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First off, when people talk about being a top 5 offense, they almost always mean in the NL. AL offenses are typically going to be better beacuse of the DH and so when most people here say that adding this or that player makes them a top 5 offense, they are referring to in the NL (jersey was certainly talking about NL ranks when he mentioned that adding Tejada would make the Cubs a top 5 offense). So using the ML rank for the Cubs in runs in 2004 doesn't really refute their argument because they really don't care what the American league teams are doing. If you want to look at major league ranks though, Milwaukee was 24th in walks this year. Detroit was 3rd in the major leagues in runs this year, and 27th in walks. Angels were 6th in the major league in runs this year and were 21st in walks. Texas was 7th in runs, 23rd in walks. In 2006, Detroit finshed 8th in runs, 28th in walks. In 2004, the White Sox finished 3rd in runs, 21st in walks. The Angels finished 10th in runs, 28th in walks. In 2003, Kansas City finished 7th in runs, 25th in walks. Texas was 8th in runs, 23rd in walks. In 2002, Angels finished 4th in runs, 26th in walks. Toronto finished 8th in runs, 21st in walks. In 2000, Kansas City finished 9th in runs, 29th in walks. Besides, even if the Cubs do add Tejada, it's not guaranteed that the Cubs will finish in the bottom 10 in the major leagues in walks which would make the premise invalid anyway. They were tied for 25th in walks this year, but they were only 12 walks away from being tied for 19th, which is a lot closer than even the team directly behind them in the standings was (27th place was 26 walks behind the Cubs). Tejada's not a real big downgrade in walks at short because the Cubs only had 51 walks in 631 AB's at short this year. That small loss at short could easily be overcome by a myriad of other factors, including Soto taking over at catcher and walking more than the catcher position did this year. Plus, the Cubs total of 500 walks would have put them at 20th or better in the majors 3 out of the last 4 years. If they got Tejada, and they put up the same amount of walks as this year, they likely wouldn't be in the bottom 10 of the majors in walks next year.

http://the506.com/nflmaps/2007-07-CBS.html Are close enough to Oakland to be blacked out if they don't sell out ? That's ridiculous if the Sacramento area is going to get blacked out because the Raiders can't sell out in Oakland. I really hate how teams do that. Do they not take into consideration the fact that a lot of people probably can't afford to go to the game? Even if they just don't care about that, the fact that they're saying "well if you don't watch us in person, I'm not going to let you watch us on TV!" is just so stupid. It's not the teams fault. It's NFL rules that the game has to be blacked out within a certain amount of miles if the game doesn't sell out. Each individual team would like nothing better than for every game to be on locally, because blackouts can cause the team to lose some fans. I really don't think blackouts are necessary in the NFL, but it is definitely the league's decision, not the teams.

I didn't see anything in there about increasing OBP, so until then, he's got a ways to go. He's had a lot of quotes over the last year where he mentions about how he wants to increase the teams OBP, in addition to the fact that when he sent Pie down he was quoted as the one thing he wanted Pie to work on was plate discipline. It may not have come into fruition on the roster yet (which ultimately is what matters if Hendry wants to keep his job) but Hendry's quotes from the first of the year on to that subject have been dramatically different from previous years. I do agree that this article was very nice for him. For example, he was asked the question about situational hitting where it would have been very easy to simply agree with the question but instead he made sure to disagree with it. He showed faith in some of his young players like Hill and Soto, and everything in the article indicated that he's taking the whole season as more important than the small 3 game playoff sample. All of those were criticisms of Hendry in the past both in his actions and his words (making too many decisions because of small samples, no faith in young players, focusing on the wrong things) and it's nice to see that his words have changed. Hopefully he'll show this offseason that his actions have continued to change as well.

Well, ND's defense was holding well until one of the blockers on the punt team had the ball bounce right off of him and USC recovered at the 10. One play later, the USC tight end makes a great one handed catch and it's 7-0 USC.

I guess if you're ranked it's an automatic ticket to lose nowadays. #2 South Florida, #6 South Carolina, and #23 Cincinnati have all lost this weekend with #21 Tennessee close to losing and #5 Oklahoma and #22 Texas holding on to slim leads over bad teams. Those are the only ranked teams to even play so far. I'm sure more upsets will be upcoming the rest of the day.

