Balsa

In 2004, he led the National League in at-bats (for the second year in a row) with 678 and in addition, he was the only player in Major League Baseball to play every inning of each of his team's games in 2004. On June 3, 2005, Pierre's consecutive-games streak ended at 386 (including 375 after joining the Marlins). It was the second-longest such streak in the majors at the time, behind that of Miguel Tejada of the Baltimore Orioles. Info from Wikipedia.

I guess defense is a lot harder than offense to commit to numbers? More something you have to watch and get a feel for? I'd never heard of either of those things before...how do they break down? What stats do they use?

Well if it makes you feel better, Neifi is a better shortstop than Jack Wilson.

Sure, he sucks with the bat. But I would love him to come in for a late inning defensive replacement of Todd Walker or Ronny Cedeno if we need to hold a lead. His glove really is outstanding. But I'll agree he is paid too much. And hell, we never know, maybe Cedeno will be a bust of DuBois proportions this year, and we'll be glad to have Neifi as a backup SS, until we can get one at the trading deadline.

Last year only three SS in the MLB made more errors than Lugo's 24. Angel Berroa - 25, Russ Adams - 26, and Edgar Rentaria - 30. He was 13th out of 24 in Double Plays and also 13/24 in ZR. He was 20/24 in FPCT. It seems his sole redeeming quality is his really, really good range, finishing only 4th behind Jack Wilson, David Eckstein, and Rafael Furcal. I realize that this is SS, and not 2B, but I do question the pervading but mysteriously unfounded opinion that Lugo's defense would be that much of an upgrade.

From Bruce Miles' Latest Column: Also this tidbit was interesting/confusing: Weren't they the closest numberswise? Like only 50k or something?

And now the BoSox have picked up AGonII. Which leaves the Cubs with a glut at 2B and Tampa with no one to make a deal. I think that means that if a deal is made, it'll be pretty even, since neither team 'needs' to make a trade. I keep hearing about Lugo's defense....but then I look at his number of errors, and it's horrifying. 2004 he had the most errors of any shortstop. How is Lugo a better defensive option than say Hairston Jr. or Walker?

Sounds good to me. Nothing to complain about.

Good lord! Piazza is awful! Mike Piazza - 13-95 - .137 Similar high-profile names that are horrible at CS%... Jason Kendall - 22-123 - .179 Jason Philips - 19-97 - .196

Wow. Yadier Molina also lead the National League with 8 Passed Balls.

Wow. That woulda made my job easier. #-o

There was a thread about 'Bashing Barrett' in the Cub Reporter, and here are some of the statements from the comments section: Bear in mind this is from the comments section, so I'm not sure how accurate these numbers actually are. If Fred were here, maybe he could help...

It should be noted that I think Barrett exclusively caught Maddux last year, perhaps even 2004, although I'm not sure about that. Also, this wasn't really to get down on Barrett, he did win the Silver Slugger award...

So I was bored and did a little adding off of the MLB.com website. This are the NL Central Catchers for 2006 and their caught stealing to attempted stolen base percentage. Basically telling us how often they catch runners. Let me know if any of the stats or the premise is wrong. Brewers *Damien Miller - 59/157 - .375 *Chad Moeller - 27/113 - .239 Reds *Jason LaRue - 41/130 - .315 *Javier Valentin - 22/74 - .297 Cardinals *Yadier Molina - 33/56 - .589 (The 2004 year was only half a year for him) [1.5 YRS total] *Gary Bennett - 20/78 - .256 Pirates *Humberto Cota - 14/52 - .269 - (Both of these catchers have caught only one year) *Ryan Doumit - 14/35 - .4 - (Both of these catchers have caught only one year) Astros *Brad Ausmus - 46/163 - .282 *Raul Chavez - 22/52 - .423 Cubs *Michael Barrett - 45/187 - .240 *Henry Blanco - 49/100 - .49 So clearly we'd want to limit running against Molina, Rual Chavez, and Ryan Doumit. I was surpised at how bad Barrett was at throwing out runners, but I was even more suprised to see that Chad Moeller was worse. I'd say it would be pretty easy, based on this, to run against the Reds or Brewers then, and only against the Astros or Cardinals on certain days. I reserve judgement on the Pirates simply because the catchers are new and there's not much telling.

