09/19 Cincinnati (Leake) @ CUBS (Rusin) 7:05 CDT, CSN TV

[UMFan83]

wtf was that Castillo? He knows he doesn't need a home run right?

[Sammy Sofa]

wtf was that Castillo? He knows he doesn't need a home run right?

 

No kidding; he was trying to crank everything out into the streets.

[sneakypower]

Clevenger might actually have an even slower bat than Campana

[Sammy Sofa]

Barney = beast.

[bcl412]

Should have got tossed for that.

[Sammy Sofa]

How the hell was he not tossed?

 

Though the ump's face in the replay is pretty hysterical.

[davell]

I'm not sure Clevenger beats out Recker for the backup job next year.

[bcl412]

How the hell was he not tossed?

 

Though the ump's face in the replay is pretty hysterical.

 

Kind of admire the ump for not tossing him. Some umps would toss you for just looking at you a funny.

[Sammy Sofa]

How the hell was he not tossed?

 

Though the ump's face in the replay is pretty hysterical.

 

Kind of admire the ump for not tossing him. Some umps would toss you for just looking at you a funny.

 

Yeah, but this was a player bumping him, and pretty obviously intentionally, too.

[Guest]

The howling thing is incredibly annoying

[Sammy Sofa]

Annoying way to lose.

[UMFan83]

Of course we're going to lose because our RF overruns a fly ball in the wind

[Sammy Sofa]

No, they lost because Castillo couldn't keep it in his pants and just put the ball in play.

[bcl412]

Two run walkoff homer to win would be fun. I'm pulling for that.

[Sammy Sofa]

Barney, please get on so Rizzo can fix everything.

[sneakypower]

Valbuena is so much better than his numbers show.

 

How the hell do you figure that?

 

His at-bats are always fantastic. He has a really good eye and drives the ball to the opposite field consistently.

 

Those are things his numbers can show.

his xBABIP is .293

 

while he suppresses it some with a healthy amount of pop-ups, you should have better than a .253 babip with a 20.5% LD rate

 

also, his HR:FB rate (5.7%) would place as one of the lowest rates in the majors were he to qualify, and at least anecdotally, i can attest that he has more power than the Erick Aybar/Daniel Murphy-types he shares company with for that stat

 

http://msn.foxsports.com/mlb/player/luis-valbuena/hitchart/765789?q=luis-valbuena

at Wrigley alone, you can see five near-misses on HRs, turned into outs

[Sammy Sofa]

Not impressive.

[sneakypower]

not on its own, but his defense at 3B has been about as good as it gets, and even neutral luck makes him a pretty productive player this year

 

his baserunning has been rather unfortunate though, but i always want to assume that can be fixed with coaching

[Sammy Sofa]

Defensively, yes, I've got no issues with him. I don't really have a "problem" with him at all; the Cubs need a cheap, serviceable placeholder at 3B and ideally he can fit the bill. I'm just amused by anyone fawning over him.

[sneakypower]

but his statement was fair and completely defensible, and not even overly fawning

 

(i should know, that's my specialty)

[Sammy Sofa]

but his statement was fair and completely defensible, and not even overly fawning

 

(i should know, that's my specialty)

 

His statement was that Valbuena's value goes beyond what his stats can track, to which I said you CAN track exactly what he was praising...which you then showed.

 

And dude's been fawning over him for a while. It's amusing.

[sneakypower]

look at it this way...he's still been worth 2 wins* this year

 

 

*over josh vitters

[Hairyducked Idiot]

I've been a Valbuena skeptic, but I can definitely kind of see it now. Out of all the cheap options we might go with next year, I find him to be the most intriguing.

[Sammy Sofa]

And yes, I am saying that he sucks; he just sucks at a tolerable level in the short run.

[sneakypower]

he also has the highest BB rate on the team (over-125-PA-division)

 

going forward, he's basically another David DeJesus; take that however you will