Transmogrified Tiger

who wouldn't want Scioscia as manager of the Cubs? He is definitely one of the best in all of baseball. I've heard some good and bad things about Scioscia. I'm not convinced he'd be/is a good manager.

This was a response to your "I look at it like this..." phrasing. I was speaking figuratively. You probably don't actually need to see your optician any time soon. Well, maybe you do, but that doesn't particularly interest me. Jeez, do you find "you need to get your eyes checked" in breach of your human rights? Congratulations. Then again, I'm not sure why you're telling me that. I think it's pretty obvious that I was parodying my own argument by addressing America as a whole with an extremely oversimplified stereotype... Wow, that went way over my head.

wtg Tigers

If I beat you with my depleted roster this week you should forfeit the rest of the season out of respect. And for the last time, it's Mr. Runamoker to you.

Let's go Spartans!

:shock: Sorry, but you couldn't be more wrong in my eyes. Getting plus-production (over the league average) out of a position or lineup slot is critical to having a successful team. That is one half of the reasons Walker has so much perceived value to the team or as trade. That is what makes Brian Roberts so insanely valuable. He produced .900+ OPS for a leadoff man and 2B. It's a crime Baltimore didn't win 90 games with kind of plus-production out of that position and slot. With the Chicago Cubs, the 3-4 hitters are a known quality. Finding plus-production out of 1-2 slots is the only way to turn this team around. And it's worth paying for, or even overpaying IMO. Sure, it's good to get production better than average for a position, but Damon isn't that much better than the league average to justify that type of length or dollar amount. Brian Roberts was also one of the top hitters in the game in addition for his position. Damon is up there for his position, but relative to other positions he's middle of the road. Plus he'll be 32, plus he's poor defensively, plus he's got his splits working against him for future performance. There aren't a lot of players worth 8 figures in the current market, and Damon isn't one of them.

I now respect JoePa about ten times as much as I did before this thread.

McNabb and Owens playing like McNown and Goings plus Darrell Jackson getting hurt and a Shockey bye week, sheesh. Next time Raw!

Right, and how many leadoff hitters have a mid-.800s OPS again? Oh yeah, about 3 a year in the 21st century. There isn't a scarcity of mid 800s OPS guys that make Damon worth 10 million. Whether they are leadoff men or not doesn't make Damon's production any more valuable.

6 years ago though. George isn't the same, and I don't think Orton or Grossman are of the same caliber as Culpepper.

I hate it when these home and away splits are posted because nobody ever includes standard variance in the post, so it is just stats in a vacuum. The majority of ballplayers are better at home. Come up with the league variance, then show me that Damon (or anybody else in the argument) is that much worse than the league variance for these splits to have any meaning. I don't have the time to do a league variance, but I'm going to go out on a limb and say that it's less than 40 points in AVG and 50 in OBP. EDIT: Here's Boston as a team. 2005 Home: .280/.360/.457/.817 Away: .281/.352/.450/.802 Difference: -.001/.008/.007/.015 Damon's Difference: .036/.049/.002/.051 2004 Home: .304/.378/.504/.883 Away: .260/.342/.441/.783 Difference: .044/.036/.063/.099 Damon's Difference: .050/.054/.004/.058 2003 Home: .316/.392/.527/.919 Away: .263/.328/.456/.783 Difference: .053/.064/.071/.135 Damon's Difference: .037/.044/.042/.086 2002 Home: .273/.344/.433/.777 Away: .280/.346/.454/.800 Difference: -.007/-.002/-.021/-.023 Damon's Difference. -.003/.018/-.032/.-.014 Three out of 4 years he benefits more from the park than his teammates, with this year being the most disturbingly bad. This doesn't even mention the fact that even with his home numbers, Damon isn't worth 40-50 million over 4-5 years, considering his production is still only a mid 800s OPS to go with weak defense at age 31.

In 2000, Antonio Alfonseca was 45/49 in save opportunites. His peripherals indicated that he wasn't as good as his save numbers indicated. Those peripherals proved to be predictive. In 2001, he was 28/44 and in 2002 he as 19/28. While I hope Dempster is as good as his 33/35 might lead some to believe, there is enough reason to be concerned. Just out of curiosity (this is a dead-horse argument), which of Dempster's peripherals worry you? His walks.

