From: Bob Braun on

"David Short" <David.no.Short(a)Spam.Wright.Please.edu> wrote in message
news:hanfmq$if2$1(a)posting.glorb.com...
> John Kasupski wrote:
>> Never mind that the last time the Reds actually won a World Series
>> (1990), Lou
>> Piniella used Billy Hatcher, primarily a CF, as the leadoff man 50 times
>> (shoot
>> Sweet Lou!).
> Of course Eric was "the centerfielder" on that team, but Hatcher had more
> innings in center than he did in left?
>
> Did you know that 'old' Billy Hatcher was 29 years old that year?
> Almost everybody on that team was 26-29.
>
>
>> Fewer still could have kept this team
>> together and playing hard after July when guys started going on the DL in
>> droves
>> and the wheels came off and any hope of contending went around the bowl
>> and down
>> the drain. Especially when he had to re-invent the lineup on a nightly
>> basis for
>> a few weeks there.
>
> Yup.
>
> dfs

Good Dusty/Bad Dusty...........Bad Dusty was FORCED to change the lineup,
which in turn gave him better players. Good Dusty motivated them to play
their asses off until the final out.

He has indeed dispelled that horseshit that he can't communicate with and
manage young players. And I have no major complaints with the way he
handled his pitchers.

Dusty is stubborn to a fault. We've seen that more than once.


From: HTP on
On Oct 8, 11:08 pm, John Kasupski <w2...(a)spamfilter.verizon.net>
wrote:

Atlanta (McLouth, 80 times...shoot Cox!)
Boston (Ellsbury, 117 times...shoot Francona!)
Chicago AL (Podsednik, 119 times...shoot Guillen!)
Cleveland (Sizemore, 77 times...shoot Wedge!)
Colorado (Fowler, 92 times...shoot Hurdle and Tracy!)
Detroit (Granderson, 130 times...shoot Leyland!)
Houston (Bourn, 122 times...shoot Cooper and Clark!)
Minnesota (Span, 143 times...shoot Gardenhire!)
New York NL (Pagan, 77 times...shoot Manuel!)
Pittsburgh (McCutchen, 108 times...shoot Russell!)
San Diego (Gwynn, 58 times...shoot Black!)
Tampa Bay (Upton, 98 times...shoot Maddon!)
Washington - CF (Morgan/Harris, 84 times...shoot Acta and Riggleman!)

Way too much for me to wade through, John. I didnt see in your post
how often Dusty hit his CF at leadoff. I'm guessing its over 100, and
2008 was pretty much the same.

Anyway, the really important thing from the above list was omitted.
What are the OBP of those guys? Now how does that compare to the Reds
CF/leadoff guys, and what does that say about Dusty?

I'll do the work here

PLAYER 2009 OBP 2009 LO-OBP CAREER OBP CAREER LO-OBP
mcClouth .352 .354 82 gm .
342 .345 266 gm
Ellsbury .355 .347 118 .
350 .337 246
Podsednik .353 .355 121 .
340 .342 635
Sizemore .343 .340 77 .
367 .369 675
Fowler .363 .354 100 .
354 .349 102
Granderson .327 .319 130 .
344 .345 548
Bourn .354 .351 122 .
327 .327 198
Span .392 .392 145 .
390 .387 211
Pagan .350 .358 77 .
331 .359 80
McCutchen .365 .365 108
---- -----
Gwynn .350 .338 58 .
331 .316 82
Upton .313 .316 98 .
352 .320 114
Morgan .369 .375 94 .
362 .367 155
Harris .364 .392 39 .
331 .333 258
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Taveras .275 .275 82 .
321 .319 459
Stubbs .323 .330 39
---- ----

* Career OBP includes 2009 season
** game totals are for all games at leadoff regardless of position

Neat stuff imo. i maybe could have thrown in a couple more columns.

The vast majority of the centerfielders on that list would qualify as
ideal leadoff men simply on thier demonstrated ability to get on base.
Maybe theres a couple who shouldnt be hitting at the top but theres
one guy that clearly shouldnt be hitting leadoff or even starting for
that matter. Any guesses?

