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What I have found lately that I have really liked is our increased patience. I think that since the series right before the break, we seem to be working the counts much better than before on average, and that continued in this series. Even though we have struggled offensively, at least we look like a major league ballclub these past couple of weeks.

If being a player's manager had any value, I'd be all for quotes like this. But it doesn't have any value. The quotes don't cause any harm, but they give you glimpse of the real motivation and thought process of the man. Trading Maddux is good for the Cubs organization. Maybe it's bad for Dusty because he needs somebody who actually understands baseball to be in his dugout, but it's not bad for the Cubs. Furthermore, Dusty obviously has some sort of hex over Jim Hendry. Hendry went bonkers trying to woo the guy over here when nobody else was considering him as manager. Hendry wanted to give him an extension a long time ago, but it seems MacPhail's decision to wait on Hendry's extension is the only thing that kept it from happening. Hendry has gotten everything Baker has wanted, with neither man apparantly realizing that a team full of speed defenders isn't going to win baseball games. He's gotten him his veteran bench, despite the fact that a rookie bench could have outplayed them for much cheaper (thus allowing more money for impact players). No, the quote isn't that big of a deal by itself. A lot of his quotes are no big deal. The problem is he has one a week that shows you his priorities, which are misplaced. I agree. I'm not a fan of his philosophies. I just don't have any problems with those types of quotes at face value. The quote itself really doesn't hurt anything. I do believe in philosophies...simply because the cubs need to have a different approach as a whole to this game, because what they are doing is NOT working. Start at the top, work down with a plan...whether it be power hitters to take advantage of Wrigley or more OBP type players...or a mix of both. Decide on some path and follow it. Without the path, we have years like this where you don't know what's going on and can't see the light. Exactly, instead of trying to hedge their bets and signing bad players, they just need to commit to a way-be in high OBP or power. Anything would be an improvement over the current offense.

Does anyone think they should move the trading deadline back? I mean, now that we have had a few years to see the effect that the wildcard has on the race, trades have really been slowing down. Even moving it back 15 days would cause more teams to fall out of the race and be more willing to deal. Of course, teams might hold on to and get even less for players who contracts run out at the end of the year, but that is their decision to wait until the deadline to trade them anyway.

I've never believed the argument that batting order has very little effect on run production. How many more RBI would Derrek Lee have had last year with 2 .400 OBP guys hitting 1st and 2nd in the order? How many more RBI would Neifi Perez have had? How many more RBI would Burnitz have had? Good OBP gets wasted when it is followed by poor AVG/SLG. There is a particular reason that it makes sense to have good OBP guys hitting first in the game. There is also a particular reason that it makes sense to have your biggest boppers hitting directly behind those guys. And just less than 1 run is a significant increase offensively. Just less than a run a game would propel this Cub team from 30th in the league to 10-12th in run production. That is very significant. I consider 1 run a game significant, too. However, note that the worst possible lineup, the one that would produce just 3.5 runs a game, is one in which the pitcher bats first, Juan Pierre hits cleanup, and Barrett and Nevin bat 8 and 9. As bad as Dusty is at lineup construction, he's never filled out such an atrocious card. Therefore, adding 1 run per game through batting order construction is a pipe dream. The difference between the optimum batting order and the one Dusty used last night is .273 runs per game. That would be good enough to put the Cubs in 29th place in runs scored instead of 30th. I have a question. Are there worse batting orders Dusty has used? I know you mentioned that Tuesday night's game was a .273 effect. Would that be normal, or would it be slightly higher if Neifi or Cedeno was in the 2 spot, for example? I think .273 runs a game might still be significant even though. I know the Cubs are so far behind this year that it would not put them very much higher. How about last year though? That would have put us from 20th to 13th in runs scored if that effect was the same from game to game. So I guess I'm just wondering if that was a higher or lower difference of runs than a normal Dusty lineup.

Oops..sorry everyone..my statement is the second to last paragraph I'm pretty sure-the one about Pagan being a 4th or 5th OF. I didn't realize I was in the quotes. Again, sorry.

You don't want to let Murton get hot here. He's 17-47 with 12 runs and 10 rbi. That would defeat the purpose of the platoon. And besides, Dusty's more powerful than you think. Did you see that HR Nevin hit last night ? Clutch. That's what's been missing this year in LF. Clutchness. The Cubs need that. I mean, we've got enough young guys in there already. True..but at least it is Pagan. We'll see more of what he can do. I mean, it could be Nevin! I'd love to see Murton there-I'm just glad this lineup is full of people who could possibly contribute in 2007. I don't think Pagan can truly be a starter. I just want to see if he deserves to be on a ML roster by being on a 4th or 5th OF, and he needs a few at-bats to see if that's true or not. I am really not understanding this love-fest with Pagan lately. If people really believe Pagan is going to contribute to the team in 2007, the 07 team will be the worst team in the National League.

