TruffleShuffle

I wouldn't be surprised if the Cubs have tweaked his mechanics/delivery a bit in an attempt to keep him healthy. i'm pretty sure the a's would've done that a long time ago.

10 k's and it's still the 5th inning? jeez.

i wouldn't call it much better, but mccutchen looks a little better than kontos to me. karstens is basically AAAA; Lord knows the pirates have enough of those guys.

dude the guy is 19 years old and playing in AA. coming into this season he had a minor league OBP of .375, and last year he hit .307 with a .371 OBP in the hitter-friendly FSL - while he was 18/19 years old. i don't know if he's gonna be great, but carlos beltran had a .674 OPS at age 20 in the carolina league. tabata has good strike zone discipline, and his power is yet to develop, but again - 19 years old. and trenton is a graveyard for hitters, too. so throwing in the towel on him is pretty foolish.

my view was that he had a good fastball, fairly straight but not farnsworth-straight. it certainly jumped out of his hand well and the hitters were having some difficulty catching up to it. it did look to me like he got a little more movement when he was in the low to mid 90s, while his high 90s fastballs were straighter and lacked in command a bit more. that's similar to carlos zambrano, who used to throw in the high 90s when the cubs stupidly flirted with him as a reliever in the early part of this decade. his secondary stuff was actually better than i'd expected, given the reports on him during the offseason. but, his slider didn't seem to have a whole lot of bite to it, and too many of them sorta floated up to the plate. if he keeps doing that, those will start getting hit harder. i believe he flashed two changes, and they looked okay - the difference between the change and the fastball is 10-15 mph, which is plenty, although there's always the question of whether the change is deceptive enough (i.e., looks like a fastball when it's thrown). all in all, he looked very good. i think he has to tighten up his command and throw his slider with better bite more consistently, but he certainly looks like he has a big-league arm. i'd like to see him keep starting in iowa the rest of this year, as he seems to have good potential. as a good athlete, one would expect that he could maintain his stuff over several innings, and also add some things with his hitting, bunting and fielding. as a final note, i'll say that the cubs may end up being validated on what was a controversial move that was panned by many of us. he may have just been very green last season, which could explain why he seems to have improved by leaps and bounds.

as is usually the case, i'm judging players on more than what they've done this season. that's especially important when considering cotts and eyre, as their sample sizes at the big-league level are quite small this year.

he's getting hyped on sportscenter because he was a very good wide receiver for notre dame, not because he's some crazy-good prospect.

absolutely not

yeah the positive comment about shafer was unexpected; from the rest of the analysis i was expecting your take to be "meh" at best

cubs lose 18-2, harden's arm falls off while pitching and lands in the visitor's on deck circle. wait never mind, i'm an optimist too. cubs win 7-3.

i hate him because he doesn't throw enough strikes and isn't a good pitcher. i gave you reasons why i don't like him pitching for the cubs; reasons that were better than "i hate his stupid face" eyre's WHIP as a cub: 1.484, 1.796, 1.455. bob howry's ERA in his "oh my God DFA him season": 1.367 yes, over about 7 innings. his career WHIP is 1.513, which isn't good for a guy who played half his games in a very large park. his numbers have been a little better as a reliever, though a WHIP of 1.42 and K-rate of 5.8 per 9 IP is hardly impressive for a relief pitcher.

I'm not sure why you say Cotts isn't good. 4.7 BB/9 IP is pretty terrible, and he gives up too many homers (1 per 7 IP). he doesn't have much worth as a LOOGY since lefties hit him fairly well, and if you're going to walk more than one guy every 2 innings, you'd better have dominant stuff - i.e., enough to pitch out of the jams you're creating. cotts doesn't strike out enough hitters, and gives up too many home runs, to be considered an effective reliever.

i have been one of his biggest defenders, but i don't get it. even when he gets outs, he's getting hit hard right now. but people do need to realize that the options out of the pen are pretty poor right now. cotts and eyre aren't good. samardzija has all of one game under his belt. marshall is a long man who hardly ever pitches, so he probably won't be effective in the rare occasions that he does get in the game. gaudin is probably no better than average. marmol is acting as the closer. the cubs hate wuertz, so he's in iowa. when your regular setup guy becomes the closer and your #2 setup guy falls apart, the options are not pretty.

why would you say that? it's not like dunn is getting hurt by playing his home games at the GABP, and most of his home runs go like 450 feet, which is a home run unless they've reopened the polo grounds. I don't understand your logic. Yes, his bombs go 450, so that would be a homer anywhere. It's the warning track shots that become homers that increase his numbers. 80 was hyperbole, I'd bet, but his numbers would improve there. Warning track shots in GABP are homers in YS, as the fence is 11 feet closer and 3 feet shorter there. RC power alley is also much shorter. Dunn would be a 50+ HR hitter there. dunn has 23 more home runs at home in his career than he does on the road. the GABP has rated as a better hitter's park, both overall and for home runs, than yankee stadium in each of the past four years. jason giambi didn't start hitting more home runs when he moved to yankee stadium, and neither did abreu. you're also merely talking about the fence immediately down the RF line; the power alley at yankee stadium is 15 feet deeper than the one at GABP. there's no support for the notion that a guy who averages about 42 homers a year will all of a sudden be a regular 50+ home run hitter upon moving to yankee stadium.

yeah we reaaalllly should win this one

brewers lose; cubs' season not quite over yet.

imagine if Dusty got his hands on Sabathia. He'd pitch him in back to back starts yost is doing his best to run sabathia into the ground. i guess since they only have him for half a season, they might as well do their part to wreck him.

TS...you have been around a long time. These game threads basically replace breaking your remote, kicking the dog and being a jerk to your wife when the Cubs suck. Electronic psychotherapy.....You of all of these people should know that by now.

why would you say that? it's not like dunn is getting hurt by playing his home games at the GABP, and most of his home runs go like 450 feet, which is a home run unless they've reopened the polo grounds.

in other words, a high ceiling guy in tabata, and a pile of mediocrity. i guess the pirates don't have enough phil dumatraits and franquelis osorias; let's get russ ohlendorf and phil coke too.

wait there is another way to make the playoffs? because during the game thread, i was pretty sure that the season was over if we ended tonight tied with the brewers for the division lead.

thanks, fat elvis!

cool, now don't eff it up astros

if matsui doesn't get the run in, i will wish for him another round of anal fissures more severe than his first.

this offense is a joke