fromthestretch

Most likely they know that Cubs prior to that probably aren't going to get many votes, simply because of the ages of the people that are going to vote. Most of the voters will have more of an emotional attachment to players they actually watched. Not saying that makes it right, but that's probably their line of thinking. All that being said, leaving Sosa off the list was an incredibly stupid decision.

If they honestly want a starting pitcher who can't get guys out, the Cubs should offer Jerome Williams. He's much younger than Lopez and could probably post an ERA below 6.00 over the course of a full season (Lopez is at 6.44 in 20 starts so far this season). And the Cubs should have no problem finding a "mid-level" prospect that the Phillies would like. They must be really desperate to unload one of those contracts.

I can't see him being any worse than Pierre. I'm agreeing with you a lot lately, goony. But that statement is true. Jones might not have the range of Pierre, but I think he gets better jumps. His arm even when spiking the ball in the grass on a third of his throws is better than Pierre. That being said, wouldn't we want someone better than both on defense, all things being equal? More importantly, I guess my question is would it benefit the Cubs to move Jones to CF and find a RF bat (in that case who?) or keep Jones in RF and go with a Pie/Lofton (or someone comparable) platoon? A Lofton/Pie platoon isn't likely with both of them being left-handed. You could platoon Pie with Murton in LF, if you move Jones to CF and sign a big bat for RF. Someone correct me if I'm wrong, but I thought someone had posted that Pie is actually hitting lefties pretty well this season. If he can continue to do that, and you go with the outfield that I just listed, you could start Murton in LF, Pie in CF, and in RF, with Jones on the bench against some lefties. So in essence, you'd be looking at more of a Murton/Jones platoon. Yeah, I think I've seen that Pie is hitting lefties better than righties this year. I also don't think it would be smart to platoon a 21-22 year old with a pretty big ceiling. The next year and a half could be pretty vital to his development and he needs to play as much as possible. Exactly. He's going to need regular at-bats. So you either give him a regular starting role, do some sort of creative platoon like I posted (where he'd start in LF in place of Murton against righties and in CF in place of Jones against lefties), or you leave him in Iowa a bit longer to get his at-bats. The last option isn't necessarily a bad one, considering a) he's not exactly tearing it up at AAA now, and b) he's still very young.

I can't see him being any worse than Pierre. I'm agreeing with you a lot lately, goony. But that statement is true. Jones might not have the range of Pierre, but I think he gets better jumps. His arm even when spiking the ball in the grass on a third of his throws is better than Pierre. That being said, wouldn't we want someone better than both on defense, all things being equal? More importantly, I guess my question is would it benefit the Cubs to move Jones to CF and find a RF bat (in that case who?) or keep Jones in RF and go with a Pie/Lofton (or someone comparable) platoon? A Lofton/Pie platoon isn't likely with both of them being left-handed. You could platoon Pie with Murton in LF, if you move Jones to CF and sign a big bat for RF. Someone correct me if I'm wrong, but I thought someone had posted that Pie is actually hitting lefties pretty well this season. If he can continue to do that, and you go with the outfield that I just listed, you could start Murton in LF, Pie in CF, and in RF, with Jones on the bench against some lefties. So in essence, you'd be looking at more of a Murton/Jones platoon.

My apologies if this has been posted already, but I saw this on SI.com: Rodrigo Lopez and a mid-level prospect for Burrell or Abreu? I'd like to think the Cubs can top that offer.

The Cubs got a career year out of a healthy Lee last season and still finished in the bottom third in the majors in runs scored. Barrett's having a career year this season, and Jones has been an improvement over Burnitz. Ramirez has been worse than last year. Walker has been ok but has hit for a lot less power than last year. A healthy Lee would make a difference, but I don't think it would be enough to really vault this offense up the charts too many spots.

Looking over the recap, this is correct. However, it is possible for runs to be unearned for the team but earned to the pitcher, especially in a situation like this. In this situation, when Novoa came into the inning there was one out. With Marshall on the mound, Walker had already made an error, which would have been the second out. However, that only effects Marshalls earned/unearned runs, not Novoa's. Novoa inherits a one-out situation. That first error has no bearing on what the numbers of outs are supposed to be when he comes in. However, before he allows another run to score, Walker makes a second error, which as far as Novoa's stat line is concerned, would be the second out. Then they got a force at home, for what should have been the third out. After that, the flood gates opened. Now, had he allowed runs before that force at home, those would have been earned to Novoa but unearned to the team.

