frostwyrm

I'd rather have seen Holla get the start over Macias. I'm not a Holla fan but he hit the game winner yesterday so maybe he could ride the good vibes from that. Anything is preferrable to Macias.

The Brewers are pitching a lefty so Cedeno will probably get the start. I'll be very disappointed if he doesn't, particularly because the Nats will be starting only righties in the next series.

What really irks me is that this organization is willing to screw with the career progress of a promising prospect just for the sake of something as trivial as giving a garbage player like Neifi Perez an occasional day off. I'd rather have seen Enrique Wilson fill that role and Cedeno keep playing every day in Iowa. With the way Neifi's been hitting Enrique isn't even a downgrade from Neifi offensively.

Based on this I wouldn't expect Cedeno to get more than an occasional start vs. lefties. I'm guessing Dusty blames Neifi's struggles on fatigue, and Cedeno's just here to help Neifi be the best Neifi that he can be. He'd be better off in Iowa. http://www.chicagotribune.com/sports/baseball/cubs/chi-0506290184jun29,1,7658527.story?coll=chi-sportscubs-hed

From June 6-28 Neifi is 12 for 80 with 1 walk. I say it's time to give Ronny at least half the starts. Dubois lost his starting job after 3 weeks, so Neifi should too, especially since we all know we are seeing the real Neifi now.

He's gotten 12 at bats in the last 9 games. Even a veteran would lose his stroke playing that infrequently. That is not a fair platoon. He's only had 128 AB's on the season and he really only got regular starts over a 3 week stretch, and now he's on the brink of being dumped from the team. If every rookie on every team was discarded this quickly MLB would be overrun with 50 year old players. 4/21 in his last 6 starts - that's not very good no matter how you slice it. He's geting his share of starts and he's not performing, end of story. He's on the brink of being dumped from the team like I'm on the brink of being added to the team. He's started 4 of the last 12 games. That's a lame way to use a rookie. Even veterans will get rusty playing that infrequently. And yes, I absolutely believe he can't survive with the Cubs unless something changes in his usage. If nothing changes he'll be 27 next spring and will have had very little exposure to MLB right-handers. Sending him back to AAA will accomplish nothing either. At this point a trade is probably the best way to go. I think Hendry knows that there aren't enough lefty starting pitchers in baseball to justify the opportunity cost of not trading Dubois while he still has good value.

If you don't like Dubois, how about Hairston then? He's enormously better suited to the top of the order than what we have there now.

Wow, Jason's bandwagon thread had almost fallen to page 4 before this post. Have we all forgotten about him? Btw, anyone notice Holla's numbers have flatlined over the past 2 weeks? June 14th - .257, .320, .382, .702 OPS June 28th - .259, .309, .391, .700 OPS I guess we can dispense with this notion of Dusty "going with the hot hand". At this point Dubois and Hairston both make more sense than Holla. PS> Holla's SLG would be lower too if the scorer hadn't been inexplicably persuaded to change that Geoff Jenkins error to a triple, which might be the cheapest 3 bases I've ever seen.

Possibly the craziest, most dangerous gamble anyone could take with the Cubs batting order is to trust Neifi Perez to hit in front of Derrek Lee. Every idea proposed in this thread is far more safe and sensible.

Is it really obvious or did you just happen to skip over the Dusty is knowledgeable quote? So, which is it? Look, Walker won't hit at the top of the order until Hendry makes a move for a true everyday leftfielder or until Baker switches Ramirez and Burnitz in the order. If you move Walker up, Ramirez will never have an official at-bat the rest of the year. Barrett is no protection for Ramirez. And people must have already forgotten Barrett was pretty bad in the #2 hole last year. I just don't get why some think Barrett can be a successful #2 hitter. He drives me nuts with some of his at-bats. Barrett was not very good in the 2 hole last year, but he only got 76 at bats there. Does that mean he should be relegated to the bottom of the order for the rest of his career? That thinking is very overcautious IMO. Neifi in the 2 hole, right in front of Lee, is a nightmare scenario and anything would be less risky than that. Also, while I don't think much of Hollandsworth, I believe the risk of moving Walker to leadoff and hoping Holla can adequately protect Ramirez until Hendry makes a trade is far less scary than sticking with Patterson/Perez at the top of the order.

He's gotten 12 at bats in the last 9 games. Even a veteran would lose his stroke playing that infrequently. That is not a fair platoon. He's only had 128 AB's on the season and he really only got regular starts over a 3 week stretch, and now he's on the brink of being dumped from the team. If every rookie on every team was discarded this quickly MLB would be overrun with 50 year old players.

Neifi/Corey with a combined 0-fer at the top of the order. At this point even Dusty must be having doubts about that experiment.

The Yankees batboys know the ballpark and know the Yankees team, so maybe we should sign a few of them and have them start. Wilson hits like a batboy, so what's the difference?

http://fantasybaseball.rotoworld.com/content/clubhouse_news.asp?sport=MLB&majteam=CHC

Keeping Neifi at #1 and #2 could easily cost us a trip to the playoffs. He is costing us way too many RBI opportunities.

I'm not trying to put you down, but you won't find many people here who pay attention to pitchers' W-L records, especially not ones that date back to the 1980's.

