jdelaney5150

Lookes but didn't see a thread on this. Anybody know if they have announced when these tickets will go on sale? So far the only way to get tickets listed on the 51s' website is by ordering a 12-game package, which isn't exactly appealing.

The worst part about all of this is that I don't even know how I will get myself excited for next year or future years after that. In 98, 03, and last year we were always the underdogs and so you knew it was gonna be an uphill climb. But this year for once we were a dominating team for most of the last 6 months. I just don't know how I'm going to say to myself: "well, if everyone stays healthy and everyone plays well and everything falls into place over the course of 162 games . . ." What then? I might get the joy of watching my team act like a bunch of clowns for 3 games? But of course I'll be back. Because I'm an idiot.

I'd hold off. Last year the ticket prices went down after starting out extremely high. Yeah; I ended up getting 4 for $460 total (lower level terrace about midway up) for Game 3 on the day Game 1 started. Of course, considering how the game turned out I still overpaid by about $1000.

Personally, I wouldn't throw that kind of money around at craigslist. Though unlikely, it's a fact that counterfeit tickets do exist and get sold every year. I'd stick with Stubhub or ebay (where at least you can see feedback ratings and you have some recourse if problems come up). I have bought Cubs tickets on craigslist before and been fine. But that's like $100 - $200 max. I could live with it if I happened to get screwed. But $600 would make me very, very angry. I guess it comes down to how confident you are that you can spot a counterfeit ticket. I'm definitely not $600 confident . . .

No; an utter disaster is this performance in the playoffs. This is just one very, very bad start.

Or if you perfer his human name........Joe Morgan.. While I certainly believe that Joe Morgan is deserving of just about every criticism leveled against him, this is one rare exception. He was quoted in This Old Cub saying that Santo is a Hall of Famer: "I always enjoyed playing against him, and he's still underrated in that he did things day in and day out, and year in and year out...and I will say this, he will get my vote!" Now, if you believe that he is publicly saying that and then secretly not voting for him, that's something else.

And let's also not forget that Z has had a history of cramping up. It's not like this is the first time that he's had to come out of a game early. It's just the timing (September pennant race, losing streak, coming immediately after he was scratched) that has everybody all nervous.

Crusading or masterb - - - Whoops! Forgot this was a family site . . .

It's not exactly surprising. Soriano has missed 8 weeks. My knowledge of the some of the more advanced stats is admittedly limited, but I don't believe that would affect a player's RARP. It's a measure of what you do with the plate appearances you have, not your cumulative stats. Otherwise I have no idea how Daniel Murphy, with 49 plate appearances, could be ranked ahead of Carl Crawford, with 480.

OK, so baseball prospectus has him ranked as 13 based on EQA, EQR, RAR, RAP, and RARP. While I definitely believe in the value of statistics, I don't think they are infallible as I would definitely take Lee over Giambi, Delgado, Pena, and Jackson (who are all ranked ahead of him). Interesting side note: Soriano actually ranks 15th among left fielders based on the same measurements.

Whether you put a lot of weight on it or not, the prime age for position players is generally somewhere between 25-29, with a peak right around 26. Lee is clearly past his prime. It has nothing to do with aging past April. He wasn't that good before coming to the Cubs and he's returned to that level. Not bad, but not that good either. Sort of blah, given his position. First of all, a peak does not mean a precipitous drop immediately follows. A slow decline closely resembling a plateau into a player's mid-30s is far more likely unless there is a catastrophic injury that occurs. You might have made that argument with Lee before last season but I think that's hardly the case now. I guess it also depends on what you mean by "not that good." I don't think there's any question that his numbers this year still put him as one of the top 10 offensive first basemen in all of baseball. I think you may be allowing yourself to be skewed because 3 of the ones ahead of him (Berkman, Pujols, and Fielder) all play in our division. Now, if you're talking about his numbers being blah for a number 3 hitter you have a better case. Still, anyone ready to write the eulogy on Lee's offensive prowess (and I'm not saying you're doing that) is being premature in my opinion. Really, we're talking about a guy who had a horrible May and was bad for half of July but has been solid otherwise. His numbers so far in August AVG and OBP-wise (.280/.393) are good; it's just the slugging that's down. This is not anything new with him. With the exception of 2005, he's had extended periods every year where his power disappears. When asked about it, his response is always the same: "I'm just not elevating the ball" when his power is gone and "I AM elevating the ball" when he's on a good streak. His prodigious GIDPs this year, while extremely painful and frustrating, are at least proof that he is still hitting the ball hard. When he either 1) starts striking out at a much higher rate than his average, 2)starts hitting a lot of lazy pop-ups, or 3) starts hitting a lot of Juan Pierre-esque soft grounders that's when I'll start to be worried that maybe he's on the decline. None of those is the case right now.