I think most people here would agree that it's best to get your high-OBP guys in front of the power bats. Obviously, that increases your chances of having someone on when Lee and Ramirez come to the plate. And while we're all for maximizing scoring opportunities, the difference won't be as big as you think. Who you have in the lineup is much more important than where they bat.

I'll be the first to admit that I thought Novoa would be a reliable reliever this year...nothing stellar, but decent. Now I just cringe when I see him come into a game.

I give up. Your ability to read what you want into what everyone posts instead of reading what they actually say, your conspiracy theories about how everyone is in a haste to argue you with you and how sabermatricians are only studying defense to prove it worthless, your begging and pleading for people to read your suggestion of rebuilding the Cubs combined with your unending defensiveness when someone critiques your posts, and your claims that goony constantly insults you while you continue to post the crap above have convinced me that you are a baseball mastermind. Kudos to you. My apologies to the mods if that sounded too much like attacking the poster.

True-walks are a key variable, but remember also that a team is going to have about 80 percent of the at bats come from average, while only 20 percent will come from walks or less in OBP. So the difference in the percentages will have to factor that in. You're right-a team that is dead last in either will not have a good OBP. It is just better to be 1st in average and 15th in walks then 1st in walks and 15th in average. That will cause many more runs scored, but being in the bottom 10 of either one makes it very difficult to have a top 10 OBP, and therefore very hard to have a top 10 OPS. Batting average, however, is not the best way to project future OBP. Take Derrek Lee for example. We can be fairly certain that Lee will have a good OBP for the next few years. The reason is due in large part to his walk rate. For his career, he's walked in just over 11% of his plate appearances. Obviously, the higher his batting average is, the higher his OBP will be. But we can be pretty sure that if he only hits his career average of .276, instead of the .335 avg. from last year, he's still going to have an OBP of .360 or more. Now take Carlos Lee, who coming into this season was a career .284 hitter. Carlos Lee has walked in just over 7% of his plate appearances in his career. Outside of one season, his OBP has been heavily dependant on his batting average, which fluctuates quite a bit. If Carlos Lee hits .276, chances are, his OBP will most likely be in the .330 range, much lower than Derrek Lee's. Juan Pierre is probably a better example of this. Pierre needs to pretty much hit .300 for his OBP to even begin to become respectable. If he hits in the .270 range, he'll be lucky if his OBP gets up to .330. Considering he doesn't bring power to the table like Carlos Lee, .330 from Pierre is much less acceptable. While there are some hitters who can consistently post a great OBP with low walk rates (Ichiro, Tony Gwynn), those hitters are rare. They are valuable, but rare.

You'd probably get a lot less flack if you'd quit the condescending remarks. I think you (or anyone else) would be hard pressed to find a GM that has done everything that was possible with their own situation. Not one person has said Beane is perfect, so don't make it seem like anyone has. He's made decisions that people have questioned. However, his results have been very good. Other GMs have had good position in the draft, with more money to offer to higher picks, and have done squat with it. He's managed to be creative with money for draft picks. And you have to give him credit for drafting some of those guys, signing some of them to 3-4 year deals to keep them on the team at a relatively low cost through some of their peak years (and avoiding arbitration), and then getting good return on trades for some of those players when they were going to be too expensive to re-sign. For the others, he got high draft picks. Over the next couple years, we'll see how effective he was with those picks.

