Good to Know at least one Player the Cubs are Paying can hit MLB Pitching

[Crystallas]

Sorry, some of us would like to win sometime in the next decade

Meh, boring. Now going winless for a decade, that is something worth rooting for.

If only we could shout, moan, piss off other people, and that would fix the Cub's problems. Then keyboard warrior Cubs fans could unite to actually do something worthwhile.

 

[justaChifan]

All the detractors need patience? Right?

 

[BillikenBear]

Do you understand the rebuilding process? In the process, the team improves. The cubs did not improve, and the 4th pick and Corey Black are supposed to be the consolation? Great--maybe your retirement plan is lottery tickets, but some of us choose to use our brains.

Oh, and successful MLB players do come after the 4th pick in the draft.....thought you may want to be clued in on that.

As good of a hitter as we think Sori is, he gets cold. Thanks genius. How quick of me to forget Mike Trout and Miguel Cabrera never have cold streaks or 0-5 days with 3 strikeouts.....or as Anthony Rizzo calls them--3 normal days a week.

Wait--

The cubs flopped majorly on this one, unless this kid turns into the next Justin Verlander. Hey, you got a chance to win the lottery......

Please use that brain of yours and tell us all a foolproof, 100% guaranteed plan to rebuild the Cubs. Would that include signing FA's? Every move in baseball involves risk, and FA signings are in no way a certainty to replicate their previous stats on the Cubs or any team they sign with. Tell us who, with 100% certainty, the next great player will be out of the previous draft, and make sure it's outside of the top 4. Everything's chance in baseball. But, the higher up you are in the draft, the better your chances are of hitting on an above average player, even if it's not 100%. That's why they go to the worst teams, to try to improve them.

You're right, it IS possible to find great players outside of the top 10 draft choices, but it's still a "lottery ticket" and in no way a sure thing, just like signing FA's isn't a sure thing either. So how would you have rebuilt the Cubs?

 

[BillikenBear]

Sorry, some of us would like to win sometime in the next decade, and have enough baseball knowledge to know the current route the cubs are taking isnt as successful as everyone thinks it is based on history of dozens of teams trying and over extended periods of time.....failing fucking miserably.

Haha you think you're not the only one who wants the Cubs to win in the next decade? Last time I checked, we're all Cubs fans here and want the same thing. I wish you were in charge of the Cubs, so you could show all of us without baseball knowledge a thing or two.

 

[patg006]

Meh, boring. Now going winless for a decade, that is something worth rooting for.

If only we could shout, moan, piss off other people, and that would fix the Cub's problems. Then keyboard warrior Cubs fans could unite to actually do something worthwhile.

Thank you for your worthwhile contribution to the topic's discussion. This invaluable nugget of genius certainly solves the world's problems, Cubs' too. Oh wait, it didnt. Whoops.

Take your crackerjack psychology elsewhere, it clearly is too unique and insightful to be wasted on 'keyboard warrior cubs fans.'

:dontsay:

 

[Flacco4Prez]

No, that is the point. The Cubs aren't winning anything this year, they probably won't next year either. Do you not understand the rebuilding process? Soriano isn't part of it. So why stay here? To maybe win 5-6 more games this season? They currently sit around the 4th overall pick. Losing games now to get better in the future is something I'll live with.

As good of a hitter you think Soriano was, he wasn't taking them to the playoffs this year or next. He's gone, right move. Who knows how that prospect will turn out? He could be a solid piece to the rebuilding plan. Soriano isn't.

Is Barney part of the process, what about Cody Ransom? So why couldn't the Cubs play Lake at one of those positions and keep the only player they have worth a damn? He wasn't only their best player but their best leader. That's EXACTLY what you want on a rebuilding team. Guys like him

 

[Flacco4Prez]

Wow 2 games is such a great sample size! Congrats, that's the very definition of cherry picking statistics. What was the point of bringing this up? We all know he goes through hot and cold streaks, I'll let you know when he goes hitless for a week. I swear, some of you guys on this board thrive on negativity.

