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What was the Indinas' record in 1-run games? Hasn't it been accepted that one's record in 1-run games has a lot to do with luck? I think luck can play a big role in a team's overall record. How much of it is luck though? For example, hasn't it also been accepted that teams with very good closers will win more 1-run ballgames than those with terrible closers? I don't know to be honest. I am very curious on what their record in 1 run games is though. 18-26

By watching the higlights (and watching them 3-4 times to make sure I got everything)-it certainly looked like Toronto was the benefit of some favorable calls on the foul plus the time being as low as it was. Although, at the same time I thought the foul on Toronto on Gordon's drive was ridiculous-at the worst it was a no-call, and it could have been an offensive foul as well. It's hard to say if Toronto ended up getting more benefit in the last 12 seconds or if the benefits equaled out.

I'm going to go out on a limb and say that Piniella does not get ejected whatsoever in the regular season of 2007. Can you do that?

http://baseballcritic.wordpress.com/2007/01/22/zambrano-on-the-zito-trail/ I never saw that quote before. Is there a better source than a blog? Sure-here you go. http://www.suntimes.com/sports/baseball/cubs/220720,CST-SPT-csep20.article

Actually, he probably is. PECOTA is projecting about a half run of ERA in Ryu's favor. CHONE predicts nearly an earned run Ryu's favor and ZiPS favors Ryu as well, although Dan sees them being pretty close. I keep forgetting to use ZiPS and CHONE when I make points about pitching. PECOTA may as well be the definitive source on projections for hitters... but its pitching lags behind (due to the very unpredictable nature of pitching itself). I will go out on a limb and say that all three will be wrong and Marquis will be about a run better than Ryu. Of course you will. You have no professional experience with projecting performances, nor do you have professional credibility that needs sustaining in order to ensure the money keeps coming in (at least not in this area). Not only that, but now Ryu has switched to the AL East. No offense intended of course, but I think I'll continue trusting the people that get paid to make these projections. After everything is said and done, I suspect Ryu's ERA will be slightly better after adjusting for league context. The big question I have with pitching projections are their minor league translations. It is already proven as a whole that pitching numbers are not nearly as accurate as hitting numbers. When I look at the ZIPS projections for 2007 and I see several minor leaguers who they project could have less than a 5 ERA right now in the majors (Mateo, Pignaitello, Lightenberg, Ryu, Pawelek, Guzman, Reith, Gallagher, O'Malley)-a couple of those have a decent chance of acheiving that, but a few of them would have a very small chance of hitting that number. That's the part that doesn't make sense to me-unfortunately, most of the time those projections never get to be tested, and when they are tested it's usually only with prospects who are absolutely ready. When a team has a situation like the Cubs did last year, most times I think those prospects from lower down in the minors or with lesser stuff-their numbers will not translate as well to the majors as the computers would say they would.

Again, did he even say that? I need to go back and look at these quotes again. I don't remember him saying he's definitely gone if they don't have the deal by opening day. He said that he must get a deal before the season, and if the Cubs don't sign him, he must go-that certainly sounds like it's definite unless he backs off of that statement.

Here's the wanting to be paid like Zito quote: http://baseballcritic.wordpress.com/2007/01/22/zambrano-on-the-zito-trail/

Teams don't throw at Vasher nearly as much as Tillman-I've heard that Tillman got thrown at twice as much as Vasher this year-in fact, Tillman was one of the league leaders at balls thrown his way. Because of this, it seems to reason that Tillman's stats would be a lot better than Vasher's, but he's not necessarily better. Edit: Here's the quote, from Football Outsider's Superbowl Preview: http://www.footballoutsiders.com/2007/02/01/ramblings/game-previews/4913/

