Rob

You might be right, although I haven't been able to find the definitive answer after some digging. Callis referred to it as a power breaking ball in the Cubs' Top 10 prospect chat and the various Andrew Cashner comparisons implied he worked with a slider rather than a curve. I seem to recall Wilken referring to it as a curve at the cubs convention this year, but I could be off.

Im more for Fontenot being traded. the Castro/Theriot MI makes him irrelevant, because hes really not a backup shortstop, and aside from a lefty bat off the bench, theres really not much use for him. I agree that Colvin, who I believe will be our RF once Kosukes contract is up could benefit from regular ABs in Iowa as well. Also, Nady isnt 100%, and it shows. As far as Im concerned, 1 of Fontenot or Baker could be traded and call up Tracy. In addition, either DL Nady or send Colvin to Iowa for his own good and call up Darwin Barney as a backup SS, as Ive heard hes pretty good defensively, although his offensive ceiling is somewhere between Andres Blanco and present day Omar Vizquel. I'm more about trading Theriot than Fontenot.

Small sample size alerts all over the place, but... 12.1 H/9, 12.1 K/9, 4.66 BB/9 12.9 H/9, 7.04 K/9, 2.34 BB/9 Let's not pretend Carlos has figured it out in the bullpen or something. He's walked a few less guys, but he's giving up more hits and striking out a lot fewer. ERA is a shitty stat anyways.

Guilty as charged on the Cashner draft-day hate. But I was operating under the assumption the Cubs wouldn't turn him into a starter... Hell, I'm still surprised at how well they're handling him.

Silva's numbers are beginning to erode somewhat. His luck on hits at the start of the year has evaporated, with him now giving up 42 over 42.1 IP. Likewise, he's given up more home runs to bring his HR rate to around the league average. His walk rate is around his average as well. The only real difference that we can point at to say the FO saw something and "fixed" him is that bump in his K/9. He's still well below league average (85th highest K/9 among 117 qualifiers), but that's a category he "lead" before, so power to him I suppose. We'll see how well that aspect holds up. At any rate, the nice ERA is pretty much the product of some above average strand rates and that W-L record is due to some nice run support. He's probably not one of our 5 best starters. Zambrano, Dempster and Lilly are no-doubt better, Wells very likely is, Gorzelanny probably is as well, and we may have a few guys like Cashner and Jackson down in AAA who could turn in better seasons. But there are worse 5th starters out there than Carlos Silva.

Yeah! Crazy bastards!

Just for the sake of discussion, I have the following lines adjusted to reflect their expected BABIPs instead of their actual. Derrek Lee - .268/.380/.392 Aramis Ramirez - .230/.289/.344 Always a notoriously slow starter before his time with the Cubs, Derrek's line would look pretty much the same as it does most seasons if his HR/FB ratio weren't quite so low at the moment. That's likely to pick up as the weather warms up, and I see very little reason to be concerned about his production this season. All this talk about dropping him way down in the order or benching him is stupid. Aramis is flat out struggling though. There's no way around it. It's not that he's swinging at junk out of the zone, either. He's just been completely unable to make contact on fastballs in the strike zone this season. Whether it's a timing issue that can be fixed or his bat slowing down remains to be seen, but I have a hard time selling low on a player as good as Aramis has been. He may be able to use a few days off to work on things some more, but again... the idea of benching him is ridiculous. Who are we going to run out there instead? Best to get Aramis the reps he needs to work on things hoping he can turn it around, because if we're running Bobby Scales out there every day, this season is lost already.

This is stupid.

On this date in baseball history, 2009: - Derrek Lee was batting .209/.282/.363. He went on to have the second best season of his career. Let's remember it's early, and there still isn't a large enough sample size for anything to mean all that much.

Have any players younger than Castro hit a HR in their first major league PA?

Late to the party, but <3 Castro.

Remember when we were winning all those games even though Koyie Hill was our starting catcher everyday? Yeah, that's when Soriano was tearing the cover off the ball.

I was at today's game. Can't ask for much more. Perfect weather. Comeback. Cubs win after late inning heroics.

They are both struggling a bit, but their BABIP numbers are ridiculously low. I'm not worried in the least.

