scarey

I don't think it's meaningless at all. A middle of the order hitter is going to get anywhere from 150-200 plate appearances over the course of a season with RISP. I happen to think that's quite significant. I never said a home run could drive in fewer runs than a single. What I did say is more singles could drive in more runs then significantly less home runs. My example would be... Adam Dunn. In 182 PAs last year, he hit 11 home runs. He had another 21 hits with RISP and a total of 65 runs batted in while in that situation. Only 26 of his runs batted in in that situation were from his home runs. I can't get the exact amount of RBIs he got from singles alone, but out of his 21 non-home run hits with RISP, 18 of them were singles. I know for a fact that he knocked in most of his RBIs in that situation via the single since the most he could have possibly driven in with this 3 doubles is 6 runs. So, say he knocked in all 6 runs in all 3 of his doubles. That means he knocked in at the very least 33 of his RBIs from batting with RISP via the single. 33>26

If there's more runs batted in by the singles... then yes, they are better. that all depends if the bases are clogged with those darn guys that keep walking, it called the "Dusty factor." You guys and your nonsense. I'll say this one more time. I LOVE WALKS! LOVE THEM! NO JOKE HERE, I AM A BIG FAN OF PEOPLE TAKING A WALK! I DON'T THINK WALKS "CLOG THE BASES". I'M NOT DUSTY BAKER!

If there's more runs batted in by the singles... then yes, they are better.

Fixed.

Chit chat? On an internet forum? We wouldn't want that!

Well, then I guess I'll go with Morneau cause he's lucky then. In 940 career PA (just so you don't argue sample size), Morneau has had 2.5 PA per RBI with RISP. Dunn in 1322 PA has 3.4 PA per RBI with RISP. You call it luck, I call it Morneau putting more of an emphasis on putting the ball in play to try and score a runner. Either way, I still say that it's a reason why Morneau is a better hitter.

I agree with most of what you said in that post. It's not really about right or wrong, it's about ideals. However, that being said a baseball GM is in a position to make a better evaluation on a player based on the time and financial investment (it's their well-being after all) they put into it. I would count on the collective values of MLB GMs to make decisions that would lead to success. ...and from what I can tell, MLB GMs collectively do not think much of Adam Dunn. I'm sorry if people are offended by that, but that's just what I observe. There may be a secret Adam Dunn fan club that I'm not aware of, but from what I perceive, he is not valued among the professionals.

Thanks, that's all I'm looking for. I did show you some stats before, although they're not conventional. Every 2.3 times Morneau came to the plate with RISP (which he had 230 PAs with RISP), he was able to knock in a run. Dunn, in comparison, was only able to score a runner in every 2.8 plate appearances with RISP (out of 182). This is a big reason why I think Morneau had a better season then Dunn. So, RBI totals do not tell the whole story, I agree. Sometimes a player cannot help if his team gets into scoring position enough to help him to drive up RBI totals. However, when given a good opportunity to drive in a runner, Morneau was able to judge the situation and do what he had to do to get a runner in more often then Dunn. This takes the whole "RBIs is a team stat" argument and normalizes it to show what a specific player can do in the given situation. Now, given the fact that Dunn's number was 2.8, I'm actually fairly impressed. It's still not on par with what most of the run producers are capable of (many that I've researched are at 2.5 plate appearances per RBI), but Dunn performed well above his career mark in this stat which is 3.4. Does that mean he's evolving his game? Maybe, and if that's the case I can be more receptive to the idea of bringing him in. The other stat I was going to use was %of RBIs with runners in scoring position. Dunn drove in 65% of his runs from RISP while Morneau drove in 77% of his runs from RISP. However, I can see why this is a flawed stat because for one thing, Morneau can have his % driven up because of increased opportunities with RISP, while Dunn can drive his number down based on the higher HR total and scoring RBIs when runners are not in scoring position. Just think a little bit more about these things guys. OBP and SLG don't tell the whole story about how effective a player is. Hell, OPS+ either for that matter. In fact, no stat can tell you the whole story. But, collecting a greater variety of data can help more to understand how a player performs.

