SanJoseCubsFan

NAME G GS W L Sv QS Hld IP H ER R HR BB SO K/9 P/GS WHIP ERA Angel Guzman 10 10 0 6 0 0 0 42.2 61 44 46 9 29 46 9.70 87.6 2.11 9.28 ??? Can we put a moritorium on the Guzman lovefest until he is sufficiently stretched out to be a starting pitcher and putting up some good starts? Don't think so. He was very good as a starter last year and his stuff is roughly a trillion times better than Steadman's. He needs to be in the rotation instead of him.

http://www.freep.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20070119/SPORTS02/701190437/1050/ A little more detail into the interview Me too. I just can not imagine a manager saying this about a player and a player that may be playing for him this year. What's so hard to believe? Did you listen to the audio provided by the radio station? The exchange in Amazing_Grace's sig actually happened.

That's funny. You'd rather give the big money long term contract to the guy who's not as good and it 3 years older. Ramirez was the only FA worth Beltran money. And MLBtraderumors is garbage. This rumor is as valid as any of the other ones concerning Ramirez. Can you imagine Hendry finally caving in to the 6yr/$90M demand at the last minute and Kinzer telling him that it wasn't enough all the sudden? I think other reporters like Bruce will have the inside skinny on what happened. But this story, is the first to actually provide some insight on Hendry's thinking. Not that I agree with it. If that happened or not doesn't change the fact that giving Soriano a Beltran-like contract would be historically dumb. But if true, it mean ARAM had not intention of signing with the cubs and was going to test the market anyway. What is the hometown discount 7 years 110m?

Comcast cable only, I believe What is that? Can directTV users get that, or not?

Please don't make un-founded black and white statements. Maddux far from sucks. He is a rental that chews innings. This is fairly desirable for many teams. Please go look at his ranking compared to many other pitchers for ERA/WHIP/well (He is in the top 30% of all starters for most stats) just about anything and you will see he doesn't suck. I have no issue if you want him traded just don't crap on the guy and act like he has no value. If this is true (although his last two starts belie this), then there's no reason to trade him for a minimal prospect. What he brings to the team in terms of the clubhouse is not really worth a minimal prospect. If its a A or B prospect, however... What does Maddux bring to the clubhouse? 3 years of his veteran poise certainly hasn't produced the predicted mentoring effect on the other pitchers and if he stays he'll take away starts from rookies. And he sucks. At this point Maddux has NOTHING to offer the Cubs.

he had retired 13 in a row, i don't have an issue with it. maybe a ca thing

Choi's numbers in 2003 post all star. I am fairly sure this was mostly against right handers. I understand the get back into shape and it was only 43 ABs but I think it was possible to be worse than Karros Post-All Star 43 1 6 2 0 1 5 5 0 20 0 1 .140 .229 .256 .485 again, in the month after Choi returned, Karros had an OPS around .930. its pretty damn hard to maintain those numbers while only hitting lefties well, so he was probably doing something right against righties. it may have been difficult to be worse that Karros against righties, but Choi sure gave it a run with his pathetic numbers. and again, a three team pennant race is not the time to be working back into shape. if he'd done anything with his opportunities, I'd think the argument is valid, but he didn't. he failed miserably actually. and beyond the stat sheet, it didn't take a baseball guru to see that Choi simply was not catching up to fastballs after his return and was being fooled badly by almost every off speed pitch. prior to getting randall, karros had an ops of .849 in april & may, .870 in june & .936 in july. that's pretty respectable. it's amazing the complaints about sitting choi, and the excuses and rationales for him still exist. choi looked lost after he returned from injury. platooning him with karros for the remainder of the 2003, probably kills the chance of a lee trade and the cubs getting into the playoffs. randall saved us.

I assume by reading many of your posts you are talking about yourself Ignorance of baseball + poor logic + sweeping accusations = one really bad post.

