cubbieinexile

You're still avoiding his question. What points to Sosa that doesn't point to Bagwell? Because Bagwell was a likeable guy he gets a free pass? I'm not avoiding it, I simply don't care about it. As I said above it is likely some of the names I listed used drugs but I haven't seen anything in the media or anywhere else that would indicate Bagwell used. We have seen about million things that say Sosa used. If Bagwell has coverage like Sosa then he comes off the list but as it is he doesn't. The truly funny thing is that we are carping about Bagwell (the last name on the list) when there is over a dozen other and bigger names that I took off the list.

You got me. Bagwell and Sosa are in the exact same boat. The whole entire world sees it that way except me. I will now promptly change my opinion about Bagwell. Thank you.

Okay, I'll try again. Everything? The point of the list isn't to create some kind of "truth". I'm sure that some of the names on that list are not squeaky clean but we do not have anything above the quietest whisper on those names. If you want to say that Sosa and Bagwell are in the same boat that is fine but that isn't reality.

Everything?

If there is I haven't seen it.

He might very well have but I can't find anything that points to it.

If Bud Selig got his wish here would be the new home run leader list: Harmon Killebrew Jimmie Foxx Manny Ramirez Frank Thomas Ted Williams Ernie Banks Mel Ott Eddie Murray Carl Yastrzemski Jeff Bagwell

When this conversation ends baseball will still have testing and they will still have a drug problem. In five years fans will say that drugs in baseball are no longer a problem. They will say that drug use has been minimized and the players are for the most part clean. They will say this and they will probably even believe this because of drug testing. How do I know this? I know this because that is what we are experiencing right now with football. What football shows us whether you like to believe it or not is that fans don’t actually care if the players are taking drugs they just don’t want to know about it. Drug testing gives fans that mirage they are so desperately looking for. Baseball is a business, baseball is a six billion dollar business. Baseball does not care about drugs within its midst. No, scratch that, let me take that back. Baseball cares about drugs because drugs generate huge amounts of revenue for them. As long as revenue continues to get poured into baseball then baseball will not care about getting rid of drugs in their game. Right now drugs are a PR annoyance and nothing more. People continue to buy seats, they continue to watch it on TV, and they continue to buy merchandise. Unless that changes then baseball will do nothing serious about their problem. Again, how do I know this? Because again, the NFL is doing this right this moment. Drugs is a good investment for baseball. Fans have liked the “new” game and hace flocked to it in droves. Fans have liked the roided players and have invested heavily with them. It is far cheaper and less risky to allow an aging superstar to take steroids and stay at his peak for more years then to let him fade and then have to go and look for a new superstar. Let’s compare Michael Jordan and Barry Bonds. Jordan left the game at the age of 35 (yes I know he came back but by then he was no longer MICHAEL JORDAN). He probably had another season or two or being elite within him but he chose to leave instead. Then we have Barry Bonds who when he got to around that age started taking steroids. Bonds from that point on continued being the best player in the game until he was out 8 seasons later at the age of 43. Steroids allowed Bonds to be the preeminent player in the game for eight more seasons because of steroids. While during the same time Michael Jordan retired and the NBA took a walk in the wilderness in search of a new superstar. In terms of revenue the NBA would have been better off if Jordan and found wonder drugs like Bonds and had been able to continue playing at the level he was playing for 6 or so more seasons. That is why leagues will never care about drugs because drugs keep their marquee players in the game and those marquee players generate huge sums of money. Like I said above it is far safer and easier to milk a known superstar then to try and find a new one that the fans will connect with. Baseball is a business and players are their commodity and they like all businesses would love to remove the risks within those commodities and make them much more consistent. It has been trend in business throughout the world and throughout modern history to try and remove the humanness out of their employees. If we could all be cogs that would be great for them and baseball is no different. They wish desperately that their commodities didn’t get old and worn down. They wish their cogs would not break down during the season and drugs helps them accomplish the prevention of their cogs breaking down. As long as we continue to hand over our cash to these businesses they will continue to not care about drugs. They will only care enough to maximize their revenue. So if you continue to spend then they will continue to give drugs minimal attention. There is a direct correlation between them caring and your spending.