Willie ranks dead last among this list of cf's in both 2009 OBP and
2009 LO-OBP. He's last in career OBP, and 15 of 16th in career LO-OBP.
Dusty bats Willie leadoff for 2 clear reasons - Taveras can steal a
base, and he plays CF. But this isnt news. We all knew this. We
figured this out last year when Patterson was here.

bonus:

Some good dusty baker quote (culled from prospectus)

"I think walks are overrated unless you can run... If you get a walk
and put the pitcher in a stretch, that helps. But the guy who walks
and can't run, most of the time they're clogging up the bases for
somebody who can run."
--Dusty Baker, Cubs manager (Chicago Daily Herald)

"Who's been the champions the last seven, eight years? ...Have you
ever heard the Yankees talk about on-base percentage and walks? Walks
help. But you ain't going to walk across the plate. You're going to
hit across the plate. That's the school I come from."
--Baker

"It's called hitting, and it ain't called walking. Do you ever see the
top 10 walking? You see top 10 batting average. A lot of those top 10
do walk. But the name of the game is to hit."
--Baker

"I'm really tired of people always picking at what I don't do...
There's a whole bunch of them out there that haven't done what I have
done. I don't pay no attention to that criticism. Why don't people
leave me alone? Why do they always talk [bleep] on me?"
--Baker







From: Bushcraftgregg on
On Oct 8, 5:05 pm, HTP <tmbowma...(a)yahoo.com> wrote:

> Were in a good period for Reds pitching. I hope everyone comes to
> appreciate what we have now.- Hide quoted text -
>

Well, that is what I thought myself this season.

Bottom line. These pitchers need to win games
and not break down during the year.

Who is responsible for this when it happens
year after year after year?

I'll watch them next season but I won't be fooled
again.

From: John Kasupski on
On Fri, 9 Oct 2009 13:40:35 -0700 (PDT), HTP <tmbowman25(a)yahoo.com> wrote:

>Anyway, the really important thing from the above list was omitted.
>What are the OBP of those guys? Now how does that compare to the Reds
>CF/leadoff guys, and what does that say about Dusty?

Okay, you want the guy with the best OBP to lead off? That would be Joey Votto
with .414. That would be utterly ridiculous, of course - but that's probably why
major league teams hire baseball guys as managers instead of math geeks.

<snip>

>The vast majority of the centerfielders on that list would qualify as
>ideal leadoff men simply on thier demonstrated ability to get on base.

The vast majority of the center fielders on that list were also not on the
Cincinnati Reds 2009 roster.

>Maybe theres a couple who shouldnt be hitting at the top but theres
>one guy that clearly shouldnt be hitting leadoff or even starting for
>that matter. Any guesses?

Well, like I asked originally, who do you think should have been leading off?

>Willie ranks dead last among this list of cf's in both 2009 OBP and
>2009 LO-OBP. He's last in career OBP, and 15 of 16th in career LO-OBP.
>Dusty bats Willie leadoff for 2 clear reasons - Taveras can steal a
>base, and he plays CF. But this isnt news. We all knew this. We
>figured this out last year when Patterson was here.

Once again, who do you think he should have had leading off?

He wrote on the lineup card the names of the guys he had on the roster. He
doesn't have Nate McLouth on the roster. If you want to complain about that
fact, you should level your criticism at Walt Jocketty. Dusty isn't the GM. He
doesn't go out and sign players to contracts. he doesn't have the authority to
do that. That's Jocketty's function. Baker didn't sign Taveras, and he didn't
sign Patterson - Jocketty did. Baker didn't sign Gonzalez. Heck, Jocketty didn't
even sign Gonzalez, Wayne Krivsky did.

Next year people will probably be bitching again that "Baker always picks old
veteran players over young players" because he will have Scott Rolen in the
lineup at third base instead of the younger Juan Francisco - as if it was Baker
who made the trade with the Blue Jays and Baker's idea to pay Rolen $11 million.
Another false criticism handed down from the racists in Chicago.

>bonus:
>
>Some good dusty baker quote (culled from prospectus)
>
>"I think walks are overrated unless you can run... If you get a walk
>and put the pitcher in a stretch, that helps. But the guy who walks
>and can't run, most of the time they're clogging up the bases for
>somebody who can run."
>--Dusty Baker, Cubs manager (Chicago Daily Herald)

Misquoted, and taken out of context.

http://chicago.cubs.mlb.com/news/article.jsp?ymd=20060824&content_id=1626835&vkey=news_chc&fext=.jsp&c_id=chc

What Dusty was asked to comment on at the time (in 2006) was the fact that the
Cubs were dead last in the NL in OBP, and what he said was this:

"On-base percentage is great if you can score runs and do something with that
on-base percentage," Baker said. "Clogging up the bases isn't that great to me.
The problem we have to address more than anything is the home run problem."

To put it in terms Reds fans can understand, it doesn't do much good to have,
for example, Ryan Freel and Felipe Lopez getting on base if Adam Dunn and Ken
Griffey fail to drive them in.

