cheapseats

The Cubs need a manager who will light a fire under them, someone like Larry Bowa, Lou Piniella, or Les Brown.

Not sure if you're being serious or not, but rearranging rotations to match up with competition is something that would give teams an advantage, but no team has the guts or vision to do it. MLB coaching/management is almost as conservative and copycat as NFL coaching/management. No one wants to deviate from the norm.

Actually it has already happened, and we're just too foolish to recognize because we've never played the game, or don't watch enough games, or don't appreciate the finer parts of his game, or something. My apologies. I'm always so close-minded.

So, for Greg Maddux and $12 million or so over the next three years, we get a guy who is learning how to hit AND field? Kill me now. Be patient. He's an Omar Vizquel just waiting to happen.

Quibble: Nady is probably going to play 1B exclusively for the Pirates.

Billy Williams is a nice man. I don't know him at all (I've only met him once), but he is a friend of a friend. When my son was born last August, my friend told Billy about it, and Billy personalized a bat for my son and sent it to me. I've never cared about autographs, but that one's a big deal to me.

If our SS was a normal-sized man, he would have been tall enough to catch that ball.

This year will be his career year. Next year will look more like 2005 than 2006. Littlefield should have traded him while his value was high. For your sake, I hope I'm wrong, but I doubt it.

That might be my new sig.

Are you really Brian Urlacher?

What they lack with the glove, they'll make up for with their bats.

Izturis is really flashing the leather today.

We can only hope that Cesar Izturis or Neifi Perez make Darren Baker cry.

I don't think passenger planes from Pittsburgh are normally allowed in Chicago airspace. It brings in too much of the bad element. You might want to make sure your flight is still scheduled. Sorry. I hope you enjoy the game. While it pains me to root againt the Cubs, maybe if they finish behind the Pirates, changes will happen in the offseason.

If Tony Larussa were managing the Cubs, Z would have already hit Jason Bay twice.

I think so too. Will be interesting to see what he can do with consistent playing time, something he hasn't really had a lot of between SD and NYM. Politely disagree. Nady is a poor man's Craig Wilson, and Pittsburgh already had the real Craig Wilson. Odd move. Wilson makes a lot more money than Nady. True. But it seems strange to me that Wilson, who was undervalued by the Pirates, is being replaced by someone who is, in the words of some baseball analysts, "Craig Wilson lite." I'm not too surprised that the Pirates gave up on Oliver Perez, but I look at the Pirates staff and wonder if Colburn has done more harm than good this year.

I think so too. Will be interesting to see what he can do with consistent playing time, something he hasn't really had a lot of between SD and NYM. Politely disagree. Nady is a poor man's Craig Wilson, and Pittsburgh already had the real Craig Wilson. Odd move.

They're obsessed with us. Well, I sort of understand. Chicago has dumped on St. Louis for quite some time. I'm rooting for the Reds to take the division.

He's a gold glover and an all-star. That's all anyone needs to know.

Apparently there's some rule that Dusty and Tracy both follow that states that a team's crappiest hitters should bat 1st and 2nd. 1. Duffy .244 (the CF hits leadoff, dude) 2. McLouth .294 3. Sanchez .382 4. Bay .411 5. Nady .326 (Mets) 6. Hernandez .314 7. Castillo .323 8. Paulino .358 Yep, it's probably really good strategy to put the two worst OBP guys at the top of the order. It worked so well for the Cubs last year. Baker absolutely sucks at many different aspects of the game (showing his versatility), but it's not as if Tracy is a genius, either.

His #1 comp in PECOTA is Corey Patterson. No kidding. Also on the list: Rocco Baldelli and Hanley Ramirez. However, none of his comp scores are very high, which means he's something of an outlier at this point.

I don't think Jones in CF is in any way, shape or form giving up on OF defense. Even if Jones is not a great defender, the drop from RF to CF observed by BP is so miniscule that it's a nonissue. Even if fielding rate is not as good as the Fielding Bible, I have a lot of trouble believing that the qualitative comparison of the difficulties of the two positions is tremendously wrong. Since Jones has to be here next year, he's probably most valuable to the Cobs as a CF. That way they can look into getting another corner OF who, if nothing else, would provide more with the bat than Juan Pierre. When it's all said and done, it's probably the Cobs best move. Sigh. What he said.

OK to sum it up: You believe that even though there has been statistical research that shows little dropoff in players moving from RF to CF, Jones is exceptional and would not be very good. You believe that the defensive spectrum that Bill James introduced in 1988 is authoritative but defensive research since then, save the work of Dewan, is antiquated. You believe that all pre-2003 defensive stats are meaningless. because Dewan only looked at 2003-2005. Therefore, post-2005 defensive stats are also meaningless. You believe that Dewan has sufficiently accounted for park effects in his OF vectors. I believe his IF rankings, particularly for middle infielders, to be far more reliable than his OF stats because he does not sufficiently account for the size and shapes of outfields. Perhaps Jones' range is not assessed fairly because of the rather small dimensions in right field in the Metrodome, for example. Outfield sizes and shapes are variable. Infield dimensions (save foul territory, more of a factor for 1B and 3B) are not - although the speed of infields vary. Dewan calculates park effects differently than Lichtman (and about everyone else). Since there's such a discrepancy between his assessment of Jones and everyone else's assessment of Jones, that might be worth looking into. Dewan also penalizes players for errors to a greater extent than others who produce defensive metrics. On that issue, I'm in the Bill James camp. You believe that looking at every ball in play is important. I believe, while it's great to do so, with a large enough sample size, the effects of such scrutiny are minimalized when compared with metrics that measure the same things. Sincerely, I think you very much overrate the importance of OF defense in Wrigley. Since I'm conversing with a Cards fan, I'd really like to know how you feel about Edmonds, who is ranked 32nd out of 35 among CF's over the last 3 years. Does Edmonds hit well enough to justify keeping him in CF? Is his .20 point advantage over Jones enough to warrant playing time in CF? Is Pierre's defense so good that it would be better for the Cubs to keep him in CF if Jones were the alternative? Again, there are quite a few metrics that rank Jones as an above average, if not exceptional, right fielder. I don't believe you're thinking critically enough about why Dewan disagrees on that issue, I don't believe you're thinking critically enough about the needs of the Cubs with regard to the dimensions and characteristics of their park, and I don't believe you're thinking critically about the opportunity costs for the Cubs.

Should have been 6 RBI if Pagan knew how to run the bases. I know! How can Pagan, who's blazing fast, not score from second on a double. Pagan's comps show he could develop into a good player, but I'm not sure why he's on the major league team right now. It's not as if he had nothing left to prove in the minors. I don't think he's a rule 5 guy.

MLB Trade Rumors with an analysis of the snow job by the Trib writers: http://www.mlbtraderumors.com/2006/08/chicago_tribune.html On Phil Rogers, for example: