Magnetic Curses

With a runner at third and less than two outs you better believe that the goal of the AB is to drive the ball to the OF deep enough to drive the runner in from third. If it results in a Sac Fly then it was still a very succesful at bat. A base hit is a great bennie to the AB if it happens. But picking up the runner at third is a bigger bennie. how is making an out a bigger benefit than a hit? that doesn't make sense. sounds like someone's in love with the idea of making outs. it's okay, the cubs have been in love with the idea of making outs for a long time now. every time up, the hitter should look for a pitch to drive. if no pitch satisfies the hitter, he should walk down to first or tip his cap to an excellent pitcher. putting the ball in play for the sake of putting it in play is worse than striking out. Honestly? You would rather see a guy K than to have him drive in the run? if you're just trying to put the ball in play you aren't putting the ball in play effectively, increasing the chances that you will ground into a double play or ground harmlessly out, not advancing the runner at all. i'd rather have a hitter try to get the most effective PA that he can, that includes working deep into the count, putting pressure on the pitcher to make a perfect pitch. when these factors are taken into account, a strikeout may be the least apparently valued outcome, but the more pitches a pitcher throws, the greater the chances are that he'll make a mistake. you can't have a hitter afraid to strike out in that kind of situation. you may have more strikeouts with runners on, but i guarantee that you will score more runs by doing this over the course of the season.

With a runner at third and less than two outs you better believe that the goal of the AB is to drive the ball to the OF deep enough to drive the runner in from third. If it results in a Sac Fly then it was still a very succesful at bat. A base hit is a great bennie to the AB if it happens. But picking up the runner at third is a bigger bennie. how is making an out a bigger benefit than a hit? that doesn't make sense. sounds like someone's in love with the idea of making outs. it's okay, the cubs have been in love with the idea of making outs for a long time now. every time up, the hitter should look for a pitch to drive. if no pitch satisfies the hitter, he should walk down to first or tip his cap to an excellent pitcher. putting the ball in play for the sake of putting it in play is worse than striking out. btw- they're called "plate appearances", not "at bats". they only become at bats when the plate appearance is over and one of two outcomes did not happen.

Haha! I miss Felix. Well, that might be stretching things a bit. Well, that might be stretching things a lot, actually. He was alright, I guess. Hmm, that's not quite accurate, either. Well, I never really liked Heredia. I take that back. I despised Heredia with every fiber of my being. yeah, so did ron.

the 69 cubs lived on the sacrifice fly esp. with William and Banks able to drive it deep constantly, unlike our teams of the recent years santo had more sac flies than anyone on that team by far. and they still lost.

too cold in april, i'm going in june.

It's key for every pitcher. First pitch strike is the best pitch in baseball. I disagree, I think it's important to get behind in the count. Is it also important to get 3 outs in an inning and score more runs than the other team? reminds me of when santo said: "well, heredia is behind in the count, a situation that he loves pitch from apparently."

we don't know if his teammates care, and it's really inconsequential if some fans care. he's paid to hit, not show up early or look like he's really trying. baseball is not really a game of effort so much as it's a game of skill and focus. maybe he should have plastic surgery to look like grudz, then people would like him. Now we are just getting the point of see who can make the most ridiculous statement in order to get off the subject. what? baseball isn't a game of effort and mark grudzielanek would amake a sweet face for aram. i don't get what's so ridiculous about it.

no juan pierre in there. i suspect he'll be one of the worst by season's end.

I'm not sure there is a long term plan. I think they are going season-by-season with him at this point. If he heals enough that he can start, excellent. But if he has to be a closer at this point in his career, so be it. But I don't think anyone can say with any certainty how he will heal up. That's my guess. I'm sure all involved have a thought in the back of their heads that if all goes well, Wood could be starting by next season, or maybe earlier. But I think the only plan right now is to keep Wood as healthy as possible in order to pitch regularly out of the bullpen in 2007. i'd imagine that hendry used the name "john smoltz" a couple times during contract negotiations.

