bukie

I'd enjoy nothing more than seeing him pitch the 8th and 9th of an 10-2 game today. Preferably one that the Cubs were winning.

So, hopefully, you'll start the game thread after next year's first loss.

It seems that teams have adjusted to Marmol by largely never swinging at the slider and waiting for a mistake fastball. As long as Marmol can throw the slider for strikes, he's unstoppable.

Total of 5 balls to 4 batters is a nice ratio, so far.

From the thread title I was thinking UMfan was channelling all his pessimism towards the Brewers.

The best thing that could happen would have been the Cubs winning more than 1 of 3 in the desert. I'm not talking about the Cubs. Your point is so obvious it doesn't really need to be made. You would think so, but there are a lot of people around here who neglect to remember the Cubs aren't dependent on any other team to win the division.

The best thing that could happen would have been the Cubs winning more than 1 of 3 in the desert.

Williams only had 10 at bats in '52 and 91 in '53. FINE, '41 THEN :P Ted Williams, July of 1957: .440/.579/.893/1.472 Williams' September of '57 was unconscious, but he only got 33 PA.

It's also quite possible that Ted Williams (1.410 OPS in 1953, 1.400 OPS in 1952) or Babe Ruth (1.382 OPS in 1920, 1.358 OPS in 1921, 1.309 OPS in 1923) had months that good, but nobody has the split information that far back (BR has it as far back as 1956).

Sosa had a .298/.331/.842/1.173 line that June. While quite impressive, considering there have been 30 players who have a higher OPS than that for an entire Season(including Sosa in 2001), I don't think it ranks that highly for greatest months for a hitter. Without going through his entire career, Sosa's best month is probably August of 2001. .385/.469/.936/1.405. Barry Bonds put up a .472/.696/1.132/1.828 line in April of 2004, that's probably up there for all time best months. That was the best OPS month in history. Here are the other top months (as of 2004...I don't think anyone has had a month that good since then...anyone?): http://www.baseballprospectus.com/article.php?articleid=2826

In June of 1998, Sosa had a .331 OBP, to total a 1.173 OPS. Barry Bonds, in 2002, had a 1.381 OPS for the year. In that year, in August, Bonds had a .447 BA, a .621 OBP, and a .961 SLG to toal a 1.581 OPS.

I just hope this is one that finally gets the offense off the slide, and kicks the team into gear for the second half. 8 important games coming up in the next week+.

Chris Young can only hit fastballs. Bob Howry can only throw fastballs. Bad combination.

Why am I not comfortable now? Oh yeah, I remember the last time the Cubs had a 7 run lead in the 8th with Howry and Marmol coming up. C'mon Howry, do something well tonight.

I think this indicates a broken system when it actually makes sense for a team to do this.

The value of OBP is more significant than the value of SLG, simply because of the difference in the numbers. A perfect OBP is 1.000, while a perfect SLG is 4.000. In the same vein, a .450 OBP is much more impressive than a .450 SLG. Of course, teams need both to win, and power and discipline are both important factors. The fall-back argument on why the equivalent OBP is more impressive: would you rather have a team OBP of 1.000, or a team SLG of 1.000? Easy, the team OBP of 1.000 means you're never out. Granted, the value of SLG is not 4 times more inflated than the value of OBP, either. Different people assign a different factor to equate the two, but I'm personally fond of a simple 1.5 factor right now (Recent years, it was inflated a bit by a league-wide power surge, but the gap has closed a bit). That is, OBP * 1.5 will be about the equivalent number of SLG. It's not technically that simple, but it'll find values that are essentially close enough: .400 OBP = .600 SLG .380 OBP = .570 SLG .360 OBP = .540 SLG .340 OBP = .510 SLG .320 OBP = .480 SLG

In 1985, the entire starting rotation was on the DL for a portion of the year. When Marquis becomes the #1 starter, then I'll be a bit nervous.

I'm of the opinion that chemistry is the result of winning, rather than the other way around. As far as Theriot/Cedeno goes... Coming into the year, there was a choice between two below average in-house options for SS. Cedeno was a younger player with better tools that looked awful in the majors for a year, but looked fantastic in the minors last year. Theriot was two years older, tired at the end of last year, and never had very impressive minor league numbers. Either way you go, you take a risk, and some would've rather taken the higher risk/higher reward player over the player with a decent chance at mediocrity. Offensively, Theriot has been solid this year because he's hit more line drives, and earlier in the year he was being a lot more patient. Lately, his patience has been down along with his walk rate, but I'm not sure whether that is more due to pitchers challenging him more, or him swinging at more pitches earlier in the count. Cedeno started out with unbelievable patience and was spraying line drives all over the field. Both have tailed off significantly as his patience has all but disappeared, and as a result pitchers don't feel the need to throw him strikes, as he'll get himself out. Defensively, if he gets to a ball, he'll get it cleanly. His range is below average, and his arm is below average, which would indicate he'd be better suited as a second baseman defensively. Contrast that to Cedeno, who has better range and a stronger arm, but is more prone to misplay a ball he gets to. So, really, the choice there is whether it's better to get to more balls and have more errors than have more balls get through the infield, but create fewer errors. Six of one, half-dozen of the other. So, then, obviously, Theriot has had the better year overall, as he hasn't tailed off offensively yet. If he wants to continue to be a reliable part of the offense, he'll need to keep hitting LDs at the rate he has, or improve his patience at the plate to where it was earlier in the year.

Yes, that's the next logical step in the argument. Well, either that or that's a fantastic strawman you've built.

Calls that can be completely objective without player interaction would be easier to handle electronically. These would be obvious calls such as balls and strikes, fair/foul balls, and HR/not a HR calls over the wall. Calls that are somewhat subjective or require player interaction are still much more easily managed by a human umpire. For example, safe/out calls, catch/not a catch, fan interference, fair/foul off a player. There's still plenty of room for human interaction without being so dependent on human error for critical issues that would just as easily be handled electronically.

I look at this year's Bears team like last year's Cubs team. If things fall right, they could sneak into the playoffs with 9 wins.

even he's had 3 He hit one on June 1st, so since then he's hit 2.

Alfonso Soriano

I like the OKC Thunders.

aside from all the errors, his defense has been great. Maybe he's just piling on, saying besides the errors, he has no range at third base. He's like a rock.