Basically to sum it up 1993 looks to be one of the typical Cubs run for the title type years. A couple of stars, lots of regulars and not so regulars catching lightning in a bottle and a couple of mid-season acquisitions that did very well for the Cubs. I could easily see this team improving by at least 10 games if not more just by having a healthy Ryne Sandberg and Greg Maddux. Who knows? If Sandberg has an April like he did in 1994 (.291/.358/.477) and Rey sits on the bench (.256/.273/.267) the difference in runs could get very huge. Rey in April got exactly one extra base hit, and that was a double. In fact a good chunk of Rey's April value comes in 3 of the 21 games. In those 3 games he goes 10 for 15 and gets a walk. Take those 3 games away and his line is .169/.181/.183 for that month! Also it should be noted that despite that hitting barrage in those 3 games and batting second he only scored 3 times and drove in one run The Cubs were 11-11 in April, they probably (okay they would have) would have had a better record then that. Played One game above .500 in May, 2 games below in June, 3 games above in July, 6 games under in August, and then went 20-10 to close out the season. I forgot to mention it when I did the pitchers but a big part of the August collapse and for Junes sub par performance was because of the pitching. In August it simply collapsed giving up over 5 runs a game, I think the presence of Maddux would have lessoned that a bit. The Cubs got hot at the end because Rhodes and Hill basically take over for Wilson, Candy, May, and Smith. Thus solving the OF problem while Wilkins gets energized for the stretch and the rest of the infield stays good, with Ryno getting really good before the injury. In fact after the injury the Cubs go 11-6 but it should be noted that in only 2 of those games did the Cubs lose by more then 2 runs. In fact the Cubs lost 3 games by 1 run (0-1, 1-2, 5-6) and the fourth by a score of 0-2. If Ryne had been in the lineup would they have those 4 games? Probably not all of them by I think it is quite possible that anywhere from 1 to all of them could have come out with the Cubs winning. In fact two of those losses feature Mike Morgan as the pitcher which means that in all probability Maddux would have pitched them instead.

Cubs pitching staff that year ranked 10th in Runs allowed but that hides the fact that the Cubs did have some gems on the staff. Gems: Jose Bautista 10 wins 3 losses, 7 starts 51 relief appearances, 2.82 ERA, 63 SO, 27 BB Randy Myers 2 wins 4 losses, 53 saves, 3.11 ERA, 86 SO, 26 BB Shawn Boskie 5 wins 3 losses, 3.43 ERA Other Notables are Greg Hibbard who was probably the Cubs best pitcher and probably and Mike Morgan who was a very good innings eater pitcher who would keep you in the ball game though rarely dominate. Almost everybody else besides these guys were disappointments at various levels. Now what happens if you add Greg Maddux to the mix? The easiest part would be to take Guzman away and put Maddux in his place. Bill James has Greg at 25 Win Shares that year and Guzman at 9. Total Baseball has Jose Guzman at -6 Pitching Runs and Greg at 50 pitching runs for a difference of 56 runs which basically is what Bill James difference is as well. So if we take off 56 runs off the Cubs runs allowed we end up with 683 runs the Cubs go from 10th place to 6th place though only one run separates 5th and 6th place. Improving the Cubs by 9 games from their original pyth expectation. So right now with just Ryne and Greg thrown into the mix the Cubs would expected to win anywhere from 90 to 93 games. Good for third place 1 or more games if we do not adjust any other team. But of course we have to do that. For instance the Home opener is Cubs vs. Braves and who is the Braves opening day pitcher? Greg Maddux and he wins the 1-0. Looking at the Rotation schedule Maddux probably would have pitched against Philadelphia 4 times, his counterpart in the rotation managed to only win one of these games I am thinking that Maddux would have won 3 of these instead one since the games he would have pitched the Cubs scored more then 5 runs though the game he would have lost the Cubs got shut out. So that brings the Cubs 2 games closer to the Phillies. As a brave he was 2 and 1 so that of course begs the question of whether or not the Braves get those 2 runs. One of those games he gives up 5 runs another 3 and the final 1 run. So I think at the very least the Braves keep the same record on them. Now onto Montreal. Against Montreal we had our worst record which was 5-8, though if we had Maddux the Cubs would at the very least have won two more games against the Expos. Thankfully for us Maddux as a Brave only played the Expos once and though he won it his offense scored 6 runs so again I don't think the standings change much in that regard. So here we are with as few changes as possible and the Cubs are in second place and anywhere from 2 to 4 games behind the Phillies. So why do I think the Cubs still have a shot? Because with Maddux in the rotation everybody moves down a spot. Instead of Morgan facing almost every team’s best starter such as the opening day start against the Braves and Maddux he now gets to face their second or third best starter. A match up more favorable to Morgan and one that he would have handled better then Guzman who was the original second man. Would Mike Morgan's record still be 10-15 if he was the second man instead of the first? Well if we apply the pyth to it we find that his expected winning percentage is .654 or something like that and the Cubs end up winning 21 games when Morgan pitches instead of the 13 he pitches. Note I added 10 runs to his runs allowed to factor in the bullpen and the fact that he would have had Ryne Sandberg manning second. But even if you add more runs to his allowed total he still comes out with a lot more wins then he got. Morgan did not pitch badly that year and when it came to decision was extremely unlucky in that he came up against a lot of good pitchers plus is offense didn't always score a lot of runs for him. So while the basic runs scored and runs allowed would not change I think the Cubs record would have been higher then its pyth due to intangibles.