Soriano was an obvious mistake, but as Meph and TT have illustrated, Z's hitting capabilties are enough to make him equitable with guys like Carpenter, Oswalt, et al. most years. Not saying $90 mil wasn't too much, but he's a unique and elite talent. Soriano isn't. Where the hell is Meph posting now?

i know it sounds a immature and illogical, but when it comes to a short term decision like this, i would rather go with the short term data. i am in no way advocating this as a long term move. if that was the case i would go with silva to the pen (only because we have 3 lhp already). plus if your most talented starter is playing like crap, i don't think it automatically gives him a free pass to stay in the rotation either. (for the record, i don't think zambrano has been crap this season, just one start. but so far silva has out performed zambrano this season and i think everyone can agree with that.) this may be a bad decision based on 7 years of data, but i would rather go with the hot hands right now. if someone plays themself out of a rotation spot i'm perfectly fine with putting z in their slot. i see this as a numbers game. someone had to get pulled to make room for lilly and zambrano's performance so far i don't think justifies him starting compared to the other 4 this season. Before today, Z had an xFIP of 3.37 and Silva was 3.38. Silva hasn't out-performed Z. He's been luckier.

TT, this isn't really in response to you. It's just valuable information to have. WAR sells Z extremely short... as he is a very unique pitcher. Take a look at Z's BABIP versus the league average since his first full season. 2002 - .286 / .297 2003 - .291 / .298 2004 - .284 / .301 2005 - .258 / .299 2006 - .265 / .305 2007 - .275 / .307 2008 - .277 / .304 2009 - .308 / .303 2010 - .435 / .295 Until last season and four starts this season, Zambrano had shown some ability to consistently give up fewer hits than the average pitcher. However, WAR is based on Fielding Independent Pitching, which normalizes that value under the assumption all pitchers are created equal in their ability to control hits. We all know that isn't true, and one needs look no further than Carlos Marmol for proof positive. So was last year (and four starts this year) the new trend, or was it a blip on the radar? I'm inclined to lean towards his track record unless I see some data supporting some big changes in his pitch speed or movement. Then there's the matter of his defense. It's above average, and WAR doesn't factor that in. He also helps control the running game, another thing WAR doesn't attempt to quantify. Oh, and we really can't forget the bat. He was worth about five more runs than the average NL pitcher last year with his bat. Taken all together, WAR probably undersells him by an entire win... maybe a couple runs more or less. He may not be an ace pitcher any more... but we almost certainly just put our most valuable starter in the bullpen.

[expletive] morons. I needed a few days break anyways.

I was surprised there wasn't a thread on here guessing who it was going to be.

Indeed he was.

The hysterics over this are nonsensical. It isn't going to kill his chances at future success. Bringing Jay Jackson up is just dumb. And again, all those guys are just names, and Caridad hasn't just struggled, he's on the DL. Funny that you chose that wording. I think the only reason you want Cashner instead of those other guys is because of his name.

I don't see that as a particularly good comparison. Samardiza's struggles are about the fact that he sucks, not that he's raw. Cashner was considered a close to major league ready reliever by many when he was drafted. He's been dominant in short stints and all the issues have been of the 5th/6th inning variety. If he's used properly in the big leagues he could easily be a 2-3 inning per outing guy who gets plenty of work this season. It doesn't have to be a "lost season" if he goes to the bullpen. Now, if he only throws once a week and gets banished for a couple walks here and there that would be a problem. But if he's used there's nothing wrong with him being on the roster. Samardzija sucks because he doesn't have secondary pitches he can get major league hitters out with. That's in large part becuase Lou freaked out last season and demanded he be put in the bullpen instead of leaving him in the minors to work on the secondary stuff. Yes, Cashner does have a better secondary stuff already. But his command is spotty. That's a recipe for disaster in Lou's bullpen. Why take a potential ace starter and put him in a position where you know you are very very likely to stunt his development after that first two walk inning leaves him riding the pine for the next two weeks?

Samardzija last year = Cashner this year Let the raw guys get their reps, dammit.

Wont happen. Cubs wouldn't be willing to trade for him until after the season, and the Padres are very likely to unload him around the deadline. And whichever team trades for him will probably extend him too. Fielder on the other hand, he's got a shot at ending up a Cub at some point.

Heh, pretty much posted same thing at same time. Shouldnt you throw Grays name in with the Stevens/Paker/Gaub group as well? IIRC Gray has stuff that's probably a touch better, but he doesn't have the results that the other three have put up. He's got some MLB success under his belt though, which is more than the other guys without big K rates can say. Yea the bolded is why I mentioned Gray, besides the fact his stuff is supposed to be pretty damn good. Between Caridad, Berg, Russel, and Shark and Gaub, Stevens, Parker, and Gray, I know which 4sum Id much rather have on this team right now. What about Cashner? Hes a lot more valuable as a late inning reliever to us than as the AA ace. the last thing I want the cubs to do right now is take a good prospect and toss him into the big league pen where he'd go weeks at a time without more than a token appearance. Let the kid start in the minors and get the reps he needs to work on his secondary stuff. Otherwise we are likely to get a repeat of the samardzija situation.