New Era has created a brilliant campaign involving caricature fans of various teams, sparring with each other about their rivalry. In the Cubs/White Sox world, that means Ron Swanson (Nick Offerman from ‘Parks and Rec’) and Darryl Philbin (Craig Robinson from ‘The Office’) going at it. Here was the first video (a Cubs/Sox battle), and here was the second (Ron sharing the many things he would do to see the Cubs win it all).
This time around, Ron shares his desire to sing the Seventh Inning Stretch at Wrigley, and Darryl shows him what’s up:
“You sound like a donkey being touched inappropriately.”
Hah!
Thats a clown question bro.
Vitters went yard for the 11th time this year tonight. I think Luke wrote about him last month on he thinks it’s starting to click for him now and I couldn’t agree more. He’s hitting around .300 this month an is on pace for his 1st 20 HR season. If he can hit consistently the Cubs will find a position for him (see Soriano and Lahair)
I hold back judgement on say he’ll ever be an elite prospect again till he can prove to get his batting average up, get that OBP up and learn to take walks. Plus his D is bad still even though it is slowly improving. At 3rd base I don’t see him ever having a 30 homer power that you like to see out of a top third base player. But it is encouraging to see him do well, and start to produce.
Players just dont learn how to walk though. Continuing to improve his power and defense are really what id like to see for the rest of the season.
I can’t agree with you 100%. Players can learn how to walk. Very difficult, but it can be done and has been proven it can be done.
Which players? I can think of one Cub who ever significantly improved his walk rate. Moreover, given all of the Cubs there have been, there should have been at least one to improve the way that this player did over the last 30 years simply by chance.
why cant players learn to walk? I dont see why someone cant be trained to take pitches outside the strike zone. Or maybe trained to only swing at strikes. just because it hasnt been before or often doesnt mean it cant be done. It may setback a player in his development because his mind his getting retrained. Unless it is 100 percent genetics then it should be able to be learned.
If there is a way to do this, then nobody has learned how to teach it. Perhaps there will be a miracle cure for bad batting eye someday: but I would not count on it happening in the next few years!
Indeed, consider your statement: “trained to only swing at strikes.” That won’t lead to more walks. That will lead to more short pitch plate appearances where the guy puts the first or second strike into play. And a lot of the time, that will be a pitcher’s strike, not a batter’s strike. What you want is to get players to swing only at pitches that they can drive. The Sox emphasize this up and down their system: but this only refines the tool, it does not create it.
Oh, and it’s not 100% genetic. Jose Canseco had a much better batting eye than his identical twin Ozzie.
well if it is not genetic then must be learned. ofcourse ozzie probably had the same teachers. so this is kind of an interesting example. The fact the the sox emphasize it means that it can be learned. but i think you make a good point. swinging at balls that you can drive. maybe it is not a “batters eye” that is the issue but a lack of skill or a fear to swing with two strikes. from expereince they had more success swinging earlier in the strike count because thier skill is not good enough to hit with 2 strikes. which then ofcourse they will not learn to walk because they wont succeed at batting
There is quite a bit between genetic and learned. This sort of variation undoubtedly has an ecophenotypic component: Ozzie obviously was a lot better than you or I (he did get to MLB), but not as good as his twin.
Right now, I do think that the Cubs have it drilled into them that they have to swing at strikes. We’ve read comments from both Barney and Castro this year about “well, it’s a strike, so I have to swing.” If coaching can curb that attitude and “refine” the trigger zone, then we should see an increase in walks. If nothing else, then we should see an increase in well-hit balls. But turning either of them into Rickey Henderson or Wade Boggs just is not going to happen!
The key thing to remember here is a pitch you can drive is almost always a strike, while not nearly all strikes are pitches you can drive.
As Doc states, refining the skill is how we get the *batting eye* tool to show itself (nixing the “see strike, hit ball” mentality and replacing it with “see strike in my *trigger zone* and mash the hell out of it, even if I take a strike or 2″), but coaching certainly doesnt turn the batting eye grade from *bad* to *above average*.
Yep, you’re right…Sosa. I suppose we should bank on every Cubs prospect doing the same thing. You know, since “it can be done”.
We already knew your stance on this subject – I do believe this is exactly how the infamous “Sandberg Thread” got started…
The only reason Sosa started to get walks was because when he started juicing and started hitting the ball a mile, every pitcher in the league was scared as can be to pitch to him. They just pitched around him and its not that hard to not swing at pitches out of the zone.
Sosa could always hit the ball a mile. He was on pace for 50 home runs one year before he got hit in the hand (96? or 95? Too lazy to look it up).