I guess I just take issue with the fact that you guys here seem to think that GMs, people who get paid millions of dollars for their expertise and have moved up through a system of professionals, are wrong and you're right. That they undervalue a guy like Adam Dunn and you have the correct value figured out. Did you ever stop to think that maybe it's not the GMs undervaluing Dunn, but you guys over valuing Dunn? Just stop and think about it as a possibility for a second. using the "gms know better because they are gms" argument is a copout. what about when sabean gave zito 126 million? what about 2/40 for andruw jones? 5/50 for gary matthews jr? 5/50 for juan pierre? 8/126 for soriano? do you agree with all those contracts? you have to, because you just said we can't question gms' intelligence Yes or no, you know better then an average baseball GM? Who said that we did? B/c they know more than me. Yes or no, have you agreed with every move the cubs have ever made? No. But I'm man enough to admit that I'm not in the position to say they were wrong... at least until hindsight.

I guess I just take issue with the fact that you guys here seem to think that GMs, people who get paid millions of dollars for their expertise and have moved up through a system of professionals, are wrong and you're right. That they undervalue a guy like Adam Dunn and you have the correct value figured out. Did you ever stop to think that maybe it's not the GMs undervaluing Dunn, but you guys over valuing Dunn? Just stop and think about it as a possibility for a second. using the "gms know better because they are gms" argument is a copout. what about when sabean gave zito 126 million? what about 2/40 for andruw jones? 5/50 for gary matthews jr? 5/50 for juan pierre? 8/126 for soriano? do you agree with all those contracts? you have to, because you just said we can't question gms' intelligence Yes or no, you know better then an average baseball GM?

I guess I just take issue with the fact that you guys here seem to think that GMs, people who get paid millions of dollars for their expertise and have moved up through a system of professionals, are wrong and you're right. That they undervalue a guy like Adam Dunn and you have the correct value figured out. Did you ever stop to think that maybe it's not the GMs undervaluing Dunn, but you guys over valuing Dunn? Just stop and think about it as a possibility for a second.

While we're on the subject, could you please tell me who you think was a better player in 2008? Adam Dunn or Justin Morneau? I'm not just talking about how important they were for their respective teams. I want to know in a vacuum, who played better last year, Dunn or Morneau? Dunn had 40 HRs, 100 RBI, 79 R and posted a .236/.386/.513 line Morneau had 23 HRs, 129 RBI, 97 R, and posted a .300/.374/.499 line Please, just tell me who was better and what your justification was? I would love to hear what any of you guys think here and really want to understand your side of it. I don't care that Morneau isn't in the Cubs plans, I simply want to know which you think was better offensively last year. Morneau, and I never said he wasn't. My point is that him being better has absolutely nothing to do with RBIs. Nothing. What makes him better? He's just a better hitter. Lots of stats show this. None of them are RBIs. You really need to stop with this RBI stuff. Show me one stat that shows he's a better hitter. I've actually already shown you one, and I can show you another if you want me to. I just want to know your argument on the topic besides "He's just a better hitter".

Morneau is an above avg. defender at 1B, which is an underrated defensive position, IMO. It's odd to try and use one of the best hitters in the AL to try and show how limited the value is of Dunn. I can't believe how bad of a hitter Morneau is.... Who's better him or Pujols? Please stop avoiding the question. I didn't ask you to compare the two for value. You guys are claiming that OBP and HRs are without a doubt under every circumstance the best possible stats to go by. I just showed you a guy, Morneau, that had a worse OBP and less HRs then Dunn. All I'm asking for is your judgment on who had a better offensive year. Is that a reason to be a wise guy about it? Who on earth claimed OBP and HRs are the best possible stats to go by? Do you know how OPS is calculated? HRs are only part of SLG. Ok, do you want to shift it over to slugging? The only reason I was bringing up HRs was because I made a statement earlier: And people were amused by the statement. So I was trying to make the argument that HRs doen't always make the best production... and Morneau proves that. Unless you've decided that Dunn had the better season, then we can continue with the "HRs =/= production" argument. If you concede the point, then I'll move on to slugging (which, btw, Dunn had a better slugging%... do you still think Morneau had the better offensive season?). Look guys, Dunn is a productive player. However, he gets a lot of his production from 1/2 run homers and fails again and again to get runners in when they're in scoring position. All I'm saying is, don't expect him to come through for you in a big situation unless you need a walk (which, I concede, there's many occasions where you need a walk). My main point here is OBP and SLG doesn't always trump everything. If it did, then people would be telling me that Dunn had the better season in 2008... which obviously people here have said otherwise.