You don't want to let Murton get hot here. He's 17-47 with 12 runs and 10 rbi. That would defeat the purpose of the platoon. And besides, Dusty's more powerful than you think. Did you see that HR Nevin hit last night ? Clutch. That's what's been missing this year in LF. Clutchness. The Cubs need that. I mean, we've got enough young guys in there already. True..but at least it is Pagan. We'll see more of what he can do. I mean, it could be Nevin! I'd love to see Murton there-I'm just glad this lineup is full of people who could possibly contribute in 2007.

That's not completely true. Novoa is terrible, that's for sure. Those runs would have been unearned either way though. The first batter Novoa faced was the double play ball that Walker dropped at second-that should have ended the inning. Then came a single, then an infield single, and then the ball to Ramirez-again, should have been a DP to end the inning-didn't happen. Next batter was the second GS. Novoa pitched terribly, but he didn't deserve the runs Sunday night.

Forgive me if this sounds unkind, but one thing you are not is grounded in reality. Why would you say that? After reading several strawman arguments based on imposible premises, I believe I've accurately charachertized your recent work on this board. Ok, let me try to explain. I use extreme examples sometimes because it i s easier to see that there is actually a difference by inflating the difference to a ridiculous level. Obviously there would be no team that would have players with a 1.000 OBP and 0 OBP. Instead, though, by seeing how that team would have a large difference by what batting order does, it is made easier to see how batting order does make a difference even using real life numbers. If my extreme examples are not working, I will stop. Here is a real life example that my friend and I were just discussing. Let's say that the Giants with Barry Bonds of the previous few years moved him to the 8th spot in the lineup with the pitcher batting behind him, and move the 8th place hitter into Barry's spot. They make no other changes besides this. What do you think would happen? Now many times Barry might come up with runners on-but pitchers will never pitch to him with the pitcher on deck. If there are two outs, Barry gets walked, and the pitcher makes an out that will end the inning. Therefore, Barry's production in the order is partially wasted, and the Giants run production goes down. The same thing happens at the top of the order. The 8th place hitter, with a worse OBP, cannot drive the runners at the top of the order in with regularity. Therefore, switching two people in the lineup makes the run production at the top and the bottom suffer.

Forgive me if this sounds unkind, but one thing you are not is grounded in reality. Why would you say that?

Using a stretched out extreme example negates any value in your example. It's pretty interesting to note that in nearly everyone of your diatribes about what is and is not worthwhile, you use extreme examples that have no basis in reality. I use extreme examples because it easier to see my point. So let's use a real life example. The Cubs sign somebody who has a .400 OBP, and bat him 7th. He gets on base 40 percent of the time, but he dies on first because Neifi and the pitcher strike out everytime he is on base. So this guy never scores even though he gets on base a great deal. If you moved him to 2nd in the order though in front of Lee, this person would be driven in 30 percent of the time. Therefore, run production would go up. How do you account for the fact that Neifi Perez has arguably been our best RBI man this year ??? Percentage of baserunners driven in 04/03 - 07/18 BDI LOB RBI% Restovich 1 2 0.333 Perez 20 59 0.253 Blanco 15 45 0.250 Walker 31 96 0.244 Jones 33 112 0.228 Barrett 26 89 0.226 Ramirez 37 136 0.214 Murton 23 103 0.183 Lee 10 55 0.154 Nevin 9 51 0.150 Mabry 6 36 0.143 Bynum 4 25 0.138 Cedeno 20 130 0.133 Hairston 4 27 0.129 Pagan 2 16 0.111 Pierre 12 101 0.106 Womack 1 14 0.067 Theriot 0 3 0.000 CUBS 267 1172 0.186 Sorry Fred..I actually don't mind Neifi, but I know most people can't stand him and he has a low OBP, so I thought using him would ground it more in reality.

Using a stretched out extreme example negates any value in your example. It's pretty interesting to note that in nearly everyone of your diatribes about what is and is not worthwhile, you use extreme examples that have no basis in reality. I use extreme examples because it easier to see my point. So let's use a real life example. The Cubs sign somebody who has a .400 OBP, and bat him 7th. He gets on base 40 percent of the time, but he dies on first because Neifi and the pitcher strike out everytime he is on base. So this guy never scores even though he gets on base a great deal. If you moved him to 2nd in the order though in front of Lee, this person would be driven in 30 percent of the time. Therefore, run production would go up.

