Castro

[Hairyducked Idiot]

Castro's season gets my doom boner going, but arguing that Baez would be better is an egregious case of Shiny Old Toy That Has Been In The Garage So Long We Forgot It Is Broken Syndrome.

[Gilby]

At the very least, move Castro to 9th in the order. He's absolute trash at this point.

 

He is, but so is Russell right now. We have so many hitters struggling that switching the batting order around won't do much good; it would just involve a different struggling/bad hitter moving in front of another.

Edited July 12, 2015 by Gilby

[mul21]

When Baez comes up, stick him a 3rd and put KB in center if they haven't made a trade for some kind of upgrade. Hell, if that's a possibility I might make that the lineup on days they face a lefty anyway, assuming they've gotten a LH upgrade in CF.

[seanimal]

russell is in another world. baez does seem to be prone to lapses, but errors are a poor measure of one's defensive prowess. scouts consider him a plus fielder and the cubs are really high on his defense

 

Errors do matter some, and that stat is particularly lol-worthy. He might be better than Castro, but like Sofa said, it's probably negligible. Plus, Castro could be a kick-ass second baseman for all we know.

 

the only thing lol-worthy is citing an 11 game sample size as evidence of anything

 

I mentioned his 52 games in the Majors last year as well. Not huge samples, but we might need to back off on the "very good defender" stuff until he shows us he is one, that's all.

 

by the same token, perhaps we should back off the "difference is negligible" stuff until he shows it. the book on him is plus defense. the manager of the team wanted him on the opening day roster in part because of his defense. over the course of a season, i think his defense is better than castro's, and he still has some time to improve

 

that said, i'm not advocating for anything. just pointing out that his defense is better than castro's, potentially significantly so

[Sammy Sofa]

At the very least, move Castro to 9th in the order. He's absolute trash at this point.

 

He is, but so is Russell right now. We have so many hitters struggling that switching the batting order around won't do much good; it would just involve a different struggling/bad hitter moving in front of another.

 

True, though at this point I'd rather see Addison get more PA's.

[Sammy Sofa]

When Baez comes up, stick him a 3rd and put KB in center if they haven't made a trade for some kind of upgrade. Hell, if that's a possibility I might make that the lineup on days they face a lefty anyway, assuming they've gotten a LH upgrade in CF.

 

That's honestly the crazy lineup I was thinking I'd prefer. We're really splitting hairs at this point between Castro and Fowler in terms of who has the worse bat, and with Castro there's still reason to play him because you need him to turn it around, whether because you're trading him or because he's on the team next year. Make Fowler Coghlan's platoon-buddy (but play him in CF when he starts and have Bryant in LF) and bump Denorfria to the bench.

 

Coghlan/Fowler - LF/CF

Rizzo -1B

Bryant - LF/CF

Soler - RF

Baez - 3B

Russell - SS

Montero/Body - C

P

Castro - 2B

 

There's my Sunday morning madness.

[seanimal]

Castro's season gets my doom boner going, but arguing that Baez would be better is an egregious case of Shiny Old Toy That Has Been In The Garage So Long We Forgot It Is Broken Syndrome.

 

that/path of least resistance/the grass is always greener

[Little Slide Rooter]

Castro's season gets my doom boner going, but arguing that Baez would be better is an egregious case of Shiny Old Toy That Has Been In The Garage So Long We Forgot It Is Broken Syndrome.

 

I'm not sure that he's broken (other than his thumb) so much as incredibly young for the big leagues. He strikes out a ton and always has. But we accepted that a while ago, back when he was our undisputed top prospect.

 

I'm not saying that he would be an upgrade over anybody at this time. Just that I wouldn't throw him in the junk bin. I don't know how to calculate WAR, but even if his offensive ceiling were 2009 Alfonso Soriano, from an everyday SS, I have to assume that's a pretty valuable player.

[Soul]

He's OPS 100 points lower than his career avg, and the last 30 games 100 points below that.

 

I know he's not a star at the plate but what the hell.

[Guest]

These are the last days of Saigon, here. Get to the chopper, bitches.

[ARCubsFan]

OPS is at .598.

[CincyCubsFan]

Starlin's shitty play, along with my decision to start following him on instagram, have really made me hate Castro's guts.

[ConstableRabbit]

Starlin's [expletive] play, along with my decision to start following him on instagram, have really made me hate Castro's guts.

Really? I love his over the top #instaswag. :flexing emoji: :praying emoji:

[BigSlick]

I've been on #CastroDoubleWatch and #CastroWalkWatch because he is so, so bad at these things. I just like marveling at how shockingly bad he has become at certain phases of baseball.

 

Castro has 374 plate appearance this season, and has 8 doubles (eight? EIGHT? this is Scott Podsednik-esque) and 15 walks.

