BigSlick

Bah, it was a meaningless homerun as the Cubs already had the lead. Jacque = not clutch. :twisted: Trade him for Dunn. A team with Jones, Dunn, and Arod as the heart of the order wouldn't win games because none of those guys hit when it counts. Can't be any worse then the Cubs as currently assembled. I'm not sure if you guys are being sarcastic when talking about whether Jones is clutch. I seem to remember about 2-3 games where a Jock hit was clutch... I'm totally being sarcastic. a) I don't believe in guys being able to "bear down more" in clutch situations like Brenly does. b) Jones has hit better with RISP than just about everybody else on the team. I think you'll find, with nearly any team, the player with the highest BA tends to have the highest BA with RISP. And its no coincidence. :roll: Except that's not true. A quick look at the NL central shows that only 2 out of 6 teams have the player with the highest batting average with the highest average with RISP (with a certain mininum of at bats to take pitchers and bench players out). I bet you could find that is probably true around the league. For example, Barrett is hitting .307 and Jones only .287 normally, but Jones is batting the best on the team with RISP-.288. Then comes Ramirez, Walker, Cedeno, and Neifi before you get to Barrett! Would you like to back up your statement? uh uh uh uh sample size *ducks*

Uhhh, I think we all were Not that he hit it, but he hit it so hard! He covered his body up. BTW, where teh heck is Ensberg?

Bah, it was a meaningless homerun as the Cubs already had the lead. Jacque = not clutch. :twisted: Trade him for Dunn. A team with Jones, Dunn, and Arod as the heart of the order wouldn't win games because none of those guys hit when it counts. Can't be any worse then the Cubs as currently assembled. I'm not sure if you guys are being sarcastic when talking about whether Jones is clutch. I seem to remember about 2-3 games where a Jock hit was clutch... I'm totally being sarcastic. a) I don't believe in guys being able to "bear down more" in clutch situations like Brenly does. b) Jones has hit better with RISP than just about everybody else on the team. I think you'll find, with nearly any team, the player with the highest BA tends to have the highest BA with RISP. And its no coincidence. :roll:

Podsednik's is particularly alarming, because this guy is actually taking walks and stealing bases. Instead of what we got in centerfield, with a similar average, and waaaaay worse OBP. podsednik has lost his fear of the strikeout, apparently and is walking at an unprecedented clip, i wish our leadoff hitter weren't afraid to strikeout. Isn't it unusual for a player this late in his career to develop a completely differnet approach to the plate? I wish we had the White Sox hitting coaches... :(

Podsednik's is particularly alarming, because this guy is actually taking walks and stealing bases. Instead of what we got in centerfield, with a similar average, and waaaaay worse OBP.

I'm glad they did it. 3 divisions makes a lot more sense with as many teams as the NL has.

When all other things are equal, you take the guy who has the advantage in the one area that is not. I realize this, but how much more valuable is the player with the higher average? I realize a single more than likely drives in a run then a walk...but again....I want to know how valuable that hit is.

This is a slightly off-topic question, but if any of you amateur sabermetricians know the answer, I'd like to know. Say you got two players with identical OBP's I'll take an arbitrary number and say .380 Now lets say one of the player's batting average is .270, and the other's batting average is .330 How much (if at all) more valuable is the player with the higher batting average? Now I know you gotta factor in slugging (lets say they have the same slugging, but that would imply that the hitter batting .270 gets more XBH) here, but how much more productive is a hit than a walk when we are talking about players?

Aren't 2 of the tools being able to hit for average and hit for power?

That's basically what the Cubs have right now. A bunch of guys that don't strike out that much. Neifi Perez rarely strikes out. The Reds have K'd 140 more times than the Cubs, and I'll take their offense over the Cubs all day long. Preach it brutha! True, but Gwynn and Grace could rake. We don't have any hitters of that caliber. I would say that striking out looking is better than striking out swinging, but thats a whole other argument. The point is, being patient > being aggressive almost always. And one part of being a patient hitter may have the side effect of higher K's....but a higher BABIP perhaps?

