jersey cubs fan

The Royals could very well covet someone like Colvin..................... I think a few poor teams would love him if he can still look like a guy with the HR power and isn't too huge of an OBP liability. Those teams can't afford ideal players.

I was thinking about consistency

Joe Morgan approves

http://www.talksport.co.uk/sports-news/football/premier-league/2010-08-13/exclusive-bradley-quits-usa

I had not idea either. He's really fallen off in the second half. I think this is the least I've heard about the Yankees since I moved here.

The Bazuin pick infuriated me much the way the Adams trade pissed you off. And I absolutely had not interest in a RB the year they got Benson. It also does not help that they have relied on a hothead center (probably the least important line position) to be the leader of the group. If your leader is constantly getting personal foul penalties and just isn't all that good to begin with, you can expect, at the very least, inconsistency out of the group.

My impression is that the overall sentiment is indifference. People blamed him for not showing up when Lee got hurt, for poor hitting in the most recent playoffs. I don't feel like there's a lot of passion in support of him.

http://www.chicagobreakingsports.com/kaner-falls-kuc.jpg

Because he looked awful in April and people haven't been paying attention since then? He was pretty awful in May too, but yeah... He was a stud in July. And that didn't even last all of July. He's back to a 770 OPS the past 28 days. He sucked in April and May and his overall numbers are terrible. If everybody is talking about what a waste 2011 will be, why not see if you can get something for him this offseason, or at least shed the payroll? Hendry wouldn't because he's desperate for an 84 win team to save his job, but if you can't contend in 2011 there's no good reason not to let Ramirez walk. He's not a fan favorite (although he's been my favorite player this decade), he does not put butts in seats. Lots of people actually resent him. I doubt you'd get much fan backlash and it would free up a considerable amount of money.

He does not care about offensive line. When he was with Tampa and that team had a great defense but no offense, every year there were questions about the line. They'd bring in journeymen all the time. It's weird that he spent his first draft pick on Columbo, but it's well documented just how much he ignored the line for most of the rest of the decade. He went hard after it in one year, but it was way too late to build a good line and could only serve to patch holes. The offensive line is the one place where you need 5 players on the field at all time and where your weakest link is easily exploited. You can't treat it like other positions, it has to be constantly upgraded.

Scoring hasn't been the problem for most of the 2nd half. With Theriot gone which one of these guys is pulling tail? I don't think many.

I wonder if Cashner's really crappy relief work is going to increase his chances of moving back to the rotation.

cashner versus posey. Too bad he's not striking people out because he could use a few.

If it's clear that Lee is the better defensive SS and Castro's offense wouldn't be adversely affected by a move to 2B, then having Lee play SS would clearly be the best move for the team. If Lee struggles offensively after being called up, there's no reason why they couldn't just move Castro back to SS and send Lee to AAA. Changing positions does carry with it a heightened injury risk. So if you're gonna make a move, you only want to make it once. There is no reason to move castro off short, move him back when Lee struggles, move him off again when Lee gets another shot, and so on and so forth until we know whether Lee will be a ML caliber hitter. I guess I can buy some of what you are saying, but there can't be that much injury risk of having Castro go from short to second and back to short. Think about turning the DP in a hurry. Momentum is taking each player in different ways, requiring not just the use of different major muscle groups, but different stabilizing muscles, tendons, ligaments, etc... Think about it this way. If MLB came out tomorrow and said that the order of all the bases had been reversed, that everybody now goes from home to 3B to 2B to 1B and then back around to home... how many people do you think would blow out their knees and ankles in the first couple weeks? Every big fat right handed batter who has to run backward would. 99% of all such injuries would be as a result of baserunning in the opposite direction that you have done all your life. I think you are greatly dramatizing the danger. It's different, sure, but it's not asking a LF to play catcher or a 3B to play CF. Middle infielders routinely play one or the other position. I don't want him switching midseason if possible. But if it comes down to it and he starts spring training at 2B, and then the next season has to move back to short, I think the risks are extremely minimal.

It's not just a matter of a flukey HR rate. I think the guy just gets hit hard far too frequently to have faith that his performance is actually better that what he has done. I find myself much more amazed at his really good starts than his really crappy ones.

Sergio won't heed your advice.

Colvin is a strikeout machine.

Soto is dealing with an injury, and the season is over. The more Koyie Hill, the better at this point. You realize we have Robinson Chirinos, who is putting up ridiculous numbers at AA and is the best defensive catcher in the Southern League, and Castillo who is already up, right? I don't have a problem giving him the day off the day after his first appearance. Those guys can have the shot at backing up Soto next year. I really don't think Hill's playing time the rest of 2010 really matters.

Am I wrong in assuming that a lot of the "better than his ERA" stats are banking on the fact that he doesn't give up many HR? I've seen a few Zambrano games where he's murdered by dinks and dunks and bloopers, one Mets game in particular I was attending. That's a bad game where I think the numbers are a little unfair. But Wells, to my eye, gets hit hard when he gets hit. People aren't lucking into a bunch of seeing eye singles. And now he's given up 14 on the season and may have been lucky to pitch in a lot of pitcher friendly games at Wrigley (no idea of true).

I should have kept it "well on his way".

I really don't get it. Wells may be on his way to about his 8th really crappy start of the season. He's a fly ball pitcher who kind of keeps it in the ballpark, doesn't strike out a ton of guy and is really hittable. I just don't get it. I'm probably unfair to the guy but I just have very little faith in him. He's more than earned his keep so far in his career, but there isn't a whole heck of a lot I like about him going forward.

SS/2B is comletely different from C/1B. 1B have to hit better than anybody on the field. 2B is still a position of need where a quality bat can go a long way to giving a team a huge advantage. If they can get average SS production out of somebody and really good 2B production out of Castro, I see absolutely no reason to trade the guy.

It also presupposes that he hits well enough to be worthy of a job. Bottom line is Castro is the SS for the foreseeable future, and they are a long way off from needing to think about moving him. And just to reiterate. He's a 20 year old SS with a 107 OPS+ a very managable strikeout rate and halfway decent walk rate. He could easily be much more than an 800 OPS 2B.

Nah, I disagree with that. The Cubs have the fanbase they do due to the size of the city they play in, their longevity and, most of all, WGN TV and radio. Anyone who defines themselves as a Cubs fan by the team's futility is just the worst. It's not the futility, it's the desire to end the futility. If you were right, I would have been a fan of the Braves instead of the Cubs, because the Braves are on TV almost every day in the south, and have been for decades. Where are all the White Sox fans? Based on your criteria, wouldn't they have the 3rd or 4th largest fan base? I think they fall in the 20ish range? The White Sox never had the TV/Radio/Marketing department that the Cubs had.

People would flip out and go nuts, but it wouldn't come close to the same level. You still had the Red Sox at 88 years and the White Sox at 80-whatever. You had several franchises who had never won in their existence. The Cubs with 1907, 1908 and 1969 just wouldn't create the same reaction to disappointing losses. Philly was at 28 years of drought when they won, in a city with a hell of a lot less success in other sports, and they weren't nearly as nutty about things as Cubs fans are. The 100 year thing makes all the difference in the world. 33 and 97 are completely different. The Cubs would be nowhere near the top of every list about futility, they wouldn't even be in the discussion. Hell, Cleveland doesn't even come close to replicating the reaction to 2003, and they were much more than 33 years.