CWSGuy406

True, but we have more pressing needs than adding another power-right handed bat - i.e. bullpen help, another starter, speed/OBP (leadoff man), left-handed power bat.

Because, he's shown the ability to be a capable everyday leadoff man. He walks, can steal some bases, and (IIRC) plays a pretty solid second base. He or Johnny Damon would be great pickups for this team...

If one is effective and efficient in his/her spending habits, he/her can assemble a playoff team on a payroll of $65-$70 million or in that area. JMHO...

Ouch. Sometimes those soft tappers are the ones that hurt most...

Michael Lewis wrote it, correct? BTW - when did the BoSox hire James?

I need a lot of help with this. I need to write a program in C++ that calculates stocks and places them into a table-like format. Can someone help me out? And, perhaps teach me a little bit of it too? I would really appreciate, I've only missed one class this year, and I'm totally lost. I have no clue what the hell we're doing... Anyways, here's the program I need to write... (Alignment may be off.) "Create a program that lists a stock portfolio from the prior day. Have the user input his or her name, today's date, and information about 3 stocks (stock name, its opening value for yesterday, its closing value for yesterday, and the amount of shares owned). Use decimals and integer. Create a table of information as output. The table should look as follows: D A's Portfolio 1/28/03 (previous day) Stock Name Opening Value Closing Value Shares Amount Gained/Lost Toys R Us 15 18 100 +300 Microsoft 26 25.5 50 -25 Mobil 27 31 200 +475 Totals We've been using strcpy's, strcat's, chars, ints, floats, cin's, cout's, and I have absolutely no f***ing clue what any of it means. And I can't take the class Pass/Fail, so - because I have a C in the class, it means my class rank of 26th is going to drop, and I'm so f***ing pissed. I need to understand this s*** ASAP...

I did read Moneyball, and I liked it. But that doesn't make me the total Billy Beane fanatic. I consider myself to be somewhat like Steve Stone (if I were to be a GM) - meaning, I pay attention to OBP, OPS stats like that - but I also pay attention to a guy being clutch, and unlike the Moneyball way, I think that sacrificing is a key part of baseball (not all of the time, though). Also, among other things, stuff like a guy's character and how he is in the clubhouse - intangibles like that. Damn, I hope I can get into baseball when I'm older... But I don't see the point of why you brought that up....?

No, I don't agree with you - because they're the ONLY team in the playoffs with two dominant starters like Pedro and Schilling. It's not the norm. Of course, if we had Randy Johnson and Carlos Zambrano, a good bullpen (in the playoffs) wouldn't be as important. But the fact is, we don't - we have Mark Buehrle and Freddy Garcia. Very good pitchers, but not dominant.

Well, of course it has to do with offense. Let's just say that this team we're making is like a recipe, with three ingredients (for this sake) - offense, bullpen, and rotation. Ah, s***, this comparison is going no where. I think what I'm trying to say is this. You need the good bullpen to get you into the playoffs. Once the playoffs hit, it totally depends - if you have a dominant rotation in the playoffs, you're pretty set - even without a good bullpen. But not many teams will even make the playoffs with - at the very least - a good bullpen. This years teams seem to fit that mold: -New York has Gordon and Rivera. -Boston has Foulke - but they also have two of the more dominant pitchers, so the bullpen becomes less of a factor. -Anahiem has a very good bullpen - with K-Rod to Percival. -Minny with a very good bullpen, of Romero, Nathan, and the other righty who's name doesn't come to mind right now. -LA - good bullpen. -St Louis - awesome bullpen. -Atlanta - solid bullpen. -Houston - solid bullpen (at least, down the stretch. And Lidge is awesome.)

Oh - ye Miss Cleo - will thou please tellest me who will winnest the NBA Title? And - how long willest the NHL lockout last? Please - oh wise one, tell me... :rolly

I'd say D, with I being the runner-up. I'm interested to know who I voted for, because I honestly don't know the stats by heart. I'm thinking it's two out of these four - Oswalt, Clemens, Johnson, Schmidt - but I'm not positive... Good thread, Rex...

OK - thanks for clearing that up, Farmteam and FA. Good.

Just wondering - can someone name me one guy in the Cubs bullpen who is reliable as say a Keith Foulke, a Mariano Rivera, a Brad Lidge? Hell, even a Tom Gordon - someone you can rely on nine times out of ten? Because there isn't really anyone down there who is that reliable. If they had one of those guys, right now we'd probably be dreading another Cubby post season appearance...

Well - thank God the Cubs aren't in it, for one. This year, I'll actually be able to enjoy the playoffs, rather than having to endure every day that the Cubs were still in the playoffs... But - I think I'll be cheering for the Cardinals. They were actually my first beloved team in baseball, before I became a Sox fan. I want to see how their offense performs against playoff caliber pitching. There will definitely be some teams I'll be cheering against. New York and LA are definitely teams I'll be cheering against. New York for the obvious reason, and LA because my brother likes them and I usually cheer against teams my brother likes (except the Sox). I won't mind if Houston, Atlanta, or Anahiem win it; I'd be happy for all of those teams if they were to win it. Boston - ehh, I think I'm kind of rooting against (sorry redandwhite). Then again, I'm kind of on the fence about them. I actually like most of their players, but some of their fans kind of piss me off, but oh well. I'll just say I'm indifferent to them... And finally, Minnesota. I think if they were to win the World Series, it might really hurt this team. If they were to win, they'd get an instant boost in attendence for next year, which means more payroll - and if they actually have money to spend, that means another year of Radke, plus the possibility of them adding even more players to an already pretty solid team. Then again, it might jumpstart this Sox franchise to get going - but I doubt that would happen. Who do you want to win, though? And why?

