Hairyducked Idiot

I do hate pitchers, but I find it helps to remind myself that the free-agent position players mostly suck and we have a fairly solid lineup as-is.

Like Anthony Rizzo, I like it when our front office's need to accumulate and reward their buddies from past jobs happens to coincide with things that help us be better at baseball.

In future drafts, more defensive line.

I wouldn't be surprised if he does, and I wouldn't be surprised if he doesn't. I really can't recall having as little feel for how a player is going to turn out, ever. Definitely.

A statement of fact cannot be a strawman. It may be an appeal to emotion or a non sequitur, though.

Worse than expected. There's a huge difference between striking out like 34% of the time and 41.5% in 229 PAs. One-armed pitcher Jim Abbott struck out 41.7% of the time. Like I said though, if you *do* think he'll adjust next year and be useful out of the gate, cool. I won't argue. But if you don't, no reason to be afraid to send him back to Iowa for a bit.

Fortunately or unfortunately, we found out that at this exact moment, he's worse than we hoped.

Unless I *really* missed some changes recently, your hockey guy is wrong. I think he's referring to the bonus cushion. You have to account for potential bonuses even if they are unlikely to be met, but you can go over by a percentage because of them (and only because of them). Then if they actually do get paid out, the excess counts against your cap hit the next year. We've got a $60k cap hit this year due to that. But you can't be over for any other reasons, and we don't have much in terms of bonuses this year. That's not why we're over. We *have* to get under for real.

IIRC, commissioner's discretion from a list that includes losing future draft picks at a minimum and includes forfeiting games. They'll be under.

The only connection I was making between Lake and Baez was that Lake was a major point of contention last offseason, and Baez might be this offseason. I'm not really down on Baez. I honestly just don't know anymore what's going to happen with him. I said that *if* they think he's going to be this bad again early next year, I'd rather send him back to Iowa for awhile (only 22) than eat the extra loss or two. To which some people insanely replied "If we've got enough other good players, we can afford to take the extra loss or two," which completely flies in the face of years of talking about how wins are at their most valuable and least expendable for teams in the mid-to-high 80s.

i dont get it It's a waffle iron that makes Cubs waffles. It used to be my avatar. http://www.sports-4-less.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/02/Cubs-solid-blue-150x150.jpg

http://ep.yimg.com/ca/I/yhst-68833199508611_2330_164648973

I know this is really obvious and all, but 3-2 (2-1 NFC) is sooooo much more likely to make the playoffs than 2-3 (1-2 NFC). The swing here is huge.

I'm riding high on last offseason's "Kyle shut up, Junior Lake's not going to be that terrible, line drive percentage means everything!" success. Who took that position, like one person? IIRC, TT and sneakypower were very big on the referencing his line drive rate while telling me how silly I was for expecting Lake to be terrible.

I'm riding high on last offseason's "Kyle shut up, Junior Lake's not going to be that terrible, line drive percentage means everything!" success.

No. My thing is going to be hammering home how long it's been since Epstein has made the playoffs and how if we miss again it'll be 0-for-4 with the Cubs.

Oh god I can't wait until 2016 when we miss the playoffs by two games because we just had to let Kyle Schwarber take his lumps. That's a terrible way to run a baseball team. If the kid is worthwhile, he'll make himself the best option. Giving them the time they need is what the minors are for. No you dolt. You never "know" that the kid is the absolute best option right now. That is the point. Your absurdly stupid criteria for allowing a young player to take over a position is the Dusty Baker method and the exact wrong way to run anything. Notice how I said "have good reason to believe" and you switched the argument to some stupidity about "know." You never "know" what a baseball player is going to do. Based on MLB stats, minor league stats and scouting reports, you should always have a projection of what you expect every baseball player in your organization to do. The problem with Baker is that he refused to put young players in the lineup when those projections said they were the best option. That's not at all what I'm arguing for. If you think Baez is one of your best 8 based on that kind of projectioning, or even if you think it's close, sure, put him out there. But if you think he's going to strike out 40% of the time for another 200 PAs, then send him back to Iowa to try again later, a la Rizzo. He'll be 22 all year, it's not like that would put him behind the curve or anything.

I was in the vicinity of happy and didn't need to distract myself from my miserable existence. Sucks for you, bitches, because those days are over.

We have at least four better infielders on the roster *right now*. Not including Bryant and Russell.

Oh god I can't wait until 2016 when we miss the playoffs by two games because we just had to let Kyle Schwarber take his lumps. That's a terrible way to run a baseball team. If the kid is worthwhile, he'll make himself the best option. Giving them the time they need is what the minors are for.

I'm absolutely *not* certain that he's never going to tank again. Is it really that unreasonable to only put a guy in the regular lineup under one of the following two circumstances: 1) We have good reason to believe he's the best option available 2) We're out of it for the season so who cares? As of right now, I'm not sure April 2015 Baez meets either of those marks. And if he never does? Oh well.

At some point in 2015 if he doesn't progress like he has at other levels, and the team is in contention. I'm pretty confident Baez will be better than he was this year. How much better should determine how much of a contingency to have for him. If you're so bearish on him that you think even starting the season at the MLB level is going to be an anchor on the team's chances, IMO you have to trade him. Really? Because after an entire summer of hearing terrible Rizzo:Olt comparisons, I think we actually have a fairly reasonable parallel on our hands now.

The Cubs having other good players makes it even *less* acceptable to let Baez drop a Lake on our early season. The 1-2 games it costs us should be right in the heart of the spectrum where marginal wins are at their most valuable. Of course, this is all assuming that Baez is going to Olt all over the place. If the FO thinks he's going to be awesome in the first half, then it's moot.

The Cubs having good players elsewhere doesn't mean that a terrible player doesn't hurt them. At what point does Baez's development become less important than what's best for the whole team?

Alright, I'm going there. I want us to plan on Baez going back to Iowa to start next season. As of this moment, the 2015 Cubs are as much in the race as anyone, and I'd rather not have him dropping a Junior Lake-style turd on our April and May. He can come back up when either injuries happen or he's keeping his K-rate in the PCL (a magical land where Casey Coleman and Chris Rusin are pretty solid starters) at 25% or when we're out of it and don't care anymore. Heading into the offseason, our projected infield can be Valbuena/Castro/Alcantara/Rizzo.