A little frustrated...

I have to admit that I have grown very frustrated with Alfonso Soriano. We paid this guy an incredible amount of money and with the exception of about a 10 game stretch last summer when he put us on his back and carried us, the guy has done nothing but really hamper us. Sure, he hit a nice 2-run HR in the 9th inning on Friday, and it would have meant more had we not coughed it up in extra innings. Let's not forget he made two blunders prior to that HR that might have kept us from losing it anyway.

But my beef isn't so much with his lack of production, because I know he will get hot in the summer. Rather, its his stubborness and Lou's stubborness to move him around in the order. Since when is a .167 OBP solid? ESPN put up a stat last night that said he has a .167 OBP when leading off an inning. 4th worst in the majors. That's just terrible. And I believe more than half of his HRs were solo's last year.

Lou was interviewed between innings last night on ESPN and they asked him about this. Lou did his best dodging bullet routine by explaining that certain players just can't hit in certain spots because they aren't comfortable. How can $136M not make you comfortable? My problem with this is that we really don't know if he's comfortable or not. We tried him for a short stretch last year, but didn't give him long enough. On top of that, the entire Cubs team was sucking royally when we tried that. We had a great opportunity as hot as this team was when Soriano came off the DL to put him somewhere that would not completely dislodge the order that had been successful. According to baseball-reference.com, since Soriano has been a Cub, he has started in the following position, this many times:

1st - 140
2nd - 2
3rd - 7
5th - 2

That's a total of 11 games outside of the top spot. Is that really enough to know if he's comfortable? If he wasn't being paid $136M then I guarantee Lou would tell him to just shove it and hit where he tells him to hit. However, BECAUSE he is getting that much money, I think he should hit wherever Lou wants him. I am tired of preferential treatment to these athletes just because they get a lot of money.

In my personal opinion, Soriano should be batting 6th. Based on the way this team responded with Reed Johnson and Ryan Theriot hitting 1st and 2nd, it just makes sense. We are now 2-5 in our last 7 games. I like the following lineup. Can you imagine the horror this would be for opposing pitchers?

1 - Johnson
2 - Theriot
3 - Lee
4 - Ramirez
5 - Fukudome
6 - Soriano
7 - Soto
8 - DeRosa
9 - Pitcher

I only drop DeRosa to 8 because he hasn't exactly excelled in the 6th spot so far. But, I would have no problem swapping DeRosa and Theriot. Yes, you read that correctly. We love Theriot here, but we love the Cubs more and will do whatever it takes to help this team be a winner.

Thoughts?

THE RIOT!

Ryan Theriot "Hard Work" award...

Today's "Ryan Theriot Hard Work Award" goes to Geovany Soto. Just a few days ago we were all a little scared about his consecutive strike-out streak. It's obvious he got in the cage and figured it out as he took the Brewers deep twice last night to make an emphatic statement!

And btw, The Riot is batting .323!

Lies, Damn Lies, and Statistics

It seems recently that our little blog has received some attention...which is a good thing. Because I just kinda figured that the only one that read my blogs was Kyle, and well my Mom too..I mean she can be very supportive. But we've received some comments, mostly calling us idiots, on the page from some people that we don't actually know. At least i'm pretty sure my Mom didn't post that, not that she doesn't think I'm an idiot, she's just not that internet savvy.

These guys brought up all kinds of useful statistics like the classic "pitches seen per at bat" stat we used to always look for on the back of baseball cards. So I thought I'd do some digging of my own and see what kind of useful stats I could find. Keep in mind while reading this, that I'm not really a stat guy so this is mostly tongue in cheek. I'll leave the "real" stat crunching to the nerdy virgins that live in their mother's basement reading Bill James' baseball prospectus and posting derogatory statements on blogs.

I'm a fantasy guy, so the first stat I personally like to look at is obviously number of fantasy points. So I pulled up the line for all shortstops in the majors to date. The "best" shortstop in baseball according to my fantasy league rules is Rafeal Furcal with 76 fantasy points. Our boy the riot, is the 9th best SS in baseball. The Ninth! Coming in with 55 fantasy points. Some notable guys at short that are "worse" than the riot: Derek Jeter, Michael Young, and Jimmy Rollins. No word as of yet as to who has seen more pitches per at bat though.

But fantasy numbers aren't so scientific, let's look at some other meaningful stat's. I like batting average myself. The Riot has the 4th best average of all starting shortstops, batting a robust .338. Thats about 30 points better than Jeter, and a whopping 200 points better than Ceasar Izturis, our disgruntled readers' choice at short for the Cubs. Troy Tulowitzki is also toiling in Izturis land with a .170 average. I've heard they've come up with a sequel to the Mendoza line called the Izturis line and have set it at .150 even if that is an aggressive target for our buddy Ceasar to hit by the end of the year. The only stat he could get to 150 on is number of errors by a shortstop.

But wait you say, we live in an idiotic Bill James world where OBP is more important than batting average? Riot is 4th in OBP amongst starters with a 407 average, roughly 60 points ahead of Jeter and 80 points better than Jose Reyes. Tulowitzki and Izturis can be found even further back on the stat card.

