seanimal

But he's a natural shortstop. sorry, someone had to say it.

hitting home runs isn't about how hard you swing Not entirely, but to blanket-statement like that is, I dunno, makes no sense. How hard you swing has a lot to do with how far you can hit the ball. That's pretty obvious. Certainly, the angle of the ball off the bat and the speed at which it is thrown come into play and factor highly in the outcome of a batted ball, but if you don't put enough momentum into the swing then you're not going to hit it very far.

Just curious. How exactly would a hitting coach teach a hitter to swing less hard? Cause yeah, I don't think that happens. Perhaps he's leveled out some swings here and there, but I don't really see how that takes away anyone's power.

I've received with some serious tongue lashings from my fellow Cubs fan friends for expressing these very same sentiments as Derwood. Of course my emotional junkie/typical sports fan self wants to see my team win and succeed now, outside of the consequences beyond the now. However, when I'm sitting here processing the information in front of me, I want them to lose miserably. Seems counterintuitive to the passive fan, but it really isn't.

The only thing I'm worried about right now is my blood pressure.

That was so awesome. So, so, so awesome. Today is going to be a good day.

i think its half joking, but both definitely are large bodied hitters, and if its okay to accuse Sosa with no evidence why not return the favor Really. No evidence? None whatsoever. Ok. In 1997, over the course of 642 at-bats, he hit 36 HR's. In 1998, over the course of 643 at-bats, he hit 66 HR's. So, in one year, Sammy Sosa increased his HR total by 83%. This is not natural. I'm a Sosa homer as much as the next guy but, face the facts. People who also did steroids: Roger Maris(39 to 61) Babe Ruth(29 to 54) Lou Gehrig(16 to 47!!!) I can't think of many worse ways to determine steroid use than looking at the increase in HRs from one single season to the next. It's not just one single season. Sammy went from being a mid-30's in homerun range for his career to hitting 50+ for four years, three of those being 60+. Roger Maris had one year where he was out of the norm. Babe Ruth is Babe Ruth. Lou Gehrig was sort of all over the place as far as homerun totals go. None of these comparisons are valid. Explain away all you want. The dude was on something. The sad part is that people somehow equate the usage of performance enhancers with vaguely taking away from accomplishments. This is not the case. Like I said, I enjoy Sosa, but to hear/see/speak no evil is incredibly foolish. It is what it is, nothing more, nothing less.

i think its half joking, but both definitely are large bodied hitters, and if its okay to accuse Sosa with no evidence why not return the favor Really. No evidence? None whatsoever. Ok. In 1997, over the course of 642 at-bats, he hit 36 HR's. In 1998, over the course of 643 at-bats, he hit 66 HR's. So, in one year, Sammy Sosa increased his HR total by 83%. This is not natural. I'm a Sosa homer as much as the next guy but, face the facts.

Well this thread should put an end to the debate as to whether or not there are a bunch of 'sabermetric drones' on this board. lol @ ERA.

Oh, yes! This is the best news ever.

I'm actually pretty sure they won't. What could and should happen is Ankiel will get more playing time and hopefully get exposed for the free-swinger that he is. What's with all these posts that say "i'm sure something absurd will happen because it's the cardinals and they have awesome luck". It's pretty lame and tired at this point. Throughout the years the Cardinals have had good teams with good players. Attempting to explain away their success by citing luck is as silly as attempting to explain away the Cubs lack of success by citing bad luck. Luck has very, very little to do with anything. That maybe. But admit that Womack is luck. Nay! What is usually perceived as luck is Tony LaRussa's ability to strategize and provide his players with the best chance for success. It's not like Womack did anything extraordinary in his time there. Played above his head at times? Sure. Happens with a lot of sub-par players. Lucky? Doubt it. Nah, I think Womack was way, way above his career bests in his one year there. Then the next year went right back to being terrible at baseball. This is the definition of luck, no?? ... or performance enhancing drugs. Just sayin'.

Pujols has been playing through immense amounts of pain throughout his career. The guy is a beast. Nothing more, nothing less.

