bukie

http://www.baseballamerica.com/college/2014-mock-draft-track-record-lands-rodon-atop-first-mock/ Really, BA? Drafting for current major league need in the first round? Say it ain't so.

This is where the rumor stemmed from:

Last night's game-ending play for the Pirates and Giants, that wouldn't have happened last year for two reasons: http://msn.foxsports.com/mlb/story/pirates-giants-starling-marte-instant-replay-buster-posey-050714

He's still probably the 4th best talent in the draft; now he's just available in a later round. Really diminishes the chances of Rodon making it to 4 though unless he has another numbers setback, or some hitter hits well enough to make him a preferable target anyway.

That's just because you think anyone who dares find anything positive about the organization means they approve of every last thing, and refuse to acknowledge otherwise.

I called you out for histrionics (again) because it's tired and stupid. I used Kyle as the "gold standard" for useless thick-headedness, and he mistakenly took that to mean that he was somehow relevant to the discussion.

The Cubs stockpiled arms in the minors. Good strategy, but then they let Dusty ruin them, and somehow blew the 2004 playoffs with likely the best team in the league. 2007 was a playoff run thanks to no good teams in the division. 2008 got the best offense in the league thanks to Soriano, Ramirez, Derrek Lee and about 5 bottles of lightning. That was the unsustainable part, and Hendry even managed to get wrong why the club fell apart in the playoffs (he thought they were too right-handed). Their inability to develop players from within doomed both mini-runs within a year. I think that's not giving the 07 team enough credit. Weren't they the best team in baseball after June 1st? I have no idea why they had such a [expletive] first two months but I think it really skewed the way they were perceived vs hwo good they really were. They were the 3rd best team in the NL after June 1st after Philly and Colorado (Arizona was 4th). They had a below-average offense and rode 4/5ths of a good rotation and a lights out bullpen to take a division with no good teams. The offense killed them in the playoffs.

The Cubs stockpiled arms in the minors. Good strategy, but then they let Dusty ruin them, and somehow blew the 2004 playoffs with likely the best team in the league. 2007 was a playoff run thanks to no good teams in the division. 2008 got the best offense in the league thanks to Soriano, Ramirez, Derrek Lee and about 5 bottles of lightning. That was the unsustainable part, and Hendry even managed to get wrong why the club fell apart in the playoffs (he thought they were too right-handed). Their inability to develop players from within doomed both mini-runs within a year.

Which is why things like scouting advancements and organizational development is such a big deal.

I don't think there's any ranking system that agrees with this. It goes beyond just prospect rankings, though, considering the team was the only one in the league still charting by hand and not having any video of prospects at any level. No teams could come close to the Cubs' level of improvements system-wide because the Cubs were so ass-backwards they were the laughing stock of the league. And you don't think these improvements show up in prospect rankings? Indirectly, sure, the club develops and drafts players leagues better as a result of the improvements. But no, I don't think, say, Keith Law takes facilities and development assets into account when he ranks the Cubs' farm system.

Like I said, the reason for his poor workout is essentially meaningless, since it was a poor workout, and so bad that no team in their right mind would have offered what the Dodgers did. The rumor simply provides a bit of validity to the Dodgers' bid besides "shot in the dark".

I don't think there's any ranking system that agrees with this. It goes beyond just prospect rankings, though, considering the team was the only one in the league still charting by hand and not having any video of prospects at any level. No teams could come close to the Cubs' level of improvements system-wide because the Cubs were so ass-backwards they were the laughing stock of the league.

Basically, they hit on 1 of 5 primary international targets. Of the 4 they missed: - Darvish: Didn't get the high blind bid, the system was so stupid they changed it since. - Cespedes: Prevailing rumor was the A's upped the Cubs' offer by granting him FA two years early, and he signed before the Cubs had a chance to counter. If true, nothing the Cubs could have done. If false, they missed out on one good year thus far, and he'll be available after next year if he's still worth signing. - Puig: Apparently showed up well out of shape to the workouts, and nobody in their right mind would have signed him near to what the Dodgers offered. Rumor has it the Dodgers told him to sandbag the workouts so they could have him to themselves, but meh, given what happened at the workout there was no way to predict what he'd have done to this point. Practically the definition of lightning in a bottle. - Tanaka: This one is the most disappointing, since he was the Cubs' primary target this offseason, and the blind bid system was removed to give every team a decent shot at him. The Yankees just reportedly went higher than anyone else, and whether the Cubs couldn't match or wouldn't match only causes a slight difference on who to be disappointed with. Sometimes the Yankees just go higher than everyone else. It is a thing that happens. Let's not pretend the Cubs should have gone after Abreu either, and if we're looking for someone to blame for that, blame the NL not having a DH, since there's nowhere else for the guy to play for the team and add value. Would the Cubs be better if they hit on half of the misses? Of course, the rotation would be 4-5 wins better if they had Darvish and Tanaka instead of, say, Jackson and Hammel. But the Cubs aren't the only team in the league, and especially aren't the only competent team in the league. 1 of 5 should be about what is expected, optimistically, from a team trying to take advantage of the international market. Still ahead of the league curve, there, I think.

