Sammy Sofa

OK, the first problem, as it was made very clear to you earlier (yet you completely ignore) is the fallacy of you assuming that variation in a minor league team's record can be chalked up to Sandberg. You also seem to be assuming that Martinez doesn't have the respect of the players he coaches and isn't coaching for a team that "wins games." Apparently you think a major league bench coach literally just manages the bench and sits next to the manager and does nothing. He's been the bench coach for a very, very good team working with one of the very best managers in an organization that develops young players like it's going out of style. THAT'S the kind of experience I want, not someone who "deserves a shot" because most of his managing career has been running a team in the Cubs' crappy farm system. Neither of us has presented a case as to why either SHOULD be the manager of the Cubs. There's nobody I think "should" get the job. In the end I want someone who matches as much as possible with a sound organizational and developmental philosophy established by the GM. If that's Sandberg, so be it. Given the names being tossed around for who the Cubs want as GM I really doubt he'd be the choice.

Dave Martinez also played for the Cubs, so I'm not sure how he wouldn't know their "history and what to expect" (though I'm not sure why anyone wouldn't be able to know that). You declare that he "controls the clubhouse," yet you have no idea if that's true since he's never managed or coached a major league team. You declare him to be a good teacher, yet almost all of his managing experience is with an organization with a reputation for NOT instilling solid fundamentals and he has absolutely zero reputation along those lines from his days as a player. Why does Sandberg's experience managing in the minors make him more fit to manage a major league team than Martinez, who has been the bench coach for a competitive major league team (and one of the best managers) known for how well it develops young players? If you place so much stock in managing in the minors as being a true test of managing a major league team then why wasn't Quade a better manager?

I don't even know what this means. Unlike Martinez, Sandberg doesn't have significant experience working with someone like Maddon. Sandberg hasn't really worked under anyone (as a player or as a minor league manager) worth a damn when it comes to coaching/managing like Martinez has with Maddon. Sandberg also never had a reputation as any kind of coach or leader when he was a player, so unless you're looking at his scanty time managing in the minors without anyone to really learn from I'm not sure what he's "done" that means he deserves or needs to manage.

I think it's too soon to write off the Crawford deal as being a disaster. Yeah, $20 million a year is certainly more than I would have wanted if I was a Red Sox fan (especially for 7 years), but he's still 29 and when signed was coming two very, very good years where he was seemingly coming into his prime. Fangraphs has him as a 5.9 and 7.6 WAR player in 2009 and 2010 respectively, and worth $26.5 million and $30.4 in those seasons. Yeah, this year is absolutely brutal and a bust, but it's not like this is necessarily Epstein's Soriano-signing.

So, basically, you have no clue on who should manage. Nobody "should" manage the team. Personally, I'd like Martinez, Bobby V. or Francona. I like Martinez because he was a relatively marginal player who was very sound defensively and has been the bench coach for one of the very best managed/coached teams in the majors for four seasons now. He's worked under an excellent manager in Joe Maddon and would ideally bring a similar approach to managing himself. Sandberg's rhetoric about managing reeks of over-managing/smallball/meatballisms and I don't think players as good as him tend to be good managers. Too much ego is going to be getting in the way, they tend to not be very good teachers since their skills came (relatively speaking) so much easier to them than to players without their level of natural ability, plus Sandberg himself has a reputation of being disliked and never really seemed to be any kind of a leader when he was a player. I'd prefer to have him remain Sandberg the great player as opposed to Sandberg the crappy manager.

But you keep tossing in "decent pitching" like that really has a place in this hypothetical. As far as we know they went into the season with the pitchers they wanted to go with. If you want to play the "what if" game in regards to pitching health, fine, but that's a different type of hypothetical of what I'm presenting with the idea that they signed Furcal. Signing Furcal wouldn't have made a difference with how the pitching played out. And yes, I agree that having another big bat would have made a difference, but again, let's be realistic; that 2006 team ended up being even worse than this year's team. Even having Lee resembling his 2005 form and Furcal performing as he did with the Dodgers they'd have to have made up a LOT of ground. Even with the division as bad as it was you're talking about having to have won 18 more games to take the division. That was a bad, bad team.

The 2006 Cubs nearly lost 100 games. Like I said, I don't even think that the addition of Super Lee and Furcal could have saved them. I mean, it would be pretty optimistic to think they'd win, what, 10 more games? A dozen? They'd still have been under .500.

If the Cubs can dump that contract I will kiss Ozzie on the mouth like he was my dad. (And I'm actually not a fan of trading Zambrano just to trade him. But if they can free up all or nearly all of that money and it means they can get guys like Wilson and Fielder and maybe even bring back Aramis, then yes please).

ever hear ryno in the booth? he's like a dumber ron santo without the craziness or personality. Hey, I'm not saying I WANT the guy in the booth. That just seems like a PR move that makes more sense than going out of their way to make him manager and forcing him on the new GM.

