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We obviously have different definitions of what a bust is. A guy drafted number 1 overall should be considered a bust if he's just contributing somewhere. Kwame Brown has been a bust and so has Diop. Kendrick Perkins is sure looking like a flop as well with 4 ppg and 4.3 rpg in his fourth year. Martell Webster is headed down that road though this is only his second year. Same goes for Gerald Green though he's shown actual improvement this year. But with him, it's hard to get behind a guy who can only get 20 minutes a game for the worst team in the league. Robert Swift is hard to tell since he's injured this year and it would have been his third year. Telfair has regressed this year but like Swift, it's only his third year. But both these guys are headed down the bust road also. I was wrong in the only first rounders statement and, like you said, a lot of the flopped high schoolers were second rounders. Also for your star list I would include Dwight Howard also. Dude is a stud. I would agree they are "busts" in that sense, but with high schoolers the only big regrets about not going to college are the ones who never get beyond their rookie contracts and have nothing to do the rest of their lives and have probably blown their rookie money. Most of the people on this list have at least stayed in the league a while, picking up more money and a livelihood-but yes, when comparing to draft status, there are several more busts on there. You're right also in that I should have included Howard-can't believe I made that omission.

Following up on my previous post, let me check this-high schoolers drafted in the 1st round: 1995-Kevin Garnett 1996-Kobe Bryant, Jermaine O'Neal 1997-Tracy McGrady 1998-Al Harrington 1999-Jonathan Bender, Leon Smith 2000-Darius Miles, DeShawn Stevenson 2001-Kwame Brown, Tyson Chandler, Eddy Curry, DeSagna Diop, 2002-Amare Stoudemire 2003-LeBron James, Travis Outlaw, Kendrick Perkins 2004-Dwight Howard, Shaun Livingston, Robert Swift, Sebastian Telfair, Al Jefferson, Josh Smith, J.R. Smith, Dorell Wright, 2005-Martell Webster, Andrew Bynum, Gerald Green I'd put Garnett, Kobe, Jermaine, McGrady, Amare, LeBron as stars The only person I see that completely busted was Leon Smith-everybody else is contributing or starting to contribute somewhere (with the possible exception of Diop, but he has stayed in the league for 6 years)-and the only person who is not in the league besides Smith is Bender, who pocketed not only rookie money but a big contract extension before retiring with injuries (he was a special talent-Bender would have been one of the best players in the league if his knees had let him).

Playing time in college > practice time in the NBA. It's not highly unlikely he won't get much time in the NBA. He's not a very good offensive player right now and he would benefit from playing another year in college. I don't think he will stay, but it would be better for him. Yes, something bad could happen to him, and people always throw this out there, but it's highly unlikely. This isn't football. Oh yeah Kobe and LeBron always go on and on about how they didn't develop at all once they got to the NBA. Well actually LeBron might be a bad example. Lol. You go to college to prepare to make money or get a nice job. He has the job, why should he stay. Do I really need to list all the players coming straight out of high school who were drafted high in the first round but flopped in the NBA? Because there are probably more high schoolers who flopped than those who are stars right now. I doubt that there are more high school first rounders who flopped. Most high schoolers who flopped either got drafted in the second round or not at all-there are certainly more high schoolers who became stars in the first round than high schoolers who flopped.

Isn't that already the case? Aren't teams like the D-Rays, Royals, Pirates just basically farming up players for other teams to eventually pluck off their rosters? It's too bad they can't do it like the Marlins do. True, but the Marlins small-market tactics have only worked for 1 title. I think you have to count the 1997 title as really more of a big-market type strategy-they didn't go with what they currently do until after 97, and they've had 1 playoff appearance and one title since then-so they've been successful, but not that successful.

Didn't Bruce say his defense looked wonderful so far this spring? Let's say Cedeno struggles and Theriot can't handle SS, what options do the Cubs actually have to replace Izturis if he is hitting 220? Yes, Bruce said his defense has been very, very good so far and that the pitchers already like him. In that scenario, I guess that the team could move DeRosa to short and play Theriot at second.

