Clem Fandango

He's also putting up a 13.2 BB%, a .494 SLG%, .170 ISO, and a .402 wOBA Lake is swinging the bat really well right now, he's the best AAA option at the moment. Castro is hot garbage.

I know you're not a Lake fan, and I'm not much of one either, but he's shown dramatic improvement in his overall hitting ability in the minors and given that the Cubs don't have many other internal options outside of Herrera, then something, anything, needs to be tried to get an improvement out of Castro's spot in the lineup. If that something is giving PA's to Lake, so be it. If he sucks, put Herrera in there. If he sucks, try Alcantara. If they all suck, well then they need to suck extra bad to be as bad as Castro has been. He is hurting the team in a big way right now, and they need to fix it somehow until Baez is ready for his 2nd chance and even then that's not a guarantee to work either. If they're not gonna trade for a MI then I'd rather throw darts at the board and hope something sticks than keep throwing the same dart and missing the target completely at this point.

I've been tolerant of Castro's struggles, but now that the team is in contention he's a liability. It's okay to suck in 2013 because the team sucked and he was still 23 so there's gonna be some growing pains. But you can't let a guy stay in the lineup when he's been the 2nd worst player in the NL no matter how much he costs or who he is. He needs to be benched. Lake hasn't played MI in nearly 2-3 years, but I'd rather see Russell move to SS and Lake play 2nd over Castro + Russell. Russell has been bad enough at the plate but that was to be expected and at least his defense is stellar. Lake can't be any worse than Castro, and if you don't put Lake there make it Herrera. He has a 0.1 fWAR, and it's pathetic when a 0.1 fWAR is legitimately considered as being substantially better than your star shortstop. Castro is now a liability and even a poor performance out of Lake or Herrera or Alcantara or whoever is, sadly, still probably more valuable than what Castro has given the Cubs this year. And I hate that.

http://i.imgur.com/2EvG69y.png

Ask and you might receive... http://espn.go.com/mlb/story/_/id/13292841/detroit-tigers-preparing-make-david-price-yoenis-cespedes-available-trade-deadline

This guy has a home run AND a bunt on his highlight reel!?!?! http://i.imgur.com/1OIrf.gif

If there's no money coming over to alleviate Hamels or Papelbon's contracts, the Cubs, IMO.

I made these not long ago and it was as majestic as it looks...

This game alone put's Schwarber's July fWAR at 0.2. Here's a screencap of depression. Keep in mind, this is for offense only. So 2 of our 6 positive offensive WAR players are pitchers this month. http://i.imgur.com/JRTdGRH.png

True but he is putting up 15-20 mil/yr type performance this year. They only have him a couple more years It's actually closer to $30 million.

http://i.imgur.com/JGx0wZV.gif

Pretty much this, but it's not just power, it's everything. Bryant has been fine, actually, but everyone else has been abysmal. Here's the slashlines for most of our primary guys over the last 14 days: Bryant: .244/.380/.512/.892 Rizzo: .256/.412/.359/.771 Montero: .182/.250/.303/.553 Soler: .233/.258/.300/.558 Denorfia: .235/.278/.265/.542 Fowler: .200/.280/.244/.524 Castro: .159/.224/.205/.429 Russell: .121/.237/.152/.388 Coghlan: .138/.286/.138/.424 Rizzo's would be fine if others were hitting the ball like they should, but they're not so our offense pretty much lives and dies with the tandem performance of Bryant and Rizzo. In this stretch run of awfulness, Rizzo would still at least be providing a great OBP allowing for opportunities to get driven in, but when nobody can drive you in it's useless. And since no one can drive him in we need to rely on him for power, and his SLG has been embarrassing in this stretch. With Schwarber up, and his solid performance today, if he can keep that up and Rizzo bounces back then the team is totally different, even if the others keep performing like jerks, but this team-wide swoon really needs to knock it the [expletive] off.

Game hasn't even started and you're already starting your doom boner.

http://i.imgur.com/V4TwWJM.gif Give them McKinney and Vogelbach. They're cool with fat first baseman who can't play defense.

Well at my spot I can't win if I'm scoring with all the same players as everyone else... Drop Stanton Add Bautista Drop Springer Add J.D. Martinez Drop Jorge Soler Add Kyle Schwarber

Just saw this posted on BN's Facebook wall. There should be no reason the Cubs shouldn't pull in close for the NL Central lead within the next month, or at least take a commanding lead in the wild card... http://i.imgur.com/JQemkNf.png?1

His numbers to this point look good, but are not likely to be indicative of his true talent. During that 2 month hot start his BABIP was .436. The numbers I posted after his BABIP was like .356 or something around there. As the BABIP drops, so do his numbers, and he's exposed for being what he truly is: a no power, slap hitting, zero patience guy who relies on his speed to get base hits on his weak grounders (2nd in majors in infield hits, IIRC), and steals bags indiscriminately regardless of whether or not he should (leads majors in caught stealing). I also can't find a leader board for it, but he's probably in the Top 10, maybe even Top 5 of outs created. Castro is #1 (yay) with 276 (his number is bolded on B-R). Gordon is at 260, which I would assume is not far behind. So we might could possibly have one of the least productive middle infield offenses in history if Gordon was in the lineup instead of Russell. Also his OBP since June 1st is only 9 points higher than his batting average. His average is .286. You have to be some kind of terrible to pull that off. He's seriously Juan Pierre incarnate. And I know the discussion has moved off of Gordon, but still. Gordon is snake oil, and if he's as good as others think then the Marlins have no reason to move him, but if the Marlins end up being keen on moving him then something is rotten in the state of Denmark, IMO.