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 1993, the Cubs finish with a record of 84-78 and finish 13 games back of the Phillies. The 1993 team was a talented team that quite possibly with a change of just two or three events could quite possibly have had the division. The two biggest events are Greg Maddux and the injuries to Ryne Sandberg. But first let’s look at the team. Catcher: Rick Wilkins Rick had the best season of his life and up until that time one of the better hitting seasons for a catcher. He plays in 136 games, 133 as a catcher has this line .303/.376/.561 with 30 homers and 23 doubles. The man was a monster at a position that generally does not see that production. First Base: Mark Grace He has one of the best seasons of his career this year with up until that time his highest SLG average. His line .325/.393/.475 with 39 doubles and 14 homers. Plus he wins the Gold Glove Second Base: Ryne Sandberg Ryne has an off year, experiencing an injury before the season and in the season’s final full month. Despite the off year Ryne was probably no worse then average for second base that year. SS: Rey Sanchez/Jose Vizcaino With Rey you don't get a whole lot but with Jose you a super sub who while he didn't slug a lot did get on base a lot for a middle infielder. He filled second base very well while Ryne was hurt and then played a lot of SS. 3B: Steve Buechele Steve's line was .272/.345/.437 with 15 homers and 27 doubles. Again this is another player having one of his better seasons if not best. CF: Willie Wilson/Dwight Smith Again another mix matched. Wilson is terrible and Smith has is second only good season of his career. LF: Derrick May Derrick has an alright season with a .295/.336/.422. Probably no better or no worse then average. RF: Sammy Sosa Though Sammy does play 70 games in Center (more then Smith) I'll list him here. Sosa ends up having probably no worse then average year with a .261/.309/.485 but with 33 homers 25 doubles and 36 steals. So while he wasn't getting on base a lot when he did get a hit or get on base he was productive. The Bench is a little confusing since this was not a team that had a lot of starters several positions were manned by more then one person. So in that regard the bench was pretty good. Though if the Cubs had been a little smarter they probably would have been the starters thus the starters the bench, thus the bench would be weak. Two bright spots that were not mentioned were Tuffy Rhodes and Hill both of whom came over late in the season and helped fuel the Cubs to an excellent finish. This is an offense to me that should have scored a lot of runs. This is a team that got production out of spots that most teams don't normally get. Namely Catcher, SS, 2B, and CF. The old adage about being strong up the middle applies here. Unfortunately for the Cubs three of those positions were weakened by injury or by bad choices. For instance allowing Willie Wilson and Rey Sanchez to play as many games as they did. When this team had an infield of Wilkins, Buechele, Vizcaino, Ryne, and Grace for an infield it scored a lot of runs. In fact the Cubs second highest month in terms of scoring was May when almost every single game featured that lineup for the infield. June was the next best but slightly lower due to the fact that Buechele missed significant time during that month. The cub’s worst offensive month was April when the only averaged 4 runs per game I think due in large part of the absence of Ryne thus forcing Sanchez into the game. Rey's first month line was .256/.273/.267. Now we all know that Ryne is a notoriously slow starter but the year before 1993 and in 1994 Ryne never had a first month like that. Though he has done something like that line before. The other two weak months are July and August and my best guess is that the wholes in the lineup mainly being LF and CF and Rick wearing down start costing the Cubs runs. Heading into July Ricks line is .312/.387/.580. Coming out of August his line is .293/.364/.552. The acquisition of Rhodes and Hills effectively solves the outfield dilemma thus giving the Cubs there best run output of the year at 5.3 runs from September on. June was 4.54 and May 4.64. So let’s do some computing. If Sandberg doesn't get injured before the season I think the Cubs definitely get more runs in April I am going to put the difference between Rey at SS and Ryne at Second at .33 runs per game or in other words 7.26 runs. Now I think that is being cautious but I think I have to be simply because of Ryne's notorious slow starts. I'll leave May and June alone since for most part the Cubs are trotting out their best lineup at their disposal. I'll add .33 runs to July and August simply because the Cubs for whatever reason continue to trot out Rey Sanchez and Willie Wilson while other options were better at this point. So that is another 18.81 runs added to the Cubs. Now onto to the final stretch, unfortunately for the Cubs when Ryne goes down they give his job to young Eric Yelding who does is best imitation of Rey Sanchez. At this point the cubs offense is hitting on all cylinder but again I will add .33 runs to each games missed by Ryne because when he went down he too was hitting on all cylinder enjoying I believe a 17 game hitting streak and hitting safely in 23 of his last 24 games. So that is 17 games and that gives the Cubs another 5.61 runs. Add it all up and having a healthy Ryne Sandberg and keeping Rey Sanchez from playing probably gives the Cubs 31.17 runs more or in other words 31 runs. Giving the Cubs 769 runs scored and moves them from 6th place in Runs scored to 3rd. Next up pitching

