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I got real lucky getting into the sports writing business. After graduating from college with a political science degree, I was looking around for a job before I entered the Masters program for public administration. I decided randomly to send in a resume to a newspaper looking for a sports writer - having no experience whatsoever in journalism I figured I'd have no shot. Lo and behold, they called me in for an interview and the publisher of the paper said he started the same way as me - a guy who loved sports but had no journalism experience. He offered me the job on the spot.

Writing obits is a terrible, terrible thing. At the paper I work at (granted, a small community newspaper), the obits are paid for and, thus, people get even more pissed off when even the slightest of mistakes is made. They're also extremely tedious to put together, thanks to the nuemrous names people want typed out exactly. They are the source of comedy from time to time (I know, I feel bad for laughing about the dead). Our obit writer once mistyped part of an obit from an extremely religious fellow. The obit was sent in as "He is now present with the Lord." It printed in the paper as "He is not present with the Lord." Needless to say, the widow was not happy when she called in to complain.

Like someone said earlier, watching Wood get the final out to win the World Series would be one of the most awesome things I'll ever see.

Yup Agreed.

Last I heard (which was recently), he's still holding on to hope and is very serious about it. Don't know if his chances are all that good, but he'll certainly do his best to make it happen.

Am I remembering terribly wrong when I think that we were right on the edge of acquiring the Big Unit the same season he was traded to Houston? For some reason I think we almost had him, but the Astros snatched him up from us. Not sure at all on that, though.

Only if they've found a way to resurrect people.

:D

Rose. And I just want to admit how absolutely bitter I am that the Grizzlies, for the second year in a row, aren't in the top 3 - despite being truly horrendous both years. Last year it cost us Greg Oden or Kevin Durant (though we did get Mike Conley out of it), hopefully this year Mayo will still be there at 5.

I voted All Star break. I think he'll suck until then and Hendry will either trade for a CF, or they'll give Pie another shot.

Flash is a great option. For some reason I've always liked him...no idea why. So long as we're (somewhat undeservedly) criticizing LLF's list, I say Mel Rojas should be on there somewhere. Though I really don't mean to pile on to you, LLF.

Who, who, who, who and who? They would be Jon Garland, Todd Noel (former 1st rd pick, I think, who was then traded for Felix Heredia), Pat Cline (catcher) and Courtney Duncan (pitcher). Considering Garland is the only one who did anything of any real note in the majors (and was traded for the great Matt Karchner), that would have been a truly awesome trade. Of course, trading just about any Cub minor leaguer in the system at that point wouldn't have been bad at all.

Bobby Cox is the closest I've seen to a near mistake-free managerial style in-game. Excellent in-game managers don't come along all that often and the ones who are around (like Cox and perhaps a Tony LaRussa) are not leaving their current team anytime soon.

This is a good point, but Lou has one thing Dusty will never have - a good philosophy. An emphasis on patience has turned this offense into what it is today - despite his oftentimes mind-boggling ingame moves. I have yet to find a manager who didn't make a few mind-boggling in game moves. And I agree, Lou's overall baseball philosophy is superior to Dusty's. If I got pissed off at every manager who befuddled me with in-game decisions, I'd never be satisfied. I won't just sit back and not question Lou's moves, but I also won't call for the firing of a manager who has a strong overall baseball philosophy - especially since whoever the new guy was would likely do things just as befuddling from game to game.

He's got a monster contract, but I don't think he's untradeable. There are GMs out there who would give up something to see if a player like Soriano had anything left in a couple of years - especially if he's dealt during a hot streak. The Cubs may have to eat some money, but it could happen. Fair - untradeable is probably too draconian a word. For the Cubs to Soriano would mean they would 1) have to find a team that could handle Soriano's contract, and 2) either get an outfield power bat in return or have a legitimate and proven and reliable option coming up from the minors. You bring up a good point that the fact that Soriano has very very very hot streaks means that a fickle GM might find Soriano more appealing than he should. Something for the team to keep in mind if trading Soriano becomes a focus. Hopefully whoever is our GM in two to three years (the latest I think Sori should be dealt) will consider his extreme hot streaks as a good opportunity to trade him. If it's still Hendry, he may see it as a reason to keep Soriano. As for the limits to trading Alfonso, things could be completely different three years from now, but if it were completed now, I would agree. Hopefully, though, a Colvin or Vitters or Pie or somebody will step up to negate that need.

This is a good point, but Lou has one thing Dusty will never have - a good philosophy. An emphasis on patience has turned this offense into what it is today - despite his oftentimes mind-boggling ingame moves.