That'd be difficult to separate, you'd have to decipher between fatigue and lack of clutch in starting pitchers, and inability and lack of clutch in relievers who are always in those situations.

I'd only take him for one year, and he may not have anything left after being ridden hard this year, but we could do worse.

YES, DP!

I agree, I think it's hilarious.

hahahahahahahahahahahahahahahaha How does that happen? You almost have to be trying to do that.

I can't fathom why you'd want to start Cedeno over Nomar. Especially at 2B.

I'm not seeing the problem. The Card fans here contribute to the discussion, they aren't here to troll.

I apologize, I read the wrong column calculating his WHIP and then got a bunch of critical errors before I had to leave. ERA for relievers isn't a great metric, their smaller number of IP can skew it, and ERA in general has a lot out of the pitcher's control. But, if you want to compare 2005 v. 2005: Farnsworth: 2.19 ERA, 1.01 WHIP, 11.19 K/9, 3.22 K/BB, .180 BAA, .542 OPS Against Dempster: 1.85 ERA, 1.25 WHIP, 8.17 K/9, 1.96 K/BB, .218 BAA, .580 OPS Against Outside of a small advantage in ERA(which has problems like I mentioned earlier), Farnsworth is clearly more effective, just as he was in '03. I really don't see how he's any better, Farnsworth is clearly better across the board except for a small difference in a stat that he doesn't completely control. Too bad we can't isolate Dempster's dERA for just his relief work.

Flowers was unremarkable, that's probably the best way to put it. He's a toolsy guy that didn't have good numbers prior to this year, and he didn't have a good year this year, nor was he horrid.

Geez, did you even WATCH Farnsworth with the Cubs the last six years? Sometimes he was great. Sometimes he was a gas can. There were way too many times he was the gas can to be worth sticking with him. I can think of a half-dozen times against the Cardinals alone that Farnsworth completely blew it. Couldn't throw strikes for the life of him. Then grooves a fastball that gets clubbed to death 450 feet. Next. And I can think of 6 dozen times when he shut the door. The guy wasn't perfect, but he was a very good reliever. He's better than anything we have and we traded him away for peanuts. Why do people hate him so much, because his 2004 wasn't super good?

I liked Chip, and thought that his replacement would likely be worse, but I was wrong. Kasper knows baseball. Find me another broadcaster that even knows what DIPS is, nevermind mention it on a broadcast correctly. I just realized that our assistant GM and Hendry's right hand man didn't know what DIPS was until told so by BA. :cry:

I guess then the question is... Why? Head case. See yesterday and Mitch Williams for more. Judging a pitcher on one outing and not the overall numbers is a very ridiculous thing to do. However, one look at his career postseason numbers will show that is he a gutless choking dog when you need him most. Yeah, those 11 innings are truly an accurate measure of his clutchiness. Come on.

How many saves did Farns have as a Cubs?? How many years was he in Chicago?? Dude would have never got over the hump in Chicago. He wouldn't have came close to doing what Dempster did this year in a Cub uniform. He was better than Dempster was this year in '03. The whole "Farnsworth never lived up to his potential" thing is nonsense. He was and is a great reliever, but when he had a less than spectacular '04 and got hurt, people make up nonsense about him being an alcoholic or a headcase or stupid or whatever. He was NOT better than Dempster this year so what are you talking about? Do not count the games that Demspter started. Farnsworth '03 0.88 WHIP 10.85 K/9 2.56 K/BB .196 BAA .580 OPS against Dempster '05 as a reliever 1.25 WHIP 8.17 K/9 1.96 K/BB .218 BAA .580 OPS against Yes, Farnsworth was better. Great fantasy baseball numbers, but he sure as heck chokes in the big games. Yeah, it's not like I posted that his Close and Late numbers were almost mirrors of his regular season totals. Saying he chokes in big games is a ridiculous self-fulfilling prophesy.