CubColtPacer

The one thing I'm confused by that article is the indication that the 2 Aprils were the only months he could hit in those two seasons-when April each year was only his 2nd best month by a good amount. (July 04, May 05 were his best 2 months). Other than that I agree-like they said, Izturis is an upgrade if it means Cedeno does not play 2nd next year. Otherwise, we'll have a pretty good amount of offense to make up next year from other positions.

For those that can see-how does Prior look? It sounds like it has been ground balls and strikeouts so far-any balls hit pretty hard?

That's better than paying your shortstop 4.5 million to do that. Oh, wait... :lol: Well, I agree with this assessment. Get a REALLY good bat for either LF or RF and get a really good SP. And this team could honestly be competitive. I would agree with that-as long as we upgraded the bench as well. We'd be in trouble next year again if we lost one of our 4-5 major bats in that scenario-so a good bench could somewhat alleviate that.

I'd take that from Cedeno as well next year. I'm just not sure he can improve that much for next year-that would be a huge jump for him from this year. I think he can reach those numbers over his career-I'm just not sure we want to wait 2-3 years for those numbers.

Really? Pat and Ron said that Dusty came out to argue-at least that's what I thought I heard.

I'm pretty sure they are trying this out as a last effort with Cedeno..but if he doesn't improve by a pretty good bit by the end of the season, I think he will be gone.

That's the second run Cedeno has cost us on the basepaths this week. I can understand giving up some on defense right now-he's still learning the position, but giving up the 3rd out at 3rd? Oh well-4 runs, 40 pitches for Duke-an excellent start.

Yup..2 K's for Prior and than a 1 pitch out..nice start for him.

Wow..I just looked up that 1991 Braves team-we thought we were worried about our offense next year. Greg Olsen-411 AB's, .241/.316/.345 Sid Bream-265 AB's, .253/.313/.423 Mark Lemke-269 AB's, .234/.305/.312 Rafeal Belliard-353 AB's, .249/.296/.286 Otis Nixon-401 AB's, .279/.371/.327 That's 5 of the listed starters (the other 3 are Pendleton, Gant, Justice) Total Team OBP: .327 Total Team SLG: .393 Total Team OPS: .720 To compare-the 2006 Chicago Cubs Total Team OBP: .320 Total Team SLG: .416 Total Team OPS: .736 Somehow that Braves offense managed to score 749 runs...I'm just not sure exactly how. Edit: Two things: I have another site that lists the Braves OBP as .331 for that season-so I'm not sure which one it is. Also, that .331 was the second best in the National League that year-to compare, it would be tied for 12th in the National League today-although .333 was 5th best last year. It appears that this year is a huge year for OBP-league OBP is way up so far this season.

I don't know the ins and outs of the whole waiver situation, but is it possible he already knew what it would take since Hendry and Schuerholz are pretty good friends? I agree with Ronnie on this one. A quick phone call and you know what the price could be. Hendry has already said on WGN that they are looking toward next year. Hendry would see a claim on A. Jones as a move for a team in the race. It would be very bad form, breaking the unwritten rules, to put in a claim on Jones. That is a bunch of bull. (not towards what you say, but towards hendry if this is the case) Getting a CF like Jones would help you immensely next year and something that you absolutely have to explore. Who cares if it may make some team cry because they wanted him for a stretch run. True, but it's bad faith if you have no chance of getting him. If Hendry has interest in aquiring hima and there is a chance of working out a deal, then he should have put in a claim. If one call is made and Hendry knows that either he does not have the players the Braves want, or he is just not willing to pay the price-then it would be better to just leave it alone, because there is no need hurting your reputation on a player you weren't going to really have a chance to get anyway. I hope Hendry decides that it is probably worth it and makes the deal as long as Atlanta's price is not absurdly high. I wonder if we will get to know what team claimed him if Atlanta decides to pull Jones back?

I think that package may do it..and there is a big difference in Prior and Guzman. They both have the injury history-if healthy, Guzman may dominate on the major league level, while Prior when healthy has dominated on the major league level.