I think that was more of an example why the 9th isn't always the most important inning. I would guess it's roughly normally distributed between all 9 lineup possibilities. Probably, I've just seen 7-8-9 v 3-4-5 hitter situation argued many times on the board, as if it happened all the time. If this helps.... this is a distribution by batting order of 9th inning plate appearances..... 03/31 - 05/17 PA batting 1st 9 batting 2nd 11 batting 3rd 14 batting 4th 10 batting 5th 12 batting 6th 12 batting 7th 11 batting 8th 15 batting 9th 11 You're a great man Fred! Always coming through for us helpless bad-at-stats people. :D So, if I'm reading this right, a closer will typically face some combination that includes the 3rd hitter or 8th hitter the most. But, I'm not sure anything can be conclusively drawn from it. Yeah, but you've got a mean of 11.67 and a std dev of just under 2.... so, there's no real conclusion to draw. This is a pretty flat distribution. Yep, believe you're (and by extension SSR) right. Interesting.

I think that was more of an example why the 9th isn't always the most important inning. I would guess it's roughly normally distributed between all 9 lineup possibilities. Probably, I've just seen 7-8-9 v 3-4-5 hitter situation argued many times on the board, as if it happened all the time. If this helps.... this is a distribution by batting order of 9th inning plate appearances..... 03/31 - 05/17 PA batting 1st 9 batting 2nd 11 batting 3rd 14 batting 4th 10 batting 5th 12 batting 6th 12 batting 7th 11 batting 8th 15 batting 9th 11 You're a great man Fred! Always coming through for us helpless bad-at-stats people. :D So, if I'm reading this right, a closer will typically face some combination that includes the 3rd hitter or 8th hitter the most. But, I'm not sure anything can be conclusively drawn from it.

He's got a monster contract, but I don't think he's untradeable. There are GMs out there who would give up something to see if a player like Soriano had anything left in a couple of years - especially if he's dealt during a hot streak. The Cubs may have to eat some money, but it could happen.

I think that was more of an example why the 9th isn't always the most important inning. I would guess it's roughly normally distributed between all 9 lineup possibilities. Probably, I've just seen 7-8-9 v 3-4-5 hitter situation argued many times on the board, as if it happened all the time.

1,627-1,512. That's a .518 winning percentage. If you remove the Tampa Bay years, which were some of the worst teams ever assembled, his winning percentage goes to .538. Why would we remove those? Can we remove his best three seasons also? Either way, that's good but it isn't earth-shattering. I think the reason he's eliminating the Tampa years is because they simply didn't have the talent to win and there was nothing Lou could do about it. The powers that be in Tampa wouldn't spend the money and he had crap teams - therefore making it a little unfair to blame him for poor seasons. I don't care who the manager is, if he has abysmal talent, he won't have a good record. I don't care who the manager is, if he has great talent, he'll have a good record. I'm not arguing this point at all, just explaining the logic behind cutting Lou (or any manager for that matter) some slack for having a poor record in Tampa. Though, Dusty did an awful good job in '04 of arguing your point. :wink:

That's a pretty contrived situation, especially since even scenario 2 likely results in at least a tie in the ninth. When the first guy in the eighth got on, a reliever should have been brought in. If your second best reliever gives up a double to the first batter he faces in the eighth, and it's indicative of the kind of pitcher he is, there is no post-season for your team. If Marmol can warm up more quickly than Wood, which I think is the case, that's the only reason you need to not have Marmol as the ninth inning "closer." It's a simple and unavoidable fact that, on average, a pre-9th inning "leverage" guy will pitch more crucial outs and innings than a pure closer (every 1-3 run lead, ninth-inning only). The perfect situation would be Marmol pitching both pre-9th inning key situations and nailing down 9th-inning, one-run leads. I'm kind of curious (and I'm not using this to argue against using the best reliever in a setup/fireman role, I agree with that thought) how often a closer faces each group of hitters. I keep seeing the "closer facing the 7-8-9 hitters" argument, but is that really any more likely than the closer facing the 1-2-3 or 3-4-5 hitters? Again, it makes no difference in my opinion, I still feel that the best reliever should be used in the most important role (i.e. fireman). I'm just curious.

He bunted and pulled back the pitch before, so they knew it was coming. Was it his decision or Lou's? I wasn't able to watch, but I seem to recall hearing Kosuke was a good bunter in Japan, so he may have done it himself - though that's less likely considering he attempted it twice. Ok, I'll go ahead and correct myself. Just read it was, in fact, Lou's call. Bad decision by Lou.

1,627-1,512. That's a .518 winning percentage. If you remove the Tampa Bay years, which were some of the worst teams ever assembled, his winning percentage goes to .538. Why would we remove those? Can we remove his best three seasons also? Either way, that's good but it isn't earth-shattering. I think the reason he's eliminating the Tampa years is because they simply didn't have the talent to win and there was nothing Lou could do about it. The powers that be in Tampa wouldn't spend the money and he had crap teams - therefore making it a little unfair to blame him for poor seasons. I don't care who the manager is, if he has abysmal talent, he won't have a good record.

He bunted and pulled back the pitch before, so they knew it was coming. Was it his decision or Lou's? I wasn't able to watch, but I seem to recall hearing Kosuke was a good bunter in Japan, so he may have done it himself - though that's less likely considering he attempted it twice.