Sammy Sofa

http://www.trbimg.com/img-55ba32f3/turbine/chi-trainingcamp-ct0019764049-20090730/1300/1300x731

Man, that archive is a [expletive] goldmine (and it is an acceptable shorts situation): http://www.trbimg.com/img-55ba32f2/turbine/chi-trainingcamp-ct0021254759-20060727/750/422x750

http://images1.tickld.com/live/337466.jpg

Don't think they are going to outright bench Castro when Baez comes up, Castro will still be starting more than Herrera has. I'm guessing we'll see equal playing time between Baez/Castro/Russell when Javy comes up between 2B/SS/3B (Bryant to the OF a little more). Either way, they're bringing up a MI and presumably Herrera would be the one to get the boot. Utley doesn't have a spot in that mix if they're sticking to their roster design.

Aren't they likely going to replace with Herrera with Castro when Baez comes up? Going after Utley now seems to speak that maybe they're not bring up Baez until September.

All the Cubs can do to help is win; just ignore the rest.

If Baez ever hits .300 for the season I'll eat a truck.

You'll be pissed no matter what. Cubs win this, 5-3.

Teagarden had a game-winner against Chapman. We're in no position to get huffy. Hahahahahaah! It was in a tie game, not a 2 run deficit. As unlikely as that occurrence was, totally different situation. Oh, just take your medicine.

Teagarden had a game-winner against Chapman. We're in no position to get huffy. Hahahahahaah!

Baez is going to strike out a bajillion times even if he becomes a perpetual all-star. Just roll with it and pray for dongs. Lots of dongs.

HUZZAH!!!

yes i want him launched into the sun almost as much as starlin You used to be cool, man.

Dammit, Gameday is frozen again.

LULZ at that ball 2.

Maddon's reluctance to use him in later innings is...odd.

It's everybody's favorite apple juice!

Love dat Wood.

I didn't think I was being vague. A second terrible season is significantly more difficult to write off as a fluke than the first, and more strongly changes the projection going forward. Nobody has a good answer on what to do with his 2012-2013-2014-2015 combo in terms of projection. If you go high, you're ignoring two very bad seasons. If you go low, you're ignoring two decent ones. If you split the difference, you're picking the one thing he's least likely to do. The best I can come up with is "recency is the tiebreaker," but that's not a very satisfactory answer. Fair enough. The part that was "vague" is when you just definitely declared about "players who have a second bad season" without specifying, as if players having two bad seasons at any point in their career is some kind of rule about something.

It's weird. He only has 5, but I always feel like he's about to hit one. He just looks like he was designed to hit monster dongs. Yeah. He clobbers the ball so damn hard and he's built for it. These dongs shall come. Oh yeah.

I like a Soler walk, but man, I would kill for a hot Soler dong.

So what is so different this year? Is he similarly bad this year as he was in 2013? He just seems to have so much trouble making any kind of major adjustment in-season. I mean, most players are going to have trouble with major changes to varying degrees, but it seems like he just keeps trying to pull the ball to duplicate what happened last year, but when that doesn't work he just can't try anything else. Just above everything changed this year. Walk rate came down to the worst of his career. HR/FB fell from 10.3 to 5.5%. IFFB% is the highest of his career. GB/FB is the highest of his career. He replaced a ton of hard hit balls with soft ones. LD% is by far the worst of his career. BABIP dropped precipitously. 2013 was better in many ways. 31.7% hard contact rate vs. 22.8% this year. 13.5% soft rate vs 24.4% this year. 19.9% LD rate vs 15.4% this year. 7.6% IFFB rate vs 13.2% this year. Slightly better contact numbers. The only things that pop out that this year has an advantage in are lower BABIP (.276 vs .290) and lower HR/FB (5.5 vs 6.3) but considering the vast differences in type of contact, those differences should probably be higher than they are. As you said, he keeps pulling the ball and he's not getting results any more. And now he doesn't seem to know what to do. Thanks for all of this. It's still pretty baffling, though. Makes me wonder how much of 2014 was actually coaching or adjustments or basically just him deciding, "I'm doing this now." It seemed like the talk was 2013 was when they tried to really shift his approach to something more in line with what the FO would seemingly prefer and it simply didn't take and he ended up wallowing the whole season. So then where did the changes come from for 2014? Did the team want that approach to continue or was it basically, "hey, you do your thing." Obviously a lot of that is me just wondering out loud and not expecting you to have the answers. The whole thing just really bums me out; Castro's debut has been my favorite Cub moment post-2008 and I've really been a fan of his and figured he'd be a productive player with the Cubs for a long, long time. I just don't understand how a player has a season THIS horrendous 5 years in after he's been able to have so much success.

And who are some players with similar career tracts to this point? I'd be very curious to see that.

Nope.

You could say that about any player that has a terrible season. You can say it more strongly about players who have a second terrible season. The second one is critical. In what context? You say that like it's a flat rule. What if he had been good again this year, but then terrible next year instead; is that just as bad? It's just "two bad seasons out three" and that's it? What do you think of 2014? Why do you think he's bad this year? Why do you think he's unlikely to ever bounce back? Kyle, this is someone actually ENCOURAGING you to talk about baseball.