TruffleShuffle

can't say i'm upset about gallagher not starting tonight. the temperature is probably going to be in the 30s and it's windy out there. type of whether where a pitcher can't get loose at all.

i like brett anderson a lot. stockton really is loaded; isn't soccer10k near there? my anger about not drafting wieters is slightly muted by geovany soto, but i still think that a player of wieters' caliber would have huge value, either to the cubs or in the trading market. i'm surprised that moustakas is playing ss. everything i saw leading up to the draft was that he would end up being too big to play ss, and he's struggled defensively there. i know they want him to stick there because they have gordon at 3b, but if he really isn't going to be able to play ss, what's the point of leaving him there?

was bhogg PM'ed?

i remember that, and i remember how much it pissed me off. BA's scouting report said he sat in the mid 90s with his fastball and maintained his velocity deep into games. okay, so why the hell are we trying to make him into a reliever? oh that's right, our big league bullpen sucks so we panic with our prospects and convert them into a role they're not best suited for.

thumbing through my old BA handbooks, i have some more info. scot shields is in fact a good example; he was rated #21 and then #22 among angels prospects in 2001 and 2002. jhonny peralta was never ranked that highly, nor was ryan church. brandon backe, though calling him above average is extremely generous. does shane victorino count? Justin Duchscherer is an above-average middle reliever. ty wigginton. pat neshek. i guess my read on it is that you can find some useful contributors and a handful of above-average players that just blossom late, but you're going to be really hard-pressed to find any true stars who didn't have at least some buzz coming up through the minors.

he was ranked #5 in the cubs system in the 2001 BA handbook (behind patterson, cruz, choi and ben christensen, lol) and #6 in the 2002 edition (behind prior, cruz, choi, david kelton and bobby hill). the cubs' system was very highly-rated at the time, so being the #5 or #6 prospect in the cubs system meant that the prospect was highly-regarded overall.

if it looks like organizational filler and smells like organizational filler...

veal and samardzija? between who's actually starting and who could start, there are at least a dozen options better than them.

that point wasn't made so much about ryan theriot. i was just saying there are some folks who think that everything that hendry does is terrible and offer their own moves that would be better than jim's moves. well, mark derosa at his contract is way, way better than ray durham at 2 years, $14.5M. unless j.d. drew wildly outperforms his pecota projections, his contract will be terrible. paying jason schmidt $16M a year would have been a disaster. so, my suggestion was just for some to lose the arrogance. you've been wrong before, and you'll probably be wrong again. if you don't think you've been wrong, give me a few minutes with the search function and i'm sure we will come up with some gems.

ooh i have another one... john jaha

scot shields? i don't think he was ever supposed to be anything special, and he's become a very good pitcher with a 150 ERA+ and 1.18 WHIP over his major league career. his minor league stats were pretty uninspiring.

i seriously think this is a joke account

no, he was highly-regarded in the minor leagues. geovany soto is a good example, if he pans out. i'm guessing that you'd find the greatest number of candidates for this list in major league bullpens.

i think it should be the latter. there are plenty of examples of low draft picks who have turned into excellent players. it's probably a lot harder to find mediocre minor leaguers who blossomed into good major leaguers.

hopefully they can play this one quickly; probably ends up wet by around 9-11 PM. weather should not be a significant problem for the other two games this weekend.

