are the CUBS just stupid?

[Kingctb27]

The Cubs are the Closest thing to the NBA's version of the Knicks. If you have any question's just look at their draft picks of the past few years.

[George_Foreman]

i dunno. the mets are up there, too. reyes leading off? common.... you want baserunners in front of beltran, et al. put reyes 7th and let him run whenever he gets on.

[beltrans_boy]

i'm sure putting sub-.300 OBP players right in front of your high-OPS guys will decrease run production. if you've got data that says otherwise, i'd be very interested to see it.

There was a very interesting article in Sports Illustrated about a month ago. The issue was dedicated to the lineup and the leadoff man. I've been looking online for numbers to back it up, but there was a short blurb about how you could completely randomize a lineup, and it would only take away 5 or 6 runs over the entire SEASON...at least according to Bill James.

If anyone remembers this article or can find other information to back it up, please let me know.

[Chuckles]

i'm sure putting sub-.300 OBP players right in front of your high-OPS guys will decrease run production. if you've got data that says otherwise, i'd be very interested to see it.

There was a very interesting article in Sports Illustrated about a month ago. The issue was dedicated to the lineup and the leadoff man. I've been looking online for numbers to back it up, but there was a short blurb about how you could completely randomize a lineup, and it would only take away 5 or 6 runs over the entire SEASON...at least according to Bill James.

If anyone remembers this article or can find other information to back it up, please let me know.

That's kind of surprising to me...doesn't seem logical.

[pmacxx2]

i'm sure putting sub-.300 OBP players right in front of your high-OPS guys will decrease run production. if you've got data that says otherwise, i'd be very interested to see it.

There was a very interesting article in Sports Illustrated about a month ago. The issue was dedicated to the lineup and the leadoff man. I've been looking online for numbers to back it up, but there was a short blurb about how you could completely randomize a lineup, and it would only take away 5 or 6 runs over the entire SEASON...at least according to Bill James.

If anyone remembers this article or can find other information to back it up, please let me know.

That kind of logic completely ignores over 100 years of baseball. You want your best hitters to get as many bats as possible in a game. Why does the best hitter on a team bat 3rd? To get him as many at bats as possible and to allow for the possibility of runners being on base when he bats. I would love to see this article because it makes no "logical" sense when hypothesized.

[RynMan]

Interesting how the closer problem is hurting the starters. Zambrano threw 136 pitches today, probably because Dusty has no faith in his pen to hold it down.
This would worry me if I had Zambrano......he is also at the peak age for injury to occur according to research.

[GotowarMissAgnes]

http://alumnus.caltech.edu/~raj/writing ... Order.html

As often happens, people need to be careful about what the data show.

Batting order does matter. The best order would beat the worst order over the course of a season by about 6-9 games.

BUT, most teams don't use the worst order. They use what is labeled in this study as the "conventional" order. And the difference between the best order and the conventional order is what is very, very small, only about 4 runs over the course of the season.

So, the difference between the best and the worst order is big.
But, the difference between what most teams do and what would be best is very small.

[quicksilver8]

to answer the title of the post: Yes, Cubs and Dusty are idiots. I have made my disgust with Dusty well known, so I will not rehash it here

[TB13]

This would worry me if I had Zambrano......he is also at the peak age for injury to occur according to research.

That has been my point of view for a while now. Zam is the next one. One can argue that Wood never recovered from all the pitches he threw two years ago.

[RynMan]

This would worry me if I had Zambrano......he is also at the peak age for injury to occur according to research.

That has been my point of view for a while now. Zam is the next one. One can argue that Wood never recovered from all the pitches he threw two years ago.

Carefull.....i smell wveres around here somewhere.....he'll chime in at any second. But yeah, this is a terrible scenario for Zambrano cuz it can do nothing but strain him if his manager doesnt have faith in his pen.