TruffleShuffle

yeah he elbowed the guy on the icing and then high sticked him in the face.

it's not much of a secret that the cubs management was completely inept in the '80s and '90s. the story about guys trying to lose to get the season over with seems kind of weird to me, but i'm sure that the cubs screwed up plenty of prospects. their scouting hasn't been good, but chances are pretty thin that you don't develop a decent position player for 20 years without making some pretty serious mistakes.

oh believe me, i don't want patton on the team any more. i just don't think he's got a high enough ceiling to justify stashing him away on a team with high aspirations. johan santana was stashed away on a bad twins team, but i'll use him as an example since he's probably the best rule 5 pick in this generation, if not of all time. he had a K-rate over 1 per inning in his 3 years in the minors, and was 19 years old. we've all seen his stuff, so clearly he had a high ceiling. david patton, on the other hand, was selected as a 24 year old after 4 years in the minors. he's given up more than a hit per inning and his K-rate is not as good as santana's was. bottom line, at 25 years old now and having not gotten above A-ball in 5 years, he really isn't a high ceiling guy. best case scenario, he becomes a pretty good middle reliever, which is nice, but not great. i'd use up a roster spot on a guy who has a ceiling as an all star, but not for a guy like patton. but my point was that you can't infer anything from him sitting around not pitching recently. this happens to rule 5 guys all the time. good teams rarely try to carry rule 5 players, and the fact that he made the team out of spring training and continues to be on the team despite next to no contribution means that someone - hendry, scouts, lou, i have no idea - thinks he's good enough to merit keeping on the team. they may decide otherwise, tomorrow or next month or whatever, and i hope they do, but we can't really assume that it's coming.

you know which team was really bad at small ball? the phillies last season. the red sox have also been pretty bad at small ball the past several years.

that happens to include the years that he stunk, early in his career. his road OPS has been worse than that 1 of the past 6 seasons and his road OPS is probably around .880 or .890 the past 6 years (don't feel like doing the math).

yeah let's just throw away career stats, even though he's played to those numbers 3 of the past 5 seasons. .810 career home ops .833 career road ops yet he's some stud hitter because you can cherry pick some splits over recent years that make him look a lot better than he is. so how long do we give him before we admit that we're probably getting .840 OPS Bradley this season? another week? another months? next season? that'd be fine with me, he probably has to ops .950 the rest of the year to get back to .840 so i say bring it on.

he was in the american league last year; he needs time to adjust to NL pitching.

i'm not sure how i feel about that. the defense would suck but if hoffpauir keeps hitting, damn that offense would be fun. just call up jake fox and put him at third and try to outscore everyone 10-9.

i guess you're going to keep ignoring that every location he played before he got to texas was one of the better pitcher's parks in baseball? most people make the adjustment for guys coming from coors field - knowing that their stats are inflated by their home park - so why can't you make the same adjustment for a guy who has spent much of his career hitting in pitcher's parks? it has nothing to do with not being able to hit at home; it's that those home parks are pitcher's parks so naturally he had better numbers on the road (where the park effects are fairly neutral, overall) than at home (negative park effect on hitters). failing to account for park effects is very foolish. now 2 months into the season and this guy looks absolutely brutal and we're still trying to rationalize. your definition of mediocre must be different than mine. bradley has been a very good (.290-.300 EqA) hitter the past 5 years - league average, or MEDIOCRE, is .260. now his EqA is .244, far worse than any season since he was 23, and you're acting smug because you saw this coming? give me a break. your arguments are terrible and your smugness is even more intolerable.

with precious few exceptions, user names starting with "cub" are synonymous with fail.

We sold key players from a 97 win team last year for a guy hitting below the Mendoza Line. They only "sold" one, and he's having a pretty crappy year himself. This whole offseason was about saving money to throw at Milton Bradley. And while DeRosa is having a crappy year, it's his first year in the American League. Not used to the pitching. oh right because they pitch the ball cricket-style in the american league, i can see why that requires a huge adjustment.

yes let's trade him for juan pierre, that guy is raking. i'd rather have a guy who is hitting great RIGHT NOW than a guy who is underperforming and hitting line drives at people.

Okay you're right. Bradley was an .890 OPS guy from 04-08. Except in 2004 and 2005 and 2006 and he only played like 2 months n 07 but dude was .890 opsing it like crazy

calling up a guy who's going to get 1 AB per game as a pinch hitter does not qualify as drastic.

Exactly. If you want to look for a bright spot, Guzman is continuing to make the team confident that they have their 7th inning guy. is patton really going away? i hadn't heard anything about this, other than most of NSBB wanting him gone. We havnt seen the guy in ages. Theres really no need to keep him over Ascanio, who Lou actually seems to almost trust. he's a rule 5 guy, they usually go many games without playing. it's not as simple as sending him down; if he's not on the chicago cubs then he ceases to be in the organization.

The thing is (all caps for emphasis) MILES CAN'T PLAY A LOT OF POSITIONS. He's a second baseman. Shortstop if you want horrible defense, other positions if you have an absolute emergency, but he can't play multiple positions! He's a second baseman! This team is so bad right now. well yeah, when arguably the best hitter on the team gets hurt and everyone else goes ice cold, the team is going to suck. that's true for any team in baseball. frankly i'm glad the cubs are above .500 since they're trotting out 5 guys a night who are flirting with the mendoza line.

Exactly. If you want to look for a bright spot, Guzman is continuing to make the team confident that they have their 7th inning guy. is patton really going away? i hadn't heard anything about this, other than most of NSBB wanting him gone.

yeah i wouldn't be worried about fontenot if he were hitting the ball hard and getting lucky. he just doesn't seem to be squaring anything up right now. i'm not sure if pitchers have found a pitch or location that he doesn't hit well, or if he is just in a horrendous slump. but he is ice cold (and apparently the rest of the team is coming down with what he has).

i think at this point i'm rooting more for a walk than a home run from vitters. but cool on the HRs tonight from him and harrison; the guy they homered off of gave up 2 homers and 54 hits in 91 innings last season and supposedly has a very live (if erratic) arm.

they won 6 in a row before this. have some perspective. (okay i know it's not going to happen, i just felt like saying it)

his performance this season would argue against that.

rough day to be a white sox fan.

i like branyan a lot and loved the m's signing of him. the questions would be how much they want for him, whether he can play third base adequately, and whether the m's are willing to give him up yet (that division blows and they probably don't consider themselves out of it).

he'd be like ryan braun, except not hit as much and probably be a worse fielder. if money wasn't an issue, i think cristian guzman would be kind of a cool pick up. he's a good fielder and i think he could do a good job at 3B; once ARam came back then guzman could play SS and theriot could play 2B. guzman certainly would offer good "fontenot sucks" insurance.