I think it's a bit unfair to keep harping on his splits from May 1st through now. He had one of the most ridiculously excellent months ever in April (.371/.446/.705). That was obviously an anomaly so I understand tossing that out, but then he has an atrocious month in May (.234/.269/.411) which is just as clearly an anomaly the other way so I think it makes just as much sense to throw that one out too and just talk about what he's done from June 1st on. And I don't put a lot of weight into the idea that he is now past his prime. Do you really think he has aged that much since April? Lee's overall numbers this year look pretty similar to his years in both 2004 and 2006, and he's rebounded each of those time. Certainly as you get older it gets harder and harder to rebound but, come on, as of today he's still only 32 and he's not a catcher! I do agree that it's evidence that as he is getting older you do have to adjust and give him some additional time off but that's what it should be: time off to rest. Not a reduction in playing time. Throw Ward into the mix until 9/1 to see if he can parlay Friday's performance into something useful, and then throw Hoffpauir into the mix once 9/1 rolls around and we'll see if he can emerge Soto-esque down the stretch. But still I think Lee should be starting 5 games a week (meaning 2 days of rest per week regardless if we play 6 or 7 games that week). As for next year, I think there's a real good shot we'll see Lee in the 2-hole and probably a 50-50 shot that Theriot will move up to leadoff with Soriano moving to 3rd.

Wuertz? He's had plenty of weekends off, and weekdays, and extended rest. This whole "Wuertz never gets used" thing is something of a myth, or at the very least waaaaayyyyy overblown. He has 37 appearances on the year. Compare that to Howry, who has 43 appearances. And considering that we're about 15 weeks into the baseball season now, that means that over the course of about 2 and a half weeks, Howry is getting into a game about once more than Wuertz. And 37 appearances in 92 games (roughly 40% of games) hardly qualifies as letting him "rot" on the bench.

Hmm, that seems . . .odd. That would mean another start for Marshall, right?

In explaining why his comments do not deserve a response, I would like to call upon the wise philospohy of one Katt Williams: "Live your m'fing life. Get your hustle on. Understand people are gonna hate you regardless. Get that out of your head, that fantasy world where people ain't hating on you. You gotta be grateful. You need haters. WTF are you complaining about? WTF do you think a hater's job is? To hate. So let them do their job. WTF are you complaining about? Ladies if you got 14 women hating on you, you need to figure out how the hell to get to 16 before the summer gets here. Fellas, if you got 20 haters, you need 40 of those m'fers. WTF are you complaining about? If there are any haters in here right now that don't have anybody to hate on, feel free to hate on me. Sit back and say my hair ain't luxurious when you know it is, b*tch."

I see that he's penciled in for Friday but has that been made official yet? I have tickets for Saturday's game and would obviously much prefer to see Harden's debut over a Marquis start.

Yes, you are correct. I think I always just sub-consciously combined these with the Victor Diaz HR vs. the Mets in September as the heart-breaking losses that cost the Cubs the playoffs. All that being said, when you lose 3 of 4 to a bad Reds team at home in the last week of the season you don't deserve to make the playoffs. Which reminds me of another seeming but not really Cubs killer (Austin Kearns) . . .

