Transmogrified Tiger

7-3

Sexy

Floating the idea: Promote Colvin?

I've thought about it...but that was more for the Cubs' draft sake then anything else. I've seen this mentioned a few times. Did they eliminate the alternating leagues get the #1 pick rule? Yes, they eliminated it.

How about making a trade just to improve the team? Would be nice wouldn't it? Use guys like Maddux and Nevin who likely will not be here next year, and get just average to decent prospects. You get something for nothing and have extra trading chips. It takes two to trade. Wait til Tuesday for this angst.

Lets not forget Maddux was 20 and 21 in his first two years in the bigs. Hill is 26 years old. That's the other thing - he is closing in on his prime years. That's a valid point to be sure. On the other hand, it's worth noting that pitchers have a much less stable career track than hitters, with Hill himself being an example of that. It's been pretty much agreed that Hill made some type of adjustment(physical, mental, mechanical, philosophical, spiritual) that helped him start dominating in the minor leagues. I don't think it's a matter of simply him sticking around until he was old enough to me a man amongst boys(note: I'm not saying that anyone is saying the opposite of this).

if he has trouble thowing K's he should'nt be in the bigs Then every pitcher should be in the minors, they all have games where they struggle with the strike zone. Yeah, but Hill has not been consistent enough in the strike zone to stay in the big leagues. His minor league stats are so impressive though that you know it is mental. I'm pretty sure the guy can throw strikes, he just needs the confidence that he can go out there and get the job done. Just for kicks look up Scott Ruffcorn minor league stats... just for kicks look up greg maddux's 86 and 87 stats. People keep saying that, but no one acknowledges that we are essentially comparing Hill to a once in a generation talent. Do you truly believe Hill will even approach Maddux? Isn't it more likely thaat he will be, at best, serviceable? There are also worse pitchers than Maddux who have had rough goes in their early MLB time. I think the point is not to say Hill will eventually repeat his AAA dominance in the show, but rather that we should wait before condemning him as a one trick pony.

Bold prediction: Wuertz is closing games by this time next year, or everyone is clamoring for him to do so.

It's omnipresence? Wouldn't it be easier to ignore than to goad then? I think people are trying to show how wildly irrational it is rather than egging him on.

Fontenot is also significantly better offensively.

It's omnipresence?

I don't see Riccardi taking on Neifi.

Howry + Maddux for Ethier + Broxton

No one ever said that. In fact, if you go to that thread you'll find several people distinctly clarifying that to you. Many people did not want Tejada because his price(players, dollars, both) wasn't on par with his production, and people used Walker as a comparison for how Tejada's production wasn't worth that price. No one ever ever ever ever said "we have Walker, we don't need Tejada" or "Walker is just as good as Tejada".

Oh how I love the Pie chart.

the bolded part is the operative sentence. the return on the trade doesn't look great to me, but noone on this board is in a postion to accurately assess these young pitchers. the farther down in the minors, the less likely the numbers will reflect what kind of a prospect the player is. judging low level ball players based on their stats and the published scouting reports is rather foolish. it's even a problem judging higher level prospects. no amount of stats would have told you that Jason Dubois couldn't recognize or hit a curveball, but the stats and BA sure made it seem like he could be a force at the major league level. it takes a combination of both in my opinion and the guys at BA often talk about their inability to fully cover all minor leaguers because of their lack of staff. Here's the thing about that though. Like the Dubois example you gave, there are many players that are statistically sound yet have flaws not revealed by their production that prevents them from repeating that at higher levels. On the flipside, how many players are statistically horrid and then make some adjustment to completely change their performance? I'd wager there are significantly fewer that fall into the latter than the former. As it pertains to these specific players, Santo is in his 4th pro season with over 320 IP, and no longer is young for his league. Jiminez is young for the MWL, but he's never had any sort of success in his pro career and is getting overwhelmed this year(more walks than K's, eek). I think the degree of how poorly they've performed is being lost.

Most of Dusty's comments are horrible analogies that sound laughable in or out of context. In addition, Dusty's comments are endemic of his actions when they are interpreted poorly. People may assume the worst with what Dusty says, but it's usually backed up by what he does, or another comment he's made. That said, he does get taken out of context at times, and I've pointed that out in a couple occasions, although I admit I've readily hammered him for a multitude of quotes in the past.

Ozzie making a mountain out of a mole hill. If he ever loses his job I wonder if he ever manages again.

Does he go into more detail on why he thinks that(i.e. pitching/throwing programs, strength/conditioning stuff, etc.)?

Wow, great stuff. Too bad there isn't a similar resource for other people that would be considered for the job.

how? The only quote that looks particularly egregious is the first one, and if you consider the question was likely "Aramis, you hit very well this afternoon, what are your thoughts on the loss today?" even that is a fine response.

Why does it matter? That looks like it's out of context anyways.

that system may be garbage Tiger but you'd have no idea... I'm confused.

Agreed. And those of you who are killing JH for not getting enough for Scott Freakin' Williamson need to chill out. If he traded someone with actual value and got hosed I might agree, but Williamson has an ERA over 5.00 and a WHIP over 1.50. He's not very valuable; maybe one of the guys he got will pan out. No one can say at this point, but I think we can say with confidence that Williamson won't be his former self ever again, and his control has left him. Relievers are fickle, prior to today Williamson's WHIP was in the 1.3's.

Because they are terrible, like I explained in the original post. I'm not expecting top flight stuff for Williamson, just not the garbage we ended up getting. If the roles were reversed and the Cubs were in contention and had just given up 2 of their top 20 prospects for a pitcher with equivalent numbers to Williamson people would be ripping Hendry. Hendry has been shopping Williamson for a while now and if there was a better deal out there I am sure he would have taken it. To assume a strong market exists for a middle reliever that has an era over 5.00 and a questionable elbow is quite a reach. Those guys are top 30 prospects because San Diego's system is a joke. They're terrible, and if we had given up players with their numbers and their careers to get a reliever for a pennant chase, everyone would've been plenty fine with it because no one would miss Todd Blackford and Carlos Perez. These guys are terrible, huh? Nothing like rushing to judgement on two guys you have never seen and I am sure never heard of before about 1 hour ago. Then you rip on a guy that has actually seen them pitch because he dares to try to make a postive comment that might slow down the momentum on your latest Hendry roast. Nice. Are you kidding me? Rushing to judgement? Give me a break. These guys are classic Hendry good tools/no performance players. They have horrible, horrible track records and are continuing them this season. And can people please stop with the "someone who has seen him" thing? I'd love to hear what Nathan thought of Santo when he saw him pitch, but he didn't say anything about that. For the third time, he merely quoted a statistic any one of us could find(I linked to it earlier), and one that doesn't particularly mean much either(Santo's two starts against Peoria?). It doesn't "slow down the momentum" or whatever you might want to call it, it doesn't tell you anything about him other than the fact that he's had two good starts this year.