Transmogrified Tiger

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Walker's great, he really is. He's a good hitter and one of my favorite Cubs. You're overstating his abilities though. He's not good enough to hit third. He'll be 34 next year, has never been a plus defensively, and his power is way down this year so far. He may be the right guy for next year to bridge the gap to EPatt, but depending on the construction of next year's team someone else may be the better route.

There's no reason the Cubs shouldn't have made their pick by 12:30, right? I wanna know if I'll be able to find out their pic while I'm at lunch.

Seriously, if that's a bad outing then I'm down with that happening on occasion.

First: Soriano has made no secret about returning to the AL (perhaps the Yankees), so I doubt he will be interested in the Cubs, unless he gets an Albert Pujols type contract. Second: I prefer Eric Patterson at 2B. soriano will be so much more productive than patterson over the next few years it's ridiculous. soriano's pushing a 1.000 OPS right now in the bigs...patterson's pushing .800 in AA. To be fair, the cost-benefit thing is an issue, and this is the first time Soriano's clearly been over an .800 OPS since he was a Yankee.

Neifi in the all-star game is not a joking matter. *goes to cast anti-votes for Neifi*

A winner is you.

emphatic yay

First: Soriano has made no secret about returning to the AL (perhaps the Yankees), so I doubt he will be interested in the Cubs, unless he gets an Albert Pujols type contract. Second: I prefer Eric Patterson at 2B. Me too, but we need a 2B for '07. Patterson in the bigs next year is a poor idea.

I thought Nieve pitched yesterday when they scratched Oswalt? Correct, ESPN is wrong.

ESPN says Nieve(also RH) is pitching. Either way, benching Murton for Bynum is a poor decision.

I'm a big fan of Patterson's. I wish he'd cut back on the K's, but he walks, has pop, and is a good basestealer. If he can settle in in the .280-.290 range at the MLB level, I think he has a Todd Walker with speed/better defense upside, possibly better. Agreed, in fact I think I made the exact same comparison to Dob the other day. Good, well all aboard the bandwagon then. His strikeout rate is high (101 in 119 ABs last year), but better than someone like Ryan Harvey, and his walk rate remains solid. He hit well and showed good patience and baserunning instincts during college, so I was really surprised when he fell into the 8th round. I think because he's short, plays middle infield and runs fast, people are trying to pigeonhole him into a Jose Reyes type of approach at the plate. It's silly to overlook the fact that he's hit HRs and XBHs all through his college and minor league career. He's got the strength to hit with some pop, so why just try to slap the ball through the infield? I think Brian Roberts is also a good comparison - good speed but not overwhelming; decent power and a good ability to take walks. I could see him as a Brian Roberts with slightly more pop but a little higher strikeout rate. What was it really? 101 in around 540 plate appearances.

Looks sensationalized, IMO. Beasley didn't come off real peeved to me. I don't see why ESPN would run an article like that, then. It's in their best interest to present the US team as favorably as possible. It's a Reuters article, and ESPN would probably be worse off withholding potentially negative articles than just reporting everything that comes in.

Looks sensationalized, IMO. Beasley didn't come off real peeved to me.

You mean like he's trying to Eli Manning his way to Chicago, or his demands of anyone are so high that he may fall to us?

There's really no way you can play Nevin at catcher. It's not worth it for one because of the team's current situation. And second of all, it's just not feasible. Nevin is a 1B and spot OF at this point in his career.

Bingo. Make the moves that will improve you for '07, since '06 is pretty much shot. Almost like an extended offseason, except some attention has to be given to make sure the current roster is feasible.

I was struck by optimism with the reminder that Wilken could have a sizable influence on our picks.

There's no reason to take Pierre out of the lineup. The leadoff spot? Definitely. But otherwise you're just putting out similar production(Womack, Nevin v. RHP) without the hope of improvement. Our season is pretty much shot, stick Pierre 7th or 8th until he starts hitting more line drives to increase his trade value to the point where he'll be worth something. Otherwise you take the draft pick at the end of the year, but let him play unless there's a real alternative(i.e. Pie in September) that can help for the longer term.

It's in line with his LD% though. Remarkably he doesn't hit a lot of line drives. He also doesn't strike out a ton either which means there are more balls in play in general.

He's in his contract year. What raises his value more? Pitching in a pennant race or pitching in a bunch of meaningless games? Money talks.... Yep. At this point it's as simple as telling Kerry that his option is not going to be picked up, and since the Cubs' season is lost, it allows him to spend the last couple months of this contract in a pennant race.

Thanks! This has been added to my extensive list of baseball bookmarks. Huff's BABIP is .192, by the way. So on the subject of BABIP, is it really all luck? For example, I think it has to be the case that weakling slap hitters like Neifi, Pierre, and Rey Rnez must have low BABIPs for their career. None of three strike out much at all, but especially in the case of Neifi and Rey, their career batting averages are not very good. If BABIP were all luck, shouldn't they have high batting averages since they put the ball in play in a large percentage of their ABs? That's where the type of balls in play becomes a factor. Also at the hardball times, there's line drive percentage. A player's BABIP typically should be 100-110 points higher than their LD%. For example, take Austin Kearns. In '05 according to his LD% he should've had a BABIP upwards of .330, which was nearly 50 points higher than his actual BABIP. That's probably unlucky. This year, his LD% is about the same and his BABIP is more in line with that, leading to a big jump in production. Now these aren't universal truths, Neifi has shown consistently "unlucky" relations between LD% and BABIP, but that's because when he isn't hitting line drives his batted balls are so weak(and he doesn't hit for power) that he doesn't get many hits on groundballs or flyballs. Hopefully that makes sense, my train of thought kinda jumped around a bit.

You can always sign up. It doesn't get full. There really isn't any point though; I have a streak of 19 and counting. Stop getting hits. Both times my longest streaks has been ruined by Pujols. First time he only PH and made an out, 2nd time was yesterday. Gah. Pick Rolen every day from now on.

At least for weekend games I'd say.

I'm a big fan of Patterson's. I wish he'd cut back on the K's, but he walks, has pop, and is a good basestealer. If he can settle in in the .280-.290 range at the MLB level, I think he has a Todd Walker with speed/better defense upside, possibly better. Agreed, in fact I think I made the exact same comparison to Dob the other day.