I found the ZIPS projections from last year-here are a few notables: Williams-165.0 IP, 4.36 ERA, 104K/62BB Guzman-41.0 IP, 4.39 ERA, 28K/10BB Ryu-155.0 IP, 4.59 ERA, 110K/46BB Mitre-141.0 IP, 4.72 ERA, 111K/55BB Nolasco-154.0 IP, 4.73 ERA, 143K/56BB Hill-130.0 IP, 4.78 ERA, 156K/65BB Brownlie-110.0 IP, 4.91 ERA, 110K/67BB Koronka-151.0 IP, 5.01 ERA, 110K/67BB Marshall, Marmol, and Mateo were not listed. http://www.baseballthinkfactory.org/files/oracle/discussion/2006_zips_projections_chicago_cubs/ I'll post the others if/and as I find them. Edit-BTW, Zips was found to be the most accurate system for pitchers last year-based on this study: http://www.baseballthinkfactory.org/files/newsstand/discussion/2006_projection_results/

That is an amazing point and something I completely forgot about-that definitely makes me happier, as I have a good deal of trust in Wilken to generally pick people who have a decent chance of developing, and if he wants these two there must at least be a chance that they'll surprise and be really good, even if it's not a great one.

That's from this week's TMQ by the way-a very funny article about predictions: http://sports.espn.go.com/espn/page2/story?page=easterbrook/070213&lpos=spotlight&lid=tab3pos1

The Indiana-Purdue game has been pushed back to Thursday: http://sports.espn.go.com/ncb/news/story?id=2764666 This basically makes it so that IU has to somehow find a way to get 1 of the 2 games this week-that's going to be a tough game at Michigan less than 48 hours after the game at Purdue.

Maybe there's a bias there, but I honestly think he's terrible. He's an obnoxious jerk who takes himself far too seriously, and he's just not good at describing the action, both in football and baseball. He's far more interested in being witty and cool than calling the game. I bolded the last sentence of goony's post for a reason. To me, that sentence perfectly describes Bob Costas these days. I used to think Costas did a great job whenever given play-by-play duties, regardless of sport. But these days, it's almost like he's trying too hard to make every single play seem dramatic. I liked Bob Costas doing games-the only thing I didn't like is what Pacers fans were his Bulls bias. I never bought into most of it, but one fact was unmistakeable-for a couple of years in the late 90's, Costas called just about every Bull by their first name, and called absolutely 0 Pacers by their first name-that was a little annoying to me. That didn't completely detract from his good announcing though-I haven't heard him enough lately to know if he's changed other than on the NFL pre-game show, where he seems fine.

Why is Z automatically the bad guy? Why not look at it from the perspective of Carlos Zambrano has given the Cubs 3 very good seasons, why can't the Cubs reward him with the contract that he wants? Z has been very good for the Cubs, why should he give them a reduced price? Shouldn't the Cubs do the honorable thing and pay him what the market dictates? You say Z is being greedy. Maybe the Cubs are being stingy. Z is due for a major injury sometime in the near future. His K/BB trend scares the crap out of me. Dude is not a pitcher. He's a thrower. It just happens that his stuff is so freaking good he's made it this far. Z is in for a major plummet. Z is a dink for saying he'd leave if he didn't get an extension by opening day. It's one thing to say you don't want to negotiate during the season (that's common). It's another to say you're gone if an extension isn't inked by opening day. Selfish jerk. Now we know how "Carlos Zambrano thinks." I doubt he means it though, and it appears a lot of us feel the same way. And he is due for a major injury, I agree. But Zito money is a good deal given Z is better than Zito, younger than Zito and there's also salary inflation for next offseason to think about. A Zito deal is good for Z given that he's due for a major injury? What was Wood's last contract? 3 years? You want to see us pay Z for 6+ years of Wood/Prior DL madness? I love what Z has done, but I'm a little gunshy. I don't blame Z for his impending injury. That's all on Dusty, the pitcher killer. But it's just plum ridiculous to pay Z for PAST performance. True-but from Z's perspective, he's not ready for a major injury, and he deserves to get paid more than Zito. He also knows if he has a good year he will get more than Zito, and he like most pitchers fully expects to have a good year. You're basically saying that Z should accept less than he would normally get, and the only way he'd do that is if he agrees that he's a major injury risk, which he obviously doesn't. That's a reason for the club not to sign him to that money, but Z is perfectly reasonable to ask for that type of money.

Not me-I heard it here first, so I saw the thread title that Ryu had been traded, and figured that if we gave an ok prospect there we'd probably only get ok prospects back, and was right on that conclusion.