I don't know if 650 will be enough to replace Izzy with Cedeno very quickly-I mean, Cedeno would have to improve a pretty good amount from last year to be an improvement over those numbers. 650 might be bad enough for them to make a trade at mid-season, but not to be replaced by Cedeno without injuries. It might depend on how well the rest of the team is hitting too. You might be able to carry Izturis if the rest of the team is hitting well but if they are struggling, it's going to hurt having his bat in the lineup at 650. More importantly, it's pretty safe to assume nobody in the Cubs organization is going to think at all about a 650 OPS, what it means, and whether it should be replaced. If Izzy is hitting .275, with a .310 OBP and .315 SLG, they aren't going to be thinking about his 625 OPS. He's probably going to have to do something like hit .220 for 3 months with less than stellar defense before they think about replacing him. That's a good point, and you're probably right about your projections. They know he hasn't played much in quite a while, so I think that the organization is going to at least give him 2-3 months to get acclimated again before thinking about replacing him. If he gets hurt, that's when Cedeno possibly has a chance to earn the job before Izturis comes back though.

From what I've heard, Izturis is not one of those players that makes it "look flashy", but rather than he's just very smooth and very consistent in what he does. I'll be interested to see people's opinions on this at mid-season, and I guess the extent of the injuries will be much better known by then.

I don't know if 650 will be enough to replace Izzy with Cedeno very quickly-I mean, Cedeno would have to improve a pretty good amount from last year to be an improvement over those numbers. 650 might be bad enough for them to make a trade at mid-season, but not to be replaced by Cedeno without injuries.

Amazing Race is also back now on Sundays in the lineup.

Well, with the way MLB rules are, I guess you'd be seeing his reaction in the clubhouse when you got there :D.

Absolutely. Although that's really not the right way to look at it. From a basic risk/reward perspective, Miller was a good, sound $1M gamble last offseason, when (at the time) he was projected to be able to pitch in May or June. It didn't work out, oh well. That's why the word risk appears in risk/reward. This offseason, $1.5M is another good, sound gamble on a high-upside guy that's expected to be good to go on (or near) opening day. The point being, the Cubs made two separate and independent decisions that happen to total $2.5M, not a one-time decision to spend $2.5M. People have brought up the Chris Carpenter example. That's the best-case scenario, obviously. But it illustrates perfectly why clubs take these low-cost flyers on guys with lots of upside coming off of injury. I hope the Cubs continue to be very active in this speculative market with guys just like Wade Miller (and Dempster, and Williamson). It's just good business. I disagree. You have to look at each case and determine if it's worth it. Williamson hasn't done anything that a guy from the minors couldn't do with less cost. There are also other guys the Cubs have gone this route with that haven't panned out to do anything other than costing money and taking a roster spot away. Obviously you have to look at each case and determine if it's worth it. That goes without saying. And almost by definition, you're going to have more misses than hits. Which is fine, and everybody should realize this going in. Nonetheless, the general principle is a sound one, and successful teams follow it regularly. Exactly-if 3 of 4 pitchers completely flame out and the other turns out to be a successful pitcher for even a couple of years, the team still has gotten back more than it has put in (especially with the pitching market the way it is right now). I do agree with the poster a page or so ago that said that Miller may need to go to another team though-he was good insurance, but right now it looks like the Cubs hopefully won't need that insurance, and so they have an excess of pitchers without a true spot for Miller.

I don't know if I'd call it scapegoating because it was Hendry's decision and I don't blame Miller for signing. The Cubs don't need him on the roster, that I'm not 100% sure off. Why, because I like to have the most options possible and this would have given the Cubs another positive option. It could have allowed the Cubs to trade Eyre(+) and get a SS or another player that could help. Who do you think the Cubs could get more value for right now, Campusano or Miller? Some of your feeling on this is hindsight. The Cubs signed him last year before a number of our pitching prospects got their feet wet at the ML level. One could argue that one or more of the prospects could out perform him (and probably be correct). However, after taking the flier on him last year, and knowing that guys usally recover in their second year removed from TJS, I totally understand why the Cubs resigned him. They would have hated to pay him to sit for a year only to watch some other team reap the potential benefits this year... I still think Miller has more value, right now, than Campusano. Wade Miller may still be effective if he learns to change speeds and hit his spots (that doesn't mean he's right for this team). I'd be willing to bet that more teams would gamble on him, right now, for $1M than be forced to keep (another gamble) Rule 5 guy on their 25 man roster. If Miller is stuggling to reach the mid 80s with his fastball, changing speeds won't matter one bit. Neither will location. It's not that hard to adjust to off-speed pitches when I guy throws that slow. In fact you could look off-speed and still catch up to the fastball. Now if he can get some arm strength back and get back intot he low 90s mid 80s consistently he may have some value. He didn't show enough to me at the end of last season to warrent resigning him. What was his problem at the end of last season besides control? He certainly wasn't a low strikeout pitcher-20 K's in 21.2 IP. He gave up 19 hits, which isn't awful, and the only huge problem was that he gave up 18 walks. Control the walks, and Wade becomes a very effective pitcher. It isn't always black and white like that. IMO his game was nibbling and hitting spots and with that goes walking more guys than you'd like too. If he gets too much plate it's a hard hit ball so he has to locate and he hasn't ever proved he can do that. I didn't see him nibbling much at the end of last year. I saw a guy who had some great movement on his pitches, and he didn't seem to know where they were going. If he can control that movement though at least somewhat, that should be enough to make him a pretty good pitcher even with reduced velocity. After his first start, he had a 3.74 ERA over his last 4 starts, and his WHIP dropped to 1.44. If he can get his WHIP down a little more by dropping his walk rate by 1/3 this year (which his control should definitely be better with the extra time throwing), then he has a very good chance of being effective IMO.

