TruffleShuffle

Its better than putting a punchless Floyd, Jones or Pie up against a lefty. Those guys have NO SHOT against lefties. Jones has no shot, but Pie we don't know yet, and Floyd has an OPS near .800 in his career against lefties.

yes, that's about 100 per year, which isn't a small amount. How many LHP do you think there are in every rotation, three or four? Your argument that Jones could learn how to hit lefties is idiotic. He pretty much acknowledged that there's probably something to the argument that Jones just can't hit lefties in his post. He makes a very good point with regard to Pie. okay i misunderstood his argument about jones. With Pie it's true... especially since the alternative is Pagan, who's certainly not going to rake against LHP. The reward for Pagan over Pie is outweighed by the advantage of having Pie continue to get ABs against big-league LHP. If he turns out to be like Jones -- incompetent against LHP -- then eventually you'll have to platoon him. But being as he's supposed to be the CF of the future, you have to give him the chance to become a good player in all facets of the game.

yes, that's about 100 per year, which isn't a small amount. How many LHP do you think there are in every rotation, three or four? Your argument that Jones could learn how to hit lefties is idiotic.

It's easy to say he should evolve into a ML average hitter overall, but the stats show that he was one of the worst hitters in all of baseball last year. He was actually worse than Izturis by a decent margin, and he certainly has been a worse hitter than Theriot. I'm fine with him playing every day for Iowa, where he can continue to work with Von Joshua and hopefully get back the confidence and discipline that he lost last year. You can shut up about Ryan Theriot. The Riot magic (luck) has worn off and he's simply not good. He's probably a better hitter than Cedeno at this point but doesn't play better defense. Worse than Izturis by a decent margin? He's FIVE runs worse over the course of a full season assuming he got ALL of the starts using Cesar's career .225 EqA and Cedeno's .215 EqA. If you use some PECOTA-adjustment (which you should) Cedeno is a present equal hitter. Those five runs over the course of a season are a WORST CASE scenario and are certainly worth betting for the payout of a player better than Izturis. Izturis is safer, but safe when you're crap like Izturis isn't exactly a good play. Give me the upside of Cedeno. To be honest Theriot and Cedeno are interchangeable in my opinion. So you're just assuming that Cedeno's 550 PAs last year were fluky bad? Actually his BABIP was .302, so it wasn't like he was unlucky. He was just a terrible ballplayer. Actually the guy I want playing SS is Fontenot, who won't play particularly good defense but will add more with the bat. His PECOTA numbers are more in line with his performance last year. I really don't see how it hurts to leave Cedeno at Iowa to gain confidence when the big club is obviously not going to be patient with him if he comes up and has 50 crappy ABs.

I wouldn't really agree with the last sentence - I think they're more prone to having fluky good/bad numbers based on sample size, but when they play every day, their numbers return to the mean and are more representative of the type of player they are. I think you lose a tiny bit going from Theriot to Fontenot defensively at SS, but I think Fontenot's bat (.364 OBP and .791 OPS coming into this year as a minor leaguer) add more than Theriot (.355 and .692). Fontenot's PECOTA numbers are adequate for a major league SS; Theriot's are not as good. I'd strongly consider making Fontenot the regular SS once ARam is back, and maybe platooning Theriot in against some tougher LHP.

It's easy to say he should evolve into a ML average hitter overall, but the stats show that he was one of the worst hitters in all of baseball last year. He was actually worse than Izturis by a decent margin, and he certainly has been a worse hitter than Theriot. I'm fine with him playing every day for Iowa, where he can continue to work with Von Joshua and hopefully get back the confidence and discipline that he lost last year.

This doesn't make sense... you're basically writing off his God-awful 2006 and his few ABs with the big club in 2007, but you're embracing the "amazing plate discipline" he's shown in about 100 PAs with Iowa?

Jones faced lefties all the time last year and he sucked against them. not really hed face them once every other week or so. he has had 1021 PAs against LHP during his career (versus 3552 versus RHP). His career OPS against LHP is a whopping .624. After over 1000 PAs plus plenty more in the minors and as an amateur player, I think it's safe to say that he's just downright bad against LHP, and if he faced them every day for the rest of his life, he probably wouldn't get much better.

anybody who makes drunken rants about hookers being too expensive is all right by me

is this the cubs turning the corner, or just a fake in-season rally?

funny how much more fun i'm having

Fontenot had solid PECOTA numbers coming into this year... as for the "legitimate starter FA signees", Wells sucked last year and he sucks this year. The only surprise was that he didn't turn into Carpenter (yet). By legitimate I meant that they are real starters instead of converted bullpen arms. As for Fontenot, we all had high hopes for him, but he didn't seem to be anywhere in the Cubs plans. well that's more because the cub management are idiots than any sort of failing by fontenot

len and bob haven't met a guest whose ass they couldn't kiss

Fontenot had solid PECOTA numbers coming into this year... as for the "legitimate starter FA signees", Wells sucked last year and he sucks this year. The only surprise was that he didn't turn into Carpenter (yet).

if anyone from the padres did that, everyone on this board would be demanding that he get hit next time up

cuz the cubs shelled out a lot of money for utility man (a) $13M for 3 years = not a lot of money (b) utility man has a .356 OBP and 111 OPS+ right now

are there umpires standing beneath the outfield fence? Give me a break. They can't see whether a fan grazes a ball 250 feet away. If you're in the front row, you don't reach forward to grab a baseball. That's not difficult.

well at least he's gone... unfortunately he probably will end up losing the game for us, but oh well.

we honestly have the dumbest fans in baseball

cubs well on the way to winning the LOB battle again

I agree. I disagree. that's fair play for a fan to go after that ball because the "wall" is the basket. the umps const us a homer. it's a hard-hit ball and the umps are a long way away... they can hardly see that a fan put his glove over the fence and the basket. They're going to just assume that it hit the basket and went straight down.

nice job moron

ump gave one back to wells there... bad call

nice piece of hitting by barrett

the cubs have a great offense... for me to poop on