davell

And because Koyie Hill has some very incriminating pictures of someone.

I have a feeling we'll find a way to hide Ramirez. Probably DL him to start the year.

They're gonna want to have Cashner throwing on back-to-back days before the season starts. I'd be shocked if he starts Sunday. I know I'm missing something here, but I'm not following you for some reason. Do you mean they'll want him pitching back to back days so he'll be coming out of the pen and Silva basically won the job today? If so, then it'll be really interesting to see IF Cashner actually does start Sunday then. Because then anyway, it'd at least appear as if it'd be likely to see him move to AAA and continue starting possibly.

But wait, Cashner pitches Sunday. Maybe he has a chance yet? Hell if I know. He's going to have to throw 80 pitches and be fairly effective in the process, considering what Silva did today. Then again, I thought they'd announce before Sunday, so who knows?

6IP 3H 1R 3K 78 pitches with 51 strikes. I hate that Cashner crapped out, because my tune has changed. I'll be shocked if Silva isn't given the 5th spot now. With a good outing on Monday, or hell, at ANY point this spring, Cashner could have had it. :banghead:

I'm hoping Rendon continues to struggle I don't think he's struggling as much as it's he's just not getting pitched to. Everything I've read said he's not dropping past 2nd, unless another bigtime injury happens basically. From ESPN's Draft Blog: There's no mention of the Nats, who pick 6th and have shown for sure they'll take the best on the board and give out bigtime bonuses. That said, I'll be beyond shocked if he's not hurt, that he doesn't go first or second.

I'm hoping Rendon continues to struggle I don't think he's struggling as much as it's he's just not getting pitched to. Everything I've read said he's not dropping past 2nd, unless another bigtime injury happens basically. With Purke though, he's pitched well, he's just not pitched deep into games yet. But his velo seems to be down a tad and his motion has some worried he's going to wind up in the back of a pen, instead of as a top of the rotation starter. At any rate, with Cole, Purke, Barnes, Gray, Hultzen, Jed Bradley, and Bauer all out there, more than one of these guys is going to be available when we pick and all appear to at least have "ace" capability. Not even counting any high schoolers like Daniel Norris, Archie Bradley, or Dylan Bundy, who all have that upside as well. Basically, if we take a hitter at 9, it had better be Rendon or Starling. I've fallen into Raisin's camp on Springer as he's just not safe enough to take that high. Although I still think he'll be off the board before we pick. Jackie Bradley would be a very nice player to have, but we've already got Brett basically doing the same type of stuff Bradley's going to be doing. The only other bat I could see possibly off the board would be Lindor, just because SS is such a premium. Hell, with as good as he's been playing, I guess Andrew Susac could rise into our territory as well, since he's a great defensive catcher and he's hitting the ball now as well. Bottom line is this though: At 9, we're going to have quite a few guys who can become bigtime players available to choose from.

What was the gist of it? I gathered Carpenter was one of the guys 3-5, but who else was mentioned and what were the hopes for these guys?

I actually thought I had read somewhere that Hendry's vision was Szczur/Jackson/Colvin from left to right, could be wrong though. I do think he said that was his expectation in 2014.

Nah, Jordan would have had a "shrug the shoulders" game to combat Rose last night. :D Probably would've been sent to the line 45 times Nah, that would only happen if they were playing the 80's era Celtics because Bird, Ainge, DJ, Parish and McHale couldn't keep up.

Nah, Jordan would have had a "shrug the shoulders" game to combat Rose last night. :D

The bottom end of their system looks very intriguing, with Taillon, Allie, and Heredia. Having young guys like that, makes them a great candidate to move quickly up this kind of list. That said, I was curious and looked up their last 10 1st rounders and they are: Jameson Taillon, Tony Sanchez, Pedro Alvarez, Daniel Moskos, Andrew McCutchen, Neil Walker, Paul Maholm, Bryan Bullington, John Van Benschoten, and Sean Burnett. Obviously, it's too early to tell on Taillon, since he's yet to pitch a game in the minors. Sanchez looks like he'll be a solid everyday catcher. Alvarez showed plenty of power last year in the majors, just needs to make more contact, Moskos looks like he's a middle reliever, if he ever makes it.McCutchen is going to be damn good obviously and Neil Walker finally made it look like he was a good pick too. Maholm has had serviceable years and the last 3 guys were total busts. They may be ranked pretty low right now, but Alvarez, McCutchen, Walker, Tabata and Sanchez are very nice young offensive players to have, then you've got the 3 pitchers I just mentioned along with the 1st pick in this draft. So once you add Cole or Rendon to the mix, I can see them having lots to be excited about for a change.

