MPrior

I remember in 2004, there was a big hubbub about the Cardinals' mythic "chemistry." Same for the Red Sox, when they went on their late season- and post season-runs. It's worth pointing out, though, that NO ONE even mentioned "chemistry" until those teams started winning. The Cardinals didn't really heat up until mid-may, if I'm remembering correctly. And once they did, and started winning 75% of their games, everyone talked about "chemistry." Well, I would have a hard time feeling bad if I was winning 75% of my games. Earlier in the 2004 season, when the Red Sox weren't doing as well as they would have hoped, I remember hearing some reports about bad chemistry and malcontent. But then, they went on a tear, clinched the wild card, and staged the most dramatic comeback in baseball postseason history, and everyone's talking about their "chemistry." While chemistry certainly does exist, I think it is much more a function of winning than winning is a function of chemistry. For example, this year's White Sox. Of course, Ozzie's imperative "win or die trying" certainly helped with the chemistry. But what would have happened if they hadn't started out winning? Do you think they would have had good chemistry then? I really doubt it.

The reason people don't want Damon is not just because he would block Pie. That's the first thing to understand. Yes, that's part of the equation, but if a CF who was worth it came along at the right price, I bet ya people here would be all over it. The reason people don't want Damon is that the contract he will demand will be WAY more expensive than he's worth, for WAY longer than he will be effective. His OBP is relatively AVG-inflated (although not terribly), so when his bat speed inevitably declines, so will his OBP. Yes, we have a lot of money to spend, but why blow so much of it on a guy who will not contribute as much to the team as someone like Brian Giles (or others of his ilk) will? Especially if it hurts our chances to make those big signings or trades. And even more especially if there is a much cheaper alternative that will come at least close in terms of production (Lofton, others). And only then comes the consideration that he will block Pie. After all that, I see very little reason to sign Damon.

Not trying to be mean, or pick a fight, or insinuate anything, but the word "euphmamistically" makes me laugh. That is all.

I just started drooling. By the way, BgBird, welcome from a fellow recent addition to the board!

I've actually been wondering this myself for a while, and have meant to start a thread asking everybody what they thought of him. My feeling is that, if he were the only potential youngster starting on the team, I'd give him the spot. But given our current situation and our manager, I'd think better of it. It would just create another question mark for the team, which is something we already have enough of. At the same time, I could see him turning into more than a 5th outfielder. He had a .117 IsoD this past year in the minors, posting a .386 OBP. Plus, he's been batting leadoff pretty much his whole time in the minors. I wouldn't expect him to put up those kinds of numbers in the majors, especially not right away, but the kid obviously has plate discipline, which is something I highly value. In any case, it seems evident that he is not cruising through the minors on talent alone, a la Corey Patterson and Felix Pie (nothing against either of those two, it just means that their development is a bit stunted, and their ML performance has been/is likely to be a big dropoff from their minor league numbers).

I'm totally with Rocket here too (although I guess I'm not all that surprised by it). Jeter's pretty durn tootin' good (DISCLAIMER: this does not mean that I actually LIKE him). I do believe, though, that he's probably a tad overrated.

I'm gonna go with .275/.340/.420. But it's all complete speculation.

This would be fine with me. I don't think Furcal is a good option for this team. I'd rather have Nomar, with Cedeno backing him up.

lol, and several people immediately shot him down. :lol: What made me laugh (other than that anyone could ever suggest Neifi as a suitable starting SS - AND CITE STATISTICS TO SUPPORT HIS POINT), was that someone was like, "Nah, not him. I guess Khalil Greene would be alright," as if being able to get Greene was a given. Of course, I could put my foot in my mouth. I suppose that maybe the Padres are shopping Greene, but I can't think of any reason why? P.S. He can't be a free agent yet, can he?

Wha? I mean, there's no doubting that us Cubs fans have it worse, but 86 years is still a pretty long time.

Dan thought that the Sox should pick up Burnitz to DH or for a bench bat based off his performance at the beginning of the year, thinking they could milk a full season out of him if he was part time. Stoney didn't think that would work because of Burnitz's long swing and having never been a part time guy. I'm guessing the thought process is that we wouldn't get Furcal, Giles and Damon, and the assumption was that we would get Damon. This wasn't said, but Damon's name was glossed over so quick it was like it was assumed. NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOoooooooooooooooooooo.....