Yeah but they dont have to takeout anyone as good as Konerko to put Ortiz in. Somewhere, hiding under a rock Kevin Youkilis is crying.

I kind of liked it tonight! :-) Let's see what happens tomorrow. Why panic. You're still in first place? :-) :-) :ducks: Yay, Duke got a win despite a 9.00 ERA. I'm happy.

but everyone knows those 3 are awesome. plus dunn's personality is a+ He shaved his soul patch. I don't know if thats good or bad. BTW, Bay sucks. I hate him and I hate his stupid face.

It makes me sad to see much pain in this man's heart.

That's basically what the Cubs have right now. A bunch of guys that don't strike out that much. Neifi Perez rarely strikes out. The Reds have K'd 140 more times than the Cubs, and I'll take their offense over the Cubs all day long. Preach it brutha!

In order to be a good hitter, one has to be unafraid of striking out. The hitter must be able to take marginal pitches and work the count. Thats why strike outs are overrated. Too often are they looked at as a huge negative in the evaluation a player, while certain players (Giambi, Dunn, etc.) strike out often but are incredibly useful players.

Adam Dunn follows itup with a 3 run homer today, w00t! I love this guy.

Well, any .400 OBP guy walks often, that's part of what's behind the whole idea. So I'm not sure where you're going with this... :-k I think he means Ted Williams. I mean, thats the only way to get to .400 OBP without ever walking. Ever. Ah, the Ted Williams with a lifetime .344 AVG and lifetime .482 OBP that never walked. Think about that. Lifetime .482 OBP. That's just insane. He was a great hitter and didn't seem to mind taking the base if the pitcher didn't want to throw strikes. He averaged over a 100 walks a season also. Even though he only averaged 120 games played per season. I'm just saying, the only way a player to ever reach a .400 OBP would be a ridiculously talented hitter like Williams... Except for Williams to be such a great hitter he had to patient and take a lot of walks... Its sort of like circular logic. It would be impossible for a hitter to reach .400 OBP without walking because pitchers would eventually be forced to walk him. That, and in most cases, good hitting is being patient and selective and finding good pitches to hit...which means more walks.

But this isn't going to happen... right?

Well, any .400 OBP guy walks often, that's part of what's behind the whole idea. So I'm not sure where you're going with this... :-k I think he means Ted Williams. I mean, thats the only way to get to .400 OBP without ever walking. Ever.

Heh, i'm already ahead of you there buddy.

To further emphasize the point of how insignificant the K total is compared to the OBP, I'd take a guy with a .400 OBP and 200K's over a guy with a .380 (just throwing a number out there) OBP and 100K's. A hitter would never be able to sustain a .400 OBP and strikeout 200 times, his BABIP would be so insanely high I'd be very surprised if it ever happened. An average player will get between 500-600AB's per year so if he's striking out 1/2-1/3 of the time he'd have to have around 200 hits a year to maintain that OBP assuming that he doesn't walk or get walked very often. You realize that Adam Dunn routinely does what you think is impossible? 2002 Cincinnati Reds MLB 22 Cin MLB 158 535 84 133 28 2 26 71 19 9 128 170 9 13 1 3 8 .249 .400 .454 854 2003 Cincinnati Reds MLB 23 Cin MLB 116 381 70 82 12 1 27 57 8 2 74 126 10 8 0 4 4 .215 .354 .465 819 2004 Cincinnati Reds MLB 24 Cin MLB 161 568 105 151 34 0 46 102 6 1 108 195 5 11 0 0 8 .266 .388 .569 957 2005 Cincinnati Reds MLB 25 Cin MLB 160 543 107 134 35 2 40 101 4 2 114 168 12 14 0 2 6 .247 .387 .540 927 .388 OBP and 195 strikes out in 2004. Certainly not far enough from .400 and 200.

We start every game with 2 outs in the bottom of the first. Its quite ridiculous.

Yea, thats not full of bias at all. :lol:

Lame, you guys had a great chance to put the series away, now we might have a series with a re-awakened Shaq. I wish the Heat would just go away. :cry: