With the late-July trading season approaching, the usual rule applies that you trade older, more expensive players at positions where you have a surplus. While I hope they make a few deals, this team does not need to be “blown up,” as some fans are saying. The Cubs won’t make the postseason, and the [...]
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Posted 01 July 2010
† Phil
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Hendry § Piniella § prospect § soriano § trade
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Also tagged: andrew cashner, brett jackson, carlos silva, d.j. lemahieu, derrek lee, geovany soto, jim hendry, jody davis, joe carter, joe girardi, lou piniella, marlon byrd, micah hoffpauir, rafael palmeiro, rebel ridling, robinson chirinos, sean marshall, shawon dunston, starlin castro, ted lilly, tyler colvin, welington castillo
Can Soriano or Fukudome be traded?
Following Tyler Colvin’s impressive spring performance, Lou Piniella has promised to steal three starts a week from Byrd and Fukudome and give them to Colvin. Xavier Nady, meanwhile, will replace Soriano from time to time. Truth be told–and the truth is seldom more than whispered when hefty contracts are in [...]
I fancy myself a bit of a scout–a scout of the armchair, box-score persuasion, one who never set eyes on any of the players mentioned in this post unless they happened to be on WGN on a Saturday or Sunday afternoon in March.
The results of my scouting are tabulated, weekly during the season, in the [...]
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Posted 12 March 2010
† Phil
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prospect
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Also tagged: alex maestri, andrew cashner, aramis ramirez, blake parker, brad snyder, brandon guyer, brett jackson, carlos marmol, chris archer, chris carpenter, chris huseby, david cales, derrek lee, dexter fowler, dustin sasser, geovany soto, greg reinhard, hak-ju lee, james adduci, jay jackson, jeff beliveau, jeff stevens, jeffry antigua, john gaub, jose valdez, josh vitters, juan pierre, koyie hill, kyler burke, logan watkins, manolin de leon, marlon byrd, matt camp, micah hoffpauir, michael bourn, nyger morgan, ryan buchter, sam fuld, starlin castro, tony campana, tyler colvin, willie taveras, xavier nady
Wittenmyer of the Sun-Times has written a defense of Alfonso Soriano, in which appears this item:
It also has been well documented that what drove the price so high had nothing to do with the baseball operations side of the team, nor Jim Hendry. It came directly from the top of an organization that was about [...]
An unwritten story about the Cubs is the effect of the performance of certain players on the dollar value of the team. That value is very much at issue since there are still two prospective buyers, and one of them, Thomas Ricketts, has reportedly been trying to lower his $900 million bid by $50 [...]
I’m probably the wrong person to give Gerald Perry his due. I was leery of a coach with a reputation for raising a team’s OBP, and I called for Perry’s dismissal last October after the offense went flat in the Dodger playoff series, even though a coach should not be blamed for his hitters’ performance [...]
Soriano is hitting .174 in June, after hitting .217 in May. April, when the Cubs were winning, was a long time ago.
I don’t think your leadoff hitter can go into a six-week swoon without killing the offense.
Soriano is untradeable, and what’s worse, he’s unbenchable. You can’t bench a guy with 5-1/2 years remaining on [...]
Most days, the Cubs 1-2-3 hitters are Soriano, Theriot and Fukudome. In June, these players are hitting a combined .200/.306/.333. They have five RBI among them in June. Fukudome has two doubles and no home runs in June, and has hit one home run since April. (This from a #3 hitter.) All three players had [...]
I can be as fashionably pessimistic as the next person about Zambrano (wild as a knuckleballer), Lee (swings too late to be a slugger) and Fukudome (scouted by Gary Hughes, not Tim Wilken), but I’m optimistic about Bradley and Soriano staying off the DL.
I can see how a slightly overweight Bradley, still youthful and athletic [...]
I am intrigued by the Cubs’ acquiring Joey Gathright, since they might have just answered the question of who replaces Soriano in the leadoff hole.
They signed Gathright for a mere 800K. The fact that Kansas City released him means little, except that he was not what KC felt they needed. Toronto released Reed Johnson [...]