Evidently it's got to be done by 1 p.m. tomorrow (eastern time I think) It was reported that a claim was put in already. However, the team is unknown as off right now. So the question is did someone claim before he fell to the Red Sox chance. Somebody pretty much had to claim him before the Red Sox. Apparently multiple teams claimed Jones, so unless it was the Yankees or Tigers that were the only other team than the Red Sox to claim Jones, the Red Sox did not win the claim.

Well, the DBacks are leading the wild card. However, I'd say 15 of the 16 teams in the NL are pathetic. And the Cubs did split with them.

We actually satisfy two other conditions of that article when it is prudent to steal bases. One is that the player in the 2 spot has been a double play threat most of the season. Second, our lack of power means that for a large part of the season, barely any of our hitters could get somebody home from first base-which makes the stolen base more valuable. So we are prime candidates for 2 of the 3 reasons why a team should run.

Juan Peirre is stealing bases at a 76% clip. He is treading water. Your arbitrary increases seem to be much higher than what actually is occuring. http://www.baseball-analysis.com/article.php?articleid=2607 3 things to that 1) If the loss is only 2.3 times the gain, then it wouldn't take 3 sb's for every caught stealing, just 2.3 steals for every caught stealing-that makes him more productive. 2)Pierre doesn't always steal bases or get caught with nobody out-what are the numbers with 1 out or 2 outs and nobody on? 3)The 80 point increase in slugging was not arbitrary-if all 38 of his sb's were with nobody on or as Pierre being the lead runner, that's what his extra bases would increase his slugging this year. Yes, not all 38 of those were in that situation-but at least 29 of them were.

Z hasn't been good whatsoever, but he probably would have only given up a couple without the defense of Cedeno and Izturis..can't defend their defense today, have given up 3-4 extra outs between them.

It sounds like 3 of the 5 runs could be charged to the middle infield today-just an absolutely terrible day by both of them so far. Let's see if either of them can pick it up.

What was this arbitrary adjustment based on? It's based on adding a base to slugging every time Pierre steals a base and taking away a hit from his OBP every time he gets caught. We've already discussed how that doesn't work because of the fact that a traditional double drives in runs. You adjusted by an arbitrary 10 slugging points to make up for this. I don't see how you got that from anywhere besides just making it up. This also doesn't take into account that OBP is more important to offensive production than SLG. OBP is more important-but important enough to take the 20 points in OBP rather than the 70-80 in slugging? Yes, my number is a bit arbitrary, but think about it. The only situation where a double and a single and a sb are different is one of the following situations: 1. Runner on 2nd-Pierre singles, and the runner stays at 3rd, and Pierre steals 2nd. 2. Runner on 1st-Pierre Singles, Runner goes to 3rd, Pierre steals 2nd. 3. Runner on 1st-Pierre singles, Runner goes to 2nd, double steal. That's it-that's the only 3 situations where it is different. How many times do you think any of those situations have actually happened this season? I have seen very few of these occasions, so the formula still gives a rough indication of his actual production. Edit: By the way, I meant that taking the 10 points off was the part where I estimated the number of times those situations have actually happened to make it different. I calculated the original number of actually adding 80 points to his slugging. Second Edit: I can confirm now that 29 of Pierre's sb's are with only him on. So at least for those 29 sb's, it was the same as a double-and I know at least 3 or 4 more are double steals where Pierre stole 3rd and a player stole 2nd behind him-so there are only a handful of steals at most where a double would have been different than a single+sb.

What was this arbitrary adjustment based on? It's based on adding a base to slugging every time Pierre steals a base and taking away a hit from his OBP every time he gets caught.

Defense. Wins. Ballgames. Just for clarity, that ball was hit off Zambrano's leg and deflected to Izturis at SS. No chance to make a play. Thanks Bruno..it's hard watching Gamecast and knowing exactly what happens..can somebody describe to me the 2 Cedeno plays? I think one was in the second and 1 was in the 3rd-what has happened?

