KingKongvs.Godzilla

Well the good thing is... all but that last one can be answered simply by remembering that no one is in top form during the early parts of ST. And I guess the last one is because he's bound to be behind after that sickness, so they're just being cautious.

Appearantly Greinke has argued with both his pitching coach and manager because both are pushing him to change his mechanics and style. If someone asked you to change your style after its made you well over a million dollars and you were on your way to more? Anyway, not that matters but I don't think I'd want Greinke here. He's too homer prone for my tastes to come to Wrigley.

I'm sorry is someone actually defending the pile of crap that is Neifi Perez? The guy was the worst player in baseball for a while, and probably has been passed only by Christian Guzman (if even).

Well the Yankees were preaching orginization wide paitence at the plate long before Beane wrote his book. The Red Sox have hired Billy James and Voros McCracken, two of the most renowned "statheads" around. Mark Shapiro, the GM of the up and coming Indians, leans towards the stats side. The Cardinals are another one. I mean only the Yankees and Red Sox have won rings, but not suprisingly (to me at least) the teams that use these tools are also some of the more stable franchises in the game as far as being competitive year in and year out. BTW I think my post on this is a bit late. Just wanted to say that. Well that and...yes Adam Dunn would be a fine addition to the Cubs.

Do you realize how hard it is to sustain a .860-.890 OPS is? Especially for a guy like Pie who has Patterson-esque plate discipline? Pie is still ridicuously raw, yes his performance this year was nice, but it does not make him a lock for anything. That year for Dunn you keep bringing up...his age 20 season where his OPS was lower than Pie's and a level lower...you forget to mention some more important aspects in a minor league hitters numbers. Dunn walked 100 times that year, and K'd 101 times. He showed a great eye even then. Pie's 16 to 53 K:BB in half a seasons AB's don't inspire much confidence. Over a full season thats what...maybe 35 BB's and 110 K's? Not very impressive. Pie is no lock to be even an average player in the majors, to balk on a young, proven great hitter because he has a [really] small chance to MAYBE be more productive just doesn't seem right does it? I'd definitely give up Pie in a deal for a Dunn or someone like Dunn.

Agreed...Williams could start K'ing a few more guys too. Also, there really isn't much statistically to back this up, but Williams stuff seems like in a full season with Wrigley as his home park he just may be a bit homer prone in the future. Personally I DO think he should be trade bait, but we don't exactly have the depth we had just two/three years ago...

It might have something to do with his inability to do any of the following... 1. Get on base. 2. Hit for power. 3. Steal bases well. 4. Hit for more than a decent average if he must suck at those other three. Simply put, he's a crappy player.

A good move simply because its pretty obvious they don't EXPECT a full season from Thomas. They simply will take what he gives them at a low, low price for one year.

Then who the hell's going to replace Hendry?

His K:BB was a horrible 1.32. So I really doubt that, as league average was around 2.something. His 4.26 ERA would put him 37th right behind Maddux, if he pitched more innings. And his ERA with the Cubs is pretty good, unfortunately I really doubt a guy with a K'ing 59 guys in 106 IP while walking as much as 45 guys would NOT be able to hold that up much longer, especially since he's not very good at keeping the ball in the park. I'm extremely nonplussed by the guy. He's fat, his stuff has regressed since his day as a prospect, and the results are meh at best. Hopefully he comes to camp in better shape and stuff, I'd certainly like to see more from him, and hopefully there IS more to see from him.

Meh. Still worth giving a minor league contract to and inviting him to ST. The K/9, HR/9, and H/9 are all things I love to see in a reliever, they're all dominant. A decent pitching coach who could help his control problems could make him a Chris Hammonds, Borowski, a Donnelly, a Turnbrow.

Besides age and prospect status from like...3 years ago...what's so great about Williams? His stuff isn't even that good for a former top prospect.

You know what just hit me reading this thread...the rotation after Prior and Z. Maddux is a good 4 or 5 at this point, but he's getting more hittable and his HR problem is pretty worrisome. He's gonna be 40 too... Williams has some ugly, ugly periphs. He's really young, but everything is just bleh to me. He's not good at keeping the ball in the park, he doesn't K guys at a league average rate, he doesn't have good control...and I'm not in love with his stuff or conditioning either. And I've already stated my position on Hill. Sadly the next best guy in our rotation may turn out to be Rusch, and he may not even get the shot.