There's a lot of 2B better than Russell. And most of them are on teams that have no reason to trade their 2B, least of which is Miami who P.S. is paying $0 for Dee Gordon this year because the Dodgers picked up the tab on his 2015 salary. And as someone else mentioned, he's under control for 3 more years. So we got a 2B who is 27, costs nothing this season, is under control for 3 years, who is currently the 4th most valuable 2B in baseball (2.8 fWAR). And Miami will trade this player... why? Because they're not contending? Seems silly. Let's look at the 2B better than Russell with at least 200PA this season... Jason Kipnis - 4.8 fWAR - Currently making $4 million signed to a team friendly $52 million deal through 2019 with an option year Joe Panik - 3.4 fWAR - 24 year old currently making league minimum until he hits arbitration in 2018 on a contending team Brian Dozier - 3.3 fWAR - In the midst of an absurdly team friendly $20 million deal through 2018 on a contending team Logan Forsythe - 2.4 fWAR - Making $1.1 million in arb this year, under control until 2017 on a contending team Brock Holt - 2.4 fWAR - League minimum until 1st year of arb in 2017. Also a supersub who has started at every position except catcher this season Dustin Pedroia - 2.3 fWAR - He's not going anywhere Danny Espinosa - 2.2 fWAR - Making $1.8 million in first year of arbitration. Under control through 2017 on a contending team Kolten Wong - 2.2 fWAR - HE'S THE DEVIL and he costs the Cards league minimum until his first year of arb in 2017 Jose Altuve - 2.1 fWAR - He's under a $12.5 million contract through 2017 with two option years through 2019 taking it to $25 mil. Contending team. Devon Travis - 2.0 fWAR - 24 year old rookie on a team in contention. Ian Kinsler - 1.9 fWAR - 33 years old signed through 2017 on an $85 million deal with one option year. DJ LeMahieu - 1.8 fWAR - An "all-star" heading into his first year of arbitration next year, under control through 2018 Neil Walker - 1.7 fWAR - Arb eligible through 2016. FA in 2017. Contending team, and division rival Howie Kendrick - 1.5 fWAR - 32 year old free agent at year's end on a contending team, but blocking a Cuban signee 2B in Alex Guerrero Jace Peterson - 1.2 fWAR - 25 year old rookie making league minimum Addison Russell - 1.1 fWAR Selection of bigger name players Addison Russell has been more valuable than this season: Brandon Phillips Ben Zobrist Daniel Murphy Robinson Cano Stephen Drew Aaron Hill Omar infante Chase Utley So on that list of 2B in the league... there's only one who truly fits as a trade candidate and that's Howie Kendrick. The next best option is Danny Espinosa, but the Nats are in first place plus he's having a nice bounce back year after two consecutive years of injury plagued awfulness. Every other 2B better than Russell is either too good, too affordable, too old, too expensive, or some combination of those. It's basically Howie Kendrick or bust if you want a new 2B via trade, cause no other teams has any good reason to move any of their 2B unless they just want to deal from a position of strength to fill a hole elsewhere, but that doesn't exactly fit the description of many of these teams. And even then, Kendrick does not provide a substantially large upgrade over Russell (0.4 fWAR upgrade) Or if you want to go with the SS moved over to 2B role, there's not a whole lot of options there either... http://www.fangraphs.com/leaders.aspx?pos=ss&stats=bat&lg=all&qual=200&type=8&season=2015&month=0&season1=2015&ind=0&team=0&rost=0&age=0&filter=&players=0

While everyone was fellating San Diego I was hopping on the Toronto bandwagon, but it seems like no matter how good of a team they put together it always gets bit by the injury bug.

Acceptable SB% or not, he's not as good as people suspect he is and because of this he'll cost more than he's actually worth. Probably something not too far off from what we gave the Marlins for Pierre, when you think about it.

Who the [expletive] wants Dee Gordon? And why I agree. Dee Gordon is the closest thing this generation of baseball will have to Juan Pierre. And we don't want Juan Pierre. Gordon's numbers are bloated due to a hot start. Opening day through May 31st: 48 G .377/.405/.444/.849 78 H 10-2B 2-3B 10 BB 31 K 20 SB Ever since: 36 G .286/.295/.370/.665 44 H 6-2B 2-3B 1 HR 2 BB 31 K 13 SB Gordon is smoke and mirrors. He's also been caught stealing 12 times, giving him a 73% success rate, which is pretty bad.

In the hypothetical event that Castro ends up being shopped and even traded, that obviously opens the door for a Russell/Baez MI, but in the event that they opt to keep Baez down because he struggles in his return from the DL, would Jed Lowrie be a worthwhile target? He's likely returning from the DL near the trade deadline, or a little after (rehabbing now, but not in games yet), and with Correa and Altuve in the MI in Houston, he has no place to play unless they move him to 3B, which he hasn't played since 2011 (and didn't really play regularly since 2008 before that). Would he be a wise target? Signed through 2017 with a 2018 club option on a very reasonable deal. At the very least he could probably provide better offense than Castro would this year, and if we decide to give the spot to Baez or Russell after this season, he can be used as a pretty good bargaining chip.

I thought he confused it with BB/9, and even then that figure is absurdly terrible and in no way befitting of Hendricks' skillset. His actual BB/9 is 1.546, which is 8th best in baseball. Hammel is 9th with 1.563. Hammel also has the 5th best WHIP in baseball, 10th in H/9, and 7th in K/BB. Fun stuff.

I've thought Upton would be a good offseason FA target, personally. Trade target? I mean, I'd want his bat in the lineup but what would it cost?