David

http://deadspin.com/assets/resources/2007/09/cubsticketsws.jpg Yea... talk about tempting fate. In actuality, all teams in contention have printed these. But it's sure cool to look at.

Again you can say that for all sports. You don't want a QB overthrowing his Rec. Basketball player being too strong on jump shot. Etc... Yes, but in those sports there's a lot more physical exertion involved and a player could actually benefit in many obvious ways from having somewhat enhanced physical ability, per se. There's a lot more to football than throwing passes, and there's a lot more to basketball than shooting. There's constant movement, there's jumping, there's blocking, etc. In baseball, 95% (obviously an arbitrary number that I'm making up, but you get the idea) of the outcome is determined by the individual matchup between the pitcher and the hitter.

Pointless thread. One or two guys are going all sour grapes about the fact that their team has choked up to this point. No need to stoop to their level, all teams get breaks. I'm sure most Brewer fans realize how fortunate they were in the first two months of the season that they were doing that well and the Cubs were underachieving so significantly.

Oh man...I agree. I have such a bad feeling. I pray the Cubs come out with guns blazing tomorrow. It's hard not to have bad feelings with this club. I'm just approaching it from the perspective that we're a marginal playoff club anyway -- it's not like in '04. I will go to my grave believing that was a playoff team, possibly a World Series team, that choked hard. This year I had us at 81-81, we're already beyond what I expected. If they can't take care of business here at the end? We simply didn't deserve it, didn't quite have enough bullets in the gun. Especially considering who we are facing. On the other hand, the NL competition is looking as weak as ever this year, and the Cubs, when healthy (so outside of the 3 weeks sans-Sori) have played like a 100 win team since June. :shock: EDIT - and that's a pretty solid sample of like 80+ games.

Or...you know...the playoffs. I assumed this as well. A short term fix. yes, the plans are to completely resurface the field in the offseason Just Sod, or are they going to tear it down and relevel it like they need to? Probably going to completely tear it up and redo it in the offseason. They still haven't committed to it, though.

Despite how it may seem, a player putting more effort into a swing or a pitch than usual isn't necessarily (or usually, for that matter) a good thing, IMO.

Sarcasm? High strikeouts means alot of pitches. Thus high pitch counts and walks. Take a look at how our pitchers have done in the walk department and then you will see why I am not excited about leading the league in strikeouts. Ken Strikeouts also don't give the batter a chance to get a hit. I don't think you can correlate the strikeouts and the walks. Just because the Cubs have struck out a lot of hitters doesn't mean they're going to walk a lot of hitters also. Maybe they just aren't the best pitchers. Strikeouts and high pitch count? Certainly, because the minimum number of pitches you can throw to strike somebody out is 3. I think you can correlate them pretty well. It seems pretty logical that, because strikeout pitchers have to throw more pitches, they also throw more balls and go deeper into counts. As a result, you'd definitely think they'd walk more hitters as a whole than guys who don't strike so many hitters out. It's pretty similar to how a lot of the high walk hitters are also high strikeout guys. Of course, there are exceptions. Some pitchers, like Prior when he was Prior, strike out a ton of guys, throw lots of pitches, and still don't walk many guys. But I'd guess that, by and large, (the Cubs being no exception), high strikeout pitchers walk more guys than average. Also, I'm not trying to support the argument that the high strikeout totals are undesirable. The Cubs have been one of the better pitching teams for all these years because of it. I'm just saying that I do think the idea that high-K guys will walk more hitters has a good amount of validity to it.

We don't have ol' Dusty hanging around to screw everything up this time, though.

Because momentum isn't real. It's just a word people use to define the moment. I'll buy that. What I don't buy is it's real with other sports, but not with baseball. I've been checking out case studies on the web and to some extent it's real, but the studies always come up inconclusive or not enough evidence. Do you not at all buy the argument that, if you choose define momentum as something that inspires or "pumps up" players (that's the only way I can see momentum being looked at as something remotely tangible), allowing them to play at a higher level, it is something that can be helpful in a game like, say, football or basketball, but not so much in baseball? I see some validity to it. If a player's adrenaline is pumping in football (it damn well better be) or basketball, the players can run faster, hit harder, jump higher, etc. In baseball, being pumped up doesn't seem like it would help a player much. It can cause a pitcher to overthrow and leave balls up. It can cause hitters to try to swing harder than they normally would (usually not a good thing) and swing at pitches that they normally wouldn't. To me, it's pretty obvious that those other sports are more conducive to the idea of something like momentum than baseball. There are too many variables, and there's too much finesse to the game in comparison to the others. Wouldn't that be adrenaline? This is how I would define Momentum in sports: Couldn't this definition of Momentum in sports be applied to all sports? Being "pumped up" applies to all of these things (the bolded). It could also be negative, one bad play snowballing into another, etc. I'd tend to say there's more validity to the idea that negative momentum exists in baseball than positive. A player can easily cause negative outcomes to happen in baseball without the assistance of other variables. i.e. it's a lot easier to see a player going up to the plate pissed off, going through the motions, and striking out than it would be to imagine that he'd go up there and get a hit somehow as a result of his positive "momentum." So...maybe I buy the idea of negative momentum, to some extent. But I can't really see positive momentum existing to a significant extent in baseball.

