Rob

The Cubs are not so secretly auditioning Jeff Baker to see if he can hit righties well enough to be attractive trade bait / insurance against a Barney collapse. While the evidence supporting previous estimations of him as a platoon player is very strong, there is a bit of a sample size issue. It's not a bad idea to give him a shot to prove us wrong. However, this means the Cubs have pretty much given up on DeWitt being more than a bench player. Given his defensive issues and questions about his power output, this isn't surprising... even if it is a bit disappointing.

The good news: His K% is down and his Iso is up. The bad news: His BB% is down, and while his .340 BABIP isn't unsustainable with the right skillset, I'm not ready to buy on Barney having enough speed to support it... let alone keep up his current 25.0% LD rate. Still, it's an encouraging first month. But he's got a long way to go before anybody has to worry about eating crow.

He still sucks. Hard-hitting analysis there. He sucked for a few weeks in a cold April where he was dealing with an injury. It seems a bit premature to write him off... especially given the signs of life he's showing (as Mojo pointed out).

I don't think I can make it any more clearer by saying that I hated watching him pitch. Just close your eyes. It's what Todd did.

Haha, Turd. Funny name.

I took a look at the demo on milb.com and it looked good on my computer screen. The cost is lower for somebody that also subscribes to mlb.tv, but I don't know how much the discount is. I don't have it just because I don't like being tied to my computer screen to watch an entire game. If it ever becomes available on streaming devices (such as blu-ray players) like mlb.tv did I'd subscribe in a heartbeat. It looked like that demo was the AAA all star game. I figure that's about as good as their coverage gets. I was wondering more along the lines of how it looks every other day.

It's cool.

Just tied it up in the bottom of 9. Nice.

AC stands for "After Championships" now, does it?

Worth noting the announcers are morons. Fukudome was in fact on the Cubs 2008 postseason roster.

Because 56% of homes now have a high def widescreen tv?

Does anybody have any experience with milb.tv? I just saw that it's only $30 for the year... if the quality is even just ok, that's a huge steal. But I figured I'd make sure it's not one awful guy in the cheap seats with a shaky cam for every game.

Let the influx of crazy talent to KC begin.

Officially postponed until July 27.

The first thing that popped into my mind was Manny Ramirez leaving the Rays for personal reasons.

You are seriously pathetic. Take out the word meaningless if it's going to keep you up at night. Makes no difference to me. (a) personal attacks are against board rules. (b) if i take out the word meaningless, it reads: "You see nothing resembling that in the video I linked of Pie freaking out in a winter league game?" the part about the winter league game, even without meaningless, suggests to me that you believe these games do not matter. Haha you'd have 80,000 posts rather than 40,000 if you spent your day policing every personal attack on this board. I guess I'm special. :blush: Maybe this will help you see the light friend: if Pie had behaved this way in a MLB game, I'd have the same reaction. So all of your semantic hand-wringing is a pointless waste of time. Don't pretend for a moment that the way Pie behaves has anything to do with how you react. Your [consistently opposing] reaction is a function of the way the board feels about a topic, not some strongly held beliefs you already possess. As to the point of semantic hand-wringing... aren't you the one trying to prove the difference between calling Pie a savage and saying he's acting like one? It seems you're playing up the semantics angle stronger than anybody else.

I know this kinda jumps between forums, but i gotta ask. I've got an opportunity to watch a couple games on 4/30 and 5/1 in Nashville. Would I be better off watching Vanderbilt vs. Tennessee (college) or Nashville vs. Albuquerque (AAA, from the looks of it.) ? Also, who should I be watching for? I'm catching a Stone Temple Pilots concert 5/1 and might not be able to watch all of that game. Whoever convinces me to do what they'd like me to go to wins a half-assed scouting report from a guy who is pretty likely to be drunk enough to spend 10 minutes fixing up his post to look like this.

Kidding, right?

Another five years tacked onto the current contract. He's now signed through 2020 with a mutual option for 2021.

I know every organization has a JR Mathes or 2 or 3 stashed in their AAA affiliate, and we have 3, but It does frustrate me that we have him, Diamond, and B-D in the rotation with an actual prospect in Chris Carpenter in middle relief. And then the Iowa rotation was made even more pointless with the Ortiz signing. Maybe the assumption is that he would be more useful as a reliever if needed for the big league club, but as we found out early this season, you can never have too much starting pitching depth. The only big league ready starters we really had on the farm were Carpenter and Jackson, and Jacksons either injured or working out some kind of issue at Fitch. Have we been given a definitive answer as to why Carpenter is in the pen? Carpenter isn't in the pen because he's blocked by guys like Mathes. He's in the pen because: 1.) His stuff plays way up in relief. 2.) His lack of a good third pitch becomes less of a problem in relief. 3.) He's got significant durability concerns. 4.) His control issues were leading to high early pitch counts and therefore an inability to work deep into ballgames. It was the right thing to do to have a good prospect like him start his career in the rotation. Regardless of whether or not the Cubs thought he was going to end up a starter, it wasn't a bad idea to give him extra reps to work on his control and maybe develop a good changeup. But ultimately this was always the most likely outcome. The good news is that the fact the Cubs have bothered to officially convert him to the pen means that they likely see him as being close to major league ready. If they thought he would still need all the extra reps, they wouldn't have made the conversion this soon. Also weren't there reports of him consistently pitching in the upper 90's out of the pen in the AFL? I was trying to say that with bullet point #1. But yeah, in relief he's hit the upper 90s on his fastball. BA's prospect handbook even has him hitting 100.

I wish that Ha wasn't allergic to taking walks, but if he wants to hit .415 I won't stop him. I'm starting to get behind the idea of aggressive promotions for guys with excellent hit tools and an impatient approach. Either they keep hitting (Castro) or they falter a bit and maybe find themselves in a position where they need to change their approach at the plate to find success. (Vitters?) Sometimes the struggle is necessary.

I know every organization has a JR Mathes or 2 or 3 stashed in their AAA affiliate, and we have 3, but It does frustrate me that we have him, Diamond, and B-D in the rotation with an actual prospect in Chris Carpenter in middle relief. And then the Iowa rotation was made even more pointless with the Ortiz signing. Maybe the assumption is that he would be more useful as a reliever if needed for the big league club, but as we found out early this season, you can never have too much starting pitching depth. The only big league ready starters we really had on the farm were Carpenter and Jackson, and Jacksons either injured or working out some kind of issue at Fitch. Have we been given a definitive answer as to why Carpenter is in the pen? Carpenter isn't in the pen because he's blocked by guys like Mathes. He's in the pen because: 1.) His stuff plays way up in relief. 2.) His lack of a good third pitch becomes less of a problem in relief. 3.) He's got significant durability concerns. 4.) His control issues were leading to high early pitch counts and therefore an inability to work deep into ballgames. It was the right thing to do to have a good prospect like him start his career in the rotation. Regardless of whether or not the Cubs thought he was going to end up a starter, it wasn't a bad idea to give him extra reps to work on his control and maybe develop a good changeup. But ultimately this was always the most likely outcome. The good news is that the fact the Cubs have bothered to officially convert him to the pen means that they likely see him as being close to major league ready. If they thought he would still need all the extra reps, they wouldn't have made the conversion this soon.

Glad to see Soriano throwing well in the early going. When his arm is on he's got defensive value.

Poor CPatt. He was so good in 03 and 04. It's a shame people remember him more for how bad he was when he was called up (when he was obviously not ready) and before he left (when dusty was busy trying to turn him into a slap hitter).