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I don't think any of that is being debated. What is questioned is if these hitters in the Padres organization were bypassing pitches they could drive in order to fulfill their mandate of being "patient" that their coaches were emphasizing, which led to more walks and more times down in the count. Patience until a pitch to drive comes along is the best strategy, but I think the evidence would at least give a possibility of indicating that this was not the strategy that some of the Padres affiliates were using-instead, from their stats, their hitters appeared to be going up to the plate looking for a walk.

Rufus Alexander How big is Briggs? Rufus played this year at 217, I'm sure Briggs is closer to 240. I don't know that Rufus is big enough to succeed in the NFL to be honest with you. 217 pound linebacker? That's huge for the Colts-in fact, Cato June is about to get a big payday and is only 204 pounds (and is probably actually under 200). That doesn't necessarily mean that Rufus will succeed for the Bears, but with the similarity in schemes a small linebacker could work well for the Bears as long as he has the required speed.

I'm not sure how it proves anything like that-anybody can be taught to take more walks at the expense of some of their hits. What San Diego is trying to do is instill plate discipline and make their hitters better, which I don't think this evidence has any proof for that at all. Edit: I do think plate discipline to a point is learned (some of it is natural, and some of it can be improved)-but this shows me very little except that they pushed their hitters to take more pitchers, which in a couple leagues caused high walks, high SO's, and very low AVG and SLG. That's not true at all. The high strike outs, low average, and slugging are independent of plate discipline. It shows how bad some of the players are in their system. Adam Dunn has high strikes, low average and great slugging. I'm not saying that plate discipline and those things are inextricably linked-they certainly aren't (one can have great AVG and great SLG and still have great plate discipline). I'm saying that the fact that those numbers are the way there are might suggest that the Padres hitters took more pitches simply to take more pitches, and found themselves down down in the count a great deal. There might have been such an emphasis on taking pitches that hitters were scared to go after the first few pitches, which led to either walks or being down 0-2 or 1-2-counts that are linked to high K rates and low AVG and SLG. It could come from the players in the Padres system as well, but that could be an explanation for those rates. Now-even if they are doing that, it may be a good long-term strategy. Teach the plate discipline and force people to watch plenty of pitches, and then slowly let them start attacking pitches that they now know are good pitches.

I'm not sure how it proves anything like that-anybody can be taught to take more walks at the expense of some of their hits. What San Diego is trying to do is instill plate discipline and make their hitters better, which I don't think this evidence has any proof for that at all. Edit: I do think plate discipline to a point is learned (some of it is natural, and some of it can be improved)-but this shows me very little except that they pushed their hitters to take more pitchers, which in a couple leagues caused high walks, high SO's, and very low AVG and SLG.

The Sunday finals have sometimes little to do with their seeding-the conference tournaments overall though can have a huge effect on seeding-a team can move up several lines on the seeding charts by going deep into their tournament (obviously, the higher you go, especially once you get to 3rd seed or so, it starts getting much harder to move up). For example, I think Indiana can be anywhere between a 4 seed and a 11 seed depending on their performance in the Big 10 tournament.

Well, they won't be a top 15 team now with that conference record when the polls come out today-and I don't think any serious bracketologist has them as a 3 or a 4 seed either. CBS Sportsline has them as an 8 and ESPN has them as a 7. I think you have to wait and see how t7hey play in the ACC Tourney. if they goo out in the first two rounds, they will be a 6 or 7, IMO. But if they win the tourney, they couyld be as high as a 3, I'd wager. BTW: Jon Scheyer? OVER-RATED! True-I was just saying what they are right now. Championship Week can change everything-I mean, Syracuse was out of the tournament entering the Big East Tournament last year, and moved all the way up to a 5 seed by winning it-conference tournaments have a huge impact on seeding, so Duke could go either way right now.

I think it's worth mentioning that the Padres farm system is one of the worst in baseball. The lack of good to decent position playing prospects might have a much bigger impact on the lack of run scoring, as well as won/loss records of their minor league teams. That's a very valid point. There's too many variables right now that could skew the results like that, and unfortunately due to promotions there is no way to isolate a teams result from year to year either.

The fact that runs are low doesn't prove that the emphasis is to the detriment of the players. It's a detriment to the minor league teams' ability to score runs. But that's meaningless. It's only a detriment if it causes some "should be" major leaguers to completely flame out. But you'd never be able to prove that. That's why I want more data-I can definitely say that this cannot be proven as a positive thing either though with the available data. Right now it is completely up in the air if this very patient approach will have a positive effect or negative effect.

Well, they won't be a top 15 team now with that conference record when the polls come out today-and I don't think any serious bracketologist has them as a 3 or a 4 seed either. CBS Sportsline has them as an 8 and ESPN has them as a 7.