Marc Kroon. Ever heard of this guy? He's playing for Japan right now but he's looking for a contract. 100 MPH fastball, nearly impossible to lift (I don't think he gave up a HR in Colorado Springs), tons of K's. A nice risk to add to our bullpen. I'd much rather add depth to our pen like this rather than handing out big contracts. Bullpen is one place you can spend less on.

I don't get WHY the Dodgers did this... It's not so much that Jackson is a great prospect anymore, but they have so much pitching depth in their orginization that they can't help but have a crapload of relief arms. Why trade for two more expensive arms? The D-Rays got guys with good upside, but yea...I've never been much of a fan of either guy anyway. It's a pretty meh deal to me, I'm just confused as to why the Dodgers think they needed more relievers, especially older more expensive ones...

Same with me. If we went and won 95 games this year, there would be a TON of luck involved. Unfortunately, NEITHER of those two would see that, they'd think they were making the right moves all along.

Players I would have went after... Michaels Giles Wilkerson Bradley (Had to get at least two, and Bradley came SOOOO CHEAP) For the Bench: Sweeney Branyan Kept Corey as an extra OFer Pitchers: Rudy Seanez (sp?) Agreed on the bullpen arms he got MAYBE BJ Ryan but that'd have to be before the Jays jumped in there... But I think most of my changes would have been with coaching/management. Dusty would be gone. Same with Rotschild. Same with Clines. I'd end up overhauling alot of things if I became Cubs GM. Our whole minor league coaching system would be changed, someone actually does have to do some coaching down there. Also, WTF is with our trainers? This organization needs a good kick in the @ss.

Heh, yea. I'm also a huge Kerry fan (hence the name), but the wait for him to become KERRY WOOD has been a long and painful one. I don't know if he'll ever be what he could have been, but theres always that hope. While I think his mechanics early on plus his heavy workload most of his career hurt him, I think the real turning point was when he went and pretty much scrapped his curveball and fell in love with his slider. There are points when I'm watching him when I can sit and call his sequence, and it'd be slider, slider, fastball, slider. He's like the girl in school who absolutely teases you with her body and just everything else, but never lets you touch. Pretty irritating.

Exactly. Its why I can't believe in "clutch" players. I DO believe in clutch MOMENTS though. Theres no doubt you can go ahead a hit clutch, but I would never say that player is now a big game player because of it. I know its human and all to do it, but it just seems so jumpy to label a guy clutch. Cause that "clutch" label usually comes after ONE big moment he does something in. I guess I'm just not a jumpy guy when it comes to labeling people.

Those + improving the inflow of US prospects, too. I haven't been very proud/fond of the drafts lately. And keep these guys HEALTHY. We went from DEEP in pitching to...meh because of all the injuries that have hit guys like Blasko, Hagerty, Petrick, and so many others.

The HR rate. Check out guys like Greinke and Milton. OK, even very good control...but horrible disgusting HR rates. What that implies to me is that they: A) Can't locate their fastball. OR B) Chuck the fastball up there and hope to fool hitters...which it rarely does as you move up. I mean look at Greinke's minor league stats, it doesn't LOOK like he gives up a boatload of HRs but thats because he had such great breaking stuff and you can be damn good in the minors with decent velocity and great breaking stuff. Now balls fly out of the park against him, why? When you watch him pitch he is just tossing fastballs hoping it gets by hitters down the middle. After seeing Hill I wasn't so shocked as to why when his control got better but his HR rate shot up. His fastball isn't anything special, and he doesn't even really seem to try to locate it. MAYBE I'm wrong, but really from what I've seen in him, and from what I've seen of guys like him...I definitely don't see this as unreasonable. i just wouldn't compare hill to milton based on minor league numbers. milton has always had a terrible G/F ratio, his career average is .60. it's hard to maintain any sort of success with a ratio like that. most likely, he should be out of the league. generally i associate HR-rate with a poor G/F ratio, which just means that his fastball doesn't have SINKING action. milton gives up a HR every 5.9 innings, or has during his career, and the numbers haven't varied much from year to year, he's rock solid in his medicority. zito's career G/F ratio isn't a whole lot better, but it consistently better: .87. In addition, he's given up a HR every 10 innings. I'd suggest this is a product of being a much more deceptive pitcher, if not being a great groundball pitcher. I can't find Hill's overall G/F ratio, but he appears to be better than milton, granted in a much smaller sample size. His major league G/F ratio is 1.07. His career major/minor league HR-rate is one home run every 10.3 innings, which is actually better than Zito's, while his G/F ratio last season in 23 innings was better than Zito's career ratio. meaning that either hill is just much more deceptive than milton or has much better sinking action on his fastball. i think the milton comparisons for hill are premature, let the kid see what he can do in 10 starts. 1. We have no idea what Rich Hill's minor league G/F is because no site seems to have it. 2. I ended up looking and focusing more and Greinke because I saw some of Greinke's tendencies and habits in Hill. I showed you the stats, they both have the same kind of career trends. Greinke was solid with the HRs in the lower minors, where a guy with great breaking stuff is more than likely to get away with chucking a decent fastball up there. But as both he and Hill moved up, their HR rates sky rockected. With Hill I think the chucking it down the middle might have been a new thing, cause his control was horrible before. Basically my opinion of Hill is that we should have traded him while he has seemingly high value. We could have netted a Milton Bradley or someone like Sledge. He's going to have a MAJOR problem with the long ball up here, I don't doubt that for a second.