Now you're just being silly :rotfl:

Don't even count defense, which had a better offensive year? And if you have any justification, could you please share. I didn't realize just how good of a year Morneau had last year. Without getting too deep into his stats, his OPS+ was higher still seems an odd way to prove a point about adam dunn That's just it. It's not a point about Adam Dunn. It' s a point that OBP and HRs aren't conclusive like you guys seem to make a case for.

While we're on the subject, could you please tell me who you think was a better player in 2008? Adam Dunn or Justin Morneau? I'm not just talking about how important they were for their respective teams. I want to know in a vacuum, who played better last year, Dunn or Morneau? Dunn had 40 HRs, 100 RBI, 79 R and posted a .236/.386/.513 line Morneau had 23 HRs, 129 RBI, 97 R, and posted a .300/.374/.499 line Please, just tell me who was better and what your justification was? I would love to hear what any of you guys think here and really want to understand your side of it. I don't care that Morneau isn't in the Cubs plans, I simply want to know which you think was better offensively last year. Morneau, and I never said he wasn't. My point is that him being better has absolutely nothing to do with RBIs. Nothing. What makes him better?

Morneau is an above avg. defender at 1B, which is an underrated defensive position, IMO. It's odd to try and use one of the best hitters in the AL to try and show how limited the value is of Dunn. I can't believe how bad of a hitter Morneau is.... Who's better him or Pujols? Please stop avoiding the question. I didn't ask you to compare the two for value. You guys are claiming that OBP and HRs are without a doubt under every circumstance the best possible stats to go by. I just showed you a guy, Morneau, that had a worse OBP and less HRs then Dunn. All I'm asking for is your judgment on who had a better offensive year. Is that a reason to be a wise guy about it?

Don't even count defense, which had a better offensive year? And if you have any justification, could you please share.

While we're on the subject, could you please tell me who you think was a better player in 2008? Adam Dunn or Justin Morneau? I'm not just talking about how important they were for their respective teams. I want to know in a vacuum, who played better last year, Dunn or Morneau? Dunn had 40 HRs, 100 RBI, 79 R and posted a .236/.386/.513 line Morneau had 23 HRs, 129 RBI, 97 R, and posted a .300/.374/.499 line Please, just tell me who was better and what your justification was? I would love to hear what any of you guys think here and really want to understand your side of it. I don't care that Morneau isn't in the Cubs plans, I simply want to know which you think was better offensively last year.

Just so you know, Dunn's career average with RISP is actually .225, not .241. http://www.baseball-reference.com/pi/bsplit.cgi?n1=dunnad01&year=00 And... hi! I know who you are :D Thanks, that's slightly more useful than number of RBIs on Wednesdays. Can you grab that stat for me? It might be useful since the we need to know who steps up their game on Wednesdays and who suffers from the dreaded Hump-day jitters. Devaluing the ability to drive runs in when the best possibility is presented is silly. I won't say more then that. No, Theriot does not drive in runs the way an elite offensive player like Aramis Ramirez or Derrek Lee does. Again, you're trying to base your argument on trivializing my argument. That to me tells me you got nothin. This seems to be sort of common around here. Stick to the topic of discussion rather then trying to slander me please. Wins are mostly dependent on what your team can do for you offensively with a small emphasis on how well a pitcher can pitch and how well his defense fields for the pitcher. I would never judge a pitcher solely on wins, however there is a correlation between how good a pitcher is and how many wins he accumulates over his career. Anyway, I know you weren't really curious what I thought about wins. You were just hoping I would say they're important or imply that I think they're important so you can trivialize me and my argument. Nice try though. There is a huge difference between wins for a starting pitcher and being able to drive in runners in scoring position. If you guys can't understand that... then I don't know what to say. I guess all you can ask for is we somehow sign Dunn. Then you can hope for a walk when DLee is standing on third with two outs... cause Dunn has proven over the time of his career that he is 1.5 times more likely to strike out in that situation compared to actually getting a hit and scoring the run. Unless you think he'll magically change and be more likely to drive in the run then strike out... I guess that can always happen. I can't wait to see the giant BB signs in the outfield when Dunn walks to the plate with the winning run at third with 2 outs.

