The Other Other Stone

Happily, it turns out I was wrong in my post the other day. Steve Stone is not yet gone as the Cubs broadcaster. His fate is still undetermined. Stone's comment the other day referred to Chip Caray who will be broadcasting next season with his dad Skip in Atlanta. I've always thought Chip was a good announcer as well and will miss him on WGN. Hopefully, the Cubs will retain Stone.

More disturbing is Sammy Sosa's early exit during the final game. That's just wrong and I hope he gets disciplined. It will be interesting to see if he can rebound from his last year and half and his general 4 year-decline:

       G HR  BB   OPS

2001 160 64 116 1.174

2002 150 49 103  .993

2003 137 40  62  .911

2004 126 35  56  .849

On another note Dusty Baker said the following on Corey Patterson:

"Corey can be an excellent leadoff hitter," Baker said. "It's a matter of No. 1, cutting down on strikeouts. It's knowing when to bunt, when not to bunt. He's still in the process of learning it. We're still in the process of teaching him."

Bunting and strikeouts? Neither of these is at the top of the list for leadoff hitter skills. Hmmm, no word here about increasing his walks although cutting down his strikeouts will lead in that direction. Let's pretend that's what Baker meant when he said "He's just swinging at balls out of the strike zone..." which is absolutely true. Overall in 2004 Patterson saw 3.46 pitches per plate appearance. His highest number of P/PA at 3.70 was in Sept/Oct when saw 3.70 with an OPS of just .623. That's probably because he struck out 45 times in 135 plate appearances. In other months when he hit well (June and August) he saw more pitches (3.56) than in the other months (3.28).