The HR rate. Check out guys like Greinke and Milton. OK, even very good control...but horrible disgusting HR rates. What that implies to me is that they: A) Can't locate their fastball. OR B) Chuck the fastball up there and hope to fool hitters...which it rarely does as you move up. I mean look at Greinke's minor league stats, it doesn't LOOK like he gives up a boatload of HRs but thats because he had such great breaking stuff and you can be damn good in the minors with decent velocity and great breaking stuff. Now balls fly out of the park against him, why? When you watch him pitch he is just tossing fastballs hoping it gets by hitters down the middle. After seeing Hill I wasn't so shocked as to why when his control got better but his HR rate shot up. His fastball isn't anything special, and he doesn't even really seem to try to locate it. MAYBE I'm wrong, but really from what I've seen in him, and from what I've seen of guys like him...I definitely don't see this as unreasonable.

I didn't JUST get it from his time in the majors. Thats just when what I had theorized about him seemed to be proven right. His fastball is straight, he doesn't locate it all that well he kinda just chucks it and hope they swing and miss. Hence his HR problems, and the better control. It just seems to fit. And off the top of my head I just said lefty with decent but straight fastball, and good curveball who gives up alot of HRs ...Eric Milton. Now for Zito I meant that in any other park or with any other team, he'd probably give up a few more hits than he does and alot more HRs than he does. He's not nearly as bad as Milton (and Hill probably won't be), but he does have some similarities to Milton.

Meh. I've explained my logic beyond why I'm not such a big fan. As much as I think Hill is talented, he has alot more Eric Milton than Barry Zito in him (and Barry Zito has alot more Milton in him than he's shown too). Maybe if he comes back next year and shows me this same kind of control I'll warm up, but from what I've seen and been able to deduce, its because he's decided his curveball >>> his fastball so just chucking his fastball up there seems like a good idea to set up that curve. I'm not so down on him I don't think he can be SOMETHING, but I think that SOMETHING is either a lefty killing LOOGY or a very homer prone, walks prone starter with only two pitches. If you want more...I might also add that his arm action will give him a pretty meh changeup and he should start working on a cutter/slider type pitch. That could put him over the top actually... I'm not down on the guy more than I am completely sure he's the type of pitcher who translates well to the big leagues.

I kinda explain the one year thing when it comes to the HRs. Its pretty simple to explain. In the lower minors a guy with a nasty breaking ball usually dominates, especially if his fastball can get by guys. So he racked up big K's and the hitters were much too young and inexperienced to get him. Being a few years older and more experienced no doubt helped. So why did he walk less guys last year and gave up more HRs? I think he took the Zack Greinke approach to pitching, chuck it down the middle and hope for the best. Lots of good things did happen because again, he has good stuff for a lefty, he still kept his K rate up and his walks DID go down. But the HRs are very worrisome, and even though it was a small sample size I was not impressed with how he looked during his call up. His fastball is straight, so less guys are going to chase the curve up in the big leagues until he proves he can get his fastball there. And it doesn't help that he never even showed a hint of a changeup. No offense to BA, I respect them and generally they are my top source for prospects, but they do have a tendency to make guys look much better than they are. And even more irritating to me is that few of these are first hand accounts, most are just talk amonst managers and scouts, and we all know that they can fall in love with a guy, they sometimes look for a guys highest cieling and stay in that mindset without the likeliness of them reaching it and...so on.