I don't see how that's so crazy. New England hasn't scored below 34 points all year, and Miami's offense has been getting better Miami has scored less than 17 points only 1 time this year, and that was in week 1. It could easily be a 38-17 final.

ESPN has just announced it's changing its call letters to YES2. I hope they hire Girardi. It will be high comedy. The first time he sac bunts in the second inning the city of NY will explode. You're assuming that NY wouldn't appreciate sac bunting in the second inning. While it isn't right to do, IMO most fans will like it.

Tejada isn't ARod, but it's not like he doesn't walk. The way the Cubs can fix their offense is by getting significant improvements at their worst positions, and SS was their worst position, along with C, last year. Tejada and Soto could easily eclipse the production from their respective positions, and, barring major setbacks elsewhere, that would significantly improve the offense. You'd probably be able to talk about a top 5 lineup at that point. If you are getting top 5 pitching and top 5 hitting, you are going to have some nice success. I don't agree. People said we would have a Top 5 lineup last year too. We're not going to have a Top 5 lineup by continually adding the same type of players, I think. What do you mean Tejada walks? 40 walks in 654 ABs, 46 walks in 648 ABs, 41 walks in 514 ABs, I think that qualifies as another righty masher who doesn't walk enough. I don't know why I should assume he'll rebound just because it's nice to think in a scenario where the Cubs get him. I'm not saying your argument doesn't have some merit, but I don't agree with it. I see it like the 2004 Cubs. They were virtually tied for 4th in the NL in OPS but they were 16th in runs. They had the same OPS as the Phillies that year but scored way fewer runs than them. I think this "Top 5 lineup" bit people trod out year after year is just a red herring. The 2004 Cubs were not a top team in runs, and every regular in the lineup had an OPS over .800 except Patterson, who had a .780 OPS I believe. You had five guys with an OPS over .830 and they were 1st in the NL in home runs by an enormous margin. I don't like this game where we hype guys up just because they're available. Tejada doesn't even get us back to the 2004 level, much less a Top 5 lineup. How many Top 5 lineups have no one who walks 90+ times, or how many Top 5 lineups are in the bottom 10 of walks? The Cubs were 5th in the NL in OPS in 2004 (although as you said, they were close to 4th) and they were 7th in runs, not 16th. Let's restrict this to NL. How many bottom 5 walk teams can be top 5 in RS? 2007: Milwaukee. 5th in RS, 14th in BB's 2006: none. closest was Atlanta at 10th 2005: none. closest was Colorado at 10th 2004: none. closest was St. Louis at 8th despite being 1st in RS 2003: none. closest was Atlanta at 8th despite being 1st in RS 2002: Colorado. 4th in RS, 14th in BB's. St. Louis also just missed being 2nd in RS and 11th in BB's. 2001: none. closest was Colorado at 10th despite being 1st in RS for the 2nd straight year. 2000: Cincy finished 5th in runs and 13th in BB's. Colorado just missed finishing 10th in walks and 1st in RS. Now let's look at OPS correlation: In 2000, all 5 top teams in OPS finished in the top 5 of runs In 2001, all 5 " " In 2002, Houston was 5th in runs but only finished 6th in OPS Philadelphia was 4th in OPS but only 8th in runs. They finished 2nd in BB's that year. In 2003, Philadelphia was 5th in runs but only finished 6th in OPS San Francisco finished 5th in OPS but only 6th in runs. They were 3rd in BB's that year. In 2004, Atlanta finished 5th in runs but only 7th in OPS Cubs were 5th in OPS but only 7th in runs. They finished 14th in BB's In 2005, Colorado finished 5th in runs but only 9th in OPS Cubs were 4th in OPS but only 9th in runs. They finished 16th in BB's. In 2006, all 5 " " In 2007, Atlanta finished 3rd in runs but only 6th in OPS Florida was 4th in OPS but only 6th in runs. They finished 11th in BB's. So here it is. Bottom 5 teams in walks can survive occasionally, but they have to have great power and average hitters spread throughout the lineup (which the Cubs would theoretically have if they added Tejada to this lineup). I don't think Tejada would put the Cubs in the top 5 unless he bounced back and had a year like 2005-2006 though. What I find interesting is how many teams that led the league in runs that were average or worse at drawing walks. 4 out of the last 8 years the team who finished 1st in runs was 8th or worse in walks. The data also shows that putting your team in top 5 OPS gives you a great shot of being in the top 5 of runs. Only 5 teams didn't do it over the last 8 years, and only 2 of those were signifigant differences between runs and OPS ( 2002 Phillies and 2005 Cubs). The Phillies and Giants underperformed their OPS's while being great walking teams while the two Cubs teams and the Florida team had poor walk totals. I don't see enough correlation to say that it was the Cubs poor walk totals that caused them to under perform their OPS in 04 and 05. Why could they not still survive to put up top 5 in runs but teams like Milwaukee this year and Colorado in 2002 could? Why would top 5 BB teams like Philly in 2002 and San Fran in 2003 still under perform their OPS? To close, let me say that I'm not saying the Cubs inability to walk in the last 4 years hasn't been their biggest weakness. It is the thing that is keeping them from being in the top few of OPS and kept them from ever being an elite offense. There's just not any great data to support that a Cubs team in 2008 will score less runs than their OPS would indicate simply because of their walk totals.