Sosa didn’t start drawing walks because he hit so many home runs. He started hitting so many home runs because he significantly improved his plate discipline and began to force pitchers to throw him more hittable pitches.
I remember seeing Sammy smash some wicked line drive homers to the opposite field when he still was on the ChiSox. Even then, it was a sort of pipe dream: if this kid could just start consistently taking outside pitches to the opposite field, then he could hit 50 HR. Then one year, he actually started to do it.
There is NO evidence Sosa ever “juiced.”
It wasn’t until after his retirement that he started using cream
Gary Matthews is a better example than Sosa.
Not really – Sarge showed pretty good plate discipline his entire career, hovering around 10-11% every year except the one.
Sosa, on the other hand, walked something like 4% of the time until he was nearly 30, and finished his career around 10%. If there is any other player that has shown that big of a sustained improvement, I havent seen it yet.
Lake is 4-4 and counting tonight…Now hitting. 320. I gotta say I didnt see this good of a start out of him coming, especially moving up to the Southern League.
Are you sure they’re supposed to be “in character”? I thought they were just being themselves…which makes way more sense.
all the advertisement titles across the web use the characters’ names, not the actors’
I think it’s not specific. But I used the names that people are more likely to know them by.
No, he’s right, in the second one they make a comment about “being the least funniest character in their TV show”….besides, I would think Daryle would be a Phillies fan since The Office is in eastern PA….good ads though
And Nick uses Craig’s name in this one. But I wasn’t saying they’re actually being the guys on their shows. Those are just the names they’ll be recognized by. I also noted thei real names.
This is the weakest one by far. Time to end the cleb 7th just play an old tape of Harry.
has anyone heard anything about where jorge soler is right now? how long until he gets assigned somewhere?
Were still waiting for him to pass a physical and sign his contract. Then he will be assigned somewhere.
I know this is a Cubs site, but can I just say that it almost makes me sick to see LeBron and the city of Miami win a championship
It makes me proud and happy. I’ve watched the NBA for a lot longer than my fellow Bulls fans from when they suddenly became good in 2010, so I’ve seen LeBron play since he was an overhyped teenager. Now he’s an NBA champion, and what an incredible journey it’s been.
Yes, you can, but only because it makes most everybody else sick, too.
Don’t like this one. The other 2 were good this one was just dumb. And you don’t add your own spin to the song you just sing it.
what do you expect from a Sox fan? LOL…
One thing I do know is that Steriods don’t make your hand – eye coordination better. Steriods don’t make your ability to make contact with a baseball better, Steriods don’t improve your pitch selection. In Sosa’s case he could already hit a baseball plenty far enough. Same with Barry Bonds…. Juicing wasn’t the right thing to do. But it didn’t make them better fundamental hitters. As far as Vitters goes or any other player. The type of presence at the plate that a hitter has is developed over a very long time. Starting all the way back when they learned the game. That discipline can be changed but you are not going see any fabulous numbers out of a guy while he is learning that new discipline. Everything about their approach changes and it will effect all of their production numbers in just about every measurable area for a while. Players and managers have to decide is this major fundamental change going to ruin this kids career because it’s re-learning how to walk for the most part. If it is to be ingrained completely the player will go through a lot and it’s not pretty. Fans will quickly say a player like Vitters is washed up and his goal of making it to the Majors may never be realized. He’s 23 it’s not to late for him. I believe we need to start this fundamental approach to hitting in Rookie Ball and the Low A’s and AA. Then management and the fans also have to understand that the kids are being re-trained and it takes a solid year to re-train a player. Drafting players with the fundamental disciplines that you want to ingrain makes the job a lot easier. I used to make my hitters take pitches as a coach. I used to explain that I wasn’t doing it to hurt them as hitters but to hurt the apposing pitcher. We need to get that guys pitch count up so he get’s tired and makes mistakes so we can jump all over him. My guys became very good 2 strike hitters because they saw more pitches and became really good at recognizing the strike zone vs the hitting zone they liked. That’s the rub when making a kid a better hitter. They think they have to hit the first pitch they like in an at bat. Once they learn how to spoil strikes with a 2 strike count they learn that pitcher at any level is going to make a mistake and throw a pitch they can hit hard somewhere. Vitters knows how to hit the ball hard and he is good at making contact. With him it’s putting the Take Sign on and forcing him to look at more pitches. That’s the manager’s job to force that to happen. If they don’t follow the Signs then they get benched for missing the sign and that changes behavior real quick.
That video looks like funny. So I am not good at english listening, would you anybody please write their dialogue on here?