There are certainly parts of the article that are dumb. No doubt about it. And forgetting about Brett Jackson is stupid obviously. But, I hate to say it, but I'm actually impressed Phil Rogers has ever HEARD of Szczur, much less written what qualifies as a fluff piece about him. The more I've read on Szczur, the more excited I am to see what he can do. Carl Crawford is a potential comp according to some guys. He's not hitting for power yet, but hits 400 ft. bombs in BP. Jim Callis of BA gushes over him, for those of you who don't go into the minor league forums all that often. Don't get me wrong, some guys don't understand us handing him a 1.5 million bonus to keep him from being tempted by football. But, he's a classic "upside" guy and there's probably not a guy in our organization who has better intangibles to go with it. It looks like he's going to start off in A ball this year, but I could see him moving to A+ quickly, with an outside shot of seeing AA by the end of the season.

To me, the interesting thing from that boxscore is seeing Antigua and Lopez with the Peoria squad. Szczur too, since he was assigned to Tennessee earlier. At this stage, I'd think it'd be hard to head back up a level, right? Don't get me wrong, I expected to see Szczur start out in Peoria, but seeing him assigned to Tennessee had me hoping he'd start out in Daytona. As for Lopez and Antigua, I thought both would have almost definitely started out in Daytona, but in neither case does it kill either of them, because they are still young. After hearing about Golden's weight issues, seeing him in EXST made sense.

I want Purke and think it's starting to become a legit possibility.

They did draft him out of HS, IIRC, but Hultzen was dead set on UVA (and IIRC, I think they offered solid money as well). On top of that, I think that Hultzen's dad told teams NOT to draft him, because there was no way he was not going to school and evidently was pissed bigtime at the D-Backs for taking him. I got that from some dude at orioleshangout on their draft board, but he seems like he knows his stuff and may even be a scout or was a scout or something to that nature anyway.

I agree that it's definitely possible. That said, I'm not going to be totally pissed, simply because Cashner had a great opportunity this spring and didn't seize it whatsoever. If they go back in a direction they're at least familiar with, I don't think we can really blame them here. Cashner hasn't proven he can get it done as a starter and on top of things hasn't really been stretched out yet as it is. The idea of ruining his arm has certainly crossed their minds and so has the idea of overworking the pen early in the season, to account for his not being stretched out. In a perfect world, we'd see him in AAA if this IS the case, but honestly the word "Cubs" and the words "perfect world" should probably never be used together. On a side note, I've also read in a few places that bullpen Cashner throws serious heat with much more movement than starter Cashner does, who's stuff has looked very ordinary this spring, in trying to conserve his arm for longer in-game use. His pitches just don't have the same movement when he's throwing with less velo. We could easily just be finding out that Cashner is a back of the pen arm and not a frontline starter. Again, I don't want this to be the case and I'll stand behind some of Quade's comments from earlier this spring, where he's hoping and thinking that Cashner WILL BE a frontline starter. Unless Silva pitches phenomenally tomorrow, I think Cashner is our 5th guy and even then, I'm not sure he isn't. Still think Silva could be headed for long man territory.

By the way, a couple of days ago, Keith Law was asked who his top 4 were and he went with Cole, Rendon, Starling and either Lindor or Gray.

Silva is starting Wednesday and Z has been moved to a minor league outing. Plus, Quade said he's not counting anyone out. This can be construed in a bunch of ways, if you ask me. My gut tells me though that IF Silva pitches well, he makes the roster as a long man. Cashner still gets the 5th spot. If he bombs, he's getting released. I have a feeling we're looking at this as an "upside" thing with Cashner and will give him a little while more to prove he can't start, before we pull the plug on trying. And lucky for him, everyone else has sucked, so he'll get his shot in the majors and not AAA.

