Sammy Sofa

New Orleans is not some magical location that isn't have blackout rules: MLB has them marked as a Houston/Texas market. BOYCOTT FAILED.

The most anyone can do is recognize a pattern and do something different the next time. Forget all the cliches, and rhetoric, and spin doctoring, and whatever it is you call a pattern. The fact is you simply cannot make a valid statistical inference from a 6 game sample size..... and only bad things will happen if you try. Nevermind he keeps talking about "something different" like there's a better option than trying to put a competitive team that will succeed over the course of the regular season on the field. Him trying to find a pattern out of two 3 game series would be the equivalent of trying to find a pattern out of any stretch of lost games throughout the season. It's a futile gesture that completely ignores the larger and obvious point of it's simply a good team going cold like any do several times over the course of a long season.

....then Mojopin writes: That's reality. Feel free to explain how any team can work around that and guarentee that they'll win the first round of the playoffs. Here's a hint...you can't. The best bet to win in the playoffs is to put together a team and a staff that will have significant success over the course of the regular season and then ideally they'll be able to do the same in the playoffs. That's the most anyone can do.

This is pointless. Your responses are nothing but empty rhetoric. Nobody here has suggested doing nothing. A team should always look to improve where possible before each season. That's common sense and what any of us expext. If a team has a very successful regular season that would dictate little needs to be improved. 3 playoff games don't negate how well the team did over 6 months. You seem to be implying that if a team tanks it in the playoffs like the Cubs did then they're hopeless and the team needs to be drastically reconfigured or blown up or God knows what. You really won't explain what you think needs to be done outside of talking about totally changing the lineup when the playoffs role around. You seem to think some kind of secret tactic needs to be unearthed that will allow the Cubs to win, like their losses the last two years can just be switched off if someone figures out the right formula. That's ridiculous...nobody can plan for playoff success. You go out there with the team that gave you all the regular season success and try to win. If you lose, you lose. That's it. That's what happens. You come back out there the next year with another team ideally built for success and go at it again. That's baseball.

Do you guys just not watch that much other baseball?

Why would they take Lilly out? to have our awesome bullpen pitch 4 innings in the first game of a series. D'uh, how could I forget?

Why would they take Lilly out?

Meh, it happens.

pineiro doesn't really walk people. to beat him you're going to have to get hits, and his pinch count is going to be low if nobody is getting hits. i like working the count too, but look at theriot's AB - he took the first pitch for a strike and the second pitch was going to be a strike. if the guy is just throwing everything over the plate, there's no point in just standing there and putting yourself in an 0-2 hole. Exactly. He's basically chucking everything over the plate. If you don't swing he's getting you out anyways. I appreciate your actual analysis and logic here, Truffle. I can only assume it's going to fall on deaf ears. Fontenot with an opposite field double!

Oh, Len...don't do that.

Nice double play!

Can't Theriot find a way to translate his freakish hitting power to his doll-like throwing arm?

Even big fat Glendon Rusch pitched a gem or two. Let's relax here.

This game is boring as hell but you guys are a delight.

No, it isn't. There's no psychological hump that automatically stops the Cubs from being good once the postseason starts. That hump exists in the minds of ignorant fans who can't wrap their minds around the concept of sample size and probabilistic anomaly. It's 6 games over 2 years. What makes his ideas even more ridiculous is he's now lumping in the last two seasons with the other 99 years that Cubs didn't win the WS as if they're ALL the result of this "choking attitude" or "failing mindset" or whatever the hell he thinks it is. No doubt Arnold thinks that dropping ARod in the order or benching him in the playoffs would be a good idea since in recent years the limited sample size of his playoff numbers are pretty bad. That he wants to totally upset the Cubs lineup well beyond Lou's usually daily tinkering once the playoffs hit is something so overreactionary and nonsensical I can't wrap my head around it. He also refuses to answer any direct questions about just what his lineup would be and how he would construct these "playoff teams" he keeps going on and on about. Arnold, you have access to all the same player data as everyone else...name the players the Cubs should be signing with Dempster's money. Put together a playoff team. Reconstruct the Cubs' current roster by your standards to be best suited for playoff victory.

Not a reliever, but Ray Durham. I still don't get how he's unsigned. That's not to disagree with anything you said, though. Yeah, he was the glaring exception I was thinking of, but pretty much the only one. His idea of signing relivers as if there are good options waiting out there unsigned and that that's a wise way to spend salary was mostly what I took issue with.

