Ryno12

Cubs Great Leaps Forward from Kevin Goldstein:

Can we DFA both of them. I think it is mostly due to the fact that making contact is his biggest weakness, or at least it was going into the draft.

I think we're screwed. As long as the interior of the line is as good as I think it can be, it won't be much of an issue. The tackles should be slightly improved even. There's a ton of depth and experience on the interior. Jewel came out of nowhere last year as a 2-star true freshman who only had MAC offers and had a really nice complimentary year. You know what you'll be getting with Paki, a steady guy who will probably make the correct blitz pickups, hang on to the ball and get his 4 ypc. Robinson is still fairly unknown to me but apparently has been somewhat impressive. Brinson should be solid when he gets back healthy and if Wegher can handle all of the other responsibilities, he may be the best pure runner. The talent is there, especially with those last two. Brinson has offers from Florida State, Michigan State, Okie State, Kansas and others. Wegher had offers from Auburn, Penn State, Mizzou, Nebraska, Texas Tech, Wisconsin, Kansas.... I'm more worried about the other CB spot with Bernstine's injury. I'm in agreement with you on the RB's, I just hope one or two of them step up. As for the CB's, I'm not that worried with Castillo, Prater, and Hyde all being possibilities. It's the only really question mark on the defense though, which is nice.

That is some really terrible logic. The DeRosa trade went from an okay one to a pretty good one given the performance of all 3 guys this season. Expanding upon this, the DeRosa trade in and of itself was actually pretty good in terms of the return we got. Archer, Gaub, and Stevens have all performed nicely. The decision to sign Miles was the mistake, however, Miles's suckitude should have no bearing on the evaluation of the DeRosa trade, because they are separate moves.

Nice Gaub blurb from BP:

I'm glad to see I wasn't the only person scratching my head after the reading that this morning.

Castro is 2-2 with a double and a run scored so far today. His batting average is up to .311 at Tenn. He is hot right now!

http://www.baseballprospectus.com/chat/chat.php?chatId=639 I'm curious as to why he thinks Castro will move off shortstop. Sure, he's making several errors, but it seems he has the tools to stick there. If it's because Theriot would be blocking him, that'd be insane, as moving Theriot to 2b makes a lot more sense.

Nice blurb on Kyler Burke from Kevin Goldstein:

Kevin Goldstein regarding Vitters:

I think someone forgot to tell this kid it's supposed to be tougher when you advance a level...

Kevin Goldstein on Logan Watkins on BP Minor League Update.

This morning, legendary Iowa High School football coach Ed Thomas from Aplington Parkersburg High School was shot and killed in the weightroom at the high school. Thomas was the 2005 NFL High School Football Coach of the Year, and coached four current NFL linemen: Jared DeVries, Aaron Kampman, Casey Weigman, and Brad Meester. Parkersburg is the town in Iowa that was hit and destroyed by the F5 tornado last year, so this is just adding to the stuggles that community has faced. Not only was Coach Thomas highly respected as a coach, but also as great person who was a leader in the community. Apparently, he was shot by a former player, though it is unclear why at this point. This story hits close to home for me as I attended football camp at A-P all four years while I was in high school. I can personally say that Coach Thomas was a great coach, and he will be missed. http://sports.espn.go.com/highschool/rise/football/news/story?id=4283443

Starlin Castro seems to be warming up again. 3/4 with a stolen base, however, he made yet another error. It seems that every time he has a multi-hit game he also makes at least one error. I'm hoping the errors will decrease as he settles in and gets some more games under his belt.

I know he's a guy we signed for over-slot money a couple years back, and hadn't done much until this year. I went to a Chiefs game last week, and though he didn't get in the game, I saw him warming up and his stuff looked good. I know there are other people on here who can give you more insight. However, I think he could be a future bullpen arm in the bigs.

I went to the Chiefs game in Clinton last night. Let me just preface this by saying I'm no scout, and I've seen very little minor league baseball, but here are my humble observations. Vitters: Went 1-4, and the single was a bloop just over the 1b's head that the 2b couldn't quite make it to, but a hit is a hit. He also reached on an error in the first, it was an easy ground ball that the 3b threw too high. Vitters didn't hustle out of the box, but did then kicked it in about 1/4 of the way to 1b. His defense looked solid and he made a couple nice throws on routine plays, and then had a tough ground ball eat him up to his left, but he stuck with it and made an impressive throw to nab the runner at first. Overall, nothing spectacular, but a solid game for Vitters. I was struck by how thin he appeared, and it looks like he has plenty of room to fill out. That being said, at his size, the fact he has already shown quite a bit of power is encouraging. Archer: Four words: needs to throw strikes! Archer looked pretty good, generally working from 88-92, touching 93 a couple times. He was sitting 88-89 in the first two innings with his FB, but the velocity was more around 90-92 from the 3rd to 5th innings. When he threw strikes, the hitters weren't able to do much. I believe he gave up a double, an infield single, and a bunt single. The double was the only ball I can remember that wasn't hit on the ground, and it came from the second to last batter he faced. The problem with Archer was that he didn't throw enough strikes, even when he didn't walk batters he often worked the batter to a full count. If he works on his control, he appears to have the stuff to at least make it to the bigs as a reliever. Burke: Kylar was probably the guy who impressed me most. He hit a deep double to CF, and hit the ball hard every at bat. The most impressive play of the game was his absolute strike from LF to nail the runner at home. The runner didn't have a chance, the throw was a rope that was right on the money. Flaherty: Nothing to impressive, but he did make a nice play ranging to his right, then threw it to first in time to get the out, which saved a run. At the plate, he didn't do anything spectacular, but I only saw 4 abs. Lake: I had high hopes for him, but he looked lost at the plate. He was whaling at everything in sight and missing... Defensively he looked fluid and made plays on all the balls hit to him. Nelson Perez: Nothing baseball related of note, but he seemed like a cool dude. He was throwing balls out to the young fans before the game, and seemed like a good guy.

Rondo is such an [expletive].

I just traded: Carl Crawford Carlos Pena for BJ Upton Aramis Ramirez It's a roto league with R,HR, RBI, S, Ave, OPS I had Miggy Cabrera at 3b, so I'm moving him to 1B, and Adam Dunn will go from 1B to Util.

FukuWalk!

I don't know the laws in California but I am sure this waste of space will be in Jail for an awful long time. He did kill three people as of now with a fourth in the hospital. I'm pretty sure he's completely screwed. I assume he will likely be charged with something like depraved heart murder, which is essentially 2nd degree murder. It's at the very least vehicular manslaughter, but if he was drinking then it will be murder.

This is from Kevin Goldstein at BP on Starlin's assignment in Daytona. Nothing real new here, but I'm excited about this kid.

Somehow, 720 WGN comes in clearer in SE South Dakota where I live now, than it does where I grew up in Eastern Iowa. It's weird, but I don't care. Go Cubs!

Uggla is a 3B waiting to happen. Hanley is a CF waiting to happen, but that won't happen. I'd imagine Mike Jacobs will also be on the block. IF will probably be: Uggla 3B, Ramirez SS, Bonafacio 2B, Cantu 1B I'm guessing this just slipped your mind, but Jacobs was already traded to the Royals a couple weeks ago.

I might be willing to give Swisher a chance if we could get him without giving up much. He was bad last year, but there could be a chance he could bounce back. Just a thought, though Hermida is who I really want.

Damn it's nice to have Meph back in the forum. Spineguy, enough with the personal attacks. Attack the argument, not the man.