The records of minor league of teams don't matter. 90% of those guys won't make it to the big leagues. I was pointing it out to say that they are emphasizing patience so much to the detriment of these players. They might be teaching patience and players are walking more, but the overall offensive performance of their system was poor last year, and it could be partially due to their philosophy. I want my hitters to be patient at the plate, but the numbers that their system shows indicates that they are pushing that too hard, just like the Cubs system is not pushing it hard enough. Edit: BTW, I never said anything about their record-just about their amount of runs scored, which would seem to be a logical thing to look at after seeing the huge increase in walks to see if that paid off in more runs scored or not.

The question is-did that approach help them or hurt them? I'm all for drawing more walks, but two of the 5 Padres teams (I can't find team statistics for rookie ball at the moment) finished dead last in runs scored on the season, even if one of those teams had a significant advantage in walks to everybody else (they had 608 walks while the second best team in walks had 535, but they finished dead last in RS). Is it something where you force an extreme version of patience on minor league hitters for a couple of years, and then hope that when you loosen the reins they will be able to have a nice blend of patience and aggressiveness? I'm not sure there is enough data to show either way right now-it would be interesting if they can repeat that and to see what happens to their runs scored totals.

If I'm taking the time to respond and post, I'm taking the time to read the thread-the only time that I don't read a post that may help me is when they actually have posted while I'm trying to write my post.

As I said, the announcers came off as total Duke homers. I wanted to see Hansbrough go ape on Henderson. Woulda loved that. Jim Nantz and Billy Packer. Enough said. Billy Packer is terrible. He did the GT/UNC game on Thursday and in the post game said Tech needed to win 2 or 3 more games. Today, he says Tech is a lock. Packer and Nantz will be there all the way through March. Meh. If Packer had his way, the NCAA tournament would only feature teams from the Big 6 conferences. If Packer had his way, the tournament might be a deja vu moment-the 12 team NCAA tournament that just happens to have all ACC teams in it. :D

I don't think that's a shocking number at all considering the amount of money being thrown around right now.

Yeah so that didn't happen. Kinda slept through the game. How bad did the Cubs look today? Starters didn't look terrible-Hill with a solo homer given up, but looked pretty good otherwise. Soriano was 3 of 3 with 2 doubles, and Murton added a pair of BB's. The pitching later was simply awful. It wasn't really as bad as the 13-2 score indicated though, and the starting lineup for the Cubs still looks all right.

It's mostly the minor leaguers who are struggling here. Hope so, but last time I checked, Ohman isn't a minor leaguer. I doubt Ohman will be used anything but a LOOGY this year-he saw a good amount of at-bats against right-handers last year, but he is much more effective against left-handers, and with the depth in the Cubs bullpen I bet the Cubs will use him for mostly left-handers only with the occasional right-hander, which is not the way they are using him in spring-that accounts for the different result partially.

Who hit it? It was Gustavo Molina.

I was just thinking what Bob said-with the lack of SS's that the Cubs have in camp, Cedeno is going to get a lot of at-bats this spring. Nice BB there.

After watching Rapada pitch a couple of pitches, I can see why he's great against left-handers, and why he was so terrible the other day against the right-handers in the Angels lineup.

From viewing the replay (although the replay is not the best) I think we got a favorable call there. The ball beat him there, but I think he beat the tag.

Exactly-pretty much all the starting hitters have been decent so far (the only one that hasn't been good is Ramirez), and the pitchers who will be on the roster have been good as well-it's been many of the other pitchers who have struggled. Ramirez will continue to struggle till the end of May. If he has a second half like he did last year, I'll take him being terrible until the end of May :D I won't. You don't pay all-stars to show up two months into the season when you might arleady be burried in the standings. They need to play consistent throughout the season. That's a good philosophical question. Would you prefer a steady .866 OPS or .600 in April & May and 1.000 for the rest of the season? I'd prefer a steady rate, but if someone told me that Aramis was going to have a better than .900 OPS once again for the season, I don't really care if all of that comes in a couple of months or not. I'd like him to hit better in the months that he doesn't, but he carries the lineup when he's hot-somebody else will just have to carry them when he's not.

Exactly-pretty much all the starting hitters have been decent so far (the only one that hasn't been good is Ramirez), and the pitchers who will be on the roster have been good as well-it's been many of the other pitchers who have struggled. Ramirez will continue to struggle till the end of May. If he has a second half like he did last year, I'll take him being terrible until the end of May :D

Now that's nice to see-D-Lee with the bomb!

Exactly-pretty much all the starting hitters have been decent so far (the only one that hasn't been good is Ramirez), and the pitchers who will be on the roster have been good as well-it's been many of the other pitchers who have struggled.

Well, this has been 3-4 days in a row where our minor leaguers have been rocked by their major league hitters in the middle of the game. That's not too bad-but I wish the Cubs could do the same to the opposing pitchers during that time.