I don't know if I'd call it scapegoating because it was Hendry's decision and I don't blame Miller for signing. The Cubs don't need him on the roster, that I'm not 100% sure off. Why, because I like to have the most options possible and this would have given the Cubs another positive option. It could have allowed the Cubs to trade Eyre(+) and get a SS or another player that could help. Who do you think the Cubs could get more value for right now, Campusano or Miller? Some of your feeling on this is hindsight. The Cubs signed him last year before a number of our pitching prospects got their feet wet at the ML level. One could argue that one or more of the prospects could out perform him (and probably be correct). However, after taking the flier on him last year, and knowing that guys usally recover in their second year removed from TJS, I totally understand why the Cubs resigned him. They would have hated to pay him to sit for a year only to watch some other team reap the potential benefits this year... I still think Miller has more value, right now, than Campusano. Wade Miller may still be effective if he learns to change speeds and hit his spots (that doesn't mean he's right for this team). I'd be willing to bet that more teams would gamble on him, right now, for $1M than be forced to keep (another gamble) Rule 5 guy on their 25 man roster. If Miller is stuggling to reach the mid 80s with his fastball, changing speeds won't matter one bit. Neither will location. It's not that hard to adjust to off-speed pitches when I guy throws that slow. In fact you could look off-speed and still catch up to the fastball. Now if he can get some arm strength back and get back intot he low 90s mid 80s consistently he may have some value. He didn't show enough to me at the end of last season to warrent resigning him. What was his problem at the end of last season besides control? He certainly wasn't a low strikeout pitcher-20 K's in 21.2 IP. He gave up 19 hits, which isn't awful, and the only huge problem was that he gave up 18 walks. Control the walks, and Wade becomes a very effective pitcher. Put the hits and walks together and you get WHIP. To me WHIP is more important than ERA when projecting into the future. http://www.fangraphs.com/graphs.aspx?playerid=568&position=P&page=6&type=full Edit: In additon checkout his BB/9 and K/BB The thing was, he was still rehabbing. The thing that takes the longest to come back is control. He did prove that even with an under 90 fastball though that he was still able to strike people out at a high rate, so the speed of his pitches is not going to be the problem, but the command. The fact that he has not recovered his velocity then is not the problem, because his only problem was a lack of command that led to a high walk rate, which if he controls it better this season will lead to a much lower statistics of all those that you mention.

I don't know if I'd call it scapegoating because it was Hendry's decision and I don't blame Miller for signing. The Cubs don't need him on the roster, that I'm not 100% sure off. Why, because I like to have the most options possible and this would have given the Cubs another positive option. It could have allowed the Cubs to trade Eyre(+) and get a SS or another player that could help. Who do you think the Cubs could get more value for right now, Campusano or Miller? Some of your feeling on this is hindsight. The Cubs signed him last year before a number of our pitching prospects got their feet wet at the ML level. One could argue that one or more of the prospects could out perform him (and probably be correct). However, after taking the flier on him last year, and knowing that guys usally recover in their second year removed from TJS, I totally understand why the Cubs resigned him. They would have hated to pay him to sit for a year only to watch some other team reap the potential benefits this year... I still think Miller has more value, right now, than Campusano. Wade Miller may still be effective if he learns to change speeds and hit his spots (that doesn't mean he's right for this team). I'd be willing to bet that more teams would gamble on him, right now, for $1M than be forced to keep (another gamble) Rule 5 guy on their 25 man roster. If Miller is stuggling to reach the mid 80s with his fastball, changing speeds won't matter one bit. Neither will location. It's not that hard to adjust to off-speed pitches when I guy throws that slow. In fact you could look off-speed and still catch up to the fastball. Now if he can get some arm strength back and get back intot he low 90s mid 80s consistently he may have some value. He didn't show enough to me at the end of last season to warrent resigning him. What was his problem at the end of last season besides control? He certainly wasn't a low strikeout pitcher-20 K's in 21.2 IP. He gave up 19 hits, which isn't awful, and the only huge problem was that he gave up 18 walks. Control the walks, and Wade becomes a very effective pitcher.

