Tim

I'm sick and in a foul mood, so, in honor of this weekend's series with the Sox... He Gawn! Picking on a respected member of the community and my favorite Cub at the same time while I'm under the weather is a sure way to get a ticket out of here. :evil:

Um, wow.

JC's been pretty darned consistent in his monitoring of Sisco. While it isn't good news, it is certainly something we as Cubs fans should be monitoring. Hey, if there's one good side to this, at least Hendry can go to other GM's and say, "If Sisco's doing that well, imagine how good the guys I protected must be! Surely you want to give me Huff for Koronka."

Well, maybe we can start getting worried tomorrow. 2-3 today with his 5th Dope slap and maybe most importantly, 2 walks. Moore is tied for third with six home runs. Dope really isn't far off the pace of the league leaders (other than Harper). They already played today? Nice turn of events. I'm not really interested in his place on the HR leaderboard. Totals don't really tell you much. I'm much more interested in the AVG/OBP/SLG line, and even with today's numbers he's nowhere near the top of the league. Check what Marte is doing so far this year: .253/.317/.453. I doubt he's going to lose his top-prospect status over a couple of cold weeks. Players go through adjustments at new levels. If it's June and Dope's still got a similar line, then I'll start to worry.

Well, maybe we can start getting worried tomorrow. 2-3 today with his 5th Dope slap and maybe most importantly, 2 walks. Moore is tied for third with six home runs. Dope really isn't far off the pace of the league leaders (other than Harper).

Why is nobody freaking out that Ricky Nolasco was left unprotected? That's about where Sisco would have ranked on this year's prospect list coming into the season. And in 2004, Ricky looked a lot more major league ready than Andy did.

Send Tim and/or 1908 a PM with the new title request. What Serena said.

Because Hendry's decision wasn't that he needed to protect Koronka instead of Sisco. It was that Sisco didn't need protecting and therefore he had an extra roster spot available.

I like to think that I've been pretty neutral on Baker over the past 12 months. But I have to say, him showing up at the ballpark lately has been a bad move.

How am I characterizing it as something it is not? People have said Sisco was a lazy, fat slob with no motivation who is only pitching well because not being protected was a slap in the face. That, to me, is saying he wouldn't have made it here. You knew that if he was left unprotected that somebody would take him. What you didn't know was who would take him, how uncommitted that team would be to putting the best possible 25 players on the field this year, how well Sisco would pitch, and how badly the team that took him wanted him and would therefore be willing to put up with bad pitching. You knew he'd be gone. What you didn't know is if he'd come back. They let him go. They hoped they'd get him back, but they gave up their control of Sisco. They owned the next 9 years of his career but they gave it up, for nothing. No, it wasn't a simple decision. But they simply let him go. Regardless of whether they thought he'd come back, they let him go. If you let your girlfriend go on a date with Brad Pitt, you might expect her to come back, but there's no guarantee. Brad might have more space on his dance card than you though he had. You see no difference in believing that Sisco had very little chance of sticking on a major league roster this season and believing he had no future with the Cubs? What? Where does this come from?

How am I characterizing it as something it is not? People have said Sisco was a lazy, fat slob with no motivation who is only pitching well because not being protected was a slap in the face. That, to me, is saying he wouldn't have made it here. You knew that if he was left unprotected that somebody would take him. What you didn't know was who would take him, how uncommitted that team would be to putting the best possible 25 players on the field this year, how well Sisco would pitch, and how badly the team that took him wanted him and would therefore be willing to put up with bad pitching. You knew he'd be gone. What you didn't know is if he'd come back. They let him go. They hoped they'd get him back, but they gave up their control of Sisco. They owned the next 9 years of his career but they gave it up, for nothing. No, it wasn't a simple decision. But they simply let him go. Regardless of whether they thought he'd come back, they let him go. If you let your girlfriend go on a date with Brad Pitt, you might expect her to come back, but there's no guarantee. Brad might have more space on his dance card than you though he had. You see no difference in believing that Sisco had very little chance of sticking on a major league roster this season and believing he had no future with the Cubs?

Leaving an A-Ball pitcher exposed to the Rule 5 is not "giving up on him in dramatic fashion". It is a statement that the team strongly believed he was not ready to stick (and they had a number of good reasons for that belief).

I'm not trying to get into a "The Cubs suck at teaching" debate here. All I'm saying is you should have more faith in your ability to teach a guy like Sisco than to simply let him go. The logic behind the decision makes sense on certain levels. That doesn't excuse it from being wrong though. It was a mistake. Instead of making excuses and saying he'd never have made it if he stayed here, I hope the Cubs realize it was a mistake and do what they can to learn from it, and improve their system so they won't make it again. Who on earth is saying that "he'd never have made it if he stayed here?" I haven't seen anyone claim that, but I've seen you posit that others are saying it more than once. And he wasn't "simply let go". That would be waiving a guy. This was taking a gamble that a guy the team had some trouble with (and whose performance had declined for two straight years) wasn't going to be mature enough or good enough to stick straight out of A-ball. I understand you think it's a mistake on Hendry's part. I believe you even think it to be a major mistake on his part. But there is enough to criticize about the whole thing without characterizing it to be things it isn't.

