Tracer Bullet

I may have even voted for Weird Al over DMB. Forget that, I TOTALLY would have voted for Weird Al. But I don't feel bad about this pick, I really like the pumpkins.

No one counted on Blanco's performance, but we got it. So losing Barrett for 10 days meant equal production at the plate and probably better defense at C. If you can find any evidence at all that suggests that Barrett's absence actually cost us any games or kept us from contending this year, I'd like to see it. But I don't think you can. No, it wasn't wise of Barrett to punch AJP, but it cost the Cubs nothing. Not a thing. Same offensive production, better D, and the 24-man roster argument doesn't hold water (see my earlier post about Guzman). The problem w/ our team sucking is we go hunting for scapegoats. Barrett isn't one - he's been solid to very good all year. He's one of the few and maybe the only one who can say that (Z sucked for the first month). I have to admit that that punch to AJ was the only dark side to Barrett this year so far. And when I saw how high his OBP is, I thought that was great. But who could've guessed Blanco would've done so well? No one, but if we're looking back and saying "who is to blame for getting us here" - how can you say Barrett at all? Solid, one of the top offensive Cs all year, and his replacement for 10 games played as well as Barrett ever has in his best 10 games. At the time, maybe we all thought "crap w/o MB, our offense will be really bad." I sure did. But Blanco played incredible. If you want to say the punch was dumb or whatever, I can respect that opinion. If you want to say Barrett is anywhere on a list of players to blame for this season, you'll need to come up w/ some evidence b/c right now he's been the MVP of the 1st half for us. Some have played better for a month or two - no one has been this good day in/day out all season.

Well, you're drawing a lot of conclusions based on 3 months of baseball. Especially given the guys chosen (an aging Helton, Lee and Sanchez having career years, Abreu on the wrong side of 30, Dunn & Howard just hitting prime). Lee is a career .850ish OPS guy. Solid, but nothing to write home about. Dunn had a down first half, but his career OBP near .390 and high SLG make him my #3 hitter. Lower than that wastes his ability to get on base (unless you're sitting on 2005 Derrek Lee or another power hitter w/ a .400 OBP). Helton hasn't shown much pop in the first half, but he gets on at a .425 clip overall. Again, the great swings from month to month are a concern, as are his declining #s. I don't think Sanchez keeps this up, though his ability to play almost anywhere makes him a great pick if you knew these #s were coming. Howard's a solid option and only 26, but of the guys listed, a .340 OBP ain't great, even w/ all that power. I'd certainly take him if 1B were open for us, but I'd hope the OBP goes up.

Ok, let me ask you and everyone this then. If that is true, let me give you 6 hitters here. They are all very similar in OPS (within 11 points of each other). Please rank the hitters that you would like to have in order (just for hitting). This would only be for the rest of the season, so for now the future doesn't matter. These will be ranked by me in alphebetical order. Bobby Abreu Adam Dunn Todd Helton Ryan Howard Carlos Lee Freddy Sanchez This will be fun! I'd rank them: Abreu, Dunn, Howard, C-Lee, Helton, Sanchez. But that's taking into account my beliefs about how these guys will finish the year. Helton circa 2004, if he played all his games at Coors, would probably be the #1 pick but he's a shell of his former self this year. Why Helton so low? .530/.320/.480/.340 - his OBPs by month so far (rounded). If he can keep up a solid .425 - great, but if he's a .320, um, no thanks. CLee has only been close to these stats once before and I'm still not sure he can keep it up. I think Sanchez is in for a fall, but he's only 28 so maybe he's a late bloomer. If Sanchez can really keep it up, I'd take him after Abreu. If you told me they'd put up these numbers on April 1 and asked me to pick, I'd go: Abreu, Helton, Sanchez, Dunn, Lee, Howard.

Not necessarily true. If the team hitting .284 is slugging 30 points lower than the team with the .271 avg., they will probably score less runs, so that completely shoots your average argument down, while reinforcing your OPS argument. Bottom line is you want a high OPS, and how you get there is less important than the fact that you get there. Sorry about that..I meant to say that if slugging and other stats were equal either way-sorry about the confusion there. You are right-any way you can get to a high OPS is great-it's just that hits get you there at least twice as fast due to both increasing OBP and slugging. Actually, OBP and SLG aren't equal. If you have 2 guys with a .900 OPS, one with a .350 OBP and one with a .400 OBP, I'd take the latter. It's all about not making outs. Now, if the OBP is the same, yes, you'd want the guy with the higher SLG, but as between the two, OBP is more important.

