JakeSlater

Thing is, the White Sox didn't exactly win the World Series with a world beating owner. Our ownership is absolutely horrible, but I don't want to wait 3-4 years for Cuban to come around. If we're going to win, we're probably going to have to hope for the teams we get to do it themselves.

And Henry Blanco for 10 games. I just threw up a little bit. One good thing about Blanco is that we'll probably have an infinite amount more pick offs and throwing people out at second. That will help. Still stinks that he can't hit at all though. And I'm not listening to sabermatricians, Dayn Perry's, and garbage like that. Only stat I care about is W's at this point, and we need them.

Hendry and Co. aren't being asked to build a world-wide empire. Neifi handles the bat well? He sucks with the bat and his defense is overrated. He brings nothing to the team. Womack is 36 and has sucked the vast majority of his career. Just because he is no worse than what we have doesn't mean he's any good, or that fans should except him with open arms. That's similar to all the people who say fans who are pissed at the record under Hendry/Baker should be happy it's not as bad as other Cubs teams (although the current record is certainly making that ridiculous argument even more pointless). He's a crappy baseball player on a crappy baseball team put together by crappy management. He's as eligible for bashing as anybody else. Brings nothing to the table? How about the fact that he has gotten a few big basehits over the past year and a half.........clutch ones in fact........and he's not even the greatest hitter. How about the fact that he can play 3 positions solidly in the infield, and back us up as a catcher if need be, even if he's only done it once.? He shouldn't be our starter by ANY stretch, and he shouldn't play a bunch, but to say he brings nothing to the table is a very shallow thing to say.

I"m trying not to get my hopes up, and crossing my fingers that he doesn't get hurt again. He'll be back on the DL by July. Not if he keeps pitching like he did yesterday. 85 pitches in 6 innings, 4 Ks, ahead of counts, not throwing across his body. Heck, the game I went to in 2003, he had 141 pitches in 6 innings. I knew if he was careful, he'd be fine. Ks will come to a guy like him. Just has to stop trying to strike everyone out. You're probably right. Just watch the Cubs go on a little run.. Get fans hopes up a little and then Wood gets hurt.. again.

:lol: Here's a great quote too: I think he was also saying that "Please KC, stop sending messages asking me to buy your team. I love the town, but it's not for me". That's a sad state of affairs for a franchise when Cuban wants no part of you.

Couldn't agree more. Of all seasons to get your staff healthy it's this one. Why not allow them to take the time and gear up for next season. Maybe win some games this year and gain some confidence. It was good to see Woody go out there and be smooth for the win. Get the other players not to force things and this team might climb out of the horror that is May. Getting back to .500 is not an impossible goal. It should be the goal for this team. That and getting healthy. There's always trying to go for .500 before the break too. Not saying it'll happen, and I'm not saying we're winning anything. I just refuse to play the "gear up for next year" game. I want to see us go on a hot streak.

Thing is, I don't mind Womack in small doses. Beats Neifi starting. Not a bad pickup for Hendry. He's a top of the order guy with speed. And there's no way Neifi will go, and that's not because of this so called Dusty favortism. He plays 2nd, short, 3rd, and can emergency catch. Plus he played a little outfield in the American League, IIRC. Not a great player by anyone's standards, but it gives Baker some options when players get injured, or a double switch in a blowout. Thing is, the Womack option is good as long as Lee's out. After that, we need to get back to normal. I just hope Walker doesn't forget how to play second.

Why? I don't find it bad news unless they use him in the rotation. And as long as he can throw more than a fastball.

This is unacceptable!!!!!!!!!!! We all know Jacque Jones has been struggling, and making stupid mistakes. No excuse for any of them. But for some trashy redneck to throw something at him from the stands was unacceptable, dangerous, and out of line! It's time some of these people try to make their own successes and quit leaning on these players to do it for them! That irritates me to no end! We're all mad at Jacque's play, but HE'S STILL HUMAN!

That's like saying a thief must be credited for all those times he decided not to steal. A manager at the major league level is expected to make good moves---even the *right* move, if you will---all the time. We can credit Dusty for his good moves if we want, but the bottom line is, he isn't making enough of them. Not for this level of baseball. This thread started out as a comparison between Dusty and Tony, so I will fall back once again on that comparison. Tony makes a higher percentage of good moves than Dusty does. Boy, Tony makes some inane moves himself though. He's not much better at handling a pitching staff, that's for sure. Plus some of his late inning moves in close games leave questions to be answered.

