Warren Brusstar

Dear Roy: Please enjoy the .38 runs we just added to your ERA. TIA.

How could we possibly be winning with Jones, Bowen, and Izturis in the lineup? We're playing the Astros? At bottom, the drama queen act when the lineup came out looks a silly now.

How could we possibly be winning with Jones, Bowen, and Izturis in the lineup?

Somebody strap down Izzy.

Ball.Game.

CUBS are 22-25 when Izturis starts at ss :wink: What's our record when he has a BB? 9-3 What's our record when Izzy cornholes a teammate? 1-0......hopefully that record remains intact.. The Cubs have not homered since Izzy "congratulated" Ramirez. Perhaps the rest of the team is scared of being congratulated.

CUBS are 22-25 when Izturis starts at ss :wink: What's our record when he has a BB? 9-3 You're not the best useless stat guy on the Internet for nothing. When Maverick Mark buys the team, I'll write you a recommendation. And clearly "useless" modifies only "stat" in that sentence.... :lol:

5-1. I heart Aram

Clearly, we have absolutely no chance with Izturis in the lineup today. :roll:

Shhhhh. Im having fun right now, watching somebody defend Izturis :wink: I'm not defending him. He sucks. But so does Theriot.

Soto isn't much better than Bown, and Jones is probably better than Pagan. Izturis blows, but then again so do all our other SS. I'd have put Fontenot at short since Lilly is a fly ball pitcher. What of his .341 avg in the minors and ONE game in the big leagues this year has brought you to this conclusion? Career Minor League OPS: Bowen .715 Soto .715 Seems like a reasonable conclusion to me. Except that it takes catchers longer to develop usually, and nothing in Bowens major league career shows he is anything more than a backup, where as Sotos year this year could mean he has found it. It wont take much for Soto to be better than Bowen. Maybe, but Soto isn't much better right now, and Oswalt is a RHP who is better against RH batters. Eventually Soto will hopefully be better, but right now the difference is really negligible. Bowen is hitting .216 with a .318 OBP against rightys this year, you dont think Soto could do better than that? He probably can. But looking at their identical minor league OPS, it's entirely reasonable to think that they're pretty comparable players.

Soto isn't much better than Bown, and Jones is probably better than Pagan. Izturis blows, but then again so do all our other SS. I'd have put Fontenot at short since Lilly is a fly ball pitcher. What of his .341 avg in the minors and ONE game in the big leagues this year has brought you to this conclusion? Career Minor League OPS: Bowen .715 Soto .715 Seems like a reasonable conclusion to me. Except that it takes catchers longer to develop usually, and nothing in Bowens major league career shows he is anything more than a backup, where as Sotos year this year could mean he has found it. It wont take much for Soto to be better than Bowen. Maybe, but Soto isn't much better right now, and Oswalt is a RHP who is better against RH batters. Eventually Soto will hopefully be better, but right now the difference is really negligible. I love how people on this board want it both ways. They think it's outrageous that Piniella expects Pie or Soto to produce right away at the big league level and think its ridiculous that he would bench them after two weeks of unproductive at bats. But when someone suggests that Jones is likely to outproduce Pie in the second half, those very same people are utterly disgusted by that concept too. You can't have it both ways.

LOL They have played 1 game since having 4 days off, no reason anybody on this team needs a day off right now. Theriot is 5 for his last 10, can Izturis say that about himself at any point this season? Doubtful May 12-14, Izturis was 8-13. Try again.

If Izturis had a big day every time we bitched about him being in the lineup he'd be batting .600 Yeah, oh well. I just sit back and enjoy the bitch sessions that ensue. He's on the team, its inevitable he is going to start every now and then. I particularly love the "Cubs are guaranteed to lose" posts that usually follow. Agreed. If my math is right, against right-handers, Theriot reaches base about once every six games more than Izturis. The notion that this team is dramatically worse with Izturis at SS instead of Theriot is hyperbolic nonsense. Yet, no one ever complains about Theriot hitting second. Ryan Theriot .343 OBP Isturis .294... Do I really need to say more? Against RHP, Theriot has a .347 OBP, Izturis has a .316 OBP. That's the equivalent of about 18 extra times on base over a full season, or about 1 time every 9 games. Sure, I'd rather play Theriot, but is a once per nine game difference really enough to act like the Cubs have absolutely no chance to win because Izturis is in the lineup?

