Sammy Sofa

Given the reasons why Russell likely won't be back as a Cub, that you're suggesting they go after someone who was accused of sexual assault is beyond trash.

Why are the Cubs obligated to positively affect his life? I'd rather they positively affect the fanbase watching them by demonstrating that domestic violence has serious consequences. They aren't obligated. But wouldn't it be great if they used the influence to at least try. Not for Addison Russell but, going forward, if an organization like the Cubs actually held him accountable and other players took notice, maybe this happens less in the future. Make him actually go to counseling. Make him do more than just give lip service to doing the right things. After he's done that, if they're not convinced he's changed for the better than publicly and loudly blast him into a billion pieces. If the Cubs released him tomorrow and someone else picks him up, he will have learned nothing and will probably do it again. Women seem to like this guy. I bolded this part of the quotes form my post above yours in response to this: Putting the onus on MLB to try and "fix" him is all wrong.

So the answer to the Cubs' hitting coach woes is to....hire Duke? Man, I did not see that one coming.

This is a very, very good take: https://deadspin.com/melisa-reidy-russell-overcame-baseballs-bureaucracy-and-1829529289

Your whole deal is like a beat up issue of Maxim from a decade ago was struck by lightning and somehow gained sentience.

It's not necessarily an issue of a coach messing with someone's mechanics. One would think it would often be a matter of coaching to try and see/take pitches differently.

You can change it now, you drunken robo hobo.

Motion that we stop using David threads until he puts a bit more effort into the thread titles.

[Narrator]It didn't.[/Narrator]

For someone with the inclination to figure it out, which of these catchers with a decent RAA are FA this year? http://www.statcorner.com/CatcherReport.php

2015 David Ross would be an improvement. It really wouldn't. Just a different type of suck. It would be! Again, if they can swing getting an actual upgrade (not just, "this other guy is technically better in that he sucks a little less") without spending too much, great! If not, oh well; I don't think it's that critical a spot to be worrying about upgrading.

Baez had a great year, but I'm not sure he's the perfect person to make contact and hit a sacrifice fly to drive in a run. Raking a double to drive in a run is much, much better than a sac fly for a run. You see, then not only do you not make an out, but you are in position to score if one of your teammates gets a hit later in that inning. If Baez can advance to third, then HE can score on a sac fly! Half of the trick getting sac fly RBIs is getting someone on third with less than two outs in the first place. Baez was able to do things like this often enough that he drove in more runs than anyone else in the National League. Why is this even a conversation? I thought this was the board that wanted Adam Dunn to field every position on the field because he hit dongs and drew walks? We won the World Series just two years ago by crushing dongs and drawing walks (and playing defense a little bit better than Adam Dunn.) What has happened here?! [bbvideo=560,315] [/bbvideo] You're both firing ridiculous haymakers around how the Cubs do genuinely and bizarrely suck, for years now, at something as basic as getting a gun in from 3B via something like a sac fly. That's not to say it's a skill they should seek someone out for, because that's ridiculously crazy. But they are bizarrely bad at it (and were only just OK at it in 2016).

Like, you're more often than not likely to have 2015 David Ross instead of 2016 David Ross.

The same potential that a team might see in him is the same thing that makes him potentially at least a serviceable backup catcher next year for the Cubs. If they can make it work, great; I just don't think it's that critical a move that they need to go out of their way to make. If things work out elsewhere, the backup C really doesn't need to be much more than a body that can give Contreras some rest.

i imagine it's a show that absolutely aged in the worst possible way It's like 24 in that it always got lumped in with all of that "Golden Age of TV" talk because they had edgy anti-hero dudes as the main characters, and now in hindsight they stick out like a sore thumb when compared to something like The Sopranos or Breaking Bad.

I get that and it definitely is a luxury, it’s not so much if the back up hitter not hitting hurts us we have other problems it’s if the backup catcher can’t hit or play defense or frame then what the horsefeathers is he doing here?!? To give the starting guy extra time off. That's just the situation they've found themselves in. They don't need to be weakening an area of strength (lots of money to spend on players that are going to require lots of money) to strengthen an area of far less critical need.

But again, if the offense actually clicks again and doesn't have to deal with an ever-growing pile of slumps and injuries, it really doesn't matter who your backup catcher is. Caratini has enough of a chance be serviceable enough that it wouldn't matter much if he's the backup. If they can get someone who fulfills want you want cheap enough, great, but odds are that if they're try to go as cheap as possible (and they likely will given what else is out there to spend money on), then they're only going to end up with a marginal upgrade at best. It's not a critical enough spot to overspend on; if Caratini ends up sucking again, then oh well. Give Contreras the needed time off anyway, because if the backup catcher not hitting is such a huge problem, then things are already much worse of than that to begin with.

The idea that any team could even have more than one Javier Baez in the first place is raw, savage insanity.

I think Caratini's potential offensive upside is definitely better than any of the FA catchers out there, but I'm not as sold on his defensive/framing abilities. Overall to your point, he's cheap, he's fine, whatever...focus on the bigger issues. Oh, they could definitely upgrade defensively from him; he's just at least firmly middle of the pack enough that it's arguable whether or not it's worth spending the extra money to do so, relatively small as that would be.

And the more I think about it, the more I'm not really bothered by the idea of Caratini again being the backup catcher. Yeah, he stinks, but he's fine defensively/framing-wise, and almost any backup catcher you go out and get cheap is going to be a black hole offensively. That was just exposed so much more this season because the offense had SO many issues up and down for long stretches. It's sort of like a low grade backup QB position: if you get to the point where the backup seems like a real problem, you're kinda screwed to begin with because so many other things have gone wrong.

I keep forgetting aboyt Smyly. And I love the sound of ideas like: ...but I'm a highly suspect that a last year manager likely fighting for his job is going to be willing to even try something like that, much less sticking to it, unfortunately.

It's arguably pointless to get into these kinds of debates in regards to Baez because he's a Baseball Freak who somehow bent the game to his will this season. He arguably is....just whatever the hell he is, and it seems like a complete shot in the dark to argue that .860 RISP Baez is now the real deal, or .725 career RISP Baez is the real deal.

The Darvish signing was clearly done with the idea that they'd almost surely be be eating cost on the back half due to his injury history/tendencies, so that they effectively got nothing out of his first season is a pretty gigantic knock against him truly being "worth" his Cubs contract. Obviously, that's not saying he won't be of value to them, but it's pretty unlikely that it's a wait and see situation in terms of seeing if it was a good signing or not (in the grand scheme of, "was this player's value worth his estimated dollar value;" obviously, if the guy only has one healthy season with the Cubs, but in that one season he's awesome and a huge part of them winning a WS, hey, I'm not gonna lose sleep over how much money they "lost" on him).