goonys evil twin

How can you have such an opinion when he had nothing to sell. It was clearly a strike. Why would a catcher try to sell the fact that he caught the ball when all he'd have to do if he didn't catch the ball, or thought it was close enough to justify "selling" something, is tag the runner. There was nothing to sell. It was already called. A catchers job is to sell he caught the ball and it didn't hit the dirt. You can not tell me it wasn't close and thus Paul acting like it was a no doubt strike took off. IMO, it's Pauls job to tag the runner just to make sure there is no doubt about it. Paul also rolled the ball INFRONT of AJP so how could the ump give him the out sign before he rolled the ball? Watch it again because Paul rolled the ball BEFORE the out signal. No, he didn't. You're about the only person here who thinks so, and probably the only non Southsider who thinks so.

Unfortunately I think you're right. But Hendry could easily afford a 3/30 deal with one of the studs, and still have plenty of money to spend on improving the woeful OF offense.

Dempsters career K/9 is 7.40 Hawkins career K/9 is 6.06 Dempster's career G/F is 1.26 Hawkins career G/F is 1.16 Dempster's career BB/9 is 4.72. Hawkins' career BB/9 is 2.72. You don't have to make a comparison to Hawkins to describe Dempster as somebody who walks the tight rope. The guy walks too many people, and that didn't change when he went to the bullpen. hawkins has primarily been used in the bullpen over the course of his career whereas dempster has been used as a starter, so your comparison should be weighted somehow. last season, when used primarily out of the bullpen, dempster got around 2.5 times more groundballs than hawkins, and struck out around 2 more hitters per 9 innings. dempster's numbers make me more than comfortable with him as the closer. I don't think you want to do that. Hawkins numbers were much better as a reliever than as a starter. I kept in his starting numbers, which were more than half his career stats, when comparing the two. Take out his starting time and Hawkin's K/9 goes up to about 7.5+ and his K/BB is about 4.5. I didn't want to unfairly disparage Dempster anymore than need be. Besides, it all counts.

How can you have such an opinion when he had nothing to sell. It was clearly a strike. Why would a catcher try to sell the fact that he caught the ball when all he'd have to do if he didn't catch the ball, or thought it was close enough to justify "selling" something, is tag the runner. There was nothing to sell. It was already called.

I've seen it, and that is definitely not the case. The ump called him out, paul rolled (and didn't sprint anywhere), then AJ ran, the ump froze, looked confused as hell, then panicked and didn't know what to do, then just stood around like an indignant idiot defending his ineptitude.

Can you prove this to be right? Also, how do you know when he's rattled he doesn't change his mechanics a little bit to flatten out his pitches? To hit a gland slam of of him 3 other guys had to have gotten on, how did they get there? Well, in the case of Sunday, the pitcher before him let two runners reach and Kyle walked the third guy. How do I know he doesn't flatten out his pitches? How could he flatten out his pitches when just about everything he throws is flat? I think the people who are throwing out the accusations need to prove their side of the story.

I went home for lunch and watched ESPNEWS and they discussed it. They said that essentially the umpire balked on the call and he deceived the players for the Angels. So they assumed it was an out when it wasn't. I don't deny that the ump screwed up but the Angels are not without fault in this. I don't like this line of thinking. It works to excuse the initial mistake that caused all the trouble. The Angels "mistake" was only a "mistake" because the ump screwed up. That's like saying a driver is at fault when an oncoming car is heading straight at them, and he swerves to avoid the head on collision, then ticketing that driver for changing lanes without signaling. The Angels did nothing wrong. They just failed to make up for the ump's huge blunder.

I don't know for sure that all those guys thought it but the one that mattered didn't. The ump that called him out thought he called him out. It wasn't until after AJ ran that he thought maybe he didn't call him out.

This is old news. viewtopic.php?t=25465&highlight=stock Please note the date of the original post. I remember the topic was brought up, and after TRB had their conference call today I figured I'd just bump the old thread instead of start a new one.

