Javy Is Still A Cub

What you are saying is demonstrably false, as Shooter lives here in my heart.

"You suck a huge amount" javy knows my name - You don't even capitalize Javy. It's disrespectful. That's very unJavylike. It's clearly a lesser handle than my handle. I don't think you even know Javy? I am certain that no Javyness rubbed off on you if you somehow did ever meet him. I am even more certain that you do not understand Javy, his genius and his well-known humanity (care for his disabled sister, his great attitude in Detroit despite having tough times at the plate, the humble way he's worked to become a great outfielder in such a short time, etc.). Javy gave us PCA! We would not even BE HERE if it wasn't for Javy!!!!! And yet you can't even capitalize his name.... You need to get it together. If Javy knew your name I am more certain of this fact than of all the above: he has forgotten it.

Lookit that 1998 NL MVP race - wow. Everyone is in the HOF or definitely in the near-HOF. Excepting only Greg Vaughan and Moises Alou - 61th and 48th best LF respectively per JAWS - who are definitely in the near-near-HOF, at least. There's 23 LF in the HOF - if they never elected another one Moises would be right there in the near-HOF. (How is Felipe Alou not in the HOF? He is one of just three men to have 2,000 hits, 200 home runs, and 1,000 managerial wins - the other two are Joe Torre and Frank Robinson. He's got more WAR than his son. He was the first player from the DR. My God, what the hell else do you want a guy to do in/for baseball - put him in!!!) And yet surely many consider Shooter - due to his misunderstood genius - to be some sort of mistake here? They're the crazy ones. Shooter will win them back when he finally concludes his groundbreaking research into combining cold fusion, Hindu eschatology and beer can pull tabs.

That's a great point about the Sandberg game pulling the Cubs fans out of total despair. At least Derrek lost to King Albert - Baez lost out to Yelich. Blecch! What did he ever do? They had to invent the utility Gold Glove because of Baez! Shooter Beck's 18th place MVP in the NL as a reliever in (the magical year of) 1998... that's something he could truly put on his tombstone. If anybody knows where his trailer is parked, please pass on the idea. But there are three things I know in this world for certain: 1) It will have to be in person, because Shooter is connected to no grid. 2) He lives near a data center. 3) If you asked him about it, he'd respond: "What noise?"

Nobody from 2016, can you believe that?!! I guess it was because that season was about a truly great team - not just a great player, I guess. Bryant was the most exciting player that year: like Prior 2003, he had the pedigree and that was just the start (right?).

PCA's amazing season got me thinking: what's the most EXCITING season a Cub player has had that you've actually seen. Too bad for Mordecai Brown, but I'm talking with your actual eyeballs and NOT the best - the most exciting. 1. Sosa 1998: He and McGuire saved baseball after the '94 strike. Literally everybody in America was talking about them. Your grandma was. Your grandma doesn't know who PCA is, especially if she doesn't live in Chicago. 2. Dawson 1987: Last-place team but still he couldn't be stopped. 24 stitches after a beanball to the face - still couldn't be stopped. Pure intimidation and domination, and he was feted and feared as a god at Wrigley that year, with bowing salaams by the bleacher bums. Nobody's bowing to PCA (kid's too young). 3. Arrietta 2015: 20 quality starts in a row to finish the season. If he gave up 2 runs we thought he had a bad start. Baseball is a game dominated by the pitcher, after all, and that was the best run by a Cubs pitcher I've ever seen. 4. PCA 2026: After the first couple months he was doing something astounding nearly every day. Adding in his youthful age: best baseball athlete as a Cub ever. 5. Sutcliffe 1984: A team that hadn't done anything since 1969 - in those 15 years they became the "loveable losers" - most definitely had a savior complex, and he was almost literally unbeatable (16-1). Homered in the first playoff game. Won the Cy and 4th in MVP voting. 6. Sandberg 1984: He won the MVP. Sandberg's busting out year, redefining 2b like Ripken redefined SS. 19 triples - at Wrigley - and with Harry Caray slobbering his many beers over every one. 7. Baez 2018: He probably shouldn't be this low, because he was as electric as PCA. A true baseball genius - he redefined tagging, which is something people had been doing for over a century. 8. 2003 Prior: He took over Chicago as much or more than PCA. He had perfect mechanics (right?), the perfect pedigree, his calves were gigantic - the Cubs had the new Tom Seaver, and this was just the start (right?). 9. 1992 Maddux: His busting out party. His first half of the season was incredible, and then he somehow got even better the 2nd half. It was how he did it - control not stuff - that made it so unusual. 10. Derrek Lee 2005: Locked in the entire season. Should be in prison for murdering baseballs. As the 2003 season fell apart into the embarrassing 2004 season, Lee was the consummate professional. 11. Don Zimmer 1989: He was truly the star of that team, and Chicago loves a good old-school coach. Honorable mention to Mark Grace, for his incredible .647/.682/1.118 performance in the playoffs. Even more incredible was how Will Clark actually outplayed him - .650/.682/1.200 12. Rod Beck 1998: Chicago is (or was) mostly a town of relocated hillbillies, after all, and "Shooter" sported a Fu Manchu, a mullet, and you knew what was coming - a fastball. And he beat you anyway. 51 saves and finished 70 - he was a near-daily amusement. 17th in MVP voting. It's a fitting capper to have 1998 represented - it was truly the most exciting year in baseball since... I dunno, before I was born.

I think the WAR discussion part of this thread should be cut out and put in a new thread. I suggest titling it: "Mediocre rec league ballplayer and Luddite rails against WAR". Can't AI (excuse me, SI) do that for us before it kills us all?

