Magnetic Curses

hendry's thoughts are consistent with what i've believed for a while now. hendry will never embrace OBP, never embrace plate discipline as part of team philosophy. he will, instead, continue to putz around attempting to win without anyone being able to get on base. even when this appears impossible, he will still continue to press it 100%. either out of spite for "baseball outsiders" or out of sheer obstinance, he will continue to embrace his theories until he is fired. what scares me is that macphail is going nowhere, thusly hendry will be going nowhere, he's been given a virtual "license to lose". dusty only perpetuates the flawed logic of upper management onto the baseball diamond. "swing at everything, but don't strike out, just put it in play weakly because striking out is the end of the world."

i'm far more concerned with his IsoD, actually. as for his arm, i tend to side with the earl weaver argument: outfield arm strength shouldn't generally matter, always keep the second runner from advancing into scoring position to stay out of the big inning. this philosophy doesn't work with a runner at third, less than two out and no one else on, but even the best arms are going to have trouble with a deep enough fly, and the runners won't score on shallow flies. I expected his IsoD to stink and if he could have his batting average stay around 280 to 300 I'd be fine with him...not thrilled but ok. As for arms you can't have runners taking extra bases all the time. I understand what you're saying but if I know someone suscribes to that theory I'm running at will. And believe me....will hates it when I do that. all i'm saying is that it worked pretty well for weaver, not everyone ran on his outfielders all the time. in baseball, over a 162 game season, prudency is probably the best option.

it's statements like these that cause me to ignore whatever stone says about anything anymore. until cedeno learns that striking out is not the end of the world, he's going to be average, and izturis is absolutely terrible, just terrible. this team's problem is that it can't get on base or score runs and stone thinks it can be fixed by bringing in izturis? what stupidity, stone has lost his mind--even brenly offers more accurate insight into the game. stoney should stick to talking aboout how bad wood's mechanics are.

part of me wishes they'd keep right on losing until hendry and macphail lose right on with them.

Team President: Sandy Alderson General Manager: Paul DePodesta Manager: Larry Dierker hitting coach: anyone but clines ah, dream on.

the A's, no doubt about it. but i also like the blue jays.

I guess BP doesn't actually watch games. BP isn't the greatest, but they're at least as good as any of our hazy recollections. Again, he's not a hack by any stretch. but i swear i saw him boot a routine single to left, letting like 8 runners score once! he must be terrible. there's a difference between "watching games" and listening to every stupid "insight" the anouncers throw out. even len is getting bad.

i'm far more concerned with his IsoD, actually. as for his arm, i tend to side with the earl weaver argument: outfield arm strength shouldn't generally matter, always keep the second runner from advancing into scoring position to stay out of the big inning. this philosophy doesn't work with a runner at third, less than two out and no one else on, but even the best arms are going to have trouble with a deep enough fly, and the runners won't score on shallow flies.

Jerry? Is that you? i'm talking about baseball. basketball is completely different, in basketball, one player can win a title. baseball, though not really a team sport, cannot be won with one player. it can be won with 2 players though, preferably pitchers-which is the whole reason that brenly has that big ring he's always showing off.

bob brenly sucks, managers don't win titles, they only lose them--organizations win titles, managers can be on a winning team if they simply get the hell out of the way, conform to organizational philosophy, and focus on getting along with the media. in our case, organizational philosophy is: "be aggressive at the plate." that seems to be all.

Podsednik's is particularly alarming, because this guy is actually taking walks and stealing bases. Instead of what we got in centerfield, with a similar average, and waaaaay worse OBP. podsednik has lost his fear of the strikeout, apparently and is walking at an unprecedented clip, i wish our leadoff hitter weren't afraid to strikeout.

When all other things are equal, you take the guy who has the advantage in the one area that is not. I realize this, but how much more valuable is the player with the higher average? I realize a single more than likely drives in a run then a walk...but again....I want to know how valuable that hit is. i take the guy with the higher isoD, and i'll tell you why: isoD is generally a more consistent statistic than BA. when the guy who's hitting .330 inevtiably hits a slump and is down around .270, his OBP will be at (assuming his isoD is remaining static) .320. conversely, when the guy who's hitting .270 gets hot at the plate, (remember, isoD is static) and his average jumps to .300, his OBP is at a whopping .410, which is unbelievably valuable to winning. the next year, the guy with the high isoD will invariably put up a good to great OBP regardless of whether his BA is at .260 or at .330, while the guy with the lower isoD will be very unpredictable.

