Transmogrified Tiger

There was a report that he only wanted to go to Atlanta or Chicago, but Griffey hasn't said anything of that sort either way.

I think what he meant is that we don't have a good way of objectively dentifying what caused the Cubs to begin to play up to their "pytg. potential", if you know what I mean. Therefore we wind up attributing everything to "luck", a sort of catch-all phrase we fallback on when we can't explain the reason for or meaning behind certain phenomanon. I think the hope is that we can find a way to objectify that analysis in the future rather than saying "they just got lucky", which is demeaning in its own way. Luck is just a different way of saying variance. Players who hit .250 don't go 1 for 4 every day, and pitchers with a 4.50 ERA don't give up 3 ER over 6 IP every start. In the same way(or, "as a result" works better I guess), .500 teams don't alternate win-loss-win-loss all year. A different way to say it without using "luck", is that they "played to their potential". People say luck because the close games that make and break teams' records have a LOT of variance. I am not sure that is what everyone means when they use the term, but I'll play along. Assuming you are correct, do we have a way of quantifying or predicting this variance? What about for middle relievrs, which is the topic the hand? Also, would you be willing to concede that baseball in general is to a great extent influenced by this "variance", or do you think certain teams get "luckier" than others? And if it is the case that some get luckier, isn't it true that there is only so much you can do to build a team that wins the WS? I'll try to relate it to middle relievers. Variance comes because you can't predict when Marmol or Wuertz is going to have a bad outing. Obviously managers have some sway over this, and may be able to sniff out when a guy may have stayed out too late, or looked really good in his last side session. But even then, sometimes the guy makes his pitch and the hitter makes a play on it. All of a sudden you've lost that one run game. Over the course of a long season(kinda tying in what Sulley just said), these things tend to even out(although no one is saying it's guaranteed), hence the value of pythagorean. On a macro scale, it's a little easier to make distinctions like this. For example, Les Walrond is a bad pitcher, calling him up and letting him pitch in a bunch of close games is a bad idea. But over the course of less than 1/3rd of a season there's a near infinite amount of noise that can distort. That also ties in to how I feel about the playoffs. There may be a common denominator in successful playoff teams, but even isolating it and building upon it may not do much for your chances of playoff success given the short amount of games(at most it's half of the sample I was just talking about). That's why my objective would be to build the best team possible, with maybe small differences to an ideal roster to account for the slightly different dynamic of postseason team construction(i.e. having 2-3 studs and 1-2 lesser pitchers in the rotation instead of 1 stud and 4 decent-solid guys).

I think what he meant is that we don't have a good way of objectively dentifying what caused the Cubs to begin to play up to their "pytg. potential", if you know what I mean. Therefore we wind up attributing everything to "luck", a sort of catch-all phrase we fallback on when we can't explain the reason for or meaning behind certain phenomanon. I think the hope is that we can find a way to objectify that analysis in the future rather than saying "they just got lucky", which is demeaning in its own way. Luck is just a different way of saying variance. Players who hit .250 don't go 1 for 4 every day, and pitchers with a 4.50 ERA don't give up 3 ER over 6 IP every start. In the same way(or, "as a result" works better I guess), .500 teams don't alternate win-loss-win-loss all year. A different way to say it without using "luck", is that they "played to their potential". People say luck because the close games that make and break teams' records have a LOT of variance.

What happened to him not wanting to be away from his family?

I know, you are attributing it to luck. hitting got worse. starting pitching got worse. pen got better. must be luck. (shhh, don't tell anyone that while the hitting and pitching got worse, the pythag record got better too). I don't even know what you're trying to say. The pythagorean is an argument in favor of variance/luck/unknown. They were way underperforming their pythag record when they were losing, it was them in the Yankees for most under expected wins. Many people said that this would likely straighten itself out, and it has for the most part. Obviously in order for that to happen performance has to occur. Maybe it was partially the bullpen, with Dempster and Howry getting straightened out plus the addition of Marmol, or maybe the offense getting more timely hits and hitting better on the whole. Obviously it's a combination. And I really don't understand the extrapolation to the "stats movement" as a whole. I understand and agree with the need to continue to explore, but there is an enormous difference between a debate on whether clutch exists, and talking about a team having good fortune for a span of <50 games. Sample size matters, and in a sample as small as the Cubs' season or current run, ignoring the role variance plays would be foolish.

