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How long ago was this conversation? Lou's been in Arizona the whole last 3 weeks, and Jim probably has been as well. Before that, I don't know of any reason they would have had to go down to Florida together after the winter meetings, and that was 3 full months ago. Edit: saw your reply.

I honestly don't understand how somebody like Trent Green gets a 3 year, 9 million dollar deal. He's going to be 38, and all the teams should have refused to sign him for his own personal safety with the head injuries, let alone the ability to play football at a high level.

Cedeno or Cintron would be the extra person inserted into the batting order to spell Aramis, but DeRosa would probably be the one playing 3rd on those days.

Of course, that kind of proves to me that the lineup analyzer is not good. If you plug in the 8 exact same players and the OBP guy, I find that if you put the OBP guy in the 9 spot, you'll score 6.295 runs per game. If you put him in the 6 spot, that same lineup will only score 5.203 runs per game. If the 8 other players are the exact same, why would putting your best player in the 6 spot result in over a run less per game than putting him in the 9 spot? There's absolutely no way that can be true. This exercise makes me trust the lineup analyzer a lot less if it makes bad decisions like this. the obp man gets way fewer plate appearances if you bat him ninth. since he's your only great hitter, that makes a big difference. Exactly, which is my big problem. The lineup analyzer says that the OBP man would be much better batting 9th than 6th. How does that happen? Perhap b/c typically a team's best hitters are at the top of the order, so if 9th hitter gets on base, more likely to be driven in... but in the scenario we plugged in the other 8 hitters were the exact same.

Yea, that's a bunch of b.s. A handful of sporadic ABs punctuated by weeks of sitting on the bench between them. He got 177 AB's total. shttp://sports.espn.go.com/mlb/players/gamelog?statsId=7704&year=2007 Those were split over mostly two windows. If you look at the game log, he got called up and started at least 10 of his first 12 games in April (4 or more AB), and only once in those first 12 games didn't play. With a .250 OBP he got benched, and returned to Iowa. He got recalled again in June, and started almost every one of his first 20 20 games, routinely getting 4 or 5 AB. (The record shows two games with 2 AB and two games with 3 AB.) 79 AB in 20 games, that's full time opportunity. After a while, having gone hitless in five of his last 8 games, and with a .275 OBP and a .227 average, he lost his full-time job. Some sporadic bench play, back to Iowa. When he got recalled in August, he was again given a shot as the regular starter but this time a much shorter window, 4 straight starts. AFter going hitless in two of the last three, Lou bagged the idea it was sporadic defensive replacement usage with only a couple of starts the rest of the way. Basically 10 start, 20 start, an 4 start windows in April, June, and August. Each in concentrated packages, and each following full-time work at Iowa. So it's not like his opportunities involved using him when he was cold off the bench, other than the few scattered AB's during the last 6 weeks. The June window was really the best opportunity. If he'd have done well in April, that would have been great. But by June, they'd abandoned the Soriano-in-center experiment, it was Pie's to take and hold. Are 10 and 20 start windows too short? To adequately judge a guy long-term, obviously not. But that's long enough where a guy who's hitting at Iowa could keep hitting and go from there. I understand that a 20-start window is short; pressured; and even the best of hitters go through 20-game periods where they struggle. I expect it will be longer this spring. But I don't know how many outfielders are allowed to go as the regular starter with OBP in the .275-range. I think Pie will make it a lot easier on everybody if he can keep his OBP on the right side of .300 early on. Then he won't need to worry about how quickly Lou will pull the plug. Check out Pedroia's first 20 games. It wasn't very pretty. Also, Pie was not a "supported" starter. I think he was pressing, trying to do more then he should have been when he played because he knew his leash was short. I hope Pie comes out on fire and wins over Lou. If Lou supported Pie like he does Theriot, I'd be happy. I disagree completely with that in the June stint. They came out and said publicly "Pie is the starter. Period." They then went and came very close to trading the other possible starter in CF to the Marlins, and trade rumors were swirling around Jones almost all of the time Pie was the starter. And Lou did the same thing to Theriot. Theriot came out and did well, and then struggled and was quickly replaced by Izturis. Then, when Izturis struggled, Theriot came in and did well again in July before collapsing at the end of the year. which for Pie, Pie struggled and Lou replaced him with Jones. Jones struggled, so Lou replaced him with Pie. Pie struggled again, so Lou replaced him with Jones. Jones then did much better the rest of the year, so Pie never really got another shot. If Jones had struggled again after the All-Star break, Pie probably would have gotten yet another chance. Lou had a quick hook on just about everybody last year. It wasn't the best situation for a prospect like Pie to be in, and I wish Lou would have given him a longer leash. It was pretty consistent for everyone though. Izturis, Theriot, Jones, Murton, Pie, Fontenot, Barrett, Bowen, and Miller all got benched/traded quickly when they went south. Pretty much the only exception was Theriot in September, and that was after he had two more periods of good play than Pie did in the majors last year.

