Sammy Sofa

I'm sorry, but what has Colvin done that indicates he should be hitting ahead of Soriano already? People rail on Soriano for his OPS, but my God, he's positively Dunn-like compared to Colvin so far. And you're hindering the Cubs chances to get the "3-4 hitters" they need by already slotting Colvin into a corner OF spot.

The irony of Aramis Fan declaring what is wrong with NSBB is suffocating.

The Cubs forced Baseball America at gunpoint to rank him the 2nd best prospect in baseball. The Cubs' hype machine shows no mercy.

That wasn't something "created" by the Cubs. Corey was a highly regarded prospect around baseball.

Why trade Soto? Why trade Gorzelanny? Why trade Wells? I understand the "back the truck up" mentality, and sure, I guess if a team out there is really blowing the Cubs away with an offer for those guys, but why seek to dump cheap, young, productive players?

If they can get a good return, why not? Thinking Colvin can man CF as a starter, however, is a pretty big leap to make.

Where do you have the Celtics? In a plane crash.

Well, that was a nice change of pace.

[expletive] yeah, Soriano.

Fantastic outing by Marshall thus far.

Like what?

That's still a loooooooooooooooonnnnnnnnnnnnnnnng shot. 8 away. You should of all people should be rooting for his playing to time to remain relatively limited and largely in his favor.

You're being way too melodramatic over the idea of him going back to the minors. If he ends getting the bulk of the RF starts the rest of the season and goes into a tailspin it would hardly be "preposterous" to have him in the minors at the start of next season where he can start full time and ideally work on the issues in his offensive approach. It's hardly the only option or something that would have to happen, but it's not "preposterous." And it's still not a sure thing that he should be getting the bulk of the starts in RF for the rest of the year. What's actually more important for the Cubs right now is to move Fukudome where ideally they don't have too pay too much of his salary, whether it's before the deadline or in the off season. It's very unlikely the Cubs can accomplish that if they effectively bench him for Colvin. That has to be considered.

Plus I defy anyone to find what's actually "downright pessimistic" about Colvin in this thread. There's a huge difference between pessimism and attempting to be realistic.

Exactly. There's no "WE SHOULD HATE TYLER COLVIN BECAUSE HE IS HOPELESS AT BASEBALL"-type tangent. It's an effort to look at his numbers so far more realistically.

So people hate NSBB because it's not more like Cubs.com?

That's my thinking. I'm not saying the guy is a bust or is useless. I just think we need to see some key parts of his game improve before he's made a starting OF full time for the Cubs. This year is a great opportunity to see what he can do, especially if Fukudome is moved, but I think it's a mistake to rely on him to be a corner OF or even the Cubs' 1B as others have suggested. 2011 doesn't have to be written off already. If he shows significant improvement over the rest of this season (would he play any winter ball?) and is still going strong at the end to justify giving him the starting job next year, OK, but how likely is that? Again, yes, the HR are great, but he needs to show he can do something, anything, else, because he can't possibly sustain what he's doing right now.

Hilarious, Castro has been mediocre (710 OPS and 3rd most errors in the NL) and if anything is the guy on the cubs who needs to go back to minors and work on things. His fielding needs work and his bat has been frankly bad since his kosuke-like debut. But let's send down the guy who currently has the highest OPS on the team. Brilliant I'd rather he'd have stayed in the minors, too. And again, I haven't advocated sending Colvin back to the minors this year; I'm talking about having him down there starting full time working on the flaws in his offense next season. Castro, quite frankly, is more talented than Colvin and is much more likely to be able to develop at the ML level.

Those numbers were off baseball-reference. What he did today may have bumped them up significantly without b-r counting them yet. Yeah, BR hasn't updated their stats to include today yet.

Wait, what? Is 25 some magical cut off year that a player must either perform in the majors or bust? Of course not. I don't how you can't see the logic in sending him back to the minors next season so he can start full time if he continues to show that his offensive approach is so dramatically flawed. Yeah, it would be one thing if Fukudome is traded and Colvin basically becomes the starter and he rebounds and looks fantastic the rest of the year...but that's very unlikely. Sure, I could be wrong, and it would be great if I was and Colvin turned out to be a good starting OF, but that simply isn't very realistic at this point. Again, all he's really done is hit home runs at a preposterously disproportionate level in contrast to the very bad offensive numbers he's been racking up since his torrid start. I'd love to be proven wrong..but I highly doubt I will be. It would be very unusual if, based on what we've seen him demonstrate so far, he turned out to be a player that a "sink or swim" approached played out successfully for.

And Benny.

It's kind of amusing to think of how often we've seen people here (rightly) railing on the Cubs over the years for many of their failings when it comes to developing players...and now this.

It would be cool if he could even prove that he can consistently be a starting corner OF in the minors first. Let's put it this way: there's absolutely no reason to rush Colvin or make definitive assumptions about his ability in the majors right now. It's cool that he's knocked out so many HR in such relatively limited playing time, but holy God, the rest of his offense is in this same stretch is mostly appalling and wildly all over the place. They have already called him up to the majors and he is far from struggling. At this point, barring some horrible stretch of him struggling, it would be ignorant to send him back to the minors. Let him work out his problems where he is at. The majors typically aren't the place for a player with this many flaws and who clearly needs a lot of work to be this early. He needs to be starting, and it doesn't behoove the Cubs to pencil him as a starting OF next season. I don't how you can look at his numbers and think he's doing fine. Yes, the home runs are fun, but he's hitting at a clearly unrealistic rate, and they've become almost the only thing that he is able to hit, and that's likely largely due to him not being exposed because of his limited playing time since he added muscle to drive the ball better with. I'm not saying send him back the minors now, because I have the feeling Fukudome will be moved and he'll then be able to get plenty of starts, but if the Cubs hope to see him take the steps necessary to being a full time starting OF then it's the smart choice to have him starting in the minors next season. He still has a ton of work before they can or should just hand him a starting job after this season.

Yeah, screw that Castro guy. Tree's post was right on. He spelled out exactly why Colvin's year so far needs to be viewed much more realistically than as we're often seeing on this board. Yes, the HR are a nice surprise, but they're basically all he's hitting. He's hitting them at a fantastically unrealistic rate, his OBP is hideous and his k to walk ratio is terrible; he's not demonstrating anything except an ability to hit a clearly unsustainable amount of home runs in limited playing time. I'm not saying the guy is hopeless because he's still young and his professional career has been so short, but it's clear he has a ton of work to do and it's tremendously unlikely that a guy whose offensive game is so wildly unbalanced right now is going to develop as needed jumping right into as much playing time as possible in the majors. Sure, this year is all but a bust for the Cubs, so if Fukudome is moved it's not the end of the world if he gets a lot of starts between now and the and of the year, but odds are the best thing for him next season would be for him to head back to the minors and start there to see if he can develop the other critical aspects of his offensive approach that are so lacking right now (and improving the defense wouldn't hurt, too). It's definitely fun to watch when he knocks one out, but he's got a long way to go before the Cubs can even think about making him a starting OF.

Apparently Willken is buddies with Hendry so he probably won't stay if Hendry is shown the door. Small price to pay to be rid of Hendry, Hughes and Fleita. Wilken sucks how could you forget the terrible draft pick of Tyler Colvin. That dude absolutely blows. Harveyesque bust. Awwwww, so cute.