CUBZ99

http://cubsminors.wikispaces.com/AtkinsM This year has been his worst year in the minors. Looking at his stats it looks like he is equally as bad vs. lefties and righties.

But why Stevens instead of Samrdjzia? Why Atkins instead of Gaub, Ryan, Ascanio, or I dont know, anyone else? Is Gaub on the 40 man roster? I'm guessing that it was just a matter of (1) who was on the 40 man and (2) who had not pitched recently.

He really stepped out on a limb with that kind of commitment. Not this again.

You know I thought so as well, but it seemed like Lou made up his mind to put the squeeze on before Fontenot's AB. If that was the case, you want to bring a good bunter to the plate, hence Fontenot instead of Fox. Sure, he could have used Blanco but that would have just been too obvious he was going for the squeeze. Fontenot had a perfect pitch to bunt and he just missed it. He deserves more of the blame than Lou. Why? It's always easier to call for something like that than execute it. If it succeeds I guarantee Lou gets most of the credit for being brilliant. It was still bases loaded with a guy who isn't a huge bunter (0 sac bunts this year, just 4 in his major league career) and a pitcher who was throwing the ball all over the place. I doubt Lou really cares about being called brilliant. He was trying to win the game. Like I said Fontenot was basically the last chance to get a run in and from the looks of it Lou didn't have much confidence in him to do that. He thought the squeeze was the best chance to win the game. But the argument is, it might not have been the best chance to win the game. The likelihood of success on the sac bunt was great. All Fontenot had to do was make some type of contact with the ball. After seeing rally after rally killed by strike outs or double plays, I liked the call, just bad execution.

BJ Ryan. Id rather take my chances with him, then trade something for John Grabow. How has Ryan been doing? Has he played for a Cubs minor league team yet? He pitches for Iowa tonight.

You mean when we get John Grabow and Jack Wilson for Jay Jackson, Chris Carpenter, and Starlin Castro? Wouldn't doubt that move, I would prefer something more like Castro, Ascanio/Hart, and Josh Harrison for Duke/Maholm and Sanchez. I think that's a fairly reasonable deal for both sides. If I'm Hendry Castro is untouchable, unless the Cubs are getting Haren back.

On a positive note, maybe Hendry will read the Grabow thread and change his mind about trying to acquire him. :-))

Agreed, he looked great last night.

Knowing Hendry, he will get Grabow and Jack Wilson.

Does Jim Hendry review stats other than ERA when looking to acquire relief pitchers? a 1.57 WHIP is not what he should be looking for in a relief pitcher. Looking at Grabow's splits show that he is actually more effective against Righties than Lefties, and that he walks a lot of batters. Why bother?

other than hitting the game-winning extra-inning grand slam, he didn't have a good game. It doesn't matter what the outcome was as long as it was able to add a single run. And no he didn't have a good game. 1-6 with 3ks (one of which was with a runner in scoring position). I'm not sure if your just being your dickish self but I'd love to see you try and defend Soriano's performance this year. Anytime a player hits a walk-off Grand Slam he had a good game.

I agree, give the guy a break. He is having the roughest season of his career, he was 0-5 prior to that AB and he hit a huge walk off GS. Let him enjoy the moment.

When did Shark become bad? Last year he actually put up some decent #'s in during the stretch run.

Fontenot should be immediately sent to Iowa for sucking. Wonderful call by Lou, all Fontenot had to do was make contact. :oops:

Better than Koyie Hill, he looks terrible every day it seems.

:-)) too funny

Miles with an 0-4 game. Wonder if he will ever get the bat going again.

What is recently? We played them just a month ago June 23-25 I believe, some hack journalist might have remembered seeing Tigers scouts at games in early June and saw the reports yesterday about MB and decided to put something together about scouts at games. It has been known for a while now that the Tigers are looking for another bat, and don't have a great amount of money to spend so maybe it is just Hoffpauir or Fox. Recently was this weekend and last week. I will try to locate the article and post a link. I agree with you though, if it was prior to June 23, no big deal, but I think the fact that they were recently (last several games) scouting the Cubs is significant.

Back to the Topic One of the articles today states that Detroit scouts have been following the Cubs recently. If not Bradley, who exactly are they scouting? Fox? Baker? Blanco? Hoffpauir? I don't really see the Cubs moving any pieces of their major league ball club at this point, which makes me wonder if their are legs to Stoney's original rumor.

Bruce has an excellent retort to the Stone fiasco on his blog, with a funny story regarding Ron and Stoney. It is worth checking out for a good laugh. http://blogs.dailyherald.com/node/2325

The evidence doesn't show that. In July he is hitting .245 and in June he hit .273. Is that you Dusty? Bradley's OBP in June .377, July .439!! :shock: Bradley has been getting on base almost every other at bat for the month of July and you want to point to his batting average? His OPS has also went up in July by 40pts over July, so I think the evidence does show that he is starting to play better.

Oh, the hurt. :D It is a little funny and ironic to see Stoney being extremely sensitive to someone questioning his initial report. Awful touchy.

To be fair to Al, somewhere buried in all of the posts on his board he does state that another one of his sources is saying that the Bradley rumors are false. :-))

Steve Stone is reporting the same. (not that Stone would know more than Kap, but still). I wonder how much of the contract the Tigers would want the Cubs to eat and what type of prospects or players the Cubs could get in return. If the Cubs could swap Bradley and most of his contract and replace his contract with Dunn or Peavy or the like. I wouldn't complain.

Is that ex-Cub Scott Downs? If so, I didn't realize he turned into that good of a reliever.