The only real difference with Aramis so far is that his Bavg on balls in play is about 70 points below what it was the past couple years. For a guy who hits the ball hard when he hits it, this looks like mostly bad luck to me.

26-40

With a Pirates win (and they are currently up 2-0), the Cubs drop into a tie for the worst record in the league, and better than only the woeful Royals in all of baseball. Is this enough to get management to discontinue the "Wait until Lee and Prior get back." line. Babe Ruth and Lefty grove wouldn't help this team reach the playoffs now.

Finally, I was looking at Aramis Ramirez’s numbers and trying to pinpoint anything that would indicate why he has had such a disappointing season to this point. Surprisingly, his power and walk numbers are right in line with what he has done the past two years. The only thing really different about this season is his strikeout numbers - he’s making contact a lot. Over 2004-05, Ramirez struck out in a little over 12% of his ABs. This season, that number has dropped to 8%. He has only struck out 19 times. The pitches he sees per plate appearance are down a bit as well (3.55 versus 3.62 over ‘04-’05), but not significantly. It is hard to say what these numbers indicate, although it certainly seems as if Aramis isn’t hitting the ball with as much authority this season.

Or not? The last two seasons, 'on contact', Ramirez has hit 354/652. This year he's at 270/498 which is awful. He is not hitting the ball with authority. Or to put that back in overall terms, his BA is down 60 points (maybe "luck") but his ISO also down 60 points (that's a big drop) from where he's been the last two years.

Small sample so no need to panic just yet, but this is a Cubs-wide problem. They've clearly shifted to a "contact" oriented offense -- last in team BB (now 43 behind the Pirates), tied for second-fewest Ks (just 5 more than the Giants). That's exactly where last year's stellar offense was. Last year's offense made it to the middle in RS by hitting the 2nd most HRs; as we know, this year's team is last. A healthy Lee would probably put us around 10th and a productive Ramirez maybe around 8th.

Womack in June: 185/267/296. If we're lucky, they'll bench him because he's drawing too many walks.

Or to put that back in overall terms, his BA is down 60 points (maybe "luck") but his ISO also down 60 points (that's a big drop) from where he's been the last two years.

This raises a question. If Ramirez' ISO is significantly down, but his ISO per hit is not (significantly down), how should we interpret that? IMO, his power is OK, but he has simply had more BIP caught by the defense, probably mostly due to luck. So, in this type of analysis, I think it's better to look at the ratio SLG/BA instead if the difference SLG-BA.

This emphasis on contact has also led the team to 3rd place in MLB in GIDP.

Boot Hitting Coach Gene Clines for his AAA equivalent

Boot Neifi for Rich Hill

At that point hope Dusty feels the heat and quits on his own