Ocu-Master

Awesome, so they finally found the chemical that causes poor clubhouse chemistry? We should all hope that this could one day lead to a cure for Milton Bradley syndrome.

Thanks for the replies, I'll check out cbs sportsline! -Robert

So it's that time of year when my fantasy baseball league starts to get going again and this year we're exploring alternatives to yahoo. Does anyone have suggestions? Basically we have a league already, we just need a place that will do head-to-head, live stats, and possibly keeper leagues. What sites do you guys use and how well do you like them? Maybe we can sticky this if there's lots of good references? (we're also willing to use a pay site, though free is obviously better!)

Agreed, the new collective bargaining agreement changes some of the rules about free agency, so I think it's in his best interest to file, but it doesn't mean he wants to leave the cubs.

I think the question is... are they going to make him shave those sideburns? http://img123.imageshack.us/img123/3766/8f13donmattinglyqr9.jpg

Irritable or short-tempered; irascible. Define irascible.....just kidding. Yes, that is me but some attitudes here just bring it out in me. We all want the same thing...to see the Cubs do well. In the meanwhile, let's enjoy it for what it is, have some fun and see what happens. I prefer to watch the games and the players while having some beers and some fun. haha, this has to be the first time that I've seen one these argument settled so amicably.

That hardly justifies snarky responses. Define snarky. Snarky (adj): see: bring stone back

Better yet, let's all use hyperbole and straw men to make our points. That would make for really fun discussions. This is going nowhere constructive. Believe what you will. okay....he's played one game in a Cubs uniform, is only 26 with room to improve yet he's atrocious. Okay...you're right. Well you're leaving out a lot of other information we have about him, such as his past performance at the plate. You're certainly welcome to your opinion that he will improve. I hope he does, but with the available information, I (and others) don't feel he's going to be that beneficial to the team. Defense doesn't count? Being arguably the best at his position in the game should count for something. Defense certainly counts, which is probably why he's got a less bad WARP (wins above replacement level) projection, my guess would be that its value in the Cubs lineup won't go as far in the wins column as having better hiting, but that's my opinion at this point.

We want you to stop writing writing loaded sentences like the one quoted above.

Better yet, let's all use hyperbole and straw men to make our points. That would make for really fun discussions. This is going nowhere constructive. Believe what you will. okay....he's played one game in a Cubs uniform, is only 26 with room to improve yet he's atrocious. Okay...you're right. Well you're leaving out a lot of other information we have about him, such as his past performance at the plate. You're certainly welcome to your opinion that he will improve. I hope he does, but with the available information, I (and others) don't feel he's going to be that beneficial to the team.

I'm not serious. I have a BP subscription myself. lol, had me fooled ;)

Five year PECOTA projections from BP: Year AVG OBP SLG VORP WARP 2006 .262 .305 .337 5.2 3.3 2007 .265 .308 .245 6.3 3.3 2008 .260 .309 .335 4.5 2.8 2009 .265 .312 .341 6.1 2.9 2010 .257 .304 .334 2.5 2.0 Doesn't look good. How would he get these numbers? That .245 slugging for example-the lowest slugging he has ever had in his career was .303-and that was when he was 22 and breaking into the league. Somebody brought up the point of why people would think he would improve-the simple answer is that he has improved every year in his career until he got hurt. His OBP went from .253 to .282 to .330 in 3 years, and was at .387 the next year-and then he played hurt, and it dropped down to the .302 number. We can't be sure about this years numbers yet-he hasn't had enough at-bats. For example, his OBP jumped 6 points tonight-and if he goes 0 for 4 tomorrow, it could go down those 6 points just as fast. So now that he's coming back healthy from the surgery, we simply expect him to keep improving like he did every year right up to the injury. Is it a sure thing that he will do that? Of course not-but it is perfectly reasonable that a man who improved every single year from 22 years old till 25 will continue to improve now that he is healthy again. I think arguing a more optimistic point of view or taking a let's give this guy a chance vantage point is pointless. bah, the .245 is a typo, fixed in the original post in 3...2...1...

I don't need stats, buddy, I watch the PLAYERS. Who says I don't watch the players too? Lose the attitude, I'm just adding info to the conversation. The fact that you watch the players doesn't invalidate the science of statistics.

You can point at any one player and say the PECOTA projectios were off, personally, I'll wait until the end of the season before daming the Abreu prediction but on the whole they are one of the better publicly available projections. These numbers are based on past performance, comparable players, age factors, etc. What is your prediction based on?

If that's the direction we're going, let me put my flame retardant suit on. Also, for the non-calculator inclined, there are stats other than VORP quoted in that projection. (perhaps you've head of a calculation called batting average)