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Warpticon

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Everything posted by Warpticon

  1. Warpticon
    I'd probably trade Aramis for Wood and McPherson.
  2. Warpticon
    When was that productivity exactly? Was that when the club needed him to step up and be a leader, when DLee was out. This guy has a history of not caring, making bad decisions and not hustling. Just like Kerry Wood, I expect the highest paid players on the team to do produce and be a leader. Not too much to ask. So you trade them for unproductive players who do hustle?
  3. Warpticon
    Yes, it does improve a team that hovers at the 25 games under .500 mark. Hendry must rebuild the team on pitching and defense. Izturis is 6 years younger than your Neifi and was an All-Star SS. You then move Ronnie Cedeno to 2nd. EPatt doesn't appear ready. Josh Fields hustles, which ARam does not. When this club needed ARam to step up and earn his money, he showed he is weak stock. Trade now while the value is high. Fields is stuck in the minors because of Joe Crede and the talk was the White Sox may want him to learn the OF. Sweeney is a corner OF that is a year away. The Sox have played him in CF but he is a corner guy. Hendry will have at least $25 million+ to spend over the winter. I hope it's a big bat and at least a #2-3 pitcher. Izturis may have been an All-Star, but he's not very good at anything but catching the ball. We already are stuck with neifi, we don't need two of them. if your argument for Fields over Aramis is that Fields hustles and Aramis doesn't, well, then, I guess there's no point of discussing it. Suffice it to say that in this proposal, the Cubs aren't doing anything but dumping salary (and giving away a productive bat in the process) with the hopes of signing a productive bat in the offseason. Makes no sense. "Rebuild the team on pitching and defense" sure won't help the worst offense in the NL, and losing 3-2 instead of 4-2 won't be worth getting excited over.
  4. Warpticon
    "Statistics are like a girl in a bikini. They show a lot, but not everything." My new favorite quote.
  5. Warpticon
    Wait, wasn't the idea to get *better* in some way? Izturis is a younger Neifi without the pop. WE ALREADY HAVE NEIFI. Josh Fields is a 3B prospect who hasn't OPS'd over .780 since being drafted and doesn't look to be any more of a solution in the immediate than the Cubs' own Scott Moore (I assume the glove is better, but still). Besides salary dumping, how does this improve the cubs at all? And why Sweeney? He doesn't look that impressive, and if he was that ready to play everyday, wouldn't the Sox use him to fix their apparent CF problem anyway?
  6. Warpticon
    Old Dusty quote from the same session that begat the infamous base-clogging gem.
  7. Warpticon
    Bottom 5TH B:4 S:1 O:2 Matt Murton walks. Juan Pierre scores. Michael Barrett to 3rd. Phil Nevin to 2nd. I hate to beat a dead horse, but geez, what an idiotic statement.
  8. Warpticon
    Balanced with power on the other corner, it would be fine. Alas... Sorry, the correct answer was "Balanced with power at the other two OF spots, it would be fine. Alas..."
  9. Warpticon
    It wasn't luck. It was good pitching. Remember that horrid 2002 season? The team scored 706 runs and posted a .321 OBP that year. In 2003, they weren't much better. They scored 724 runs and posted a .324 OBP. They made some strides in 2004 by improving the OBP to .328 and increasing their run output to 789, but they fell off dramatically last year with 703 runs and a .324 OBP. They weren't lucky in 2003. The pitching was so good that they won games in spite of the poor hitting attack. If you had great pitching, you might be able to get away with what Houston and the White Sox accomplished last year. But, it's risky to do nothing to improve a bad offense and assume your pitching will carry you. And right now you are seeing why that is such a risky game plan. The White Sox didn't sit on their hands after winning the World Series by living and dying on a strong pitching staff. They went out and improved the offense this offseason while also working on improving the pitching staff. Hendry had an average pitching staff at best last year. He had a horrible offense. Instead of focusing on improving the offense, he focused on speed and defense. Gee, why is this team 20 games under .500? And I'm no rocket scientist. I agree 100% with your analysis with respect to the White Sox and Astros. And I didn't know the diff between the Cubs' 2002 offense and 2003 offense was so marginal. Great post. I also agree and thanks for the responses. I would add that given the fact that our last 2 months in 2003 we actually *did* score and put baserunners on at a decent clip-----the first part of the season we must have been incredibly bad. Actually, there was only marginal difference between those periods. (this comes up often when the We Need A Legit Leadoff Guy Like Lofton arguments begin.) As in a few hundredths of a run per game.
  10. Warpticon
    Molina?
  11. Warpticon
    Asking a woman when she's due if you don't know for certain she's pregnant.
  12. Warpticon
    And the stupid thing is that the cubs DO get 2-out hits. They just don't get the guy in because they don't get the hit until there are two outs half the time.
  13. Warpticon

