abuck1220

how can his late of discipline "cancel out" his OPS? his lack of discipline is factored into OPS (thru OBP). that's like saying the outs a guy makes cancels out his batting average.

Sarcasm or not, I'm in the camp of in any sport, defense wins championships. Defense in football, basketball, soccer, etc. means preventing the other team from scoring. In baseball, that's overwhelmingly the task of the pitching staff, not the guys behind them. Defense in baseball doesn't compare to defense in other sports and is a relatively small factor in keeping the other team from crossing home. exactly. defense (as in preventing the other team from scoring) is very important in baseball. but actual fielding makes up a very small % of defense.

Respectfully disagree - the Cubs problem is not a general lack of offense, but lack of offense from the corner positions. Murton and Jones are both 4th OF in my opinion, Ramirez had a terrible first half, and Lee has been disabled for most of the season. The Cubs were 5th in baseball in defensive efficiency before trading for Izturis, thus his defense can only improve them marginally. Furthermore, regardless of what the team "can" spend, they will only spend somewhere in the $100 million range. As such, you can't waste $4 on a defensive player who provided minimal offense when you've already got that same player on the roster (Perez). Perez's defense is roughly equivalent to Izturis', as is his offense (.650 OPS). You simply can't have two of the worst offensive players in baseball occupying the same roster because they might happen to save a run with their defense every third or fourth game. Furthermore, when a team is last in the league in runs scored by over 100 runs, I would say the team's problem is a lack of offense in total, not just from the corner positions. Over 100 runs from the next team? It's actually 14 runs-I understand your point though (although I still don't understand how we're 5th in defensive efficiency watching this team play defense everyday (especially the OF and catcher and the middle infield earlier in the season, and then see the differences when watching other teams, but that has been beaten to death :D). I happen to think that Izturis will surprise some people offensively next season, but for that we will have to wait and see. "watching this team play defense everyday" just isn't a reliable way to judge the team. True, but I saw one of the metrics that had the Cubs high in defense this year this morning. Pierre was rated as the top defensive center fielder in the National League this year. Do you believe that? defensive metrics are far from an exact science...but so is your memory of watching a bunch of games. and i'd be curious as to which metric rated pierre that highly.

Michael Barrett's .924 OPS is much more valuable to this team than his ability to tell a pitcher to calm down. As for calling a game, unless the pitch selection is coming from the dugout, a pitcher has the ability to shake his catcher off. The pitcher is the one that should know what he wants to throw in a certain situation and where he wants to throw it. Blaming catchers for calling a bad game is an excuse used by pitchers that don't want to admit they screwed up. Heh...I agree with you, but I know the Red Sox sure don't right now. yep, the "red sox pitchers suck now because varitek is hurt" line is 2006's 16th best BS baseball story that analysts can bring up to sound smart!

Respectfully disagree - the Cubs problem is not a general lack of offense, but lack of offense from the corner positions. Murton and Jones are both 4th OF in my opinion, Ramirez had a terrible first half, and Lee has been disabled for most of the season. The Cubs were 5th in baseball in defensive efficiency before trading for Izturis, thus his defense can only improve them marginally. Furthermore, regardless of what the team "can" spend, they will only spend somewhere in the $100 million range. As such, you can't waste $4 on a defensive player who provided minimal offense when you've already got that same player on the roster (Perez). Perez's defense is roughly equivalent to Izturis', as is his offense (.650 OPS). You simply can't have two of the worst offensive players in baseball occupying the same roster because they might happen to save a run with their defense every third or fourth game. Furthermore, when a team is last in the league in runs scored by over 100 runs, I would say the team's problem is a lack of offense in total, not just from the corner positions. Over 100 runs from the next team? It's actually 14 runs-I understand your point though (although I still don't understand how we're 5th in defensive efficiency watching this team play defense everyday (especially the OF and catcher and the middle infield earlier in the season, and then see the differences when watching other teams, but that has been beaten to death :D). I happen to think that Izturis will surprise some people offensively next season, but for that we will have to wait and see. "watching this team play defense everyday" just isn't a reliable way to judge the team.

Not when you are dead last, or near the bottom in walks earned and walks allowed. Not to mention a total lack of power production from key positions. Add on top of that our pitching staff has been depleted by injuries, and obviously inexperienced pitchers are more prone to allow the fly ball in ratio to the ground ball. eh, but still...DEFENSE WINS CHAMPIONSHIPS! i've heard many a high school coach (and several NO FEAR! t-shirts) tell me that.

that's a lot different than saying defense wins championships, don't you think? the reason you can't crunch and collect numbers to prove your point is because those numbers don't exist.

speed and defense.

Sarcasm or not, I'm in the camp of in any sport, defense wins championships. Unfortunately, our GM and manager are also in that camp. And we'll see where it leads. 2006 isn't a fair gauge of the plan's success due to excessive injuries. why not? regardless of injuries, the team's defense has been good. shouldn't that be winning them a championship (or at least 4th place)?

What does? Sabrmetrics? hitting and pitching. show me some proof that defense wins championships, and maybe i'll get on board. until then, it's just a lovely sounding cliche that you can put on t-shirts and such.

Sarcasm or not, I'm in the camp of in any sport, defense wins championships. if you repeat gold glove! 100 times the award actually takes on meaning and value. it's a trick jim hendry taught me. oh, and defense doesn't win championships in baseball.

gold glove! gold glove! gold glove! gold glove! gold glove! gold glove! gold glove! gold glove! gold glove! gold glove! gold glove! gold glove!

that's why i said i hope he was joking.

i hope he was joking.

do you disagree with that philosophy?

howard also walked 50 times that season and had an OBP of .370+.

i'm just thankful you had him in there at the beginning of the week.

looks like a two cent jeff francouer may be his ceiling. wow, what a weird july. it's hard to OPS .969 and have a 29/2 k/bb rate. that's a good site though.

mabry's actually been quite terrible.

With a rookie pitching for the Cubs, I don't get it. You have to assume the 1-0 game in this ballpark with these two well rested pitching staffs. seriously...fire this guy eight weeks ago. i think i played football against o'malley in high school...

glaus is healthy again so i subbed him in for drew, moving cuddyer from 3b to OF.

'bout time we got some men up here to take the place of these little pansy boys we've got running around. like last night...hill, guzman and mateo: 10 ip, 7 h, 2 r, 8 k's...get me a MAN up here!

Ridiculous. Absolutely ridiculous. It's not just 20 pitches in one games. It's 20 pitches when he was laboring, after he was spiked by a runner, during a stretch where he's been pitching poorly in a season when he's been extended every single game and struck in the elbow by a bat, and when he struggled a lot after the WBC. Ok so then we should just not pitch him anymore? I mean what is the OK limit for you? The Pen was just as taxed as Z was. Should we possibly blow out one of our 3 top relievers (all signed for 07 too) just in case Z couldn't handle it? Seriously, why should we be concerned? When has Z ever shown that he can't handle this workload? Clemens has pitched for 20 years with a heavy workload. Not saying that Z is as good as Clemens but if there is no reason to think that Z is hurting then why not let him pitch when he is proving to be effective, chooses to stay in and the pen could use the rest. i quit reading when you implied that the health of the cubs' mediocre bullpen was as important as zambrano's.

f'in figures...clemens has his worst outing of the year against the shittiest cub lineup in ten years. speaking of which, are you kidding me with this cub lineup tonight?

I didn't Zambrano laboring at all. He looked as strong in the 7th and 8th as in the 1st. seven walks and a hit batter tell me that there was some laboring.