Gilby

But Zunino isn't "right there" with Posey...

I think there are two parts to this 1) they honestly want him to work on some things before they bring him up. If they want him to be a 3B long term, he still has some work to do to clean up his defense. If they want him to play OF, then they'll need to make that move sooner or later. He still has too much swing and miss in his game. I'm sure they'd like him to make some more strides in closing some of those holes in his swing before exposing him to big league pitching. 2) They'd really prefer not to bring him up until at least 4/15/15 to get the extra year of control. If they promote him to AAA now and he mashes there will be huge pressure to promote him during the summer. I understand the logic of all that but, in Bryant's case, I'm not so sure it's worth the extra year of team control for a couple reasons: 1) Bryant will likely have at least some growing pains. Better for him to get experience now in a season that's already lost 2) If Bryant is as good as we hope he'll be, the Cubs will wind up buying out his first few years of FA anyway. Does it really save them enough money vs. the excitement he could potentially bring to the big club at a time when fans are become increasingly bitter about the lack of progress? I'm not saying they rush him to Chicago. I'm saying send him to AAA and if he rakes there then let him try to breathe some life into a pathetic Cubs offense. If Bryant is as good as we hope, Boras will be in his ear saying how much he'll earn in free agency.

I don't think Villanueva has anything to do with this; Bryant is arguably the most important player in the entire organization. I'm with you in that I think the FO is concerned (probably not the right word) what would happen if they promote him to Iowa and he's OPSing 1.000 in July (not that it's a guarantee). Tough to keep him down in that situation, and I don't think they want to bring him up until late April 2015. The K's might play a small part in keeping him in Double-A, but he's shown a lot of improvement lately and it hasn't taken long for them to promote Baez when he starts to make more contact at a level.

OPS is still fine for a SS. Fortunately this Starlin doesn't totally blow when he's sporting a .313 or whatever OBP.

It hasn't even been 12 months. Plus Rizzo. And as you mentioned, Baez almost OPS'd 1.000 as a 20 year old SS, as did Starlin (in half the games and probably in a less sustainable way). Looking at just their numbers offensively though, Bryant has been better than them by a wide margin.

Conforto just faced a shift with 3 infielders on the right side of second base and 4 outfielders close to the warning track. Flew out to deep left-center to the third baseman.

Thank you, Kyle. I suspect he'll now hit a homer next time up.

Nobody watches anymore so they said [expletive] it.

Has a Boras client ever signed one of those early, pre-arb extensions?

Bryant's wOBA is over .500.

Take that, Orioles.

I don't think he has the athleticism to. But man, his bat. Yeah, I figure if Conforto isn't great in the outfield either, you might as well just take the better hitter in Schwarber if he can be even close to adequate defensively. Sucks he might not be able to do that though. The lack of homers from Conforto isn't ideal (7 this season), but I guess it's worth noting that Zimmerman only hit 6 homeruns his junior year (7 total in his college career) and Longoria hit 11 his junior year. Both of them also used the BESR bats. Granted, they also have better hit tools and provide MUCH more defensive value than Conforto will. In conclusion, Kris Bryant's power was, and still is, amazing.

Does Kyle Schwarber have any shot of playing outfield adequately in the pros?

Alcantara is abusing lefties and struggling vs righties, which is the opposite of what he did in double-A last year.

Alcantara single, Javy RBI double in the 1st

Has to be that since Lake is playing well they feel like Kalish won't get many AB's in the near future. I don't care enough about Kalish to think too much about though.

A big difference between Sammy and Manny is that this is Theo's decision. Sammy has nothing to do with baseball operations and is up to Ricketts.

I think Starlin is 0 for his last 17 with 1 K and more than a couple of hard hit balls.

I wasn't huge on the idea at first, but I've really warmed up to Nola. Also, if I remember right, it was either Theo or Jed who said they weren't thrilled that everyone knew they were picking Almora so they'd try to hide their intentions a little better in the future.

If that's at Wrigley, that has to be awfully close to the rooftops.

Are you counting on Baez being a better hitter than Castro in 2015? And we have a non-sucky third baseman and his name is Luis.

I think Javy has gone back and forth with that. His first Double-A homer looked a lot like his stance yesterday against Feliz. I don't know if it's like Starlin's leg kick where he calms it down vs nasty pitchers or what it is exactly.

Jesus. Yeah, he's #1 in the system for me.

Almora had two more hits today, both singles. He's not hitting for power or walking, but on a positive note, his K rate is right at 10%.

I think that was the day Santo was inducted into the HOF.