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Just a minor point, which shouldn't detract from how well Castro is doing, but isn't Furcal still a SS? He's listed as having the highest OPS of any regular SS in baseball. I do find it interesting that in terms of OPS, the top 7 SS in baseball are all in the NL (with Alex Gonzalez now in ATL). Furcal, Tulo, Hanley, Gonzalez, Castro, Uribe and Drew. Cliff Pennington is now at the top of the AL SS and is #8 overall, #2(#9) if you count Jason Donald from CLE.

Did he walk through the laser beams running from Lou's eyes to Soto and Kosuke?

Sorry about the word nobody. I'm sure one out of every 500 kids may have looked at it once. The number may have grown for kids of the 2000s, with all the information about stats readily available to everybody. But the vast, vast, vast majority of kids never looked at a baseball card and subtracted AVG from SLG to determine which players were power hitters. I'm not that old and when I was a kid they didn't put SLG% on the backs of baseball cards. That would have been mid to late 70's, even into the early 80's. There was no correlation because it wasn't there to correlate anything to. Now, in Rob's defense, it is entirely possible kids did that in later years. I don't know for sure when they started putting SLG (or OBP) on the backs of cards. However, I don't even remember hearing the term SLG% until I first read Bill James' book sometime in HS/college. And I know it wasn't on baseball cards until I was at least in high school.

You know some pretty smart 12 year olds who are talking about ISoP I can distinctly remember sitting in my attic with cards laid out and and subtracting AVG from SLG. The best of these would be my "Sluggers" when arranging my cards into batting orders. I had no idea it had a name, it just seemed like something worth doing. I'd also subtract AVG from OBP to "see who walked alot" amongst those with decent averages. EDIT: This may have been later. Thinking back, I imagine lots of kids did very similar things. Why were you sitting in the attic ? He didn't want his parents to realize they had Alfred Ogilvie for a son and not Kelly Leak.

Didn't think this deserved it's own thread... http://mlb.mlb.com/news/article.jsp?ymd=20100711&content_id=12209788 It's from Muskat, but still, I'm not sure how to take the quoted parts. It seems he really likes Hendry, but it also seems he's willing to make a change if it's needed.

While I'd prefer Gonzalez, I'm MUCH more concerned with who replaces Hendry. Give a guy a good enough lineup and they almost have to try to screw it up, regardless of the manager. Sandberg with great GM>>>>>Gonzalez with a bad GM.

I know he won't, but if netted anything decent I'd kick in the money. If he was owed $10mil more, that would be different. But for $1.6? Even future trade chips would be worth it.

Just asking, why not move Soriano to 1B for the rest of the season? Colvin could stay in a spot where he's fairly comfortable, Soriano has played in the infield (granted, not very well) before and might be willing to move. Maybe they could convince him it would take some strain off his knees and help him stay healthier through the season. They'd probably just call up Hoffpauir, though.

Looking at what Colvin has done, I'd be comfortable in predicting that if he were given a starting OF job, by the end of the season he and Castro will have nearly identical OPS'. And it's not because Castro will increase his by .200-,250 points. How many people will then be claiming Colvin is a bust? He needs some serious work on the holes in his approach at the plate, until then he won't be anything more than a good 4th OF. And yes, I do think he has a decent chance of being a good, productive starting OF for the Cubs. But he isn't there yet.

Maybe the Cards will hire him!?!?

Lou's not to blame for Lee and Ramirez hitting like crap all year, or Zambrano having another meltdown, but Jim Hendry is? For a guy that chastises others for looking for a scapegoat of some sort, you sure seem to be looking for a scapegoat of some sort. So you dont think the bloated contracts and no trade clauses ala Jim Hendry have more to do with the failure of this years Cubs than the fact Hill is getting a few extra starts a month ? What Dexter doesn't seem to grasp ,well one of the things, is that his Dusty analogy also made my point. Yes Dusty managed the 2006 Cubs, he is now managing the first place Reds. All you need is an average manager to succeed, I feel Lou qualifies as average.Firing him accomplishes very little, if anything ( based on who his replacement may be ). For the last time, start a Aramis Ramirez sucks this year thread and you will be on the right track.This thread to me is pointless moaning and groaning about Lou, and I apologize for adding to it. Who is the person that continually put that guy that sucks in the lineup, in the 4-hole, every freaking day? Who is the guy that continually put Lee, who I agree has sucked, in the 3-hole every freaking day? The fact that Lee and ARam have sucked this year is on them. Just like Theriot sucking is on him, Hill sucking is on him, Z being an idiot is on him. But, who is the guy responsible for continually putting them in the lineup, and in some cases, top of the order, every day? Putting Theriot, Lee and Ramirez at 2, 3 and 4 in the order, when they have all sucked ALL year is on Lou. There was no reason for those three to be hitting in the heart of the order for months. That is on Lou, not them. I agree that building the team is on Hendry, and the performance of the individual players is on those players. But Lou could minimize the damage by putting the best hitters at the top and middle of the order. As good as Soriano and Soto have been all year, why are they constantly hitting 6th and 7th? Wouldn't it make sense to hit them 3-4 while they've been really good and Lee and ARam have sucked? This team may not have been in 1st place, regardless of the lineup construction. However, Lou has done everything in his power to maximize the suck. He has cost them well over 1 game. I'd put it at three or four, just looking at his idiotic use of the bullpen. Given the number of low scoring, close games they've lost, I'd bet there's that many more when you consider the Lee/Ramirez vs Soriano/Soto stupidity, as well as other aspects he's been horrible at.

