I'll also say this, it's pretty difficult to be as good as this Cub team is while bringing up the rear in batting average. That's probably your best argument for the brilliance of Maddon.

_________________
Anybody here seen my old friend Bobby?
Can you tell me where he's gone?
I thought I saw him walkin' up to The Hill
With Matthew, Tulsi, and Don

Of Course saying the Cubs are only better at 3 spots is not almost every position.

_________________

I'm not looking to get into the semantics of "almost" with you. If you're looking for such an argument I'm sure BRick will be around later.

But you're ignoring the context of my post you quoted. It was a response in a thread called something like "Would any Sox player start for the Cubs?" wherein Cub fans were using selective criteria to argue in favor of each Cub.

Has Soler had a better tear than Garcia? Has Fowler had a better year than Eaton? Has Rizzo had a better year than Abreu? I don't know who you consider the Cub second baseman. Is it the guy with 4 RBI in 100 at bats? I'll grant you Russell has been marginally better than Ramirez. At the time of that post their numbers were very similar.

_________________
Anybody here seen my old friend Bobby?
Can you tell me where he's gone?
I thought I saw him walkin' up to The Hill
With Matthew, Tulsi, and Don

Then why are the Cubs 20 games better than the Sox in the standings if they are so close in players? We know its not the manager. Is it really all Tyler Flowers fault?

_________________

1. Pitching
2. Bryant
3. Bench

_________________
Anybody here seen my old friend Bobby?
Can you tell me where he's gone?
I thought I saw him walkin' up to The Hill
With Matthew, Tulsi, and Don

Let's not say things we don't mean. That was a great thread.

_________________

So managing doesn't matter, the Sox players are pretty much the same of better... but the Cubs are a couple dozen games better in a tougher division... how does this add up?

_________________
"Play until it hurts, then play until it hurts to not play."
http://soundcloud.com/darkside124 HOF 2013, MM Champion 2014

1. You don't know when managing matters and when it doesn't so you should shut the fuck up about it.

2. The Sox have some players better than their Cub counterparts. The Cubs clearly have a better team.

3. If the NL Central is so tough how could the AL be the 30-something games above .500 vs. the NL that they are?

_________________
Anybody here seen my old friend Bobby?
Can you tell me where he's gone?
I thought I saw him walkin' up to The Hill
With Matthew, Tulsi, and Don

What are you talking about? Good lord you're angry for no reason calm down dude. Mercy. Managing matters every day. Leadership matters. Handling the players every day matters. The way he handled Castro and his benching and subsequent reinstatement mattered. His looseness matters. The team tends to take the personality of it's management and that worked this year.



Some. That's a bit different from what you were saying earlier. I like it. You've adapted.


You're not serious. You can't be serious. You're desperate. It's stinky.

_________________
"Play until it hurts, then play until it hurts to not play."
http://soundcloud.com/darkside124 HOF 2013, MM Champion 2014

So the Cubs are only better at third and left a few weeks ago, but today they've got some better players.. EVOLUTION OF JORR!

_________________
"Play until it hurts, then play until it hurts to not play."
http://soundcloud.com/darkside124 HOF 2013, MM Champion 2014

JORR, I love ya, buddy. You're losing it, though.

_________________

So Matt Williams was a great manager last year and a horrible one this year.



Again, I would appreciate my comments not being taken out of context. Are Soler, Fowler, and Baez better than the Sox guys on the numbers? You don't like the answer. So you're pretending as if I'm saying something outlandish.



Why do you hate facts? How can the NL be stronger when they're 30 games under .500 vs. the AL? By your rationale, maybe the Sox are better than the Cubs.

Finally, I'm not sure why I'm arguing with a guy who is rooting for his favorite team to lose in the playoffs.

_________________
Anybody here seen my old friend Bobby?
Can you tell me where he's gone?
I thought I saw him walkin' up to The Hill
With Matthew, Tulsi, and Don

Anyone can have success one year and not have it the next. Pitchers, managers, anyone. Maddon is the right man in the right place at the right time. Perhaps in 2 years he will not be. Today, this season, he is.

You said that the Sox were better at every position but two. That's not out of context.


Perhaps you should re-read what I wrote. I did not argue that the NL was stronger. Not at all.


Reading comprehension is not your thing I guess. I am positively rooting for them and I am really hoping they do well. I probably said that 3 or 4 times in that thread. You have a hard time understanding things. I have a cousin with a learning disability so I'm not unfamiliar with the effects they have on people. I forgive you.