And it very well could've been Patterson handicapping both Neifi and Hairston at the top, who knows. With Neifi and Corey at 1-2, the combo hit .240, which means Neifi HAD to have hit somewhere in the .290-.300 range for that to happen. I'm scared for Hairston to be #2 because he was terrible at it last year. Problem is that Dusty can be blamed for stupidity, but he has to be lauded for good moves too. You cannot have the cake and eat it too. Dusty makes good moves too, no matter what bashers say.

And if you don't like Dusty, I'm more than cool with that. He has supporters and he has haters, like any other manager. But for most people to say he's a horrible manager with no redeeming qualities whatsoever, especially with his career record, is flat out blind hatred in the nth degree. I'm sorry, there is absolutely no such thing as winning DESPITE a manager. Dumbest thing I've ever heard. And the Patterson/Neifi experiment wasn't the dumbest move by Dusty. They hit like .240 with those two at 1-2, with Neifi being the majority of that .240, and went 16-16 with those two at 1-2. The dumbest dumbest dumbest 1-2 was Hairston/Patterson. Cubs went 1-11 and hit .140 with those two at 1-2.

Man, playing the percentages can blow up in your face too, especially if done too much. It was Larry Walker, not Jim Edmonds. But I know what you are saying. Thing is, if we had a Bob Howry type pitcher or a Scott Eyre, it'd be a little easier to figure out who would face Walker. But it wasn't, so you pick who you think is the best. No reliever was really that awesome out of the pen last year, so Walker might've crushed any of them. Doesn't make Dusty's move anymore right, just makes it done. I was screaming when he tried Neifi/Macias once too. I hated Macias. But at least he only tried it once, and I'd say it was experimenting because he was trying to find the right formula. I KNEW it wasn't right, but won't fault him for trying. If we could keep our guys healthy, we don't see stupid calls like that. Dusty Baker did not have that good of teams until 2002, so don't give me that. He had Barry Bonds, Jeff Kent, and a bunch of misfits till 2002. He won with teams that had no business winning. That was partly his managing right there.

Every manager is proud to learn from his mistakes because they all make them. That book went into some of Tony's mistakes in great detail. Thing about Dusty is that he manages like he played. Full out, full blast, run into a wall, no matter what, gut instinctual baseball. He does want great defensive fundamentals, and his teams played with great fundamentals till last year. His hitting approach was aggressive and he wants his teams to be. But with that kind of style, mistakes will be made. He's not Duncan and LaRussa....he doesn't have little notecards with all the stats of every player around. That kind of managing is great too, but it can be overmanaging if not careful. Baker's managing style can be overmanaging too because it can cause problems with matchups, like using Remlinger against certain lefties.

Dusty takes old hitters from scrap heaps and helps make them better. TLR does it with the pitchers. They have a lot in common in a lot of ways.

Thing is, your idea of stupid is ridiculous because you call Dusty on judgment calls time in and time out, meaning that you don't have a clue if YOUR idea would work any better. Those calls don't make a manager stupid, they make a manager a manager.

Guarantee that there isn't one manager or player in MLB that thinks like you do. Dusty's far from stupid, and has been around for going on 39 years. Guarantee he'd blow you away with baseball knowledge.

Innings are totally irrelevant -- it's the number of pitches that counts. Maddux can get through nine innings with 80 or fewer pitches, while you'll rarely see Prior or Wood hit the late innings and still be under 110 pitches. Yeah, but last couple years, we didn't exactly have a lot of horses from the pen to replace the starters. This year, we have them. Let's see how thisis works out.

And the year before, Dusty's Giants had a seemingly insurmountable 5-0 lead and he let it to the bullpen early. Look what happened there. I am not saying it's right or wrong, because I'd say he left Mark in too long. I'm saying that I see his point. When he says "you never know", he had experience.

Also, Tony is great with young players, no question about it.....he develops them about as well as any manager in baseball. Lots of patience. Read how he felt about Kerry Robinson though......couldn't stand him. This is really Dusty's first true year of having real star quality young players. He has tried using young guys in the lineup, like Jason Dubois for instance, and it ends up not working. He has used the veterans because the majority of them have NOT failed in his career, and in fact, his whole career has been known for reenergizing dead careers of old guys. Hollandsworth was a REAL big exception last year with his .220 average. Neifi definitely is not an example because his career was pretty much rejuvenated, regardless of how people felt about him.

