Tim

Yes, but I was referring to position players as dusty's use of young pitchers seems different than position players.

And after 10+ years as a major league manager I think he's successfully brought one more rookie to the majors than everyone on this board combined, too.

If the Cubs had Nomar, Giles, Lee, Dunn, Ramirez, Walker, Barrett as 2-8 in the order, I could hit leadoff and they'd still score a ton of runs.

I believe they are the aforementioned gremlins that Goony was referring to. 8)

Nate, To get those things to line up properly, you need to use the [ code ] ... [ /code ] feature. It will put everything in a monospaced font and retains the extra spaces. I usually type everything out into notedpad to see that it lines up properly, then I'll paste it between the tags and it works great.

Are you serious? We haven't had a leprechaun since Augie left town.

BTW - would we be considering Wilkerson for CF? Murton, Wilkerson, Giles would look awfully nice. Wilkerson could also hit leadoff for this team, which would be a bonus.

I'm not sure how it is right now, but earlier in the season when I was looking at him Wilkerson was just being crushed by RFK. If Bowden doesn't see that, though, it may be an opportune time to inquire about his availability.

The edge in innings pitched gives it to Carpenter over Clemens in my mind. And I think Carp's been better than Dontrelle this season when looking at the peripherals.

Any article that has "clutch" hitting as the #1 priority can get filed exactly where it belongs.

What a dreadful beginning for me! The pitching could not have gone much worse. James popped up this afternoon after it was announced he was recalled by ATL. Serves you right for beating me to Zimmerman. :D and guzman, who eventually brought me teix. :D but that's weird that he popped up and didn't sit on waivers...that's what happened when hill got called up...i had to put in a claim for him and wait for a while... :? anyway, there were times that i was frustrated that i couldn't catch you in points or match your place in the standings, but it sure came in handy when it came to making waiver claims. Some seem to sit on waivers and some don't. Perhaps it has to do with the time of week they're added to the DB. And yes, you snatched several guys from me this year because of the waiver priority. When I was battling injuries earlier in the year, you grabbed a couple of guys before I could. Wah, poor me. ;) btw - is it too late to sub Bonderman out for Liriano?

What a dreadful beginning for me! The pitching could not have gone much worse. James popped up this afternoon after it was announced he was recalled by ATL. Serves you right for beating me to Zimmerman. :D

I'll have to go through the list again and update it. I won't have time tonight, but I'll do it this week. In addition, I'll do an analysis of the 40 man roster to see who might get bumped off in favor of the rule 5 eligibles.

Exactly! I'd say the same thing about Cedeno. i agree with both of you. it appears that these players just know how to play without having to think too much. ballplayers, billy beane would call them. i could live with murton in left and cedono getting siginificant time in the middle infield spots, preferably backing up nomar and walker. murton also provides a cheap option that affords us the luxury of spending big in right field, centerfield, and getting another sp and reliever. i think the only possible way that we don't land giles is if giles simply does not want to play anywhere other than crappy southern california. we have the most money to spend and hendry knows that he has work to do. Why is Southern Ca crappy?? The chances of the Cubs giving Giles enough money to leave SoCal is slim and none. I like Chicago better. :D

Corey would be last of my options and heres why. In this situation an extra base hit is worthless all i need is a single or walk. Of this group corey clearly has the most knack for a extra base hit but i dont need it here, the game is tied and all i need is one run. Of the 4 players listed im going to go into extra innings 7 out of 10 times, not good. Id rather have corey as a man to lead off an inning and better utilize his power and or speed. Or i could use him as pinch runner later in the game to steal a base and score from second on a hit ala dave roberts. Corey is most likely to hit a homer in pinch hit situation but again i dont need that here. Ill get fried in the press room by not using him but that ok. What you need is for someone to simply not make an out. That likelyhood, of course, is simply the same thing as OBP. I don't care if it is a walk, hbp, hit or even catcher interference. All I care about is the batter getting through their PA with no out being recorded: Career OBP: Corey - .294 Neifi - .301 (inflated by coors) Macias - .299 Blanco - .288 Last 3 yrs (2002-2004, as espn doesn't list 3yr splits including 2005) Corey - .308 Neifi - .278 Macias - .286 Blanco - .261 Obviously, none of them are great choices. But I'll take my chances with Corey instead of the other three.

I'll go ahead and be the one that says Corey. He's certainly the most talented hitter out of that group, even if he has struggled this season. And I'd certainly want him at that plate out of that group if an extra base would be required to drive in the winning run.

The Red Sox have already put him on waivers at least once. I think it's pretty clear they are willing to give him away. Did they put him on waivers again before this season? If not, they may not be willing to just give him away with that much less remaining on his contract. It might also be that they were willing to give him away when there was a Vlad or a Beltran on the open market, but not when Giles is the cream of the crop.

