hits, but Nomar and Walker will be much more productive than Furcal and Walker or Furcal and Nomar. Also, as it has been pointed out, it will definitely be cheaper, which frees up money for things the team actually needs, like a right fielder, or another starter, or a set up man. The pitching wouldn't be so shaky if Prior, Zambrano and Wood played up to their potential next year. Of course, what are the chances of that happening?

More like 5. The Mets and Brewers have the exact same record as us. True, but we don't need them to collapse. If the Cubs play as well as they need to to pass Houston, Florida, and Philidelphia, I really doubt either of those teams will come anywhere close to matching it. The problem is, how on earth are the Cubs going to go undefeated for the rest of the season? They can might be able to afford one or two losses, but more than that means they are probably out.

When has everything ever worked out for the Cubs? It is technically possible, but I'd have to agree with BP that their chances of making it are about 1%.

I, unfortunately, do not share that opinion. I could easily see the Cubs go with Neifi, at least as a primary SS option. If Dusty has Neifi available to him, he will use him far more often than is reasonable. I think Walker is also doing his best to get shown the door. If so, you can bet, at the very least, Neifi will be at 2B or SS. It wouldn't surprise me if Neifi was the starting SS, and Cedeno and Walker platooned at 2B. Wow, if truly we are relying on Neifi to be our starter at any position I'm gone and I'm sure there will be others. Yeah, fight the power! :roll: You guys are so overdramatic. Hendry will get a better shortstop than Perez. The only way Neifi gets a lot of playing time is if the starter goes down.

How many times did Walker leadoff for us this year? Exactly. So are you coming down on Hendry for bringing in the wrong guys, or coming down on Baker for using them "incorrectly"? Obviously Walker hasnt been used as a leadoff hitter because Dusty didnt find that as an option. But how exactly do we know if Walker is a good leadoff hitter for us if we never used him in that role? .294/.370/.505/.904, 15 2B, 12 HR, 30 RBI, 45 R leading off in 2004--228 ABs. Does the fact that a player has done well in one spot of the order in the past, especially based on a small sample size, really mean that he will do that well in that spot in the future? It seems to me like it shouldn't make that huge of a difference. Is there any evidence that it actually does mean anything? I'd like to see Walker come back next year, but not as the leadoff man. He should only be used as the leadoff man if the team cant get a half decent deal for a high OBP player. Walker is good, but considering his decent power, high batting average, and relatively low K totals, I think he'd be better suited for the 2nd spot. Not that it makes a gigantic difference, but that's the way I'd prefer it. Okay, I'm not understanding. First it was a matter of not having any evidence that he could succeed since he hadn't batted leadoff, then when we show his excellent numbers leading off, it's not enough and it could mean something else? That first sentence applies to EVERYBODY. In ANYTHING, EVER. Okay? All we have is past performance to try to project future performance. Look, the guy hits everywhere, and there's zero evidence that he's bothered by leading off. Maybe a .370 OBP is a stretch, but not much of one. .350-.360 is pretty much a foregone conclusion with Walker the last 5 years--Boston being the lone exception. You want his three-year splits batting leadoff? .297/.353/.459/.830. 46 2B, 18 HR, 63 RBI, 97 R, 602 AB. That's not such a small sample size, is it? That's a full season of being a very good leadoff hitter. That's pretty close to his "normal numbers," as well, so I don't know why it'd be a terrible thing if he regressed to those. It's much better than most teams have leading off. Maybe he'd be better batting 2nd, but he'd be better than any of the other options batting 1st. I'm not saying he'd be bothered by leading off. Maybe I didn't read some of the posts carefully enough, but I don't believe I actually said I thought Walker would be uncomfortable in the leadoff spot. Like I said in that post, I am not inclined to believe that where a player bats has a huge affect on their performance, which is why I think we should expect a .350ish OBP from Walker if he were to lead off, as opposed to the numbers he had there last year. That would probably make hiim our best option to lead of now though. I guess that you weren't necessarily saying he would put up those exact numbers from the leadoff spot in the future, but it bugs me when people use stats sorted by spot in the order.

Yes he did well out of the leadoff spot for a little over 200 ABs, but who's to say he would have kept that pace if he had batted leadoff for the whole year? Unless I see some solid evidence, I refuse to believe that a player's performance could be that seriously affected by what spot in the order he bats. EDIT: My point is, if we stuck Walker at leadoff for the whole year, I think it would be reasonable to expect him to put up his normal numbers. A .370 OBP would probably be a stretch. I think the team would be better off with Walker in the two hole next season, if it is at all possible to get a guy with a good OBP. And by extension, I'm saying that Hendry hasn't done a good job finding a leadoff batter. That said, it isn't an easy thing to do, and it wouldn't have been such a problem if Dusty hadn't stuck Patterson and Perez at one and two.