KingCubsFan

If he goes .270/.325/.350 at age 20, i highly doubt the cubs will give him the Pie Treatment. He's being brought up knowing how raw he is at age 20, i doubt the cubs are bringing him up on a short leash. Pie got the Pie Treatment when he was only 22. Exactly. I think people are underestimating the stupidity of this organization when it comes to player development for hitters.

So when Castro goes .270/.325/.350 this year, are the Cubs going to give him the Pie treatment and waste him too?

If he were in the National League, that type of offense would work, however in the AL you need a lot of power to have any chance to make it deep into October. The 05 Sox had the speed but they hit a ton of home runs as well. This offense wouldn't work anywhere because it's bad. When you're depending on Mark Kotsay, Rios and Andruw Jones to be significant contributors, your offense is not going to be very good. If I were Williams I would fire him just for making me build this terrible offense and wasting probably the best pitching staff in the league.

Soriano was an obvious mistake, but as Meph and TT have illustrated, Z's hitting capabilties are enough to make him equitable with guys like Carpenter, Oswalt, et al. most years. Not saying $90 mil wasn't too much, but he's a unique and elite talent. Soriano isn't. I'd rather pay a pitcher 18 million to be a healthy Chris Carpenter (low 3's ERA, WHIP near 1) as opposed to a clearly inferior pitcher who hits a few cool homeruns. They're simply not equal. I think it's great that certain metrics and statistics are starting to factor in other facets of a player's game but now it seems like they're starting to go the other way and those other facets are staring to be a bit over-emphasized.

I figured Jim Callis would have written that one, but he wasn't listed as one of the contributors.

Even if you think that he's destined for failure, you have to admit that he has more trade equity than Heath Bell. I think we should definitely look to trade Vitters. But it doesn't make sense to trade him for a guy whose value is tied up with the label of "closer" when Marmol has been lights out. Why do you believe they should definitely look to trade Vitters? Aramis having an opt out clause in his contract sort of makes having Vitters around a bit of a safety net if Aramis leaves. Vitters won't be ready by Opening Day next year, so we'd need to sign someone anyways if Aramis leaves. I just believe his (lack of) plate discipline will stop him from being a worthwhile regular on a championship-caliber team, so we should look to trade him for someone that is. Obviously, I hope I'm wrong though.

Even if you think that he's destined for failure, you have to admit that he has more trade equity than Heath Bell. I think we should definitely look to trade Vitters. But it doesn't make sense to trade him for a guy whose value is tied up with the label of "closer" when Marmol has been lights out.

The longer he remains as a successful starter in the minors, the better chance he has of eventually getting a shot as a starter in the majors. He has to start pitching more than 4 or 5 innings every game though.

The actual moral of that story is that if you truly have a pathetic offense the other two are pretty redundant. Maybe long-term, but we should be 5-1 right now with a real bullpen despite our offense not showing up in Cinci.

Exactly. If Colvin is starting, we better have cut Soriano and gotten someone really good for LF

No way. It should be Sandberg.

http://www.chicagotribune.com/sports/baseball/cubs/ct-spt-0311-rogers-milton-bradley-cubs--20100310,0,7684565.column

Before last season, didn't pretty much everyone always say that Bradley was a good teammate and well liked in the clubhouse? Link to this? All I've heard was that Kinsler, Hamilton, Young, etc. would have led a mutiny if Bradley came back to Texas last year.

No, it's not possible. Because prior to those rooftops going "corporate", there were very few people up there. It was a hoot to see 5 people on a rooftop, so they showed it on TV. If anything, the rooftops take away what would otherwise be bleacher attendees. I dont know when they went corporate, but back in the 70s they were just people who lived in the buildings. You couldn't go up there unless because the buildings were always locked. I am not sure when landlords finally figured that they should build bleachers and charge admission. If you watch Kerry Wood's 20K game, they pan across the rooftops at one point and you can see almost all of them being built.

Yeah, that's the philosphy to go through life with! And it's gotten you so far. it has gotten him far. extremely far. he not only made it to the majors, but he is getting paid tens of millions of dollars to play a sport. And just imagine all of the tens of millions of dollars it has cost him.

Hopefully Berg/Samardzija only last a few weeks and then Gray will be ready

If Theriot and Fukudome were hitting in the top 2 spots in the lineup, you might as well hit Theriot first to avoid all of the double plays he'd ground into with Fukudome on base.

I agree with you on the lefty bat thing, but I'd probably guess Carlos Pena. Adam LaRoche seems like Hendry's kind of player

He's been a professional for 120 innings. He was great last year at Daytona. Then he got promoted and was great in July at AA, then wore down at the end of the season. This isn't some Samardzija-like situation of hoping his stuff matures so he stops getting hammered, he was quite good at an appropriate level, and then wore down when he reached a new IP threshold. Cashner has great stuff, gets ground balls, never gives up HR, and gets strikeouts without walking the world. It's not about development, it's about stretching him out. I don't know nearly enough about him... does he also have (or does he project to) good enough secondary/tertiary pitches to get through the lineup multiple times at the ML level? If he's had success doing so in the minors at age appropriate levels, I would think so. If it really is just a matter of stretching him out, I don't think he should be anywhere but starting at AA to start this season. He's got a good slider, and Baseball America compares his stuff to Kerry Wood's

Probably true, especially considering the Cubs almost never give position players a fair chance in the majors. Even so, Kevin Orie probably never would have been more than a .750-.780 OPS third baseman, so we didn't miss much.

I think we could use some better hitters, regardless of whether they are right-handed or left-handed.

Why would you want an inferior player on a non-guaranteed contract starting over the better player making millions?

Lou said a few days ago that Fuld and Blanco were on the team, so unless Sullivan misinterpreted, it sounds like there really won't be a competition at all.

Also Starlin Castro. Elvis Andrus, who had a lesser bat coming into the majors last year compared to Castro, was pretty respectable last year for a 21 year old light-hitting prospect. If we rush Castro, hopefully Rudy can help keep him afloat those first few months.

If we're counting Fukudome as a CF, all 6 are pretty bad defensively but at least Soriano can throw the ball (I can't see Jones' range as valuable when he's spiking the ball 20 feet in front of him on throws back to the infield). Unless you're going to cite that ridiculous formula that rated Murton and Barry Bonds as two of the best defensive left fielders that one year. Look at it position by position and you'll have a harder time fooling yourself. Not sure what the point of the exercise is, as the UZR's from those two years are influenced by outlier defensive years that account for nearly 3 wins. Didn't say anything about UZR. Was just trying to get KingCubsFan to compare players to each other where it matters... Soriano's arm compared to Jones' didn't seem like it meant anything. No point to the exercise as it doesn't have any real value... just good old fashioned debate. Somebody pointed out that they felt our 2006 outfield was awful... I was merely trying to illustrate that last year's was worse. Soriano, Fukudome, and Bradley are all much better players than Murton, Pierre, and Jones obviously... but due mostly to a combination of Soriano's knee injury and Bradley's power outage, that 2006 outfield was actually better. It's just not a thought that occurs to most people simply because of the names and payroll involved. I agree the 2006 outfield probably played better. The difference is that everything went wrong for Soriano and Bradley last year. The 2006 outfield basically played as well as they could have, and the two were still similar. On paper, I'd take last year's outfield every time. I was responding to the fact that you seemed to be insinuating that Murton, Jones and Pierre were somehow good on defense, or at least much better than last year's version of the outfield. I have a hard time believing that.