sitting around with friends betting the over with an over umpire behind the plate we often yelled the walk is your friend at the tv trying to coax a walk

when I want runs I love walks

A guy on my team drawing a walk certainly doesn't upset me, but I think that the fetishization of the walk is bad for the game in general. And I don't believe it's as simple as slowly repeating that, "the. object. is. not. to. make. an. out." I'm waiting for the day a guy's Hall of Fame plaque says, "He was great at not making outs."

bernstein was just talking about Votto. I have nothing against Votto. He's a fine player who gets on base a lot. But ultimately, he's often leaving the real business to another guy who probably isn't as good a hitter as he is. Even great Hall of Famers like Frank Thomas and Ted Williams were criticized in their own time for "walking too much". That's pretty fucking stupid. But I can't pay a two-hole hitter the way Votto is paid. Either you're scoring or driving one in. Everything else is less important.

_________________
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

If the guy doesn't sacrifice, there's a decent chance he's gonna strike out.

_________________
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

I am a BIG FAN of not swinging at bad pitches. If a pitcher throws you a pitch you are looking for on 0-0, let er rip. Problem with Sox is they let er rip no matter the pitch or the count.

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Reality is your friend, not your enemy. -- Seacrest

I prefer Vladimir Guerrero to Ferris Fain.

_________________
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

I prefer winning to losing.

_________________
Reality is your friend, not your enemy. -- Seacrest

Do you know the last time the walk leader won the World Series?

_________________
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

2005?

_________________
Reality is your friend, not your enemy. -- Seacrest

07

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I'm going to bounce from the spot for awhile but I will be back at some point to argue with you about this hoops stuff again. Playoffs have been great this season. See ya up the road.

I'm out.

When's the last time the than with the worst bb/k ratio won the WS

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Reality is your friend, not your enemy. -- Seacrest

The trade of "Have bat, will swing" Starlin Castro and signing od Zobrist and Heyward, who both work the count and see lots of pitches only served to make them an even more disciplined offensive squad.

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Go Cubs!!!!

I'd prefer my guys not strike out.

_________________
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 watch the White Sox?

Based on his posted baseball thoughts, I think he does their road games on TV.

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Power is always in the hands of the masses of men. What oppresses the masses is their own ignorance, their own short-sighted selfishness.
- Henry George

But his thoughts are better than the Hawkeroo. Yaz is the best hitter I ever saw. Can of corn. Stretttttchy looks up. Kiss my ass you old fool. Go away.

You're an asshole.*

But Hawk and I agree that there are many things in the game that don't appear on the stat sheet. Take the comparison between Jack McDowell and Jose DeLeon. DeLeon was better at preventing runs and he was better at preventing baserunners. He was better at not allowing home runs. He was better at missing bats. According to the conventional wisdom spouted by so many fans today, there is no possible way to argue that McDowell was better than DeLeon. Of course, you and I being baseball fans know that he was and it's not even close. The only place McDowell's superiority shows itself is in the respective W/L records. That's because there is no stat for guts. There is no stat for guile. McDowell had both in huge quantity and it's why he finished 40 games over .500. DeLeon had neither and the fact that he was 35 games under for his career is a reflection of such.



*This is not meant to be construed as a threat.

_________________
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

Im not sure what you're saying here. Yes it was Bonds, but most of the leaderboard in OPS will be guys who walk a lot.

And I dont need to justify anything. Juice or not all three WS Red Sox teams were high walk teams and had a lot of guys that worked long counts like this Cub team does. That's just a very well known fact.

The start of the game was really something last night. The Cubs "forced" the starting pitcher to throw 50 pitches before knocking him out of the game in the very first inning. The question is whether that was due to their discipline or if the Reds pitcher just flat out sucks.

_________________

Both.

_________________
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

49, they took him out before the 50th.


What was odd about that was the first few batters he was missing real close. I thought he was going to be around the plate all night and challenge but he just lost it.

The thing that concerns me a bit is whether the conscious effort to grind out at-bats and draw walks is affecting their actual hitting. Other than Fowler, no one is really hitting well (yet). The results have been great so far, so it's hard to complain.

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Zobrist and Montero seem to be hitting the ball very well. Rizzo, too

It was nice to see Soler get a couple hits last night. I worry about him more than anyone. Not sure what he is.

Soler is frustrating. When he's at his worst he can't even hit mistake pitches down the middle. When he's on he can hit any fastball in any location. All it takes to get him out though is a righty who can command his slider on the outside corner.

it's funny...to train guys who can't pick up pitches, what do you do? You have them sit there and take pitches...we used to use different color baseballs. Four or five colors so guys could identify them at close range, see the pitch, see the spin. It caused them to dial in and hit better. Being patient means you see a guy's arsenal...you'll hit better seeing more pitches from a guy. Period.

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Ба́бушка гада́ла, да на́двое сказа́ла—то ли до́ждик, то ли снег, то ли бу́дет, то ли нет.