"You could have cited some research above that suggests WAR underestimates high-leverage relief to make your point about Sutter. But you didn’t." Yeah... I don't want to get into it. Went to the cages today - got on the mound to work on control of my FB and change (slider and curve are good). (This is making me late now!) I dunno, someone else can play Ishmael/Infidel on that one. Like I said, my team would all say - to a man - that my 4 ip, 1ER game-ending save was way, way more valuable than going 2/2, 2b, 3rbi day last Sunday. That should give people something to reflect on, I'd think? Or we're all idiots? Fine. It's a game centered around the pitcher - he gets more outs than any fielder, duh! (people don't think like this often enough) - and yet PCA's 2026 is worth more than the Sutter's whole CAREER.... Yeah... naw. Don't get me started on Cal Raleigh losing the MVP last year despite being the only catcher to hit 60 homers ever. Do you you know how hard catching is on the body? It's the toughest guy on the team. My catcher got knocked out by a foul tip last year and he's too tough for his own good - fuggetaboutit. Anyway, the catcher fields - what - 150 chances a game?! And Judge in RF making 4 outs a game and not booting a few singles and a double is anywhere on par with what Raleigh is doing defensively? Play with a bad catcher - then you'll see how it's so incredibly vital. And the guy hits 60 homers - when the closest in 125 years ever had was 45 IIRC - while Judge is smelling dandelions in RF 93% of the game? Evil WAR struck again.... Very interesting stuff about the 1987 rabbit ball year - had no idea. Good stuff on this board! It comes to something like this: the idea of the "replacement player". This concept is inhuman - the replacement player is not a human, after all, but a concept. Well, the game isn't played by concepts. Telling me PCA is twice as good this year at CF as the second guy (Pages I assume) - no player believes that. PCA 10-15% better, which is a lot at that level - ok. Twice as good this year?!! He'd have to be basically playing LF and CF all by himself, which he's not. But PCA has double the score of some inhuman replacement player somewhere who is abstract nothingness, so people say "twice as good as Pages!" No way. Pages is fantastic. PCA is fantastic-plus, sure - maybe even 20%, fine - but double? This year is triple Handy Dandy Andy Dawson 1987? Better than all of Sutter? Remember the "Sandberg game" - he called it the "Bruce Sutter" game, cuz it was insane to hit 2 HR off Sutter; he hits two off anyone else, nobody would remember it. I want to close by saying one thing to this replacement player: You are not ANYWHERE as good as an average MLB player! What pretension! In fact, you are nothing! And you definitely got no Ws!

I don't see how someone talking about WAR critically is a "troll" - I do see how it makes me an infidel to the fundamentalists. However, I'm going to assume the impossible will happen: this will be the last word on the issue, which allows me to go back to lurking and this thread to get back to PCA. I think we can all agree on that (unless your'e one of those "march or die" posters). I have things to do after all, and that includes getting better at actually playing baseball: In my 30+ men's baseball league I'm batting .484/.583/.677 for the entire year, but there's room for improvement. That doesn't include Sunday's 2/2, 2 sacrifice flies (both rbis), RBI double. That performance at the plate wasn't anywhere as important to the win and to the team as the 4-inning, 1 ER save I pitched... but for people who believe PCA's great 2026 season is worth more than Bruce Sutter's entire, Cy Young-as-a-relief-pitcher winning tenure as a Cub, lol, I can't spend the time explaining why that's wrong any more than I can try to suss out why Dawson's 1987 .287/.328/.568 league leading 49 Hr and 137 RBIs is only worth 3.5 fWAR, but his 1988 .309/.344/.504 24 HR 79 Rbis is worth 4.2 fWAR, when they both played 153+ games and had the same (according to fWAR, LOL) near-neutral defense. The answer is: the WAR emperor has no clothes, but back to PCA!!!!! Thank you for your attention to this matter, and go Cubs!

Says a lot about the state of this country when someone who disagrees with just a minor point (WAR is not the end-all-be-all) - but still agrees with the overall point - (hey, I'm a Cub fan who loves PCA!) still gets labeled as a "troll" and kicked out. "March or die", I guess 🙄 That's what the real winners here say, not the average poster, I know. Me, I say resist WAR McCarthyism!!!

Oops - bad post, previously. 3x better than Dawson on bWar. 2026 Seiya is almost 20% better. As you like....

"2026 Seiya Suzuki is like a 1987 Dawson that was willing to take walks. Whuooooowwwwwww! That knocked my head back! I can say that nobody who actually saw them both believes that for a second - noooohhhhbahhhdeeeeee. Wow. This is actually very informative. It's amazing what people will assume just from statistics; just from a few dozen numbers; how it makes them assume they have the equivalent experience and knowledge of someone who spent six months watching Dawson in 1987. Anyway... back to the PCA goodness, no more of the WAR foolishtic business. I'll resume with a tidbit: Pete is in the 99th percentile of people of cool in the genre of people with hyphenated names. If he just chose one - they would both be equally cool: Pete Crow is like a comic book name, and Pete Armstrong is like a baseball comic book name. I consider this to be more of a crazy stat than a tidbit, personally.

When Dawson got hit in the face by Eric Show and got 24 stitches he missed 3 days. Lookit Sut protect his bud! So Dawson becomes the first-ever MVP winner from a last place team, hits the most homers in the NL in 20 years and he does it with 24 stitches after having his career threatened by a beanball to the face (Sports Illustrated put Andre on the cover with "Beanbrawls" IIRC)... and his season is worth 1/3rd of PCA's if you believe WAR is the end-all be-all statistic, LOL.... Tough (non-)break for Bregman. He was not in the on-deck circle, but thankfully he's ok.

Ok, so 5% more makes him 3x more productive? Dawson on a last-place team - PCA on the best hitting Cubs team of all-time? Does that mean anything to you - i.e. getting pitched around or pitched to - or is that too much to wrap your head around? Ishmael!

Check bWar. Cheers