Fine, here is his line vs. Left handers the last three years vs. Left 340 46 88 26 0 9 45 15 1 42 7 1 .259 .291 .415 .706 Hairston's line vs. Left 290 36 80 18 2 2 24 25 0 28 9 9 .276 .331 .372 .703 Completely reasonable to start him. Ignorance of baseball + poor logic + sweeping accusations = one really bad post. That's it. I see now. It is COMPLETELY unreasonable to insert Neifi into the 8th hole of the batting order in favor of the likes of Jerry Hairston when Neifi has shown the ability to hit the starting pitcher in the past. You're right There's simplly no way to justify that decision. Heck, it doesn't even matter one bit that Neifi ended up with a double off of that pitcher. Carry on with your regularly scheduled Neifi/Dusty hate.... I hope the added personal touch of your post helps you feel a little better. I certainly don't think 3 AB's against a particular pitcher is enough to constitute having "shown the ability to hit" him. I'll look at his hundreds of career AB's instead.

This statement makes no sense and I hardly know where to start. You want kids to play ok, I guess I can see that if you consider Hill is 26 and the other two have never been in the major leagues, otherwise ok. But you want 2 SP and one OF to start over two bench players, one of which has been great off the bench, that play the infield. BTW you know we have 3 youngs guys playing every day, or every 5th with Sean. Please keep your hatred towards Dusty to logical arguments as stated above.

gutless and classless

Great, then if he does well in the W/L column he should stay right. He has a great W/L % in his career. I agree if the cubs don't perform he should be fired that is the nature of ALL pro sports. I should have said players love playing for him AND think he is a good manager. Managing a baseball team is not a popularity contest. If the Cubs don't perform then the manger has to go. Great managers not universally loved by their players: Bobby Cox Billy Martin Casy Stengel Leo Derousher Jim Leyland Chuck Tanner Dick Williams Joe McCarthy Sparky Anderson

He has had a 3.5 era and a 4.3 ERA as a Cub starter in two years. He has done a good job starting. Also, do you want to kick Marshall off the team for one outing and a 8.3 era? You'd rather give rusch more innings to do damage? Who said that? (besides you) Rusch has been more productive in the rotation than the pen. I asked, not said. :wink: He's doing awesome right now. Love that 9+ ERA in the rotation. Read the rest of my and you'll see my feelings on Rusch in the rotation or try and remember my posts in the past, how I wanted Williams over Rusch last year as well as Hill over Rusch at the end of last year. Trying to look intelligent by showing how poorly Rusch is doing, helps prove my point. Then look at his numbers as a starter compared to a reliever and you'll see what I'm talking about, instead of using stupid smilies. Starter or Relief we can do better than Rusch, that's for sure.

He is universally loved from all players that have played for him past and present. (see sports illistrated pole each year) It is not just current players. Secondly, that is insulting to say you don't care what any player thinks. I don't know what you do for a living but what if I can in and said it doesn't matter what you think about your profession cause all people in your profession are idiots. Joe Morgan may be an example but not all people who play baseball are idiots and don't understand the game. A job of a professional sports manager is to get the team ready to play and have egos fit together. Many discount this but it is critical in professional sports to get big egos to work as a team with defined roles that they feel they can accept. I doon't think one can take seriously anything a player says about a current manager. And quite frankly, I don't care what a player says. Look at Joe Morgan. He is the poster boy for playing smart baseball, but when he talks it is almost like he was a different human being then the one who played baseball.

2004 as a starter =3.50 (16) 2005 as a starter = 4.32 (19) Looks like 4.00 to me. The genius of Hendry and his love for mediocrity. Wait, are you saying Glendon Rusch is not mediocre? If 4.87=4.00, then you are correct.

If a 4.00 ERA in 2004/2005 as a starter is mediocre then yes, if not no. The genius of Hendry and his love for mediocrity. Wait, are you saying Glendon Rusch is not mediocre?

