TruffleShuffle

BA Marra's a good signing. The Cubs have had a decent haul at catcher in this draft so far. the real question is did we need so much depth at catcher so early in the draft? I know the cubs preached up the best available approach but clearly pitching is an organizational need while catcher is not with guys like gibbs, clevenger, and castillo hanging around. I think the cubs have done a really good job developing catchers with a minimum of expenditure so why 'waste' a draft pick when there are clearly other areas of need? these guys aren't all guaranteed to continue playing catcher.

i have a couple of thoughts about the spaz in the chat today. one, it would be nice if adam would be less caustic, since multiple managers have expressed this. but that's been the way is since he joined nsbb and i wouldn't expect it to change. don also wasn't helping the situation in the chat. i do agree with adam that the roster rules and the ambiguity causes a lot of problems. the rules say pretty unambiguously, "The active roster must be set by noon Monday each week and cannot be changed unless there is a benching, demotion to the minors, fantasy trade or injury." that doesn't include things like rainouts or forgetting to add a player on monday before the deadline. to me, it's silly that a league which has been in existence for 10 years or whatever doesn't have a clear rule on this. there are a number of possibilities. one is to just allow transactions at any time - adding/subtracting players to your roster, changes within one's roster, etc. i actually like that you can only do adds/drops on monday, but if someone is traveling or unable to get online during the sunday/monday transition, the rules (as they are now) really penalize that. another possibility is to allow changes within your roster at any time, so that position players can be swapped out for any reason, but rules stay the same for adds/drops. another is to add more caveats to the rule about active rosters... you can swap out players if there's a rainout, a guy is called up, you have an empty spot on your roster that you can fill, etc. right now, say you are only going to be able to get six starts, you start one young pitcher against the padres, then bring up another guy guy from the minors to pitch at petco later in the week... that seems like you're manipulating the rules. same if you have a guy on your bench for his start at coors, forget (or "forget") to start him, then pick up another guy to start him at petco. i don't know that adding more caveats is the solution because there will always be new things that crop up. personally, i think we the path of least resistance is to just make the rules that you can add whoever you want whenever you want, except for guys who were drafted or signed since the last draft (leonys martin, etc). yes, people who are more attentive to the league will have a marginal advantage, but really, subbing out a player or two who's not playing on a thursday is not going to make a difference most weeks, especially since our benches are short.

those teams are probably busy playing other bad teams. besides making derwood happy, there's really not much upside to playing a team they could lose to instead of a gimme win.

Nothing will prepare them for Alabama better than Indiana St. You're so right. right, they should play oregon so they could be 0-2 instead of 1-1 after 2 games.

BP does a thing timing the speed around the bases on home runs. the guy timed camp at 14.21 seconds from home to home.

Can davearm get thrown in there also? i just assumed the rest of us not in the room were going to beat him to death.

yeah campana MAYBE could hit a home run at rock & jock softball games where they set up that temporary fencing like 200 feet from home plate.

games of interest: umass @ holy cross, 8 p.m. (cbs sports network)

Team record for a season, I assume? yeah i would like to know this as well. either way, gives me something to care about the rest of the way. edit - has to be team record, because ichiro had 34 3-hit games in the seaon he broke the single-season hits record.

koyie hill had better not be on this team next season. what a turd of a player. and we have two reasonably good catching prospects just sitting in the high minors ready to replace him. (this is a reaction from him striking out like a half hour ago)

maybe that's why they don't like walking, because they walk slowly and it takes them too long to get to first base.

is there a toledo, ohio that i'm not familiar with?

http://24.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_kvymkhAElr1qzxaqyo1_500.jpg

Can we give them weapons, or will it just be hand-to-hand combat? I need to know if I'm going to organize the betting. are you kidding? you've got winner.

And I say that since you've made it some sort of weird issue to post that about me several times a day, you could at least take the time to actually read my posts. I never once said what you just accused me of saying. Not even anything remotely close to that, to be honest. All I'm saying is that this isn't stupid, morality based legislation in an area the government has no business in, which was what was originally asserted. It's stupid overregulation of an area that government has a normal interest in, for the benefit of casino lobbyists. but you write things about how gambling has negative impacts and the government is stepping into an area where it has an interest, and it becomes unclear what your opinion is. if you'd stop playing devil's advocate in every thread, it would be a lot easier to understand your positions on things.

golden is 3-3 with a triple... would be nice to see him heat up again; seems like he hasn't done much since getting hurt.

nice game for struck so far - 6 ip, 5 h, 1 er, 0 bb, 7 k. his HR rate this year is unsustainable, but he's been reasonably good for a 21 year old at upper levels. wonder if he gets a look for the rotation next year.

Strikeouts are just an out. If he's OPSing in the .900s he'll be an all-star. yes, but if he keeps striking out at least once a game (as he's done in his minor league career) it's really unlikely that he'll OPS .900, because he doesn't have great power.

jackson's up to a .973 ops in iowa. when he slumps he'll probably be striking out with alarming frequency, but i'm still pretty happy to have a guy who's a good bet to be an average to above-average CF at a low price for several years.

hr and single for brett jackson. vitters is 2-3 (both singles) while ha is 2-4 (also both singles). lake is 2-3 with a double. angel guzman pitched well in his 90th 2-inning performance for daytona. lorick was terrible. brooks raley was lousy but managed to give up only 3 earned runs, in large part thanks to rhoderick getting out of a bases loaded, no out jam.

what's the record for pitchers used in one inning?

whatever, until they've signed or explicitly asked not to be contacted by other teams they're still fair game. kids waver on early commitments all the time. calipari is a giant douche but this really isn't out-of-bounds.

Like last August, when they went 10-19. Or 2009, when they went 12-17 and fell out of the division lead. Or 2008, when they went 20-8 and took over the division for good. Or 2007, when they went 12-16 and still held onto the division. Every year with this August crap. Yes clearly those three years we were in a position to get a top 5 pick at that point in the year and then blew it. Thanks. You are the one who made it sound like the Cubs have been in the position to get a top 5 draft pick every year. Or that they somehow always make a run in August to make things look not quite as bad. or 2006 when they were 11-17... oops that one doesn't work either.

i had no idea that james mcdonald was black.

just to be clear, the guy who enjoys arguing in the politics thread that we need to get rid of deficits and says the government needs to stop spending money is the guy who's arguing that it's okay for the government to be spending money shutting down something that could potentially be a significant tax revenue stream. this is when you say to yourself, "you know, i think this guy is just bored and likes to argue."