I'm not 100% sure, and I'm too lazy to confirm, but I think the Bulls have a significantly better record with Boozer and Noah than without one of them. And the disparity gets even greater if you toss out the 0-2 when Boozer debuted and the Bulls had no idea what was going on on the floor. I *think* they are 17-4 with Boozer and Noah, but confirming that would take more time than I'm willing to expend on it. Same here :D , but I'll take your word for it. Like I said earlier, I really hope you guys are right about this team.

To me, it's about "elite" players. The Bulls have one. Teams that usually take it higher have more than that. Currently, we're trying to win a championship Piston-style, if you ask me. Which is fine, but there's going to be some luck involved in doing it.(3rd Piston title, not first pair) If I'm not mistaken, the Bulls record without one of Noah or Boozer is fairly close percentage-wise as to when they have them both. I see what you're saying, about giving a team time to gel basically and I understand where you're coming from. I just don't see how it's going to make a true difference that longer they advance in the playoffs. Personally, I thought coming into the season we were a low 50's win team and probably the 4th best team in the East, behind the Celtics, Heat, and Magic, in that order. I do think we're better than the Magic now, but I'm not convinced we'd beat the Heat in a playoff series, even though we're 3-0 against them. And even with homecourt(if we have it) against the Celtics, I hate to say it, but I'd give us about a 25% chance to win that series. It hasn't even been a real thought as far as making the Finals, but I'd give us less than that if we're playing the Lakers. And probably no more than that if we're playing the Spurs, since we have no shot at homecourt against them.

Maybe I should have said they'd "probably" win a game or two, instead of "possibly" but I really don't look at this team as a true contender(may be one of the few Bulls fans thinking this way and I obviously hope I'm wrong). But, if the 91 team was truly motivated(and that's the key here), I just don't think this team would take more than a game or two. Hell, maybe they could even take a 3rd game and make it 7-3. Grant was a much better player than Boozer. Especially when it comes to playoff basketball, where defense takes over. If given the chance, he'd have probably been able to score with Boozer if he had been asked to do so. There's not a current Bull who's as good defensively as their counterpart on that team, if you ask me. Noah vs. Cartwright is close, and while Paxson would technically be matched up with Rose, either Jordan or Pippen would be on him, probably taking turns honestly. Paxson would be off guarding our 3 headed monster at SG. In the end, I'd take the team with the greatest player of all time in his prime, playing alongside a guy who was entering his prime and becoming a top 30ish player of all time as well, and a supporting cast that fit their skills to a tee to easily beat this current group of Bulls, who have a young superstar(not in his prime yet) and a nice supporting cast, albeit one that has a hole still at SG. And I don't think it'd be close. Yeah, they probably take a game or two or three, but that's it, if the 91 team is truly motivated each and every time out there. This current team's window is open now, but they're going to get better and add more pieces before I think of them as someone who's going to win a title. Like I said, I really hope I'm wrong about it, but this team plays as hard as they can and I don't see that they can take it up a notch, which I DO think the Celtics(definitely) and probably even the Heat can do.

Why would we make a bad contract swap including Shark? He's still relatively young and he has zero trade value at the present time. Taking on someone else's crap doesn't even make sense, because Shark COULD show he's a decent bullpen arm at least and most teams "bad" contracts fall well outside the realm of one year and 3 million bucks. If Shark screws up again, it's fine. We're done with him after this season anyway. And other teams are probably looking at his situation in the same way anyway: Why take a risk now when you may be able to take that "upside" type risk next offseason for the league minimum? Personally, I don't really know that I even WANT him to show flashes this year either. Pitch well or don't. It's definitely time for us to know what, if anything, we've got with him. I don't want him blocking guys next year, unless he shows he's a legit major league arm, instead of basically being a rule 5 type guy we're going to try and hide all year, which is likely what we're doing, unless he shows us some serious improvement.

Sam Smith said the 91 Bulls would beat the 11 Bulls 10 games out of 10. While I think the 11 Bulls would possibly take a game or two from them, there are actually a few guys on realgm saying this current team would hang with them and keep the series close. One guy even FAVORABLY compared Deng and Pippen as a wash. :lol:

In that case, then why not just keep Ramirez and have Colvin or Kosuke fill in at CF? They're both as good if not better defensive CFs than Johnson anyway. As much as I like Reed, that's the solution, right there.