The only problem I see with that study is that batting order affects so many managerial decisions that he can't account for. What reliever to bring in is affected by who is coming up. Do you intentionally walk somebody-Bonds is a perfect example of this for years. Where your pitcher hits and how many times he gets to sacrifice versus how many times he comes up where he has to hit makes a difference. All these, and many other things affect the game, and are directly related to batting order that a computer analyzing statistics cannot measure.

Derrek Lee's 2005 is the exact reason I don't buy it. I wonder if the assumption was that each position was filled with players performing right at the league average. I don't remember. Anyway, I believe the assertion was that the difference was a handful of runs over the course of a season, not a single run per game. Derrek Lee's RBI total may have been higher with higher OBP in front of him, but the team's run production probably would not have been. That is what matters. Lee's RBI goes up if you flip a better OBP from the bottom to the top, but the run production at the bottom goes down. What matters is those extremely low OBPs were on the team, not where they hit. By using a stretched out extreme example, you can see this is simply not the case. Let's say you have 9 hitters, 3 of them have an OBP of 1.000, and the other 6 have an OBP of 0. If you put the 3 hitters who have 1.000 at 1, 4, and 7-they are not going to score nearly as many runs as if you put the hitters at 1,2,3. A smaller version of the same effect happens with a team like the Cubs. If a person batting 7th gets on at a good clip, but the hitters at 8 and 9 are terrible, then that hitter will never be driven home. If he hits in front of Lee though, then he will sometimes be driven home. The difference is that in one inning, we will get 2 hits and a run, instead of getting 1 hit and 1 LOB every inning.

The Cubs got a career year out of a healthy Lee last season and still finished in the bottom third in the majors in runs scored. Barrett's having a career year this season, and Jones has been an improvement over Burnitz. Ramirez has been worse than last year. Walker has been ok but has hit for a lot less power than last year. A healthy Lee would make a difference, but I don't think it would be enough to really vault this offense up the charts too many spots. There is one other big difference in the team from last year. As bad as many people think Pierre is doing, he has had to have much more of a help then Patterson did last year posting a .254 OBP in 451 AB's. Also, left field has been significantly improved-remember Hollandsworth got the plurality of at bats there and posted a .301 OBP. I think that would be enough change-I mean, we finished 20th in runs last year, and all he's saying is that we might be 13th-20th again with a healthy Lee.

I disagree that the lineup order would improve this team much. Wow Thanks for the insight. OBP off all of those spots in the lineup with current players and splits included. Pierre (320), Barrett (399), Lee (396), Aramis (324), Jones/Murton (372), Walker (356), Jones/Murton (287), Cedeno (280). no need for the sarcasm just because your argument has been proven wrong by dozens of people who do nothing but analyze baseball. It's not like he's saying that if the Cubs just "tweaked" their lineup a little bit they'd be scoring 9 a game, he's just saying that the awful lineups Dusty puts on the card every morning are only worsening the offensive potential of this club. I see nothing wrong with the argument that batting the sadly scarce high OBP/lowish power guys the Cubs have 1 and 2 with the decent power guys they have 3-4-5, instead of this Neifi Perez #2 crap, would improve the Cubs' offensive situation. Worst in baseball to middle of the pack is a large improvement. True, but he said also that they would be in the middle of the pack if Lee was healthy all year. If Lee had been healthy, that would have made a big difference in the offense.

But that's not even true. Giambi produces more runs with his OBP than Ichiro because much of his OBP is from extra base hits. You can't just eliminate power from the equation and expect to come up with good results. When we isolate one variable though, we are assuming the other variables are the same. So slugging in this example is equal. Edit: There is one more thing though. A higher average is loosly correlated to a higher slugging percentage. So a higher average usually comes with a greater slugging percentage, but now always.

Actually, I think the next stat to look at is SLG. I second that. I third that Wow I guess I wasn't clear, because a whole lot of folks missed the point. SLG isn't an element of OBP. If two guys (or teams) have equal OBP, then AVG will tell you which is producing more runs from that same OBP. Remember that the issue at hand is walk rate versus hit rate (AVG). SLG may trump them all, but that wasn't what the argument was about. Thank you Dave ..that is the point I was originally trying to make.

I'm not really sure that SLG actually is our biggest problem. But that aside for the moment, why didn't you frame the debate in those terms? Why squabble over the tertiary matter of how much of the OBP is average? I did this because a high OBP can be achieved by either a high average or high numbers of walks, and high averages influencing OBP have a greater effect on runs scored then high walk totals. Do we need to walk more? Definitely. Do walks correlate with runs scored? Not very well-I only got into what makes up OBP when a poster thought that I was confusing the two topics. We need to do both, but if we can increase one by the same amount, average would be the better one to increase in order to maximize run production.

