CubsWin

So Hendry didn't have enough of a back-up plan last season when unforeseen injuries/failures happened to his bullpen and he got criticized for it. Now he goes out of his way to have what looks like a guy who can be effective against lefties at the major league level placed on the 40-man roster just in case one of the lefties in the pen goes down or fails to perform well and he is paranoid. Interesting... But it's all probably an internet mistake anyway. If this were true, the point was there was no need to place him on the 40 man roster. If a need arose down the line, they could put him on then. Which might be exactly what they'll do since this appears to be mistake. My point was that there are only two lefties in the bullpen and so long as Rusch is in the rotation, it will stay that way unless the Cubs want to disrupt the development of Hill or Marshall to provide left-handed depth to the pen. Also, Rapada appears close to major league ready if used only as a loogy. I agree that without there being a reason to roster him now, it would be a move that could be done at a later time. But if it had actually happened and not been an internet goof, there are enough reasons to justify it without having to call the move "absurd" or "mind-numbing".

So Hendry didn't have enough of a back-up plan last season when unforeseen injuries/failures happened to his bullpen and he got criticized for it. Now he goes out of his way to have what looks like a guy who can be effective against lefties at the major league level placed on the 40-man roster just in case one of the lefties in the pen goes down or fails to perform well and he is paranoid. Interesting... But it's all probably an internet mistake anyway.

I noticed those "Young" comments. They made me ill. Dusty you can keep on saying I never had any young players before. To bad it's not believable. I think you guys are analyzing FAR too much into those comments. Why must most everything Baker says be spun in the most negative light possible? I find it strange, too. There are a lot of valid reasons to not like Dusty as a manager, but the way some of his most benign statements get twisted into yet another reason to hate him just makes me laugh.

What is the evidence for Dusty damaging his pitchers on a regular basis? I'm not saying there isn't any, I just don't know what it is.

I don't follow. If those 3 guys (Prior, Wood and Miller) are on the 15-day DL, which they currently are, and the Cubs, according to their website, are only 1 guy over the 40-man limit, why would 3 guys need to be removed from the 40-man when Prior, Wood and Miller return? As it stands now, only one guy is going to have to be removed. Where are you getting three? And how can you say with such confidence that adding Rapada "is horrible mismanagement of the 40-man roster" when he is the only lefty reliever behind Eyre and Ohman. If one of those guys went down, wouldn't it be nice to have someone who can be an effective loogy without interrupting the development of Marshall or Hill to do it? He sure looked tough against lefties a couple of days ago in Las Vegas. He struck out 61 and walked only 16 in 42 2/3 innings in Daytona last season. He put up a 1.94 ERA with 88 Ks and 28 walks in 83 1/3 innings the year before in Lansing. How is this "horrible mismanagement"? Is this move worthy of questioning? Yes, but you seem to know the answer already.

I won't have much access to the computer tomorrow, but I'll be watching with my 2-year-old daughter in our Cubs gear. Go Cubs!

I don't think its a mistake. Rapada has loogy written all over him. He showed as much the other day in Las Vegas. He made major league left-handed hitters look pretty foolish. The Cubs don't have any other lefty relievers on the 40-man besides Eyre and Ohman. Rusch is currently in the rotation, and Marshall and Hill will not be coming out of the pen anytime soon. So it is possible that Hendry intended to place Rapada on the 40-man. As far as there being a spot open for him, do guys count if they are on the DL? The Cubs currently have three pitchers on the disabled list.

Production and nothing else should be what gets a guy promoted. But in the world of baseball that is rarely the case. In the context of the Sisco debate, if production was the only measure and potential didn't come into play at all, I'm not sure Andy had produced enough that season to warrant protection. I disagree that production should be the only measure to keep and promote a player through the minor league ranks. If that were the case, the Cubs would have kept Ronny Cedeno in low A-ball until last season. They would have cut loose Juan Cruz, he sucked until he figured it all out and rocketed through the system. I think a player's potential ability to produce should come into play when determining a player's worth as to whether he should get promoted and/or protected. That said, I would have liked to see Sisco stay, but I understand the principles on which the Cubs seem to have been standing.

