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dew1679666265

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Everything posted by dew1679666265

  1. dew1679666265
    Yep, we pursued him but wouldn't give him the deal he wanted. Thus we passed on him.
  2. dew1679666265
    Yeah, I wasn't trying to say there that I thought Hendry would not have shut him down, just that I'm more confident Theo will than that Hendry would have. And that makes me happy.
  3. dew1679666265
    As we talk about an innings limit on Shark, it's nice to know that we have management in place who we can be confident will be serious about being careful with Shark's arm. The Hendry regime may or may not have shut him down, but it's good to know the Theo regime will save him for later seasons.
  4. dew1679666265
    Looks like the Cubs' losing streak, coupled with Hamilton's ridiculous hot streak, means the Cubs should overpay for Hamilton. The fact that we're starved for offense kind of enters into it. Just seems like too much of a desperation move. This is a guy who has a higher than normal likelihood of falling off a cliff at any point. Too risky an investment, especially since there are good options out there (Upton/Drew).
  5. dew1679666265
    Upton seems like the perfect player for the Theo regime to pursue. Still in his prime, great defensively, good speed, undervalued skillset, likely to come for a slight value price (as other teams chase the bigger named Hamels/Hamilton/Ethier/Greinke). If they pass on Upton and instead go after Hamilton or Ethier, I'll be pretty disappointed. Especially after passing on Cespedes last year.
  6. dew1679666265
    That's a good question. I was going off THT's write-up on it: That isn't clear whether it's 75% combined, or 75% each.
  7. dew1679666265
    Thanks. And it's true that LD% takes hard and soft line drives into account, however all types of line drives (hard and soft) have a 75% chance to land for a hit, according to the Hardball Times. I know you weren't arguing the point, but I thought I'd clarify that either a hard or soft line drive still has a much better chance of falling in for a hit than a flyball or groundball.
  8. dew1679666265
    I'm hardly sold on Stewart either, though I think there is hope for him because of the quality approach he has at the plate. That said, in previous seasons (especially last year) he's battled injury problems. That clearly is a problem in its own right, however it may help explain why you've not liked what you've seen in the past - he simply wasn't healthy. On the 20-game split topic, I think it should be taken into consideration. Stewart clearly has talent and a good approach at the plate, so anytime he hits a hot streak it gives hope that it's the beginning of a breakout. That doesn't mean it will be and it could just be a fluke, but I don't think it should be outright dismissed (not saying you were). I don't believe anybody has said it's a certainty that he'll be great because of a 20-game stretch, simply that there was hope for a breakout because of it.
  9. dew1679666265
    I see where he's coming from, because a #3 hitter is expected to be a run producer. It's hard to drive lots of guys in if you're drawing a bunch of walks.
  10. dew1679666265
    Consider this, if you would: Your concern about BABIP alone is very well-founded. By itself, there's no way to know if a guy has a low BABIP because he's hitting soft stuff everywhere or if he's getting unlucky. However, that's where line drive percentage (LD%) comes into play. LD% basically tells you how hard a guy is hitting the ball - how many line drives he's hit. If his LD% is high, then he's hitting the ball very hard and the low BABIP means he's been unlucky. If a guy has a low LD%, then he's not hitting the ball very hard and his low BABIP is well-earned. Now, if we look at Ian Stewart, his LD% is currently at 17.9%, which is just a little bit off of his career 18.8% LD%. So he's hitting the ball about as hard as he normally has throughout his career and you would assume that with normal luck, his BABIP should be around his career average. However, his current .221 BABIP is 68 points below his career .289 BABIP. So what that tells us is that he's hitting the ball almost as hard as he ever has in his career, but that he's having a lot of those hard hit balls go right at defenders. Thus, the belief that he's had a lot of bad luck this year.
  11. dew1679666265
    To put this a bit into perspective, Starlin has struggled this year and refuses to take walks. There are some concerning trends we're seeing with him offensively and the Theo regime really needs to work with him on becoming more patient (even if only a little). Even still, here are some numbers: Major league average SS stat line: .251/.306/.364/.670 Starlin Castro's line: .309/.319/.411/.730 So as much as Castro has struggled so far this year, he's still 60 points of OPS better than league average at his position, at 22 years old and with improving defense. This is not a guy you willingly trade unless you get a ridiculously unrealistic deal (Justin Upton/Skaggs/etc, for instance). I certainly wouldn't trade him for a couple of guys who have never been past AA.
  12. dew1679666265
    They also couldn't afford the 8/152 contract he was about to sign.
  13. dew1679666265
    Starlin alone won't make us a contender, you're right, but it's not like he's a year or two away from becoming really expensive. We've got something like 4-6 years before he becomes a free agent, that's 4-6 years to build a team around him. During that time frame, we have the certainty of knowing we have one of the best young players in the game at an extremely difficult position to fill. We trade Starlin now we get further away from possible contention and we give up the certainty that we have a great, young player. Sure, the prospects could become great, but they could also flame out at some point and never make the majors. And the latter is more likely than the former, no matter the prospects.