Good point - though the 80s isn't exactly the high point in the history of rock.

No one counted on Blanco's performance, but we got it. So losing Barrett for 10 days meant equal production at the plate and probably better defense at C. If you can find any evidence at all that suggests that Barrett's absence actually cost us any games or kept us from contending this year, I'd like to see it. But I don't think you can. No, it wasn't wise of Barrett to punch AJP, but it cost the Cubs nothing. Not a thing. Same offensive production, better D, and the 24-man roster argument doesn't hold water (see my earlier post about Guzman). The problem w/ our team sucking is we go hunting for scapegoats. Barrett isn't one - he's been solid to very good all year. He's one of the few and maybe the only one who can say that (Z sucked for the first month).

Hell, I personally think that the Stones jinxed themselves creatively by losing Brian Jones. Nearly every one of their No.1's came with Brian Jones writing and playing guitar for them. Stones with Brian Jones >>>>>>>>>>> Stones without Completely agree that Stones w/ Jones are far better than Stones w/o. And you & I have had this discussion elsewhere, so I won't rehash it here. But I have to say, the Stones still put out some great songs w/o Brian Jones. And a world w/o Sticky Fingers or Exile on Main St is not a world I'd want to be a part of.

Truffle, i'm a huge fan of the "one group, one lineup" thing, as in John, Paul, George, and Ringo...and as you pointed out Paige, Bonham, Plant and Jones. As you can see from my rant on page 1 about Lynyrd Skynyrd. However, it should be known that all those different groupings came about AFTER their plane crash, and thus, after the REAL Lynyrd Skynyrd had gone. After the crash they never had another hit, naturally...BECAUSE THE REAL SKYNYRD DIDN'T EXIST ANYMORE!!!....Grrr....I hate those guys posing as Skynyrd these days. Um, am I wrong or did Page & Plant put out some music and tour? I can't say I listened to any of the songs on the album or anything else, but unless they reincarnated Bonham, they had a different lineup. Now, they didn't tour as "Led Zeppelin" but that's what people were there to see. And from what I gathered from their introduction speech into the R&R HOF, they didn't invite Jones to play w/ them either on the album/tour - so they also had a different bassist too. To me, if you lose a member of the band and continue releasing albums and/or, essentially playing the same music, it doesn't matter if you keep the name or not. I just don't like it. The Who did the same thing after Moon died (I think they even went on the day after Entwistle died too).

It's Clapton man....CLAPTON! The guys in Cream were really good players but their songwriting was very weak. By and large the songs were vehicles for the guys to show off their chops. That doesn't excite me. Put the greatest musician in a jam rock band and the results are still boring. Disagree completely. Gather great musicians and ask them to jam - I could listen all day.

I can't say I think early Bon Jovi is much better than what they've put out recently.

I hope he's back with the Cubs next year. And yes, I understand just how unlikely that is.

THE KINKS ARE AHEAD...CLOSE THE POLL, CLOSE THE POLL!!!

Jon doesn't count as a "chick"

I heard Phish cover this song at one of their shows and have liked the song ever since. More so the Phish version than the original, but still. Frankly, one of my favorite parts of a Phish show was seeing which covers they'd play. They opened this particular show (at Alpine Valley) w/ Ramble On and BCS was in the encore. Great stuff.

What type of music do you like? It's a serious question; I'm not trying to be a jerk. I just remember a lot of "I hate X" or "X sucks" posts (some of which I've agreed with). Maybe I'm just not remembering the "I love X with all my heart" posts. X is a band that would get my vote over most of the field of 64. I'd vote for X over many of these bands too. Especially if X were Wolf Parade.

What type of music do you like? It's a serious question; I'm not trying to be a jerk. I just remember a lot of "I hate X" or "X sucks" posts (some of which I've agreed with). Maybe I'm just not remembering the "I love X with all my heart" posts. I enjoy all varieties -- I don't think there's a genre I "dislike". I believe the only bands in this competition that I hate (so far) are AC/DC and Jane's Addiction. I am not necessarily a fan of bands like the Beatles or Stones or any of the "weed rock" bands, but I recognize and appreciate their contributions to music as well as the talent that they had. "Weed rock"? That made me laugh. I've heard of "drug rock" but never "weed rock." As for the substance of your post - fair enough. Maybe I'm just remembering a number of your posts in the AC/DC poll.