This is a valid question. Another (related) question is how much is he going to regress? My estimate: not that much. The guy's generally in great shape, for one thing (he's built like a tank), and more importantly, much of his effectiveness comes from his plate discipline (and I'm not just talking about walks, here; being patient enough to wait for the right pitch to hit can help lead to more hits, and more XBH). His bat speed and reaction times may decline, and his joints may stiffen up on him, but he's not likely to lose his plate discipline. I think he's still got 3-4 productive years left in him - and for the first two, he may not see any regression at all.

Barrett has very little discipline whatsoever. IsoD of .069. .069 is pretty good. it is? I thougth .100 was good, anything else higher was great. Something like .069 would be like scoring a D on a test. I could be wrong. Adding on to what MPrior said, very few hitters have a .100+ IsoD. Off the top of my head I'd guess that there's fewer than one per team. Just a quick look at the ESPN website shows that many (I'm guessing 30 or 40 have an IsoD. over .100. But this stuff is new to me so I'll take your word for it. Let's move on. I don't like the Rusch signing. Anyone else? Not to completely ignore your request to move on (I know, I'm a pest), but about 30 players with a .100+ IsoD is about 1 per team, which is what CPatterson estimated.

Barrett has very little discipline whatsoever. IsoD of .069. .069 is pretty good. it is? I thougth .100 was good, anything else higher was great. Something like .069 would be like scoring a D on a test. I could be wrong. .069 is not *great.* It is pretty durn good, though, especially for a catcher. Just by comparison, DLee's, Walker's, and Murton's (three of our more disciplined hitters) IsoDs were .083, .050, and .065, respectively, while Patterson's, Neifi's, and Macias' were .039, .024, and .020 respectively. EDIT: these are 2005 numbers, not career.

Barrett has very little discipline whatsoever. IsoD of .069. .069 is pretty good. Exactly what I was going to say.

Where'd that rumor come from? (not being hostile, just curious)

It seems to me that you are calling the Twins a "weak" team or at least grouping them in with the other two teams. Shouldn't they be considered a "significant threat" since they were 4 games better than the Rangers, who you give that designation to? I am sorry, but this is where we part ways. It might be well researched and hard work to come up with statistical analysis like pythagorean record and projected win totals and stuff like that, but those people are wrong just as often as they are right, if not more so. There is no validity and reliability to any of these statistics. They just keep refining their models and assigning blame on underperformance and overperformance when their projections are wrong instead of just admitting its one big crap shoot. Show me any methodology that had the Astros or White Sox in the world series prior to the season. What really worries me is how some real life baseball GMs are letting this stuff override common sense. For example, the Dodgers trading Lo Duca last year. First, I did say the Twins were to a much lesser extent a weak team than the others. With regards to having a better record than the Rangers, my whole point was that their records were as much reflections of the divisions they were in as they were of their ability on the field. And, to give an example of the sabermetricians' approach working, take a look at the most important sabermetric assertion: that the most important stat in terms of creating runs is OBP, while the second most important is SLG. Now look at the teams that scored a whole lotta runs this year. They are the teams with the highest OBPs and good slugging. With regards to predicting the World Series, I have two things to say: one, Sabermetricians admit that their ability to gauge pitchers is less reliable than their ability to gauge hitters. Both the teams in the World Series were there because of their pitching. Secondly, a statistical approach relies on large sample sizes. The playoffs are a very, very small sample size, and so no one can accurately predict who will compete in the World Series at the beginning of the year. You challenge me to show you a sabermetrician who had the White Sox and the Astros in the World Series? I challenge you to show me anybody who had them in the World Series.

I'm largely in agreement with you here, USSoccer - I think that saying Hendry misplayed his cards is a very good way of putting it. I do buy into the fact that his hands were tied, to a certain extent, and I don't believe that last offseason could have been *much* better given the circumstances, but Hendry certainly could have gone about things a little differently, and not gone into 2005 with a team so riddled with holes.

Yeah, I think I read somewhere that the Yankees have already offered him more than 10 million per for 3 years - they don't intend to be outbid. So unless Matsui REALLY hates playing for the Yankees, I don't think he's going anywhere.