Soto isn't much better than Bown, and Jones is probably better than Pagan. Izturis blows, but then again so do all our other SS. I'd have put Fontenot at short since Lilly is a fly ball pitcher. What of his .341 avg in the minors and ONE game in the big leagues this year has brought you to this conclusion? Career Minor League OPS: Bowen .715 Soto .715 Seems like a reasonable conclusion to me.

Piniella has obviously concluded that neither Fontenot nor Derosa is capable of playing SS on an everyday basis.

Are Lee, Ramirez, Soriano, Floyd, and Derosa not playing?

If Izturis had a big day every time we bitched about him being in the lineup he'd be batting .600 Yeah, oh well. I just sit back and enjoy the bitch sessions that ensue. He's on the team, its inevitable he is going to start every now and then. I particularly love the "Cubs are guaranteed to lose" posts that usually follow. Agreed. If my math is right, against right-handers, Theriot reaches base about once every six games more than Izturis. The notion that this team is dramatically worse with Izturis at SS instead of Theriot is hyperbolic nonsense. Yet, no one ever complains about Theriot hitting second.

Bowden and Williams can make outrageous demands for their free agents because it's still early. Let's see what they'll accept on July 31st. And because there are GM's like Krivisky that will hand over Austin Kearns and Felipe Lopez for two middling relief pitchers. Note that Bowden inexcusably sat on Soriano last year when the Nationals were hopelessly out of the race.

Apparently, when Towers inquired about Dye, Kenny Williams asked for Khalil Greene and Scott Linebrink.

Career OPS v. RHP: Jones .825 Burrell .809 Burrell makes about $8 million per year more and would cost us players. I'll pass. And guys that can bash LHP are all over the minors. Find one. Or yank Eduardo Perez out the BBTN tonight.

Well, Torii career numbers aren't good, but he's been pretty good (by CF standards) several times and bad several times. He's been really good this year, so it's a great name to throw out there. He's got a .900 OPS! Well, like I said, he's very good his year. But those .309, .306, .312, etc OBP - those years were bad. Here's a good illustration of my point: '01 - .784 OPS (.306/.479). I don't care what position you play, a .306 OBP is bad. And even a .480 SLG doesn't make up for it's badness. It's better than say a .410 SLG, but it's still doesn't mean it was a good that season. There were 14 qualified CF's in 01. Here are several of them: Andruw Jones-.251/.312/.461 Kenny Lofton-.261/.322/.398 Darin Erstad-.258/.331/.360 Johnny Damon-.256/.324/.363 Doug Glanville-.262/.285/.375 Jerry Hairston Jr.-.233/.305/.344 Brady Anderson-.202/.311/.300 If Hunter was bad, then what were these guys, mostly horrible? That's half of the qualified league (and I took out one guy who had 18 points less of OPS overall but 31 points more of OBP). It seems like you are dismissing OPS as a flawed stat and putting in OBP instead. While OBP is the more important part of OPS (and should be adjusted accordingly, I've seen 1.8 as the multiplier on several different sources from Tango to Hardball times to Dan Agonistes) OPS is still the single best indicator of scoring runs (outside some of the complex formulas), and it's not even close. So yes, if I had two players who had similar OPS's, I'd much rather take the guy with the much higher OBP. If the OPS's are not similar (say within 20 points) I'm going to take the guy with the higher OPS. You can still score a lot of runs with a bad OBP (although it is difficult), a bad OPS makes that pretty impossible even with a good OBP. If you look at this graph as well, this source even says that SLG was a better indicator than OBP over a 5 year period. Of course OPS was much better than either of them: http://www.hardballtimes.com/main/article/ops-for-the-masses/ That's the problem with his entire inane argument. He's taking Jones' absolute worst season (which would place somewhere around the 50th percentile) of MLB center-fielders and concluding that in some years he's been "bad." He's been no such thing v. RHP. He's only twice been below an .800 OPS v. RHP. Twice. Every other year, he's been above it. And there's simply no way an .800 OPS from your center-fielder is "bad." Answer this: What do you expect Pie to post in the second half if he plays every day?

