Little Slide Rooter

As desperate as the Cubs may be, pitching, especially starting pitching is not something they are desperate for.

Rather than start a new thread, Ill borrow this one. another Cubs 1 time toppish prospect has joined Pinto in the ranks of the DFAd. IM sure MacPhail is chomping at the bit for both.

Im going to write tommorows Trib Header for the game write up: Braden Not Perfect, but Good Enough to Beat Cubs, Wells.

You mean right now? Nothing. He still has a ton of work ahead of him in the minors and he's only 20. The way I see it, the minor leagues are his college experience. Hes 20, and was drafted at 17. When a college player is drafted, usually at about 20-23, they are expected to progress much quicker. Vitters was a much more raw product, and while other guys his age are facing college pitchers, hes facing professionals. I know that while minor league pitching isnt always the best, for the most part, its tougher than college aside from the occasional phenom.

It should be noted that PR wise sending down Colvin anytime soon to get at-bats isn't really possible. It's a tough situation. While I also believe some of Colvin's minor league numbers have been skewed, that still leaves him as a huge question market with plenty of tools and some flashes but not much of a track record. That isn't much to fall back on when giving a lot of PT at the major league level . But the minors isn't an option at the moment and I don't know when it will be an option again unless he does get significant PT and struggles. Thats a very good point. As bad as the CUbs have been and fans getting very frustrated, the only thing the Cubs really have going for them to keep people interested are the 3 rookies, Castro, Colvin, and Cashner and Carlos Silvas comeback story.

If we needed another lefty in the pen, Id take him back in a heartbeat. Hey, I still would. Those are pretty good numbers though. You dont see many pitchers with a sub 3.00 ERA getting DFAd.

That's not the point. The point is he's our best option right now. No, he's not. Hes 1 of 2 consistant hitters this teams had all season, the other 1 being Byrd, so yeah, hes the best option right now. He'll never be as good of a defensive outfielder as Kosuke, but the main problem for this team has been offense, not defense and as long as he can provide some, he deserves to play. Over who? If you seriously expect them to be able to trade Kosuke for anything of value it makes absolutely no sense to effectively bench him for Colvin. Colvin will get plenty of AB's between pinch hits and starting for Byrd and Soriano when they get days off. If he's going to be playing full time he needs to go back down the minors. As long as hes hot, he needs to start, at least vs. righties. Its a tough predicament, in which we have 5 potentially productive hitters, all outfielders, and obviously, we can only play 3, or 4 in AL home interleague games. You obviously cant platoon Colvin and Kosuke, and theres no reason to give Byrd a platoon partner, and while at times, I would like to see Soriano with platoon mate, its not going to happen. They want to get Colvin PT, and Kosukes the odd man out. Obviously, the catch 22 there is that if they were serious about trading Kosuke for anything of value, benching him for Colvin isnt exactly the way to go.

It is a long shot. I have no desire to see him end up a bust, but the simple fact of the matter is that it's a long shot that he would pan out to be a starting OF right now. Just because he was a 1st round pick doesn't make him any kind of lock, especially with the Cubs' drafting history. His performance so far this year also isn't any kind of guarantee of what he'd be as a starter. Fox is a great example of someone who set the world on fire with a relatively limited collection of AB's. They have nothing to do with eachother. Im sure major league baseball has a long history of rookies who got off to a hot start and then were figured out and were out of baseball before long. Theres also a long history of those who got off to hot starts and became stars, those who got off to hot starts and became solid major league players, and those who got off to hot starts and became role players and journeymen. Jake Fox has no bearing on Tyler Colvin. Maybe Jake Fox still can become a Jack Cust or something of the like. Im rooting for the guy.

That's not the point. The point is he's our best option right now. No, he's not. Hes 1 of 2 consistant hitters this teams had all season, the other 1 being Byrd, so yeah, hes the best option right now. He'll never be as good of a defensive outfielder as Kosuke, but the main problem for this team has been offense, not defense and as long as he can provide some, he deserves to play.

Wow, were in position to possibly win our 1st series since I cant even remember when. Was it the Rangers series?

I dont know what will ultimately become of Tyler Colvin, but I sure hope that hes given the opportunity to succeed, and not sent to the minors and ultimately Baltimore as soon as he starts to struggle. I can understand not wanting to start Pie back when we were contenders when he was doing poorly, but not the trading him away for nothing, however, now that were essentially a non contender, theres no reason not to stick with Colvin through the season.

