KingCubsFan

The big questions are whether his power will grow as he matures (it should), and whether the defensive adjustments made against him this year will cause him to have a permanently crappy BABIP (they may). He has the 7th lowest BABIP in baseball. There's no way it remains this low throughout his career.

My guess is that Vizcaino's stuff hasn't come back, and the Cubs want to hide him from the rest of the baseball world as he throws in the 80'swith no command.

Zambrano was in the bullpen because Hendry panicked about the major league bullpen, similar to when Cashner got thrown into the bullpen. While Cruz was rated higher, Zambrano was always rated highly.

I wonder if Balentien would ever consider coming back to the US if a team offered a multiyear deal.

At that point, I would rather let Arrieta/Hendricks/Grimm/Rusin/Cabrera/Villanueva battle it out. How many more offseasons are were going to go after a patchwork rotation? Letting those guys battle it out isn't going with a patchwork rotation? They all at least have a future in the organization and could probably perform similarly for a fraction of the cost. If Hughes were to sign cheaply, then I wouldn't be opposed. But I'd imagine we won't be the only team looking at him. To answer the original question, there will always be space for patchwork additions to the rotation. You need 5 guys just to field a team, 7 for much of the season and 8 or 9 in total over the course of a season, barring the rare 5 man 200 inning group. But those don't last even when they do happen. Also, I'm not sure why "all those guys at least have a future in the organization" but a signed Hughes would not. Villanueva is 2 years older. Arrieta is the same age. Any of those guys could be out of baseball in 2 years. Because Hughes would only be signed for one year.

Chris Sale? Why would the White Sox trade him?

Could be telling the truth, or could be bitter that a large part of the Bears fanbase seemingly moved on from 54 after seeing Bostic. How has the fanbase moved on? I think it just has to do with veteran players always preferring other veteran players over rookies.

Kids have football now? Now? Unless you grew up in NYC prior to the 60's football has been at the forefront for a very long time. Most probably start playing baseball at a younger age, but America's youth has been playing football, and futbol, in very large numbers for a very long time. I think that's going to change with all of the publicity over concussions. Wouldn't surprise me if baseball starts getting closer to football in terms of popularity over the next decade or two.

Starlin Castro with an Olt-ian August: .198/.243/.218/.461

Price has made an interesting transformation to one of the best control pitchers in the game. He's basically a younger Cliff Lee at this point. But he doesn't seem like the type of guy that Theo would trade the farm for. If we're trading our top prospects, we're getting Giancarlo Stanton.

Looks like Lo Wood is next...

I suppose the next step is Jaylon Smith running out of the tunnel against Temple, and then immediately running back in and transferring.

He's only 8 away from his dad's season high.

Apparently his body went numb after a hit on Saturday.

Its really amazing we've amassed THIS much power coming thru the system. Especially when power was the major organizational weakness like two years ago. It's amazing how fast things can change when competent people in charge want them to change. I am going to assume this was some sort of sarcasm considering it's in response to a reference to Vogelbach, a guy drafted by the prior regime. Do you think that Ricketts had any influence on Wilken's picks that last year? Wasn't that the year he sat in the draft room?

You must not be familiar with Bogaerts.

I still can't believe we didn't bid high enough for Bourn's .319 OBP and 17 steals. I bet Theo and Jed were too busy talking about tanking and how much smarter they are compared to everyone else.

I'm really hoping Arrieta is the next Matt Clement.

Almora should be third or fourth on that list. People severely underestimate his hitting ability. If there's one guy in the system with the best bet to hit .300 in the majors, it's him.

i like those guys a lot, but don't you have to sort of just think this franchise is in serious trouble? there's just no way all of the top guys pan out, and even from the top four, aren't you realistically doing well if you get a very good (though non-star) player and a couple acceptable starters out of that group? I've said something similar before, but to expand a bit, the near term Cubs will rise or fall with Castro, Rizzo, Samardzija, Baez, and maybe Bryant/Soler. If they aren't getting star level production from several of those guys, then their chances of being a great team go way down. How that colors your opinion of the Front Office is a bit of a different question. Personally, I think that if Castro and Samardzija aren't ending up more than complementary guys, that truly underscores the atrocious level of talent in the organization when Theo and Jed took over. They can also take at least some responsibility for player development, because that's what we were relying on them to fix along with better talent selection, but in terms of the whole picture, Castro and Samardzija flat-lining puts a cherry on top of Hendry's crap sundae more than indicts them for relying on those players while adding pieces around them. Those two guys who were actually good and getting better suddenly falling off the cliff would have to put at least as much blame on the development side than on the talent side. The talent was there. That much is obvious. Particularly Castro. I'm not worried about Samardzija despite his past few starts.

Hopefully under promise, over deliver is at play here. Comments made recently are a far cry from 'parallel fronts' of 2 years ago. He said that at the introductory press conference. Since then, he's admitted he didn't realize how bad of shape the organization was actually in when he took over.

Wonder if he'll get a September call-up.

Granted, Baez has been on a tear, but Parks, Callis and Law have all said he's not even the #1 prospect in the system as of a month ago (give or take).

Not sure why you'd want to trade him with his value at its lowest and no ready-made replacement immediately ready to step in.

Welington Castillo in July: .288/.403/.423 Welington Castillo in August: .320/.514/.480