His words are a criticism of the theory that the basic job of ANY hitter is to
get on base. I happen to agree with baker. It's the job of the table-setters to
reach base and provide RBI opportunities for the power hitters behind them in
the lineup. Adam Dunn or a Joey Votto drawing a walk doesn't drive in runs. And
that's what Dusty is saying - walks may represent potential runs scored, but
they don't do you any good unless somebody drives in those runners. How does
Dunn drawing a walk help score runs when he has the likes of David Ross, Juan
Castro, Buck Coats, Jason Ellison hitting behind him in the lineup? It doesn't!

>"Who's been the champions the last seven, eight years? ...Have you
>ever heard the Yankees talk about on-base percentage and walks? Walks
>help. But you ain't going to walk across the plate. You're going to
>hit across the plate. That's the school I come from."
>--Baker
>
>"It's called hitting, and it ain't called walking. Do you ever see the
>top 10 walking? You see top 10 batting average. A lot of those top 10
>do walk. But the name of the game is to hit."
>--Baker

Again, I think he's absolutely right. I agree 100%. They ARE called "hitters"
not "walkers" and the point of the game isn't to watch the ball go by you, the
idea is to HIT the friggin' thing. The Yankees did finish first in OBP in the
major leagues, but they also happened to be first in homers, slugging, and total
bases and second in hits, The Phillies only finished 14th in OBP, but third in
homers and slugging and fourth in total bases, and second in the NL in steals.

>"I'm really tired of people always picking at what I don't do...
>There's a whole bunch of them out there that haven't done what I have
>done. I don't pay no attention to that criticism. Why don't people
>leave me alone? Why do they always talk [bleep] on me?"
>--Baker

Tasteless, spiteful, irrelevant to baseball, and not worth discussing in this
context, but...Baker has 8021 more major league plate appearances, 16 more years
experience as a major league manager, and 1314 more wins as a major league
manager than any of the people who are talking [bleep] about him. Not that
anything at all needs to be said, but if it does, I think that says it.

Look, I told you guys when the Reds hired Baker that the statheads were going to
hate him. Of course, I didn't realize that the statheads among Reds fans would
be so inept as to have to stoop to borrowing their criticisms of him from the
racist imbeciles in Chicago. Is that the best you can do? Really? Is that all
you can do to justify your irrational hatred of Baker is to quote stuff he said
four or more years ago when he was managing the Cubs, and much is which is 100%
spot on at that? Can't you even come up with your own arguments? How pathetic.

Of course, those who would prefer to root for a team that's run according to the
principles of saber can always go root for Oakland, where they've swallowed it
hook, line, and sinker. But the Reds had four more wins and were nine games
closer to the division leader than the A's were.

And - oh, yeah - the Reds also drew more walks.

JK

From: John Kasupski on
On Fri, 09 Oct 2009 10:01:54 -0400, David Short
<David.no.Short(a)Spam.Wright.Please.edu> wrote:

>John Kasupski wrote:
>> Never mind that the last time the Reds actually won a World Series (1990), Lou
>> Piniella used Billy Hatcher, primarily a CF, as the leadoff man 50 times (shoot
>> Sweet Lou!).
>Of course Eric was "the centerfielder" on that team, but Hatcher had
>more innings in center than he did in left?

Yeah. If I recall correctly, Davis started the season as the center fielder, but
then got hurt and Hatcher and Herm Winningham split time in center, and then
after Davis came back, Lou put him Eric in left in the hope that he would be
less likely to get hurt again.

Lou also tried other guys leading off. Sabo was the leadoff man early on and
actually had the most games there. Hatcher had the second most. Larkin had it
for awhile too, and in fact was the leadoff man in all four WS games..

>Did you know that 'old' Billy Hatcher was 29 years old that year?
>Almost everybody on that team was 26-29.

Yep. The average age for that team was 27.5, which is quite young when you
consider that for awhile it included Ken Griffey Sr. (40), Rick Mahler was 36,
Ron Oester was 34, Bill Doran and Alex Trevino were 32, and Browning was 30.

>> Fewer still could have kept this team
>> together and playing hard after July when guys started going on the DL in droves
>> and the wheels came off and any hope of contending went around the bowl and down
>> the drain. Especially when he had to re-invent the lineup on a nightly basis for
>> a few weeks there.
>
>Yup.

Heh...I just noticed that even with 14 guys that were over 30, and with Weathers
and Rhodes at 39, the average age for this year's team was just 27.7. Was that
the Louisville Reds or the Cincinnati Bats?

JK

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