Soriano has 24 HR. THE CUBS BACKUP CATCHER IS 4th ON THE TEAM IN HR!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! How's that for cherry picking stats. Who is 2nd on the Cubs in HR this season? You guessed correctly... ALFONSO Soriano. You know the guy they traded 26 games ago

 

[patg006]

Please use that brain of yours and tell us all a foolproof, 100% guaranteed plan to rebuild the Cubs. Would that include signing FA's? Every move in baseball involves risk, and FA signings are in no way a certainty to replicate their previous stats on the Cubs or any team they sign with. Tell us who, with 100% certainty, the next great player will be out of the previous draft, and make sure it's outside of the top 4. Everything's chance in baseball. But, the higher up you are in the draft, the better your chances are of hitting on an above average player, even if it's not 100%. That's why they go to the worst teams, to try to improve them.

You're right, it IS possible to find great players outside of the top 10 draft choices, but it's still a "lottery ticket" and in no way a sure thing, just like signing FA's isn't a sure thing either. So how would you have rebuilt the Cubs?

Jesus Christ, this again? Because you seem too lazy to miss last week's episode of the merry-go-round that is the pro :fap: crowd against us......

Prince Fielder, CJ Wilson, Nick Swisher, Yasiel Puig or Cespedes instead of Soler (I wanted this from the start, not the prisoner of moment,) extended Matt Garza, Brandon McCarthy, Matt Lidstrom, Matt Capps all signed. Resign Aramis.

1--Puig/Cespedes
2--Castro
3--Fielder
4--Swish
5--Aramis
6--Sori
7--Castillo
8--Val/competent 2b
9--Pitcher

Bench of DeJesus, Barney, who the **** else cares barring injury or garbage time

Rotation: Wilson, Garza, Shark, McCarthy, Cashner; BP: Capps, Lindstrom, Russell, Villanueva, Rusin, Marshall.

Go on, tell me how that is worse than what we got......

 

[Crystallas]

Thank you for your worthwhile contribution to the topic's discussion.

You're welcome. I have plenty more where that came from.

27 games, that's all we need to lose to make a record. We're at 4 now, so 23 more losses.

 

[BillikenBear]

Soriano has 24 HR. THE CUBS BACKUP CATCHER IS 4th ON THE TEAM IN HR!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! How's that for cherry picking stats. Who is 2nd on the Cubs in HR this season? You guessed correctly... ALFONSO Soriano. You know the guy they traded 26 games ago

Nice, so he's having a pretty good season. Never said he wasn't, but when you start a thread about a guy who's hitting well in the past two games just to bash on Theo and Jed, that smells of agenda. Guess who is 1st in HRs? Rizzo, the 24yo guy with room for improvement we all LOVE to hate.

Btw I think we can ALL agree that the Cubs better improve soon or there will be hell to pay.

 

[SilenceS]

:elephant:

 

[BillikenBear]

Jesus Christ, this again? Because you seem too lazy to miss last week's episode of the merry-go-round that is the pro :fap: crowd against us......

Prince Fielder, CJ Wilson, Nick Swisher, Yasiel Puig or Cespedes instead of Soler (I wanted this from the start, not the prisoner of moment,) extended Matt Garza, Brandon McCarthy, Matt Lidstrom, Matt Capps all signed. Resign Aramis.

1--Puig/Cespedes
2--Castro
3--Fielder
4--Swish
5--Aramis
6--Sori
7--Castillo
8--Val/competent 2b
9--Pitcher

Bench of DeJesus, Barney, who the **** else cares barring injury or garbage time

Rotation: Wilson, Garza, Shark, McCarthy, Cashner; BP: Capps, Lindstrom, Russell, Villanueva, Rusin, Marshall.

Go on, tell me how that is worse than what we got......

I'm sorry I wasn't very active on these forums last week...?

That all looks good on paper, but if it was that easy, don't you think every team would have tried to get all of those same players? And succeed in doing so? There's other teams out there all striving for the same thing. We can't all get every single FA that we want. And there would be no guarantee of a WS either way.

So far good call on Puig and Cespedes, but we haven't even seen what Soler can do. It could very well be Soler ends up being better than both of them. But don't you dare root for him, you would just be a prisoner of the moment.

 

[Flacco4Prez]

Nice, so he's having a pretty good season. Never said he wasn't, but when you start a thread about a guy who's hitting well in the past two games just to bash on Theo and Jed, that smells of agenda. Guess who is 1st in HRs? Rizzo, the 24yo guy with room for improvement we all LOVE to hate.

