bukie

Soto is a valued commodity that the Cubs would like to keep around as long as possible. Hill is a necessary evil that is the only real catcher on the roster.

Is there another way to do it while still getting every team to play a balance schedule and leaving enough weeks for the playoffs? Is there a way to roll the short week in with the following week, and make that just one slightly longer week?

On the flip side, now you get Lilly twice and you'll beat me instead. :)

The Cubs haven't won the season series from them since 2001. 16-29 v. the Phillies since '02. I go every year. For a while I think Chicago won every time I attended. I'm on a horrible losing streak stretching back to at least the day of the Nomar trade. The only recent win I remember was the cheap one they got thanks to a really bad homerun call off a Mark DeRosa foul ball. At least Pat Burrell isn't there any longer to kill them. Heh. Last year, the Cubs went into Philly after sweeping a bad team on the road (Pirates), and proceeded to lose the first 2 of the Philly series. In fact, every time except the 4-game series at Wrigley last year, they have played the previous 3 years, the Cubs have come off of a series win, only to have Philly win the series 2 of 3 or 3 of 4. Not to mention that Philly is hardly struggling coming into the series.

Really, the only team at this point that's a safe bet for the playoffs is Don's.

Back to normal weeks, back to divisional games. Tootielicious at NC Cubs Saber Metrics at Quakers Valenzuela's Screwballs at The Fighting Manginos Fuzzy Logistics at Lynx Harrys Budcrew at Tampa Bay Rays Severe Tooterstorms at Alamo Stealth The Eyes of Texas at Northside Baseball Galesburg Hand Sanitizers at Raw Dawgs

I am a Dan Haren fan.

Well, Juan Pierre did set a Cubs franchise record in 2006. Most 4-3 putouts ever? Most outs in a single season. He also set Florida's franchise record in 2005 and LA's franchise record in 2007.

Well, Juan Pierre did set a Cubs franchise record in 2006.

Lannan is basically the only guy on the Nats roster who can pitch, so it would benefit the Cubs to at least be patient tonight.

That wouldn't make Soriano guilty of an atrocity. That would just make him a member of the 1988 Cubs. And "member of the 1988 Cubs" would include front office, scouting, stadium staff, random vagrants inhabiting Wrigleyville, etc.. When a franchise doesn't win a world series for 100 years, a franchise needs a slump buster.

Lannan against righties: .686 OPSA Lannan against lefties: 1.018 OPSA I don't get stacking righties against him.

Actually, Madlock was nowhere near the player for the rest of his career as he was for those 3 years as a Cub. If anything, the Cubs did the right thing in selling high on him. Of course, it would have been nice if they had actually gotten good value for him.

Starters 2008 2009 2004 2007 2003 Relievers 2008 2003 2007 2009 2004

More pesky stats incoming (these ones I had to figure out mostly on my own, so...) Win shares are basically a stat designed to compare across eras and positions. It's adjusted to era, but also includes fielding for hitters and pitching (for pitchers, obviously). For purposes of how good a player would be, I took the average win shares of a player with that many appearances, and took the overall difference to be Win Shares Above Average (hardball times does this, but they didn't have this data for everyone). So, cumulative WSAA for famous Cubs (except Cap Anson, because WS data isn't available prior to 1900): Player (Years as Cub) WSAA (as Cub) ---------------------------- Hartnett, Gabby (19) 132 Sandberg, Ryne (13) 103 Williams, Billy (16) 102 Chance, Frank (15) 101 Sosa, Sammy (13) 87 Santo, Ron (14) 86 Wilson, Hack (6) 69 Banks, Ernie (19) 58 Grace, Mark (13) 54 * Ramirez, Aramis (7) 33 Hornsby, Rogers (4) 32 * Lee, Derrek (6) 27 Dawson, Andre (6) 18 * Soriano, Alfonso (3) 8

That's definitely tops. The next best would most likely be Hack Wilson from 1927-1930, when he posted a 1.051 OPS. His overall numbers in six years as a Cub are great with a line of .322/.412/.590 and an average of 31 HR, 108 R, and 128 RBI per season. Hack is problematic because his astronomical numbers were in large part due to the crazy offensive era in which he played. The ridiculous offensive numbers of the late 20's-early 30's stand as the only real rival to the steroid era as far as offensive production. Consider that in Hack's best year, 1930, the LEAGUE batting average was .303. Thus, one could (if they wanted to) quite convincingly dismiss Sosa (roids) and Hack (softball league stats) from their lists of greatest Cubs hitters. If one were to do that, I'd think the clear remaining choice is Billy Williams. Completely contrary to Hack, Billy put up the bulk of his numbers while playing during an era dominated by pitching. For example, take 1963 and see that the league BA was just .249. You have to go back to 1917 to find a league BA that low. So for Billy to hit a career .290 during an 18 year career when the league average was .254 over that same span is pretty impressive. His 133 career OPS+ over 18 seasons is pretty damn nice as well. I guess I've convinced myself in doing this research right now. I'm gonna go with Billy Williams. final answer. The thing is though, Wilson's OPS+ for his six years as a Cub was 155. Billy Williams' best six-year run was 141. Sosa's best six-year run was 162. So while Sosa and Wilson may have played in better offensive eras, their numbers are still better relative to their respective leagues. This certainly isn't a knock on Williams, who was a fantastic hitter. Isn't OPS+ adjusted for the league/era in which you played? It's compared to the league average for that year, so it's a decent measure of how much better a player was than the league at that time. So yes, it's decent for comparing between eras.

Pesky stats incoming... The best comparable stat I could find historically was RC/27 (runs created per 27 outs, a sabermetric measure of a player's individual offensive worth to his team). RC/27 numbers for various famous Cubs: Player (Years as Cub) RC/27 (as Cub) ---------------------------- Hornsby, Rogers (4) 10.4 Wilson, Hack (6) 9.2 Sosa, Sammy (13) 7.2 * Lee, Derrek (6) 7.2 * Ramirez, Aramis (7) 7.0 Anson, Cap (22) 6.9 Williams, Billy (16) 6.7 Hartnett, Gabby (19) 6.6 Grace, Mark (13) 6.4 Santo, Ron (14) 6.1 * Soriano, Alfonso (3) 6.1 Sandberg, Ryne (13) 5.7 Dawson, Andre (6) 5.7 Banks, Ernie (19) 5.6 Chance, Frank (15) 5.4

Best upset.

I'd probably keep Jay Cutler.

Baseball is also really the only major sport where the officiating is consistent for home and road teams. Basketball, hockey, football, soccer there are a lot of hometown calls. Not that there should be, just that there are. Especially in basketball.

I'm rooting for Pujols, in hopes that it'll mess up his swing the rest of the year and the Cards fall into a horrendous tail spin. But, I mean, at least he'll have that trophy from the HR derby.

Congrats! ...I thought we had rules about adding minors until the September draft. ;)

It's known for it, but really not that different from Wrigley in terms of HRs per year. Now, US Cellular Field is a launching pad.

Here's something to keep a rooting interest in the Home Run Derby: MLB.com's Home Run Derby Challenge Winner gets tickets to the 2010 All-Star Game. Basically, you pick the order of finish for each round, the # of overall HRs hit in the first round, and the # of overall HRs hit in the entire competition.

Yeah, if you're talking about just in the US, then Elvis is bigger and will remain bigger. If you're talking about global impact, it's Michael Jackson and not even close.