Sammy Sofa

This annoys me. Unless "reconciliation" means Sandberg apologizing profusely for storming off like a spoiled brat who wasn't bought the toy he wanted. And at this point I really don't want him working as a coach anywhere in the organization, because as soon as (and every time) the new manager goes through a bad stretch that's all you're going to hear about.

http://nooooooooooooooo.com/

Heroin is for closers. Failure gets stepped on crack.

The site has been running ridiculously slow a good 50% of the time for me the last few days, and refreshing brings back that error message pretty often.

Exactly. When he's useless or he's blocking a better option, boom, he's gone.

You would shop Dempster in the offseason? That doesn't seem...wise.

I think that is a whole bunch of nonsense. Soriano is a bad baseball player in a mediocre lineup. He should expect to have to move around. In his case, the vast majority of his time has been in the 6th or 7th hole, which are virtually indistinguishable from a player's perspective. Being a 5/6/7 hitter isn't like he's going from 1/4/8. He just can't hit. No excuses about where in the order. Unbelievable. It's like if you say anything beyond trashing the guy certain people here assume you're praising his hitting ability.

Ridiculous. You don't cut a guy who can still be useful just because you don't like him. He still put up a .271 .312 .500 .812 line against LH pitchers this year. Why not just platoon him? If he's already complaining about batting 7th don't you think he's going to complain about being platooned? Also, though the numbers against lefties are slightly above average I fully expect his numbers to be even worse next year. I'd rather let Brett Jackson take up LF full-time or find a better replacement than have Soriano there against lefties and taking a roster spot to do so. That's my opinion of course. If Jackson is in LF and Soriano is cut to make you feel better, who is playing the other OF spot? Where is this better replacement coming from? Are we passing on Fielder/Pujols because we have to spend money on the OF to satisfy Soriano's bloodlust? There should be a decent amount of OF free agents next year that would come cheap and be better than Soriano. Jackson is already being counted on to take over in CF. Byrd is only a stopgap in RF for one season at the most. Soriano is trending downwards, but if you platoon him enough you're likely to get serviceable or better LF production next season that is more cost effective and productive than going out and signing someone off the scrapheap and paying that person on top of Soriano's salary. The time will come, but they're likely not yet at the point where they need to cut him.

Wow.

Ridiculous. You don't cut a guy who can still be useful just because you don't like him. He still put up a .271 .312 .500 .812 line against LH pitchers this year. Why not just platoon him?

Yet again, I'm not saying any player should just hit in one spot. I'm saying in this case he had too many PA spread across three spots. That's not saying a player can't do that, but I think with a lot of guys there is a threshold where it becomes too much. Like I said, I think this wouldn't have even come up if Soriano was bounced primarily between 6 and 7 with only a few PA hitting 5th, but instead he got enough where, to him, it seemed like too much variation and it weighed on him. Some guys seemingly can't deal with that, for whatever reason. That's why I don't think his complaint was outlandish, because it's not like he's demanding or insisting that he hit in a key spot. It's not like this is a guy who is going to automatically throw a tantrum if he's hitting lower in the lineup, as last year showed.

You're challenging me on points I'm not making, so please stop trying to goad me into fights I'm not starting. I've stated numerous times now that this is likely primarily a "head" issue and indicative of the mess that Quade has made out of the lineups. I'm challenging you to provide any sort of concrete rationale for this statement: "almost any player, regardless of ability or skillset, is going to struggle in at least one spot if they're being bounced across at least 3 spots in the lineups for significant PA" I haven't been able to come up with anything myself, and you've given us none, either. The rationale is that it's my opinion. I think that you start giving players significant PA across too many slots it starts to screw things up. That's primarily due to it likely being indicative of poor lineup/team construction, but I also think that with many players it plays a part mentally/psychologically/whatever. I'm not saying it's some kind of baseball fact.