Ranting about people having an irrational love for Murton after they make points that you didn't/can't refute probably isn't going to help. I really don't care what people think, Im not trying to 'prove' anything, unlike you. I just really am sick of people worshiping Murton, its no more complicated than that. Please, please, please, please, please, stop with the hyperbole. For the trillionth time(that's intentional irony for those curious), people do not think Murton is Ted Williams reincarnate. They think he is better than our current options in RF(which is essentially a Floyd/Fontenot platoon), who have not been very good overall, and have been downright terrible recently.

Ranting about people having an irrational love for Murton after they make points that you didn't/can't refute probably isn't going to help.

But when Jr. gets hurt could you live with Soriano-Jones-Pagan? Seriously, his issues have been burning the Reds for years. Well, unless for some reason we include Floyd in the trade for Griffey, if he gets hurt we'd probably return to the same OF we have now, Soriano-Jones/Pagan-Floyd/DeRosa.

Dunn has not consistently produced for several years. His numbers have been all over the board, actually. I posted this earlier, but the closest thing to consistency Dunn has shown is that his numbers plummet in August and September. You're really reaching here. 2004: .266/.388/.569/.957 2005: .247/.387/.540/.927 2006: .234/.365/.490/.855 2007: .263/.364/.548/.912 That's rock solid compared to targets like Dye, who have been all over the map, or targets like Payton who don't sniff Dunn's down year production. TT if you think I'm reaching, you really need to go back and read some of the earlier posts in this thread. To summarize: since he became a regular player, Dunn's played 5 Augusts, and 4 Septembers. In those 9 months, he has: 1 monthly OPS of 1000 2 monthly OPSs between 800 and 850 1 of 799 1 of 700 4 below 600. 4 of 9 below 600! That's not good. At all. Dunn being a poor late-season hitter is not just some figment of my imagination. The numbers bear it out. That's not at all relevant to the point I was making. I don't understand why you're trying to steer every point made regarding Dunn to "he sucks in August in September". To recap: You said people should take Dunn's 0-fers as some sort of sign or reason not to get him. People pointed out that basing a decision on a couple games is insane. You compared that to scouts only seeing a player for a few games. People pointed out the difference between scouting a player and simply looking at the boxscore from this weekend, with the addendum that players who have consistently produced like Dunn should have less emphasis placed on what a scout may see, rather than inconsistent or mediocre players like other mentioned targets Dye and Payton. You said he wasn't consistent. People pointed out that was the opposite of true. You claim that he sucks during August and September. It'd be better for everybody if you addressed the points being made, instead of providing vague, strawman, or flat out inaccurate counter arguments just so you could eventually repeat your point about him in August and September.

uh, Lee does not equal Murton. Man, I like the kid, but some here need to get a clue. Murton is a utility guy who may become a starter if he improves. Get over it. I'm just using the same terrible logic that's being applied to Murton. How is it different if we're to ignore previous seasons and "it's not a tryout" where you have to produce? And you realize Murton produced as a starter in a full season last year, don't you? Murton isn't Pie, or Dubois, or Hill, or Choi, or whatever you want to compare him to. He's not an unknown, he produced at the big league level.

Didn't they change the eligibility requirements with the new CBA?

Might there be a greasemonkey script that could handle this sort of thing?

Dunn has not consistently produced for several years. His numbers have been all over the board, actually. I posted this earlier, but the closest thing to consistency Dunn has shown is that his numbers plummet in August and September. You're really reaching here. 2004: .266/.388/.569/.957 2005: .247/.387/.540/.927 2006: .234/.365/.490/.855 2007: .263/.364/.548/.912 That's rock solid compared to targets like Dye, who have been all over the map, or targets like Payton who don't sniff Dunn's down year production.