1 Miami Dolphins - Warpticon - Jake Long, OT, Michigan 2 St. Louis Rams - reggiemiller rules - Chris Long, DE, Virginia 3 Atlanta Falcons - The Golden Thunder - Glenn Dorsey, DT, LSU 4 Oakland Raiders - soccer10k - Ryan Clady, OT, Boise St 5 Kansas City Chiefs - PingHitter - Sedrick Ellis, DT, USC 6 New York Jets - BHogg - on the clock 7 New England Patriots (From 49ers) - GoCubsGo! 8 Baltimore Ravens - b_wiggy_66 9 Cincinnati Bengals - Rocket 10 New Orleans Saints - OleMissCub 11 Buffalo Bills - PingHitter 12 Denver Broncos - MPC 13 Carolina Panthers - Andy 14 Chicago Bears - CaliforniaRaisin et al 15 Detroit Lions - Cubweiser 16 Arizona Cardinals - Flames24Rulz 17 Minnesota Vikings - PriorPower 18 Houston Texans - Rawaction 19 Philadelphia Eagles - TruffleShuffle 20 Tampa Bay Buccaneers - reds44 21 Washington Redskins - Handlebar McSkullet 22 Dallas Cowboys (From Browns) - vance_the_cubs_fan 23 Pittsburgh Steelers - AI 24 Tennessee Titans - dew 25 Seattle Seahawks - mhuber92211 26 Jacksonville Jaguars - Cro Magnon 27 San Diego Chargers - CaliforniaRaisin 28 Dallas Cowboys - vance_the_cubs_fan 29 San Francisco 49ers (From Colts) - TruffleShuffle 30 Green Bay Packers - Flames24Rulz 31 New York Giants - jersey cubs fan

Quit destroying my hope for him. Flieta told me he had a tool you cannot teach!!! yeah, how to hit the ball 500 feet in batting practice.

there aren't people like this - well not really. there are people who realize he was a very good #3 or average #2 last year, and who think it is idiotic to act like he should be in danger of losing his rotation spot. There absolutely are, just as there are people who believe he should be a LOOGY. They are few and far between, but I've seen both on these boards. You may think that he's a very good #3 or average #2 (I agree, by the way), but the manner in which some rise to defend anything and everything Rich Hill belies the argument that there aren't people who overrate him to absurd levels. okay we'll have to agree to disagree then. generally when i see people defending him, it's from the folks who think he is still a AAAA pitcher with one major league pitch. apparently those folks slept through the second half of 2006 and pretty much all of last year.

there aren't people like this - well not really. there are people who realize he was a very good #3 or average #2 last year, and who think it is idiotic to act like he should be in danger of losing his rotation spot.

i like how dempster has two good starts and is an ironclad lock for the rotation, while lilly and hill's solid 2007 seasons have been swept under the rug.

hey lilly had 2 bad starts also, let's pull him from the rotation too.

don't do it to yourself vance

i want a manager who will take a tiring pitcher out when he has an 8 run lead.

Not really, an above average backup catcher probably would have been the best position player the cubs have developed in the last 20 years. true, the cubs' piss-poor management and player development has a lot to do with that, but bp's projections of soto suggest he could be a borderline all-star for the next several years. his projected worth is about $10-11M per year. and he could end up being jorge posada with fewer walks but better defense. i think if anyone had said all this a year ago, it would've sounded completely ridiculous. I think BP might be wrong on the "fewer walks" predictions. If he keeps mashing AND staying patient, teams will start pitching around him more for fear of the damage he will do if they give him something to hit. Everything about this guy when you watch him makes you think we're watching a very polished and experienced veteran at the plate. By the way, is Von Joshua the man who gets the credit for Soto's turnaround? the "fewer walks" thing wasn't them, that was my guess. it's hard for most guys to walk as frequently as posada does; at his peak he was walking an average of 85 to 90 times a year, and his career IsoD is .103, which is excellent. his minor league numbers also suggest a more patient approach than soto. i'm not saying that soto will be a hacking machine, and i think he could end up drawing 60 to 70 walks a year - he'd just fall a little short of posada. but you're right in that his power has to be respected. he doesn't look to be one of these patient guys with little power whose walk rate evaporates in the bigs because pitchers have no reason to fear them. also if soto keeps mashing, lou is going to have to think about bumping him up a spot in the order. though it's not a bad thing to have him hitting after good OBP guys like fukudome and derosa.

clevenger is 0-18 to start the season :x he does have 5 walks against only 2 strikeouts, though. sweet win for peoria... down 5-2 entering the 9th inning, here's how it went: # Nate Samson hit by pitch. # Dylan Johnston walks. Nate Samson to 2nd. # Jonathan Mota strikes out swinging. # Marquez Smith homers (1) on a fly ball to left field. Nate Samson scores. Dylan Johnston scores. # Josh Donaldson homers (1) on a line drive to left field.