Lou classifies hitters into two different categories, his middle of the order and what he likes to call his 2/8 hitters. The 2/8 hitters are the ones who Lou feels don't have enough power to hit in between 3-7. Lou absolutely hates batting a non-power hitter in any spot between 3 and 7. If he has one more good hitter left, he'd rather bat him 7th than 2nd. 5th and 6th are even bigger examples of this. There were a lot of calls for Murton and DeRosa to slide into that #2 spot, but it seems pretty obvious that Lou thinks they are more important as run producers behind the big boppers. If both Theriot and Pie start next year, they'll almost certainly be the 2nd and 8th place hitters, but I just don't know which way they will be. My hope is that the Cubs can upgrade SS, which will allow DeRosa to move up to #2, and Pie can slide to 8.

They were 16-22 and in 4th place when Torborg was fired. They were 75-49 the rest of the way under McKeon.And Mckeon stopped playing the crappy vets and let Miggy play every day and he brought up Willis. Neither the fans nor the owner deserved such a team, but that is life. McKeon brought up Willis? Willis was brought up 2 days before Torberg was fired, McKeon just got lucky with that one. I agree with the Cabrera comment, although it took over a month for them to bench Hollandsworth and go to Cabrera after McKeon took over.

Why have playoffs at all then? Just put all the teams into one league, play 162 games, and whoever comes out on top is the winner. The WS winner is not automatically the best team. They are the most deserving team, and that is a big difference. The best teams go down all the time to clubs that get hot at the right time, but that's the fun of playoff baseball.

Actually, if we don't bring in someone from outside, I (and I think several others) are saying Cedeno should be handed the job. And he shouldn't be yanked if he sucks for 2-3 weeks. I think that's exactly what we're saying. Cedeno hasn't done enough to be handed that long of a leash. The Cubs cannot afford to give him 3 more months to struggle when they will have other young players who haven't gotten nearly the shot that Cedeno has that deserve longer leashes (Pie and Soto). Cedeno should be given a good shot to win the job in ST if nobody is brought in, and they shouldn't manage day by day. IMO, Cedeno shouldn't be given any more time to prove himself than Izturis did this year. Izturis had a long track record of sucking at all levels. He didn't deserve any leash except for one with which to choke him. If Cedeno doesn't deserve a long leash, than neither does Theriot. I keep repeating it over and over again but Cedeno was 23 in his replacement level season in '06. Theriot at the age of 23 couldn't handle A ball pitching competently. If the 2 swapped levels at those ages(A 23 year old Ronny in A/AA ball and a 23 year old Theriot in the majors) the numbers would greatly be in Ronny's favor. Giving Theriot the inside edge because he was brought up when actually ready unlike Ronny seems just a bit unfair. Theriot doesn't deserve a long leash either at all. The job should go to the person who is playing better, and if that person struggles for 3-4 weeks straight the other person should get a shot. I'm all for Cedeno getting a shot (although I'd try hard to upgrade SS this winter), and I still think he potentially becomes a pretty good major league SS. I do disagree with the assertion made a couple quotes above that he should be handed the job and allowed to struggle for multiple months in a row before even being considered to be removed from the starting lineup.