No, what specifically about being moved around the lineup between 5 and 7 do you think causes a problem? His pregame routine is the same, right? The pitches he sees are basically the same, right? His approach in any given AB is basically the same, right? (And if not, that would change much more as a function of game situation (score, inning, # outs, runners, etc) than lineup spot, and that effect would be there even if he hit in the same lineup spot all year long.) So what specifically would make it so challenging to hit 5th one day, 7th the next, then 6th, etc? What's changing? You're challenging me on points I'm not making, so please stop trying to goad me into fights I'm not starting. I've stated numerous times now that this is likely primarily a "head" issue and indicative of the mess that Quade has made out of the lineups. Moving Soriano between 5th, 6th, and 7th is not an example of Quade messing up the lineup. As I stated last page, no MLB player this season has started even 80 games in the 6th spot or the 7th spot. Every player in those spots has to get used to hitting 5th, 6th, 7th, 8th, or 9th in the AL. It's unreasonable for Soriano to believe he should get to stay in one spot when nobody in MLB in that part of the batting order has gotten to stick in one spot. I'm not saying he definitely should have only hit in one spot. Personally, I think players who typically hit 6 and below shouldn't be hitting in the 1-5 spots except when necessary. And how does the lineup construction of this season somehow become a hard and fast rule? OK, so no player started more than 80 games from those spots. Last season Soriano started 105 games hitting 6th. So which is "right?"

No, what specifically about being moved around the lineup between 5 and 7 do you think causes a problem? His pregame routine is the same, right? The pitches he sees are basically the same, right? His approach in any given AB is basically the same, right? (And if not, that would change much more as a function of game situation (score, inning, # outs, runners, etc) than lineup spot, and that effect would be there even if he hit in the same lineup spot all year long.) So what specifically would make it so challenging to hit 5th one day, 7th the next, then 6th, etc? What's changing? You're challenging me on points I'm not making, so please stop trying to goad me into fights I'm not starting. I've stated numerous times now that this is likely primarily a "head" issue and indicative of the mess that Quade has made out of the lineups. oh lord..Stop trying to make excuses for an over the hill player. I fully expect Soriano's numbers to be even worse next year. The only thing I'm "making excuses" for is what he he's saying in the article. As for his ability I said this: My point to you when I said "Oh Lord" was how you just want him cut when they already have the huge question of what to do with RF. Worse comes to worse they can still platoon Soriano in RF so that he's mostly facing LH pitchers. Now is not the time to cut him just because of some stupid article. The other part was your blanket statement of how it's always a bad idea to sign "30+ year old's to long contracts." The Cubs foolishly overpaying for Alfonso Sorinao doesn't mean that any FA 30 and up is going to play out the same way.

No, what specifically about being moved around the lineup between 5 and 7 do you think causes a problem? His pregame routine is the same, right? The pitches he sees are basically the same, right? His approach in any given AB is basically the same, right? (And if not, that would change much more as a function of game situation (score, inning, # outs, runners, etc) than lineup spot, and that effect would be there even if he hit in the same lineup spot all year long.) So what specifically would make it so challenging to hit 5th one day, 7th the next, then 6th, etc? What's changing? You're challenging me on points I'm not making, so please stop trying to goad me into fights I'm not starting. I've stated numerous times now that this is likely primarily a "head" issue and indicative of the mess that Quade has made out of the lineups.

80% of his at bats have come from hitting either 6th or 7th, and they're fairly evenly distributed (although he's hit 7th more). It's similar for Aramis hitting 3rd or 4th, yet he's never complained about it. This isn't a case of Soriano being shuffled between leadoff and the middle of the order (like a few years ago) or in and out of the lineup. Basically, he comes to the park every day, and he's in the lineup either hitting 6th or 7th, which isn't a big deal. I've never heard of a player saying their mentality is entirely different hitting 6th vs. 7th, as they do when talking about hitting leadoff vs. middle of the order. And even if this does affect affect him mentally, it likely has more to do with the fact that he's no longer a focal point of the offense, as he has been his entire career. I'd argue it's pretty different from shuffling a guy between 3rd and 4th, but that's besides the point. I've also stated I don't think the issue is between batting 6th or 7th. I think the issue, in Soriano's head, is that he was still given a relatively significant amount of time hitting 5th and then shuffled back to 7th numerous times this season. I think this is fallout from having a manager making crappy lineups.