And he got pulled after 2 at bats. Sheesh..... He got pulled thanks to Glendon Rusch not being able to get the third out in the inning. Thanks to Glendon, he was pulled with his spot in the order up first. Or maybe you wanted to bring in Borowski for just one hitter? I don't see why it was so imperative to get Borowski into those 2 innings. We were down 5-0, and it not like the roster is short on relievers. Wellemeyer could have pitched, then Borowski the next inning, which is what I would rather see anyway, because Borowski is accustomed to entering games at the top of an inning. Who was brought into the game was irrelevant. I'm beginning to think you didn't see the game and just venting needlessly. Anyway, had Rusch gotten out of the inning, his spot was due up in the bottom half of the inning. A pinch-hitter would've been brought in, thus saving Dubois from having to be pulled for the double-switch. Barrett batted eighth, but you're not going to pull him, so Dubois had to be double-switched. Who was brought in to pitch was irrelevant to the double-switch. Or you could bring in Wellemeyer to get one out, he needs the work anyway. Then lead off the next inning with Hairston and save Hollandsworth for a PH later. Then Borowski can start the next inning with nobody on base, which is how I'd like to see him used for now.

And he got pulled after 2 at bats. Sheesh..... He got pulled thanks to Glendon Rusch not being able to get the third out in the inning. Thanks to Glendon, he was pulled with his spot in the order up first. Or maybe you wanted to bring in Borowski for just one hitter? I don't see why it was so imperative to get Borowski into those 2 innings. We were down 5-0, and it not like the roster is short on relievers. Wellemeyer could have pitched, then Borowski the next inning, which is what I would rather see anyway, because Borowski is accustomed to entering games at the top of an inning.

Based on this, plus past history, I have to believe Dubois would have been lifted after Wakefield left regardless of the presence or absence of a double switch scenario. This game had nothing to do with Dusty's fairness to the rookie, it is just another example of Dusty coddling one of his pet veterans. http://fantasybaseball.rotoworld.com/content/clubhouse_news.asp?sport=MLB&majteam=CHC

And he got pulled after 2 at bats.

I have no problem with you having that opinion, but where is your evidence for it? I think there is plenty of chance that Dubois could be named a starter in the Cubs OF next season. It comes down to how well he performs. And that is as it should be, isn't it? If you want to win and win now like the Cubs and their fans seem to, then you want to have the players out on the field that are going to give the team its best chance of winning that day. That may not always be the guy with the highest OPS. There are other factors involved. Baker didn't have any problem starting Dubois 17 out of 19 games from May 10th (the day Hollandsworth got demoted) to May 31st, and in that time, Dubois faced mostly right-handed pitching. During that stretch of extended play, Dubois batted .242, walking 3 times and striking out 20 times with 2 HRs and 6 doubles in 62 ABs. Not bad for a rookie, but also nothing that is going to keep Hollandsworth permanently on the bench either. So, when June rolled around, Baker decided to give Holla some more ABs, maybe after hearing reports that Todd had found something while working with Gene Clines, maybe not. He had basically gone 50/50 with the starts between the two of them until one of them got hot. I certainly don't think that Hollandsworth will stay this hot, so what makes you think that Dubois won't get another chance to prove himself worthy of a starting job? It can't be that Baker has a bias against rookies because the evidence doesn't support that either, plus, come '06 Dubois will be a veteran, won't he? :wink: We watched Hollandsworth play 5 weeks of absolutely awful baseball before he got benched. The rookie Dubois started for only 3 weeks, with moderately bad results, then was benched. I don't see how anyone could say Hollandsworth and Dubois got an equal shot. I also think it's totally unreasonable to expect a rookie to get hot within 3 weeks. Also, Hollandsworth put up a.318 OPS in May. You can't possibly believe Dubois would get his starting job back if he put up numbers like that.

Dubois only got 3 weeks as a starter. If every rookie who came to the big leagues was expected to get hot within 3 weeks teams would have rosters full of 50 year olds. If Dusty wanted to be consistent he could have given Dubois the same 5 weeks that Hollandsworth got to start. I don't see why a rookie gets less slack than a mediocre 10 year veteran. Also, who's to say Dubois will even get another chance? All Hollandsworth has to do is put up mediocre numbers to keep Jason on the bench and probably run him out of town.

Dubois has no chance now, at least this year. With Holla finally starting to hit the ball a little bit I think Dubois will be seeing a lot of games from the bench now. I think most of us around here knew that Dubois wouldn't really get much of a chance to show what he's made of. He pretty much had to be an all-star to get a legitimate shot at playing time. He had all of 3 weeks as a starter and now he's probably finished with the Cubs. We just aren't very likely to develop any homegrown everyday position players while Dusty Baker is here. Personally I view all our minor league hitters primarily as trade bait. I just don't understand it. Dusty has no problem using rookie pitchers, but when it comes to rookie hitters they never get much of a chance. I'm hoping Dubois keeps getting some starts every once in a while and gets more pinch hit at-bats, and then is promised a starting corner outfield position next year. I don't want him traded away. We need at least one position player who's making around league minimum next year. I agree with your points, but there's absolutely zero chance that Dusty will declare Dubois the opening day starter for 2006 after having very little exposure to righties on the ML level. If Dubois faces only lefties for the rest of the season he is virtually guaranteed to be traded. He will be 27 next March, has nothing to prove at AAA, and is a valuable bargaining chip who would be far more helpful to the Cubs as trade bait than being used solely vs. lefty pitching. My opinion is that Jason either regains the starting LF job by early August or he's finished as a Cub.

Dubois has no chance now, at least this year. With Holla finally starting to hit the ball a little bit I think Dubois will be seeing a lot of games from the bench now. I think most of us around here knew that Dubois wouldn't really get much of a chance to show what he's made of. He pretty much had to be an all-star to get a legitimate shot at playing time. He had all of 3 weeks as a starter and now he's probably finished with the Cubs. We just aren't very likely to develop any homegrown everyday position players while Dusty Baker is here. Personally I view all our minor league hitters primarily as trade bait.

Unless he does something impressive very soon I don't think the Jason Dubois bandwagon has much of a future here.