Sure, keep telling yourself that. He would have been the closest thing to Stenbrenner we could have gotten, and say what you will about Old George, he gets what he pays for. He doesnt put up woth failure.

Well, he almost escaped unscathed. Lets just bring in Grabow so they can score another 3-4 runs. God I hate this [expletive] team. If Cuban bought the team, Lou would be a very distant memory.

For a brief moment, it looked as though we were about to have ourselves a ballgame.

I guess we could be just as easily up 4-2. Oh well.

That will probably buy Hill at least another 3 straight starts.

Fixed fixed again.

Nice way to suck their way out of a potentially big inning.

Good call. There's zero chance he's going to ever rebound after the stupid move of yanking him out of the rotation, making him a reliever and then having to work him back into the rotation. They better just release him and then set a big pile of money on fire just to be sure. This entire team is the equivelent of setting a big pile of money on fire. OK, let's just bench them all. Would it make a difference? May as well march out the I Cubs in their place.

Good call. There's zero chance he's going to ever rebound after the stupid move of yanking him out of the rotation, making him a reliever and then having to work him back into the rotation. They better just release him and then set a big pile of money on fire just to be sure. This entire team is the equivelent of setting a big pile of money on fire.

So hes not a good starter. Hes not a good reliever. What exactly can we do with out $20 million waste of space? I suppose hed be a pretty good batting practice pitcher.

One of those games where it wasn't the better team that won, but rather the team that sucked less. After an uncharacteristic slug fest on Friday, both team showed their true colors on Saturday and Sunday. I still say that if Fukudome was in RF Saturday afternoon, the Cubs win 1-0. Also, while I didnt like the move at the time, walking Rios with runners on 2nd and 3rd with 1 out was the right move. Rios was a lot more likely to, if nothing else hit one into the outfield and drive in the tying run while Konerko and Quentin are much more free swingers who probably dont have a chance at making solid contact vs. Marmol.

Good to see Brett Jackson hitting again. 3-4 with a 2B and a 3B so far. Too bad Vitters cant get in on the fun.

I dont think that the pixie dust can work on Suppan. Usually it works for either younger pitchers, or those toward the middle of their careers that Duncan helps figure some things out, not a broken down pitcher like uwho Duncan has already helped in the past but the league has long since figured him out.

Different situation. Colvin was a 1st round pick who was off to a decent professional career before he was slowed down by a bad elbow and eventully TJS. Also, Colvin can play a solid defense. Jake Fox, like Micah Hoffpauir before him was a guy who was always a decent hitter in the minors but nothing special who chose to blow up on AAA pitching for a year in his late 20's before he was called up and had some degree of success before big league pitchers figured him out. To be honest, I never saw Fox as a guy who would by a big time slugger, but at worst, I thought hed be able to put up Russell Branyan or Marcus Thames type numbers. Colvin is not solid defensively. He'd have to basically pull off full time what's done in a very limited sample size this season to justify himself defensively. I'm also not sure how you're concluding that Colvin was off to a "decent professional career" and yet just dismiss Fox's career minor league numbers like he was a zilch compared to Colvin. Regardelss, you cant really say that Fox was bad for Oakland, so Colvin will be bad. Sure,theres a chance that Colvins bad, but I think that the Cubs are in a position the next 2 years, hopefully not more where he can be given the chance to play as much as possible and if he proves himself, hopefully he can become a full time player and we can use the free agent money elsewhere. I dont follow Oakland Athletics baseball, so I dont know quite what happened with Fox there, be it the balpark, or they just threw him a lot of sliders and he wasnt able to adjust. At 24 or 25, I forget which, Colvin is young enough that if given a chance he may be able to grow as a player, something that Lou hasnt allowed too many rookies to due before. Fox got 1 cup of coffee in '07 I believe, and was awful and promptly sent down. This time around, he was 28 years old, and at that point, it isnt easy to make adjustments. On the other side of the coin is Casey McGehee, a 10th round pick in the same draft as Jake Fox. His .296/.345/.429/.774 career minor league line is pretty unspectacular, but Milwaukee saw something in him and has made an everyday player out of him, a good one too. Yeah, I got pretty excited about Fox last year, and Hoffpauir the year before. They were old for "prospects", but they werent putting up solid .800-.900 OPS', they were putting up ridiculous numbers, and it wa hard not to be excited about them. Either way, playing for Lou Piniella is not a good environment for a rookie unless your one ofn those guys who can make an immeidate impact like Braun, Pujols, or Heyward.