Well, Torii career numbers aren't good, but he's been pretty good (by CF standards) several times and bad several times. He's been really good this year, so it's a great name to throw out there. He's got a .900 OPS! Well, like I said, he's very good his year. But those .309, .306, .312, etc OBP - those years were bad. Here's a good illustration of my point: '01 - .784 OPS (.306/.479). I don't care what position you play, a .306 OBP is bad. And even a .480 SLG doesn't make up for it's badness. It's better than say a .410 SLG, but it's still doesn't mean it was a good that season. '05 - .788 OPS (.337/.452). For a CF, that's average or better. The .337 OBP is nothing to write home about, but it's ok (probably near league average - I don't know and don't care to look it up, it's gotta be pretty close). And the SLG is pretty good for his position. I'd much rather have this year, than '01, and it's not b/c the OPS is .004 points higher. I note that you've stopped using the word "suck."

By BP's fielding metrics, Jones is an above-average center-fielder, both this year and for his career. That point seems consistently ignored in this thread. As to the Dawson comp, fine. By GR's standards, Torii Hunter's career also sucks. (.324 OBP/.471 SLG). I think he's using the words "suck" and "bad" a little too liberally.

Are you really this dense? I've been looking at much more than the past 3 months and basing my argument on that. You're the one who says I'm putting all this emphasis on his last 200 PAs. I've said that 185 ABs isn't a great sample, but that past on his 3200 ABs against RHP, it's pretty clear that Jones can range from bad to great and it's not really close to the normal bell curve you'd expect with players improving through their peak and then coming back down. He's good one year, bad the next, great the next, etc. So if his performance year-year is random, you can't just look at his overall #s and expect he's going to match them, esp when he's been terrible for 3 months. Is he likely to improve some - yes, I've already said I don't think he'll have an OPS of .634 against RHP all year. But is it likely to jump 200 points to match his career #s? I don't think that's likely. And 3 doubles in 8 ABs isn't going to change my mind. It's a nice couple of games, but it doesn't mean much in predicting his performance for the next 3 months. 1. Thanks for the personal attack. 2. Are *you* really this dense? I've posted about a half dozen times in this thread that Jones has never once had a season with an OPS v. RHP of less than .775. Never. In 2007, there are 27 center-fielders that are currently on pace to qualify for the batting title. 11 have an OPS above .775, 16 have an OPS below .775. In 2006, of the qualifying center-fielders, 13 were above .775, 10 were below In 2005, 10 were above .775, 11 were below In Jacque Jones' very worst full season, he hit at a league-average level for center-fielders against RHP. He's never been bad in his career v. RHP. And repeating the same wrong argument over and over and over again doesn't make you right. 3. I keep insisting that you're placing too much emphasis on his first 200 plate appearances this year because there's absolutely no other reason to conclude that a guy who posted almost a .900 OPS v. RHP last year is somehow "unlikely" to match his career OPS of .825 against them, especially when he's only been under .800 twice. 1. It wasn't a personal attack, it was a question. And a fair one, I think. 2. You like repeating his OPS against RHP, but ignoring the fact that he has had horrible OBP's several times. And no, when you're OBP is .310, SLG enough to get your OPS near .800 does not make it ok. You sucked that year. I think the bolded part is exactly right and I'm glad you finally realized it. Reciting his worst OPS against RHP as if it were the final word on whether he sucked in a given year doesn't make it right. 3. Well, his OPS against RHP last year was about 60 points or so about his career average. His OPS against RHP in 3 months this season is 200 points below is career average. Is 200 PAs a big sample? Not really. But it does have some relevance to predicting immediate future performance (unlike 8 ABs, which has near 0 relevance). That fact, coupled with the fact that he's followed good years with bad years in the past leads me to conclude that there's a good chance he won't have an OPS of .825 against RHP in the 2nd half. It's apparent that we disagree and neither of us is going to convince the other, I just don't want you to mis-characterize my arguments (i.e., claim that I'm relying solely on this year's #s to predict his 2nd half #s). FWIW, under your definition, Andre Dawson's career (.279/.323./.482) "sucked." (And he played in a corner, not CF) You're throwing around that word as if it's fair to say that half of MLB sucks. I'm not mischaracterizing your arguments. You're mischaracterizing the facts.