 

David Ross has had 95 plate appearances and only 2 fewer doubles and 2 fewer walks.

 

Jorge Soler, who I imagine will never have much discipline in his approach, has had 121 fewer plate appearances than Castro, and astoundingly, has 2 more walks than Starlin Castro.

 

Addison Russell, a struggling 21 year old who at times has appeared completely over his head, has twice as many doubles in 100 fewer plate appearances. He has 7 more walks!

[sontensei]

I think everyone knows Castro is pretty terrible this year. its be a topic people have constantly talked about for months now(yeah me included)

 

too bad they cant send him to the minors, they would have to DFA him and someone would pick him up no doubt..

[ARCubsFan]

I think everyone knows Castro is pretty terrible this year. its be a topic people have constantly talked about for months now(yeah me included)

 

too bad they cant send him to the minors, they would have to DFA him and someone would pick him up no doubt..

Needs to be sent to the DL with a fake injury. Can't keep him in the lineup.

[Clem Fandango]

I've been tolerant of Castro's struggles, but now that the team is in contention he's a liability. It's okay to suck in 2013 because the team sucked and he was still 23 so there's gonna be some growing pains. But you can't let a guy stay in the lineup when he's been the 2nd worst player in the NL no matter how much he costs or who he is. He needs to be benched. Lake hasn't played MI in nearly 2-3 years, but I'd rather see Russell move to SS and Lake play 2nd over Castro + Russell. Russell has been bad enough at the plate but that was to be expected and at least his defense is stellar. Lake can't be any worse than Castro, and if you don't put Lake there make it Herrera. He has a 0.1 fWAR, and it's pathetic when a 0.1 fWAR is legitimately considered as being substantially better than your star shortstop.

 

Castro is now a liability and even a poor performance out of Lake or Herrera or Alcantara or whoever is, sadly, still probably more valuable than what Castro has given the Cubs this year. And I hate that.

[Hairyducked Idiot]

Putting even worse players like Junior Lake into regular playing time would technically bump Casteo out of the "second-worst in the NL" spot, but I can't really call that a solution.

[Guest]

The only legit shot at a replacement is a healthy Baez, but even that's a coin toss.

 

At this point it's just a matter of waiting it out, because he can't actually be this bad forever right?

[Clem Fandango]

I know you're not a Lake fan, and I'm not much of one either, but he's shown dramatic improvement in his overall hitting ability in the minors and given that the Cubs don't have many other internal options outside of Herrera, then something, anything, needs to be tried to get an improvement out of Castro's spot in the lineup. If that something is giving PA's to Lake, so be it. If he sucks, put Herrera in there. If he sucks, try Alcantara. If they all suck, well then they need to suck extra bad to be as bad as Castro has been. He is hurting the team in a big way right now, and they need to fix it somehow until Baez is ready for his 2nd chance and even then that's not a guarantee to work either. If they're not gonna trade for a MI then I'd rather throw darts at the board and hope something sticks than keep throwing the same dart and missing the target completely at this point.

[Hairyducked Idiot]

He's putting up a .411 BABIP in AAA, that's the only reason his slash line looks any better. He was worse on an fWAR/game basis than Castro in the majors this year.

 

Herrera? Fine, but you're giving up any hope of ever recouping any trade value from Castro.

[jersey cubs fan]

Lake hasn't played MI in nearly 2-3 years, but I'd rather see Russell move to SS and Lake play 2nd over Castro + Russell. Russell has been bad enough at the plate but that was to be expected and at least his defense is stellar. Lake can't be any worse than Castro,

 

He sure as hell can be. A corner OF playing 2B sounds like a recipe for disaster. Especially one that has 600 PA of mediocrity at the plate. Figuring out AAA at 25 doesn't mean you changed anything for the better at the major league level, let alone mask what would be undoubtedly awful defense.

[Clem Fandango]

He's also putting up a 13.2 BB%, a .494 SLG%, .170 ISO, and a .402 wOBA

 

Lake is swinging the bat really well right now, he's the best AAA option at the moment. Castro is hot garbage.

[jersey cubs fan]

He's also putting up a 13.2 BB%, a .494 SLG%, .170 ISO, and a .402 wOBA

 

Lake is swinging the bat really well right now, he's the best AAA option at the moment. Castro is hot garbage.

If Castro was playing LF, then you'd have a point.

[Cubswin11]

He's also putting up a 13.2 BB%, a .494 SLG%, .170 ISO, and a .402 wOBA

 

Lake is swinging the bat really well right now, he's the best AAA option at the moment. Castro is hot garbage.

He isn't a SS. They'd be better off moving Russell to SS and Schwarber to 2B with this line of thinking.