USSoccer

I'm going to stick by the reasoning that because so many boomers grew up in the 60's that everything that comes out of that era is overromanticized. The 2004 team was better than the 1969 team. The 2004 team's collapse was far more ridiculous.

the 69 cubs lived on the sacrifice fly esp. with William and Banks able to drive it deep constantly, unlike our teams of the recent years And what kind of success did that team have over the course of a season? Your example doesn't make any sense. That wasn't a successful team, and sac flies shouldn't be the goal of an AB.

Because people like to piss me off. Because Darin Erstad isn't available.

Just so this can be put to bed, did ARam arrive yet?

Are you saying I can't use numbers properly?

I have no idea why Aramis wanted to leave money on the table to come back to fans saying this kind of crap.

Assuming I did the math right, the numbers are accurate, and the number of double plays on double steals is insignificant, the break even points come out to 53.3% for double steals with no outs, and 79.1% for double steals with one out. Thanks-so if that's correct, double steals with nobody out can be an effective weapon if you have a very good baserunner stealing 3rd and at least a decent basestealer stealing 2nd (making the catcher throw it to 3rd rather than 2nd) So who's the very good basestealer on the roster?

Looking at his career net numbers 2004 seems to be an extreme anomaly.

That's specious reasoning. An AB can have multiple outcomes that result in a runner reaching without an out. A stolen base attempt has 2 outcomes. Soriano had a 68% success rate stealing last season. He had 3 net SB's. That's bad. It is a bad idea, with few exceptions, to take a runner at 2nd and have him try and steal 3rd.

Back up what? Your numbers helped prove my point by saying that if the situation exists you can help your team score. I didn't see it say that you can't steal 3rd and if you did 100% of the time it hurts your team. I saw 92.7 which means that if you do it correctly you can take advantage. Also, these numbers are flat across the board numbers and doesn't pertain to certain situations/matchups. Needing to succeed at something between 70 and 95% of the time for it to be worth it isn't a good thing. The onus is on you to provide statistical proof to back up your claims, as I have done mine. The odds of successfully stealing a base are lower than the BA's of the guys who immediately follow Soriano in the batting order. This adds further weight to the assertion that Soriano stealing 3rd so he can score on a groundout/flyball/wild pitch/balk/passed ball isn't worth the corresponding risk. If you feel that there are situations that warrant the risk, and can provide numbers to back the assertion that those situations are going to occur often enough to where they outweigh the built in risk, by all means, provide them. Until you do, the notion that stealing 3rd is an acceptable option with Soriano isn't going to wash. It's nothing more than rhetoric. You supplied the proof for me. The 92.7 is a flat rate correct? You think that that's an acceptable level of risk? If you have a 9% failure rate it becomes not worth it.

Back up what? Your numbers helped prove my point by saying that if the situation exists you can help your team score. I didn't see it say that you can't steal 3rd and if you did 100% of the time it hurts your team. I saw 92.7 which means that if you do it correctly you can take advantage. Also, these numbers are flat across the board numbers and doesn't pertain to certain situations/matchups. Needing to succeed at something between 70 and 95% of the time for it to be worth it isn't a good thing. The onus is on you to provide statistical proof to back up your claims, as I have done mine. The odds of successfully stealing a base are lower than the BA's of the guys who immediately follow Soriano in the batting order. This adds further weight to the assertion that Soriano stealing 3rd so he can score on a groundout/flyball/wild pitch/balk/passed ball isn't worth the corresponding risk. If you feel that there are situations that warrant the risk, and can provide numbers to back the assertion that those situations are going to occur often enough to where they outweigh the built in risk, by all means, provide them. Until you do, the notion that stealing 3rd is an acceptable option with Soriano isn't going to wash. It's nothing more than rhetoric.

Did you even read that? You have to succeed at least 70% of the time on average with 0 or 1 outs. Soriano was below 70% success rate last season. You'll run yourself into unnecessary outs. You will lose scoring opportunities just for the sake of creating a situation where someone might score a manufactured run. The Cubs appear to be heavy on the SLG side and light on the OBP side of the OPS stat. OPS being the most telling for winning ball clubs. With that in mind, I'd rather not see a ton of stolen base attempts from the Fonz. If he's on the chance that he gets driven home via an extra base hit from Lee, Aramis, JJ, or Floyd are better if he's not sitting in the dugout. I agree that he should cut down his attempts but it has to remain an option. A very sparingly used option. As I typed in my edit, Soriano will usually be standing on 2nd with Lee, Ramirez and Barrett coming up and 1 out. Those are .300 hitters. The odds of them getting a hit are better than the odds of Soriano successfully stealing 3rd. So you can let Soriano run, but he'd better steal at closer to an 80% clip for it to outweigh the odds that one of Lee/ARam/Barrett don't just drive them in themselves.