yes, they have had their share of missed time. but if you're going to excuse their performance because of injuries, I don't want to see you turn around and bitch about Hendry and Baker making injury excuses. the missed time of the A's also hasn't been that significant. respective PAs (approx) of the players you listed: 235, 350, 325, 275, 122. of the players you listed, only Bradley and Ellis have missed significant time, and Lee missed comparable time as Bradley and Barrett missed comparable time as Ellis (due to injury and suspension). and the expected offensive production of Lee/Barrett >>>> the expected offensive production of Bradley/Ellis, so the Cubs injuries have aruably hurt more than the A's injuries. There's a difference between relying on healthy guys that get hurt after you bring them in and bringing in/relying on guys that have a history of getting hurt to be key parts to your team. Also, even though Chavez hasn't missed significant time, he's playing hurt. Tendinitis in both forearms can really impact a player's ability to swing a bat. Ask Brad Wilkerson that. well there's two problems with your retort. 1. I said nothing about pitchers. neither Lee nor Barrett had any injury history whatsoever before this year. 2. Bradley, Thomas, Crosby, Ellis, Harden = key parts of the A's Beane relied on even though they have a history of getting hurt. 1. No, but Ramirez has. And you can't have this injury argument without including the pitchers. 2. Thomas is being paid $500,000 this season. They basically threw very little money at him, hoping he'd provide some pop here and there. They've more than gotten their money's worth for him. Even with injuries, Crosby still has played quite a bit...he's just not producing. Three people that have "hurt" Oakland this season (I use the term "hurt" loosely since they are still in first place) are Chavez (forearm tendinitis), Crosby (various injuries and overall lack of production), and Johnson, who just happened to have a terrible start to the season. Don't get me wrong, other guys are having medicore seasons for them, but those three guys were counted on to be a big part of the offense. Despite all this, he keeps winning. His team was able to withstand injuries and sub-par performances. The Cubs haven't been able to.

Sounds like something Dusty would say. The Yankees have been doing the walk/obp/slg thing for years. They can just pay for better versions of that stuff. They have good offensive numbers because they get the most talented players who have the best plate discipline. If the Cubs were smart they'd do a scaled down version of the same thing. You don't need to go after every big time free agent, and there's no need to throw huge money after problems that can be fixed with minimal effort. Are people still arguing that the lack of walks isn't behind the Cubs lack of runs and lack of wins for the past several years? Are we still debating whether or not the Cubs should take more walks? Yes, we should take more walks. Do you need to be anywhere near a leader in walks to win the WS? Absolutely not. The White Sox last year-25th out of 30 teams in walks. The Astros? 20th out of 30 teams. 3 of the top teams in walks last year finished in the bottom 10 team of runs. There is simply no clear evidence that walks have more than a slight effect on runs scored. OBP, yes-it adds the high effect of average and the slight effect of walks. Walking a great deal is not a great indicator of scoring runs or having success on the field. And both the Astros and Sox hit for power and got phenomenal seasons from their pitching staffs to make up for their weakness in OBP. A team can certainly win with an average/below-average OBP. But in order to do it, you need to be exceptionally strong in other areas and stay healthy.

I certainly agree that that was a questionable signing. I agree it was a questionable signing but everybody makes mistakes. Billy Beane is not immune to this. But tell me, what is worse, Beane signing Loiaza or Hendry signing Perez and Rusch? I think we all know the answer to that. Beane's signing is only wasting one roster spot, not two. I'm not criticizing Beane. As has been mentioned several times in this thread, his team wins. I'll certainly question some of his moves (like the Loaiza signing), but his team wins, and that's a fact that can't be questioned.

I certainly agree that that was a questionable signing.

Agreed. I would imagine that people who worship Beane and people who are anti-Beane tend to probably not completely understand his philosophies. The bottom line though is that just about every season, his team competes. While some of their numbers may be disappointing this season, his team is still winning. In what cities (plural, since that's how you wrote it) has Wilkerson not been able to hold onto a starting job? He held onto it in Montreal/Washington (same franchise). His poor numbers last season and this season can be attributed to forearm problems. And although his numbers could use some improvement, he seems to have bounced back a bit from his horrendous start this year.

yes, they have had their share of missed time. but if you're going to excuse their performance because of injuries, I don't want to see you turn around and bitch about Hendry and Baker making injury excuses. the missed time of the A's also hasn't been that significant. respective PAs (approx) of the players you listed: 235, 350, 325, 275, 122. of the players you listed, only Bradley and Ellis have missed significant time, and Lee missed comparable time as Bradley and Barrett missed comparable time as Ellis (due to injury and suspension). and the expected offensive production of Lee/Barrett >>>> the expected offensive production of Bradley/Ellis, so the Cubs injuries have aruably hurt more than the A's injuries. There's a difference between relying on healthy guys that get hurt after you bring them in and bringing in/relying on guys that have a history of getting hurt to be key parts to your team. Also, even though Chavez hasn't missed significant time, he's playing hurt. Tendinitis in both forearms can really impact a player's ability to swing a bat. Ask Brad Wilkerson that.

