Sammy Sofa

fffffffffuuuuuuuuuu Who cares? He's not pitching.

Thanks for letting us know! I was responding to somebodies comment smart ass! Too many arrogant [expletive] on here I'm gonna have Jerome throw you in the dumpster.

http://cdn3.sbnation.com/imported_assets/1126935/J8Stn.jpg

This is outstanding. Made my day.

mound moxie Makes me sweaty.

[expletive], Darwin. AND [expletive] YEAH, ZORRO IS A SUPERHERO.

WAIT FOR IT.

they're both bad, we picked up valbuena from the scrap heap. we gave up a decent 26 year old 4th of for stewart. No, they gave up Tyler Colvin. The Colvin/Stewart trade is the epitome of scrap heap-ing.

There's probably a very good chance that he would.

I'm not sure what the point is here? Comparing Jeter to a HOFer? He's going in because he is deserving. How can he be over hyped? He's the best SS in Yankee history and among the best ever. I'm not sure anyone has compared him to Honus Wagner. You guys can continue to bag on Jeter all you want, but he's among the greatest of all time. ..... Who is your objection? Rizzuto? Jeter crushes him.

Kyle, don't be so willfully dense; where exactly was this burning 3B market out there, trade or FA? 3B was effectively a write-off this season because of that couple with how barren the system was (both for a significant trade to upgrade the position or to have a decent in-house option). This is a tedious heel turn, even for you.

If I say a guy has a 99% chance that he'll suck, and you say 80%, and he sucks, then I'm not going to call scoreboard, obviously. But I think you are incredibly overselling the chance that he'd be serviceable outside of any random 82-PA stretches here and there. It's hard for a hitter to overcome huge contact issues, and it's hard for a hitter to overcome a major wrist injury. Both at the same time? It's pretty close to hopeless. If I could strike one concept from the baseball fans' collective mind these days, it'd be "buy low." I'm so sick of hearing about buy low, as if the secret to finding good ballplayers is to look for people who have sucked recently. Ian Stewart was given a job because he came at practically no cost and the front office, as you said, wanted a placeholder. They took the concept of organizational roster fill and applied it to the majors. That's both an indictment of his abilities and their priorities. And since nobody is arguing in favor of him being more than a placeholder, what's the problem? And pointing out his May is because we don't have much to go on this season because he barely played two months. His numbers are skewed by his rough start, and then ideally it looked like things were maybe panning out. Then unfortunately the wrist knocked him out. Nowhere did I say that June was proof he was a lock to perform; my point all along has just been to contrast the ridiculous hyperbole from people who can't stand Stewart because they incorrectly think he stunk his entire time as a Cub or that think such a minor acquisition is somehow significantly detrimental to the team, either in the short run or the long run. The odds were that 3B was going to be varying degrees of mediocrity at best this season anyway, so why the histrionics? They took a shot on Stewart and it didn't pan out this season. So what?

And, just to clarify yet again, nobody is defending Stewart as being the answer at 3B.

valbuena's corresponding month: .220 .264 .480 .744 n&g you're one of the last people I want to argue with on here, i love your passion, but ian stewart is a [expletive] bum. This is twice now you've created strawmen arguments that nobody was fighting for; first it was ranting like people were propping Stewart up like he was some kind of star and now it's making a comparison like people were doing a Stewart vs. Valbuena thing. Besides, how is it Valbuena's line is OK for you but Stewart's better line means he's a "bum?"

Can't agree. I wouldn't have cared if they released Tyler Colvin or not, but an MLB starting spot and playing time are more valuable than to waste them on a hopeless retread who has to overcome both severe hitting issues and a wrist injury. What are you talking about? The Cubs needed a 3B; the FA market stunk and they didn't have a decent in-house option that was ready. Stewart was and is an intriguing reclamation project and he's not blocking anyone. Unless you're just doing the third act in your "I HATE STEWART...NOW I LOVE HIM" epic.

Not that anyone was defending Stewart as being much more than a hopeful shot at a placeholder, but hey, since you went kinda nuts, here's what Stewart put up in his second month as a Cub (82 PA): .225 .329 .437 .766 Couple that with his defense and that's perfectly serviceable at 3B until a better option is available.

You OK there?

Man, I was hoping it was because of traffic overload due to an amazing deal going down.

BOY GENIUS STRIKES AGAIN.

Not a problem.

Why are you thinking there won't be another Paul Maholm on the market this winter? We could probably use 2 Paul Maholms on next year's team. More Paul Maholms means less Doug Davis', Rodrigo Lopezes, Justin Germanos, Casey Colemans, and other miscellaneous junk ballers. Ah, but less room for fliers. You must be flummoxed.

I like to think that we've been up against baseball's top closers for the past month. Yeah, it's not like they've won something like 15 of those games, or that it's a loaded stat considering a bunch of those games have been wins at home where they don't even get a chance to score in the 9th.

Fortunately a 6 inning/4 run start will do nothing to change that.

Why? 833 road ops, 861 ops against lhp...so I don't think there's an obvious Coors Field rebuttal here, or something similar. His road OPS was middling or worse until around the Strasburg game, so it surged pretty late as part of the ridiculously unsustainable tear he was on in June and into the very start of July. He's only had 61 PA against LH pitches this year, so it's pretty safe to chalk that up to sample size; him hitting 150 points above his career OPS against lefties clearly is not going to last. And yes, there is the Coors Field factor; Coors, besides it's usual attributes, caters nicely to his strengths (even better than Wrigley; it's often considered the best park in baseball for LH hitters), so in the off chance he has figured something out it's likely largely in part due to his new surroundings. Over his last 30 PA he's put up this line: .154 .241 .192 .434 That's a tiny sample size unto itself, but it's a good microcosm of how wildly his numbers can fluctuate. Tyler Colvin had zero future with the new FO: he's an overly aggressive batter who can't walk and strikes out left and right and can't play defense. Basically the choice was coming down to him or LaHair, and if one is having trouble trying to figure out why they went with LaHair they only need to look to Colvin's 2011 season. Stewart was and is an intriguing buy low reclamation project who plays good defense at a position of extreme need for the Cubs. Colvin had no future with the team; Stewart was effectively a low risk investment who would be far more valuable to the Cubs if he panned out (or pans out) until they found a long term option at 3B.

DiamondMind, you'd rather have 2012 Colorado Rockies Tyler Colvin, which wouldn't be the Tyler Colvin the Cubs would have had if they had held on to him.