May. 13 @WAS W 6-3 5.0 6 2 2 0 2 2 4 8 90 22 47 - - 2.88 May. 23 HOU W 4-1 8.0 5 1 1 1 1 6 11 9 108 29 73 W(3-1) - 2.54 Jun. 2 @SD W 5-0 9.0 4 0 0 0 1 7 6 11 122 32 85 W(5-1) - 1.96 Jun. 7 TOR L 6-4 6.0 4 3 2 0 3 2 8 8 104 25 53 - - 2.07 Jun. 12 BOS L 8-1 6.2 11 5 5 2 1 7 6 5 114 28 33 L(5-2) - 2.57 Jun. 18 @NYY L 8-1 5.0 9 5 4 0 1 3 9 5 98 25 33 L(5-3) - 2.89 Jun. 23 @MIL L 8-7 6.0 7 4 4 2 3 2 9 10 103 28 41 - - 3.13 Aug. 15 @HOU L 12-4 4.2 10 5 5 1 2 4 7 5 92 22 23 L(5-5) - 4.28 Aug. 20 @COL L 4-2 6.0 7 3 2 0 1 6 7 3 93 26 53 L(5-6) - 4.21 Aug. 26 FLA L 7-5 5.2 8 5 4 0 2 2 8 5 89 24 30 L(5-7) - 4.35 Aug. 31 LAD L 7-0 2.0 7 7 7 1 2 3 3 3 56 15 15 L(5-8) - 4.83 Sep. 6 @STL W 5-2 8.2 4 2 2 0 1 3 11 7 109 27 65 W(6-8) - 4.67 Sep. 16 STL W 5-3 7.2 7 3 3 1 2 4 8 8 106 29 50 W(7-8) - 4.59 Sep. 23 HOU W 5-4 5.0 9 4 3 1 1 3 6 10 105 25 37 W(8-8) - 4.62 Sep. 29 @HOU W 3-2 7.0 7 2 2 1 1 5 7 10 92 27 59 W(9-8) - 4.52 I love absolutes, wrong again. He did have a couple of really bad starts in 2005 but overall he was good. (12 starts out of 15) The genius of Hendry and his love for mediocrity.

Come on, Baker managed each of these guys for 1 season they were not held down having hateful daily slogan thrown at them by Baker for years on end . (Hill had 4 ABs under Baker). Please tell me which is the more reasonable conclusion. Baker killed Choi's confidence by starting him 70% of the time before he got hurt in 2003 or he has a massive hole in his swing and can't hit left hand pitching. Hill was ruined by his 4 ABs under Baker or he was overhyped and no better than a backup. Cruz had 6 starts under Baker with a 5.xx ERA and ruined his confidence by putting him in the bullpen for 1/2 the year or he has control problems and ML players have adjusted to him. This is MLB, if Baker had done some sort of harm to them in the small amount of time he had with them, you get a new start under a different organization (or many in the case with these guys) These guys have issues starting at the ML level, plain and simple. That's easy: Juan Cruz. He had good numbers as a starter, then Dusty put him in the bullpen where he sucked, and unfortunately the reliever label has stuck to him. Cruz' career could have taken a whole different trajectory if Dusty had displayed as much patience with him as a starter as was given to Shawn Estes. Ha! That's pretty funny. The two great organizations in ATL and OAK both gave up on Cruz because of the "reliever label Dusty stuck to him"? Maybe it is instead just because he was overated and not that good. Nah, blame it on Dusty. The whole question of damage done by a manager is really virtually impossible to prove. If a player is ruined by a manager and never recovers, people who defend the manager will say that "he just wasn't any good," when in fact it very well could have been that he was screwed up at a prime age and never recovered. Then again, he could have never been good in the first place. Either way, the actual damage done by a bad manager is impossible to really prove. Its possible that Cruz, Choi, Hill, etc. were just bad. Its also possible that Baker's bad managing ruined them forever. But simply because the players have not been good since leaving the Cubs does not absolve Baker from responsibility, nor does it prove that they weren't any good in the first place. Its solely an unprovable opinion...either way.

I don't think a 1-3 record with a 5.46 ERA in 2003 helps your argument. This is his only year under Dusty. I hope Bobby Hill with 4 AB under Dusty is not your backup for more ruined "can't miss" prospects. That's easy: Juan Cruz. He had good numbers as a starter, then Dusty put him in the bullpen where he sucked, and unfortunately the reliever label has stuck to him. Cruz' career could have taken a whole different trajectory if Dusty had displayed as much patience with him as a starter as was given to Shawn Estes.

