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With a runner at third and less than two outs you better believe that the goal of the AB is to drive the ball to the OF deep enough to drive the runner in from third. If it results in a Sac Fly then it was still a very succesful at bat. A base hit is a great bennie to the AB if it happens. But picking up the runner at third is a bigger bennie. how is making an out a bigger benefit than a hit? that doesn't make sense. sounds like someone's in love with the idea of making outs. it's okay, the cubs have been in love with the idea of making outs for a long time now. every time up, the hitter should look for a pitch to drive. if no pitch satisfies the hitter, he should walk down to first or tip his cap to an excellent pitcher. putting the ball in play for the sake of putting it in play is worse than striking out. I think he meant that in that situation, scoring the run gives you a bigger marginal benefit to a hit-if a person made a hit 25 percent of the time and struck out 75 percent of the time, or if they made an out in those situations that scored the run 75% of the time and struck out 25% of the time, which one would you take? Obviously a hit is the best option, but the extra risk in working for a hit has to be factored in as well . Going to the plate intending to make an out is stupid. If you have two strikes on you, whatever, but the goal of any PA should be to get a hit, not hit a flyout to CF. I would argue that it depends on the game situation, hitter, and how the defense is playing. There are many situations where the first priority has to be to get the run in however possible-a hit is a nice bonus. If the defense is conceding the run, run expectancies would tell you that sometimes it's worth more runs just to take the more sure ground ball out (which could still turn into a hit) rather than risk an out that does not drive in the run. and i've yet to see the situation in which making an out is worth more runs than not making an out. the situation may exist, but i don't think so. That's not what I am saying at all-I am saying that striving to score the run in some situations which will likely lead to an out (grounding the ball to the second baseman with a man on third and one out) will lead to more runs overall than if in that same situation a decent to sub-par hitter with a high K rate goes up and hits just like he normally would.

With a runner at third and less than two outs you better believe that the goal of the AB is to drive the ball to the OF deep enough to drive the runner in from third. If it results in a Sac Fly then it was still a very succesful at bat. A base hit is a great bennie to the AB if it happens. But picking up the runner at third is a bigger bennie. how is making an out a bigger benefit than a hit? that doesn't make sense. sounds like someone's in love with the idea of making outs. it's okay, the cubs have been in love with the idea of making outs for a long time now. every time up, the hitter should look for a pitch to drive. if no pitch satisfies the hitter, he should walk down to first or tip his cap to an excellent pitcher. putting the ball in play for the sake of putting it in play is worse than striking out. I think he meant that in that situation, scoring the run gives you a bigger marginal benefit to a hit-if a person made a hit 25 percent of the time and struck out 75 percent of the time, or if they made an out in those situations that scored the run 75% of the time and struck out 25% of the time, which one would you take? Obviously a hit is the best option, but the extra risk in working for a hit has to be factored in as well . this ratio is totally imagined, it doesn't exist. the proof we have shows that sacrificing holds no benefit over not sacrificing when trying to push a single run across the plate. however, there's proof that shows sacrificing greatly decreases your chances of scoring multiple runs. I'm not talking about sacrificing (I assume you mean bunts here)-I think that major leaguers have enough bat control most of the time though that when a defense is conceding the run in the infield that they can hit a grounder if they want to and score that run. It would be impossible to do a study completely on that (because it's hard to tell which batters are looking for a hit and which ones are looking to score the run first) but it is perfectly rational that with a man on third and one out with the defense conceding the run that it will be more likely that a team will score that run if that is their primary objective rather than hitting the exact same as if nobody was on.

With a runner at third and less than two outs you better believe that the goal of the AB is to drive the ball to the OF deep enough to drive the runner in from third. If it results in a Sac Fly then it was still a very succesful at bat. A base hit is a great bennie to the AB if it happens. But picking up the runner at third is a bigger bennie. how is making an out a bigger benefit than a hit? that doesn't make sense. sounds like someone's in love with the idea of making outs. it's okay, the cubs have been in love with the idea of making outs for a long time now. every time up, the hitter should look for a pitch to drive. if no pitch satisfies the hitter, he should walk down to first or tip his cap to an excellent pitcher. putting the ball in play for the sake of putting it in play is worse than striking out. I think he meant that in that situation, scoring the run gives you a bigger marginal benefit to a hit-if a person made a hit 25 percent of the time and struck out 75 percent of the time, or if they made an out in those situations that scored the run 75% of the time and struck out 25% of the time, which one would you take? Obviously a hit is the best option, but the extra risk in working for a hit has to be factored in as well . Going to the plate intending to make an out is stupid. If you have two strikes on you, whatever, but the goal of any PA should be to get a hit, not hit a flyout to CF. I would argue that it depends on the game situation, hitter, and how the defense is playing. There are many situations where the first priority has to be to get the run in however possible-a hit is a nice bonus. If the defense is conceding the run, run expectancies would tell you that sometimes it's worth more runs just to take the more sure ground ball out (which could still turn into a hit) rather than risk an out that does not drive in the run.

