Castro may end up at 3B.

Or on another team. I don't think Joe will put up with his shit.

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"Play until it hurts, then play until it hurts to not play."
http://soundcloud.com/darkside124 HOF 2013, MM Champion 2014

I think Castro being... whatever some fans think he is... is the biggest crock of shit going in Chicago right now. One or two gaffs from an extremely young player over almost five full seasons? The defense needs some work sure, but I don't recall mental errors last season. He still had his best defensive year, and I believe he will keep improving, at SS or 3B or wherever.

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Rick Hahn is the best GM in baseball.

He may well end up traded but I don't think Maddon will have a problem with him, it will just be the right deal at the time.

He has improved every season mental gaffes excepted. He is a talented player for sure. Going to hit for more power as he matures as all good ones do.

Who are the guys who hit for more power as they "matured", steroid era aside? I'm not saying there aren't any out there, but I think the idea that hitters regularly develop power as they age (something I've read actual scouts say as well) is unsupported by evidence.

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General Jim wears Fort Bragg down to get it!

Even worse than that is the idea that a guy will "learn patience"

That almost never happens

Its more than a few gaffes, but Im with you for the most part. People underrate how good he is.

That's the Corey Patterson thing that I mentioned the other day. Sometimes you just have to let a guy be who he is. I know a guy like Patterson fit the stereotype of the fast little guy you want leading off, but he just couldn't get on base enough. You can't make him get on base. He had a ton of power for a small man. Just let him whack it. If he had been the same exact guy but he looked like Dayan Viciedo, they would have batted him sixth and left him alone.

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General Jim wears Fort Bragg down to get it!

Definitely. I hate having this conversation about Cubs because you guys always turn it into some weird thing like I'm hating some Cub, but there are guys here who can't wait for Addison Russell to replace Castro as if the chances of Russell being close to as good as Castro are anything but slim.

I'm not going to compare Castro to Jeter. Jeter did it for twenty years and he walked a little more and had a little more power, but being a little less of a player than Derek Jeter still makes a guy pretty damn good. Of course, there are parts of the game that can't be reflected on paper and most people would probably say Jeter is an all-time great when it comes to those.

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General Jim wears Fort Bragg down to get it!

Used to think, and there would be evidence (in the form of increased HR for some big name sluggers) to support the proposition, that ages 27-29 were peak power years.

Turns out that's a bit late, and might only have been supported by guys who juiced.

Age 23-26 seasons (Castro clocks 25 next week) are apparently peak power years for hitters overall (obviously individual exceptions can and do exist):

Patterson is an extreme case but that stuff is said about every young free swinger. As if the ability to take a pitch is going to be developed in year 15 of playing baseball.


I agree they mishandled Patterson

I think he's got a decent chance. He's got all the tools. I understand that a million things can happen that change things but that's ok.

I mean, its ok to be excited. Sometimes you get let down, sometimes you dont.

But these guys who are ranked near the top of every list, they usually have a better chance than the average minor leaguer. It may be they have a 40% shot instead of 20%. Still long odds, but not AS long.


I dont get the whole obsession with being the most realistic fan one can possibly be (Not directed at you, but most sports nerds take pride in that sort of thing). Its supposed to be fun, its not a job.

Yeah, now more than ever with the fetishization of the walk. We talk about the speed of the game, the lack of run production, etc., and I think it can all be traced to the fascination with the walk.

I love baseball and I have few complaints about the game, but one thing MLB- players and management- don't seem to be really cognizant of is that they are in the entertainment business. Nobody comes to the park to watch guys walk.

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General Jim wears Fort Bragg down to get it!

See, I look at it just the opposite. You have a top shortstop. To me, that's fun. I don't get the obsession with wanting to replace him. I think people just like to think they "discovered" the next big thing before anyone else. Well, there is no "next big thing". Every goof is reading the same shit from the same online magazines.

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General Jim wears Fort Bragg down to get it!

The steroid era really demented all of us for a generation.

I still would have guessed 28-32 were peak years for a player. It looks like it is 30 and after that your have to use knowledge to overcome decreasing abilities.

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O judgment! Thou art fled to brutish beasts,
And men have lost their reason.

Yes they mishandled him. They were mishandling minor leaguers all the time under the Hendry regime. Just like with Pie, if you wanted Patterson to be a leadoff man then why are you having him bat third and fourth while in the minors? They also tried to make Theriot a switch hitter. Why? There was never a clear concise plan. I know that word will rustle some jimmies (that's for all the Sini type readers of this post) but at least with the current regime I feel like there's a plan of action. That's not to say they'll ultimately be successful, but at least it's everyone pulling in the same direction.