Yes, he was driven in on a lazy sac fly to RF that would have been meaningless had he not reached 3rd base thanks almost soley to Pierre's speed. Even if you don't want to credit Pierre for Lee's walk, Lee still advanced two more bases thanks to Pierre which he'll never be accredit for. This is why even top statisticians in the field can still only account for 60% of the game. And again, the situation you pointed out happens so rarely that its impact over the course of a season is practically nil. Really? A baserunner advancing because a baserunner ahead of him stole a base, advanced on a sac fly or stretched a basehit into another base with speed is a rare occurance in the game? No, that's not what I meant. I was talking about the specific situation you outlined with Pierre stealing third and scoring because the catcher threw the ball into left field, allowing Lee to move up a base. Of course people steal bases, stretch a single into a double, etc. But the example you used just isn't that common. EDITED TO ADD: Probably the most common occurrance I can think of where a runner's speed allowed a trailing runner to advance is something similar to this: Runner on first, hitter gets a base hit, runner on first tries to go from first to third. Instead of throwing to second or hitting the cutoff man, fielder throws through to third, doesn't get the runner. Hitter moves to second on the throw. I call that the Moises Alou play, since he apparantly had some sort of vision issue that prevented him from seeing the cutoff man. Based on early results this season, Jones has the same vision impairment.

Yes, he was driven in on a lazy sac fly to RF that would have been meaningless had he not reached 3rd base thanks almost soley to Pierre's speed. Even if you don't want to credit Pierre for Lee's walk, Lee still advanced two more bases thanks to Pierre which he'll never be accredit for. This is why even top statisticians in the field can still only account for 60% of the game. And again, the situation you pointed out happens so rarely that its impact over the course of a season is practically nil.

Sure you can! How do runners hit with Pierre on first compared to him not on first. Pretty simple to measure. I'm not sure if you're being sarcastic or not, but you have no idea if Pierre's presence on first has any effect on the pitcher. The pitcher may have just made a bad pitch...they tend to do that sometimes even when Pierre isn't on first. It is possible for a hitter to get a hit with a runner on base and not have it be the direct result of the runner's speed. The fact that a pitcher gives up a hit with a fast runner on doesn't mean that he was unable to concentrate on the hitter due to the runner. If that was the case, how do you explain the fact that the pitcher has given up hits with no one on base, or with someone as slow as Matt LeCroy on base? However, if you wanted to even make an attempt at trying to measure this, just measuring players' batting averages with Pierre on first isn't enough. Measure it with other players on first, as well. In other words, how does Derrek Lee hit with Walker or Perez on first instead of Pierre (although with Perez, the sample size might be too low, since he just doesn't reach base very often). I think you'll find that Pierre's speed doesn't have a big impact in this area.

I don't think they've found a way to properly quantitate speed either. Just an example from earlier this season. Pierre was on 1st with 1 out and Lee is at the plate. The pitcher gets ahead of Lee 1-2 in the count. Concerned that a 1-2 count is a good count for Pierre to steal, the pitcher becomes distracted and starts throwing over to 1st repeatedly. The end result is that he ends up walking Lee. Now Pierre is at 2nd, Lee is at 1st with 1 out. Pierre immediate steals 3rd on a great jump, and a rushed catcher throws the ball over the 3rd baseman's head. Pierre easily trots in, and Lee advances from 1st to 3rd on the stolen base and the error. Lee scores on a lazy sac fly. In such a case, Pierre essentially "manufactured" two runs that inning. His and Lee's. He'll never be accredited with Lee's. this can be proven by evaluating at bats with Pierre on first. How can you know the pitcher walked Lee because he was worried about Pierre? Lee walks a lot. That is just speculation. These things can be measured, however. The difficulty is in producing a big enough sample size to have meaningful data. Not only that, but he walked 85 times and set a career high in OBP last year in a season where people just weren't getting on base much in front of him. I read an intervieiw with Mike Scioscia last year where he talked about one way the Angels were measuring speed. They were keeping track of things like how many times they were successful going from first-to-third, scoring from second on a hit, basically advancing more than one base. Those are the types of things you can measure. Obviously, there are variables: where the ball is hit, who's the fielder throwing it, etc. But they are at least trying to put together some data and see if they can find something. I don't think anyone's going to be able to ever measure the psychological effect that a fast runner has on pitchers or on the defense.

