Little Slide Rooter

Or we can just let Fowler take Coghlan's ABs from the right.

Castro sucks. No point defending him anymore. Why harp on the one thing he's doing well, though? castro had three at bats in which he desperately needed to do anything but strike out. he struck out in two of them. that's awful. guys hard facts. According to Fangraphs, out of 23 Shortstops that qualify based on plate appearances castro ranks 20/23 Chicago has 2 of the worst shortstops in baseball.. its sad. Who is gonna trade for him for pitching? Only a very bad GM would do that! Here is the entire list! # Name Team WAR 1 Brandon Crawford Giants 2.9 2 Xander Bogaerts Red Sox 2.3 3 Adeiny Hechavarria Marlins 2.2 4 Jhonny Peralta Cardinals 1.9 5 Alcides Escobar Royals 1.8 6 Brad Miller Mariners 1.8 7 Andrelton Simmons Braves 1.8 8 Jose Iglesias Tigers 1.6 9 Nick Ahmed Diamondbacks 1.4 10 Wilmer Flores Mets 1.3 11 Freddy Galvis Phillies 1.3 12 Erick Aybar Angels 1.3 13 Troy Tulowitzki Rockies 1.2 14 Asdrubal Cabrera Rays 0.9 15 Marcus Semien Athletics 0.8 16 Didi Gregorius Yankees 0.7 17 Jordy Mercer Pirates 0.5 18 Jean Segura Brewers 0.2 19 Elvis Andrus Rangers -0.3 20 Starlin Castro Cubs -0.5 21 Jimmy Rollins Dodgers -0.6 22 Ian Desmond Nationals -0.7 23 Alexei Ramirez White Sox -0.8 Its hard to justify waiting for a "veteran" (albeit a young one) to return to career averages especially with so many veterans struggling on the team including Fowler and Montero. A couple clutch hits is nice but who is to say another player like Mike Baxter or Denorfia couldn't have been that guy? Considering 2/4 of the infield is comprised of Rookies, Castro being productive is key. Living with errors is fine if he is hitting close to .300 and not killing every other rally with a double play.. but the poor performance at the plate and in the field is a huge liability for a team aspiring to be a perennial playoff contender. Getting rid of him now isn't probably very good because the return will be pretty low. However moving forward, i hope we dont see him as a cog in the infield from 2016 and on. If we are going to settle for mediocre offense, the defense needs to be gold glove caliber.. just my 2 cents. Starlin Castro: he's a tad better than Jimmy Rollins and almost as good as Elvis Andrus. If that's not a fine selling point, then I don't know what is.

Sutton Whiting sounds like someone who'd come to bat with and ascot and a butler.

Can we at least all agree that our bullpen sucks in situations when it's the top of the 9th on July 8, 2015 against Jhonny Peralta with 2 out and 2 strikes?

Looks like his d's killing his WAR too.

You can probably replace MarnDy with some form of Torres.

Are the library computer labs open that late in St Louis? If by library computer labs, you mean White Castles with I Phone 3s, then 24/7.

Probably the vengeful ghosts of slain Cardinal trolls hoping for an all out board meltdown.

What's coming out here is "me angry, bullpen bad." But if what you're trying to say is that there's something to be said for having an everyday closer, I can't disagree with that.

that would be a real mistake go big or go home. I still don't know the origin of this.

This type of rational thinking might be acceptable an hour or so after the game, but we're fresh off a heartbreaking loss to the St. Hitler Hitlers. So [expletive] everything and everything sucks and we're the worst team ever.

You do realize they have a 4 game lead on their WC spot and it's VERY unlikely they compete for the division, right? So this single game is not going to make a huge difference in the grand scheme. Plus there is still the bottom of the ninth... i don't really care about the game itself, the chances of it mattering are microscopic. i'm just talking about the whole cubs baseball thing. even at 9 games over .500, the excitement hasn't quite been there for me yet. i've been starting to get that feeling again lately and the cardinals keep dumping on it Like yesterday.

That was horrible.

just lock it up. No further good can come of this game or its associated thread.

Hold on to your trousers.

[tweet] [/tweet] From Tennessee Smokies Tweet. If not the greatest thing ever, certainly in the top 10.

Dan Johnson? Really? May as well bring in Sid [expletive] Bream for a quick RBI.

Schwarber gonna Schwarb.

We better get on the horn with Billy Beane about- Never mind.

Not sure I can get behind unproven commodities such as Steele, Cease, Sands, and Deewees so easily leapfrogging last year's wonderkinds Almora, Tseng, and Torrez, all of whom are having some growing pains at levels that they are quite young for. But that's just me.

Doesn't it depend on how good he looks over the next 2.5 months and how many available 40 man spots there are at that time.

Huh? He dresses like a dingus, but he's also the only rumor/trade reporter out there who, when he posts something, I tend to put 100% faith into it that it's true (meaning that the rumor he has heard is an actual rumor with some credibility behind it and not something he made up for clicks). Yeah, but there's been some hate for him in the past. At least around here.

Ha, ha, ha. You mean me. Quite. Completely OT: that sig of yours. Had it for years, and I've been wondering, is that an actual tweet from Mora?

Worst case scenario: just think of it as a 4/70someMM contract for Anthony Rizzo with a free Jonathan Herrera to go along with him. :stickman:

http://www.bleachernation.com/2015/07/08/way-too-early-rumor-cubs-will-consider-free-agent-howie-kendrick/ This comes from Ken Rosenthal, who I know we're supposed to hate, but I doubt he'd just pull it out of nowhere. Can't say that I hate the idea, at the right price. Assuming that he's an offseason target and not the offseason target. If we did trade Baez, and the powers that be lose confidence in Castro, we could do worse than Kendrick at 2nd and Russell at SS. Not saying I've given up on Castro, but I'm not a part of that decision process.