Transmogrified Tiger

Was Clemens top 10 last season? A 1.87 ERA and 1.01 WHIP over 211+ innings is what sets the bar for the rest of the top 10. Too bad he had crappy run support and the TEAM held him to a 13-8 record. First off, I hate to be arguing this point because I really like Z. All I've been trying to say is that he hasn't proven to be consistent enough to produce the Ws required to be among the elite 10 pitchers in baseball. He clearly has the stuff to be one of the top 5, but to me, you have to win to get there. Sure, Clemens had a tremendous year and didn't win much since he got zero run support, but then again his league-leading ERA was a good 1.5 runs better than Z. He also has 12 seasons of at least 17 wins. Z finished tied for 24 in wins last year. Does that strike you as being elite? Why does a pitcher have to have a certain amount of wins to be elite? If a pitcher performs to a level and has a decent offense, he'll have x wins. Another pitcher performs the EXACT same, and has a better offense aroudn him, he'll have more than x wins. They performed the exact same, but forces outside their control gives one more wins than the other. The only argument you could make is that a pitcher has a certain "winnability" that allows them to pitch to the situation to get more wins with the same metrics and run support. But compared to other factors, like your offense, it's barely anything. Wins are next to worthless as a metric. It really doesn't mean anything that Carlos doesn't have a 15 win season. Well, it does mean something, but nothing that has to do with Z.

hahaha I have to say Diffusion is the last person I would expect to make this type of post.

MVC schools have the best shot IMO: Northern Iowa, Southern Illinois, Wichita State The answer is the same as last year: Wisconsin-Milwaukee. How are they going to stop Gray and Bookout with only one guy over 6-7 averaging double digit minutes? I'm somewhat surprised that more people aren't riding the Bucknell bandwagon. I like them, but they don't fit your criteria(they're a 9), and playing Arkansas in Dallas is a very bad draw. Arkansas has the personnel to neutralize them, plus the home crowd is a bad combination, even before they get to the number 1 seed. In fact, I may consider putting Arkansas in the Sweet 16 now that I think of it.

MVC schools have the best shot IMO: Northern Iowa, Southern Illinois, Wichita State The answer is the same as last year: Wisconsin-Milwaukee. How are they going to stop Gray and Bookout with only one guy over 6-7 averaging double digit minutes? I don't know, how'd they stop Dudley and Smith for BC last year? Doing deep analysis for things only ends up causing me to out-think myself. They didn't, Dudley and Smith scored 47 points. Big difference is that UW-M's offense isn't nearly as good as last year's model.

MVC schools have the best shot IMO: Northern Iowa, Southern Illinois, Wichita State The answer is the same as last year: Wisconsin-Milwaukee. How are they going to stop Gray and Bookout with only one guy over 6-7 averaging double digit minutes?

MVC schools have the best shot IMO: Northern Iowa, Southern Illinois, Wichita State

If only we had known!

Well, we are trading Walker for Matos...

I'm amazed how many people have them in the Final 4. They probably have the toughest 13 seed then the toughest 5 seed, in a bracket where the 2 seed doesn't have to leave home.

someone just get me a gun so I can shoot myself and not have listen to this argument one more freaking time. Maybe our definitions of elite pitchers differs. I consider elite pitchers to be among the top 10 in baseball, and yes, an important aspect of that is wins. I know the argument about the value of ERA, WHIP and BAA (because I've used it plenty to justify Prior and Wood), but shouldn't elite pitchers (who are maximizing their ability) deliver more than 14 wins a season, which is what Z has done the past 3 years). Z is an all-star pitcher and our #1 ace, but he still has to gain consistency to become elite in my book. Hopefully that happens this year. Roger Clemens won 13 games last season, and it was his best or second best season of his illustrious career. Too much is outside the pitcher's control.

You mean in your lineup? Anyone can fill that spot. As far as players being labeled Util as opposed to a specific position(s), I don't know.

There's much more to it than ERA+. I'm not saying Carlos isn't elite or that Fergie is superior, but not seeing them as near equals is absurd. I don't understand what point you're trying to make. Are you saying that it's absurd not to call those 3 year stretches for each pitcher equal? My point is comparing ERA+ for Fergie vs Carlos does not conclusively tell me that Carlos was superior in the last 3 years. What do you want to consider conclusive? We're not talking about the difference between Zambrano and Shawn Estes when talking superiority, we're talking about who performed better among two very good pitchers.

Moises wears his emotions on his sleeve, and I don't think his reaction should have been all that surprising to anyone. Plus, he apologized for his reaction before Game 7. Bottom line is that Gonzalez had the highest F% of all NL shortstops in 2003 and that was a routine grounder. Even distracted, any competent player should be expected to make that play. Seconded, Moises is an emotional guy, and make no mistake, that was fan interference, so he was justifiably upset. But Gonzo's error should be the focus of that collapse. Not under the rules it wasn't. The ball was going to land in the stands and therefore was not interference. CFP did a great breakdown at some point afterwards about this, too bad we don't have it any more. Bartman was reaching over the railing. But regardless, it shouldn't have mattered, Gonzo should've made the play, Alou should've worn PF flyers and caught it anyway, etc.