_________________
"Play until it hurts, then play until it hurts to not play."
http://soundcloud.com/darkside124 HOF 2013, MM Champion 2014

You're not good at this.

_________________
Anybody here seen my old friend Bobby?
Can you tell me where he's gone?
I thought I saw him walkin' up to The Hill
With Matthew, Tulsi, and Don

Was good enough to trounce you.
But I didn't need to be good at this to do so, to be fair, so you may be right yet.

_________________
"Play until it hurts, then play until it hurts to not play."
http://soundcloud.com/darkside124 HOF 2013, MM Champion 2014

What makes a good manager? A winning team. Matt Williams has managed a winning team. He must have been good. The he got bad. Or maybe, he was just as good as his players played. What do you think makes more sense?

Maybe Maddon is "the right man in the right place at the right time". If he makes a questionable decision in the playoffs does that mean he got stupid?


It is out of context. Bryant is a big difference maker. Unlike a swap of Maddon and Ventura, I'm sure the records would be different if you swapped Bryant for Saladino/Beckham.



if the NL is weaker, how can the NL Central be stronger?



Nope. You thought it would be better for them to lose. And then you took heat and began backtracking. Then you did the Darkside.

_________________
Anybody here seen my old friend Bobby?
Can you tell me where he's gone?
I thought I saw him walkin' up to The Hill
With Matthew, Tulsi, and Don

You've never trounced anyone here. You've even been trounced by a mult on home improvement tips.

_________________
Anybody here seen my old friend Bobby?
Can you tell me where he's gone?
I thought I saw him walkin' up to The Hill
With Matthew, Tulsi, and Don

So your position is that Bryant is something like a +20 WAR? And you give us shit for saying he's potentially HOF caliber material.
Odd.


Oh. I see. So we're either of the mindframe that the manager does it all or doesn't. Of course the players make a huge difference. Of course the quality of the players makes the majority of the wins and losses. We all know that. The point is that management makes a difference in many games. Certainly Joe Maddon didn't win 97 games this year on his own. I don't think anyone suggests that. The Cubs are a good team but there's no way they win 97 with Renteria. Maddon counts for some of the success.



Is this a joke?


No. Again no. And I can't get my mind around how you don't understand this. The point was that there's two ways of taking a loss in a big meaningful game. You can let it break you or you can let it make you. I thought that with the makeup of this team, the manager that they have, if they didn't win that game they would be back even better next year than had they won that game because they'll feed off it, grow from it and never want to feel like that again.

Yeah, you're getting desperate. Best wishes to you, hope you try to enjoy the weekend.

_________________
"Play until it hurts, then play until it hurts to not play."
http://soundcloud.com/darkside124 HOF 2013, MM Champion 2014

Brady Anderson had an all-time great season. He must have been great. Then he got bad.
That's how sports work.

The same can be applied to managers as players. Both matter.

_________________

You just beat his ass sideways.

It's not the same at all. Brady Anderson is good or bad based on his own efforts. Joe Maddon is good or bad based on the efforts of Rizzo and Arrieta.

_________________
Anybody here seen my old friend Bobby?
Can you tell me where he's gone?
I thought I saw him walkin' up to The Hill
With Matthew, Tulsi, and Don

Now he knows he lost. You're the dumbest guy who ever posted here.

_________________
Anybody here seen my old friend Bobby?
Can you tell me where he's gone?
I thought I saw him walkin' up to The Hill
With Matthew, Tulsi, and Don

Do you not see how Maddon could influence Rizzo or Bryant having a more successful season?
Really? You really do not see that?

Did Maddon affect Castro's success this year? At all?

_________________

ChicagoEd.

_________________

That wasn't nice. You get mean a lot.

But I guess even the dumb guy knows you got moon pounded.

_________________
"Play until it hurts, then play until it hurts to not play."
http://soundcloud.com/darkside124 HOF 2013, MM Champion 2014

I find it funny how I am always the dumb guy. Smarter at life than this prick will ever be. Better baseball thoughts also. Go on dreaming about 2005 and pounding your dick to it as your gross wife wipes her ass with a kitchen towel that says Go Sox Go !!! You fucking pudwack.

Yep.

Dumb.

_________________

_________________

Then we agree. JORR is a dipshit.

Yeah so that did get a little weird.

_________________
"Play until it hurts, then play until it hurts to not play."
http://soundcloud.com/darkside124 HOF 2013, MM Champion 2014