5/16 Cubs (Zambrano) @ Reds (Bailey) 6:10 PM CT WCIU

[Sammy Sofa]

I agree that its great to be able to crank out useful everyday players, but it would be nice for once to produce a Ryan Braun, Joey Votto, or Tim Lincecum. Yeah, there was Prior, but that didnt work out so well in the end.

 

Or a Starlin Castro?

 

Time will tell. Im leaning toward Castro being a great player, but I also thought that Corey Patterson would be the next Rickey Henderson, so who knows.The point is, with Byrd, Ramirez, Barney, Soriano, Pena, Fukudome, and Castro, our team is full of good players, but we sorely lack a star. If you look at all the teams who perenially contend, they have at least 1.

 

So sign a star. Superstars don't HAVE to be developed internally. Yes, obviously, it would be ideal, but it's not the end of the world if the Cubs' farm system doesn't produce another star for several years outside of Castro but is able to produce several good, everyday players.

 

And Im very much on board with that. This offseason would be the perfect time to strike with Pujols or Fielder, both of whom would be perfect fits for the Cubs, considering our needs and avaialble money. However, if that doesnt happen, its back to the drawing board unless they pull off some kind of blockbuster trade. As for producing a star, I still really wish we could do that for once, and hopefully Castro could be that guy. It would be nice to just follow a guy from the minors all the way to the top, an opportunity that we as Cubs have never really had, at least in recet years.

 

But you can have guys like that who are just good players. That's still very valuable. The farm system isn't a failure if there aren't any potential stars on the horizon in the near future.

[Little Slide Rooter]

But you can have guys like that who are just good players. That's still very valuable. The farm system isn't a failure if there aren't any potential stars on the horizon in the near future.

 

Im not denying that. Its great seeing guys like Soto, Barney, Marshall, Marmol, Soto, and Wells come up and play big roles for the team. Even the evil Ryan Theriot was a solid player who we brought up. I never called the system a failure, Im just saying from an emotional standpoint it would be cool to develope a superstar.

[jersey cubs fan]

The Cubs are playing at a 90 win pace with their opening day rotation. If the fill-ins were even just as bad as last year's back of the rotation, the Cubs would be 2 games out of first, 1 out in the loss column entering tonight.

 

well that's a very optimistic way of looking at things, considering that wells and cashner pitched only one game each and won them, so you're projecting a very small sample size over a very long season. nonetheless, i admire the mental gymnastics required to make it seem like the team with the fourth-worst run differential in baseball is a bad break or two away from being very good.

 

It's not really mental gymnastics to conclude that even bad fill ins should be better than 2-9 with a run differential of -31 in the absence of Cashner and Wells. Again, with merely "bad" performance from the back of the rotation, this team is around .500 with a comparable run differential.

gotta love the should be excuses we hear every year

[CubmanPi]

Too lazy to search through the thread, but has blame for the baserunning in that fifth inning been determined? Was it quade, DeJeebus, or the runners themselves who decided to run on contact? If it was DeJesus, then that's 4 outs at the plate and a should-be 5th in less than a week, just that I can think of now.

[jersey cubs fan]

But you can have guys like that who are just good players. That's still very valuable. The farm system isn't a failure if there aren't any potential stars on the horizon in the near future.

 

It's pretty damn close to a failure if you have no potential stars on the horizon. It's nice to produce some good guys, but if you want to win, you need some top notch production from your farm. You can't just sign it. They tried that for two decades under the MacPhail/Hendry regime and it failed repeatedly. Unless you can outbid everybody (the Yankees), you can't live that way.

[SouthSideRyan]

Did I black out and wake up in a world where Starlin Castro doesn't exist?

[Little Slide Rooter]

But you can have guys like that who are just good players. That's still very valuable. The farm system isn't a failure if there aren't any potential stars on the horizon in the near future.

 

It's pretty damn close to a failure if you have no potential stars on the horizon. It's nice to produce some good guys, but if you want to win, you need some top notch production from your farm. You can't just sign it. They tried that for two decades under the MacPhail/Hendry regime and it failed repeatedly. Unless you can outbid everybody (the Yankees), you can't live that way.

 

Also a good point. Even if you look at the Yankees and Red Sox, depsite their spending they also produce elite guys like Jeter, Cano, Rivera, Youklis, Lester, and Pedroia.

[soapy]

Too lazy to search through the thread, but has blame for the baserunning in that fifth inning been determined? Was it quade, DeJeebus, or the runners themselves who decided to run on contact? If it was DeJesus, then that's 4 outs at the plate and a should-be 5th in less than a week, just that I can think of now.

 

I didn't get this either, and they did it twice in a row! Obviously sending Soriano was stupid as well. What the hell is going on over at third?

[Sammy Sofa]

But you can have guys like that who are just good players. That's still very valuable. The farm system isn't a failure if there aren't any potential stars on the horizon in the near future.

 

It's pretty damn close to a failure if you have no potential stars on the horizon. It's nice to produce some good guys, but if you want to win, you need some top notch production from your farm. You can't just sign it. They tried that for two decades under the MacPhail/Hendry regime and it failed repeatedly. Unless you can outbid everybody (the Yankees), you can't live that way.

 

Also a good point. Even if you look at the Yankees and Red Sox, depsite their spending they also produce elite guys like Jeter, Cano, Rivera, Youklis, Lester, and Pedroia.

 

Obviously it's ideal, but again, what gooney is ignoring is that the Cubs have struggled to just put out good everyday players from the farm system, much less stars. Of course, yes, I would love to see them producing all-stars, but it would still be a huge step up if they could just start producing good, everyday contributors coupled with smart FA signings. I mean, what "stars" were signed under the two decades that gooney is talking about? That's a huge part of the problem right there in aiddtion to the farm system producing next to nothing besides pitchers, is that almost all of their big signings were reactionary, halfassed attempts to build a team through FA signings, and then when they do finally go big it's for someone like Soriano. No, I'm obviously not saying that the Cubs can survive only through FA, but they very much survive and thrive if they actually sign an elite player or two for once and start producing good, young, cheap everyday players to compliment them.

 

And WSR, the Cubs have recently produced Castro, Soto and Marmol. And if you're tossing Lester in there then why wouldn't the Cubs also get credit for Zambrano? Why is Lester "elite" through 27 with his numbers and Zambrano wasn't? Yeah, it would be nice to produce a god like Rivera, but how many teams are lucky enough to do that? But the Cubs DO have young players out there who are producing very well (hopefully Soto bounces back from his DL stint) and they DO have ones, quite a few, coming in the farm that project to be good, useful everyday players. A lack of potential all-stars in the farm at the moment isn't the failure that gooney is making it out to be, and it doesn't mean the Cubs have to resort to the halfassed team building of the last 20 years.

[jersey cubs fan]

Obviously it's ideal, but again, what gooney is ignoring is that the Cubs have struggled to just put out good everyday players from the farm system, much less stars.

 

How am I ignoring that? Yeah, they have struggled at that through the years, but they do have Soto and Castro right now. You are talking about a couple 800ish OPS players at positions where that is meaningful, and the Cubs still suck.