I guess Cedeno is comfortable now-these are the people that should be the regular lineup the rest of the way this season.

this doesn't really work because the adjusted doubles don't have nearly the same value as the actual doubles. doubles are generally gap-hits, which are run producers with men on base. Like I said though, it does work for Pierre to a large degree. Pierre doesn't come up all that often with runners on, and he certainly doesn't steal very many bases after getting a single with runners on-either the runner in front of him is the pitcher, who had to stop at 2nd, which doesn't allow Pierre to steal-or the runner is at 2nd already, comes home with Pierre's single-which makes the single just as good as a double. The only situation where they would be different is if you had a runner at 1st base capable of taking 3rd on a single, which doesn't happen that often when Pierre is up. So let's say you can take 10 points off the slugging increase for those circumstances-you're still looking at a 20 point drop in OBP for a 70 point increase in slugging.

What other year were we last in the league? Last year we were much closer to the middle then to last. They were last in walks, but 11th in OBP (out of 16 NL teams) thanks to ranking 3rd in AVG (2nd in SLG). They were .005 away from last place, but .009 away from the midpoint. So, while they were closer to the middle in terms of rank, they were actually closer to last in terms of the actual number. Combined over the past two years they probably will have the worst total OBP. The lack of walks is, by far, the single greatest contributor to the poor offensive performance during the Dusty Baker era. They've had good batting averages and bad averages. They've hit well with RISP and poorly with RISP. They've hit for lots of power and no power. But they've consistently been at or near the bottom of the barrell in the NL in the walks department (14th, 14th, 16th, 16th). It's a huge problem, they refuse to admit it and fix it, and far too many fans and experts accept that as perfectly OK since the walk just isn't the manly thing to do. They were 3.6 percent worse than 15th place in majors last year (729-703). They scored 10 percent more runs than the last place team (703-639). How again were they closer to last than the middle?

In what way shape or form? Well, Pierre is considered to be a marginally bigger threat on the bases than Posednik. Also, as much as we have been upset at Pierre for how he plays center, Posednik is that much worse. When their offensive games are so similar, the tiebreaker should either be amount of contract (which I don't know what either of them will ask for) or their other attributes, which Pierre is better at. It would still be a very close call between the two players, but the fact that a natural center fielder by both speed and the limited offense that Podsednik brings was moved to left is a telling sign I think. Considered to be marginally bigger threat on the bases? By whom? Pods is more successful stealing. And he makes considerably less money. You can't just claim Pierre is "better in every category" and expect not to be called on that completely made up and arbitrary statement. I'm fine with being called out-especially since Pierre has been more successful at stealing bases each of the last 2 seasons. 2005-Podsednik-59 steals, 23 times caught Pierre- 57 steals, 17 times caught 2006-Podsednik-30 steals, 13 times caught Pierre- 38 steals, 12 times caught Podsednik's percentage is going down and is getting caught much more frequently than earlier in his career, while Pierre is staying level to his career. So yes, Pierre is now considered to be marginally better on the basepaths. Great post and I didn't realize that at all. perfect example of why small-ball doesn't work--even with fast players. giving up outs by needlessly trying to steal is stupid. there are only a few guys in the league whom i'd give the perpetual green light to, and neither of these guys is one of them. the stealing is not what i like about podsednik, it's his plate discipline--which is much more important than speed or steals or bunting the runner over. If we added each SB to both of these players SLG, and took away each CS from their OBP, both of these players would increase their OPS by a pretty decent margin. Now, I know this is a very rough way to do it-but essentially, this is how it would work-especially for a player like Pierre, who is getting on and stealing bases when there is nobody on before him-so getting a single and stealing second is the same as a double for him. If you get a 20 or so point drop in OBP, isn't that offset by the 80 point increase in slugging?

I agree to take more walks, but this comparison is interesting. We walked 166 less times in 2005-and scored a total of 3 less runs than 2002, and actually finished higher in the league-20th in runs in 2005, 22nd in 2002. While this is a good thing to point out, this was a pretty bad way to point it out. Also Bellhorn may not have been the greatest comparison either-he's only had 2 seasons with a 700+ OPS in his career, and only 3 years with an above average OBP or better (he didn't crack .700 the 3rd season because his slugging was under .300 for the season). Again, what he is trying to point out is fine-he just used examples that don't work very well.