It's good to be the king. -Mel Brooks

Of course there is. No one is saying there isn't. All I was saying was that if the Cubs hadn't recently drafted young toolsy players like Harvey and Dopirak and had an even less talented group of hitters on their prospect list such that Sing was in your sample group, that the walks Brandon Sing gets would greatly skew the results of your research. My point wasn't to say that the Cubs shouldn't improve their plate discipline. My point was to show how, because your sample size is so small, the Cubs could have worse talent (ie not have Harvey or Dopirak) and show remarkably better numbers according to your research. In other words, your research is flawed. The graph that started this thread shows otherwise, that several other highly respected organizations are also relatively poor at drawing walks. On what evidence are you drawing your conclusion? Agreed, it is an area for improvement. The question is are the Cubs actively trying to improve it or is it their organization's instructional philosophy that is causing the problem in the first place? I don't know. I haven't sat in on any of their coaching sessions. But I do remember Cubs AA hitting coach Von Joshua and Cubs Minor League hitting instructor Dave Keller both quoted in an article in which Pie himself said he needed to improve...you guessed it, his plate discipline. If Pie is saying it, it would logically follow that his instructors are saying it as well. But that is far from proof that they are. Short of listening in on a coaching session, that might be the best I can do.

Who is ignoring it? When did I ever say it wasn't a problem? All I said was that your methodology was problematic because the sample size was very small and thus the conclusions you were drawing were open to cross examination to the point where they didn't mean much. I never said I didn't want the Cubs to have better plate discipline. I just said that on an organization wide basis, they weren't the only organization to have this problem. I'm just trying to keep the debate honest and provide some perspective. We can get quite myopically focused on the Cubs and their shortcomings (no all-stars in the OF, not the greatest plate discipline, etc.) on a board like this. Some of the comments start sounding like no self-respecting baseball team or GM would allow these shortcomings. It is at that point that I feel it is necessary to keep the debate honest and provide some perspective and remind people that the Cubs are not the only team with problems like these.

This is what I mean, why compare the Cubs to the Stros, Sox, Indians, and Dodgers. What does it prove, beyond other teams with prospects that fail to walk often. It doesn't prove anything. I wasn't trying to prove anything. The only thing I was saying, very simply, is that Cubs are not alone in this area and that if we are going to criticize the Cubs, then we must be prepared to criticize these other organizations, some of which we generally glorify, as well. I understand the reason for using such a small sample size. I said nothing about the choice to do that specific research. The reasoning is sound, but any conclusions you pull are going to be problematic due to the extremely small sample size. Once again, if the Cubs had worse hitting prospects in their top 4 such that Brandon Sing moved up into the Cubs top 4, then your results would be quite different. Anytime, changing one player in your test group dramatically changes the conclusions drawn from your research, you know that the sample size is too small to really be meaningful.

I simply don't have any class...as most of you can probably tell. So I'll be in front of the set watching the game with my 2-year-old daughter. We'll both have our Cubs gear on. She already recognizes the Cubs logo and says she "loves the Cubs". I'm so proud. So I'll be watching, unless I get a last minute audition or, heaven forbid, I get called in to the set. Wow, actors spend most of their lives trying to get their next job and here I am hoping not to get one. I must really love the Cubs. :wink:

Who cares about team perception... At the ML level, they finished 28th with 419BBs while the avg. team finished with 507 BBs. So far thru the 1st 15 teams I've done... The top 4 or the position prospect in the top 10 in each system (according to BA) Cubs prospects have avg'd 40BBs per 500ABs. The only system that was worse was LAA with 34BBs per 500. The avg. team has avg'd 55 BBs, while the Cubs have avg'd 40. That's a huge difference. Teams like ATL with more HS prospects who are just as toolsy as the Cubs have avg'd 65BBs per 500ABs. When did I mention "team perception"? I'm not sure I even know what that is. As far as your top 4 position prospect research, it is problematic in that the sample size is woefully small. For instance, if you had done your research using someone else's top 4 position prospects or included more than just the top 4, you may have included Brandon Sing which would skew your results quite a bit. The most responsible way to show evidence of an organization wide philosophy is to use the entire organization's stats like the graph in the original post in this thread did. So once again, I'm not saying that the criticisms of the Cubs philosophy are unfair or off base, I'm simply saying that if we are going to criticize the Cubs then we must also criticize the other teams in that same cluster (the Cardinals, the Indians, the Yankees, the Phillies, the White Sox, the Astros, the Brewers, the Dodgers, etc.).