There's much more to it than ERA+. I'm not saying Carlos isn't elite or that Fergie is superior, but not seeing them as near equals is absurd. I don't understand what point you're trying to make. Are you saying that it's absurd not to call those 3 year stretches for each pitcher equal?

There's something to be said about being efficient, but let's not pretend that strikeouts are a bonus. A pitcher can only control so much, and striking people out is the best he can do in that regard. When you start pitching to contact, you open up a lot of variables outside the pitcher's control. I'm not saying that you try to strike out every hitter, but when you have the stuff conducive for it(and possibly stuff/control NOT conducive to hitting spots and getting poorly batted balls), K's and power pitching should be the route taken. Striking batters out is a bonus because it gives certain pitchers another way to get an out (and as you say, an extra bit of control over the outcome of an at bat). While it's true that the pitcher can't control anything outside of the strikeout I think that a pitcher will do best to trust his defense. One could argue that good pitching and good defense are synonymous. In the case of the Cubs, I don't think many of their pitchers trust the defense behind them. It goes beyond defensive ability, into a lot of chance/luck oriented things with placement of the ball, type of hit, and positioning of defenders. The pitcher and defense have some control over these factors, but compared to a Three True Outcome(BB, K, HR), it's a big difference.

Moises wears his emotions on his sleeve, and I don't think his reaction should have been all that surprising to anyone. Plus, he apologized for his reaction before Game 7. Bottom line is that Gonzalez had the highest F% of all NL shortstops in 2003 and that was a routine grounder. Even distracted, any competent player should be expected to make that play. Seconded, Moises is an emotional guy, and make no mistake, that was fan interference, so he was justifiably upset. But Gonzo's error should be the focus of that collapse.

It's a moot point though, there's not a lot of incentive for a team to take on Wood's expiring contract(well, there's an option no one is going to pick up) when he's not healthy now. He has more value in hopefully being healthy for us than trading him for what we'd get for him IMO.

So, if it was his throwing shoulder, he'd be going under the knife right now? That doesn't sound too promising. Yeah, I don't get that one. I'm guessing they mean the wear and tear of throwing would eventually force this into a surgery issue. Which also begs the question, wouldn't a Right handed swinger be putting just as much use into the left shoulder as a right handed thrower?

Do you think the high-fived when they passed each other? "Cubs players tear labrums during salutation"

What are you basing that on? Fergie put up some pretty sick numbers from 67-72. I don't have the numbers in front of me - I will post them tonight Fergie's best three consecutive years(he had a couple others juust better than his worst of these 3: 1969: 126 ERA+ 1970: 133 1971: 143 Zambrano's last 3 years: 2003: 136 ERA+ 2004: 165 2005: 131

There's something to be said about being efficient, but let's not pretend that strikeouts are a bonus. A pitcher can only control so much, and striking people out is the best he can do in that regard. When you start pitching to contact, you open up a lot of variables outside the pitcher's control. I'm not saying that you try to strike out every hitter, but when you have the stuff conducive for it(and possibly stuff/control NOT conducive to hitting spots and getting poorly batted balls), K's and power pitching should be the route taken. As far as pitch counts go in general, there is no magic number of pitches a pitcher should go over, that's been said. There's exceptions on both ends of the spectrum(Livan, the aforementioned Lieber), but generally you're opening yourself up to injury the more pitches you throw, because the more pitches you throw the more likely your mechanics will break down. That's the thing. One day Zambrano may be focused and still be going strong with good mechanics at 110 pitches, another day he may have had a rough night of chatting online and starts losing his arm angle at 90 pitches. Now, as this applies to Baker, he pretty much ignores common sense in this matter. People who are much better at identifying mechanics than me(UK for example), have pointed out when one of our guys is losing his mechanics at a lower pitch count, and when he still looks pretty good at a high pitch count. However, Baker has continually pushed the envelope. There's no sense in sending Zambrano out there to rack up 120+ pitches when we're winning in a blowout. There's something to be said for making sure he gets his work in, but we could find multiple examples of unnecessarily sending starters out for an extra inning when it's not needed. Add in the fact that we carry a 12 man pen where it appears that someone always gets lost in the shuffle for extended periods, it's even more inexcusable to risk the health of one of our prized arms. Ack, sorry about the length, just wanted to address the various topics brought up.

What are you basing that on? Fergie put up some pretty sick numbers from 67-72. Adjust for league/era. Jenkins' best three years were back to back, but they weren't as impressive as Z the last 3 years.

NONONONONONONONO

Lol @ jinxes. Bringing them together just encourages them to multiply.

With our pitching we only need a decent offense!