I disagree. /quote] You don't think Hendry is competent enough to at least know that Z is going to need an extension soon when he was doing free agency this year? That's all Tim said, and that's a really harsh criticism of Hendry to say that he couldn't even factor in what he wanted to pay Z into his plan.

Thanks for the info-I like this trade now. Ryu was behind so many pitchers in the Cubs system anyway, and they might as well take a gamble on a couple people who seem to possibly have some pretty good ceilings and are still not very experienced in the minors.

This is a report from before the season in 2006-at the time, Andrew Lopez was this site's pick for the DRays 22nd best prospect, and they did little writeups on each. It's kind of hard to quote with the way they have it set up, so you really should just go there and read this one: http://www.raysbaseball.com/Top25Prospects06.shtml

Some stuff from his last year in college on Reinhard (since he's only one year from being drafted, I still think this is relevant): http://www.summercollegiatebaseball.com/news.htm

they also have a scouting video there if you care to check it out. link I also saw a report that he has a Mulder type approach on the mound as well.

I have to wonder if Lopez was hurt at all this year-his numbers went way down, and it seems strange to me (although I'm not near an expert on the minors) to have a guy repeat at the rookie league when he did so well at age 18 there.

I don't think panic about losing your best pitcher in over a decade is over-reaction, especially seeing as this demand is coming after some really questionable spending has been made. Had this demand come in November, he'd be locked up by now. But with the stupid contracts given to Lilly, Marquis, DeRosa, etc with almost no thought about locking up Z long term I think this is a perfect time to panic. you really think that no thought was given to locking up Z? Really? honestly? Not as much as there should have been. Can anyone here justify giving 4/40 to Lilly or 3/21 to Marquis when you have a freaking future Cy Young winner on the staff entering the last year of his contract? Which was more important? Flushing money down the toilet by severely overpaying for mediocre talent or locking up one of the best pitchers in the league? Obviously, Hendry chose the former. It wasn't just Hendry. The whole market was nuts. That doesn't mean there isn't more money for Z. I agree. Hendry's M.O. has always been free agents, then contract extensions. He's come through multiple times before on extensions, so I don't know why the free agent spending suddenly means he wasn't thinking about re-signing Z or that he is out of money. It simply means that Hendry feels that he has till spring training to work with Z, while he doesn't with the free agents, so signing the free agents has to come first. That may not be how everyone would do it, but it is how Hendry has done t, and he always has saved the money for the extension and successfully completed it.

That's not a flaw. In fact the situations are perfectly analogous. The only reason the Cubs would deal Zambrano is if they can't (or won't) pay Z what he is going to demand as a FA. At that point, their choice is between taking the players he could be traded for, or taking the draft picks when he leaves. Same exact choice the Royals had with Beltran. No, the Cubs also might deal Z if they feel the prospects would be a better option than trading Z, but that they would sign Z as a fallback option-the Royals did not have that luxury of having that fallback option.

Well, I wouldn't say pennies-I mean, Z is going to make somewhere between 11 and 15.5 million this year (depending on if he actually goes to arbitration or settles for something in the middle). There are so many variables that it's hard for me to recommend what Hendry should do with Z-the two big variables are 1)what he's demanding, and 2)what other teams would give up for him. The first one is more known, but the second one could be anything-trades are funny things, sometimes a star gets great talent in return, and sometimes for some reason they just don't. Hendry has to add those two together with 3) Carlos's chance of injury and basically make the best guess he can, the option that is the most likely to work, and then simply hope that it does.

Thats my point, 7 may be more than fair market price, but he is not in an open market. Do you think he'd accept 7 million on the open market? No! 7 million is way below market value for his production. It's not like he's asking for 15.5 million like Z is. If this goes to arbitration, Cabrera has a very good chance of winning. I may be wrong on this, but I believe that for this year, Cabrera can't even argue that 7 million is below market value-he can only compare his salary to other arbitration players, and not free agent players-next year he'll be able to compare his production and salary against all players like Z gets to do this year being only 1 year from free agency.