So if you think that by asking a pitcher that question, you'll get a relevant answer, I believe its the equivalent of asking this: You have two players. One only struck out 47 times last year, the other struck out 168. That's the only information I'm giving you. Which one do you want? Is that a fair question? I love the discussion but I don't understand your question. My question is basically simple based on when a batter steps into the box there are two things that can happen-- get on base or not get on base. Striking out means 99.9999999% of the time you will not reach base. Making contact at least gives you a better chance of getting on base. And, no, I don't want guys to make contact just for the sake of making contact, but with two strikes I do think hitters should choke up and just try to make contact in certain situations. I wonder with the bases loaded last night if Phil Nevin would've just tried to get on base instead of swinging for a non-game tying grand slam if he'd struck out? I don't know, but it would've been nice to have some kind of contact there --- again it could've been a double play, pop up on the infield, single, double, line out, sac fly, etc. strikeouts are more important for pitchers than they are for hitters. however, ground balls are about even, they're equally as bad for hitters as they are good for pitchers. while a strikeout eliminates the possibility of getting on base for a hitter AND pitcher, getting a strikeout for a pitcher also stretches him out. some hitters strike out a lot, which might be a bad thing when looking at it alone. however, these hitters aren't afraid of striking out, which is a good thing. if you are so afraid of striking out that you'll beat sinkerballs into the ground again and again, you won't last long in the majors. despite what the fictitious manager told willie mays hayes in major league (which, unfortunately, many people draw much of their baseball knowledge from)--ground balls are worthless for everyone, even fast guys. guys who strike a lot of guys out also throw more pitches, which is the drawback of being a strikeout pitcher, meaing more work for the bullpen and, ultimately less wins--ask kerry wood (who isn't very adept at getting ground balls). i'm going to say this again: IN ORDER TO BE AN EFFECTIVE MAJOR LEAGUE HITTER, YOU ABSOLUTELY CANNOT BE AFRAID TO STRIKE OUT! which means taking called third strikes and letting a lot of pitcher's pitches go unswung at. strikeouts are simply a necessary sacrifice that must be made for the sake of driving the ball and getting on base. swing at you pitch, not a low, outside sinkerball that cannot be put in play effectively but might be a strike on this particular day. making a pitcher work harder to throw the perfect pitch will actually work in the hitter's favor, not only will it stretch the guy out, but it will cause him to mess up more often--you know, hang that perfect curveball or spin a juicy belt-high slider. strikeouts aren't necessarily optimal for hitters, but baseball is a marathon, not a sprint, and must be treated as something that simply happens when you're trying to help your team win. and the more strikeouts, generally, the more walks and the higher SLG. that's a trade off that i'll take any day.

Just because someone doesn't have an 850 OPS or higher doesn't make them a bad player. Don't get me wrong, you need those guys that put up power, OBP, OPS, etc as well. You should pay attention to the numbers, but also keep your eyes open for other qualities as well. I think often times the numbes are realied upon too heavily and anybody who doesn't fit a certain criteria is considered worthless. That is not always the case. trying to to do anything other than picking a good pitch to hit (if not, taking pitches--there are worse things than striking out looking--say, grounding a good sinkerball weakly to the shortstop and into a double play), and driving the ball--can be argued as counterproductive. if you're swinging at poor pitches and you're not albert pujols or vlad guerrero, chances are you're in trouble. driving the ball and drawing walks are very underrated, and really the most important fundamentals of hitting.

Hate Podsednik...Eckstein I could take or leave but I give him a lot of credit for the effort he puts forth and seems like a decent guy. Bottom line here is they aren't going to change my opinion and I am not going to change anyone else's opinion on this subject. I value more than the stats when it comes to evaluating a player because there is much more to a player than his numbers. They aren't robots...they are people. What a boring world it would be if we all agreed. I just find it sad that because you don't agree that you have fun busting my chops and feeling like big men. Sorry, it's how I view it. what a piece of work. you come in here, calling board members "stat geeks" and attempting (poorly, i might add) to trivialize their position, you get flamed and start crying about it. boo hoo.

Thanks for the giggles...you failed to mention defense here which is where Grudzielanek has it ALL over Todd Walker. OPS alone is not the way to judge a player. You must look at the COMPLETE player...but I know how you stat geeks are. Oh and it helps that Grudz knows how to keep his yapper shut and play the game hard. Character guy... What a huge loss for the Cubs when they lost Grudz. Grudz was hated in LA, many thought of him as a jerk in Chicago as well. And for all the talk that Walker must be a bad character guy because he's left several teams, Grudz has played for just as many teams. And Grudz does not "have" Walker on defense. They are very similar. i remember grudz not being able to keep his "yapper"shut at the beginning of the 2004 season when he felt he got low-balled on his deal. grudz isn't a great "clubhouse" guy, despite the fact that he may have the physical appearance of one. not that it really matters anyway, the "clubhouse effect" is the most overrated factor in baseball. somebody has an axe to grind with "stat geeks", whatever that means.

i don't care about the white sox, and you shouldn't either.

you can learn much about a philosophy by studying it's polar opposite. you can learn much about the a's by studying the cubs, an inefficient, big market, big payroll team. lewis should follow around jim hendry and gary hughes for a year and write a book called "moneyball II: burning money out of spite and reaction."

Ever hear the quote, those who can't do, teach (or coach)? Some people just don't have the physical tools (coordination, reflexes, etc) to get the most out of what they know. I think Von Joshua falls into this category. I don't care what his major league numbers were, I'm more concerned with what kind of an approach he's teaching to the kids. And by all accounts, it's pretty solid. i don't think that joshua's low OBP speaks to having a lack of talent, his .273 career average would say that he had decent talent, but it would appear that his patience, a far-less talent-contingent ability, sucked. if he's teaching our hitters what he learned during his career, i'd be afraid, because it looks like he didn't learn much about patience. i wonder if scott hatteberg is retiring any time soon.

yep, 1 bad season and he's toast. giving him a few more years to develop a system would be stupid, huh?

What problems did Roy Halladay have? Halladay completely lost his mechanics. Toronto sent him down to the minors to rebuild his mechanics from scratch. Afterwards, he became the dominant pitcher that he now is (when healthy). yeah, halladay lowered his arm-slot and put some movement on his pitches. before, he was nearly coming over the top and had no movement to speak of. i don't know if he specifically lost his mechanics as much as he wasn't able to overpower anyone in the big leagues with an arrow-straight fastball.

he didn't have much time at all to do much more than that, really.

i don't see how spending 95 mil on a MLB team is not spending money. the trib's problem is that they are a bad judge of baseball know-how.

i'm not sure how they ruined his team, but guys like depodesta absolutely MUST be given at least 4 years. what were his bad trades? because i'm not sure how they were so bad. he got ripped for trading a vastly overrated paul loduca and an already-injured guillermo mota, but his trades weren't that bad.

why? he's basically a more surly version of dusty baker. i can envision a last-days scenario for Piniella: holed up in his office, swearing at the phone, eating his own excrement, pulling a lee elia every other day.