Btw I think we can ALL agree that the Cubs better improve soon or there will be hell to pay.

Are you kidding me? I'm criticizing the terrible roster that we have. Rizzo better be 1st seeing as he's been in 26 games more than Soriano and has 90 more AB's. I would hope he'd have more than 1 more. I've taken the side of Theo/Jed many times. The trades last year, and the Feldman deal were very good. The Soriano deal was just atrocious and I'm not really thrilled about the Garza trade. I mean Edwards is a great prospects but in a perfect world he performs like a Garza in the majors... So why not keep Garza?

 

[Jntg4]

Jesus Christ, this again? Because you seem too lazy to miss last week's episode of the merry-go-round that is the pro :fap: crowd against us......

Prince Fielder, CJ Wilson, Nick Swisher, Yasiel Puig or Cespedes instead of Soler (I wanted this from the start, not the prisoner of moment,) extended Matt Garza, Brandon McCarthy, Matt Lidstrom, Matt Capps all signed. Resign Aramis.

1--Puig/Cespedes
2--Castro
3--Fielder
4--Swish
5--Aramis
6--Sori
7--Castillo
8--Val/competent 2b
9--Pitcher

Bench of DeJesus, Barney, who the **** else cares barring injury or garbage time

Rotation: Wilson, Garza, Shark, McCarthy, Cashner; BP: Capps, Lindstrom, Russell, Villanueva, Rusin, Marshall.

Go on, tell me how that is worse than what we got......

Ya that's like 9 major free agent signings... not chump change. And we bid pretty heavily on Cespedes, Puig and Capps.

 

[BillikenBear]

Are you kidding me? I'm criticizing the terrible roster that we have. Rizzo better be 1st seeing as he's been in 26 games more than Soriano and has 90 more AB's. I would hope he'd have more than 1 more. I've taken the side of Theo/Jed many times. The trades last year, and the Feldman deal were very good. The Soriano deal was just atrocious and I'm not really thrilled about the Garza trade. I mean Edwards is a great prospects but in a perfect world he performs like a Garza in the majors... So why not keep Garza?

It's fine to criticize the current roster, and I wouldn't disagree with you, there's a reason they have the 4th draft pick lol. But singling out two games was nitpicking imo anyone can do well for two games and that was the opening post. Soriano was getting older and they wanted to get something for him instead of nothing like they would have risked if he retired or started sucking due to age. They chose to sell while he still had value. Like I said earlier, I'm not thrilled it was at the expense of having to pay most of his salary anyways and I do wish it was for a better prospect, but I do understand where they're coming from.

In regards to Edwards, that would be great if he became another Garza any time soon, as he would be able to, theoretically, pitch for us longer due to a 8 year age difference. The real head scratcher for me comes in why they would trade Garza, but keep Samardzija for the future even though they're roughly the same age? There's the salary difference, but sooner or later Samardzija's gonna be looking for money too. It doesn't really fit into the MO of wanting to get younger.

 

[beckdawg]

May 4th - 2/3 2 HR and 4 RBI
July 2nd - 1/4 1 HR and 3 RBI
July 6th - 2/4 2 HR and 4 RBI
July 28th - 4/5 1 HR and 3 RBI
Aug 13th - 3/6 2 HR and 6 RBI
Aug 14th - 3/3 2 HR and 7 RBI

Total for those 6 games 15/25(.600) 10 HRs and 27 RBIs.
Total for the rest of the 403 AB's he's had? .233 avg, 14 HR's and 45 RBIs.

The cubs were 9 games under .500(22-31) in April and June when Soriano was terrible(.247, 4 HR's and 15 RBIs). I'm not saying he was the only cause of that but the fact is that if you're 9 games under .500 that early in the season it's going to be difficult to make that up. He was the highest paid player so he should take a big part of the blame. His on base percentage is terrible as well(.288 for the entire season) so when he's not driving in runs he's not providing much offensively either.