we don't know if his teammates care, and it's really inconsequential if some fans care. he's paid to hit, not show up early or look like he's really trying. baseball is not really a game of effort so much as it's a game of skill and focus. maybe he should have plastic surgery to look like grudz, then people would like him.

either that or he just did not have the right personnel. as good as the linebackers are, i've never seen so many blitzes picked up by opposing teams. I'm obviously not very knowledgeable about blitz designs, but it seems like most of the blitzes involved Urlacher or Briggs running directly into the back of a D-Lineman. it's hard to tell whether that was rivera's fault or the LB's. with as fast as those guys are, they should have been better at disguising. but then again, the tampa 2 isn't exactly designed as a blitzing defense--so maybe teams just knew a blitz was coming if they weren't in that configuration.

I forget whether it was John Clayton or Len Pasquerelli that pointed out that losing Turner would have been a much bigger loss for the Bears because they don't have anyone in house that is being "groomed" for that job like Babich was for the D coach job. plus they'd have to install a new offense, which would set everyone back another year.

either that or he just did not have the right personnel. as good as the linebackers are, i've never seen so many blitzes picked up by opposing teams.

completely agree with this. i think they let rivera go because lovie had a preference for more of a clipboard-holder as the DC. i even heard that one of the reasons babitch will be the guy is because he will be a more "long term" solution, meaning he'll be getting paid for agreeing with lovie.

What kind of crap? Jesus Christ, it's as if people who question the diety that is Aramis Ramirez are completely idiotic for mentioning that it doesn't look good that he's the only one who doesn't show up early. Am I saying that he's an ass for not showing up early? No. Am I saying that I like him less for not showing up early? No, in fact he's one of my favorite Cubs. Am I saying that it doesn't look good? Yes. And it doesn't. He signs a fat contract (at a discount, yes, but still fat) and he's the last to arrive to ST. That's not the way to win over the fans that got on him last year. how does it look bad if he's not late, yet? that's the confusing thing about all of this. and using your own "real-world" logic, if you're scheduled to work at 8am on monday, does it look bad if you show up at 8am on monday, what would you accomplish by showing up at 8am on sunday? If everyone else in my entire office... everyone... comes in and works on Sunday and I don't? Yeah, it's not going to look good. It'll look like I'm the slacker. When everyone else is coming in early and I just show up when I have to be there, it looks bad for me. How is this so hard to understand? then they're a bunch of losers that like working for free on their day off, what's it to you?

iirc, i was fairly impressed with the changeup he showed in patches when he was healthy during the 05 season.

What kind of crap? Jesus Christ, it's as if people who question the diety that is Aramis Ramirez are completely idiotic for mentioning that it doesn't look good that he's the only one who doesn't show up early. Am I saying that he's an ass for not showing up early? No. Am I saying that I like him less for not showing up early? No, in fact he's one of my favorite Cubs. Am I saying that it doesn't look good? Yes. And it doesn't. He signs a fat contract (at a discount, yes, but still fat) and he's the last to arrive to ST. That's not the way to win over the fans that got on him last year. how does it look bad if he's not late, yet? that's the confusing thing about all of this. and using your own "real-world" logic, if you're scheduled to work at 8am on monday, does it look bad if you show up at 8am on monday, what would you accomplish by showing up at 8am on sunday? "What do you think of people who only do the minimum?" that's all he's required to do, plus he's better at what he does than most other 3rd basemen, so we should continue tletting him do the minimum, as long as he doesn't forget to bring his bat.

IT'S NOT FAIR THAT SHERRON COLLINS IS SO FREAKING GOOD!!!!!!! WHY CAN'T WEBER RECRUIT ANYONE? sorry for the caps.

Just to be clear, published reports say today is the day position players must report. Tomorrow is the full workout. how late can they check-in? personally, i don't care if he's late, i never cared that sammy was late--but if he's not late, then it's a non-issue.

wow, i didn't realize he was that bad last year. quite a dropoff from the previous year.