Actually, if we don't bring in someone from outside, I (and I think several others) are saying Cedeno should be handed the job. And he shouldn't be yanked if he sucks for 2-3 weeks. I think that's exactly what we're saying. Cedeno hasn't done enough to be handed that long of a leash. The Cubs cannot afford to give him 3 more months to struggle when they will have other young players who haven't gotten nearly the shot that Cedeno has that deserve longer leashes (Pie and Soto). Cedeno should be given a good shot to win the job in ST if nobody is brought in, and they shouldn't manage day by day. IMO, Cedeno shouldn't be given any more time to prove himself than Izturis did this year.

Please...list these "facts" for me. * Offensive and defensive statistics (you can look them up). * The Cubs winning percentages with Theriot starting/Cedeno starting. All the "mathmeticians" that want to say that Theriot "sucked" in 2007 - I don't really know what to say. I am sure he will improve, and I am sure there was a reason why he started at SS most of the year. I know he was inconsistant at best offensively, and didn't play SS like Ozzie Smith. I can appreciate that the 2007 Chicago Cubs were a hell of a lot better than the 06 Cubs - and they got almost all the plays from SS because of Theriot. I watched a hell of a lot of games this season, and we definately had a better team when he was in the lineup. I love players like Theriot, and hope he is our SS/2B for as long as he plays like he did in 07. I'll bet you if you asked any member of the team they would agree with me too. The Cubs finished 65-62 with Theriot starting, and they were 20-15 when Theriot did not start. They were 8-6 when Cedeno started this season. If you want to make the winning percentage argument, you're arguing for Cedeno because his winning percentage was a lot higher than Theriot's. The Cubs scored 4.496 runs per game when Theriot started. They scored 5.17 runs per game when Theriot did not start. They scored 5.07 runs per game when Cedeno started.

They were close in the AP poll, they're 26th this week in that one. Penn State is ranked in the coaches poll, 25th this week. They slipped in ahead of Michigan in that one.

The only reason that I wouldn't do that is that if you put OSU behind Oklahoma and LSU now, they wouldn't move ahead of them if everyone won out. Considering they have Michigan State, Penn State, Wisconsin, Illinois, and Michigan left, if OSU wins out they deserve to be in the national title game over a 1 loss LSU or a 1 loss Oklahoma.

Isn't the "relatively speaking" = the "less resources"? not really, the "relatively speaking" would more equal "less time at his job". Well then, the comparison is flawed if it just means that. Schuerholz has been there 17 years. In those years, his teams have won 14 division titles and 1 WS. They appeared in 4 other WS's and lost in the NLCS 4 other times. His teams won 100 games 6 times, and over 90 games 7 other times. In those 17 years, his teams had a total of 1 losing season, a 79-83 mark in 2006. Beane just finished his 10th season as the Oakland G.M. In that time, the A's have won the division 4 times and the WC once. They have won 100 games twice, and over 90 4 other times. They have had two losing seasons: 1998 (74-88) and 2007 (76-88). They went to the ALCS once, never making the WS. You cannot compare the two without considering factors like lack of resources that would help Beane. Scheurholz's teams have made the playoffs 82.4% of the time compared to Beane's 50%. Schuerholz's teams have had losing seasons 5.9% of the time compared to Beane's 20%. They aren't even close even before you consider success in the playoffs which Schuerholz's teams have been a lot better at.

i guess we'll find out how bad they are when they play in a bcs bowl later this season I don't think you will. I am looking at a couple of the computer rankings right now. While it's still early for the computers and they'll have to shake out a little bit once they get more data (which is the biggest reason they don't release the BCS standings in September because the computers have some wacky stuff the first few weeks) here are the rankings currently for Hawaii in the 4 computers who have released their rankings for this year: 34, 54, 30, 32. It's still early, but it's going to be a long road for Hawaii to be able to climb into the top 12 of the BCS. In the polls, they are 16th, but once they start getting in the top 15 they really won't rise much higher unless they destroy Washington the final week of the year and everyone else loses. Now-if a BCS automatically qualified team is lower than 16th in the rankings and Hawaii is able to get in by just being in the top 16 of the BCS, I believe they get in.

