Grass Is Always Greener On The Other Side
GAME 46 PREVIEW
COLORADO ROCKIES (14-31) at CHICAGO CUBS (21-24)
Wrigley Field, 1.20pm CT, TV: CSN, Fox Sports RM
Todd Walker, freshly back from the disabled list, is never one to shy away from giving his opinion. At the start of the year, for instance, he pronounced that the 16 runs the Cubs scored against the Diamondbacks in the season opener was reliable evidence that the offence wasn't as bad as everyone had feared. Er, okay. He's changed his tune a bit. From today's Tribune...
| SP Mark Prior | SP *Joe Kennedy |
| SS #Desi Relaford | CF Jerry Hairston |
| 2B Luis Gonzalez | SS #Neifi Perez |
| 1B *Todd Helton | 1B Derrek Lee |
| CF Preston Wilson | 3B Aramis Ramirez |
| RF *Brad Hawpe | LF Jason Dubois |
| LF Matt Holliday | RF *Jeromy Burnitz |
| 3B Garrett Atkins | CF *Corey Patterson |
| C #JD Closser | C Henry Blanco |
| Pitcher's spot | Pitcher's spot |
Even if you're a Tony Gwynn, he's not going to hit here what he hit in San Diego because of the tall grass. You hit balls in the gaps that land in front of the outfielders, and it's a single not a double. It doesn't kick and keep going. If you stand at home plate here, and you stand at home plate at Coors Field, there's a major difference in the outfield as a whole. I'm sure there's a purpose for [the Cubs keeping the grass long]. But here's my point: You either need home-run guys or speed guys. If you're a great hitter--like Nomar [Garciaparra]--he hit .290 [in 2004] instead of .320. A lot of balls Nomar hits for base hits go through third and short. And from what I noticed, those were being caught. Maybe 40 years ago they were hitting the ball around [Wrigley was a hitter's park]. But over the last few years, and especially the last two years, if you don't hit home runs, you have to have guys who bunt and steal and do the small ball thing--not two [players], but more like six or seven of those guys.Todd Walker is off-base. There's little evidence to suggest that the grass is any tougher on hits (or doubles in particular) than other ballparks, at least according to ESPN's park factors. Perhaps part of the reason for that is that, though when the ball rolls it quickly slows, on the bounce the ball can really scoot. It'll come as news to nobody that Wrigley doesn't quite play like Coors, but I think that's the first time anyone's made the point that the grass is the difference between the two. Thin air at altitude, anyone? As for his comment regarding Nomar, he should be aware that Nomar hadn't hit .320 in Boston for a good few years until the first half of last year, and that even then the words small sample size are somewhat fitting. A more plausible excuse for "only" hitting .290 might also be found in Nomar's Achilles injury. Walker's unlying tone throughout (or at least the tone suggested by the way the piece is written by, er, Paul Sullivan) is that the grass is responsible for all our offensive woes. He's wrong. He's also wrong to come to the conclusion that, the grass supposedly being the problem, the Cubs have to have players up and down the lineup capable of bunting and stealing a base. If the grass really is causing so many extra outs on balls in play and as a result so many fewer baserunners, is the solution really to give up more outs (or risk more outs) whenever you have a rare baserunner on? I somewhat doubt it. It'd strike me as more fitting to instead find ways onto the bases that don't involve subjecting the ball to the grass. Take a wild swing at what I'm talking about. And then, with bases clogged, hit your homers if you will. That is, of course, if the problem is the grass. And it isn't. It's our offence.
Tags:
That is kind of damming with faint praise. :)
That may be true. But is he any less of a prospect than Darwin Barney was?
Barney: .288/.337/.378 in the minors, 35/45 steals 1724 PA's
Watkins:.281/.372/.389, 88/124 steals, 2205 PA's
http://espn.go.com/blog/chicago/cubs/post/_/id/170...
It seems unlikely to me that Watkins will be able to keep up his walk totals in the majors, which kind of makes him a non-prospect.
Per the Baseball Cube (http://www.thebaseballcube.com/players/profile.asp...), Derek played the part of two seasons in A ball. He had 56 erros in 128 games in 1993, and 9 errors in 11 games in 1992.
I remember a conversation at TCR years ago with reference to Starlin's propensity for errors, and it was brought up that Jeter once committed 59 in A ball. It was a mini-point of discussion because different sources were reporting the number as either 59 or 159, but it was determined to be 59. Edit: I guess it was 56, funny we both thought of the same thing.
Not sure if it is a record, but in 1993 at Greenboro Derek Jeter had 56 errors.
Anybody know the record for errors at Single-A? Javy Baez with 2 more yesterday - now with 19 for the season.....
I was listening to the "live" audio on mlb.com when the Cubs drafted Dustin Geiger back in 2010, and they announced him as an "outfielder" when they drafted him. So although he had played 3rd base in HS, the Cubs Area Scout projected Geiger as a corner outfielder. But to get him to sign (he had signed an NLI with Central Florida), the Cubs had to give him an overslot bonus and agree to let him play 3B (at least for a while).
So look for Geiger to be moved to a corner OF slot (probably LF, what with Soler holding down RF) sometime soon.
Outstanding effort Phil. Thanks for the updates.
tough loss today, if this team could hit with risp be more fun to watch.
they are moving forward though
m.bowden DFA'd...damn.
Thanks as always, AZ.
On a different subject, I just now noticed the record of the L.A. Angels in the standings.
m.garza debuts tuesday vs pitt
vanillawafers (with recently shaved mustache) to the pen
Ugh
they have an entire section of the bleachers today...kinda creepy.