At this point, though, I could care less about wins. Hell - I hope we play well and all, but the higher of a pick we get, the better it is for us. I'll never cheer for our team for lose, but at this point, a top five pick isn't out of the question. A stud LT or one of those very good corners (Rolle or Webster - BTW, could someone tell me which college Webster goes to? Rolle goes to Miami, right?) would really stablize this team...

Agreed. R-Dub is garbage, and he's no better than a nickel back at this point. Put Vasher in there, let him start - hell, McMillon is makin' more plays than R-Dub is at this point. I really hope we can rid ourselves of him, he had a nice 2001 season, but since then, he's been downright aweful... And I agree with you, Tony and chimp, have said in the thread.

So, why is that important? I believe it was Heads (I could be wrong about that, though) who said that if we finished fifteenth or below (worst record-wise), we wouldn't have to give up our first round pick in next year's draft if we sign a Group/Class A Free Agent. I don't know how the rules work as to us being tied with Florida, but Florida did take two out of three from us this year - so I'm hoping that we will get the 15th spot, and Florida will take 16th. But I could be wrong on that. Can anyone clarify? Grr - I hate being middle of the pack. I really wish that we tanked it so much down the stretch that we got a top ten pick, but oh well...

Ditto to everything you said. BTW - I don't know why you have a goat. It's not Quinn's fault he's being forced into a role he can't handle. He's a nice third string QB, and it's management's fault for not getting a veteran QB in the offseason - if anyone is the 'goat', it's Jerry Angelo (I like a lot of Angelo's moves, but going in with Quinn as the number two was a bad idea.). Hutchinson should have been picked up in the offseason. Also, I hope we see Chad play sooner rather than later...

Well, even though we're going to lose today, I didn't think we played too poorly. We had absolutely no offensive game today - at all. When our defense is on the field for 35+ minutes, you're gonna be in a lot of trouble. Overall though, I'm proud of how our defense played. They bent, but didn't break - and we did some good things out there. We as Bear fans need to face the fact that we probably aren't going to win a lot of games this season - so the most important thing to see is developement. I thought the standouts today were Terrell, Ogunlye, Hillenmyer, Vasher, Wade, Brown, and Harris. It's just sad knowing that for another year, we won't be in the playoffs. Next year - it's gonna be fun, I'll tell ya that. We're gonna have a real high pick this year, and we're gonna get ourselves yet another playmaker. Keep on truckin, Bears...

True, but not a lot of teams have two pitchers that are that dominant. Of course - if you have pitchers the caliber of Johnson and Schilling, your bullpen won't mean too much. But for the norm is that you don't have TWO of those pitchers...

And the guy who filled in for the Cubs rotation - Glendon Rusch - was damn good as well. It's not like he pitched piss poorly - in fact, he was very good in the rotation. If we got Mota and another reliever - that would save a lot more games than just getting one more pitcher, IMHO...

Well, he was in the majors at 20. And considering that most of us complain about his mental toughness - I believe that his mentality will become better with his age. He's giving us 200+ innings with a sub-five ERA at the age of 24. OK - so he hasn't lived up to being a number one starter. So what? He'll make a little over three million next year, with the chance of improving. So no - it's not 'enough said'. I believe Jon will improve next year - being a fifth starter. Let him earn his job as a fourth or a third starter - don't force the kid into a spot he's not ready for...

Both teams were healthy down the stretch when it counted. What killed them? Poor bullpens... So no, starting pitching isn't everything, buddy... :rolly

If I were to tell you guys, that a teams with rotations of - Mulder, Zito, Hudson, Harden (His best year), Redmond, and Prior, Wood, Maddux, Zambrano, and Clement - and neither team would make the playoffs, I doubt a lot of you would believe me. (OK - so that was a cheezy opening. ) But anyways - what have both of these teams taught me? That having solid rotations is not more important than having a solid bullpen. We have four starters, right now, that can keep us close - go out, get that fifth guy (Odalis Perez should be targetted - probably the third ranked SP on the market this offseason, with arguably the best numbers) - but really, a *playoff caliber* team should have three-four guys who you can rely on late in a game. We're halfway there - with Shingo and Marte (I'll give Marte a pass this year, considering his numbers are still pretty solid, and that he was, IMHO, overworked). Now - we need two more pitchers in the bullpen - two reliable relievers. We don't know what Shingo will do in year two if his stay in America, but I think he can at least provide us with a sub-four ERA. I believe that if we do trade Konerko, one of the people we should be targetting as a return is a very, very good reliever. Mota would be an excellent pickup. I also think some guys under the radar, like Juan Cruz - someone like him - would also be a good pickup. It's easier said than done, but we need at least four guys who we can rely on from the sixth-seventh inning on...

f*** YES! WHAT A GAME! WAY TO GO NORTHWESTERN!!!!!