And "reconciliation" can me a lot of things. I have no doubt the Cubs want to do it at some point, but probably more so that they can build him a statue and have him show up for events and maybe even end up in the radio or TV booth. Making him manager is probably pretty far down their list of reasons to make nice with him.

"Sources" always say a lot of things. If what anonymous "sources" said about transactions were true even half as often as you think they are most of these rumors would still be lies or inaccuracies or total speculation.

Actually, Hendry's big plan for the 2006 season was supposedly to snag both Pierre and Furcal. The biggest change with all of that would have been, obviously, that he wouldn't have broken Lee's wrist. It was only 58 PA, but Lee was already off to a monster start in 2006, seemingly following up his awesome 2005. Furcal ended up having one of his most productive years offensively that season, too. I'd like to think things would have played out differently if Furcal had been signed, but man, that 2006 team REALLY sucked. I don't think having him and Super D-Lee would have even gotten them to .500.

That's especially not true when it comes to professional sports.

No. The Ricketts are morons if they manage to snag someone like Epstein to be the GM and then effectively force him to hire Sandberg to manage to placate the meatballs.

Man, I'd love to see this happen.

This did not go unnoticed. Awesome. Seriously, he would never come back. I want this so damn bad. Isn't also rumored that Maddux and Cindy were bumping uglies? Make him the pitching coach.

Cool, I appreciate you going the extra distance with this. I mean, if the evidence is there I have no problem being wrong, and curious if it is.

Yeah, that's the part that's sticking to me; it seems like CubmanPi's argument is relying on actually extrapolating where the ball was going and where Alou's glove was going before both encountered fans, and those photos don't allow or do that. The first one maybe is, but it's at a horrible angle to actually know or break it down as such.

I fully cop to when I'm out of my element, and I am here with how you're going at this. I appreciate the more in-depth explanation, and it does help me get a better grasp of how you came to your conclusion, though I'm still pretty foggy on it. Correct me if I'm wrong, but your argument seems to be hinged on where contact between Bartman and Alou occurred as being the point where the ball would have been caught, correct? And that's all well and good, but I thing I can't get over is that all of the pictures and video seem to be showing Alou and Bartman making contact away from where the play theoretically would have been made if Alou was going to catch the ball (and this would be a good time to bring up one key thing which I'm unclear on, which is how from those photos you are concluding that the ball is "on the line" and not in the stands. Neither appears to be from an angle that makes that clear). So, yeah, Bartman and Alou are making contact on the line or even in the field of play, but where is the ball? Their contact appears to be the result of a distracted, excited fan making a desperate stab in the general direction of the ball (and failing to come close to catching it) and a not very good fielder trying to track a tricky catch. The photos and videos, to me, seem to be showing that Alou is going into the stands to catch the ball and Bartman is reaching over them in an effort to catch it, and that's why they hit each other. Again, I'm going to defer to the idea that there is more evidence to show me wrong (and it could easily be the case), but I don't think those photos are showing where Alou would have been if he had actually caught the ball. If he had caught it he would have caught it technically in the stands, but the contact occurred on the line or over the line. But really, thanks for going the extra mile to spell out what you're saying.

It seems like something is missing (at least when it comes to my understanding) for you to be able to say this: That seems like a somewhat arbitrary declaration on your part since none of the photos present an angle that actually shows whether that is true or not. Without a photo clearly showing that this is the case how can we come to this conclusion? I guess what I'm asking for is for you to effectively show your work since re-reading it it doesn't seem like it amounts to more than "well, this looks right" + visual aids. I'd appreciate it if you could break it down as such because I really do feel like I'm missing something here.

I genuinely have no clue how you're coming to the definitive conclusion he's not reaching in to the stands from those photos. If you could explain how you're drawing from any of those photos that one can conclusively say he is or isn't reaching into the stands I would appreciate it, because none of those seem to allow one to conclude for sure either way. I really don't understand at all how those lines you drew show anything besides his positions along the wall in those photos and how they do anything to show whether or not he was over the wall. The angles of the photos seem to preclude coming to such a conclusion, especially since we can't seem to find any showing the same moment from different angles. I'm not trolling, and maybe I am just dense, but to me it seems like you're making a leap and I don't understand how you got there with the evidence available.

No, I genuinely don't understand. I really don't get how your posts prove he wasn't reaching over the wall. Your marked photos seems to only indicate where he was along the wall and not whether or not he was reaching into the stands. I don't know how much more clear I can make this.

I honestly have no idea what the hell you're talking about.

Man, I don't want that at all. I want the Cubs to be so good they handily cruise into the playoffs.

It's cute how Kyle wants to be Nate Silver's nemesis. It's like desperate Nixon ranting at the portrait of JFK in the White House.