It's funny that this has been brought up - because long, long ago, I came to the conclusion that Batman is easily the coolest DC hero, while Spiderman is easily the coolest Marvel hero. While I personally prefer Spiderman, I think both are quite meritorious and worthy of mention. On a side note, I conducted an informal poll at my school years ago (yes, I had too much time on my hands; it came from never doing any schoolwork of any kind): who's cooler, Batman or Superman? The obvious answer is, of course, Batman (Superman is SUCH a tool), but the results were quite interesting: The overwhelming majority of guys said Batman - in fact, I only had one guy say Superman, and I think he was only doing it to break the trend, while most girls said Superman (although there were a few who said Batman). Interpret that how you will.

Pythageowhat? I don't believe in that stupid Baseball America and Billy Beane crap. All I know is that the good teams find a way to win in real life. The White Sox finished six games better than the Indians this year and then went on to win the World Series. If both team return the exact same rosters, it stands to reason that the White Sox would be favored until the Sox demonstrate that they aren't as good or the Indians demonstrate that they are better. I clued in to this in your first post, when, in claiming that the AL Central was tougher than the AL West, you cited the respective records of the 1-4 teams. Not that that's necessarily anti-"Billy Beane crap," but it is pretty simplistic, traditional reasoning. The difference in their records is probably due to greater competitiveness and strength within their division, not weakness; consider this: the only truly weak team in the AL West is the Mariners. The other three teams are all a significant threat, so there's no way for a team to inflate its record by playing a bunch of poor teams many times. The AL Central, by contrast, has the Royals (lowest of the low), the Tigers (who are a significant step up, but still only a little better than the Mariners), and, to a much much lesser extent, the Twins this year. While I did think that your post was well thought out and very well informed, it's a bit presumptuous to dismiss anything because of some unfounded prejudice against it. And when that thing happens to be hard and well researched statistical data, it's arguably downright moronic to ignore it just because it's "Billy Beane crap."

I would love to have Young, but I really don't think it'll happen. They have no reason to get rid of a guy like that. The Abreu/Blalock/Patterson and prospects deal sounds intriguing, though, if it's even a remote possibility. Anyone have any idea why the Rangers would have soured on Blalock? That just seems stupid.

I think, with regards to the spat going on here, that JC's point was not that CubfaninCA's remark was in itself hurtful, but that he's noticed that he does similar things with a remarkable regularity - that is, calling out other posters when the discussion in question had nothing to do with them or the content he was bringing up. I'm speaking up here because I've noticed it as well - it seems to me that CubfaninCA does not hesitate to mock other posters in any of his posts, provoked or not (derogatorily using terms like "walk romanticists" in a thread which had nothing to do with walks, for example). And that trend, I believe, is what JC is responding to, not this one isolated incident. And that's also why some people have accused CubfaninCA of picking fights, and covering up his (some would say) weak arguments with nothing more than argumentativeness. Just throwin' in my two cents.

What if Hendry just came right out and said, "we are prepared to offer you more than anyone else is likely to offer. Just remember that, and any time you get a tempting offer from someone, you call me and I'll beat it." If Hendry does this, it at least lets Giles and his agent know that he's seriously interested, and might prevent them from signing somewhere else without checking with Hendry first. And secondly, it might wind up saving Hendry some money. Let's say the highest offer Giles gets somewhere else is (I wish) 3/36. Hendry could probably counter with 3/40 or 3/38 with an option and possibly get the deal done. Just wishful thinking; I still think it's gonna take four years to get him to come here.

Secondly, both of these moves are EXCELLENT. Walker, of course, has been one of our best hitters, and he comes extremely cheap. Plus, he could be a very good trading chip, if people (i.e., Hendry) are set on upgrading defensively. Williamson, on the other hand, is stupid good (I love this phrase) when he's healthy. And an offseason should, hopefully, get him there. At worst, it's only a one year, $2 million deal for a low end middle reliever. At best, we get a lights-out setup man for WAY less than he would normally cost. As far as the Demspter signing goes, the jury is still out, as far as I'm concerned, but I will say that a WHIP of 1.23, while not Wagner's .84, isn't as bad as we make it out to be. Secondly, if I recall correctly, he had an extremely good BAA as a reliever, which is a much more important stat than K/BB, IMO. EDIT: it's worth pointing out that Wagner would cost at least twice as much as Dempster, and he's older.