Thing about "running pitchers into the ground" is a little over the top, description wise. One quote in the book stated that Dusty's from the school of "the idea of a pitch count was seeing if the guy's arm was connected to his shoulder". He played longer than Tony, and at a higher level too. He sees young arms and wants them to earn their keep. Say what people want about Dusty using them too much in 2003, but we don't get near that far if he doesn't. My big fault with Tony is that he and Duncan get WAY WAY WAY too by the book on things. Same with Dusty and Larry being WAY WAY WAY too by the gut on things. Each manager has a strength, being that Tony is a slick type of general that does it all by the book, and knows everything word by word. Dusty knows the game very well, but he also has these inhuman instincts that seems to know the right matchups at the right times. Difference is that you need the combination of the book and good instincts. Dusty and Larry are too instinctual, Tony and Dave are too by the book. Both are awesome, both are a fault. It happens that way.

Here's the thing........ I read "3 nights in August" this week and could not put the book down. Really gets into the head of LaRussa, and even Baker at times too. You get to see who he loves, the players he hated(Kerry Robinson), and all that stuff. I recommend it for anyone that hasn't read it. For the ones that HAVE read it, I'd like to have this little debate with ya. With some people here who want to bash Dusty, and give credit to LaRussa, I want to know why. Those two have a TON of the same baseball philosophy, it's not even a joke. A lot of the stuff people crucify Dusty for, Tony does in spades, and maybe even more than Dusty. I just want to get into some heads here without calling Dusty an idiot or whatever. See what people think overall.

I did notice that most writers did not make a big deal of the quote. But I've feared for quite some time that Ronny will be on an incredibly short leash. And while it's true that most teams operate this way, that doesn't make it a sound practice. So it doesn't take much to start worrying. Ronny has to be given a chance to fail, and fail badly, then get the chance to play through it and rebound before being replaced by such dead weight as Neifi. Neifi guarantees ONLY a .300 OBP? That was ONE YEAR! Worst OBP in his career. He could have a .330-.340 year for all we know. And that guy is FAR from dead weight, man. Neifi's best non-Colorado OBP is 298. Neifi's career OBP even with more than half his career with the Rockies is 301. You keep saying non-Colorado. It still needs to be said that Colorado is STILL a major league club, even if it is barely. We don't even know if Ronny's going to get replaced. All he has to do is PLAY WELL, PERIOD! Cedeno made his own bed there, and this is HIS fault! I won't blame Dusty an ounce if he HAS to replace him. And the way you guys hate on Neifi like he hit .200 last year is ridiculous. He hit .274! And by the way, April and June were good months, not just June. Some people here say Dusty has this fetish for old guys. I don't think that's anymore ridiculous than some of the people on message boards' fetish for young guys, especially ones that may not be able to play. Murton has showed he can play, Marshall has showed he can play. They made it fair and square. Cedeno had this job locked up and killed his chance by getting more uptight than most message board fans after Dusty doesn't do what THEY want.

I did notice that most writers did not make a big deal of the quote. But I've feared for quite some time that Ronny will be on an incredibly short leash. And while it's true that most teams operate this way, that doesn't make it a sound practice. So it doesn't take much to start worrying. Ronny has to be given a chance to fail, and fail badly, then get the chance to play through it and rebound before being replaced by such dead weight as Neifi. Neifi guarantees ONLY a .300 OBP? That was ONE YEAR! Worst OBP in his career. He could have a .330-.340 year for all we know. And that guy is FAR from dead weight, man.

And you are an idiot. PERIOD! I will absolutely NOT blame Dusty Baker for this if it happens. That man gave all the opportunities in the world to Ronny Cedeno. He fricking GAVE him the job outright, and told him to relax. What does Ronny do? He lays eggs at the plate and commits 4 errors in the field in the spring! He doesn't deserve the job if he's going to commit errors like that. I want Ronny to succeed badly. Awesome skills, and a lot of potential. But I want to win too. And let's just get this straight now. NEIFI. PEREZ. IS. NOT. THAT. BAD! Now shut up and learn a little bit about baseball. That's an interesting way to make a first impression. This is your first warning. NSBB has a longstanding policy of debate and open discussion. That said, feel free to attack someone's post, but not the poster. If you disagree with what someone has to say, argue the point. Do not insult other posters. Do not call them names. Do not tell them to shut up and learn a little bit about baseball. Please click on the link in my sig and read the board's posting guidelines. Haha, anyone that knows me knows that I've made more impressions than the Hollywood walk of fame. That's far from a first impression. But I do respect your wishes and will tone it down even more.