Actually, I think the next stat to look at is SLG. I second that. I third that, but teams with higher averages tend to have higher slugging percentages. The poster originally said that the reason our offense was struggling was due to lack of walks-I was just showing that he just hit a minor piece of the puzzle-our lack of slugging is a far bigger problem.

True-walks are a key variable, but remember also that a team is going to have about 80 percent of the at bats come from average, while only 20 percent will come from walks or less in OBP. So the difference in the percentages will have to factor that in. You're right-a team that is dead last in either will not have a good OBP. It is just better to be 1st in average and 15th in walks then 1st in walks and 15th in average. That will cause many more runs scored, but being in the bottom 10 of either one makes it very difficult to have a top 10 OBP, and therefore very hard to have a top 10 OPS.

OBP is more than just walks, my friend. Exactly..you'll agree with me that OBP is basically BA and walks combined, wouldn't you? I know there are other factors to OBP, but they are pretty unimportant. If that is the case, then what is the bigger factor in OBP? Why is OBP so good? Of course OBP is a better stat then average-it is a more complete stat. The question is-of the two components that primarily make up OBP, average and walks-which one is more important to have a higher number in? If you have a .350 OBP, would you rather have a team hit .320 with a few number of walks, or a team who hit .270 with a great number of walks? What I'm saying is that with similar OBP's, it is the team with the greater average who will typically have the much better offense.

The 2005 Cubs were 9th in BA, 20th in runs scored. Their OBP was 20th. The 2006 Cubs are 17th in BA, 30th in runs scored. Their OBP is 29th. Ok, Tampa Bay last year-29th in walks, 12th in runs scored. 3rd in Batting Average, 16th in OBP. the Angels- 24th in walks, 11th in runs. 7th in batting average, 19th in OBP. If you look at teams with a high batting average and low walk totals, you notice that their runs scored are much closer to their average then to their level of walks. Typically, a team will be close in rank of their league between their OBP and runs scored, yes. A team with high walks and low average will be on the lower end of the range of rank, and a team with high average and low walks will be on the higher end of that spectrum. Note-this does not mean that it is not the most beneficial to have a high BA and high numbers of walks-it is, and the best scoring teams generally do that because it is the best of both worlds. However, the best indicator is average, and then walks. I will have a post in baseball discussions either tonight or tomorrow showing this fact in better detail.

Sounds like something Dusty would say. The Yankees have been doing the walk/obp/slg thing for years. They can just pay for better versions of that stuff. They have good offensive numbers because they get the most talented players who have the best plate discipline. If the Cubs were smart they'd do a scaled down version of the same thing. You don't need to go after every big time free agent, and there's no need to throw huge money after problems that can be fixed with minimal effort. Are people still arguing that the lack of walks isn't behind the Cubs lack of runs and lack of wins for the past several years? Are we still debating whether or not the Cubs should take more walks? Yes, we should take more walks. Do you need to be anywhere near a leader in walks to win the WS? Absolutely not. The White Sox last year-25th out of 30 teams in walks. The Astros? 20th out of 30 teams. 3 of the top teams in walks last year finished in the bottom 10 team of runs. There is simply no clear evidence that walks have more than a slight effect on runs scored. OBP, yes-it adds the high effect of average and the slight effect of walks. Walking a great deal is not a great indicator of scoring runs or having success on the field. Jim, is that you? Well, look at the numbers, and tell me which one is a better indicator of runs scored-average, or walks. You will find that average does a 2 to 3 times better job of pointing to a high scoring team. Walks do help-which is why we use OBP to combine their help with the greater help of average. The stats absolutely bear this out 100 percent, and if you want, I'd be happy to prove it to you.

Sounds like something Dusty would say. The Yankees have been doing the walk/obp/slg thing for years. They can just pay for better versions of that stuff. They have good offensive numbers because they get the most talented players who have the best plate discipline. If the Cubs were smart they'd do a scaled down version of the same thing. You don't need to go after every big time free agent, and there's no need to throw huge money after problems that can be fixed with minimal effort. Are people still arguing that the lack of walks isn't behind the Cubs lack of runs and lack of wins for the past several years? Are we still debating whether or not the Cubs should take more walks? Yes, we should take more walks. Do you need to be anywhere near a leader in walks to win the WS? Absolutely not. The White Sox last year-25th out of 30 teams in walks. The Astros? 20th out of 30 teams. 3 of the top teams in walks last year finished in the bottom 10 team of runs. There is simply no clear evidence that walks have more than a slight effect on runs scored. OBP, yes-it adds the high effect of average and the slight effect of walks. Walking a great deal is not a great indicator of scoring runs or having success on the field.