Sarcastic

That's what they get paid the big bucks for.

Because his much greater sample size of ABs in the minors suggest that he is a bench player? While Ramirez is out, it makes sense to play him plenty, though.

I think the first call was actually right after seeing the last replay (fan reached over the yellow line). The second call was pretty questionable though.

Will people ever learn to not reach over the goddamned basket?

I think we was positioning himself for a bounce off the wall.

If the Cubs lose this game by one run, that guy is going to have the crap beaten out of him in the bleachers.

The point is that he has a recent track record of playing very good baseball. Baseball? He had a track record for decent hitting. His general play, in my opinion, has always bordered on mediocre or worse. That is absurd. He has been one of the top hitting catchers in the NL for three straight years, and you call that worse than mediocre? That smacks of bias and subjectivity. Even if you can't stand his lack of performance this year, he has been one of the best at his position since he came to the Cubs. Bias? What bias? My "bias" is that I always thought he was medicore or worse at the catcher position. That's part of "playing baseball"...like I said, he had a decent or better bat, fortunately very often during his time with the Cubs, but many of the flaws people are really burned over now were always there. It's simply not accurate to say he played "very good baseball," because he wasn't very good at half of what he had to do as a baseball player. Since when is fielding half of a player's job? Even at defensive positions, I'll take the great hitting weak fielder over the slick fielding, no bat player any day. Barrett has been bad at fielding, but if you think his fielding outweighed his hitting for the last three years, you are probably magnifying the mistakes he used to make by imagining they were as bad as they have been this year and emphasizing fielding too much.

The point is that he has a recent track record of playing very good baseball. Baseball? He had a track record for decent hitting. His general play, in my opinion, has always bordered on mediocre or worse. That is absurd. He has been one of the top hitting catchers in the NL for three straight years, and you call that worse than mediocre? That smacks of bias and subjectivity. Even if you can't stand his lack of performance this year, he has been one of the best at his position since he came to the Cubs.

Apparently not.

I'm appalled by watching him play the game. That's funny. The last three years, he's been one of the very few reasons to watch the Cubs, and two bad months into the next season, everybody says they can't stand him. Barrett haters remind me way too much of Yankee fans... that whole "what have you done for me lately?" crap. It's disgusting... and it's certainly not befitting of a Cubs fan. Cubs fans on this site that have that attitude like cubbiechris make me sick to be a cubs fan. If a guy has been nails for you for 3 years, you don't throw him under the bus. The same thing happened to Z. It IS disgusting. and Pathetic. I don't like being associated with those types of Cubs fans. From a management perspective, if a guy isn't performing anymore, you can't be sentimental about him, you have to sit him and/or get rid of him. However, it would behoove fans to remember that past performance is often predictive of future performance.

How's their pen?

I'm appalled by watching him play the game. That's funny. The last three years, he's been one of the very few reasons to watch the Cubs, and two bad months into the next season, everybody says they can't stand him. Barrett haters remind me way too much of Yankee fans... that whole "what have you done for me lately?" crap. It's disgusting... and it's certainly not befitting of a Cubs fan. Yeah, I wonder what Maddux would have to say about the one reason to watch the cubs? Since he did everything he could for three years to not pitch to the guy. What is your point? Maddux didn't like Barrett? He blamed him when he didn't pitch well? So what?

There's been an anti-Barrett lobby since he got here.

Some of those pitches were very close. It isn't as if Wells is known for having control problems. If Barrett got a good pitch to hit he should have swung. He also should have hit it much better than he did.

Is it just me, or do the Cubs seem to have a lot of really slow SPs that are susceptible to steals? There have been many instances of runners getting such good jumps on our pitchers that there was no chance of throwing them out.

Stupid question removed.

And an Alex Gordon homer makes it 11-6 KC in the 4th. This game is absurd. EDIT: After a few more hits, it is now 15-6, still in the 4th. KC has scored 4 times with 2 out.

Actually, they've now gone 8-4 since the last game of the 3 game Atlanta series a while back. It is still pretty demented, though. They still lose games they should win in the most painful ways imaginable with regularity.

right...i voted for martin... my first post was a joke since the thread has taken this left turn...i say we just see if anyone will bite on barrett...then bring up soto... why not!? Because when you sell that low on a player that actually has some talent you will get nothing in return, hurting the team in the long run? You were probably joking, this comment is more general than specifically directed at you.

When all is said and done, Barrett is going to get the majority of catcher at bats. But he's not an everyday player and he's very clearly messed up in the head right now. He's fighting with coaches and players, repeatedly in the middle of controversy and bad plays. Sitting for a couple days isn't going to kill the team. I don't have a problem with him clearing his head for a few days. All I'm saying is that it is incredibly premature to start talking about replacing Barrett with Hill, which a few people have indicated they wouldn't mind.

Lou hates Barrett. He said something to him after Barrett was picked off, and Barrett decided to argue with him. I think he's looking for any reason not to play the guy. That would be unfortunate, considering that Hill can't hit his way out of a paper bag, and Barrett was just starting to heat up, despite his poor fielding. hill has had three hits in the last two days...including a sac bunt that was clutch I don't especially care what he has done in the last two days. He's been bad in his short stint in the majors, and his minor league numbers don't exactly jump out at you. He isn't even close to being the caliber hitter that Barrett has been the last three years.

Lou hates Barrett. He said something to him after Barrett was picked off, and Barrett decided to argue with him. I think he's looking for any reason not to play the guy. That would be unfortunate, considering that Hill can't hit his way out of a paper bag, and Barrett was just starting to heat up, despite his poor fielding.

What? "Proactive" isn't a buzzword. By that logic, do you hate "reactive," too? Depending on the context, any word can be adopted as a buzzword. Many bureaucrats chose a word to apply to all questions in all situations, pretending as if they are saying something while actually robbing the word of any meaning it might have originally had by usi9ng it so generally.

That sort of misses the point, though, doesn't it?

Life makes no sense. They'll still probably lose, though.