What type of music do you like? It's a serious question; I'm not trying to be a jerk. I just remember a lot of "I hate X" or "X sucks" posts (some of which I've agreed with). Maybe I'm just not remembering the "I love X with all my heart" posts.

And so he can't criticize anybody? Why don't you look at the whole conversation. Both Neil Young and Lynyrd Skynyrd are known as southern rock bands. I quoted Sweet Home Alabama and Derwood said Skynyrd are from Florida. I responded with the quote you see above. I didn't say Young can't criticize anybody so I'm not quite sure where you pulled that one out of. My point was at least Skynyrd is from the South (Florida) while Young (Canada) is not. That's it. That's a confusing argument you're making. You use a quote from a group from Florida that's saying that a better musician can't criticize a state other than Florida. Then you say "Nuff said" as if somehow this quote ends the discussion. I've read the whole conversation and I'm thoroughly confused by your logic. I said "Nuff said" to make my point about my vote. I quoted that part of the song because of the Neil Young reference by Derwood and not to start an argument. You think Neil Young is a better musician and I think Lynyrd Skynyrd is better and that's opinion so your bolded quote isn't fact but opinion. I don't think my argument is confusing. Neil Young is not truly from the south but Skynyrd is. That's it. I never claimed to be stating fact when I said Young was better, it's pretty clear that my feelings about the quality of various musicians are opinion. So I'm not sure what point you're trying to make by bolding that. Otherwise, I guess I apologize for misunderstanding your post. Given what you quoted from Derwood, it sure seemed like you were using "nuff said" to end the discussion about Young v Skynyrd.

This can't be this close. The Kinks might lose to Bon Jovi? Really?

Cream. Get on top. sorry :oops: couldn't resist.

I don't know about that - I voted for the Doors, but not everyone likes them. I just don't see how they're not one of the top 20 bands in this tourney.

And so he can't criticize anybody? Why don't you look at the whole conversation. Both Neil Young and Lynyrd Skynyrd are known as southern rock bands. I quoted Sweet Home Alabama and Derwood said Skynyrd are from Florida. I responded with the quote you see above. I didn't say Young can't criticize anybody so I'm not quite sure where you pulled that one out of. My point was at least Skynyrd is from the South (Florida) while Young (Canada) is not. That's it. That's a confusing argument you're making. You use a quote from a group from Florida that's saying that a better musician can't criticize a state other than Florida. Then you say "Nuff said" as if somehow this quote ends the discussion. I've read the whole conversation and I'm thoroughly confused by your logic.

I agree, that is until the last few paragraphs. Michael Barrett is in no way one of the 5 biggest culprits for this season. I just can't even begin to believe that. He OPS'd .860 in April, near .800 in May, and over 1.000 in June - he's been solid all year. He didn't disappear when Lee went down. Yes, he punched AJP in the face. At that point, the Cubs were already out of it. They had a 5 game losing streak when he was gone for 10 - true. But they lost 6 in a row earlier while he was playing. Not only that, but during the 13 games Barrett was out for his back & the suspension, Blanco played the best offensive baseball of his life. He OPS'd 1.055 in June (over 15 games, 13 of which were during Barrett's absence). What are the chances Barrett plays any better than that 1.055 during those 13 games? I'd say pretty frickin small. So whatever we lost by having Barrett miss 10 games for punching AJP, we gained by Blanco having a career 2 weeks. Finally, I think a different team would use that punch as a rallying point. Barrett was clearly frustrated and got pissed and showed he wasn't giving up on the year. I was hoping the team would rally behind him and run off a string of Ws. Didn't happen, but I'm still ok w/ the punch. Not a great idea, but certainly not one of the reasons behind our team sucking. It's precisely because of Barrett's strong numbers that I cited him. It doesn't matter if the Cubs were out of the race or not. His act was ill-timed and selfish. It also cost the Cubs a roster spot, forcing them to play with 24 men. I don't think the 24-man roster is Barrett's fault either. They didn't replace him w/ a C until the very end of the suspension. Besides, Hendry and Baker have been terrible about properly filling those spots and using the guys anyway. Wasn't Guzman up the entire time Barrett was out? Did he even appear in a game? If we didn't need the 24th man, the 25th man is just icing.

Bwahahahahahahahaha The funny part is, the rest of the interview is full of excuses [sarcasm]But Dusty said he doesn't use excuses, so those aren't excuses. End of discussion.[/sarcasm]