Neither of these guys will ever be 100 walk guys. But there is a threshold of selectivity that has to be mastered even for the most aggressive hitters. Getting there, however, is a process, and it usually takes a year like Francouer had last year or the one Soriano had his last year with the Yankees before that process is mastered. 2009 will be the defining year in Francouer’s career.

And how exactly could Cox have been expected to keep L. Smith from getting faked out by Chuck Knoblauch? Should he have run on the diamond and yelled in L. Smith’s ear as he was moving from first to second? Wouldn’t that have been a violation of, you know, the rules?

And if your fingers are metaphorically devoid of rings, what happened to the one from 1995? Sold it on eBay, did you?

Oh, and if hitting is something you either have or you don’t, why are you complaining about the manager? What’s he supposed to do in the case of what you claim is innate? Alter a batter’s DNA?

I want to win World Series rings. Not look back after we lose and say, “we’ll, we did pretty good”. I hate pretty good. I want rings!

See my fingers? They’re empty. You know what they want? RINGS!!!!

What I don’t get is why Mark Bradley doesn’t ask Bobby Cox what he was thinking in New York when he let that uber-fast ball pitcher throw an offspeed pitch in game six, when we had them. I’ll never forgive you for that, bobby cox.

What I don’t get is why Mark Bradley doesn’t ask Bobby Cox what he was thinking in Minnesota in 1991 when our runner got “deked” by the shortstop, instead of obeying the third base coach’s signal about how to run those bases while that ball was bouncing off the wall….. That lost the series and the ring. I’ll never forgive bobby cox for that. I despise bobby cox for tha,t forever and ever and ever..

Aw the whole thing makes me so sick I cant believe in baseball anymore, sorry. Mark, you write drivel-tripe. You just run at the mouth, do you know that? And it makes me sick. Either hold our coaches accountable, based on a truth about each sport you write about and quit thinking that we’re satisfied that you know the roster of players and their stats, and that’s supposed to be enough. Quit. Retire. Resign. I dont care, but get serious about your f’n career.

I’m sick of losers. SICK!!!

Okay, you want examples? Look at dirtydog’s 9:59. Hitting coaches. Hitting coaches. Hitting is a natural thing. You either have it or you dont. Now, there’s been volumes written about the stance, or whether you should wiggle your butt, or wave the bat around, or go forward or backward in the batter’s box. It’s all hooey. If there was a formula, then everyone would hit .300. The reality is that players are born with eye-hand co-ordination. A pitcher can fool a batter with a clever motion, but if the batter understands the count, the score, the inning, the point in the season, and the standing of the team the pitcher is throwing from, then he can deduce when the fat one is coming. It’s called management. A real coach would know when to signal to the batter when that fat one is coming. Any true blooded american should know when that time is. Bobby Cox couldn’t decipher a pitching sequence if his jock strap was…..aw, I’m too upset to finish this.