Woohoo!! Going to every I-Cub game from the 4th to the 11th with my 14 year old son. Well except for the 6th, when I'm taking him to watch PTL basketball. I think it's a good present considering he can't play baseball or summer league basketball this year.

penn state football, 2000-04: 26-33, 16-24 conference record, 1 bowl appearance. 2005-09: 51-13, 29-11 conference record, 5 bowl appearances people were basically throwing dirt on the psu program and saying they'd never recover until paterno retired and they brought in mostly new staff. the last five years they and ohio st have been the class of the conference. it's hard to keep great college football programs down for long. if, instead of cutting it in half, you start from 2002, is their record significantly different than Iowa's? Iowa had a couple great seasons in the early part of the decade, a rough stretch (aided by injuries) and then a strong finish. Still won about 2/3 of their games since 2002. OSU stands alone in the Big Ten right now. There isn't a clear 2nd. Since 2000 Iowa has won three more games than PSU, been to two more bowl games, won one more bowl game, been to the same number of BCS games and won the same number (they're both 1-1) and, here's the kicker, they are 6-1 against PSU the last 10 years. Who's more dominant? Honestly, I'd probably put Wisconsin in 2nd the last 10 years, with Iowa 3rd and PSU 4th. And I hate Wisconsin. And that's also considering Iowa is 6-4 against Wisconsin the last 10 years.

penn state football, 2000-04: 26-33, 16-24 conference record, 1 bowl appearance. 2005-09: 51-13, 29-11 conference record, 5 bowl appearances people were basically throwing dirt on the psu program and saying they'd never recover until paterno retired and they brought in mostly new staff. the last five years they and ohio st have been the class of the conference. it's hard to keep great college football programs down for long. if, instead of cutting it in half, you start from 2002, is their record significantly different than Iowa's? Iowa had a couple great seasons in the early part of the decade, a rough stretch (aided by injuries) and then a strong finish. Still won about 2/3 of their games since 2002. OSU stands alone in the Big Ten right now. There isn't a clear 2nd. Since 2000 Iowa has won three more games than PSU, been to two more bowl games, won one more bowl game, been to the same number of BCS games and won the same number (they're both 1-1) and, here's the kicker, they are 6-1 against PSU the last 10 years. Who's more dominant? Honestly, I'd probably put Wisconsin in 2nd the last 10 years, with Iowa 3rd and PSU 4th. And I hate Wisconsin. And that's also considering Iowa is 6-4 against Wisconsin the last 10 years.

Iowa vs Nebraska could, potentially, develop into a pretty good rivalry. Not as good as that Iowa-Iowa State rivalry could be though. This. From who's perspective? Iowa State's? No one outside of Iowa cares about Iowa/Iowa State. ISU isn't even Iowa's biggest rival, Minnesota is. If it weren't for the state legislature, the Iowa/ISU game wouldn't even be played. Now, I will give you this, if ISU was good more than 2-3 years out of 20, it could be a good rivalry. But they haven't been, nor do they show signs of turning that around. While it wouldn't be OSU/MI big, Iowa/NE, the Friday or Saturday after Thanksgiving would be huge and would draw a big audience OUTSIDE of those two states.

This is unrelated to whats going on at this moment, but... I just saw on ESPN that Theriot's OBP is higher than his SLG. WTF? Is that right? How the hell does someone with as many PA's as Theriot have a higher OBP than SLG?

Could their sources have been the dude on the NW board? Didn't he put on there last night that Texas and TAMU were coming to the Big Ten? BTW, not saying any of this is accurate or that I believe a word, just making a completely arbitrary connection of two (probably) completely unrelated events.

Research wise, they're behind but not by a lot. And they have been upgrading facilities to try to draw more research funds. Once in the B10, and able to at least partially take advantage of the CIC and it's research cooperatives, they should move into lower to middle tier B10. However, they are not in that area yet. Some of the other schools mentioned as B10 possibilities, Mizzou, Rutgers, Pitt, Maryland, VA, Ga Tech and the like, are much better equipped on the research side. 2-3 of those would jump into the top 3-4 of B10 schools immediately.

Research wise, they're behind but not by a lot. And they have been upgrading facilities to try to draw more research funds. Once in the B10, and able to at least partially take advantage of the CIC and it's research cooperatives, they should move into lower to middle tier B10. However, they are not in that area yet. Some of the other schools mentioned as B10 possibilities, Mizzou, Rutgers, Pitt, Maryland, VA, Ga Tech and the like, are much better equipped on the research side. 2-3 of those would jump into the top 3-4 of B10 schools immediately.

You all need to watch out, our big lug Chet is going to try to throw a monkey wrench in the whole thing. http://www.desmoinesregister.com/article/20100608/SPORTS0206/100608038/Gov.-Culver-wants-to-mold-realignment-Iowa-State-discussion :pig: :pig: :pig:

I just noticed, the Cubs have 3 of the top 12 in OPS for outfielders in the NL. That's all outfielders. Considering how crappy the team has been, that's kind of surprising. Edit: Add non-qualifiers, it's 4 of the top 18. Colvin is at #6.

Well, he's sitting #1 for LF in OPS and the only one close is Willingham, that's among qualified hitters. He's #2 overall among OF, behind Rasmus. Again, that's qualified. That's in the NL, I didn't look up how he sat overall in the MLB. I realize OPS isn't everything, but looking only at this years stats, I'd say he's performed pretty well, especially considering he started a little slow and picked it up after a couple of weeks. Plus, he's actually been fairly healthy. I don't know if all of that means he deserves an ASG nod, but it wouldn't be an embarrasment if he got one.

Now I really want to get down there. I haven't seen Diamond pitch yet.

The Iowa game should get in. It looks like the storms have moved east with not much coming up behind them. Wish I could get down there for it. I am going the whole first week of July. On leave, 3 of the 4 kids at camps and my wife will be in Phoenix. Just me and my 14 year old son. Already have tickets to 5 straight games.

=D> Agreed. =D>