Chris, with CyclOPS I was thinking of guys who become a liability without a bat in their hands. Cabrera (Gil), Dunn, that sort of thing. One-dimensional in terms of potent offense and nothing else.

Coleman, pedantic is good when I learn something, and I did. Also, it took 10 minutes, but I finally got the Afrodite joke.

(I was going to mention Afrodite, but she retired with Oscar Gamble).

You’ve started something here, I think. I’m already trying to come up with other mythological examples. Hmmmm.

Atless = Guy who’s supposed to carry the team on his shoulders but doesn’t. (Atless Shrugged?)

Apallo = Highly touted veteran who tanks miserably.

CyclOPS = One-dimensional OPS monster.

I’ll hand this off to Coleman now.

“acechilles”, haha, that’s rich. good stuff.

maybe we should create a new category that broadcasters can drone on about. i’d like to coin the term “acechilles”; to describe aces that have the “stuff”, but have one glaring weakness that prevents consistent greatness. noted sufferers of “acechilles” include: Zambrano (voice in head), Verlander (“i don’t get it, i had good stuff”), Bonderman (1st inning), CC Sabathia (AL version), Buehrle (away games).

also, i don’t know what happened to Zambrano this year, following in your footsteps i checked out his game log this year, with the exception of the no-hitter (sounds weird to use that as an exception), his Aug and Sep ERA ballooned and were each over seven.

i can’t believe i forgot to include that aspect, especially after that 4 error loss to the Dodgers that saw the Cubs give up 4 unearned runs (btw, when a guy that scores the unearned run comes to the dugout, does the manager berate him saying, “you didn’t ‘earn’ it”?).

and yes, that sentence ended with 4 punctuations, keeping up my theme.

As a frequent viewer of a Big Z meltdown, I can say that you pretty much nailed the description with one glaring omission (in my mind, anyway). What tends to put him over the edge is something he can’t control: an error, a bloop hit, a double play not turned, a passed ball, etc. To watch him burn a hole into Ryan Theriot’s head or Soriano’s chest with his glare is truly amusing. Followed by the requisite yelling at the offending player, and then a bases-clearing double up the gap.

I’ve seen that movie before, and it’s a laugh riot.

A casual persual of Zambrano’s numbers and Roy Oswalt’s numbers makes me wonder: How is Carlos Zambrano even in the same class as Roy Oswalt? It must be all intuitive, because the stats don’t bear out such a comparison.