  14. dew1679666265
    There's a really, really big difference between a 25 year old pitcher about to become really expensive and a 22 year old SS who's a long way from becoming really expensive. There's also a huge difference between the Marlins' payroll and the Cubs'. They couldn't afford to keep Beckett, we can afford to keep Starlin.
  15. dew1679666265
    You've had two possibilities listed - one by CCP and one by me. Here's my reasoning: Whether you like him or not, Adrian Cardenas being 2 years younger than Barney and having better career minor league numbers than Barney is probably part of that as well. Management probably wants to take a look at Cardenas in the majors and see what he can do. We don't have anybody currently on the bench who could be construed as a better option than DeJesus and Stewart at their positions, which is why they'll continue to play.
  16. dew1679666265
    Whether you like him or not, Adrian Cardenas being 2 years younger than Barney and having better career minor league numbers than Barney is probably part of that as well. Management probably wants to take a look at Cardenas in the majors and see what he can do. We don't have anybody currently on the bench who could be construed as a better option than DeJesus and Stewart at their positions, which is why they'll continue to play.
  17. dew1679666265
    If he can be called up for the IL portion of the season without losing the extra year of team control, then go for it.
  18. dew1679666265
    Ok, I'll give in on this one. Still not sure I'd call it goofy, though. Clearly I didn't explain myself well on this one. I'd be just fine keeping him in AAA until the Super 2 deadline passes, but would absolutely keep him in AAA until the late June deadline passes.
  19. dew1679666265
    I don't think it's goofy. It's not the strongest of arguments, but that's why it took me two pretty long winded posts to get to it. Rizzo's already a guy who's had a long, loopy swing exposed in one short ML stint. He's spent this season working on correcting that, but it's not goofy to think that once he hits the majors again, another weakness may be exposed.
  20. dew1679666265
    And I'm not arguing that we shouldn't get him any ML PAs. If we hold out until the late June deadline, we're looking at 90-120 PAs. The late August deadline is around 300 PAs, so that becomes much more significant. However, bypassing the late August deadline is the one that will cost us earlier and will be a more significant negative (considering we'd have to pay him more money every year from 2014 on). I could be persuaded that there's a significant enough benefit to call him up before the late August deadline. I really don't see much of a benefit to give up a full year of team control so that he can get an extra 90-120 PAs. That's a good point.
  21. dew1679666265
    I'm not arguing he shouldn't be called up at all this season, I'm arguing we should leave him down at the very least until late June (when the extra year of team control kicks in), if not until late August (when Super 2 status is eliminated). If we were to call him up for tomorrow's game, you're looking at around 30 extra games this year (using the earlier, June date), which means around 90-120 extra PAs. I don't see that as beneficial enough to give up an extra year of team control of him.
  22. dew1679666265
    As the crux of my argument, yeah it would be pretty ridiculous. However, it's not even close to a main point of my argument. That said, I never said we should try to "hide him forever" or that he's a secret of any sort. What I did say is that the more ML PAs Rizzo gets in a meaningless season could expose more weaknesses in his game than teams are already aware of, since ML pitchers are (obviously) better than AAA pitchers and more adept at finding those weaknesses. In and of itself, that's not reason enough to keep him in the minors, but when coupled with the much more significant drawback of potentially having to pay him quite a bit more money sooner, it brings into question just how worth it giving him those extra 100-200 PAs (very rough estimate, I could be way off on that) between now and the point where his Super 2 status is delayed is. In a nutshell what I'm saying is there's no meaningful benefit to the team to call him up early and only a minimal benefit to him personally to bring him up. At the same time, there's a clear potential risk to the team to calling him up early and a minimal potential risk to him personally to call him up early. Given that, I don't see the upside in bringing him up prior to his Super 2 deadline passing.
  23. dew1679666265
    I assume you're referring to my statement that I see no realistic way he'll help us in a meaningful way. I wrote that with his ability to help this team win in the short term specifically in mind. He'll almost certainly be a clear improvement over some of the guys we've been running out there, but he alone isn't going to be enough to take this team from where it is now to a contender. There's also the possibility that, on a personal level, he would get this season to see ML pitching and maybe be more prepared next season, but that also gives other teams more tape of him against ML pitching to determine his weaknesses. Am I missing something else?
  24. dew1679666265
    What do we gain by calling him up? This is a team that isn't contending this year and no matter how good Rizzo may be for the remainder of this year, he won't be enough to change that. I have no problem with calling him up if they really feel like he's the difference between us contending and not contending. But if having him play instead of Mather/Reed/Soriano/Campana/whoever is the difference between us winning 69 and 72 games or something like that, I really see no upside at all. Basically, there's a possibility calling him up early will hurt us. However, there's no realistic chance that calling him up early will help us in any meaningful way. I simply don't see a reason to do it.
  25. dew1679666265
    Apparently Schiano told Kellen Winslow that he's either going to be traded or cut, largely because Winslow has been working out on his own instead of with the team.
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