I'm actually pretty sure they won't. What could and should happen is Ankiel will get more playing time and hopefully get exposed for the free-swinger that he is. What's with all these posts that say "i'm sure something absurd will happen because it's the cardinals and they have awesome luck". It's pretty lame and tired at this point. Throughout the years the Cardinals have had good teams with good players. Attempting to explain away their success by citing luck is as silly as attempting to explain away the Cubs lack of success by citing bad luck. Luck has very, very little to do with anything. That maybe. But admit that Womack is luck. Nay! What is usually perceived as luck is Tony LaRussa's ability to strategize and provide his players with the best chance for success. It's not like Womack did anything extraordinary in his time there. Played above his head at times? Sure. Happens with a lot of sub-par players. Lucky? Doubt it.

Jim Edmonds. Boy do I hate that guy. Pujols is awesome, no hate there. Good for a laugh now and again, but other than that, I don't really have any ill-will towards him. and, Ankiel, not even close? Ankiel's story is pretty amazing and all but I don't think it's the reason the Cards have improved. If they win the division, it will be solely because the Cubs couldn't get it done, not because Ankiel came up and hit for power. He's contributed, certainly. But he's not the reason. Edit: I was [this] close to choosing Braden Looper simply because I hate looking at his ugly mug.

Corey Hart, hands down. Ryan Braun is an awesome player. I can't hate awesome players, even if they are named Pujols or Bonds. But boy do I hate Corey Hart.

There's a thread on this in Rivalries already.

I'm actually pretty sure they won't. What could and should happen is Ankiel will get more playing time and hopefully get exposed for the free-swinger that he is. What's with all these posts that say "i'm sure something absurd will happen because it's the cardinals and they have awesome luck". It's pretty lame and tired at this point. Throughout the years the Cardinals have had good teams with good players. Attempting to explain away their success by citing luck is as silly as attempting to explain away the Cubs lack of success by citing bad luck. Luck has very, very little to do with anything.

That's not true at all. People on here were calling for Marmol to eventually be moved to the bullpen. The Cubs organization during the winter said that Marmol was their future closer. There was significant question both last year and in the offseason about which way Marmol's future would go. I was speaking to the organization's view, so what people here thought has little relevance. However, I don't remember the organization stating that he was the future closer that early on. The first I had heard it mentioned was early on in the season. That being said, my memory isn't the greatest, so I'll take your word for it. Like Rob said, it remains to be seen what would happen with him vs. hitters the 2nd and 3rd time through, but you gotta think that someone with his level of dominance should be given a shot in the rotation if the situation allows. I'd prefer it to be a true commitment, rather than a half-assed look then a knee-jerk pull at the first sign of trouble.

When I was out last night they kept showing the replay over and over. Brutal. I really feel bad for the guy and hopefully he can come back and play, but situations like this don't usually lend themselves to a guy just picking up where he left off.

Santana is a pretty bad comparison for this. He was in the bullpen originally so he could hide in the majors after being picked in the Rule V draft. There really wasn't any question that his future was in the rotation. Previous to this year there was no question that Marmol's future was in the rotation... People tend to overemphasize bullpen "roles". If you're asking me whether we should have Marmol throw 90 innings a season or 200, I gotta go with 200. That being said, wanting him to throw 200 innings and him actually doing it are two very different things. But if he comes out of this season with his arm intact, he should be given a chance if we see an injury derail one of our other starters.

As long as Aramis Ramirez is our most productive offensive player I will always consider him the the MVP. But really, there are a lot of guys on the Cubs that if you take them out this team isn't performing at this level. FWIW, Beyond the Box Score identified Marmol as one of the best non-closer relievers in baseball this year.

You and like 30 million rednecks.

Yes, this. It's not necessarily that the Cardinals worry me, it's that the Cubs worry me. It's nice that we have a pitching staff that we can really lean on, however, we're going to have to begin scoring more runs or we're in big trouble. I know, I know, groundbreaking stuff.

Or have them in the booth but let Ronny or Len sing the stretch.

Ann Ladd may agree with you. Haha, yeah. Well my incident wasn't quite as serious. I just remember being about 14 years old or so and Uecker refusing to sign autographs for little kids and just really being kinda mean. No big deal I guess, I just thought it was odd that an announcer couldn't take 2 minutes for the 5 people who knew who he was. Maybe it was a bad day. Interesting. That's almost opposite the experience that I had, in terms of his attitude. Though I didn't ask him for an autograph (not really my thing, I have like two of them, one being of Scott Servais (lol)), he was rather engaging and took time out to talk to me. Too bad about your experience, I wonder which of ours is more emblematic of his attitude overall.