Dempsters career K/9 is 7.40 Hawkins career K/9 is 6.06 Dempster's career G/F is 1.26 Hawkins career G/F is 1.16 Dempster's career BB/9 is 4.72. Hawkins' career BB/9 is 2.72. You don't have to make a comparison to Hawkins to describe Dempster as somebody who walks the tight rope. The guy walks too many people, and that didn't change when he went to the bullpen. I was probably the biggest advocate of Dempster becoming the closer last offseason. I started the Dempster/Isringhausen comparison, and I think it still holds up. But there is nothing wrong with being concerned about his ability to close successfully 4 straight years. I think the Cubs still need to look into acquiring a more dominant bullpen arm, whether that guy is a closer like Wagner or Ryan, or a middle innings guy.

I think that's the key. When he gets hit, he gets hit hard. It's not a blooper to shallow right that kills him. But I think that's the nature of being a straight 100mph thrower with location issues. When he's dominant, he's as dominant as anybody in baseball. But, because he doesn't have great movement or location (which is why he was moved from the rotation to bullpen), he can't fudge his way out of a jam. He has to blow guys away to be successful. And for the most part, he can do that. But when he misses, it's likely to be a walk or a HR, the two worst things a reliever can give up. Perception is the reason why people say he can't "clutch up", not reality. He can be great or terrible in a meaningless game or a huge game. I don't think it has anything to do with how he reacts, rather with the unstable nature of his pitching ability.

I'm not an investment banker, and I don't play one on tv. And I didn't even stay in a Holiday Inn Express last night. If the buyer got the Cubs, as well as their stake in CSN, I would think they'd be about $750-900 million. The stadium isn't all that valuable, but the expected revenue stream from continued attendance sure as heck is. If that happened, I could see Andy MacPhail moving on to a DC ownership group. He'd be the perfect point man for any money man who lacks baseball knowledge. Maybe the Trib would want to pull a Lurie and sell one team only to buy another.

I don't mean to sound glib, but that's exactly how people felt about JoBo. Dempster has more chance of repeating his performance, but JoBo is the perfect example of what looking at only the end result can do. Actually, JoBo had been a great relief pitcher for two consecutive years. He had a k/9 of 9.13 and 8.69, a k/bb of 3.35 and 3.47, OPS against of 678 and 554, AVG against of .239 and .207, and ERA of 2.73 and 2.63. Ryan was k/9 8.18, k/bb 1.96 and ERA 1.85. I couldn't find his OPS against just as a reliever, but overall it was 663. Opponents hit .218. I think that Joe, coming off two consecutive seasons of great relief performance, had at least as good a chance as Ryan does to "repeat" his performance in 2004. Borowski's numbers were better and he did it longer.

For all the "sell to Mark Cuban" people out there, here's some fuel to add to your fire. By Joseph T. Hallinan Of THE WALL STREET JOURNAL CHICAGO (Dow Jones)--Shares of Chicago-based Tribune Co. (TRB) jumped in early trading Thursday after the company said it was considering selling or swapping certain of its assets. "It wouldn't make a lot of sense for us to get specific right now, but believe me, we're looking at the portfolio," said Chairman and Chief Executive Dennis FitzSimons during a conference call with analysts to discuss the company's third-quarter earnings. Shares of the company, which have been depressed lately, were up 79 cents, or 2.5%, to $32.60 in midday trading on the New York Stock Exchange. Tribune, which owns newspapers, television stations and the Chicago Cubs professional baseball team, said net income for the quarter fell 80%, to $24 million, or 7 cents a share, from $121.7 million, or 37 cents a share. Revenue was down less than 1%, to $1.4 billion.

In all the games you played when you could run on a 3rd strike what did the ump do? He usually pumps that arm for the 3rd strike but often doesn't call it an out until the play is over. Look at tapes of umps when this happens...look at the earlier AB when it happened. I think the most obvious thing to give away the umps mistake was his reaction to AJ running. He momentarily freaked out. His body almost spasmed as he tried to figure out what was happening. Umps know the game, when they know the call they've made they react appropriately. When a guy slides to home, isn't tagged but misses the plate, the ump is rather obvious in the way he isn't indicating out or safe. This ump looked completely confused that AJ was going to first, almost as if he felt like he might have missed a drop ball that only AJ saw.

