Cubs 3, Giants 2: Attaboy, Welington -- The Beef Comes Through

Although they both may be among the last cuts. As long as they don’t cut Max it stays possible that what should happen will.

…is a Cub is a financial one. We’ve seen Hendry time after time fail to make tough decisions when it comes releasing under performing players for loyalty reasons. I think Hendry over the years has gotten a little to close to the players, yes those bonds of friendship can be a good thing at times (woods hometown discount) but it can act as a curse when someone doesn’t know how to mix business with pleasure.

Beef is a solid prospect, and it serves a better value to his development and to our organization to keep him in Iowa right now, as opposed to serving a backup role in the bigs.

His everyday line could make him a very valuable trade chip as well, or even make Soto a trading option one day, if things evolve in that manner by 2012.

We need Marshall. I hope it’s just the dry desert air and not an injury.

…fickle pitch in Arizona. He’s young enough and his track record shows he’ll turn it around. Garza hasn’t had the greatest spring either but he said the other day that he’s throwing mainly 2-seam fastball’s because the curve is useless in Arizona.

There’s the issue.

He’s never been as good as Moore at any level.

If he’d come from Pittsburgh, he’d be released already.

This is just the Cubs thinking that the Yankees/Dodgers/Cardinals/“Teams who beat us in the playoffs” are magic, and anything that they’ve touched has a bit of golden glow.

We’re talking about a poor fielding 2B (who can play 3B), who has no power whatsoever, who has posted a sub-.800 OPS through the minors, and who only got an MLB gig because the three people in front of him for the 3B gig were severely injured. (Granted, one of them was Nomar.) Then, in MLB, he proceeded to hit like Aaron Miles. And field 2B like crap.

There is literally nothing in Blake DeWitt’s spring, or his MLB past, or his MiLB past, that makes you think that he can be a MLB starter. At least Scott Moore has consistently posted mid-.800’s OPS throughout his career. And he’s outhitting DeWitt by 300 points this spring.

He had another RBI extra base hit today. It would have made me happy if I wasn’t completely convinced that he’s going to be in another organization in 6 months like Casey McGehee.

I think the most at any one time was five.

as the 2011 version…2008>2011

I think that is one reason they keep a 33 year old minor leaguer around to help with the kids. I don’t nor do I think anyone else presume that Hill will be a good coach, but if he knows how to handle pitchers well enough that they support him despite him hurting them on offense wouldn’t that skill make him a good bullpen coach? Looper we owe nothing to so cast him away if he does not make the team, we did him a favor giving him a chance.

… can handle it as the primary part of a platoon? (Moore would be the primary part since he’s lefthanded.)

I may not get an answer.

I have already called for Hill to be let go. If he’s not, I’ll be happy to post that it was the wrong decision, because if that’s the decision, it will be wrong.

are almost never guaranteed. If a player is released by different dates, the team only has to pay to pay termination pay. The percentage of the termination pay is determined by the date the player is released

If the player is cut within 16 days before the season begins, he is entitled only to 30 days’ termination pay. If the player is cut during spring training but after the 16th day before the season begins, he is entitled only to 45 days’ termination pay.

is unarguably true. There clearly are a lot of Giants fans in town, their away games have drawn very well this year. While the Giants home attendance is about the same as last year, their road attendance is up.

The first paragraph, not so much. I think it is very likely that if the Rockies and D’Backs were still playing in Tucson, the other parks would not have seen as much of a decline. The math is clear…the decline at parks in Phoenix, Glendale and Peoria is exactly equal to the increase for the Rockies and D’Backs.

And that isn’t the point in any event. For weeks now you have been telling us about the precipitous decline in Cactus League attendance and I have been saying you are premature.

The numbers now that we have gone thru Spring Break speak for themselves.

Talk about his moves or not. This is juvenile.

“Had” talent works better than “have” talent….aramis is old and has a questionable work ethic, alfonso is old and slow, marlon byrd hustles but hustle doesnt equate talent (though I love him), and fukudome is almost worthless (imho).

So… basically…. he’s on the 25-man, or he’s making three and a half million to sit at home eatin Funyuns.

How in the hell did Shark’s agent get Hendry to give him these sorts of contract provisions?

But he is young and major prospect….wait a minute….

whether he makes $800,000 a year or $80,000 a year or $1.95 a year…he sucks…he sucked last year and there was absolutely NO frickin’ reason to offer this guy ANY money at all. NONE! If they can’t see that this guy is “rock-bottom” as far as backups, then we’re all kidding ourselves in thinking this organization will someday figure “it” out.

It seems that the commitment of $850K means that the organization cannot cut him and face the embarrassment of acknowledging their foolishness.

…and share them to a certain extent. But I just need a little more time to see what becomes of DeWitt. I’m not prepared to call any of the options you list above as “better” at this point — they’re just other options, all of which the team can pursue if DeWitt doesn’t work out. (Er, well, depending on where Moore ends up after spring training.) Personally, I’d love to see Darwin Barney win the job outright eventually — or even share the position with Baker.

And I’m not sure I’d call Lilly a rent-a-pitcher for the Dodgers — they did re-sign him and may have had a pretty good idea that they’d be able to when that deal was made.