Mephistopheles

you dont know who curtis granderson is?

???? who is he and source ugh....it was a comparison. good job connecting it.

yay we called up curtis granderson.

part of me wants to see miller do well so the cubs can win. part of me wants to see miller do bad so he loses his job quicker to guzman, which will probably lead to more wins.

like omg, floyd isnt hitting for enough like power to like play leftfield.

Then why EVER use a backup catcher? If not in a 12-1 blow-out, when? Should we wait until Barrett strains his back or something? What happens then? Use the backup catcher to start a game or two a week.

i really hope Soriano avoids the DL. My fantasy team already has Octavio Dotel, Kelvim Escobar, and Troy Glaus on it.

That's just not true. In fact it's the opposite. Usually a groundball pitcher's going to allow a higher BABIP than a flyball pitcher. For hitters a good hitter for average usually has a high GB%. I'm sorry but you're clearly wrong about that.

Is there a game in DC tonight? If so that would be the only one that should be canceled. As bad as this was, things just as bad happen elsewhere in gang fights.

easy solution sit down with Z. tell him if he walks 3 guys in a game, hes getting pulled on the spot. if he walks 2 guys in a row, hes getting pulled on the spot.

i didnt say hes been as effective. i said hes been better. there's a difference and only two weeks into the season the latter is much more important than the former.

ironically enough JJ's career OBP against lefties is .276, lower than averaging Ronnys minor league numbers.

and we all know that all runs scored are deserving and all runs not scored arent deserved

I would like to think that Cedeno could crack a 300 obp against lefties. Maybe Im overrating him as a player. I still think he could do that and I give Jones no chance of doing that. It's no outs in the ninth. Give me the OBP over the power.

I don't have his splits. It's just that there's pretty much no righty in the history of the game whose had significant ABs and had his OPS vs lefties be so far below his RHP OPS. Right now it's pretty easy to chalk it up to sample size issues. If Ronny couldnt hit lefties there's no chance in hell hed make it through the minors. Only lefty hitters can be one-dimensional when it comes to facing pitchers. That said ronnys been hitting so bad of late, hes probably worse right now, but his true ability isnt lower.

Okay, so you look at K/9 and K/BB and HR's allowed. Awesome. Hits, walks, and runs allowed are kinda sorta important too. Not really...

I'm pretty sure I know a little more than you about statistical analysis and various topics in it today so I'm also pretty sure that makes what I say carry more weight. There are four things that I look at for pitchers. 1.) K Rate. 2.) Walk rate coupled with BB rate. In this case, the expected walk rate is about the same because theyre throwing strikes just as infrequently. 3.) Groundball/Outfield Fly rate which turns into homers. Again Z's given up a lot of longballs, but come on its luck that some of them were homers. By luck i dont mean they werent hit hard. Your eyes cant apply to this argument. 4.) Offense. Z's hit a hell of a lot better than Marquis. Perhaps I define a pitcher much more broadly than you but in the national league you have to include hitting, and i have.

Did I say that? No. Did you read after the second sentence? No. Who's laughing now?

Just because you say it's true doesn't make it true.

i can assure you that JJ is not a better hitter than Ronny Cedeno against lefties.

You also have the brain of a human being. With that comes selective memory. It's nothing personal, just part of the human condition. The brain's terrible at remembering rates unless you make a mental note to remember them. I'm sure you didn't and your memory links success with runs. You can complain and vent all you want. At the end of the day it's two weeks into the season and some people should writing off the team. It's April 15th and Alfonso Soriano and Derrek Lee have zero homers. You can say the team has performed as bad as you want, but given the history of the players on the team it's going to change. They'll start producing. The team's problems are not just an isolated issue. As someone mentioned both the AL and NL as a hole are slugging under .400 by a pretty big margin. The Cubs have scored 43 runs and allowed 42 runs. That's usually a good indicator of .500 performance. It carries more predicative power than the teams current .363 performance. I know that. I accept it and am not worried. Sure be upset all you want. It's not as if the teams trying to lose. Just understand that there are swings like this in all seasons no matter how good the team is. To get bent out of shape or your panties in a bunch over it is a complete overreaction. Good, so that means being critical of him means....nothing. In other words you're being critical because you want to emo-rant. Being ticked off with Z isn't going to mean anything. He's not trying to walk hitters. That speaks for itself. It's actually worse than I thought! Congrats. I said I didn't care about his ERA and you went on to say that his ERA speaks for itself. Hmm... Or WHIP (Z-1.875, Marquis-1.27) or BB/9 (Z-6.188, Marquis-4.90), or HR/9 (Z-2.25, Marquis-0), or even VORP (Marquis/1.1, Zambrano/(-5.0). The only thing Z has been better in is K/9 and K/BB. Of the things you posted guess which are the most important. Answer: K/9 and K/BB. I don't care about the actual HR rate. I care about the expected HR rate which is 1.16 HR/9 for Zambrano and 0.84 HR/9 for Marquis, which is expected as Z hasn't kept the ball on the ground much. Marquis has also allowed a .228 BABIP, our defense isn't nearly that good.

If only it were that easy. You can look at ERA and the such if you want. Be my guest. I'm not looking at them.

as bad as Zambranos been hes outpitched Marquis even if the results argue otherwise. This place gets its panties in a twist over two weeks of baseball. Come on.

this week nsbb is representing.

its not a problem.