SABR Gamer

I'm pretty sure the cubs are going to try to dump soriano regardless of what lahair is doing. Obviously, I meant that would they maybe try a little extra and settle for less if LaHair was hitting. I am not a LaHair fan for the record, I was just more curious what we do if he's crushing everything when Rizzo is ready.

A bit of a random question, if LaHair is really hitting when we want to call up Rizzo, do we move him to LF and try to dump Alfonso?

I dislike watching Marlon Byrd play baseball.

Alright Jeff, going to need to have a couple quick innings to get that pitch count back on track.

it's just for this series. giants did something similar last year. I really hope when we win the world series we don't do something that stupid.

Ian Stewart.

KYLE! IT HAS BEEN DONE.

I guess that seems like a good target. I can't wait to see him hit bombs at Wrigley.

There's no exact date. It's sort of complicated. (warning, this is all sort of gleaned from various web sites, and with baseball you never know if there aren't some secret rules they just haven't bothered to tell anyone about). Every day on the major league roster (or the DL) during the regular season = 1 day of service time. Rizzo already has 68 days of service time. 172 days of service time = 1 year. However, the major league season is always a little longer than 172 days. It can vary year to year, but the most common season configuration is 181 days long. So he can get 9 extra days, give or take, per season just by being on the roster all year long. If we don't want him to be a free agent after the offseason of 2017, we have to make sure he has less than 1032 (172x6) days of service going into that offseason. Or put another way, we don't want his current service time + his 2012 service time + his extra days to get to 172. If he gains 9 extra days of service time for each of the next 5 years, that's 45, plus the 68 he already has = 113. That means we could afford to use him for 58 days this season before it costs us a year of eligibility in the future. Realistically, he has to stay in the minors until mid-August to be sure of not gaining the extra year of service time. Okay so from a combination of what you said and other websites, is it June (68 days into the season) for team control through 2018 and late August to prevent him from being a super 2? How badly do we want to avoid Super 2 with Rizzo?

There's no exact date. It's sort of complicated. (warning, this is all sort of gleaned from various web sites, and with baseball you never know if there aren't some secret rules they just haven't bothered to tell anyone about). Every day on the major league roster (or the DL) during the regular season = 1 day of service time. Rizzo already has 68 days of service time. 172 days of service time = 1 year. However, the major league season is always a little longer than 172 days. It can vary year to year, but the most common season configuration is 181 days long. So he can get 9 extra days, give or take, per season just by being on the roster all year long. If we don't want him to be a free agent after the offseason of 2017, we have to make sure he has less than 1032 (172x6) days of service going into that offseason. Or put another way, we don't want his current service time + his 2012 service time + his extra days to get to 172. If he gains 9 extra days of service time for each of the next 5 years, that's 45, plus the 68 he already has = 113. That means we could afford to use him for 58 days this season before it costs us a year of eligibility in the future. Realistically, he has to stay in the minors until mid-August to be sure of not gaining the extra year of service time. You can't get more than a year of service time in any year. So those extra days will not help Rizzo. Yeah I was under the impression that a player couldn't get more than 172 days of service time a year. Anything above 172 days still counts as 172.

Hey what date do the Cubs have to wait til for Anthony Rizzo to have that extra year of team control?

Not a fun game to watch. Meh. /2012 Cubs

Game threads are really going to be fun this year i guess.

It's a tantric thing. When he finally homers, it's going to be like a million times more intense. He's going to end up hitting 74 home runs.

It's gonna happen. Do you still hate him? As you can see from the sig, I am in his fan club. I assumed you were mocking him due to the futility counter.

Obviously not, but I am expecting him to give up more home runs throughout the course of the season than he has previously.

It's gonna happen. Do you still hate him?

An Ian Stewart home run would be nice right now.

Maholm is supposed to start 35... We may as well line up a tee a home plate for those 35 games. It'd be the same outcome. Maholm has given up 0.8 HR/9 over 1143 innings before tonight. Don't think it'll be that bad. Wrigley gives up more home runs than PNC.

We should be so thankful he is better than hot garbage. Well, they combined to start 26 games for us last year. So yeah, I think you should be thankful. Or we could have just not signed him and given Wells or Wood the rotation spot who are both a lot better than hot garbage too. Well they stated multiple times they wanted depth. Wells is the 6th starter. Would you rather have Maholm or Wells be the 5th? c) Travis Wood

What was the actual reasoning behind signing Maholm?

We should be so thankful he is better than hot garbage. Well, they combined to start 26 games for us last year. So yeah, I think you should be thankful. Or we could have just not signed him and given Wells or Wood the rotation spot who are both a lot better than hot garbage too.

We should be so thankful he is better than hot garbage.

F Maholm

LaHair turns 30 this year. I think protecting his numbers by platooning him does as much if not more to his value than showing a trade partner that he might be a 2nd division everyday starter at 1B. Are there any good sites to find minor league platoon splits?