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Rob

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Everything posted by Rob

  1. Rob
    Your mom plays nice.
  2. Rob
    I don't see it as a judgement call. Performance is easily observed. Vitters has not been up to snuff. Any time he has a brief window of success, they promote him. I don't see the point. He could be dominating the FSL right now, after dominating the midwest league last year, and a hot commodity in the trade market. Instead he's a guy with a questionable track record that hasn't come close to living up to his draft position whose biggest positives has been a boss who is happy to promote him. Well if you're back to it being substandard performance instead of an inadequate amount of time, I have to ask again. What numbers do you need to see to justify a promotion?
  3. Rob
    If we wanted to sell him, we'd probably have to bring the money owed down to the $30 mil range for the 4 years left on the contract, give or take a couple mil.
  4. Rob
    Don't forget to adjust for the league he's playing in. .328/.365/.498 in Boise (hitters league) .316/.351/.535 in Peoria (significant pitchers league) .291/.350/.445 in Daytona (the best league for pitchers) What numbers do you need to see him put up before you promote him? Significant period of time. When I last looked at his Daytona numbers he was something like 20th, behind a whole bunch of other corner position players, and some middle infielders. That's not dominating a league, and that's not any significant period of time either. I just don't see why he's a 20 year old in AA given his track record. Once a guy hits AA, the calls to bring him to the majors start up. I just think he's so far from being a potential big leaguer, there's no reason why he can't still be in Daytona, slowly climbing the ladder (and that wouldn't even be slow). Personally, I don't have any problem with the promotions to Peoria and Daytona... and I'd agree with you that we probably should have kept him in Daytona a bit longer before moving him up to AA. But really, it's a judgment call and if Fleita saw something that made him think an aggressive promotion may help, I'd have to give him the benefit of the doubt.
  5. Rob
    Don't forget to adjust for the league he's playing in. .328/.365/.498 in Boise (hitters league) .316/.351/.535 in Peoria (significant pitchers league) .291/.350/.445 in Daytona (the best league for pitchers) What numbers do you need to see him put up before you promote him?
  6. Rob
    All of those guys had been starters their entire careers until that point and had built up arm strength, as well as had time to work on secondary pitches. Highest IP number reached in a single season by those guys before their callups: Wainwright - 182.0 Martinez - 177.1 Liriano - 167.2 Santana - 160.1 Zambrano - 153.1 Price - 133.1 (college junior) Cashner - 100.1 And let's not forget the fact that most of those guys also had 2-4 times as many total innings as Cashner. Cashner can probably help our pen this season. But let's not pretend he doesn't need the innings... There's something like a 0% chance this move doesn't hurt his ability to start all next season and stay healthy.
  7. Rob
    [expletive] you, grabow.
  8. Rob
    Whether the outcome is substantially different this year or not (in terms of ISO), it's hard to watch Castro and Theriot hit and not see a huge difference in the way the ball comes off the bat. The results bear that out too. Take a look at Theriot's HRs (2006-2009) http://www.hittrackeronline.com/parks/Theriot_Ryan_2006_scatter.jpg http://www.hittrackeronline.com/parks/Theriot_Ryan_2007_scatter.jpg http://www.hittrackeronline.com/parks/Theriot_Ryan_2008_scatter.jpg http://www.hittrackeronline.com/parks/Theriot_Ryan_2009_scatter.jpg Ryan Theriot basically has to pull the ball to generate any power at all, with 12 of his 14 career HR going to left field. Only 2 were hit to center, and he has managed zero opposite field HR in over 2000 PA... this despite the fact that his approach has him putting the ball in opposite field most of the time. Castro put one over the RF stands in his first PA. Do we expect him to showcase usable power in his first ML season at age 20? No. And nobody should. But just because he isn't showing it like you might like in the early going doesn't mean it's anything to be concerned about.
  9. Rob
    Very true, I just have little to no interest in limping into the playoffs and getting swept in three games again. To me, that winds up being about as fulfilling as having missed the playoffs by a few games. Go big or go home, as they say. I have a lot of interest in limping into the playoffs. It means we have a 1 and 8 chance of winning the World Series. it doesn't mean that at all, it means there are 8 teams in the playoffs. the better teams have a better chance of winning the world series. The degree to which that is true is probably smaller than you think.
  10. Rob
    What exactly is the benefit? Doesn't this lower his trade value? It lowers his trade value in the short term, sure... But I'm actually buying Jackson as somebody who can step into the 8th inning on the big league club almost immediately.
  11. Rob
    I'm less upset about the Jackson thing than I probably should be. I just see him as somebody who would be much more valuable as a starter if we had a spot available for him, but since we don't and his stuff plays up in the pen (where we need help at the moment), why not make it a temporary move? It's not like he needs the innings like Cashner does.
  12. Rob
    In fairness to Grabow, he's sporting a nasty .409 BABIP and a below average strand rate. But I still want to put a tire iron to the back of his head until he's a big, gooey mess.
  13. Rob
    If Bengie is upset for himself, then he needs to grow thicker skin. If Bengie is upset for Giants fans, he's got a legit point. If there was only enough room to highlight one thing from that game, there were much better things ESPN should have focused on.
  14. Rob
    That BABIP is pretty high, but even tweaking it down to his xBABIP I'm coming up with a line of .319/.425/.524 That doesn't exactly have a whole bunch of predicative value with 32 PA, but it does show that Castro is legitimately hitting very well at the moment. Of course, the real challenge will be after the pitchers get the book on him and he has to start making adjustments, but I have faith.
  15. Rob
    I'm gonna be at the Memphis Redbirds game tonight as part of a bachelor party. Took a quick look at the rosters and there are some flashes in the way back machine (Rich Hill, Sean Gallagher, Radhames Liz, Ruben Gotay, Eric Munson, etc...), but there doesn't appear to be much in the way of real prospects from either the redbirds or the portland beavers, save for maybe Aaron Cunningham.
  16. Rob
    It likely will be. Teams weren't really exploiting the rule until recently, so it wasn't really an issue. I cant imagine it has a great chance of sticking around through another CBA negotiation.
  17. 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.
  18. Rob
    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.
  19. Rob
    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.
  20. Rob
    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.
  21. Rob
    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.
  22. Rob
    Yeah! Crazy bastards!
  23. Rob

    It's Time

    Rob replied to lumafia's topic in Chicago Cubs Talk

    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.
  24. Rob

    It's Time

    Rob replied to lumafia's topic in Chicago Cubs Talk

    This is stupid.
  25. Rob
    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.
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