Just got done playing with Tango Tigers Shorthand RE formula for the 2005 Cubs. 0 1 2 BE 0.488 0.267 0.104 1st 0.86 0.515 0.228 2nd 1.115 0.685 0.313 3rd 1.273 0.876 0.393 1st 2nd 1.487 0.933 0.437 1st 3rd 1.645 1.124 0.517 2nd 3rd 1.9 1.294 0.602 Base Fll 2.272 1.542 0.726 Using this RE last years Cubs #1 hitters cost the Cubs 13.5 runs with the bases empty! They had a total of 510 PA with the bases empty and in those 510 PA they cost the Cubs 13.5 runs. That is how bad they were.

The bounce would be small. This wasn't a team expected to win 100 games. If 50 games are played before these players comeback and they go .500 in tham then if you think the Cubs are a 90 win team originally that means the Cubs would be expected to win about 87 games if you still think they have the talent for a 90 win team. There is no real thing as a bounce back, regression doesn't work like that. If you are a .600 level team and you play at a .700 level for a stretch that doesn't mean you will play at a .500 level for another stretch to even it out. It means one can expect them to play at a .600 level in the future. On top of that you have to throw in other teams and their impact on your team. The Reds might be a true .525 team but because of who they play and their talent level they are a .585 team. If thats the case then one shouldn't expect the Reds to regress back to .525 but instead maintain a .585 winning %. Unless of course something changes in the dynamic to alter that view.

Yeah and then went 11-1 in the playoffs. They went 19-12 in the last 31 games, a .613 winning %, for the season they had a .612.

I think you are over-simplifying the argument against Dusty. He handled Murton badly last year. He handled Dubois badly last year. He has handled the entire core of young pitchers badly. The Corey Patterson situation was a fiasco. The way Choi was handled and the comments Baker made about him was not as simple as a Karros-Choi platoon makes it look. Baker was bashing or at the very least talking negatively about Choi in the press from practically the get go, and he was giving Karros starts against righties from the beginning. Playing Lenny was a mistake, but so was playing Tom Goodwin and Ramon Martinez. Yo-yoing Mark Bellhorn and then basically forcing him out. Playing Neifi Perez at all at the end of last year instead of well any other youngster in the world. David Kelton has gotten a grand total of 22 AB's for the Cubs yet Lenny Harris has 131 AB for the Cubs and Tom goodwin 276 AB's. Like someone else said it isn't really important that the young player never developed into anything. What was/is important was that the players Baker was playing instead were already nobodies and were going to continue being nobodies. They were known mediocrities, he gave AB's to players that were going to help the Cubs lose games instead of giving AB's to young players who could very well be something.