I think the 75+ IP he had last year at the major league level with a .219 BAA and 10.6 K/9 matters more than the 8+ IP he has in spring training this year. I agree. But at the same time, if someone like Aardsma is throwing not just better but a lot better at the moment, why not break camp with Aardsma and let Wuertz find himself at AAA? Unless, of course, Wuertz is out of options.

A lot of things are possible in that realm, Monco. It is sort of assumed that all a manager has to go on when determining the durability of a certain pitcher is his history and how he is currently feeling. To my knowledge, Wuertz never openly complained about soreness last season. Overuse must be a shared responsibility between the pitching coach, trainer, manager and pitcher.

It is also important to note that the Cubs are closely bunched together with several other teams that we generally do not think of in the same way. For instance, the Cardinals, the Indians, the Brewers, the Yankees, the White Sox, the Phillies, the Dodgers and the Astros are all within a 3-4 walks per 600 ABs of each other. They also are similar in strikeouts per 600 ABs, too. So unless we are equally willing to condemn the philosophies of those teams as well (and some may be), then none of the criticisms in this thread hold much water.

I agree that the Cubs may help themselves by successfully directing their hitters to be more patient and have an improved eye at the plate. I also agree that Cubs prospects will fail slightly more often because they tend to be high ceiling type guys. But I also think it is important to include that if they are indeed high ceiling prospects then when they hit, they will hit in a big way. We just haven't seen one fulfill his potential in a while and we are frustrated.

So from "inside sources", we have learned that Gallagher will be at Daytona and Billek will start at Peoria with Pawelek not being assigned anywhere to start the season. We also know Marshall won't be at AA to start the year. So rotations only... AAA- Guzman Hill Ryu Brownlie Valdez? AA- Marmol Mateo Connolley Wells Blasko?/Holdzkom?/Perez? High A- Gallagher Mathes Johnson Holliman Weber?/Shaver? Low A- Veal Billek Downs Estrada? Yepez?

It could just be an effort to keep him out of the worst of the cold weather to lessen the risk of injury. He could stay in extended ST until May and then join the Chiefs. I would be disappointed if the Cubs had him wait until late June to start playing in Boise. It just seems a bit unnecessary. He's got the stuff to compete in Low A right now, doesn't he?

I agree. I have never been impressed by him, and I would swap him out for Aardsma in half a heartbeat. It may just be my perception, but Wuertz seems to either dominate or flat out stink, especially when he pitches in a couple games in a row. When Wuertz gets even a little tired, it's BP. I agree that it makes me nervous that he's not doing well, but I have been impressed with him in the past. He can be pretty sick when he's not misused, so it mostly just makes me sad that he's getting roughed up so badly. I agree with MPrior. Wuertz has a nasty slider when its on. For some reason, its just not on right now. Maybe he's tipping his pitches and the scouts caught on late last season or while looking at tape over the winter. Maybe its something else entirely. As I watched him today, I was reminded of Borowski's collapse a while back. He didn't have the same life on his fastball, and it was downplayed as normal spring training stuff and no big deal. But then later we learned that he was injured. Wuertz's velocity on his fastball was easily 91-93 and the slider was 84-86 all season last year, but he didn't come close to that today. I'm wondering if there isn't something structurally wrong with Wuertz's arm? I wouldn't be surprised if he comes up injured in the coming weeks.

I don't have much hard data to back-up this opinion, but I think one of the reasons Aardsma is recovering some of the speed on his fastball is that he is being used as a reliever. The Cubs have plenty of depth for their rotation (Guzman, Hill, Marshall, etc.). I think Aardsma would best serve the Cubs out of the pen.

Well said, USS.

The Cubs scouts and Hendry are really putting themselves on the spot this season. They have specifically said to the press that the scouts believe Jones can return to his previous form. They named Marshall their 4th starter. They acquired guys who other teams were ready to give up on, like Pagan and Bynum (though Bynum to a lesser extent), and are placing them on the 25-man roster. All told, they are starting essentially two rookies, in Murton and Cedeno, though they are both technically not rookies, handing the 4th starter spot to a rookie who has only pitched 4 games above High A ball, and handing two bench spots (one a possible platoon player) to rookies on a team who's manager is known for playing his bench players quite often. That sounds pretty risky to me. Let's see how well the scouts and Hendry have done their jobs.

Here is an interesting side note to the Bynum acquisition... The part I found interesting was when Hendry distinguished between Pagan playing "against lefties or (coming) off the bench against lefties" which would seem to say that Hendry is envisioning Pagan platooning some with Jones in RF.