With a runner at third and less than two outs you better believe that the goal of the AB is to drive the ball to the OF deep enough to drive the runner in from third. If it results in a Sac Fly then it was still a very succesful at bat. A base hit is a great bennie to the AB if it happens. But picking up the runner at third is a bigger bennie. how is making an out a bigger benefit than a hit? that doesn't make sense. sounds like someone's in love with the idea of making outs. it's okay, the cubs have been in love with the idea of making outs for a long time now. every time up, the hitter should look for a pitch to drive. if no pitch satisfies the hitter, he should walk down to first or tip his cap to an excellent pitcher. putting the ball in play for the sake of putting it in play is worse than striking out. I think he meant that in that situation, scoring the run gives you a bigger marginal benefit to a hit-if a person made a hit 25 percent of the time and struck out 75 percent of the time, or if they made an out in those situations that scored the run 75% of the time and struck out 25% of the time, which one would you take? Obviously a hit is the best option, but the extra risk in working for a hit has to be factored in as well .

Other than the people implying that Aramis was lazy, out of shape and unfocused, earning the disrespect of his teamates, and maintaining the ire of the fans by signing a fat contract and showing up "late" (whihc turned out to be on time", you're right. No one said anything critical. Other than that. I saw one comment that he looked out of shape-which is a common thing said about at least a few players on the team all the time on this board (including in the last week)-nobody jumped all over them. I didn't really see the other implications you're talking about-the only other comment that could be seen as remotely critical of Aramis is that people wouldn't be impressed by him if he showed up late-he didn't, and the person even said that he really just wanted to know who was there/and wasn't there and was not turning against Aramis in any way. I guess I just didn't read the same implications into things that some others did.

The funny thing is that in reading through this thread, there really wasn't any of this harsh criticism of Aramis that everyone is speaking of-I think the perception is more than the reality in this case.

If the Cubs win, what would that mean in terms of dollars? I'm guessing, if vance's reasoning is correct, it would mean an Oswalt-like one year salary. According to ESPN.com, he's making 11,000,000. Off the top of my head, the firgures are like 11.5 from the Cubs and 15 from Z. I think the .5 is actually opposite there-from what I remember, it was 11 from the Cubs and 15.5 from Z-that's of course off the top of my head too, so either of us could be right.

I think the answer to your question would be Theriot, but I can't see the club turning around and suddenly putting Jones in CF-that's the scenario that the club has desperately been trying to avoid all winter (trying to trade Jones until Soriano agreed to play center).

Assuming I did the math right, the numbers are accurate, and the number of double plays on double steals is insignificant, the break even points come out to 53.3% for double steals with no outs, and 79.1% for double steals with one out. Thanks-so if that's correct, double steals with nobody out can be an effective weapon if you have a very good baserunner stealing 3rd and at least a decent basestealer stealing 2nd (making the catcher throw it to 3rd rather than 2nd) So who's the very good basestealer on the roster? Well, let's see, I only need a 53 percent break-even point for a double steal, so I just need a player who can steal 3rd 55 percent of the time or more. Soriano fits that bill: 2006-14 steals, 8 CS 2005-6 steals, 0 CS 2004-2 steals, 2 CS 2003-5 steals, 3 CS 2002-9 steals, 3 CS That's 36 steals of 3rd in the last 5 years with 16 caught-that's 69.2 percent, which means that Soriano is breaking even on stealing 3rd with one out, and can be used as that front baserunner in the double steal attempt.

Assuming I did the math right, the numbers are accurate, and the number of double plays on double steals is insignificant, the break even points come out to 53.3% for double steals with no outs, and 79.1% for double steals with one out. Thanks-so if that's correct, double steals with nobody out can be an effective weapon if you have a very good baserunner stealing 3rd and at least a decent basestealer stealing 2nd (making the catcher throw it to 3rd rather than 2nd)

That's specious reasoning. An AB can have multiple outcomes that result in a runner reaching without an out. A stolen base attempt has 2 outcomes. Soriano had a 68% success rate stealing last season. He had 3 net SB's. That's bad. It is a bad idea, with few exceptions, to take a runner at 2nd and have him try and steal 3rd. That's my point soccer, the few exceptions and I have never said all the time. You pick your spots and the post BbB just made gives me more confidence that Lou will do just that. What point did I make? I haven't made a single post in this thread until now. I think he was talking about my post-I'm honored to be mistaken for you :D

Can somebody help me out? My brain is very tired, and for some reason I can't get the numbers to work right now. Can you calculate the percentage that the team would need when trying to execute a double steal with 0 and 1 outs? Here is the relevant data: 0 outs 1st and 2nd: 1.573 2nd and 3rd: 2.052 2nd (1 out): .725 1 outs 1st and 2nd: .971 2nd and 3rd: 1.467 2nd (2 outs): .344 Thanks for any help you can give.

