Daytona returned from their ASB and Alcantara went 1-4 and stole his 19th base of the year. Whitenack continues to struggle a bit from this TJ return giving up 4 ER and 3 BB's in 3 IP. His velocity was fine just working on getting his command back. AJ MORRIS! the fellow K-State grad lowered his season ERA to 2.14. His fastball is in the mid 90's again and he has only allowed 19 base runners in 21 IP.
Jeimer Candelario went 2-5 and Rock Shoulders drew 3 walks as the Boise Hawks earned their first W of the year.
My Softball Team
Is now 8-0. I pitched 5 IP and allowed 4 ER before we run ruled the other team. I also struck a guy out swinging.
Striking out swinging in a rec league softball game is pretty impressive considering it’s just batting practice (dying laughing)
mb21 wrote:
I failed to recognize this meme.
/meme recognition fail
@ Suburban kid:
Read the comments in the DREAM Act thread by Tangotiger. Dude lives in an alternate universe sometimes.
You really should read the thread. It’s gold.
My softball team has their opening day tonight. 9pm against Caterpillar. Those tractor-making bastards will suffer!
Berselius22 wrote:
That must be the philosophical difference that got him fired.
@ josh:
I thought you were playing one of those creepy bugs you’re always eating.
@ Suburban kid:
No, no, the company Caterpillar, Maker of Backhoes, LLC (that’s their official name). I am, however, currently growing some cecropia moths, and they are in caterpillar form at the moment. I have 37 of them, so the would be enough for 4 teams, but they tend to squish if you try to give them bat, ball, or glove. And they are only 1 cm long.
Yasel Puig defected. Could get another Soler type contract.
@ mb21:
Sounds Tangoriffic
@ Suburban kid:
I’ve only actually eaten bugs once, and they were crickets (not to be confused with Cricket, maker of fine haircare products). They were all right. I want to try mealworms, but haven’t gotten around to it yet.
dylanj wrote:
Gross.
Barney’s drawing interest, apparently. My vote: Trade the hell out of him.
I’ll bet $100 MLB makes sure he does not become a free agent until after that deadline.
Here are the league leaders in WAR for position players, according to b-ref:
@ josh:
He’s another one I wouldn’t trade. League minimum. Average. The Cubs have to have some players take the field even though they’re going to suck.
@ josh:
With you. Chances are he’ll never be more valuable than right now, ala Theriot in 08. If you can get a decent prospect or two definitely have to do it. Besides we could move Valbuena to 2B that way, who I think has a higher ceiling than Barney since he is capable of hitting a ball more than 300 feet. Not to say he’s anything close to a sure thing to be anything more than awful, but I think he could maybe be decent.
@ ACT:
Also, exhibit A for why I don’t like siting single-season WAR as evidence for much of anything.
@ mb21:
That surprises me. I guess my gut is that Barney is going to continue being roughly league average. Not that that’s bad, but if you can get someone with more upside in return, why not? I wouldn’t deal just to deal, though.
Oh, crap, Barney isn’t arb eligible until after NEXT year still? Jesus it seems like he’s been around longer.
@ ACT:
It’s evidence of how much he’s produced using the inputs that WAR system uses. It’s not evidence of how good he’ll be in the future. Just like all the other stats. It’s no different. The BRef fielding for Barney is a bit unbelievable. I think Fangraphs has him at about 1.5 (same as BPro) and THT has him at .7.
DJ,
I was going to draft you in my fantasy softball league, but I’m concerned that your inverted N delivery will lead to arm problems later in the season.
mb21 wrote:
That’s my problem. The fielding stats cough up weird glitches that make the WAR figures unreliable.
@ josh:
If the Cubs can get back a quality prospect, go for it. They might be able to, but I don’t like the idea of trading cost-controlled players for the sake of making trades. Barney is never going to be good, but he’s dirt cheap right now (and next year), league average or so and healthy.
