Rob

It'd be great if Pierce could throw some more strikes.

http://ramblingrooby.files.wordpress.com/2013/07/ham.jpg That kid is now 35 and a scientologist.

counter-offer: castro for mccutchen and polanco Castro for a current version of that girl. There's nudes, if you're interested.

Today I learned Valbuena has more PA as a Cub than Matt Murton, Ronny Cedeno, and Glenallen Hill.

I am world renowned for the degree of my Shiny New Toy Syndrome, but I think he's being criminally undersold by most people. He's posting walk, strikeout, and power rates like Vogelbach while being two years younger and providing some defensive value.

Wow, that was a disturbing read.

I have zero interest in giving six years of guaranteed money to a guy striking out 30% of the time in AAA. As always, it depends on the numbers.

Somebody should submit Billy's phone call to the Vatican. If they determine it was his miracle that brought Rich Harden to the Cubs he'll get a sainthood and a bunch of virgins or something.

I like Vogelbach and really want him to succeed, but the odds are really stacked against him. There's a reason there's rarely any 1B prospects on BA's top 100 list -- you really have to mash the everloving [expletive] out of the ball to justify being a bat-first 1B. And as good as Vogelbach's plate discipline has been, he hasn't mashed the everloving [expletive] out of the ball since Boise.

*checks Kevin Encarnacion's KC numbers* [expletive], another summer of this [expletive]? I'm sure you found that he didn't do very well in those 16 games. And then didn't bother to check his numbers in Boise. And was then severely injured in a car crash and hasn't played since, making him an awful example. But I apologize for my interest in somebody who isn't marveled over in every thread. SCS, I'm sorry, but you don't get to feel righteously indignant on this one. The reason why people don't and shouldn't care about Roberto Caro as a prospect is because of his age relative to his level, that he is repeating this level for the third time...and the fact that he isn't good. You shouldn't be getting pissed about the response you've gotten. Don't chase this windmill. One can think a 17 year old in the VSL or DSL has a chance of being a decent prospect especially if he's performing well, sometimes an 18 year old if they're doing really well (late bloomers and all). Maaaybe a 19 year old if he's a pitcher and is dominant. And almost always a prospect worth following won't spend more than one season there. Some exceptions have occurred to that rule, but not many. But you just advocated for Roberto Caro who is 20 (will turn 21 in just over two months) which makes him 3 years older than most legit prospects in this league. He has spent 3 seasons at the same level and has never been promoted. His hit tool is lacking, hitting just .254 last year and just .279 this year. Lots of people can draw walks in these leagues because they face so many inexperienced pitchers who lack control, so K/BB ratios are almost always misleading and OBPs inflated. Advocating for him is like backing a 24 year old (who is about to 25) and his repeating Kane County for the third year in a row while only producing okay numbers. I still think Brandon Sing will be a star someday.

Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to the first annual tournament of Kyle, where participants compete to see who can Kyle the best. Your first round matchups are "David vs CubinNY" and "Kyle vs Kyle." (He really jumped out to an early lead when he insisted on facing himself and wouldn't take 'no' for an answer).

Healing the wounds a few thousand years of the systematic repression and objectification of women has caused to our collective psyche. Also, somebody edits a poetry journal.

Yup. But no matter how bored I am I'm not going to individually parse through nearly 2000 posts containing the word rape. There's no way to come out of that one feeling good about the world.

Just because it's "one of those days" at the office. Incidence of the word rape on NSBB: 1905 matches total (this post will make 1906, yay!) 2014 - 128 (so far) 2013 - 78 2012 - 270 2011 - 300 2010 - 146 In summary, [expletive], I dunno. I guess how much we talk about rape depends on external factors, like Jerry Sandusky.

I'll never forgive Dusty for ruining DLee's 2005 MVP campaign. Cubs leadoff hitters that year hit .245/.299/.358. Gotta get those fast dudes up at the top of the lineup though.

The Mets pitching has three pretty fantastic talents (Harvey, Syndergaard, Wheeler), a solid #3 on a good contract (Niese), an interesting backend guy (deGrom), and some solid filler guys like Gee. As far as pitching goes, they're in wonderful shape. I just don't see the need to expend valuable assets to acquire any of their pitching. Pitching is the easiest thing to assemble off the scrap heap right now. This is doubly true with our bullpen situation looking pretty darn good right now. For now, we should be content to add a bunch of lottery-ticket upside guys in the draft and work off of reclamation projects. Once the hitting has arrived, we can talk about moving some of it for the high-end pitching help we might need. Until then, best to not trade relatively sure things and pray on the health of elbows and shoulders.

Nice. I cranked out about 40 votes this morning. First time I've voted in years, probably.

Rumor has it he's about to sign for more than $6.5M. Between that, Kolek's $6M bonus, and Aiken's whole situation I'm pretty happy with Schwarber (currently sporting a .432/.510/.864 line across two levels) for $3.125M.

A good #2-3 starter with a few years of team control remaining. Maybe a guy like Eovaldi.

I have a hard time seeing a deal.

For Russell or Baez, possibly. For Starlin, not close. FWIW, on MLBTR live chat the other day, Castro for Harvey and then Castro for Snydgaard and some other Met prospect were proposed and the host said the Mets say no to both. The Mets might say no. Sandy Alderson is nutty about his pitching prospects and adding even a paltry $6M to the payroll next year could be tough for the Wilpons. But the Cubs would never offer that, so it doesn't really matter.

Does anybody realize how good Castro's contract is? The market value of a win is somewhere between $5M-$7M right now, and increasing at a rate of roughly 5% per season (some say 10%). Projected Excess Value from 2015-2019: If the market value of a win is $5M: If the market value of a win is $5.5M At $6M At $6.5M And at $7M per win. Even if Castro never improves and stays a 3 WAR player forever, he's basically worth somewhere between $40M and $70M more than his contract will pay him over the next five years. We may not be maximizing the utility of that excess value due to our team currently sucking, but there are a lot of teams that need a SS. And it's not much of a stretch to imagine a bidding war for a 3 WAR SS entering his prime and projected to outperform his contract by a big margin. He's not getting traded unless we are overwhelmed with the offer. A straight up swap for a pitcher getting hit around in AAA just isn't happening. Any Mets fan convincing themselves to the contrary is blind.

.420 BABIP is totes sustainable And I thought I was being pretty generous by assuming Bryant would be able to keep his minor league K% at the major league level. It usually goes up.

I really hope we don't move Valbuena for scraps. Since he came to the Cubs in 2012, he's been worth 4.9 fWAR in 973 PA. (2.8 fWAR per 550 PA). How does that 2.8 fWAR per 550 PA compare to other guys? Pretty well. It puts him right in the middle of Ryan Zimmerman (2.9), Martin Prado (2.7) and Pablo Sandoval (2.6). You can make the argument that since Valbuena has been situationally used he should see that rate go down as he faces more lefties, but it still goes to show how useful he's been when he's been in our lineup. Giving him away for nothing would be awful.

Hit .250? Definitely could happen. Stanton has a strikeout rate around Bryant's minor league rate, and he's had a few seasons floating around .260 for his batting average. Don't see the .830 OPS though.