Thursday against the Athletics. He started Saturday in the split squad game, and didn't play in either of Friday or Sunday's games.

Of course, that kind of proves to me that the lineup analyzer is not good. If you plug in the 8 exact same players and the OBP guy, I find that if you put the OBP guy in the 9 spot, you'll score 6.295 runs per game. If you put him in the 6 spot, that same lineup will only score 5.203 runs per game. If the 8 other players are the exact same, why would putting your best player in the 6 spot result in over a run less per game than putting him in the 9 spot? There's absolutely no way that can be true. This exercise makes me trust the lineup analyzer a lot less if it makes bad decisions like this. the obp man gets way fewer plate appearances if you bat him ninth. since he's your only great hitter, that makes a big difference. Exactly, which is my big problem. The lineup analyzer says that the OBP man would be much better batting 9th than 6th. How does that happen?

You should shoot him an email truffle and see what he thinks about the computers getting it exactly right. He said exactly what he thought about it right in the article.

Of course, that kind of proves to me that the lineup analyzer is not good. If you plug in the 8 exact same players and the OBP guy, I find that if you put the OBP guy in the 9 spot, you'll score 6.295 runs per game. If you put him in the 6 spot, that same lineup will only score 5.203 runs per game. If the 8 other players are the exact same, why would putting your best player in the 6 spot result in over a run less per game than putting him in the 9 spot? There's absolutely no way that can be true. This exercise makes me trust the lineup analyzer a lot less if it makes bad decisions like this.

The biggest base clogging situation IMO is when the fast player is at the plate, not when they are both on base. On average, fast players are typically ground ball hitters who beat out plays with their legs on a semi-regular basis. In the Cubs case, their leadoff hitter isn't that way, but that's very atypical. Having a slow runner on first base hurts the production of that fast runner. Their high propensity of ground balls creates more fielders choice situations that if nobody was on base the leadoff hitter would beat out. Now, does that mean you should ever root for a slow player to make an out before a fast player bats? Absolutely not. Getting on base is always, always preferable. Can you instead structure your lineup where slow hitters are not followed immediately by the fastest guys on the team? Sure, and that should be a minor consideration if it doesn't hurt your lineup in other ways. In the Cubs case, if Pie and Soto end up being very similar hitters, then I would hope they would switch those two players in the lineup. My guess is that Soto will end up being a better hitter than Pie, and in that case the extra plate appearances for Soto are a lot more important than the fact that him standing on first base is a possible detriment to Pie's production. If they did end up being similar hitters, maybe then you have 4 to 5 times a season where Pie gets on due to an infield single and Soto singles him around to 3rd rather than Soto singling and then Pie grounding into a fielders choice at second. It's not going to make more than a 5 to 10 run difference at the most either way, which is why they would have to be very similar before you would think about switching them.

No, it isn't. I don't think Lou ever said that it was. True, but the pitcher has to make outs somewhere. There are arguments about where that should be. I don't see how that's relevant, but Theriot does a very good job at being efficient at stealing bases. Of course, I was thinking about the people who Lou might put in the 9 spot in this section. If you were referring to Soriano in the 1 spot, then this quote is more relevant but I don't see how the next quote fits, so I'll assume you're talking about possible 9 spot hitters here. absolutely true An average American league team has attempted more stolen bases than an average National League team in 4 out of the last 5 years. The average National League team hit more home runs than the average American League team in 2007 after being close for several years. The perception is that American league ball is about waiting for home runs and not stealing bases, but that's not the reality. Sure there is. It's a very minor negative effect of speed. What made everybody furious at Dusty was that he neutralized a very minor negative effect by sacrificing a major component (BB's), which created a much, much worse negative effect. Clogging up the bases is real (in an ideal setting, every player would be fast enough to make sure that the next player wouldn't have to stop a base short of where they normally would). It's just not important whatsoever, and should be way, way down on the list of priorities to fix.

Congrats Penn State. You simply deserved it more today. There's really nothing else to say.