Russell was absolutely amazing against the weaker opponents of LSU this year-the problem is, is that enough of a sample size? This is his first great year, and he still struggled a great deal in 2 of the bigger games of the season for LSU. If he had mutliple years of good performances, or if he had more great performances against great teams, then he would be better in my eyes. He had 5 big games this year-Auburn, Florida, Tennessee, Arkansas, ND Auburn-his numbers look all right, but his team scored 3 points, so he couldn't have been amazing. Florida-he was terrible Tennesee-he continued to let Tennessee back in it in the second half, but then came back with the game-winning TD pass at the end. Arkansas-he played well in leading the way to an LSU victory over a good defense. ND-He played very well against a bad defense in the blowout win. Russell makes for a very interesting case-did he mature into a different QB this year? My big concern about him is his tendency to throw into coverage, which he's going to have to do a lot more in the NFL than in college. not to make excuses for him, but a lot of QBs looked terrible against Florida...also, while I'm by no means comparing the two...I don't think anyone would have considered Jerry Rice fast by today's standards either. True-but then the question becomes, what about Russell makes him better than Quinn? I don't think either of them are worth the number 1 pick in the draft (not a normal draft anyway-maybe if this draft turns out like the Alex Smith draft, but I don't think this one is that bad), but I just don't see how Russell is supposedly better now than Quinn.

I don't know if I'd call it scapegoating because it was Hendry's decision and I don't blame Miller for signing. The Cubs don't need him on the roster, that I'm not 100% sure off. Why, because I like to have the most options possible and this would have given the Cubs another positive option. It could have allowed the Cubs to trade Eyre(+) and get a SS or another player that could help. Who do you think the Cubs could get more value for right now, Campusano or Miller? If Miller even pitches decently in spring training, you could definitely get more value for Miller.

Playing time in college > practice time in the NBA. It's not highly unlikely he won't get much time in the NBA. He's not a very good offensive player right now and he would benefit from playing another year in college. I don't think he will stay, but it would be better for him. Yes, something bad could happen to him, and people always throw this out there, but it's highly unlikely. This isn't football. He'll get 25-30 minutes a night in the NBA. He's going to go to a bad team, and they are going to stick him out there for ticket sales alone (and I think they would put him out there because he would still be one of their 5 best players). Even if he went to a good team, they would have him out there just for his defensive prescence-there are plenty of post people in the NBA who get minutes who can't score but are just asked to play defense and rebound. Oden's offensive game is actually slightly more refined than most of those players, although I would agree that he has a great deal more of refining to do on that. His defense alone will get him to play, and if the player is mature enough, playing in the NBA almost always develops a person faster than going to college.

He's 30 years old right now.

Russell was absolutely amazing against the weaker opponents of LSU this year-the problem is, is that enough of a sample size? This is his first great year, and he still struggled a great deal in 2 of the bigger games of the season for LSU. If he had mutliple years of good performances, or if he had more great performances against great teams, then he would be better in my eyes. He had 5 big games this year-Auburn, Florida, Tennessee, Arkansas, ND Auburn-his numbers look all right, but his team scored 3 points, so he couldn't have been amazing. Florida-he was terrible Tennesee-he continued to let Tennessee back in it in the second half, but then came back with the game-winning TD pass at the end. Arkansas-he played well in leading the way to an LSU victory over a good defense. ND-He played very well against a bad defense in the blowout win. Russell makes for a very interesting case-did he mature into a different QB this year? My big concern about him is his tendency to throw into coverage, which he's going to have to do a lot more in the NFL than in college.

I think the 25 steals was an aberration-my guess is that with the hamstring injuries, he wouldn't have more than 10 this year. The only thing he would give you is possibly average, which is not enough for a fantasy draft unless in a pretty large league.