I don't think they've found a way to properly quantitate speed either. Just an example from earlier this season. Pierre was on 1st with 1 out and Lee is at the plate. The pitcher gets ahead of Lee 1-2 in the count. Concerned that a 1-2 count is a good count for Pierre to steal, the pitcher becomes distracted and starts throwing over to 1st repeatedly. The end result is that he ends up walking Lee. Now Pierre is at 2nd, Lee is at 1st with 1 out. Pierre immediate steals 3rd on a great jump, and a rushed catcher throws the ball over the 3rd baseman's head. Pierre easily trots in, and Lee advances from 1st to 3rd on the stolen base and the error. Lee scores on a lazy sac fly. In such a case, Pierre essentially "manufactured" two runs that inning. His and Lee's. He'll never be accredited with Lee's. That scenario might happen what...once in a season? We might as well try to measure the effect of the catcher's balk. These aren't high school pitchers. Chances are if a pitcher is good enough to reach the majors, he's focused enough to still concentrate on the hitter when there is a fast runner on base. If not, that's what pitching coaches - and in extreme cases, sports psychologists - are for. Notice how Maddux gives about zero effort when it comes to holding runners on? Seems to have worked well for him throughout his career. EDITED TO ADD: Also, I don't think you can give Pierre credit for Lee's run in the situation you outlined. Even if by some chance Pierre's speed was the reason for the pitcher losing focus and walking Lee, someone still had to drive Lee in.

Moneyball, SABR, and all the adherents thereto. I personally agree with much of those peoples' assessment of defense and it's lack of importance in the big picture (with the exception of absolute butchers). what I can't stand is people sitting on both sides of the fence when it suits their current argument. I don't believe that anyone has said that defense isn't important. A lot of people have said that it isn't as important as some other things. There's a big difference. If defense wasn't considered important, why then would "Moneyball, SABR, and all the adherents thereto" constantly try to devise ways to better measure defense? I think the devices they come up with are for two purposes. first, because that's what they do, measure. second, and I also don't think this can be disputed either, is that they set about doing such studies in order to prove the lack of value defense has. I think alot of the SABR studies don't seek to prove a theory. they seek to disprove 'traditional baseball analysis' under the guise of a search for objectivity. they're protecting there own jobs now too. I'm sorry, but this argument is garbage. What would they possibly have to gain from proving that defense has no value? You make it seem like the entire sabermetric world is out to completely squash scouting and traditional analysis. I think if you'd open your eyes, you'd see that most people who do these studies are trying to determine if the current methods of analysis are the best methods, and if they aren't the best methods, then they want to find out what is. With defense, they are simply looking into better ways to measure something that currently has no good means of objective analysis. Statistics like errors and fielding percentage are flawed. Range factor certainly isn't perfect. If someone could find a good way to measure defense, they'd have a hell of a lot to gain. Going into it hoping to prove that defense has no value serves no purpose.

Then, depending on what those four players bring to the table as far as slugging, mix them in the 4-8 spots (4-9 if you're in the AL) in the order. Nobody expects every player to put up a .350 OBP. However, the leadoff hitter is the guy batting ahead of the heart of the order. Even if he's not leading off an inning, he's still batting in front of the guys that you pay to drive in runs. Might as well put a guy that gets on base in that spot to increase your chances of having someone on when the big hitters come up. The problem is, many of your top OBP guys are also your top slugging players. There are not enough #1 and #2 hitters left over to put up a .350 OBP for every team. Pierre is a little under that, but he makes up for the difference in OBP with the problems he creates on the basepaths. If Pierre was at his career average (approx. .350 OBP), I could accept it. I'd like it to be higher, but I could accept it. As it stands now, he is currently 75 points behind Kevin Youkilis and has 27 more stolen bases. Pierre has also been caught stealing 10 times, while Youkilis hasn't been caught in five attempts. Brady Clark has an OBP of .379 and only two stolen bases, and I'd prefer him at the top of the order over Pierre. There is no way that Pierre's speed can make up for that big of a difference in OBP. What if he follows his career average and has a .320 average after the break? His OBP should be around .350 then-would you re-sign him? Probably not. He's going to want a rather hefty raise and at least a three-year deal, I would imagine. The Cubs have other options: 1. Go out and get a guy that can both A) play CF and B) get on base for less money than Pierre will command. 2. Move Jones to CF and acquire a slugging RF (most likely via trade). Personally, I think if Pierre keeps hitting this month, he'll be more valuable to the Cubs in what he brings back via trade than he would be for three more years playing in Chicago.