David

This is completely your opinion and miles and miles away from being fact. How? If you know that Ramirez was good with RISP in 2004, good with RISP in 2005, good with RISP in 2006, and good with RISP in 2007, you're telling me that you can't logically conclude that he'll be good with RISP in 2008? While I do agree with that statement (we can't logically conclude that at all), what I'm really telling you is that you can't just arbitrarily conclude what a good sample size is. So what sort of sample size would you like to see? How many years must Aramis do well with RISP before you're fine with the sample size to say that it's not just random? He could do it all his career and I would still consider it a statistical anomaly rather than choosing to believe he has some mythical trait that has been shown over and over again to be non-existent. By your logic, you could've pretty much concluded the same thing about David Ortiz's close and late stats coming into this season. Aramis is a great hitter. Period. That's why he's great in clutch situations. He's just a flat out great hitter. You choose to believe that he's clutch. That's fine. I don't. I choose to believe that he's a great hitter that you can logically expect to hit well in all situations. Neither one of us is going to convince the other.

Why should this scare you? Isn't this the best time to hit home runs? Scaring him in a good, good way, I'm sure.

SORI!!!!!!!!!!!

This is completely your opinion and miles and miles away from being fact. How? If you know that Ramirez was good with RISP in 2004, good with RISP in 2005, good with RISP in 2006, and good with RISP in 2007, you're telling me that you can't logically conclude that he'll be good with RISP in 2008? While I do agree with that statement (we can't logically conclude that at all), what I'm really telling you is that you can't just arbitrarily conclude what a good sample size is.

I'd have let him go one more, but that's just me. I would have to, but I can understand Lou's thinking here. You're gonna have to explain it to me. Keep him fresh for the playoffs?? Dunno.

This is completely your opinion and miles and miles away from being fact.

DLee solo shot. Soto single + error scores the second run. Soriano solo shot. Lee base hit + Aramis HR for the 4th and 5th runs. Thanks man, good to see we are winning, and good to see its from all guys on my fantasy team. Hows Rich looked? Looked off early, although the Pirates got all 3 runs off BS weakly hit crap. Since then, though, has looked really sharp.

DLee solo shot. Soto single + error scores the second run. Soriano solo shot. Lee base hit + Aramis HR for the 4th and 5th runs.

Seeing as how they just showed and mentioned Lilly, I'd just like to mention how much man love I have for Ted Lilly. I just wish Gil Meche hadn't inexplicably chosen the Royals over us (NEVER thought I'd say that). Meche would look real nice in that rotation in Marquis's place.

Ah. That's the only way you can steal on Geovany Soto. Hitting him with a bat.

Haha

If you knew a guy who drove drunk all the time for years and never got into an accident and never got caught, would you conclude that this guy is different than everybody else and is somehow able to drive well drunk, unlike 99.9999% of the world, or would you think he's just been a bit luckier than most people? Not the best analogy, but it illustrates the point to some extent. EDITED to make a little more sense. I was watching the game, sue me.

Murton's numbers have to be pretty freakin solid lately.

funny youd say that right after he walked. It's my way of making a statement about the fact that small sample sizes are meaningless. That, or I was about 2 minutes behind on TiVo. You decide.

God, it still sickens me that we're paying almost $20 mil/year for a player whose OBP is barely 30 pts better than his BA. That is SO Jim Hendry.

RBI is not meaningless. When it comes to evaluating an individual player's performance, yes, it pretty much is. So if there was a player the Cubs acquired who had 125 RBI last season, you wouldn't think that would be meanginful? Nope. You can't really tell much from that. It's almost tantamount to acquiring Sean Estes after 04 because he won 15 games. It's a stat that's extremely dependent on the rest of the team and a good amount of luck as well. Should the Dodgers have signed Pierre to that contract last year because he got to the ever-meaningful 200 hit total last year? EDIT - I realize that the Pierre stat is, however, not a team-dependent stat, but it shares the flaw that it's a counting stat and not a rate stat, and one that doesn't say a lot about a player but that people put a whole lot of stock into.

RBI is not meaningless. When it comes to evaluating an individual player's performance, yes, it pretty much is.

Good to hear this. Hopefully he can come back next year and solidify this rotation a bit further.

Quit braggin already, man.

Agreed. Kendall makes a great backup/insurance plan option behind Soto. Only if it's made clear that Soto is the starter, like you said, though.

I guess the good part about Soto continuing to rake and show good defensive abilities is that I'm actually starting to believe Hendry and Lou would be comfortable heading into 2008 with Geo penciled in as the starter. The offensive power advantage over Kendall is wonderful, but the defensive ability to throw out runners should make it a no-brainer to continue starting him. I would definitely turn that statement around. I hate to beat a dead horse, but I like to make a point of this. The offense makes it a no-brainer. The defensive advantage is what is wonderful. Defense = the icing on the cake that is a hitter. Maybe I'm just nitpicking, though.

Already posted. As for the bolded...I'd risk it. I know that Cuban will take the right approach to building a team. He's a stats oriented guy and a very forward thinker. If he sees it fit to tear down Wrigley at some point in the near future (which I doubt he would), so be it. I care far more about the on field product than anything else.

They should just bring Geo's back. He'd get them to sell this time around.

I almost registered over there just to reply to that douche. You should.

The thing that I like about Cuban, that is probably overlooked by much of the public (though not by most on here), is his forward thinking approach. Stone goes on the radio to downplay Cuban as a potential owner and he thinks that we all want him because we think he'll just buy everyone up and get us a winner. While that's part of it, that's not even the biggest part for me. Cuban is a big stat guy and I'm fairly confident that he would be all about the sabermetric approach to the game. Hell, he'd probably even employ guys trying to come up with new stuff. With these other guys, as much as they talk like they want to bring a winner here and spend money, there's no telling if they wouldn't just continue what has gone on here for the past few years and just spend money the wrong way.