Considering his shoulder is degeneratively arthritic, he's going to have to deal with injuries for a while. And it doesn't matter why he's bad. The fact that he's likely to be bad is grounds enough to want to see a better player at that position. I'm saying that it's decently likely that he won't be horrible this year. If he is, then he will be replaced either during the season or after the season-a closer look at his numbers shows though that he has a much, much better chance of putting up an average season for a SS than his career numbers would indicate. From that analysis, I have high hopes for Izturis, but I will want him pulled if he is not getting the job done at mid-season.

And again, improvement from career numbers takes him from one of the worst regulars ever to simply well below average. But better than Neifi, which was the point of our conversation. Page 4 of this link. viewtopic.php?t=38595&postdays=0&postorder=asc&start=45 No. The point of this conversation was to say how terrible Izturis is. I was using Neifi as perspective on his awfulness. Being better than Neifi isn't anything to write home about. Many metrics have Neifi in the team photo of worst regular ever. So basically, if he improves, he's slightly better than Neifi, but he's still terrible. How is that impressive or acceptable? This team has the payroll and the players internally to not have to deal with such a terrible everyday flaw in it's lineup. People can rationalize Izturis all they want. He's either going to suck, or suck and then get hurt. His glove isn't going to change his suck at the plate, and he'll be lucky if his hamstring and back and shoulder injuries don't take him from being a good defensive SS to a slightly above average one. And then what do you have? An expensive, crappy IF who can't stay healthy and can't get on base or slug. From breaking down the numbers, I can't see how you would think there is absolutely no chance that Izturis will be just fine for a SS this year. Is there a pretty decent chance that the injuries will hurt him and cause him to be well below average? Definitely-but if not for Izturis's injuries, he would already be an average to above average shortstop with the way he was developing. His numbers said that his bat was etting continually better every single year of his minor league and major league career before the injuries with no hiccups or setbacks-the first huge setback was the big injuries, and it will have to be seen if that is going to cause him to lose his development or if he can resume where he left off.

i agree. he need a full year starting in iowa imo. he has never had a full season pitching in the minors so it is not reasonable to think he could make 30+ starts in the ML. Why does he need more minor league time when he's major league ready and better than a few of the potential starters already? Not the best of news on Gallagher. Not too surprising since it's his first major league invite. because last year was the 1st time he broke 100 ip and even then he only had around 120. to expect 200 quality ip after being injured his whole career is not reasonable. having better stuff doesnt mean he's a better pitcher btw. maybe he should get his 1st ML win before he is compared to pitchers who have actually had success in the majors. Come again? Angel had 156 IP in 2002 and 131.2 IP last season. I don't expect 200 quality IP, if he's one of the five best starters amongst the big leaguers (and I think he is), he should be starting with the big league team. They'll be real careful with him if he's at Des Moines or Wrigley, if he's good enough to pitch in the bigs, I don't see why he shouldn't pitch there. It's not like they won't be monitoring Angel carefully if he's in the big leagues. The only concern I have about that is that if the major league club is real careful with Angel and real careful with Prior and Lilly doesn't go all that deep into games on a routine basis-that means that Z and Hill will almost be forced to be workhorses on the days that they pitch, and that may be a problem. I guess I'm just a little worried about tiring out the bullpen with all the starters that the Cubs would be trying to limit in that scenario.

seriously, from the interviews that i've heard so far, he sounds like the master of cliche. that might just be until he gets a feel for the team, though. ps-bruce, you should be on the score more. mully and hanley at least seem like they're beginning to get it. murph has his moments but seems to forget that he's had guys like steve goldman on his show. I think it's all the jokes that Piniella throws in there that makes him a great interview, not necessarily the baseball concepts he brings up.

And JaMarcus Russell is a sure thing? Close to one, but look towards South Bend for another Russell is far from a sure thing. The hype machine really started rolling around him because of one game - the Sugar Bowl against a bad (sorry Andy but it's true) Notre Dame defense. He decided to go pro because the media was going crazy over his performance. Personally, I think Brady Quinn is the better QB and will be the better QB but I'm not sure if he's worth the number 1 pick. Don't worry-I doubt any ND fan is going to argue with you about that-I'm certainly not. I agree with you about Russell-he was seen as ok with great physical skills but underachieving most of the year, and then suddenly after one great game he's the top QB-I'd sure liked to have seen more consistency out of him before I would be ready to draft him number 1 overall. I agree also with the sentiment that if you want the player who's most likely to be a great player, it's Calvin Johnson.