Chicago Cubs Blog -- Mouthpiece Sports - Latest Comments in On Windows

Re: On Windows

romashko — Wed, 29 Jul 2009 22:55:53 -0000

I wasn't advocating the Cubs sign me to play center field, just saying they could probably replace Reed fairly easily. Let's hope they can, because they'll need to for the next month.

Re: On Windows

romashko — Fri, 24 Jul 2009 13:22:53 -0000

A couple of points in response:

1) I don't put a ton of stock in RBIs. A "run producer" is anyone who can get on base or drive runs in. Bradley is one of baseball's better players at getting on base.

2) Soriano already got caught lying about his age once. I can't imagine they're not sure of his real age at this point, so I'm not really worried about that. And a lot of that seems to be questioning his work ethic, which goes against everything I've ever heard about him - supposedly he's one of the hardest workers on this or any team.

3) I would imagine Soto is not as good as he was last year, but I don't think he's as bad as he has been so far this year, either. That really holds true for all three players - I'm not saying Soriano or Bradley will return to career norms next year, but I strongly expect that they will both be above-average at the plate. I'm pretty sure players rarely just fall off and stop being productive at all in their early 30s - decline at that point is usually a curve, not a collapse.

Re: On Windows

Aisle424 — Fri, 24 Jul 2009 12:55:44 -0000

I would say that expecting Bradley, Soriano, and Soto to regain their glories from years past is a tad too pie in the sky hopeful for me.

Bradley will be 32, sure, but the man couldn't stay healthy when he was in his mid-twenties, why would we suddenly expect an improvement in his durability as he gets to the age where guys can be expected to start breaking down? Even if this year's struggles at the plate were a fluke, I'm not buying that Bradley is a difference maker on this team. Which, while we are on the subject, I have always maintained that Bradley is basically a more brittle, angry form of Mark Grace. He's never driven in more than 77 runs in a year (and it's not like he only played on crappy offensive teams either). That is not a run producer and we are on the hook with him for 2 more years.

Soriano is getting nothing but older (I would not be shocked to learn that he was actually 34 three or four years ago), and his skills will continue to wear down. This is like watching Sosa deteriorate all over again. He has ignored coaches his whole career because his talent allowed him to swing freely at balls out of the zone, and lollygag on defense and still manage to be a productive player. As his reactions slow with age and the lingering injuries that now pop up with him on a fairly regular basis continue, there are going to be more stretches where he can do nothing right than the hot stretches that made Hendry wet himself to the tune of $136 million. When guys like Soriano and Sosa start losing their skills, they don't become crafty veterans that can still hurt you with the knowledge they have built up over the years. They just start to suck because they never learned a damn thing because they didn't think they had to. Watching Soriano for the next 5 years is going to extremely painful.

Soto underperformed for years in the minors. He started to crank the ball in 2007 and then broke out in 2008. He seems to be reverting to his pre-2007 performance, whether it is by virtue of his weight, his pot-smoking, or the fact that he was never as good as we thought he was last year. Whatever the reason, there is no real logical evidence to suggest that the good Soto is the real Soto.

That is going to be a lot of dead roster space that will not be easily remedied or replaced, especially when guys like Lilly and Lee will also either be leaving or demanding even more money than they make now.

I'd have to say that the window of opportunity for the Cubs is closing, and may have already closed.