Don't know if it is totally Baker but this organization has had a pretty bad track record with giving youngsters a shot. I don't think Baker every gave Choi a true shot nor Hill. Nor can I see how one should credit Baker for playing Zambrano. Zambrano was in the rotation by the end of 2002 before Baker got there and going into 2003 Baker really had no other option outside of youth in replacing him in the rotation or for that matter anyone but youth for that whole year for the rotation. Hendry didn't give him old guys to play with in the rotation like he did for Baker and his bench. But I think the real damning point for Baker is that even when he finally managed a team that was out of it he still refused to give youngsters a shot. One could argue that Baker was always managing teams that had a shot he couldn't afford to break in a youngster but that excuse was basically removed last year. Despite that he still went with vets over the future.

No because we don't really know how he will be used which is why the stats cannot be precise for the future. Jones cannot hit lefties is decent against righties. From there we have the vagaries of variables to true talent level. Right now we got about 40 plate appearances against righties for this season. Is this a true measure of his abilities or are the 1200 PA's the last 3 years better indicators. I would say that if Jones usage is minimized against lefties there is a much higher chance that he won't suck this year. Or I should say his numbers will not remain this low for the whole year. That will probably be the case even if he still recieves some playing time against lefties. Though don't expect his numbers to go up during this stretch of baseball games. A whole lot of lefties are facing the Cubs during this stretch.

It truly is amazing that the Cubs are 5 games up right now. Even with the offense not clicking and without Prior and now without DLee. Right now about half the lineup is practically a blackhole while the other half is performing somewhat not totally but somewhat. Hopefully Pierre and ARam can pick it up or else these clsoe games that are going the Cubs way now might start going the opposing teams way as the season continues on. As for Williams I was never impressed with him. He always seemed like a guy who is always just a centimeter away from disaster.

In terms of past performance statistics can quantify about 100% of what happened. In terms of using stats as a predictive for future performance that % drops way down to somwhere in that 50 to 66% range.

This being April today I prepared my taxes, wrote out a will, and then peniciled in Braves and Yanks for their division. A few other things in life are more certain then Death, Taxes, and Yanks/Braves. NL WEST: Los Angeles NL CENT: St. Louis NL EAST: Atlanta WILD CD: Philadelphia AL WEST: Oakland AL CENT: Minnesota AL EAST: New York WILD CD: Cleveland Atlanta over LA STL over Philadelphia STL over ATL Cleveland over Oakland Minnesota over NY Minnesota over Clevelan St. Louis over Minnesota

So why are you not a Marlins fan?

1. Ryne Sandberg 2. Bobby Abreu 3. Magglio Ordonez 4. Craig Biggio 5. Roosevelt Brown I've got a soft spot for secondbasemen and the players I followed when I came back to watching baseball that were yound and unknown but very good players. I could have put Aramis in there since I've been following him since his days in Pittsburgh but I went with Rosie due to shock value and for the fact that I'll probably always remember him because to me he has come to symbolize to stupid way the cubs handled young talent in this era.

Random positive thoughts hmm. . . We're not the Marlins

I've come up with something I call solitaire fantasy baseball and need some help on it. I used to play roto-ball (and did quite well actually) but I don't really have the time anymore for it. But the whole picking players still intrigues me. SO I came up with this: Take a standard ranking system of each position. The top ten of each then randomly pick a number one through ten for each position, C all the way through closer. With no number repeating, and whateve number you have for a position you are allowed to draft that number and above. So if you have a 4 for third base that means you can pick a thirdbasemen ranked 4th or higher (4th, 5th, 6th, so on), and of course if you feel somebody above 10 is the best choice you can draft him instead. After that is done you then have to draft 3 more starting pitchers and one more closer to round out the staff. For this you draft a pitcher that is ranked no better then 20th, then 30th, then 40th. For closer go with 20th. After that we then draft a bench which includes 5 position players and one pitcher. For the position players one must be a C/SS and the other can be anything but they can be ranked no better then 33rd. For the pitcher no better then 60th. Now my trouble and the point of this message is how does one measuere success? In standard roto that is easy. Who ever wins the most games or ranks the highest is the winner, I don't really know of a good way to find a way to show success for this. Is it some arbitrary numbers? If so what would they be. Basically this setup is more of a challenge of predicting who is going to perform in the upcoming season while standard roto is a mix between predicting, managing, and competing against fellow players

Didn't stop the nats from trading for Soriano. Walker came to the Cubs as a backup and a lot of teams I think still view him as that. At this point I think the Nats would love to just get rid of Soriano. If Soriano stays and plays they have to give him 10 million I believe. I'm sure at every slump or whiff or error they'll be thinking he's calling it in. It gotta be poison on the atmosphere there.