Yep, funny how selective perception works, b/c I though he was a "Cub killer" too....until I looked up those same splits. there's a certain double header that makes him a cub killer for life And I had the misfortune of being at that double-header. The funny thing about it was that most of that day was a lot of fun, punctuated by two completely gut-wrenching moments. The rest of the evening is something of a drunken haze where I kept calling him "Ron" Machowiak in between strings of obscenities. The last thing I remember saying that night is "so help me, if we end up missing the playoffs by 2 games . . ." I'm sure I don't need to remind anyone how many games we missed the playoffs by that year. In many ways, that game was the exact opposite of last year's against Milwaukee with the Aram walkoff (which I was also at). They went down big in the 1st and the whole game was pretty miserable up until the 9th. Of course, the hours after the game were a heck of a lot more fun after that one than in Pittsburgh. Something else that's kind of amusing. The wife and I had no plans over Memorial Day weekend this year and were briefly contemplating driving to Pittsburgh to see the Cubs Saturday and Sunday. Luckily we decided to do something else. Even though I was upset at the back to back losses, just the thought that I could have been back in that stadium witnessing back to back blown saves makes my stomach turn . . .

That got me thinking to look up another player that I've always thought of as a "Cub killer" and wanted to see if it was true or just my perception - Brad Ausmus. It seems like he always came into a series against the Cubs hitting about .220 and then he'd consistently get big hits. Anyway, looking at the actual numbers it looks like a mixed bag (not going to post them all here). While he did have a decently higher OPS against us than his overall (.711 vs. .669) it's not like either of those are "gaudy" numbers. However, one thing that does stick out is how much more he likes to hit HRs against us then any other team. In his career, he's averaged 1 HR every 77.6 ABs. Yet against the Cubs, he's averaged 1 HR every 36.1 ABs. The Cubs are also the only team he has more than 10 HRs against (13). The next closest is St. Louis, at 8 (despite the fact that he's had 40 more ABs against them).

So, let me get this straight; today I have to root FOR Jim Edmonds and AGAINST Greg Maddux?!?!? That doesn't seem right. . .

Or it could just be the fact that he's, you know, in his late 30's. And had several concussions. I've been told they do wonders for the hand/eye coordination. I use to make fun of him, but secretly I've always admired his skills on the baseball field. He's probably the best defensive CF in the last 25 years. Are you kidding me??????!!!! He is without question the most overrated defensive CF probably to ever play the game. He made his entire career out of making routine flay balls look like amazing catches. Yeah, he was good at making the diving catch, but if you judge the ball correctly off the bat and take the correct line on it (like Andrew Jones) you have to dive a lot less often.

Whoa; overreact much? Who do you want Lou to use? You're certainly not going to throw Howry out there with the way he's throwing and I certainly don't want to see Hart/Lieber/Piggy out there in a role they've never done before. You can make a decent case for Wuertz but 1) he still has occasional problems with the strike zone and 2) I'd rather see him used in the role he is best at: coming in and stranding inherited runners. I for one would be a lot more upset if Lou didn't use Wuertz in a pressure 7th or 8th inning spot because he was saving him and it ended up costing us the lead. I don't think pitching possibly 6 innings in a week constitutes overuse to the point that "his arm is going to fall off before September". I don't want to see him regularly pitch 3 days in a row but occassionally doing so when the situation warrants it, especially early in the season, should not be a source of angst.

Ah, nothing like an obscure Yakov Smirnoff reference on a Friday morning!

Why? If Roberts came, you would have Derosa and Fontenot as backup infielders. Still don't think the deal will happen, but cutting Cintron should not have any bearing on it. It does a little bit considering the Cubs don't consider either DeRosa or Fontenot as capable SS That is a valid point. I just don't think it would be a deal-breaker by any stretch.

From the article at cubs.com; quote from MacPhail: "We continue to talk," he said. "I think with each passing hour at this point, it's less and less likely. I just think it's less likely the further we get this close into it, the greater likelihood that we're going to start with what we have." I think "we continue to talk" is a pretty clear indication that nothing has really changed and Sullivan just over exagerrated. From a journalistic standpoint, the only 2 scoops to be had on something like this are "the deal is done" and "the deal is dead". Since the prospects for the former are fading, it looks like he just decided to trump up the latter.