What kind of crap? Jesus Christ, it's as if people who question the diety that is Aramis Ramirez are completely idiotic for mentioning that it doesn't look good that he's the only one who doesn't show up early. Am I saying that he's an ass for not showing up early? No. Am I saying that I like him less for not showing up early? No, in fact he's one of my favorite Cubs. Am I saying that it doesn't look good? Yes. And it doesn't. He signs a fat contract (at a discount, yes, but still fat) and he's the last to arrive to ST. That's not the way to win over the fans that got on him last year. how does it look bad if he's not late, yet? that's the confusing thing about all of this. and using your own "real-world" logic, if you're scheduled to work at 8am on monday, does it look bad if you show up at 8am on monday, what would you accomplish by showing up at 8am on sunday?

yikes, he goes from a head coaching probable to less than a coordinator. i wish ron well, hope he gets to the promised land eventually. can't say i blame teams for not giving him a head job, though, he basically held a clipboard for lovie for 3 years. it'd be nice to see what rivera can actually do when given the reigns of a defense. he's no big loss for the bears, but it's a shame that something couldn't be worked out. Wouldn't have minded the Titans firing Jim Schwartz to make room for Rivera as DC. Pretty fair to significant upgrade right there. rivera just had terrible timing all-around.

steve stone said it was his mechanics and i have to believe steve stone.

which is pretty much what a manager's job should be. I guess every single manager in baseball is doing his job wrong then. any manager that doesn't simply perpetuate the company's philosophy on the field isn't doing his job right. with the cubs, the company's philosophy is bad so it really doesn't matter what piniella does, it has to be better than what hendry wants, though. No any GM that dosent get the people to fit the manager isnt doing his job right. The opposite is a GM who dosent hire a manager to use the people in place correctly. Either way you get Jim Hendry and Dusty Baker. i'm not sure exactly what you mean, do you mean that a team should be put together to suit a management style? that's absurd. a team should be put together with pitching and production at the plate--the manager should be there to look wise and talk nice to the media. it should be a virtually meaningless job. It is useless to assemble the Oakland A's and give them to Dusty Baker. The manager on the field is the one using the parts he has been given. He can screw them up before the game even starts if he lacks the ability to see how they all fit together. partially right, imo. i disagree with the "fit together" part. baseball teams shouldn't "fit together", there is no real team dynamic in baseball. in a sport where there's no fluidity or meaningful interaction between players there's no need to see how a team fits together. it's really useless to build a team based on chemistry or teamwork, as chemistry and teamwork are teeny-tiny parts of the game. the only responsibility of the manager is not to get in the way of the talent on the team. getting in the way of talent consists of things like making a good hitter sacrifice himself in a key situation, or running yourself out of a big inning, or hitting and running, or taking risks at all. the manager should rely on the talent that he has on the field, unless he has none, in which case, all the small-ball in the world won't help him. making myself understood here, baker's problems started with the pitching staff and ended with his confusing policy in regards to OBP. in this case, he and hendry were on the exact same page. hendry gave dusty players that had little to no plate discipline but had the penchant for "just putting the ball in play" (albeit very weakly)--the exact type of players that dusty coveted. it's my opinion that hendry was attempting to prove his own little theory on scoring runs: "minimizing strikeouts will lead to scoring runs". this failed fantastically, as strikeouts are not really bad outs in the grand scheme of things. teams that strike out a lot, generally walk a lot and see a lot of pitches per PA. this, in turn, wears down the opposing pitching staffs and leads to more PA's against bullpen pitchers, which is good. this is a false notion. macha couldn't communicate with BEANE first and foremost, and he fell out of favor. beane, knowing that managers are easily replaceable, replaced him easily and the A's will continue to excell without macha because their organizational philosophy is one of a consistent winner. Beane knows that having happy players benefits the franchise, but he also knows that winning makes a team happy. macha simply was more trouble than he was worth, this happens with the A's every once in a while. a manager, unhappy with his lack of control, will become rebellious in some way and outlive his usefulness, and i mean "usefulness" as "someone who does what he's told and is happy to do it".

if bagwell doesn't get in it will be a travesty. quite simply one of the most consistently excellent first basemen in history. for the record, frank should be a first-ballot guy as well.