The Cubs do have to field a team. It also must be somewhat competent even if the team is going to be bad. I don’t want the Iowa Cubs to be the Chicago Cubs for the next 5 years.
@ josh:
D-FENSE *Clap* *clap* *clap*
don’t worry Edwin. I’m the RA Dickey of slow pitch. Nothing but the knuckle.
@ ACT:
I used to take out defense and call it good enough. I don’t know why I stopped doing that. Too lazy I guess. I don’t trust any of the defensive metrics. I need to get in the habit again of taking the defense out of the WAR and letting you guys figure that out for yourselves.
@ mb21:
Isn’t that exactly why he’d be worth a pretty good amount though, a roughly average player at league minimum? I mean he probably isn’t getting you a monster but you can probably get something fairly valuable for him given the cost-control and decent-ness. His surplus value has to be pretty crazy high right?
@ mb21:
True enough. No one will probably offer much, and he can play. It’s worth listening, but that’s basically true of any player right now.
@ mb21:
I like how BaPro regresses the defense for WARP, though I wish they showed unregressed defense for career totals.
@ Doogolas42483:
It could be. We were talking about the validity of trade value recently and he’s a player I fear is undervalued by other teams. He’s known for defense and while he’s nowhere near as good as BRef has him, he’s an above average fielder. He’s not a very good hitter. The Cubs should definitely look into it. I’d look into trading any player on the roster including Starlin Castro. There are some I’d be hesitant to trade (Castro, LaHair, Barney). They’re all cheap and productive.
@ ACT:
Me too. I don’t know why Fangraphs and Bref don’t do that.
I think if you’re a rebuilding team you want to keep as much cheap/productive around as you can. But if some team is willing to bet the farm on Barney, I say go for it
@ Rice Cube:
Agreed. I guess I shouldn’t have said I wouldn’t trade the three I mentioned. I would. If the offer is worth it.
@ Mish:
narcissist
@ dylanj:
Brett saying Cubs are interested in Armando Rivero, a Cuban pitcher. Interestingly, he’s 23 and may be exempt from the international cap. This makes me wonder whether some prospects might start forging their documents to seem older (dying laughing)
@ Mish:
Nice to see casting of some younger actors like Joseph Gordon-Levitt and Anne Hathaway with the chops to share scenes with Michael Caine and Morgan Freeman.
mb21 wrote:
I don’t know, might be an improvement. Or at least would get them past hard-to-watch bad and into straight up funny-bad.
GW wrote:
(dying laughing)
@ Urk:
They can replace “Take Me Out To the Ball Game” with Yakety Sax.
It’s kind of too bad that US high school players have to enter the draft because I’d look forward to the 23 year old high school graduates.
@ GW:
Rivero profiles as a reliever, so unless they think he can go the Cashner route I hope the Cubs stay away. Not that the Cashner route worked out so well for Cashner (dying laughing). Right process, bad result.
@ Berselius:
I wish they had stayed away from the other two they signed so you know my thoughts on this one. (dying laughing)
@ mb21:
Me too, though I sure did manage to rationalize it after it happened. It’s what I do best.
Cubs Den wrote a blurb about Rivero a few months ago, among other Cuban prospects
http://www.chicagonow.com/cubs-den/2012/01/cubs-are-heavily-scouting-cuban-players/
@ mb21:
3rd time’s a charm, so go for it?
You’re welcome.
http://www.buzzfeed.com/provincialelitist/the-kate-upton-gq-gif-collection
@ WaLi:
You’re forgetting about noted Cubs prospect Juan Yasser Serrano, or whatever his name/age is this week
http://www.csnchicago.com/baseball-chicago-cubs/cubs-news/Garza-Cubs-fans-should-show-Soriano-some?blockID=726886&feedID=661&awid=5107610973539381319-915
I like Matt Garza. I still hope they can find a taker for him and rob some other farm system. But I don’t mind him being a Cub for a long time either.
im pretty excited for the Soler deal to get officially official so he can head to AZ.