I, for one, am not. I've said multiple times that he isn't great. He's put together some fantastic seasons, and he's capable of putting together a great career. But he's got drawbacks. He's not a rubber arm. He's not a great 2 inning reliever. He's a great option to have in the pen, but you have to use him carefully and smartly. You really have to monitor him and stick to the gameplan.

I hate the "bad calls are part of the game" theory. They shouldn't be. They don't have to be. If these guys were any good they wouldn't be.

That's the worst thing I've ever seen. Why did you do it? Ow, my eyes hurt.

It would have saved the umps a lot of grief. competence also could have saved the umps a lot of grief.

It looked to me that the other ump said he couldn't see what happened for sure and thus making it Eddings call. Who is the crew chief for this group? Enrico Polatzo.

I'm definitely not a Dusty supporter and I completely agree that he has absolutely no clue how to manage a pitching staff but I have to disagree with the abuse he takes over the way Prior and Wood were used in 2003. As the season unfolded, the Cubs had a legitimate shot at winning the division and playing deep into October in '03. The only way they were going to do that was by riding Wood and Prior as far as they would take them. The MLB playoffs are the toughest to qualify for in professional sports, you have to suriving the longest grind of a regular season just to get there and you aren't guaranteed sucess from year to year. When you have a shot you have to do everything possible to get there because you don't know when that chance will come again. If Baker had put those two on pitch counts and pulled them from games that the Cubs wound up losing and it kept them out of the playoffs, Baker would have been crucified for it in Chicago. "95 years without a World Series and he wants to play it safe?" would have been the cry. Other than keeping Prior in the game against the Braves when he ran into Giles, I can't get worked up over their usage that year. There's plenty of other stuff to hammer Dusty about. Like moving Wood to the bullpen this year instead of shutting him down immediately, which was completely ridiculous. You're talking about two opposite extremes. It wasn't a matter of putting them on pitch counts. We weren't asking him to pull them after 100 pitches no matter the situation. The problem was 130 pitch outings in extreme heat and humidity. Or keeping the guys in to throw 120 pitches with an 8 run lead. This stuff was repeated over and over. Starters aren't as effective when they are gassed, and these guys clearly got gassed with the high counts, and those extreme outings were followed by lesser outings. A smart manager would find a way to pull the guys in a reasonable fashion. Riding your horses into the ground is never smart, especially when they are young. If you want to run Maddux up to 130 some game, go right ahead, he's got no future. Wood, Prior and Zambrano, however, were supposed to anchor the staff for years, not just that inning when you pushed them above and beyond.

Wow, what a puff piece. I guess we can all expect Pie in Wrigley next year, k/bb be damned.

He's having a rough fall, no? I hope the move to AA doesn't bog him down like it did with his brother. I'd wish the Cubs would be more realistic with these guys and let them progress from level to level. I don't see the point in pushing guys to AA as quickly as possible.

I don't. I think it's completely bogus to play the what if game. Take any team and add back all their lost days from their best players and they should be better. But who knows? Regardless, it's a pointless exercise. It's the same thought process that caused Hendry to completely lay an egg last offseason, and quite frankly it bothers me that so many fans are willing to go the same route, passively excusing the failure as something that could not have been prevented. We heard about the injury talk all season. It's a weak excuse, always has been, always will be. Why can't people get beyond that and admit this wasn't a good team? Erase every single good player's injury and this team might have been good enough to contend for the wild card. Big deal. The Cubs failed guys. They didn't step on a crack and break their mother's back. They didn't spill the salt, assault a goat or insult the Babe. They failed. The GM failed to put together a great team despite a great payroll. The coaches failed to get the most out of the players and the players failed to play well enough to win enough games. Why are people trying to overcomplicate things with excuses and what ifs? The next thing you know they will be trotting out Murton, Wilson, Burnitz in the OF next season, and people will start justifying those moves, just like they justified last year's moves, as the team just needing to be healthy and tweak the roster to contend next season. I may be crazy in thinking that if enough people make enough noise about the Cubs needing to make the right moves, that one of these days they might actually do something right. But when people keep spouting off the company line that it was injuries that prevented glory this season, I get the bad feeling that Dusty's claws are deeper into this organization than I used to think.

put him in the pen