Hairyducked Idiot

It saves the owners money. That was its only goal, and it works.

Guys, Appel was not some superior talent that the Pirates lucked into. I'm wondering if pro coaches won't figure out how to fix whatever the mysterious underperforming is caused by.

Jackson + actual hit tool + better defense - a little power. Szczur + actually good at baseball

Kelton/Montanez/Hill/Choi

*raises hand* But he's also a very Epstein style pick. The FO have talked a lot about being "less wrong" than everyone else in the draft. To me, Almora has all the floor you could want without sacrificing ceiling. No defensive concerns, no hit tool concerns, no makeup concerns, no competition concerns. The only thing you've given up is elite power potential.

Anyone have a full scouting report on Almora, i.e. 20-80 tools? I've read "elite" CF defense, but does he really have 80 defense on a pro scout's scale? They tend to be pretty stingy with the 80s.

They'll be putting their entire draft on one shoulder. Let them.

*fistpump* Totally sold on this kid. Immediate No. 2 prospect in the system.

Hard to know without knowing Appel's signing demands.

Theo, this is the most important five minutes of your first year as the Cubs' Savior/VP/Awesome Guy. I trust you!

Ooookay. Seriously, every draft "guru" knows nothing.

Would it be crazybuckets to wonder if we might think about Giolito? We supposedly believe pitcher health is a potential market inefficiency.

Teams really are going cheap to try to focus on signability and saving slot money. Interesting.

Remind me of this next year when I start to believe that the online "experts" know anything.

Oops.

There's no trades or anything, so it seems like the clocks are mostly for show.

Well that's interesting.

Good analysis. The only real question I have is why are we content with, if everything breaks right, being average offensively? I realize we can't fix this offense completely in one offseason and I don't think we should necessarily try, but the fact that this squad's offensive upside is average is exactly the reason we shouldn't stand pat. I'm not sure we should overhaul the offense this offseason, but we need more offensive upside than average. It's more of a pre-emptive strike at the "why should we even bother trying to get impact players just to get to average" attitudes. Also, we know the bullpen will be way below average heading into the offseason, and who knows what the rotation will be like, so we may have to settle for an average offense to focus on pitching.

They also just showed a brief shot of the Cubs' draft room. Seems like more people in there than the entire front office under Hendry.

Hey look, Carlos Marmol's back.

Throw, Castro Throw?

It's not a lot of fun these days. Well, in the abstract it is, but the actual games are brutal.

Seems like as good a place to put this as any: Part of it is just that I'm a fan and see things through a fan's eyes, but I was thinking about 2013 and realizing that I was happy with virtually every position being brought back if need be. Which is of course silly, because the offense is bad. So why is it bad, and how do we get to adequacy by 2013? The Cubs are currently 14th in the 16-team NL with 3.57 runs per game. The league average is 4.14. That difference puts us 30 runs below average and on pace to score 92 runs fewer than league average this season. Using baseball reference's Runs Above Average, B-R's positional adjustment, and doing some rough playing time splits when needed, I came up with the following totals for our offensive runs relative to NL positional average: C -10 1b +7 2b -2 SS +2 3b -6 LF -2 CF -8 RF +3 P -4 PH +1 That's a total of -19. There's some rounding issues in there, but the biggest culprit for the missing 11 runs is negative variance in clutch situations. The Cubs have hit for a .718 OPS with the bases empty vs. .647 with runners on base. What does all this tell us? Nothing we don't already know, but I like it in number form. At catcher, the problem children have been Geovany Soto and Koyie Hill. Nothing you can do about Soto's horrific BABIP luck or having three catchers hurt simultaneously, so I guess you just have to stand pat here. 1b has been good, and while LaHair has still been a bit lucky, I think his peripherals support an above-average offensive 1b. 2b has Barney well above average, but the position has been dragged down by abysmal cameos from Blake Dewitt and Adrian Cardenas. I'd say we need to give up our fascination with bad AAA middle infielders, but that's how we found Barney. SS is fine, and I think Castro probably has another gear in him. Ian Stewart's bad luck has been well documented. I think it's pretty clear that we can have above-average 3b production just by standing pat here. LF has been bad, and I think it will continue to be bad once Soriano inevitably cools off. This is a position screaming for an upgrade. It could be LaHair or it could be external, but I think this has to be a major focus for improving in 2013. CF has been horrific. Marlon Byrd was awful, we sold low, and then we turned it over to Tony Campana and Joe Mather. That chain of events has Ed Lynch written all over it, but that's fine because we're just holding and waiting for Brett Jackson. I still have lingering doubts about Jackson, and I wouldn't be stunned to see the Cubs go in another direction in CF if one becomes available. RF has been fine and should continue to be fine. So in summary, I may be being a huge homer to me, but it seems like the Cubs can become an average offense by next season just by mostly standing pat and not being so unlucky.

The leaks come from agents. Teams are reasonably candid with the player's agents because they need to know how signable the player is. The agent spreads that news around for a variety of reasons. Note that Almora's agent is Boras, and Goldstein's last podcast included him going on a long brag about how he did a long, mostly OTR interview with Boras recently.

And then he had a two-year stretch where he had his elbow rebuilt a billion times.