MLB's spending spree has flourished in recent years even without the Yanks and Sox leading the charge... or even really getting very involved at all. Aside from Clemens, who is obviously a special case, the Yanks haven't had a bigtime signing in years. The Sox? DiceK is again a special case. JD Drew fits. Anyone else? Andy Pettitte for $16M after the 2006 season, Johnny Damon after the 2005 season for 4/$52M, and Carl Pavano after the 2004 season for 4/$40M. Sheffield was signed the year before that. Pettitte wasn't a bidding war, it was simply a manner of how much the Yankees decided to pay him. I don't think you can really call signings like Pettitte (or Bonds last year) part of the free agent market because they were heading to one and one team only. I agree with the Damon and Pavano signings though being pretty big.

He wasn't ever an easy out? The only position players who averaged less pitches per plate appearance than Theriot were either demoted or traded (Izturis, Moore, Fox). Everybody else saw more pitches than Theriot. Theriot made an out 67 times on the first pitch. 67 times! The only other Cub above 50 is Aramis Ramirez with 57 times. On the second pitch, Theriot made an out 69 times. That's good for 2nd on the team behind Soriano (77 times). On the third pitch, Theriot made an out 90 times. That's good for 2nd on the team again behind Soriano (94 times) Theriot has made the most outs on the first 3 pitches on the team (19 more outs overall than 2nd place Soriano). Soriano also had 42 more overall at-bats then Theriot, so Theriot had a much higher out percentage on the first 3 pitches. The leader in making outs early in the count should never be a non-power hitter, and Theriot is way in front in that category. A non-power hitter should also never see the least number of pitches on the team. He certainly isn't what you described when you said that he was never an easy out. Good job with the work on this CCP. I have a question that maybe you could answer. Did this get worse as the season progressed? It seemed early in the year he was doing a good job of working counts. Was I just thinking this compared to Cedeno and Izturius or was it true. After his little hot spell in Aug he really looked like a first pitch hacker the rest of the year. Sorry I didn't see this until now. I can sort through the pitches per plate appearance numbers, but not the outs without exhaustive research. Here are these: P/PA by month: April: 3.39 May: 3.99 June: 3.48 July: 3.59 August: 3.44 September: 3.30

Sorry, that's what happens when you try to snip quotes quickly :D. It's fixed now.

He wasn't ever an easy out? The only position players who averaged less pitches per plate appearance than Theriot were either demoted or traded (Izturis, Moore, Fox). Everybody else saw more pitches than Theriot. Theriot made an out 67 times on the first pitch. 67 times! The only other Cub above 50 is Aramis Ramirez with 57 times. On the second pitch, Theriot made an out 69 times. That's good for 2nd on the team behind Soriano (77 times). On the third pitch, Theriot made an out 90 times. That's good for 2nd on the team again behind Soriano (94 times) Theriot has made the most outs on the first 3 pitches on the team (19 more outs overall than 2nd place Soriano). Soriano also had 42 more overall at-bats then Theriot, so Theriot had a much higher out percentage on the first 3 pitches. The leader in making outs early in the count should never be a non-power hitter, and Theriot is way in front in that category. A non-power hitter should also never see the least number of pitches on the team. He certainly isn't what you described when you said that he was never an easy out.

The value for Nathan is high enough that only those who desperately need a good reliever back there could have enough of an improvement with Nathan to make the traded players worth it, and even that's debatable. For a team like the Cubs who simply would be upgrading a strength, the cost in prospects would be too much and could be better used to try to go get a very good guy on offense rather than a great guy in the bullpen.

Unless your Juan Pierre, who was widely disliked and whose 2006 was better than Theriot's 2007. Pierre wasn't widely disliked. There were a lot of general fans who were upset when the Cubs decided not to sign him. It just got washed away pretty quickly with the Soriano signing, and it wasn't as fervent as it otherwise would have been because 2006 was such a horrible year that many people tuned out of after a month or two.

If signing Wood allows you to trade Dempster though, you save money and add talent from the trade. That's one of the only 2 ways I'd sign Wood. The other way would be if Wood came for less than 2 million, which I don't see as likely but I guess it's possible.