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moneyball was NOT about simply exploiting inconsistencies in the market of baseball. It WAS about OBP, and that it's undervalued. if teams had undervalued defense, he wouldn't have exploited THAT incosistency, because undervaluing defense is not really exploitable, defense isn't nearly as important as OBP. Billy Beane was able to find that the single most important conventional statistic in the game of baseball (also referred to as "outs NOT made") was also it's most ignored. Sulley, what abou this quote from Beane from 2004? "BB: Exactly, guys like Scottie Hatteberg. Now people are recognizing the value of that and they're paying for it. And if we're in a bidding war, we're going to lose that. So we have evolved. If you look at some of our first playoff teams, the `99 team that won 87 games, it was a power, on-base team. Now we're tops in the league in defense and pitching. For us, it's all about filling in on the backend and figuring out what people are undervaluing. You know, one day we're going to have a team with guys who steal 50 bases because people aren't paying for it. But it's all about wins. That's all that matters." It certainly sounds like he has gone after some defense since it was undervalued, and would do the same thing with speed. Beane is willing to exploit any inconsistency in the market, not just OBP. By the way, here's the link on that-it's about halfway down. http://www.athleticsnation.com/story/2004/9/20/23544/2604

I think I understand the first part now, but not the second. If someone claims Soriano-and the Nats want more in a trade offer then the claiming team is willing to give, the Nats are left with 2 choices: pull him back, or let him go. If they let him go, then that team wouldn't have to send any players for Soriano. All they have to do is pay for Soriano, and I'm sure any team in the race would easily pay 2.5 million for Soriano for a month if that's all they had to give up. If the Nats pull him back, then the claiming team doesn't lose anything either. The only way the claiming team would trade players is if they agreed to a trade with the Nats during that negotiation period, and of course then the risk would be in the trade, not the claim.

Which again, just proves the point that there is no risk in putting in the claim. The claim is riskless. Risk does not exist for making the claim. No team would be at risk for putting in a claim on Soriano. Any claim put in on Soriano would come without risk. QFT... I'm not sure what about goony's point hasn't gotten across here the 500x he's explained it. Any team claiming him runs the risk of giving up prospects just to have him until the end of the season with no assurances that they will either make the postseason or be able to re-sign him. The claim is not riskless no matter how many times you say it. That's the difference though. Claiming him has no risk to it. Trading for him though is risky-you don't have to trade for Soriano when you make the claim though. Claiming him is really no more risky then calling another GM on the telephone before the deadline-all it does is give you an opportunity to make a trade. It puts no obligation on you to actually make the trade.

.... and again...... and again...... and again....... 6 times in the next week and a half would do nicely for now :D

I would like to nominate Fred for official game thread starter. I second that.

I would definitely agree with you there that Beltran is worth that extra money. The only problem is that if he's only making 12 million this year, the contract must be back loaded (because the deal averages exactly 17 million per year). So Beltran could be making 20 million in his last 2 years of the deal at 33 and 34, and he would probably not be worth it then. That said, I would still want him-and hope other baseball salaries continue to go up and make that deal seem less expensive in comparison.

Okay check it! If the Cards lose tonight we are 11.5 games out. When we sweep the Cards this weekend we are only 8.5 game out! Wow! How does it feel to witness a Cubs miracle in your lifetime!?!? GO CUBS!!!! Am I the only one with a bad feeling about this weekend series against the Cards? It seems everytime the media or fans dismiss a team as an "easy win" because of past success, it backfires right in our face. The Cubs have been living dangerously against the Cards at Wrigley. I would be shocked if we swept. I don't have a great feeling about it. I doubt we sweep-I'm hoping we can take 2 out of 3 against them. It would be really fun to win all 10 at home though-so that is why part of the optimism comes from. CubbieChris, we have 2 things that will hamper that thought to be that good. Remember, the Cardinals play the Reds tomorrow also. So we could be either 11, 12, or 13 games out of the Cardinals starting the series-but if we're 11, then the Reds will only be 1/2 game out of the Cardinals and playing Pittsburgh over the weekend-which means they would most likely be leading the division if we swept the Cardinals. I hope the Cardinals beat the Reds in both games remaining in their series-we have to catch the Reds anyway, and that way we can make headway in both the division and WC race (remember everyone, I don't think this will happen-but it could, and it's fun to dream).

That's 4 straight wins actually :D. If the Reds lose tonight, we will be as close to the WC as we have been this season in a while-9 games even, so that will eliminate the first two options of the poll. Like you said, if we win on Friday, we will satisfy the other part of the poll and be 15 or less under .500-let's go take those Cardinals again!

So does everyone else in the NL except the 2 teams we play well against:)

We were laughing early in the game about playing for 1 run today..I don't think anybody expected that 1 run would be leading today. Great job O'Malley. Ok-now this is getting a little crazy with him leading off.

This is a strange stat. From my counting, in the 3 game winning streak and this game, we have allowed 23 more walks then we have took. You can't keep winning for too long with that big of a disparity.

I doubt it will ever happen either-I'm pretty sure they don't think that Theriot can play SS (even though I've heard he can), and they are unwilling to have Cedeno play SS at all right now (probably to not confuse him as he is learning 2B. So, I doubt all 3 of these players will play together, at least this season.