BTW, one more thing to be noted-Lou Piniella has been cited for his teams annually having one of the best SB percentages in the league-so for all league managers that the Cubs can have, Piniella will likely hurt the team least with the stolen base. http://www.baseballprospectus.com/article.php?articleid=2607

Ok, obviously stealing 3rd with 2 outs is silly-let's throw that completely out of the discussion. With that said, the rates show that stealing 3rd can have a lower break-even rate than stealing 2nd-so the original post who said that stealing 3rd was silly (and didn't mention stealing 2nd, which meant that he thought that stealing 2nd was better than stealing 3rd) has been disproven. Also, I'd love to see the stats on the percentages of break-evens if it is a double steal. Obviously, a double steal would lower the break-even percentage by at least another few percent. If that is true, than Soriano's career numbers of stealing 3rd by himself or as part of a double steal would be slightly above break even. If you can at least break even on your steals, then it is a good idea to do it because of the extra threat to the pitcher and catcher that it provides as well.

The other thing I forgot-having a player who has the ability to steal 3rd as part of a double steal can be quite an effective weapon as well if used correctly and sparingly. Stealing 3rd shouldn't be a routine thing, but if used correctly it can really help a team if the the team and/or baserunner knows when to call it and when not to.

You should only steal 3rd if you're very sure you can make it-stealing 3rd is all about getting to score on an out, not a better chance of scoring on a hit. I t shouldn't be a routine thing, but if a good basestealer gets a good jump, it can be valuable as long as their success rate stealing 3rd is very high. Use Lou's quote for instance. He's talking about Soriano stealing third. He's the best basestealer on the team, but 99.99% of the time, I dont want him even thinking about stealing third with Lee, Ramirez and Jones coming up behind him. Sure, a guy on third will score on a passed ball/wild pitch, whereas a guy on second won't, but how many times in a season does that happen to a team? Five? Ten? How many times will it happen when Soriano has stolen third? At best one or two? It's not worth it. There will be times when you need to play for the one run, and then i would be ok with it, and that is the 0.01% of the time. Maybe on a wild pitch or passed ball it happens 5 or 10 times, but runners score a decent amount from 3rd on a ground ball out or a sacrifice fly. I wouldn't expect Soriano to try it more than 4 or 5 times all season-the less times he tries it but remains a threat to do it, the better it is.

http://msn.foxsports.com/nfl/story/6485778 So I guess Rivera wasn't that essential to the Bears success.. Have the Chargers hired anyone for defense yet? If not maybe Rivera is going there to help Turner. Rivera's run a standard 4-3 defense throughout his coaching career. I'm not sure how big of a shift going to a 3-4 is for a defensive coordinator, or if Turner will keep a 3-4, but it may require a change in thinking on Turner's part. Yeah, I would see it more likely that Rivera would be going to Dallas as the D-coordinator-they wouldn't be that bad switching, but SD would lose much of its defensive effectiveness if they switched defenses.

I suppose he'd be a decent bench option but the team is pretty much set... The Cubs are the only place where Finley could even potentially start-he is just trying to gamble that somehow the Cubs don't have anybody play center. He's just desperate-I don't think that it would be likely at all that 1)Soriano can't play center, 2) Jones can't play center, and 3)Pie isn't ready, which would all have to happen before Finley would be signed.

Even if Jones sits 80% of the time against left-handers (which I fully support and hopefully it's even more than that) he likely will still have the most-at bats because he has an advantage on the other two outfielders with starting against right-handers (Murton because he is right-handed, and Floyd because Floyd would be terrible defensively in RF). Even with Jones getting the most at-bats though, if they are sitting him against left-handers the Cubs outfield will be incredibly productive. I don't expect Jones to come close to the numbers he posted last year, except OBP. http://www.fangraphs.com/graphs.aspx?playerid=735&position=OF&page=0&type=full Fangraphs also has an article on Big Z (not optimistic). http://www.fangraphs.com/ True, but this could also have something to do with it: OPS 2002-Home-.721 Away-.977 2003-Home-.822 Away-.770 2004-Home-.694 Away-.784 2005-Home-.722 Away-.793 Home-.841 Away-.821 In the past 5 years, Jone has never had less than a .770 OPS away from his home park. Considering that most people are better at home than away from home, he would seem to be a guaranteed .800 every year, but that didn't happen in Minnesota because except for 2003, he was absolutely miserable at home. When he changed to Wrigley Field, his home numbers went up, and so did his total OPS. I do expect him to be a little lower overall if he had the same type of at-bats (20-30 points of OPS), but the drop should be offset by a few less at-bats against left-handers, so I would expect his OPS to be around the same as last year.