Being moved around the lineup as much as he was. I don't know the exact why's as to each player, but as I've said, I'm confident that being moved around that much would effect nearly any player. I think a large part of it is psychological/mental/whatever in regards to how it speaks to how poorly the team is being run. Quade's lineup management in general has been absurdly bad. I'm not expecting him to run out there with the exact same lineup every day, but even adjusting for injuries, days off and favorable matchups he is downright schizophrenic when it comes to constructing a lineup. I hope Fred sees this, because I remember him posting some depressingly hilarious stats about how many unique lineups Quade has used over the course of the season. That said, I'm not arguing that this was the main reason for Soriano's decline. That's mostly because of him being a flawed baseball player who is getting older. My point all along is that in a roundabout way he's "right" when he complains about the lineup switches.

Well, the bold part simply isn't true. A hitter can easily see different pitches from lineup spot to the next based on who they're hitting in front of. In this case the effect is going to be negligible. It's not like Soriano alternated between hitting in front of Pujols and Theriot. He had mediocre hitters behind him in every situation. I'm not arguing that it necessarily did have an effect on him. I wasn't sure if you were saying that specifically in regards to Soriano or in general.

Well, the bold part simply isn't true. A hitter can easily see different pitches from lineup spot to the next based on who they're hitting in front of.

I think you're reaching a bit here. Back when Lou was considering moving him from leadoff, he was pretty clear about he would hit anywhere in the lineup, but he didn't want to be juggled around. And the language barrier was still a factor. It was quite different than this: He's obviously more upset with the fact that he's batting lower in the order than the fact that he's moving around from 6th to 7th. As someone mentioned above, this looks like an athlete on the decline who hasn't accepted it. Doesn't make Soriano a bad person, and I'm sure he works just as hard no matter where he hits, but he's going to have to accept he's on the downside of his career at some point. And comparing this to Castro is a bit of a stretch too. Castro is a young player who clearly presses when he's hitting third, considering how damn good he is hitting #1 and #2. Soriano is equally bad no matter where he hits (which is basically #6 or #7 anyways, and is probably based mostly on matchups). I don't doubt he doesn't want to hit lower in the lineup, but it's my opinion that the lineup juggling is the bigger issue. When he was dropped to 6 he didn't complain, and I'd bet that if he had been dropped to 7 and left there for the most part we wouldn't have heard this, either. And no, he hasn't been "equally bad" across the 5-7 spots. And no, I don't think it's a stretch to think that almost any player, regardless of ability or skillset, is going to struggle in at least one spot if they're being bounced across at least 3 spots in the lineups for significant PA thanks to their managers crappy ability to construct a lineup.

Oh Lord.

I'll bet that if the Cardinals win the WS you can never post here again.

If I can't dance around that then you can't dance around the idea that it's very unlikely he gets asked to move in the first place. The guy won a GG in '09 as a CF at 24, and at 26 in '11 he probably had the best season of any CF in the game. Even if both of us agree that he's not great shakes as a CF and would be an excellent RF, that could be said about ANY competent CF. He's not an Andruw Jones, Van Slyke, or Mike Cameron out there in CF, but that's not going to be a good enough reason for a team to move him from CF. There's nothing to dance around. I've never said the Cubs definitely would or even should move him if they sign him; I simply presented it as a possibility. To me it's a non-issue unless Jackson shows he's worth being the fulltime starter in CF. Even if that occurs it's still a non-issue to me if they sign Kemp because if they want to move him to RF they'll just do it.

Look, you can dance around it all you want but Kemp isn't some kind of special case when it comes to refusing to move to a new position. If the team he's signed with wants him to switch positions he doesn't somehow have more leverage than the other people being listed. You ask "what choice did those guys have?" as if Kemp would have a choice. If he signs with the Cubs and then they tell him they're moving him to RF for the good of the team, boom, it's done. It's also not like he's putting up numbers that hinge on him being in CF for him to be an AS.

Yeah, how dare we lose consecutive games to the last two teams to win a Super Bowl. FOR SHAME. loll Have you been watching the last two games? Our team offensively is garbage with no end in sight. 2007ish bad. So far our offense has not looked any worse this year than last year. Need to go on a bit of a run here but we can do it. Saw some good things today. The O-Line was much better, and no injuries in this game that I'm aware of. As for the phantom holding call, I also think the flag was thrown while the ball was still in the air. Hopefully Larry Mayer will have an answer for us as I'm sure this question will be asked in this week's Chalk Talk. cv is shellshocked from his Patriots' losing like he did today, so he can be forgiven not paying that much attention to the Bears.