You just made up two narratives here. The Cubs are only trading Samardzija if the return provides more value going forward than Samardzija will. That's why he's still on the team now. Castro, Rizzo and Castillo are currently at the major league level and producing. Samardzija is pitching lights out, Hammel isn't far behind, and Arrieta and Wood are contributing positively, and the pen is actually proving to be an asset right now (once the Veres issue sorted itself out). The outfield isn't performing, even in the platoons (and the best of the bunch is on the shelf for 3 weeks), which really drags down the offense in an annoyingly glaring way despite the success from the infield across the board (including Valbuena and Bonifacio, though Bonifacio is the most likely candidate to regress quickly and has).

No, I'm sick of the nonsense bitching and ad-hominem about how apparently easy it could have been to buy all the players and make the playoffs, when there hasn't been much of a realistic chance to do so. There's no way to force all the free agents to sign here, and there's no magic formula for making the playoffs from a dire situation except hitting on lightning in a bottle several times over, and that's no way to sustain long-term success. The overall organization was in a shambles from drafting to development throughout the system, and propping the major league team up with FA just to please a few short-sighted people without overhauling the rest of the system wouldn't have been a good long term solution either. Despite how easily people hand-wave away the rest of the system as "easy when you're not trying at the major-league level", no teams' systems are improving like the Cubs' had. The more we learn about how terrible the system was prior to Epstein/Hoyer/McLeod, the more it makes sense to attack the problem in the way they did. The annoying financial issues with the Ricketts just contribute more to the necessity of maximizing ROI, and every move that the club has made has been in an effort to increase the overall value to the club, even if it doesn't make immediate sense to people who want quick solutions.

Oh please, enlighten us. You are exactly who we need to explain to us why this is all a good thing. Oh please, you've never been interested in logic, despite your insistence to the contrary. You ignore or twist everything positive into a negative, and then play both sides just so you can always claim to be right. The fact that other people can be morons too doesn't make your positions any more plausible, and you've long since ceased to be of any value to people that try to be reasonable about things.

Plenty of people are sick of losing. Few make up narratives and turn a blind eye to everything good happening just to have an excuse to spout off regularly.

God, quit being a damned moron, already. There have been 4 teams in the last 3 years, all small-market, who lost more games in a season than we did in 2011 and had a lower-ranked farm system than we did in 2011 who went on to make the playoffs the following year and I'm rooting for the one that decided to pitch the next 3 (and looks like 4) years. If being pissed about that is 'being a damned moron', then sign me the [expletive] up. You are denser than a pile of bricks, but hey, go all in on Kyle-level thick-headedness, then.

Err, because the black hawk is a common mascot for the team in apparel?

God, quit being a damned moron, already.

So far in the playoffs, the offense has been really evenly distributed. Seabrook and Toews have 9 points, Kane, Bickell, and Hossa have 8, Saad and Keith have 7. (Sharp, Hjalmarsson, Oduya, Roszival, Shaw and Smith have 3, Leddy, Kruger, Versteeg and Brookbank have 2, Handzus has 1) .

He strikes out a lot and doesn't walk all that much and doesn't hit for average and so far has been rated as a below average defensive first baseman. He hits for power. That's about it. He's basically Adam Dunn without the patience as far as I can tell. Just noticed the 1-2-3 hitters for the Sox have a .257, .231, and .319 OBP, respectively. Meanwhile, the 8-9 hitters have a .390 and .344 OBP.

@strombone1 I was blowing 2 goal leads way before all the cool kids started doing it #innovator

Valbuena hitting .214 with a .370 OBP.

If he keeps getting on base 42% of the time he should definitely hit higher than that. yeah, if the walk rate pans out at all, i want him at two forever Castro-Rizzo-Baez-Bryant, 1-4. Mmmmmmm. i want the lineup to be so legit castro's .350 obp is hitting sixth Almora-Rizzo-Baez-Bryant-Soler-Castro-Castillo-Alcantara