I don't think many people want to replace him. I think the thinking is moving him to second or third and keeping his bat in the lineup. Some people think that management will trade him which isn't unreasonable given the GM.

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"Play until it hurts, then play until it hurts to not play."
http://soundcloud.com/darkside124 HOF 2013, MM Champion 2014

Im not talking just about Castro. Castro is great.


Just the whole "dont get excited" type of fan.

Like when a team starts 6-1 and some douche comes in and says "it's a loooooong season" or "never judge a team before june 1st" or "____ prospect will probably bust"

Congratulations, you are a prudent fan. You can pick up the award nowhere because no one gives a fuck how realistic you are.

If you've ever @ another fan's excitement, you're doing something very wrong.

I'm gonna its-not-even-that you.

A walk has literally never in the history of baseball scored a runner from second. Never happened. Not once. Maybe an errant pitch on ball 4 has scored him or fast little screwball has stolen two bags off a walk but the walk itself has never been the sole factor for driving in a runner from second.

I get the importance of not creating outs and having baserunners, but it doesn't really help to have a guy on a 3-0 count with 2 outs and a runner on 2nd in a tie game just leave the bat on his shoulder. I've seen countless innings like that go for nothing and I want to tear somebodies head off. "JUST SWING THE BAT ITS TWO OUTS"

There is a portion of the fanbase that is just flat out "done" with Castro. That's what they say after he gets picked off or makes an error anyway.


BadRogue is one of them, I believe.

You're right. It's just fan greed. We all play fantasy gm. "Hey just move that guy over there and this guy will take his place and then we'll sign this free agent. I ask this in all honesty, but why did Harrelson want Fisk in LF? Did they have another catcher coming up? Karkovice was a couple of years away wasn't he? Or did Hawk just want Fisk out of town?

So next time someone calls Addison Russell the next Derek Jeter and Schwarber "Babe f'in Ruth" I'll just congratulate them on their excitement. When Schwarber puts up 15 WAR we can meet up and high 5 each other.

Minor league players are almost a non entity in my enjoyment of my team. Anything below AAA pretty much doesn't exist for me. I'm not ignorant of the fact that it has some impact on my team but it is so generally indirect and extended in time that keeping up with it is an act of futility.

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O judgment! Thou art fled to brutish beasts,
And men have lost their reason.

It's like the Bulls wanting to fire Thibodeau or the Bears getting rid of Marshall. I sit here dumbfounded of the applause these moves seems to get as there is an incredibly small chance that they can be replaced with an equal.

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O judgment! Thou art fled to brutish beasts,
And men have lost their reason.

Didnt say to congratulate them but if you let something like that bother you, you're losing at life.

Do whatever you want. Be miserable, get upset and be the realistic fan. No one cares. No one respects or reveres that. You might as well say nothing because your eyeroll changes nothing.

If it helps your self esteem (cant think of any other reason) to think you're a "good fan" than by all means go ahead, but your priorities are way the fuck out of wack and you've taken something that is a game and passtime at it's core and made it something that causes you stress. Sounds incredibly stupid to me.

My response to such silly comparisons would be to say "hmm, that's a bit much" and then move on. My way is better.

Joel Skinner was the guy who was coming and he was supposed to be "the next big thing". Also, I think Hawk had some goofy idea that Fisk could be like Yogi Berra or something. Fisk railed against playing the outfield from the start.

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General Jim wears Fort Bragg down to get it!

BTW, its not even just sports. If you spend a good amount of time pointing out what you perceive to be the stupidity of others, you are without a doubt a loser with a way over inflated sense of your own intelligence.

The best pitch to hit in any at-bat is usually going to be the first pitch. Obviously, the pitcher wants to start 0-1 so he's likely to throw a strike. But baseball has created a culture where the walk and working the count is so revered that swinging at the first pitch has nearly become a taboo. So the batter is often working from behind.

I know it seems counter-intuitive but I actually think expanding the strikezone to the one in the rulebook would increase offense. It would force the batter to swing. You can see that working the count and looking to take walks isn't really working as an offensive strategy since walk numbers have stayed fairly steady while strikeout numbers have exploded.

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General Jim wears Fort Bragg down to get it!

So if I dont buy the hype on Cubs prospects that makes my priorities way the fuck out of wack and incredibly stupid. The hyperbole used to describe the error of the ways of the non-believers is limitless.