I don't understand why you think it'd make more sense to have Miller start. He has no future with this organization. Why waste a start on him when we can give O'Malley a look? Because eventually Wade Miller will be starting for the Cubs, whether we want it or not. And I'm not the biggest O'Malley fan. This might actually open up more starts for somebody else though. We know O'Malley will probably go back down after the game. When Miller gets up, he'll probably be here to stay. So if Miller started at Chicago today, he might have started every 5th day for the rest of the season in Chicago. Because they determined he's not ready, somebody like Guzman (if he's not sent down today, which he might-there's not many options to be sent down today) might get another start in Chicago on Tuesday before they determine that Miller is ready to come up to the big club. So this might actually help our young pitchers that we want to see get one more start with the big club, and it certainly can't hurt if O'Malley just takes one start away that was going to go to Miller anyway.

Credit? The kid was cruising. 78 pitches through 5 innings with a 3 run lead. If he is worried about Mateo getting beaned, then tell him not to hit Clemens in the first place. I agree with this. I had no problem with Dusty taking Mateo out before he got hit-what I had the problem with is if the beaning of Clemens was intentional with Mateo coming up the next inning. Now though-he had 78 pitches. How many pitches are we trying to limit the arms to? I would have been fine with him going another inning. The likelihood is that he would have been around 100 pitches after the 6th (more pitches because the middle of the lineup was coming up in the 6th for the Astros). So it was a situation where I think you have to take a pitcher like Mateo and have him possibly pitch close to 100 pitches (hopefully he gets out of the inning earlier then that)-the bullpen needs the rest desperately without putting too much strain on his arm (don't go over 100 for sure). Does anybody know if we are bringing up one pitcher or two today, and who they are replacing? If it's just one-let's say he replaces one of the unavailable guys for today-it still could be only Ohman, Wuertz, Howry, Aardsma, and possibly Novoa in the bullpen today (Erye, Dempster, and Guz are probably all unavailable). Unless they decide Erye is going on the DL, they are probably going to have to send Guz or Mateo down to make room for O'Malley-there is just nobody else to send down today (you could send Aardsma down, but then you're really playing with fire) Reason for Edit: I was just clarifying my point at the end of the first paragraph-it was unclear.

I couldn't tell if it was on the pitch or when he first tried to run, but there was a ground ball to first-and Eyre couldn't get off the mound. He managed to walk slowly to the dugout under his own power. They were calling it a strained hamstring later in the game.

Well, let's see. In a normal situation, Baker would look at the batter-pitcher numbers and put this lineup together. Batter Against Pettitte Pierre 4/11 (1 2b) .364/.417/.455 Izturis 3/5 (1 2b) .600/.600/.800 Ramirez 6/17 (3 2b, 2 HR) .353/.353/.882 Barrett 5/15 (1 2b, 1 HR) .333/.474/.600 Jones 2/16 (1 2b) .125/.176/.188 (I sincerely hope that Murton is in LF and Pagan is in RF today-if that's so, Pagan has never faced Pettitte) Nevin 6/21 (2 2b, 1 HR) .286/.423/.524 Murton 4/14 .286/.412/.286 Perez 8/29 (4 2b) .276/.276/.414 (Cedeno has 1 single in 6 trips against Petitte for a .167/.167/.167 line, and Theriot is 0/2 against Pettitte) Pitcher How will the long game affect that order? I'm not sure-I'm pretty sure that Barrett and Nevin will both get the start today over Mabry and Blanco. I'm not sure which 2 of the 3 will start of the Jones/Murton/Pagan outfield (my brain says what's above, and I hope to see Pagan and Murton in there), and I'm not completely sure at 2nd either (I really think they are trying to give Cedeno most of the starts-but the 18 innings he played last night coupled with Neifi's better numbers might convince Dusty to play Neifi today. I don't see Theriot starting today, but you can never be completely sure with Dusty).

Dusty plans his LF rotation out in advance most of the time, so it will probably depend on if he's hit Petitte or not.

Pierre's walk wasn't intentional.

Izturis's single in the 14th was our last baserunner.

To answer your question, Guzman started on Saturday.

It would lower the chance of scoring a run this inning. Compared to letting Z hit? Exactly-with 2 good hitters, it should lower the chance-when you get a player who hits less than .200 and is also a prime double play candidate if he puts it in play on the ground, that should change the odds.

Good thing one will be sent down soon so Wade Miller can showcase his talents for whatever team is going to sign him next season. Eyre's injury might factor into that somewhere as well.

I was out of the room and didn't see it. chances are I would have cursed luck if the hit were lucky, not Novoa. It wasn't really either-just Burke having a really solid hit on a good pitcher's pitch.

Actually it shouldn't be a problem if his pitches are very limited. I'm not worried about Guz tonight, I'm just wondering what this means, if anything, in Dusty's world of the pitching rotation. I'm actually going to Wrigley this weekend due to events out of my control and I have a mild interest in figuring out who pitches. They announced earlier tonight that it was Marmol Friday, Zambrano on Saturday-They tried to push Z back a day, but Z was insistent on pitching on regular rest.

not to mention that both benches are under warning, so any beanball results in an ejection...again the stupidity of the arbitrary warning system. I doubt anyone will be thrown out at this point-remember, both benches were warned in Milwaukee last week and the Milwaukee pitcher hit our guy and he didn't get thrown out-the ump still has some discretion, and I'm pretty sure they would realize neither side wants to throw at each other now.