If previous seasons are meaningless, and stretches like Murton's get him benched, then Lee should've been benched for Ward sometime last month. Soriano and Floyd should've been benched for Pagan at various times during the season too.

two I's, Teixeira, tripped me up for the longest time I just now read about that ESPN 1000 report in the Griffey thread. I hoped that we might look into him, but never anything truly substantial until then. Still may be Levine's rumor mongering, but it's enough for me to have some optimism that we may land him.

Question for you davhern (not to be confused with davearm). What do you think of the common practice of a team sending a scout to watch a trade target play for a few games? You know, the typical stuff you hear all the time: "trade talks between the Blackjacks and the Turbos are heating up, and this weekend the Blackjacks had a scout in Mudville to watch Slugger McLain." Is that little bit of standard operating procedure that basically every MLB team follows "completely and utterly laughable" too? There's a large difference between the two. First of all, the spirit of the original post was "Dunn had a couple 0-fers, see he's not all that good". That's not what scouts are looking for. They're looking to see Dunn's swing, how he handles himself in the field, etc. And even then, I think that should be weighed relatively lightly compared to the body of work of a player when considering a trade target. Scouting a target can be very worthwhile when you're trying to find a guy who may have a breakout second half or someone who will turn it around(see: Kendall, Payton, Church, etc.). But when you're talking about trading for a guy who's consistently produced for several years, there should be a lot less emphasis on what a scout may see in a brief stretch.

I was following Gameday when I was doing the updates, and it seemed like he was going down and away to RH hitters a lot, especially once he got to 2 strikes. That's an indication that he could've been using the slider.

all three writers who did top 50 rankings for the Baseball America Prospect Handbook disagreed with you after last season. Two didn't have him in their top 50. There's a rather significant difference between evaluating Felix Pie prior to 2007, and evaluating Felix Pie as of now when he's putting up a 1.000 OPS in AAA at age 22, while raising his BB% and LD% slightly, and dropping his K% a significant amount. His BABIP is .423. Yeah, he's had a good year, but I don't think he's unquestionably a top 25 prospect. Well, yeah, his BABIP is going to be off the charts when he's hitting .377. Even with the bump in average he's still improved on all the areas of his peripheral game. More line drives, more walks, more extra base hits, and fewer strikeouts.

The Cardinals are done. 31 of their last 60 games are against teams that are .500 or better right now. To compare, the Brewers have 20 of their last 56 against .500+ teams, and we have 17 of our last 59. More than half of their rotation is composed of some combination of Kip Wells, Mike Maroth, Anthony Reyes, Brad Thompson, and Todd Wellemeyer; and the rest of the rotation is Adam Wainwright and Braden Looper. Pujols and Duncan are the only regulars that have hit this year. And they've been lucky, outperforming their Expected W-L by 5 games prior to today's shenanigans. I know the reputation the Cardinals have brings a lot of people pause, but they are finished this year, and quite possibly til 2009 if Carpenter, Edmonds, and Rolen continue to serve as contractual sandbags.

all three writers who did top 50 rankings for the Baseball America Prospect Handbook disagreed with you after last season. Two didn't have him in their top 50. There's a rather significant difference between evaluating Felix Pie prior to 2007, and evaluating Felix Pie as of now when he's putting up a 1.000 OPS in AAA at age 22, while raising his BB% and LD% slightly, and dropping his K% a significant amount.

Felix is an elite prospect. Top 25 in the game.

Griffey was 0-6 this weekend, please no Jim

That's why the Brewers are 11 games below .500 away from Miller Park if they lose this one. Ludwick walks! 6-5 Cardiac Cards

base hit 5-5

Cardinal analyst ranting about how Turnbow's shoulder shrug as he takes a deep breath before the pitch should be a balk.