Pitching and fielding together is half the game, hitting being the other half. Actually, because in the long run good pitching/decent hitting wins more ballgames than good hitting/decent pitching, the pitching and fielding is slightly more than half. Why is it better? Well, if your starters allow less baserunners, they should throw less pitches, and if they throw less pitches, they should be able to throw more innings before they reach certain pitch counts. That in turn means less bullpen innings, which means that your relievers, on top of having better defence behind them, ought to be fresher, which gives you more effective pitching options, which can help you prevent further runs. If your starters and fielding is effective enough, you may not be able to find work for everyone in your bullpen, so you may be able to run with less pitchers on your staff, so you can have more bench options, which means more in-game flexibility, which, if exploited by the manager, can mean more runs for the offence, or still even better defence and less runs allowed. Furthermore, a pitcher that trusts his defence can be more effective at doing his job as a pitcher, partially because the confidence of his effective fielders rubs off on him, partially because there's no ineffective fielding to rattle him, partially because effective fielding can inspire him to raise his own game. An effective pitcher is often confident in himself too, and therefore better able to get over poor pitches, innings and outings, because he trusts himself and his own ability. Finally, an effective and efficient pitcher that throws less pitches is theoretically less likely to get injured or wear down as the season goes on, and fielders are less likely to get injured because there are less plays to make in the field and they spend less time in the field, which is less sapping for them too, especially catchers. The less tired your best players are the less off-days they need. And so on and so on and so on. Or, in other words, look at the Rockies. First, for an individual game: If your offense is that much incrementally better, the exact same effect happens to the other team. You get their starters out of the game that much sooner, getting to the soft underbelly of the opposing pitching staff, leading to even more runs. Which leads, of course, to even more victories. Since it works both ways, I'm not sure I'm convinced that P&D is inherently worth more than O. Unless you're arguing that an incremental increase in offensive talent gives a linear increase in runs scored, while an incremental increase in p&d talent gives an exponential (or at least non-linear) increase in runs allowed. For the long haul: The effect of being in the field more during the year may lead to more injuries, wearing down, etc., but my thinking is that this would be a small enough effect that it wouldn't be statistically significant. But that's a pure matter of opinion. Have there ever been any data-based studies that showed that denying runs is a more effective winning strategy than scoring them?

Actually, I was at that game with Serena & BBB. It was one of the worst innings I've seen a major league team play defensively, though only one error was charged. The bunt single to Mitre should have been handled. After the botched DP, Mitre was clearly shaken. I said to Serena that bad things were about to happen and that Larry should be running out to the mound. He didn't. After the two walks, Larry finally went out there and talked with Mitre to calm him down. It worked and Mitre proceeded to get the ground ball he needed to get out of the jam. However, the base hit was a ground ball that passed a few feet to ARam's left that he made a piss-poor effort at (don't know if the legs were bothering him or what, but he seemed to barely try for the ball). Novoa came in to relieve Mitre and...same exact thing. Grounder right past Aramis. Agonizing to watch and entirely predictable sequence of events.

I've never really believed that pitching & defense is more than 50% of the game. Can anyone explain why they think it is so? Or is it simply because people repeat it so often?

Ha! Bonderman is actually about the same age as Liriano and Cain (well, a couple ticks older, but still a not-yet-ripe old age of 22). Besides, all the guys I'm running with in the rotation are top 20 in points (or were the last I checked). I'd also like a little credit for being the only one in the playoffs bold enough to start three rookies in Weeks, Gomes & Barmes! (I'm sounding awfully defensive here...musta been that Baker crack!) Should be a good matchup. This two week battle kind of makes up for us only getting a half-week competition at the all-star break. Good luck!

Well, if you like stability, how can you not prefer anyone to Hendry? What roster stability exists for the Cubs over the past few years? Aramis is the only position player still on the team from the postseason squad in 2003 and that was only two years ago! And I think it's a bit unfair to characterize Depo's trades in the way that you have. Yes, he traded the face of the franchise in LoDuca. But he was also a horrendously overrated player who contributed far less than was commonly perceived. I'd much rather have a GM who knows when to "sell high", even if it means having some roster instability.

No single cause.

Actually, it's too bad we can't switch pitchers after week 1. I'd then be able to put both Cain & Liriano into the rotation to get two starts apiece in week 1, then go back to my vets for week 2. In fact, that would give me 10 starts in week 1, with Burnett, Livan & Bonderman also in line to get two starts apiece in week 1. Adam might be happy we can't switch after week 1, though. 8)

It looks like the fighting nsbb'rs are going to pull it out unless Utley and Howard go completely off and Abreu does nothing. I'm not sure I deserved to win this week, though, and the team is really going to have to pick it up to even be close to Adam in the Championship. Of course, if Pujols starts getting off days and Carpenter keeps pitching like he doesn't care, it's going to be tough. I've got an interesting decision around the pitching. Bonderman is supposed to be back in the rotation and facing KC & Seattle in week 1. But he hasn't pitched in two weeks and could be pretty rusty. Meanwhile, I've got Cain and Liriano available to stick in the rotation. I also have to make a decision about my catching & OF situation. Go with Gomes over Damon & Guillen? Find a temp sub for Barrett until his head stops ringing? Ah, decisions...