If pitchers get distracted, then why did the person following Pierre perform worse when Pierre was on base more? Apparently, Castillo's not good @ hitting w/ a guy on first. Small sample size considering the many, many speedy leadoff men who have played baseball... And yet a very sizable sample for the exact individual we're talking about. Can we see the effects from some of these other speedy leadoff men? There was an article on Hardballtimes.com on Feb 6 that talks of this. There is also a link looking at basestealers and effect on the #2 batter at the bottom of the article. It is interesting to think about. The link showed with no outs the batter is helped quite a bit for 40+ basestealer and as the outs go up the effect is smaller. Anyway enjoy http://www.retrosheet.org/Research/PankinM/sabr32.pdf

I said the cubs have not done squat in positional players. I disagree on the pitchers. Turn over in the major leagues in not as high as you think. If you have developed 3-4 studs +5 decent pitchers in the last 8 years you are better than most teams. I may be wrong but give me the 10-15 teams that have done better over the last 8 years with pitchers. (you claim they are horrible at brining pitchers along). I don't think you can assume an elite picher doesn't need motivation. Everyone needs to be brought along except for a few (Prior is probably one that didn't need much) I have no issue calling the cubs to the mat on positional prospects but it just seems like on many of these discussions come down to feelings that Hendry and Dusty are dumb so they do nothing right. I do not belive this is the case. Just like any GM they do somethings better than others. I have been the first to say if they don't get it done they will be fired. I want to see how this year plays out. It doesn't matter if Sisco is not a position players. The motivation of all prospects matters. In 10 years the Cubs have developed few prospects, even if you just look at pitchers. They've had 3 top notch guys, but that doesn't say much about their ability to motivate guys, which is the discussion. It looks to me that outside of elite pitchers, they can't develop squat. And those elite pitchers don't need much motivation. Why the heck are people so afraid to admit the Cubs management might be lacking?

The issue was about Sisco for motivation not positional players. I am not going to say the cubs have done well with positional players that is crazy. They suck. But with Pitchers they have 3 all stars under 30. What other team has done that? What organization are you comparing them to the late 1960s Orioles? Please let me know a better organization with developing pitching in the last 5 years taking into account players traded. Other pitchers that have made it to the majors:Mitre, Hill, Beltran, Downs, + some that have been traded. I am only going back a few years. Who are all these prospects? Wood, Prior, Zambrano, Farnsworth, Wuertz, Ohman.............. Quevedo bombed, Cruz fizzled, Welly and Leicester are in limbo. Have they really brought up that many that stuck? 6 guys in 10 years who they are responsible for developing and bringing into the game, who are still enjoying some success in the league. Am I missing somebody? And why should we only talk about pitchers, both hitters and pitchers matter. Overall the Cubs aren't good at developing prospects. Maybe their motivation techniques are part of the problem. Who knows. What we do know is they obviously aren't doing anything particularly great in that area.

Sorry, I was talking about pitching prospects. And I respectfully disagree, the cubs have a good track record with developing pitchers. I think this is a leap to say after all of the pitchers they have brought up the last 8 years that all of these pitchers required motivattion = to the one and only way the cubs know how to motivate. That is a harder stretch for me than the Sisco may be an exception. I am sure they are evaluating what went wrong with the Sisco situation for the next time. Every organization uses different tools, they felt this was the best way to motivate him, time will tell if he is a one year guy or has a decent career. He may not have the self motivation to get better. I don't get what that has to do with anything. Different guys need different motivations, and I'm not sure any of the guys they have called up so far needed any outside motivation. And it's not like the Cubs have a good track record developing prospects, so they cannot be assumed to employ the best motivational techniques.

I highly doubt the cubs only use one motivational tool with their players for the following reason. They have brought up many quality pitchers to MLB in the last few years so I am sure they have some clue how to do it. Sisco was underperforming and I am sure they felt he wouldn't stick (he had a 4.21 ERA and a 4-10 record). They were wrong but he may never have been what he was last year without this. But time will tell how his numbers come out. We will see if he can make adjustement without motivation. If the only thing you can do to motivate a guy is to not protect him, you probably aren't any good at motivating people. Or Sisco is unresponsive to that type of motivation. If you only use one type, it's your own fault. Every sports organization has to deal with a wide range of motivationals tools for their many different athletes.

Man you were reading my mind. Sisco was a young kid probably reading and believing his own press clippings. Self modivation is huge in sticking in the major leagues. Players need to have the drive to adapt as challenges come up. Time will tell on Sisco which type of player he is. If the only thing you can do to motivate a guy is to not protect him, you probably aren't any good at motivating people. Or Sisco is unresponsive to that type of motivation.