    Warpticon replied to DivineBovine's topic in Other Sports

    Also, I love Portland's pick of Wright. He's one of those freakish athletes who is just coming into his own as an pure basketball player. I would have liked him at #26 to the lakers, and I think he's a fine pick there with tremendous upside. I also really like Novak to Houston. Novak is another Dirk Lite type player, and while he doesn't have Dirk's post game or athleticism, he's got a heck of a shot. Not a ton of upside, but I think he has a very good likelihood of hitting his ceiling and being a long-time contributor.
  14. Warpticon

    Warpticon replied to DivineBovine's topic in Other Sports

    As a laker fan, I'm liking Farmar. I think he's got a good chance of breaking into the lineup quick, and a real drive-and-dish PG with a shot and some defensive ability would be a major upgrade over Smush as a starter, as Smush isn't a playmaker and is a defensive liability against quick point guards, but is crazy athletic and can score in bunches and thereby would make a quality #3 guard. My roommate is a Knicks fan. He hasn't talked much about basketball lately. After the Collins pick, he says to me over AIM: NihonGoat: WHY IS NEW YORK STILL DRAFTING GUARDS!!!!!!!???? Warpticon: Hahahahaha, I didn't even see. NihonGoat: >:o Warpticon: Lord knows they need more guards. NihonGoat: I guess they are going to start selling on ebay NihonGoat: No reserve!! RARE
  15. Warpticon
    Izturis = Neifi - power No.
  16. Warpticon
    Cleveland. This has been a fuuuun year.
  17. Warpticon
    Isaiah Hendry, ladies and gentlemen.
  18. Warpticon
    Aaaaaaand the Cubs would have a run if Pierre hadn't tried to steal.
  19. Warpticon
    Man, the bad arguments are overwhelming in this thread. I don't even know where to start. :(
  20. Warpticon
    I don't know the origins, but I'm guessing it comes out of the overly romanticized writings about the sport back in the day, when most fans couldn't watch the games, or even listen to them, instead they relied on a sportswriter to spin the tale. A guy who got a big hit at a big time would be considered clutch, or whatever similar word they used, while somebody who came up short was a choker. There wasn't much statistical analysis going on, instead they just wrote what sounded better. Explaining that a .300 hitter with a .400 OBP still makes an out 60% of the time, so it's not very reasonable to hate him for coming up short in a big moment wasn't nearly as interesting as saying some guy had all the skills but not the intestinal fortitude to get the hit when it mattered most. Is it possible then that there is such an attribute as choke (someone who's batting average or OBP or SLG goes down in important situations) but not really something like being clutch? I could see that an important situation could get a hitter out of their rhythm more than it could get one into it. That's been discussed before--some people referred to it as "anti-clutch." I think that being "clutch" is being able to perform normally despite a so-called pressure situation. If people could just elevate their play levels at will, they'd play at that level all the time. However, it is certainly reasonable to expect that certain players will have a harder time in certain situations than others. Thinking this way really emphasizes the folly of the clutch-seeking philosophy further. An Alex Rodriguez playing below his top-5-in-baseball regular level is being so-called "unclutch," but some mediocre retread who hits better than normal for a little while is somehow better? Please.
  21. Warpticon
    For free? Now that ain't right! Thanks for all the comments. I'll keep after 'em. I understand all the arguments against Carlos Lee. I wanted to throw a name out there. Somebody wanted to know, "Why not write this after the Detroit series?" When you have an off-day in the schedule, that gives you a better opportunity to come up with a feature or an analysis or a column. With space in the paper being so tight on game days, this provided the better opportunity. I WILL have to hire some of you guys as assistants when I take over the Cubs. LOL. Can I be the assistant in charge of depositing all the checks. I want to be the assistant in charge of correcting goony's punctuation.
  22. Warpticon
    Nobody could argue against the opportunities side of the equation. But, if we can't use OPS w/RISP as a tangible measure of "clutch", how can we use OPS/OBP, etc. to determine who is a "good hitter" overall? They are ALL valuable. There are two parts, getting on and getting in. Putting some value on the latter doesn't lessen the value of the former. You're neglecting one thing; you can't do the latter without the former. This is a typical case of curing symptoms rather than the disease.
  23. Warpticon
    I've read that a couple times now and I still can't think who it was that led the league. I assume NL. Was it Andruw or Pat Burrell? I assume it wasn't Pujols because he couldn't hit that low in any split that included as many chances as RISP would include. Andruw. Ortiz led the AL, but was over 350 with RISP. And what were the collective OBP's of the guys who hit directly in front of Jones? .356, .354, and .383 from the 1, 2, and 3 spots.
  24. Warpticon
    The answer to this question can be found on page 1 of this thread, a post made by Warpticon. Last year's league leader in RBI had a .207 AVG with RISP. The real reason he was the league leader in RBI is more likely that he had more RBI opportunities than anyone else in the league. Specifically, 60 more at-bats with RISP and 61 more at-bats with runners on than Lee.
  25. Warpticon
    And another way to illustrate the point about just getting good hitters in general. Buying clutch is adhering to a defeatist attitude. You don't need "clutch" hitting when you're up 6-2. Trying really hard to come up with guys who have a higher likelihood of doing better in a relatively small number of situations is just silly when you're just not that good offensively to begin with.
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