Why? You wouldn't be able to get the most out of that pitcher for the second half of those 100IP and run a greater risk of injuring if they end up throwing out of the pen in the 1st half of the year. Or if you have Marshall at Iowa to start the year, you're defeating the purpose of saving his arm. If it's Marquis as the #5, his greatest asset is that he has a rubber arm and will eat innings (assuming he's not shelled thru 4). As far as Marshall/Lieber, they would be wise to keep a closer eye as far as not leaving them out there well beyond early signs of fatigue. With Gallagher, they could be more liberal since he is sound mechanically, good size, and has a clean bill of health. I hope whoever wins the 5th spot will stick throughout the year. Even if Marshall was completely healthy, I don't think you can risk him going beyond 170 innings this year. That's 25 more innings then he has ever thrown in his career, plus the only 2 times he's gotten to 110-120 his arm has gone dead at that point. I'd actually be surprised if you could get 140 fresh innings out of him. They took him out many times early even when he was effective last year, and they still couldn't get a full season out of him. I love his production, but I seriously question his durability. Plus, Marshall has had his share of arm injuries as well. With Lieber, if his injury problems don't act up I'd be fine with getting 180-200 innings out of him. I'm just not sure if he can pitch that long without some sort of injury. It's possible, but with his history I'd call it unlikely. My plan would be to start Lieber and to throw Marshall into long relief, either in the majors or AAA. I know it's probably not fair to him to do it that way, which is why I'd leave it as just the ideal. Marshall's innings are then somewhat limited by the nature of his position, but he also doesn't pitch multiple days in a row and pitches for longer, minimizing the chance of injury. He then steps in at whatever point in the season Lieber goes down or another starter becomes ineffective.

Yeah, he pitched on Friday, but because of the injury he only got to pitch to 4 batters. So if they took him out for precautionary reasons, they likely want to make up that loss of an inning as soon as they can.

I would agree with that, and that is the biggest problem with Lieber. He'll be decently effective, but he'll also tax your bullpen and probably go out due to an injury in the middle of the year. Of course, I'd start him and then replace him with a rested Marshall (who would have somewhat limited innings until then because of his problems with having a dead arm) when Lieber got hurt during the season. My ideal would be to fill that spot with around 100 innings from each of them.

They picked up Tyler Brayton as well. He was the one free agent the Colts were even close to so far.

Why would that be a surprise? He hasn't had an ERA worse than that since 1995, and he has just moved out of one of the worst ballparks for pitchers to pitch in. I can certainly see how it would be reasonable for some to think there's a decent possibility he won't be very good, but there also is a pretty good possibility that he will have a mid 4's ERA once again. Moving out of Philadelphia alone is going to offset most of the degradation that an extra year has on him. Now, if he'll pitch more than 100 innings or not, that's a much more difficult question and prone to heavy skepticism.

Great job. The only one that I can really think of off the top of my head that wasn't on there: the parrot home run. No love for the parrot :D

Let's hope so. I'll even take Pie is going to be a SOLID player! He'll be solid and then progress to fantastic. I have confidence in Pie producing. The key is playing time and this year is the year for him to get that. I always wanted Pie to play this year, but I definitely feel better now that I see his swing has improved. He doesn't have a real short swing that I feared when they said they wanted him to play small ball, but that big long swing has been shortened and that should help him get around on those inside fastballs that he struggled with last year.

That usage of clogging up the bases doesn't strike me as wrong. You do want to set your lineup if you can so that really slow people are not followed directly by really fast people, because then a big element of the fast person's game (legging out extra base hits) is lessened. The difference is that Lou is talking about how to set his lineup. Dusty talks about clogging up the bases in reference to how hitters should approach an at-bat (by refusing to walk). That's two very different concepts, and Dusty's is clearly detrimental, while Lou's is not likely to have much of an effect either way.

One of them was. I believe it was a full count when he looked at a pitch that I thought was right down the middle. I know at least one of the other ones was a 1-2 count that he struck out on, and I'm not sure about the last one. He missed several pitches by quite a bit though during those at-bats.

Not that I'm concerned mind you (every good player has 40-50 games per year where they don't look good) but I'm kind of curious how Soto continued to look good today. It was about as bad as you can get for him at the plate today. The one AB of his that I saw was a good AB even though he just popped it up. It is starting to bother me that you don't see him go the other way much, though. Pulls the ball quite a lot. A lot of hitters have great careers doing that, though. I would agree that he only seems to pull the ball, but I am hopeful that his good eye makes up for that. He has enough plate coverage to be able to pull all the outer half in well, and he is patient enough to take the pitches off of the plate. It's only the pitchers who can locate it right on the outside corner that will give him fits. Yeah, the popping up was the first at-bat. He then proceeded to strike out 3 straight times.

Not that I'm concerned mind you (every good player has 40-50 games per year where they don't look good) but I'm kind of curious how Soto continued to look good today. It was about as bad as you can get for him at the plate today.

.357/.471/.500 with 5 SB's and 0 CS.

Even if he does completely bust, my guess is that he can live off that 1.475 million dollars he received.