TruffleShuffle

this year's team has played kinda tight; hopefully everyone can loosen up now the that cubs have gotten a b.j.

yeah he is hot for sure. i just wish he had more power to go with the singles. those walks are going to evaporate at higher levels if he doesn't develop some pop. hak ju lee finished the game 3-5, a home run short of the cycle. for a skinny guy who's only 18 he seems to have a little bit of extra base power (probably just slashing the ball down the line or in the gap and using his great speed. he's performing very well for a foreign teenager making his debut at advanced short season ball.

i don't know much about robert wagner, but he's beating the crap of the AZL. rusin: 2 IP, 0 H, 0 R, 2 BB, 1 K, 4 GO/1 FO Matchulat 3 IP, 2 H, 1 R, 1 BB, 2 K, 4 GO/3 FO jackson has walked 4 times tonight now. that's 14 walks in 15 games. hopefully the tyler colvin comparisons will stop.

boise is blowing up; it's 10-0 in the third. lee 1-2, double, sac fly, 3 RBI watkins 3-3, double, 2 runs b. jackson 0-0, 3 walks, 1 run r. jones 2-3, double, 4 RBI (boise debut) ha 1-3, 1 run bour 1-1, BB, HR, 2 runs

How can you manage to make out the details through the standard def? too bad it's not like CSI, they take a shitty convenience store camera and turn it into the greatest image you've ever seen just by zooming in a little.

kevin orie imo

ahahahaha those are great. and the cleveland quote is epic, mostly because it's true. put him in the hall of fame now.

lol @ both of IMB's

Huh, he must have signed a 2008 contract. Do you mean 2009 contract? Anyway, he played 3B and not catcher. Is that expected? i wish he wasn't on cubs 2; that team is the bad news bears of the DSL.

the scouting report makes him sound sort of like tulowitzki but with a worse arm. neither of them is a great athlete but they are surehanded, agile and make the right read on the ball very quickly. anyway i think barney does tend to get overlooked because he has a low ceiling and he's not that good defensively, but he is a good bet to play in the majors and probably for a few years. he may not hit a whole lot, which would confine him to a utility role, but he'd have value as a cheap defensive replacement and spot starter at short (especially behind groundball-heavy starters and against LHP).

no HD plus missing out on phil's annual 30th place finish = me not tuning in.

when he starts hitting. i know we want him to get more ABs, but there are other guys on that team (other prospects too), and i don't think it would go over well with his teammates if he gets put in the 3-hole just because he's the team's best prospect, even though he's been down around the mendoza line for a month with very little OBP or power. Wyatt is a non prospect and is hitting in front of Vitters. i wasn't saying that he should be hitting in front of all non-prospects; my point was that he isn't hitting and because of that, he shouldn't be in the middle of the lineup. when he starts hitting, i'm sure he'll be moved up.

he's also a really damn good player. overrated by some because of the BA, but underrated by a lot of the "OPS is everything" crowd because his defense and baserunning are fantastic. i know a lot of people warned that once he lost bat speed he'd go from good to bad really quickly, but he's 35 and is hitting .362... so he'll probably be good for a while. it'll be interesting to see if he can get to 3000 hits in MLB despite playing his first 7 full seasons in japan. if you combine his hits in japan and in the u.s. he has 3211 - obviously it's weaker competition in japan, but it's also fewer games. he'd probably have already reached the 3000 hit mark if he'd played in the u.s. is entire career, and would have a good chance at breaking rose's record. in fact i wouldn't be shocked if he ends up with close to 5000 hits between orix and seattle.

when he starts hitting. i know we want him to get more ABs, but there are other guys on that team (other prospects too), and i don't think it would go over well with his teammates if he gets put in the 3-hole just because he's the team's best prospect, even though he's been down around the mendoza line for a month with very little OBP or power.

i guess i will keep him because the rest of my team blows. i had no idea that he rushed for 1000 yards the last 2 years; it seemed like both years he was always injured and massively disappointing.

well will carroll gave aramis ramirez a green light before this season so i think he'd be forced to disagree with you.

Ramirez's injury history is pretty spotty, too. he's usually good for missing about 20 games but this will be the first time in 10 years that he's played less than 123 games. plus his shoulder still isn't right... it's very possible that the cubs will only get 20 games of the real, productive aramis ramirez this season, which is at least 100 less than they'd gotten every other year.

if people stop eating gross arby's food, the cards might have to declare bankruptcy too.

Losing Pujols vs losing Ramirez isn't close to comprable. We lost Carpenter who's VORP would probably be similar to Ramirez's. We've also lost Ludwick for significant time and Kyle Lohse for significant time. Saying we are ahead in the standings because of your injuries is disingenuous and inaccurate. Certainly not the only reason, the slumps of some of the Cubs key players are also to blame. But losing Ramirez isn't like losing Carpenter or Ludwick. It's much easier to replace a corner OF than a 3B, especially given the replacements available to each team. Besides, Bradley has played about the same number of games as Ludwick (and many of those have been PH for Bradley). Harden's made about the same # of starts as Carpenter. The difference in the standings is probably not totally explained by injuries to the Cubs, but the injury to Ramirez is a significant factor. We lost our 3b as well. He of the 124 ops+ to Aramis' 125 ops+ last season, who by the way has yet to play a game this season unlike Aramis. The injury thing is disingenuous. The Cubs had a lot of over performing players last season and a lot of underperforming players this year. Injuries are certainly a factor but it's not like the team you're chasing doesn't have equal claim to that excuse. well yeah but the cards have a handful of guys who usually get hurt. carpenter is a walking disaster so it can't be a surprise that he's spent a lot of the year on the DL - frankly i'd say the cards should be quite surprised that they've gotten 13 starts and 84 very effective innings out of him. glaus has had a lot of injury problems the last 6 years and is a former steroid user (probably former, anyway) who's getting older. that he's been injured can be no surprise either.

he throws like a girl well there's two reasons for impeachment.

impeach

- BA Shortly before that was posted, I saw that Dail's name was no longer bolded in BA's draft database. I don't know if it means anything, but the same is now true for 23rd rounder Jeff Pruitt. His name is no longer in bold, either. In the premium database, under Pruitt's name, it says "Dail did sign a contract with the Cubs, but it was voided on July 10, making him a free agent." It's a different date than Dail's voiding, so I'm guessing the BA just made a typo with the name here. After the Cerda incident last year, it would have been nice for the Cubs to get their act in gear. Between the Bears, Blackhawks and Cubs, apparently competence in contracts is a near impossibility for management in Chicago. do we know that's why his contract was voided? it could have been because of a failed physical or something.

reading up on him, he strikes me as a lefthanded jake fox. major league power, somewhat shaky discipline, questionable whether he can stick behind the plate.

wrong thread :?

nice swing