Soriano crushed 6 pitchers. The rest of the season he's been fairly poor. As a comparison, Dunn in 2011 had 415 ABs 11 HRs and 42 RBIs with a .159 average and .292 OBP. Pretty sure everyone would agree he was terrible that year. Soriano makes $19 million this year. They could have brought in Mark Reynolds last year for $6 mil and he has put up 15 HR 48 RBIs with a .307 OBP and .215 avg in 335 ab. Schierholtz basically put up the same numbers Reynolds did only with .278 average and a .325 OBP at $2 mil. Let's not make Soriano out as some irreplaceable part.

Also, Cashman has come out and said that he didn't want to make the trade for Soriano and was over ruled by ownership. I think you could make a compelling argument that the cubs may very well be better off without Soriano. In on base percentage, Soriano was 54th out of 55 OFs with more than 370 plate appearances this season. He will also be 38 to start next year. So, it's entirely probable he will be worse next year than he has been this year. Point is, when Soriano was hot this year he has crushed the ball(4% of the season). But the rest of the year(2/3rds of the season) he's nothing more than a throw away FA that most on this board couldn't care less about.

 

[CSF77]

Dude the line up lacked talent. Pointing out Sori's inconcisaint peroids and showing how his production affected the W/L points to a lack of supporting hitters. If they had 3 hitters that have hit 30 HR's then added Rizzo to it the run support would have been more and the losses less. In general, except 1st half Jackson, the SP has kept the RS in check but the lack of run production; or lack of impact hitters; caused the losses.

 

[beckdawg]

Dude the line up lacked talent. Pointing out Sori's inconcisaint peroids and showing how his production affected the W/L points to a lack of supporting hitters. If they had 3 hitters that have hit 30 HR's then added Rizzo to it the run support would have been more and the losses less. In general, except 1st half Jackson, the SP has kept the RS in check but the lack of run production; or lack of impact hitters; caused the losses.

I specifically said it wasn't all him though for someone making $18 mil it was in large part him because he's one of the reason they don't have supporting hitters. I'm not taking away those 6 games from him but the fact remains that he had an OBP of .288 this season. That's absolutely terrible and has almost nothing to do with the hitters around him. In fact, he probably should have a higher OBP because of crappy hitters around him since pitchers aren't afraid to walk him. Soriano not being on base means that no one else drives him in when they get hits. And that means fewer runs scored. So for people to sit here and lament the loss of him is a tad ridiculous.

 

[CSF77]

I specifically said it wasn't all him though for someone making $18 mil it was in large part him because he's one of the reason they don't have supporting hitters. I'm not taking away those 6 games from him but the fact remains that he had an OBP of .288 this season. That's absolutely terrible and has almost nothing to do with the hitters around him. In fact, he probably should have a higher OBP because of crappy hitters around him since pitchers aren't afraid to walk him. Soriano not being on base means that no one else drives him in when they get hits. And that means fewer runs scored. So for people to sit here and lament the loss of him is a tad ridiculous.

He has never been a strong OBA hitter. He is paid to hit HR's. he does that in spurts. Less now that he is 37. But again if the team had A-Ram, Sori, Rizzo and Schierholtz Rizzo's slump (which is a glaring concern more so than a declining Sori/ Rizzo is the future and him slumping is a major concern). All I can say is look at the whole line up and see that LF was aged. 1B not proven. 3B and RF in platoons of back ups. That is why the team failed. Not Sori's production was... Come on now. And 18 mil? How about they spent around 50 mil on said back ups and trade chips. That was there also. 18 mil seems small compaired to that 50 mil wasted.

 

[KBisBack!]

Nice, so he's having a pretty good season. Never said he wasn't, but when you start a thread about a guy who's hitting well in the past two games just to bash on Theo and Jed, that smells of agenda. Guess who is 1st in HRs? Rizzo, the 24yo guy with room for improvement we all LOVE to hate.

Btw I think we can ALL agree that the Cubs better improve soon or there will be hell to pay.

Ahh yes the franchise savior Anthony Rizzo.

The 24yo guy who is hitting .232???

The 24yo guy who among 1B who have enough AB's to qualify for the batting crown is ahead of only Mark Reynolds in BA? Behind even Adam Dunn?

The guy with the crappy .754 OPS behind such greats as Mitch Moreland, Brandon Moss, James Loney, Brandon Belt and Mike Napoli??

You pick out one stat of Rizzo's and want to whine about others cherry picking stats? Really?