I wasn't necessarily arguing the merits of Dunn v Morneau there. Just the merits of looking at BA solely in determining a player's worth. Any time a player gets on base, it's productive. Is driving the man in more productive? Sure, but you can't just disregard the times he gets on base and gives the team (in our case Aramis Ramirez, one of the best hitters in the game today) a chance to drive in multiple runners. Yes, but in that same situation, a guy like Bradley is better then Dunn at a 3.2 PAw.RISP/RBI. On top of that, Bradley provides better defense and speed on the bases... and only falters by .010 points lifetime in OBP. And if you wanna talk about how Bradley will be injured, our little Mike Fontenot in his short career has 2.9 PAw.RISP/RBI(.369 OBP). And Reed Johnson is at 2.8(.344 OBP). Now, it's hard to argue that I would want Fontenot instead of Adam Dunn in my lineup, I will say this though. I do in fact prefer Bradley in the lineup and I personally don't mind taking the gamble on Bradley with the fact that Fontenot and Johnson would be the backup options.

there will be blood Not trying to be Mr. Smart Guy, but why the comparison of Dunn to either A) guys we already have(the Soriano comparison, they aren't even remotely similar) or B) guys were never going to get( Morneau) I'm more interested in how he compares to Bradley, which has at least been addressed some, Abreu, Burrell or any other guy that there's at least a minute possibility of playing RF for the Cubs next year. Soriano is being compared here because most people here have had extensive first hand knowledge on Soriano unlike Dunn. I compared Morneau to Dunn because Morneau is a good example of why having a good average with RISP can help a team more then a guy like Dunn who doesn't swing to contact. And, up to that point in the thread when I made the Morneau comparison, the conversation was going in circles when talking about Bradley v. Dunn. Pro Bradley: Bradley is the all around better player and hitter. Pro Dunn: Yeah, but he WILL be injured next year. Just made no sense to go on with it. @Dew: You would be right in your specific scenario, but that scenario isn't anywhere close to the actual stat comparisons between Morneau and Dunn. Morneau gets an RBI for every 2.5 plate appearances when he has RISP. Dunn gets an RBI in every 3.4 plate appearances in teh same situation. Morneau is way more productive then Dunn with RISP. For a more local comparison of that stat, our two consistent clutch run producers are at the 2.5 range along with Morneau. All of these guys know how to look at the situation and adjust to try to get the best possible outcome, which is score a run.

Just so you know, Dunn's career average with RISP is actually .225, not .241. http://www.baseball-reference.com/pi/bsplit.cgi?n1=dunnad01&year=00 And... hi! I know who you are :D

sigged You're a fool if you think HRs = production. Sorry, but if you've read the last few posts, you'd see that a guy like Morneau will always out produce Dunn... no matter what lineup each is respectively in.

If your point is that nobody here knows anything for sure, then I guess I'll concede. We'll just see how this thing unravels. But a flyout gives you a chance of extending the inning? I don't get that. Are you talking about guys getting bloop hits and finding holes because they make contact? Yes. This is the basis for virtually every Cub player since Lou has arrived. Make sure to make contact first in a two strike count. It gives them an opportunity for a bloop hit, an erratic ground ball that finds a hole, or every once in a while an infield hit or error. I'm not saying any player should count on getting on base that way, but I know for sure it gives you a tremendously better chance than making an out at the plate and that this approach has a significant effect on a players results. I don't understand how putting the ball in play is only helpful in determining how good a player might end up and cannot help a player like Dunn. Disagree. In Dunn's case, I can only assume it's a matter of baseball smarts. The guy fails to score runners in scoring position and strikes out in that situation A LOT. If he were to try to make contact first, who knows? Maybe he hits a bloop that scores a guy from second more often. Maybe he gets a sac fly now and then. Maybe he fouls off pitches until he gets a good one to hit. His strikeouts have nothing to do with plate discipline and I know it. I honestly don't care how many home runs the guy hits. I only care about production. 40 HRs is pretty, I can't deny, but look at a guy like Justin Morneau. He only hit 23 HRs. But, he drove in 29 more RBIs then Dunn did. Why? I can't tell you for sure, but I can guess it has at least a little bit to do with the fact that he struck out 80 times less then Dunn did. I'm not saying all of his production is from cutting down his swing, but I think it had a big effect on it.