BigSlick

Derrek Lee comes back. Breaks his wrist. He's never the same again. BigSlick shoots himself.

This is an awful big generalization. I'm sure there are just as many "knowledgeable" fans of the Yankees as there are of the Cubs. Big deal! The Cubs are one of the worst teams in baseball, but if I want to wear my Cubs hat, jersey, etc. when I go out in public, I have that right. About the Yankees fans: You don't see rappers wearing Cubs hats regularly.... its always YANKEES YANKEES YANKEES. And the person wearing the cap know NOTHING about the team yet the team wins so "its cool". The Yankees have the biggest bandwagon fanbase of any MLB team. Maybe not all the fans, but a nig amount. Snoop Dogg regularly wears Oakland gear. Actually, this is a bunch of bull, I see a ton of artists wear all kinds of gear, in fact the most popular stuff I've seen recently has been the White Sox black on black hat. Now, I'm not a White Sox fan by any means, but they do have a cool symbol. You have to admit that.

I hate the Red Sox much more than I hate the Yankees.

I like Ken Griffey Jr. I like Adam Dunn. I don't really like anyone else on that team. Comments?

The way the Cobs have been treating Marshall of late, I expect him to throw 8 shut out innings before taking the loss because on an unearned run in the 5th. Cubs lose 1-0.

Except some of those teams are good and probably will be contending at the end of the season.

OK. Your views are vera similar to another person. This person happens to be myself.

I just don't think he juiced. Can't some people have some integrity?

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. Do I know you? No.

THEY DIDN'T EVEN HAVE ENSBERG DSLKAJFL;JKASD;LKFJ;LASKJDF

And gaffes quite as often as we do when trying to turn them. Ugh.

Geez, with two hits today, Walker has probably earned a week on Dusty's bench. yeah, whats that .300 hitter doing upping his avg.? He needs to bunt more and give to the team.

Looks like a great battle. But did anybody notice if he swung at a bunch of balls out of the zone? You hate to lose a batter after a 3-1 count. He swung at 12 out of 16 pitches. I haven't been watching the whole game, but the outside corner hasn't really been there on a lot of pitches, so he probably was swinging at quite a few that would be called balls. However, most were pretty close. One of the pitches around 9 or 10 was definitely outside and there was another that was low, I believe, but aside from those, they were all probably a little too borderline to take. Ironically, the ball he got out on was probably low enough to get him to walk. But something in his face showed he wanted to get the better of Nieve and get a hit. Ah well.

Is Lane wearing a magnet or something? I'm bothered by how many hits he's stolen so far.

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? Small Sample Size. Take a look at most teams' overall OBP and their OBP with RISP and the two numbers are usually quite close. If Jacque Jones or Neifi Perez or Matt Murton had 600 AB with RISP, their numbers would be pretty close to their overall numbers. Oh thank you, i'm giving you a hug the next time i see you.

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?