goonys evil twin

I wouldn't call it one season of abuse. He was not handled well in 2002, at 21, nor was he handled particularly well in 2004 or 2005. They have him under control thru 2008. I'd rather they see if they can turn him back into a star by then and keep him.

I definitely disagree. It's most likely not a black and white issue. Regardless, they are not in a position where the only option is to get rid of him. No, black was get rid of him, white was either keep him or get rid of him. :? Oh, that confused me. Bad reading. Mind is on something else. :mexican: :pint: :party1: Happy defeat of the French army at the Battle Of Puebla Day.

Shoot, by Memorial Day, they'll be ridiculing the hell out of home players. Yep.

I definitely disagree. It's most likely not a black and white issue. Regardless, they are not in a position where the only option is to get rid of him.

Why is it absurd? Clearly younger players are still developing physically. A year can make a huge difference in the makeup of the person. The fact is Prior was younger than those guys, who were used as examples of pitchers who were supposedly abused to the same extent at the same age. And Prior was younger than all of them when he was pitching for the Cubs and racking up pitcher abuse points beyond belief. And I don't think it makes a difference if he was groomed to become a 200-250 IP/year pitcher since he was 15. Nobody knows the best way to get a guy to that level. Whose to say that grooming didn't play a role in his problems? What we do know is that pitchers get hurt by pitching, and that younger pitchers are susceptible. Prior racked up an incredible amoung of pitcher abuse points at a very young age. And while those points are not any sort of hard and fast rule, they are a pretty good indicator, and injury/less effective pitching soon followed. Prior was younger and racking up more high pitch count games than most pitchers cited as examples of how to stay healthy (even though some of those guys have had their own issues, and/or developed later in life). I'm not going to say "ha, he was 8 months younger, there it's proof beyond debate". But it all adds up to a pretty ugly indictment of the Cubs usage of young assets, and a pretty reasonable explanation for recent problems. It's at least much more reasonable than claiming the guy is a wussy.

On the team or by the fans?

That's a pointless question. Prior has been injured more over the past couple of years. Of course Buerhle has accumulated more total. The point is how you get there. If you only throw 1000 pitches in a season, but you do it in 6 games, it's probably going to be worse than racking up 3400 in 34 games. We don't know any of this for sure. But lots of people who have studied this believe that it's not the total number of innings or pitches that matter most (although you probably don't want young guys going from seasons with just 120 IP to seasons with 250 IP), it's how you rack them up. A series of repeatedly high pitch count games back to back without a couple less stressful games thrown in is most likely one of the worst ways to treat a young pitcher. Crossing the 110 pitch threshold in any one game is probably not a big deal, but doing it over and over, especially coming off of a shoulder injury, is probably extremely dumb, not to mention risky. I'd call it malpractice myself. I didn't want these guys pulled at 99 every game. But there was no reason to ever have them go 130 (let alone 140). When they went 110+ a couple in a row, I wanted them to get a break for a game or two on the low end. I wasn't asking for extreme caution, just some level of caution and not the completely reckless treatment they were given.

Mussina was used sparingly at 22, threw over 200 at 23, then under 200 at 24 and 25. Oswalt was used sparingly at 23, had a full season at 24, then missed significant time at 25. Pedro didn't cross the 200 IP threshold until he was 24. Schilling did it at 25. Clemens did it at 23. Mark Prior crossed the 200 IP threshold before all of those guys. And while I don't have pitch count numbers on all of them, I'd be willing to bet none of them were used like Prior. Oswalt, for one, who did it a couple years later in life than when Prior did, doesn't come close to Prior. He had 2 games of 120 pitches. He had 18 under 100 pitches and never went more than 3 games in a row over 100 pitches. And he averaged just 98 pitches per game.

Thats called cherry-picking, look at his innings pitched. Are you kidding me? In terms of abuse, pitch counts mean a lot more than innings pitched. Look up total pitch counts over the last few years for Buerhle/Prior, who has thrown more? That's not cherry picking, that's exactly the point. Prior was abused as a young pitcher by being forced to stay in for extremely high pitch counts. He was left in a game to pitch after getting injured. He was kept in to pitch 130+ pitches multiple times, a pitch count far beyond what most pitchers are limited to. He averaged 120+ pitches per start the end the season after he injured his shoulder. He threw an excessive amount of pitches in the playoffs, even after his team had a game rapped up. There was no letting up on the gas pedal. There were no string of games where they pulled him after 95 pitches, like Buerhle had. The fact that Buerhle is more efficient with his pitches is completely irrelevent. It's the manager and pitching coach's responsibility to protect a young arm, regardless of whether or not he can finish 7 under 100 pitches or can't get thru 5 without throwing 110. If you want to talk about Prior's need to be more efficient, that's a different topic. And it's also a topic that has to involve coaches' responsibilities. Whether a pitcher is extended beyond normal usage patterns for young pitchers due to nibbling or not, when he gets to a certain point you have to pull him. Game after game in 2003 when Wood and Prior were racking up 115, 120, 130, 140 pitch counts, people were kicking and screaming for them to be pulled early. Some laughed at such supposed "kid glove" treatment. All I know is 2 years later and the guys can't get through a couple months without getting hurt and/or losing effectiveness. Anybody who feels justified in calling Prior a wimp, or a wuss, or weak, or frail, or just plain not tough enough, has to go back and look at how he was used, and how many pitches he was forced to throw game after game. Take a second to look at that and then ask yourself if maybe, just maybe, that treatment played a roll in later injuries. Pitchers get hurt from pitching, and they get hurt from pitching tired. Often times these injuries accumulate over time. It's not really a snap and you're done sort of thing. Pitcher abuse points are not a perfect predictor of injury. But when somebody leads the league in those and are near the top for quite a while, and then suffer some injuries, you'd have to be purposefully ignoring those facts if you claim that abuse couldn't have played a part in the injuries.

I would be shocked if Dusty was fired at any point during this season. Shocked. Eyes bugging out of my head :shock: shocked, if it happens during the season. Let alone on this road trip. His seat ain't warm. I believe Hendry thinks he has the right man, and it's up to whether or not Dusty wants to return.

That's certainly possible, and he could very well have flamed out because of it. In the Cubs defense, I can't think of any top end pitchers that were abused in one year and had it cost them their career in the last ten years, and nearly all top pitchers are abused at some point if not all the time. I would have thought that month off would have given him time to recover. Name me one 21, 22, 23 year old pitcher that was abused like Prior and didn't suffer any consequences. Mark Buerhle Buerhle, at 23 in 2002, had one game over more than 120 pitches. It was the last game of the year. He had none over 130. He had 10 games under 100, and was almost always around 103-106. In 2003, at 22/23, Prior had 3 games under 100 pitches (1 of which was coming back from the shoulder injury caused by the collision with Giles). He had 10 games over 120 pitches, 4 of which were over 130. Buerhle doesn't even come close to Prior in the abused pitcher discussion.

There was nothing wrong with Gould. He was automatic within 40 and a lot of his misses (40-49) came in EXTREMELY crappy weahter conditions (as was the case with the SF kick). Gould had the 29th most points from kickers last year. He was 23rd in FG%. He was 3/8 from 40-49 and his longest was 45. He didn't even attempt a 50+ because the coaches knew he didn't have any business kicking in the NFL. He got the job by default when the veteran melted down. And he was very bad at kickoffs. They need to replace him.

Kevin Tapani didn't pitch 8 innings a game. Anything he says on the subject is null and void because he's in the same boat as all these other "modern pitchers". Tapani is a part of the modern era. He is not a "then" era pitcher. And I don't care what some sportswriters think. A lot of old men think everybody was tougher in the old days. It's nothing but sentimental mythical BS. Today's pitchers approach the game just like yesterday's pitchers. well, according to your logic, what you have to say about pitchers is null and void since you didn't pitch in the bigs.... like i said in a previous post, im just passing on what i heard on the radio, which is what i thought this board was for.... The difference is I'm not claiming that I threw 200 pitchers per start and went 8 innings every game. Tapani, according to you, is, and that makes him a blatant liar, or a senile old man with a completely unrealistic view about the good ole days.

Did he really say this: Jacque, get your head out of your striped bass. This is another part of the "be aggressive" mantra that I hate about the Cubs. Not only are they overly aggressive at the plate, they are stupid on the basepaths. It's not aggressive to run on a fly out to LF, it's stupid. Quit doing it you moron, it only hurts the team. Everybody's default is to like the "aggressive" way because it's more manly and macho than playing it smart. But it's not the right way. In little league and high school our coaches all taught us that if we make a mistake, we better make an aggressive mistake. That's fine at the lower levels, when the competition is often clueless and incapable of making the play that would take advantage of over aggressive play. What Jones did was what many call a rookie mistake. Cubs veterans have been prone to several rookie mistakes in recent years, but only the rookies get called out for making those mistakes. The veterans, for some reason, are allowed to make the same mistake over and over with no repercussions, no reprimand, no benching. This style of baserunning does not help the Cubs, it hurts them. Jones might not want to apologize for his huge mistakes, but he better correct them. http://www.suntimes.com/output/cubs/cst-spt-cubnt05.html

Very important typo there Vance. Yeah, it's quite confusing. I thought he was predicting a win streak, but then he cried when he took the over at 5 games, so I assume he meant current losing streak.

In one season it made up for it. But the first two certainly did not. Moises Alou not being 100% healthy doesn't mean much to me, he's always banged up. He was banged up last year when he was great. He was banged up before he came to the Cubs and he was great. In his previous 7 years, his OPS+ was well above his career average in 4 of those 7 years. The 3 years they were at or below his career average were the 3 in Chicago. 2 of those years he was just an average slightly above average hitter, certainly not a $10m middle of the order corner OF. Distractions? Moises whined to the media about the Cubs pitching staff getting too much credit. He whined about the offense getting criticized too much. He whined about being called out for his atrocious baserunning. He whined about everything. Not to mention, he routinely got into arguments with umpires, ala Latroy Hawkins, with no purpose other than to piss off the umps. He handled the Bartman play about as unprofessionally as you could possibly handle a play. Bottom line, in 3 years on the Cubs he hit well for one season, but everything else about his game sucked. He turned it back on after going to play with Daddy and Barry. There is no way of knowing if he would have done the same for the Cubs.

Being a Cub fan is like Hotel California. You can check out anytime you want, but you can never leave We are all just prisoners here of our own device

How could one player make that big of a difference? He doesn't. It's not a matter of heart or execution. It's a matter of the players who swing bats for the Cubs not being very good. The Cubs had a few good games with Lee there, but they also had their fair share of stinkers at the plate. The day before he was injured they were shut down by the routinely mediocre Lowe, they had a really bad game against Duke in Pittsburgh. They also scored 2, 4 and 3 runs against, very ugly. The perception that the offense was rolling with Lee is based on the first few games. They've been able to rack up high run totals in the past as well. But in the long run, this lineup has not produced much for years. I don't think Lee could make a lick of difference in games they lose by 6, 8, or 14 runs. And again, look at the whole lineup. It's not like guys fell apart when Lee left. Aramis, Pierre, Jones, Neifi and the rest of the bench were bad when Lee was healthy. They've just stayed bad. Cedeno, Murton and Walker have cooled since Lee left, but they aren't underperforming expectations. You can't blame their production on Lee being gone.

Tapani is a part of the modern era. He is not a "then" era pitcher. And I don't care what some sportswriters think. A lot of old men think everybody was tougher in the old days. It's nothing but sentimental mythical BS. Today's pitchers approach the game just like yesterday's pitchers.

Kevin Tapani didn't pitch 8 innings a game. Anything he says on the subject is null and void because he's in the same boat as all these other "modern pitchers".

They also didn't wear helmets back in the day, and faced several terrible hitters in just about every lineup that they didn't have to bear down for. tonight on WGN, david kaplan talked to Kevin Tapani, and they talked about pitch counts....he said that when he pitched, it was expected of them to make it 8 innings to not let the team down, now a good outing is comsidered 6 innings or so, and you cant say that money has nothing to do with it, i dont care if they wore helmets or not, baseball is big business and the team wants to protect the investment..... Kevin Tapani? I thought all the "we pitched deep every game or we were wimps" talk was revisionist history, this just proves it. Tapani was crap.

That's certainly possible, and he could very well have flamed out because of it. In the Cubs defense, I can't think of any top end pitchers that were abused in one year and had it cost them their career in the last ten years, and nearly all top pitchers are abused at some point if not all the time. I would have thought that month off would have given him time to recover. Name me one 21, 22, 23 year old pitcher that was abused like Prior and didn't suffer any consequences.

And if you take the time to look at the history of pitcher abuse by the Cubs against a very young Prior, you might see some other possibilities. Regardless, I wouldn't feel vindicated because you think you've convinced the masses that Prior is a wimp.

A couple of days ago he hit a fly ball for a double. He trotted towards 1st and watched the ball until it fell, then he sped up and barely made it to 2nd. The annoying thing is that it obviously wasn't going to be a routine catch for the outfielder, yet Aram loafed until he saw the ball drop. I think he got used to loafing on the basepaths last year due to injury, now it's a habit and he does it even when he's healthy. I saw him not run out of the box, thinking it was foul, then sprinting. He's just slow. There's a difference.

Why do we have to shed our like for him? That's absurd. Speaking of facing the facts, did you read my post about the abuse of Prior early in his career? Do you really think he's just a pansy who can't take the pain?