I'm still waiting for someone to provide numbers to back their side of the argument up, as I did.

Did you even read that? You have to succeed at least 70% of the time on average with 0 or 1 outs. Soriano was below 70% success rate last season. This means that he's not going to create any chances by stealing 2nd or 3rd over the course of a season. You want to let him "take advantage of matchups and opportunities"? Fine. You'll run yourself into unnecessary outs. You will lose scoring opportunities just for the sake of creating a situation where someone might score a manufactured run. You will be better off letting Soriano stay at 2B and letting Lee, Ramirez and Barrett try and drive him in. All 3 guys are over .300 hitters, which means the odds of them getting a hit are better than the odds of Soriano successfully stealing 3rd. Which means Soriano stealing 3rd is a stupid idea.

http://baseballanalysts.com/archives/2006/10/net_stolen_base.php Sure. Here are some numbers that show the epic stupidity of stealing 3rd. : . So it's a bad move between 70 and 94% of the time. You need to succeed at those rates to make it worthwhile. Now, as far as Soriano being a weapon? Let them drop some knowledge on you: 3 net stolen bases? But wait, he stole 41 in total! He must be a weapon because conventional wisdom says being 40/40 is awesome and stolen bases help teams win close games! That's the guy people want stealing 3rd. The guy with 3 net steals last season, when he stole 41 overall. Now, does anyone here care to cite any numbers backing up their points, or is it all just old school baseball nonsense with nothing to back it up?

If Freddy Garcia is pitching or Mike Piazza is catching, you almost have to try to steal third. In other situations it's a dicey move, but sometimes you give it a shot. And how often is that going to happen with Piazza DH'ing in Oakland, and Garcia pitching for Philly? I'm thinking his point is having a poor pitching/catching combo in holding and throwing runners out. It's still a stupid risk. How often are you going to have a wild pitch or passed ball? You're in scoring position; why run yourself out of scoring position? You're far more likely to kill a rally that create a run.

If Freddy Garcia is pitching or Mike Piazza is catching, you almost have to try to steal third. In other situations it's a dicey move, but sometimes you give it a shot. And how often is that going to happen for the Cubs with Piazza DH'ing in Oakland, and Garcia pitching for Philly?

I don't think it's just you. He seems to have a real arrogance about him. The way he talks, you'd think he's built an absolute dynasty. Between he and Guillen, it's not hard to dislike that team. Not because they are "rivals" of the Cubs (I don't consider them to be rivals), but because they are both clowns.

Can't wait to hear all 48 White Sox fans complain about that when it happens...

This is ridiculous. Rocket's point is completely valid. You don't base your roster decisions on 50 AB's in AZ and ignore the much larger career sample size. Matt Murton has 595 career AB's. He'll get less than 75 in AZ. Which is going to be the better indicator of his ability? If he hits .180 in AZ and Floyd hits 1.000, do you really think that's any indicator of what's going to happen over the course of a season? You can crack on people for having their "mancrushes" or favorites or whatever you want to call it. The idea that ST should somehow mean more than a career's worth of sample sizes, or looking at splits and usage patterns is laughably stupid.

You're dead on about Gulati. Beating Venezuela and Costa Rica isn't going to cut it anymore. Hell, we won the Gold Cup last year with basically a scrub team until the semi's. Donovan was subbing in to games in the 80th minute and scoring goals. Counter attacking doesn't work at the higher international levels. Just because Mexico is stupid and never adjusts to what we do when we play them doesn't mean that it's a viable strategy. Look at what happened in the sendoff games and against the Czechs and Ghana. Teams sat back because they knew that Reyna-led US teams don't attack defenses, and we struggled to create chances. Thankfully, Reyna's no longer in the USMNT picture.

Should send them the other way around. Copa will have some excellent competition. Playing against good teams like Colombia, Argentina and Paraguay is better than the scrubs in the CONCACAF Godl Cup. World Cup teams like Argentina and Brazil are the teams we should be playing. The US really values winning the Gold Cup though. I understand wanting to win your Zone so you can play in the Confederations Cup. We could win the Gold Cup with our B team, though. CONCACAF sucks. Our best players should play against the best competition. That's the only way we'll improve.

The two most scrutinized athletes in Chicago besides Rex Grossman, together smiling and healthy. I'm sure someone can photoshop Rex in there.

Didn't he throw like 1000 pitches in the ALCS in 2004?

The Copa America draw came out. We are in Argentina's group. Speculation is that we'll send our "A" squad to the Gold Cup and the "B" squad to Copa America. Which would be a real mess against a side like Argie.