@ dylanj:
I want to see what the guy can do. It seems like part of the strategy is just to fill up the minors with dudes and see who sticks, but a lot of teams were interested in Soler, and he sounds like he has potential.
“Clutch” ratings seem to be biased against home run hitters: http://www.3-dbaseball.net/2012/06/clutch-wpali-and-home-run-bias.html
are you a blond woman with an average face and huge tits? If so you can be famous like Kate Upton!
snark’d
@ dylanj:
She also has a nice personality.
@ dylanj:
Josh better thumbs up this one quick!
Koyie signed a minor league deal with the Nats.
@ ACT:
WORLD SERIES BOUND!
@ ACT:
If you have 3 catchers on the DL, Koyie Hill is the man for you.
MLBTR has a bunch of bullets about the Red Sox trying to trade Youkilis. Maybe the solution is for the Cubs to send Soriano to a small market team in need of a DH, like Cleveland, the Sox to send Youk to the Cubs, and Cleveland to send prospects various places and also gets money in return. Sori to Boston doesn’t make too much sense to me, since Boston has a DH. If Boston would cover all of Youk’s remaining contract ($21M), the Cubs would only have to cover $24M. Basically it would divide Soriano’s contract up, sort of like Mike Hampton’s was some years ago.
Might have to do some more to level things out, but this could be the framework, or maybe I’m nuts.
@ SVB:
I just don’t see Theo trading for an aging 3B. Nothing he has done makes me think he’ll be interested in acquiring Youk.
@ josh:
This.
@ josh:
Yeah, I think you are probably right, but let’s play Make-believe-land for a minute.
Unless you really believe in Vitters or Valbuena, then 3B appears to be the biggest hole in the field for the Cubs. Say Boston trades Youk to the Cubs and the Cubs pay all of Youk’s salary, then the Sox and Cubs split Sori’s salary with another team–I suggested Cleveland, but that detail is pretty unimportant for the framework.
Youk is signed through next year. So he’s only blocking someone for 1.5 yrs and he’ll be younger than Sori is now at the end of the contract. Maybe Youk’s struggles this year are more related to a bad situation in Boston than overall decline (granted, a big IF). He’s proven he can hit in the past and he can move around the field some, which gives the team more flexibility than it has with Soriano, Vitters, or Stewart. If they make the trade now, and Youk rebounds in the next month, the Cubs could trade him again, potentially dividing the salary some more. If he rebounds next year, a contract year, they could trade him then.
I’d argue that some of Youk’s characteristics are exactly what Theo targets–same as deJesus and Stewart. Both were players who had good stats but showed a season or two of decline. Theo brought them up to see if they’d regain their upside. Youk is older, but his best was far better than deJesus or Stewart. Youk isn’t cheap like those two, but he’s cheaper than Soriano, and if Boston is telling people they’ll pay his salary, then that ends up being a savings for the Cubs.
@ SVB:
You can tell me this is dumbshit if you want. If you can’t tell, I’ve moved full on to roster move mode. Though 12-3 wins against the White Sox are a nice diversion.
(dying laughing)
@ SVB:
I’m not saying I personally hate the idea of watching Youkilis, I just don’t think Theo will do it. I don’t think he’ll sign Hamilton either, though I’d like to see that. If there’s an added bonus of a prospect involved, then maybe.
No, I don’t think he’d be blocking anyone, but I don’t know if there’s enough of an upside possible, and with the added disadvantage that he comes with expectations. No one expected crap from DeJesus, so if he had been league average or slightly above, people would be ecstatic for him. It hasn’t really happened that way, though, and no one is lookingn to string him up.
I can see your point, in that maybe he’s better than Sori, or has more upside, but I just don’t see it happening. Seems like more of a buyer’s move and the Cubs are definitely sellers.
Garza’s trade value is depressing. I’ll give you a hint: Cubs ain’t gettin’ shit in return.
@ mb21:
Funsucker.
new shit: http://www.obstructedview.net/projections/how-much-is-matt-garza-worth-in-a-trade.html