But what about the power numbers you say? Theriot has more dingers than Jeter, Tulowitzki, and JJ Hardy COMBINED. Granted that's only one dong on the year, but the stat card never lies. RBIs you ask? Ok you got me there, riot sucks at knocking guys in. But he's 5th amongst Shortstops in runs scored and 2nd in stolen bases.

Clearly, it can be seen that if a thorough examination of the stats is done. Ryan Theriot is the best shortstop in the majors.... Now i'm not sure if that's true, but I do know one thing. He's my favorite in the majors, and not because he fills up a stat card or carries my fantasy team. It's because of all the reasons outline in my "anatomy of love for Ryan Theriot" blog. And because, most importantly...he never would have booted that double play ball in game 6.

Dear Theriot Haters, Part II

.338 after an amazing 4-5 performance with 2 doubles and another stolen base! Where are your nasty comments now?

Dear Theriot "haters",

In the past you've been able to complain about Theriot's batting average, his lack of power, his inability to get on base, and other various nonsense. I'd like to ask you all a question...What's it gonna take for you to admit that The Riot fits well on this team? He no longer is batting .260. Matter of fact today it's .302. He even has a HR and he seems to be on base for Lee to drive him in all the time. If he hits .310, will that be enough? If he hits .330, will you complain about his lack of power? Get real. I don't care about sabermetrics. Every game I watch I see him adding value. We chose to spend our money on Z, Lee, Ramirez, Soriano, Fukudome, and Lilly. We can't also just expect to pay for a Rollins or Reyes. Among those players what you need is a hard working, hustle, base-running type player, and Ryan Theriot is precisely that!

The Riot!

Theriot steals Soriano's power

By now everyone realizes that Ryan Theriot smashed a homerun earlier in the week. Don't look now but he's currently on pace for 10.8 HRs in 2008. I thought back to how The Riot was able to gain this power and it occurred to me as he was helping Soriano off the field in the first inning, he apparently stole some of Soriano's power by touching him. Or maybe Sori was kind enough to grant that power to him. Either way, its good to see the two of them working together to improve the team. Hopefully this DL stint is exactly what Alfonso needs to clear his mind and get back on track. After all, he hates April.



THE RIOT!

Bumpy start to the season

Now that we are a full 7 games into the season, it's time for my first turning-two post of the year. Hopefully it will be the first of many posts this season as that will mean that a.) I actually have time to write blogs and 2.) that our boy The Riot pulls out of this mini-slump and has a good season.

I actually made it up to the 3rd game of the season against the Brew Crew with fellow blogger Kyle, braving the cold and frigid Chicago April...I'm convinced that no city residing outside of the Siberian tri-province area has colder April's than Chicago... needless to say no Wrigley field honey's wearing pink Cubs halter tops on this day.

I of course was wearing my Ryan Theriot T-shirt jersey on top of a long sleeve tee....which was under a running pullover, giant Purdue fleece lined hoody, and my ski jacket. You may call me a pussy, I just call it being practical. Your only other choice is to drink yourself into oblivion, and with Wrigely Field beer prices rivaling that of a tank of gas ($6.25 for a waxy cup of flat Old Style to open the year) I decided to layer up.

The game started off in typical Cubs fashion with Ryan Dempster giving up two quick runs in the first. It appeared to be a long day in the making. But Dempster settled down and the cubs offense finally woke up, aided by new comer Fukudome! (always pronounced like there's and exclamation mark at the end) who doubled and scored in the second inning. I'm really going to like this guy, he has all the Theriot qualities...disciplined, hustler, humble. I tell ya, i really like these japanese players, they all play the game the right way...

At any rate i had many chances to cheer for The Riot on the day, especially when he doubled and drove in a key insurance run in the 6th. Then was able to scream like a love sick school girl when he took off and stole third with less than two outs. Riot should have scored but Derek Lee (aka "The Unclutch") struck out and left Riot stranded. No matter, the Cubs won behind a Kerry Wood 9th inning and first save of the year. Woodrow looked really good, and it was good to see him pitch again. When I say that Kerry really looked good, i mean he didn't leave the game holding his arm or writhing in pain, so all in all it was a major improvement.

On a side note, i had the opportunity to see Prince Fielder in action...and that man. I mean he's officially taken over from Albert Pujols as the fattest man in baseball. The guy is a monster...and to top it off the uniform he wears is about 5 sizes too big for him, not an easy feat to accomplish...I wonder if they have a "Big and Tall" store for MLB uniforms...

Prince is kinda like the anti-Tommy Boy. Instead of fat man in a little coat...he's fat man in a giant uniform. To top it off, he rode the socks up high for the game which causes his over sized pants to bunch up at the knee making it look like those little pants jockey's wear at the Kentucky Derby. Nothing like seeing a 350 pound man dressed like a jockey on the baseball diamond. I really could stop laughing at him, maybe it was the cold....and as usual, i have no point.

Unfortunately, in the games since then Theriot has struggled a bit and sat out for a rest in Monday's game. Hopefully this is not a sign of things to come. Riot did factor in big time in the win however by walking in the 12th then stealing 2nd AND 3rd! scoring the winning run on an Aramis sac fly. We're talking pure hustle, single handedly manufacturing that run. Hopefully that performance, along with Ronny's key error and overall "hands made of stone" defense help keep Theriot as our main starting shortstop for the rest of the year.

Go Cubs go