That is just a hard one for me to swallow. You aren't the only one who has speculated that Sisco would just be the same old mess this year. I suppose some will think this is ironic, but I'm more optimistic that it was simple immaturity that he could grow out of. Zambrano is afforded growing pains. Sisco should have be allowed the same, IMO. I don't think he's implying that Sisco would be some egomaniacal jerk his entire career, just that his turnaround from this offseason to this season wouldn't have happened had he not been left unprotected. And I'm not arguing that Sisco would be pitching for the Cubs with a sub 2 ERA out of the pen right now if they kept him. But if the organization had any developmental ability at all, they'd be able to get some of what KC is getting out of him for their A ball team. If you think the only way to motivate a guy is by letting another team have him for free, then you don't have much of a developmental program in your own system. Sisco is certainly a distressing data point on that subject. Let's look at how Choi, Hill, Jones, Harris, Beltran, etc. have done since leaving the system before coming to any conclusions, though.

That is just a hard one for me to swallow. You aren't the only one who has speculated that Sisco would just be the same old mess this year. I suppose some will think this is ironic, but I'm more optimistic that it was simple immaturity that he could grow out of. Zambrano is afforded growing pains. Sisco should have be allowed the same, IMO. I don't think he's implying that Sisco would be some egomaniacal jerk his entire career, just that his turnaround from this offseason to this season wouldn't have happened had he not been left unprotected. :thumright: I understand what you were saying, Tim. I just think in your original post which had a number of good objective points in it, that your subjective opinion about Sisco not being able to have the same results as a Cub didn't really fit. Who's to say? Perhaps it was just his time to mature? Perhaps it started to "click" for him in the offseason, notwithstanding what team he was on? Actually, it was that particular point that led me to change the post to say they were my "feelings" on the subject as opposed to "thoughts".

That is just a hard one for me to swallow. You aren't the only one who has speculated that Sisco would just be the same old mess this year. I suppose some will think this is ironic, but I'm more optimistic that it was simple immaturity that he could grow out of. Zambrano is afforded growing pains. Sisco should have be allowed the same, IMO. I don't think he's implying that Sisco would be some egomaniacal jerk his entire career, just that his turnaround from this offseason to this season wouldn't have happened had he not been left unprotected. :thumright:

After a lot of thought, here's my feelings: 1 - I had assumed that Sisco would be protected and was shocked when he wasn't. 2 - In no way did I think that Sisco was ready to stick on a MLB roster, let alone actually contribute 3 - The track record for rule 5 guys picked out of A-ball and sticking is quite short compared to the ones returned 4 - Sisco definitely had an attitude issue while with the Cubs and I don't believe he would have turned things around like this had he stuck with the team 5 - Andy had slid significantly on the prospect lists because of performance and stuff (and, as it turns out, attitude) throughout 2004 6 - Sisco was actually picked behind another A-ball pitcher with an even higher ceiling and no attitude problems. He got returned to Minnesota after not sticking with a more awful team than KC (they drafted before them, anyway) 7 - There's going to be a much bigger roster crunch after this year and there is reason to put guys on the 40 man that are easier to take off instead of putting someone on there that might slip through the rule 5 but would never make it through waivers Hendry took a gamble that I disagreed with at the time. I understand his logic behind the decision, though, and wouldn't bash him for making the choice he did. Given the outcome to date, it certainly looks like he's going to lose the gamble. Which, in the end, means it was a mistake to risk it. But again, I can sure understand why he did it and wouldn't overly criticize him for the choice.

Beane didn't write Moneyball. It is about his philosophy, but he didn't write it. Michael Lewis wrote it. Treebeard knows that. He's poking fun at the people who think Beane wrote it or who characterize Beane as being an egomaniac because of the book.

Thanks for the answers Tim. Could you explain a little more what happened to Nic Johnson, and if there seems to be any hope of him making a ML impact at any time? Nic Jackson has had several different injuries plague him the past few years. The big one was when he splintered his shin bone when he fouled a ball off of it just a bit into the 2003 AA season. Then he missed most of last year with shoulder problems stemming from a head first slide into third base in the first game of the AAA season. Nick Johnson is a first baseman for Washington, btw.

I just answered these questions in the other thread. :D

Is this the only way to have an avatar, because i notice a lot of users have new avatars on what seems to be a weekly basis yet aren't under the userpic avatar list... Premium users can link to outside avatars on their own.

Have you seen what Lewis is doing at Iowa so far? I still believe he's not going to make it. (Kramer impression) Oh...I've been seeing. You may have the opinion he won't make it, but it's still WAY early. Not even out of April yet. I expect a certain period of adjustment whenever a player switches levels. If Lewis hasn't turned it around by July, then I'll worry. He's a very good defender, just needs to hit to be a starter in the bigs. Last year was a dream season for him, but how rare is a true (non drug-aided) fluke season? I still say 2 years of Walker (or maybe now 1 year of Walker, 1 year of Hairston) and Lewis to start in 2007. He switched levels at the 3/4 point of last year. He's got over 150 AB's at AAA now. If he's going to adjust, he should do it soon. The kid isn't so young anymore.

Have you seen what Lewis is doing at Iowa so far? I still believe he's not going to make it.

BTW - does anyone else have severe bullpen envy when looking at Oakland? What a set of arms.

Probably not.