Sammy Sofa

They have "options" if you're talking about open OF spots. Fukudome is gone after this season and Byrd is gone after the next (if he's not traded before in the offseason). Dumping Soriano because people are "tired of hearing about him" or to "make room" is ridiculous. If there's a deal to be had where the Cubs get some kind of return, fine, but if they're dumping him just to dump him it's dumb. Milk what you can out of him and then just bench him or kick him to the curb when he's useless.

ARAM buys into this philosophy, it seems to fit others on the team. And the Cubs would be a much, much better team if they players as naturally good as Aramis instead of ones that have to grit and hustle to maximize what relatively little value they have. Yay for False Choices! It's not a false choice. Guys who have to play balls out and "110%" every damn time they go out there are, one: going to be much worse baseball players than the ones that don't have to, and two: tend to not be regular players because if they were they would get hurt even more often than they do largely due to their "hustle." I mean, the "false choice" in all of this is the idea that professional athletes like Soriano and Aramis are in any way "lazy" like the mouth-breathers who accuse them of being think they are. They might not go [expletive] nuts with the effort like someone who isn't very good at baseball like Reed Johnson or Tony Campana, but that's because they're so much more valuable and they don't want to hurt themselves and possibly shorten or end their career placating the meatballs who think someone not sprinting out an obvious ground-out or diving for any ball they have .0000001% of catching that comes in their direction is somehow "lazy." It's especially ridiculous when you look at guys like Aramis and Ramirez, who fat humps love to call "lazy," also get raked over the coals by the same piles of waste for being "injured too often." Which is it? Do you want the guy being productive on the field or do you want him giving him more "effort" (which is completely subjective and not quantifiable at all)?

ARAM buys into this philosophy, it seems to fit others on the team. And the Cubs would be a much, much better team if they players as naturally good as Aramis instead of ones that have to grit and hustle to maximize what relatively little value they have.

Reed Johnson has to play to his limits because he's a much worse player. He's effectively destroying himself because he's not as at baseball to keep his job.

Yikes. The Kool-Aid stand is open early this year. SOMEBODY TAKE THE SHOT.

Why, so he can ruin someone else's career over a [expletive] ASG?

"Going all out" too often leads to stupid mistakes, botched plays and unnecessary injuries. It has its place, but by no means should players be going "all out" every single time they make a play.

Soriano didn't lose it in the sun, it was night time, I was there, it was pathetic. (wait, sorry, was thinking of other game, it was sun) And no, you are still wrong about the irony. People are defending Castro against HIS MANAGERS IDIOTIC ATTACKS in a game they were blown out in during a lost season while explicitly defending the veterans. There is absolutely no comparison to fans getting pissed at a player who made a terrible play that lost the game during a pennant race. There's plenty of comparison. As it's been correctly pointed out, sometimes fielders just lose the ball in the sun and there's nothing that they can do about it. I understand why people were pissed when Soriano couldn't see the ball in 2008, but the response from much of the fanbase was well beyond the pale even with the pennant race circumstances. In both cases neither player deserved or deserves to be ripped apart, be it by fans, the press or their managers over those particular plays.

Actually you are noticing an irony that doesn't exist. People are blasting Quade for his idiotic statements, not defending Castro. The problem is Quade would never do the same thing to a person like Soriano but he has repeatedly called out Castro. Soriano isn't perfectly capable. He's not as bad as some paint him, but he's a problem. If he could hit you could easily ignore that problem, but he hasn't hit worth a crap either. No, he really is a capable fielder. And yes, it is ironic because you have had people here in this thread (rightly) defend Castro in the face of Quade's dumb comments: sometimes fielders do just lose the ball in the sun. Yet you had people here at the time of Soriano's mishap that were flipping out and complaining the Lou didn't yank him from the game or call him out for it or bench him.

Johnson isn't much better. Fielders "laying out" really doesn't impress me.

No, he's really not. He makes some moronic mistakes from time to time (the irony of people defending Castro so passionately yet seemingly wanting Soriano executed after the same thing happened to him in Pittsburgh a few seasons back is hilarious), but all in all he's a perfectly capable LF.

"Complete lack of ability in LF?" FTH?

He's not a bad fielder, and going on the DL isn't automatically a dealbreaker. That can mean he has just 1 or 2 15-day DL stints.

Wait, really? I don't remember that at all being like Aramis this year. Aramis was pretty decent from the start, but just wasn't hitting for much power until about a couple months into the season. Lee was completely wretched in April and then went nuts after that for the rest of the season.

http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_8kbwGHaBDWY/SefwNM9Sy_I/AAAAAAAABiE/_p9xs_fmmwM/s400/vlcsnap-345156.png

Well, there was.

Oh. My. God. Haha. Really though no one is gonna give up anything for Barney so might as well keep the cheap reserve infielder. Of course if he's not even listening that's a different story. Yeah, it's like Hendry is right in spite of himself in that regard. He's playing up to the meatballs (and the meatball scout side of himself) by talking up Barney, but in reality nobody is going to give anything of value for a trade involving Barney unless he's a toss-in with much, much better players.

Why do you hate apostrophes so?

Note that he had to say "whatever sabbatical" instead of "hardcore drinking and drug binge with a chaser of really bad baseball." But yes, also keep saying stuff like this... ...about JOSH [expletive] HAMILTON. I mean, you do realize how bizarre and insanely unlikely his story is to this point, right? He's such an obvious [expletive] anomaly and outlier given the circumstances of how his life has played out.

Who wrote the code for that game? When would Marlon Byrd ever lead the NL in homers? Does the Show place far too much emphasis on beefy biceps? No, no, read it again; he leads the NL in BA. All the other categories he's just leading all other CF.

Hendry is apparently friends with everyone in baseball.

Me need more.

"Mostly fairly well?"

Yeah, no. Here, I'll settle this: anyone arguing that the Texas ending up with Hamilton 3.0 is anything but luck is wrong.

Well this is an annoying loss. I [expletive] hate bloops.