Walking one guy like Manny is just fine. It's a shame what Ryan Dempster did in game 1 though. Repeatedly walking a guy over and over again in the middle of good hitters is not fine. It doesn't. Oh well. Exactly. Doing the exact same thing and expecting different results is even more stupid. I really have to assume you're joking at this point. You honestly think doing the same thing, which has been a huge part of of the Cubs making the playoffs in the first place, is stupid? You actually think that teams should totally mix up their lineups when they hit the playoffs? Weren't you just going on about consistency in an earlier post? Make up your mind. Yeah that's kind of my point. Maybe have a leadoff man in the post season who is a touch more consistent. I'd rather take the "hope" out of it and replace that with "likely". But we Cubs fans sure like our hope, don't we? Regardless of who is htiting leadoff you can only hope they do well in the short first round of the playoffs. Any player can go cold during that time. Granted, Soriano's streaks are more pronounced than a lot of players of his level, but it's ridiculous to act like playoff success hinges on him or anyone else batting leadoff. A team can still win with a cold leadoff hitter. ...and that brings us back to why Hendry isn't a very good GM. Not necessarily. If his recent good starts are any indication then having Dempster will be very valuable again and you won't want to trade him. Besides, you talk like freeing up his money would allow the Cubs to sign bullpen and bench players to help the team. Who are these mythical valuable insigned players (relievers especially) that all the other teams have somehow ignored?

Or it might be the really obvious reason.

Wait, this happened in both wrists at seperate times?

So cut the [expletive] and explain how you put a playoff team together.

The path to the world series in 2009 will include the Dodgers, and Manny will likely be in the lineup. Walk him or be destroyed. And once again, he's not the only dangerous hitter in their lineup. Walk more guys than you have to as often as possible and be destroyed by really stupid baseball. They can't win the first game. How do you stop the give-up afdter that? Winning the 2nd game. Or the 3rd. It either happens or it doesn't. Because he isn't effective in the post season when you need your lead off man to get on? Do you want a guy with a .125 OBP getting the most AB's in the post season? I want the players hitting where they've had the most success over the course of the season. Suddenly changing everything up after 6 months is beyond stupid. Yeah, I do. The Cubs don't compete in the post season with Soriano at #1. Sure they do. Soriano doing poorly doesn't make the whole team do poorly. You just hope he hits his one of his hot streaks at the right time. No. Focus, video and coaching. So common sense stuff that they do anyway. Because he's nowhere worth his contract. I'd use the money saved for bullpen help at the DL. But as you said yourself you're not trading him without paying part of his contract, so you're not saving much money, so it's a moot suggestion to begin with.

FJM would have written a classic demolishing that one.

So the Jordan era Bulls were flukes? The 90's Cowboys? The 96-2003 Yankees were flukes? The 80's 49'ers? Nonsensical strawman. He was talking about how great players are pointlessly branded as failures or flawed due to the extremely limited sample size of postseason performances. You can't construct a team around the idea of "playoff grit." Not when your competition is the Pirates, Astros and Reds. The Cubs played weak teams and got mauled when they faced real competition. You might want to take a look at how the Cubs did against teams above .500 last year. How did they end up with the record they had if they were "mauled" every time they played good teams? Sounds like you are more interested in players than in teams. Another ridiculous strawman. I'm starting to think you're some kind of clever message board character.

About the only thing you've said that I agree with. The Cubs' scouting, on all levels, needs to be improved. I don't understand how you think this fixes anything. Zambrano pitched the first playoff game in 2007. He declared Dempster to pitch the first game and it was so. Where is the inconsistency? He picked his starters and went with them. The Cubs don't play Manny Ramirez every playoff series. It's also not like the Dodgers didn't have other good ideas. It's generally a bad idea to reguarly walk players at will if you're trying to win a game. Teams in the playoffs are there either because they're a really good team or they're a decent team that got hot. You don't want to give them more baserunners. Win the first game. Or the second. Or the third. This is a horrible idea. Why are you going to suddenly pull him out of the spot where he's been most effective over the entire season? You expect him to suddenly take over a new role in the playoffs, and another player to suddenly end up hitting #1 when they haven't been doing so all year? So pep talks? You honestly think they just told the players they could relax on the plate discipline? Or that the players forgot? Yelling at a player doesn't accomplish squat. They're either going to perform or not. Why trade Dempster?

As great as BD is, Tim Robbins as a pitcher is one of the least convincing movie athletes ever.