Yep. I agree that DLee will probably never go on the market, but Carlos Lee is gonna really bring in the big bucks. I suppose I might. IF he's healthy all this year. But the age....it would have to be a Frank Thomas-esque contract.

1) Barry Bonds - 42 2) Jose Contreras - 36 3) Greg Maddux - 41 4) Jason Marquis - 29 5) Mark Mulder - 30 6) Andy Pettite - 34 7) Juan Pierre - 30 8) Jason Schmidt - 34 9) Alfonso Soriano -31 10) Barry Zito - 29 All ages appear as they would in 2007. Not a bad list, but those top three really confuse me. Does anyone really think that any of those top three are gonna be a big contract? Seems unlikely given their age. But Zito, Mulder, Marquis, Soriano, and Pierre can probably expect monster contracts.

Found at this blog It appears to be real....anyone know anything about this?

I just hope we find a decent backup to Murton. If you're right, and we can expect them to struggle, we'll need strong backups in case. As a backup Neifi isn't bad for Cedeno, given that he's batted lower in the batting order. Right now on the depth chart the backup to Murton is Angel Pagan. Who I am very leery of.

I agree to an extent. But I would never build a team with walks as my centerpiece. I would much rather have a hit than a walk. Like I said, the best case is to build up a player's pitch selection so they don't end up chasing pitches six inches above their head ala Corey Patterson. Corey's problem wasn't that he didn't take enough walks per se, it was that his pitch selection was crap, which lead to less walks and less hits than he should have had.

I was reading an interview with Kendall and IIRC he said he was really embarrassed about his OBP and SLG and wants to do a lot better this year. I think the A's are really in a spot to succeed, and I think that they're gonna try and make a run this year. All the A's really have to worry about is the Angels, but I'd put money on the A's this year. If Thomas plays >100 games and is healthy for the offseason, they're in a good spot to go somewhere.

Some parts that made me really optimistic: We need need need those pitchers to stay healthy. That bit about Maddux is especially encouraging. It'll be great if he's off to a better start. Our season depends on this pitching to stay healthy. It's as simple as that. EDIT: How many Cubs players is that now that are training in the offseason? Hairston Maddux Barrett Zambrano? Aramis Pierre ...?

it seems like that view comes from Zalinski and Hendry trusts Zalinski (scout). That doesn't mean that I'm not gonna blame Hendry if Jones is a bust. Or give him credit if he perfroms well. Hendry committed the guy to a three year deal after two bad years. It was his choice to follow that scout's advice. Hendry better hope he's right.

Hendry seems really convinced that Jones is better than his numbers suggest. If he's right, I'm going to give Hendry a lot of credit. If not, I'll be prepared to call for his head. Basically, my opinion of Hendry rests on Jones' performance.

The timely hitting was there, Jim. The guys who draw the walks in front of timely hitting were not. I'm not so sure that the timely hitting was there. We left a lot of runners in scoring position including a number of basesloaded situations IIRC. It's difficult to have timely hitting when there are not many guys on base to create timely hitting in the first place. Walks are fine but I'd rather have a team that relied on timely hits. You can't build a team around telling guys to walk. You can just try to stress pitch selection, which should lead to better hitting and more walks. EDIT: I wouldn't be surprised if we were in the top five for runners left in scoring position. That happened all the time last year.

Story http://mlb.imageg.net/graphics/product_images/pMLB2-2492457dt.jpg http://mlb.imageg.net/graphics/product_images/pMLB2-2492472dt.jpg http://mlb.imageg.net/graphics/product_images/pMLB2-2492465dt.jpg http://mlb.imageg.net/graphics/product_images/pMLB2-2492481dt.jpg I think the first one looks pretty nice actually.