Because momentum isn't real. It's just a word people use to define the moment. I'll buy that. What I don't buy is it's real with other sports, but not with baseball. I've been checking out case studies on the web and to some extent it's real, but the studies always come up inconclusive or not enough evidence. Do you not at all buy the argument that, if you choose define momentum as something that inspires or "pumps up" players (that's the only way I can see momentum being looked at as something remotely tangible), allowing them to play at a higher level, it is something that can be helpful in a game like, say, football or basketball, but not so much in baseball? I see some validity to it. If a player's adrenaline is pumping in football (it damn well better be) or basketball, the players can run faster, hit harder, jump higher, etc. In baseball, being pumped up doesn't seem like it would help a player much. It can cause a pitcher to overthrow and leave balls up. It can cause hitters to try to swing harder than they normally would (usually not a good thing) and swing at pitches that they normally wouldn't. To me, it's pretty obvious that those other sports are more conducive to the idea of something like momentum than baseball. There are too many variables, and there's too much finesse to the game in comparison to the others.

Just read your sig. Come on, now.

Wow...when I heard about the Dunn injury I never put 2 + 2 together and realized how this affected the Cubs. No Griffey and no Dunn in the Reds lineup. :shock: I'd say we're in good shape for that series.

So you say I'm being ridiculous for saying that momentum could exist in other sports including baseball and then you state that momentum exist to "some degree" in baseball, but is "pretty minimal" to the point of being negible with no evidence nor explanation. Talk about calling the kettle black. Do me a favor ask a baseball player if he believes in momentum and see what he says. Baseball players believe a lot of things to be true that aren't. Most of them aren't the smartest guys on earth. Ask a baseball player if a corked bat is helpful. Ask certain baseball players if sliding into first base is a good idea. Etc. some of them wear the same pair of unwashed underwear every game -- there you have it Yep. Oh, and THERE'S THAT AV!

So you say I'm being ridiculous for saying that momentum could exist in other sports including baseball and then you state that momentum exist to "some degree" in baseball, but is "pretty minimal" to the point of being negible with no evidence nor explanation. Talk about calling the kettle black. Do me a favor ask a baseball player if he believes in momentum and see what he says. Baseball players believe a lot of things to be true that aren't. Most of them aren't the smartest guys on earth. Ask a baseball player if a corked bat is helpful. Ask certain baseball players if sliding into first base is a good idea. Etc.

Tell me why it exists in Football and Basketball and not Baseball? Because football and basketball are sports where physical exertion is a major component of success. Baseball is a sport where extra physical exertion gives you little. In fact, it's probably counterproductive. Added strength or determination probably would hurt a baseball player more than it would help.

What would you call it if he came up and struck out? A typical at bat for him. Obviously the player isn't going to hit a HR every time. He's human. But I don't see how, in that scenario, you can't see how momentum can be a factor. Bottom line... baseball players are human. People are affected by momentum. As a result, so are baseball players. I still find it funny that some people believe mometum is possible in basketball and not baseball. It's stupid. I find it funny that you see some sort of connection between basketball and baseball. Not all sports are the same. Is there momentum in anything that is some sort of competitive activity? YES! Of course there is! Why not! You can't pick and choose what sports use momentum and what don't. What? Baseball is a completely different game from football or basketball. You don't see how the nature of one game, its rules, the skills it employs, etc. can make it more or less amenable to any possible effects of momentum? This isn't black and white. It isn't, "All sports have it," or "No sports do."

What would you call it if he came up and struck out? A typical at bat for him. Obviously the player isn't going to hit a HR every time. He's human. But I don't see how, in that scenario, you can't see how momentum can be a factor. Bottom line... baseball players are human. People are affected by momentum. As a result, so are baseball players. I still find it funny that some people believe mometum is possible in basketball and not baseball. It's stupid. It's really not.

Took it really deep... not deep enough.

I just saw the ump say "[expletive]."

This ump is a freaking piece of crap. I wish I could call him worse on here.

DeRO had a legit gripe there.

God DAMN just missed a double.

I really need to add just how on the money I feel SSR has been in this thread.

MONROE!!!!

Lacey Chabert... there's actually a thread about my av in Social which wound up being a Lacey pic thread...