You should only steal 3rd if you're very sure you can make it-stealing 3rd is all about getting to score on an out, not a better chance of scoring on a hit. I t shouldn't be a routine thing, but if a good basestealer gets a good jump, it can be valuable as long as their success rate stealing 3rd is very high.

Even if Jones sits 80% of the time against left-handers (which I fully support and hopefully it's even more than that) he likely will still have the most-at bats because he has an advantage on the other two outfielders with starting against right-handers (Murton because he is right-handed, and Floyd because Floyd would be terrible defensively in RF). Even with Jones getting the most at-bats though, if they are sitting him against left-handers the Cubs outfield will be incredibly productive.

That seems about right to me. Murton should get every at-bat against left-handed starters. That should be somewhere around 200 PA right there. If he gets even 1/3 of the starts aginst right-handed starters, then that would put him at 350, and pinch-hitting and double switches could probably push him up to 400. Jones ends up getting the most at-bats because he is the only one reliable enough to play RF right now (I hope that Murton gets out there and gets acclimated quickly to RF so Murton and Floyd can play against some lefties, I don't want to see Floyd in RF at all), and Floyd takes the rest of the right handed at-bats from Murton and a few of the left-handed bats from Jones. I know many of you hate this practice, but history against certain pitchers might dictate some of the matchups. I don't mind it in a situation like this when the players are likely to be similarly productive anyway (although in different ways)-it's bad when you start Blanco over Barrett because of it, but I think it can be helpful in deciding between similar players for that day. I can also see Lou changing his lineup based on which way the wind is blowing at Wrigley.

Murton has proven he is a major league caliber player. He doesn't need spring training to prove anything. As far as playing time, it's up to Lou Piniella to find plenty of playing time for all 4 outfielders, and the ones who are playing the best deserve the most playing time. I think however much he's overstated his point that this is his point as well. If Floyd is playing better than Murton at the end of ST, then it's not a problem if he gets the majority of starts at the beginning of the season. Murton should still get plenty of time in any scenario, and if he then started out-performing Floyd (assuming the prior scenario) than Murton would start getting the majority of time. No matter who starts when though, all 3 corner outfielders should get plenty of at-bats.

not really relevant to this conversation, but I do imagine Cubs hitters walking a LOT more this year with the new hitting coach and with Dusty being gone. I think just getting the opposing pitchers to throw more pitches is the key and walks are just a byproduct of that. I'd put it the opposite. Well, not exactly. IMO, walks and getting the pitchers to throw more pitches are a byproduct of waiting for a pitch you can hit hard somewhere. Making contact with anything in the strike zone just for the sake of making contact (outside of some situations, obviously, like a close two strike pitch) is the one thing they need to stay totally away from. If they go up there with the approach that before 2 strikes, they're only going to swing if they get a pitch to hit, I think the rest will come. I just hope to see a lot less swinging early in the count this year. We've been letting the opposing pitcher off the hook way too easily, especially since 2003. What's to stop a pitcher from getting strike 1 and 2 then if you have the proverbial bat on the shoulder? I think each batter has to have a plan when they go up there and sometimes circumstances dictate what they have to do. Knowing your zones and your pitches you can drive help immensely and obviously getting into a hitters count increases that and I agree that it would make the hitters more successful if they can do that. I like Murtons approach to hitting but it doesn't work for everybody and I don't think it could work for Soriano or Jones because of the habits they already have which are very hard to break. Being selective/aggresive is a very hard thing to to learn. I agree with you, especially on Jones. He is a hitter that is best when agressive on the first couple pitches. When he is struggling, he tends to be more patient, which leads to more walks for him but his hitting is down. He is better when he is hitting before it gets to 2 strikes-even when he is 3-2, Jacque struggles a bit more than a normal hitter does. I would of course love to see him lay off the obvious non-strikes much more, but he needs to be able to attack balls around the strike zone early in the count-that is where he has proven that he can be effective and can drive pitches in a few different locations. For some of the other hitters, especially those without the power capabilities, I definitely agree that they need to be more selective in which pitch they want to hit though.

Trib Hmmm-it seems like they have decided that it's basically 3 equal players for 2 spots. Murton may not have a guaranteed starting job, but neither does Jones or Floyd. That is definitely going to be an interesting situation to watch as it progresses throughout the season. I'm not too worried about it though-they all should be good players, so production should hopefully be good no matter which two they run out there.