Quick Hits
Who’s Your Second baseman? – Coming into the season I was excited about the prospects of Mike Fontenot taking over the starting job at 2nd. Admit it, you were too. Now, not so much. At this point, assuming Jim Hendry isn’t able to pull off a waiver wire deal before September, we have a few weak options at second. Jeff Baker, Fontenot, and Andres Blanco appear to be the options at that spot and I’m curious who you want to see playing there with regularity down the stretch. I have mixed feelings on who I want there. Fontenot hit a big 3-run homer last night, but prior to that was hitting .139 since July 20. At the same time, he has a higher bat potential than someone like Blanco, who would basically be in there for his defense (which is spectacular). Baker is the wildcard, because I really can’t seem to get a read on what kind of player this guy is. I pose the question to you. Who should we go with? Why?
Day 1 of 5, A Smashing Success – There are five days that the Cubs play down the stretch that the Cardinals don’t, so we can make up some of the game we’re lacking. Considering we’re up in the loss column, it puts the division in our hands. Taking advantage of these five days is key. Last night was day one and that turned into a win. Four to go (8/13, 8/31, 9/17, & 9/24). On a side note, do you think the extra days off for the Cards will come back to bite us?
I Hate Our Closing Options – Have I mentioned that I hate Gregging Gregg and Gregging Marmol? If not, I hate them both. Marmol looked terrible again last night in the save. These guys better figure this out soon.
The New Guy – Tom Gorzelanny goes to the bump today. How great would it be to see him go 6 strong innings and get tons of run support in his debut?
Just a Thought – The Rays released former top pick, Wade Townsend. Any interest?
King of the Castle Winner – Cap’n Obvious. Congrats. We’ll see who he takes on this week. Don’t forget, if you want to be in the mix to be king of the castle, let me know in the comments section and I’ll touch base with you.
Minor League Notes
- Tyler Colvin was named by the Southern League as the Southern League “Hitter of the Week,” for the week of July 27 – August 2. The award is Colvin’s first of the season and second overall; he won the same award in June of last year. Colvin led the Southern League last week in hitting (.577), RBIs (8), hits (15) and on-base percentage (.577). A strong showing in Mobile culminated with a 5-for-5 performance in the series finale Friday night. Colvin’s streak carried over into the weekend against Carolina, as he followed up a 3-for-3 performance on Saturday with hits in his first three plate appearances on Sunday. The 11 consecutive hits tied a Southern League record and were a big reason for the Smokies’ 7-0 record last week. His batting average jumped almost 50 points (.239 to .286) in the process.
- Rebel Ridling has been named the Midwest League Player of the Week for the week of July 27-August 2. The honor gives the Chiefs two straight weeks with the Player of the Week Award as Jovan Rosa won the honor last week with the Chiefs beginning their 10-game win streak. Ridling hit .556 for the week, having multiple-hit games in five of the six contests as the Chiefs went 6-0 with a rain out. The second-year Chief went 15-for-27, hit two home runs and drove in nine while he also scored seven runs, doubled and tripled once.
- Andrew Cashner only allowed one run in 6.0 innings pitched
- James Leverton only allowed 2 runs and 4 hits over 6.0 innings pitched
- Juan Pena hit 2 extra-base hits
- Jesus Rodriguez was 3-for-3
Top Prospect Tracker
Photo Op
Rehabbing Cubs catcher Geovany Soto went 1-for-2 with an RBI during his rehab start with Double-A Tennesee on Monday, helping 23-year-old right-hander Andrew Cashner to his second straight win as the Smokies beat Carolina, 7-2. Cashner allowed an unearned run on two hits with eight strikeouts over six strong innings. Geovany Soto has been out since July 7 with a mild oblique strain. (Elizabeth Neutens/Tennessee Smokies)
Photo of Colvin from earlier this summer (credit to Tennessee Smokies/Rennie Leon)
I wish I could choose “None of the above.” I too love Blanco’s defense, but he may be a worse hitter than Koyie Hill. Fontenot has been very disappointing. I actually kinda’ like Baker, and think that he may have the most potential of the three. He reminds be a bit of DeRosa. He has put up good numbers in the minors, but hasn’t really been able to put it together in the bigs, in part due to injuries. If I had to get rid of one right now, I may get rid of Fontenot.
No thanks. The guy was just awful in the minors. A career ERA of 5.58, with a WHIP of 1.547. He never advanced past AA. His strikeout numbers are solid, but his control is just plain awful.
Definitely not interested.
hats off to Koby, for doing a real good job of putting together a real argument for Bradley. A tough assignment to be sure.
my 2b choice would be Scales at this point. Can’t figre out why everyone seemed to jump ship on this guy. He seemed to be a pretty polished player…not an all-star by any means, but solid. Hard to bring him up because of his limited options, I’d guess.
Yea, I knew I was going to lose to the humorous route taking by the Cap’n. Congrats on your win, and hopefully I’ll get another shot to knock someone off the mountaintop.
Let’s just stick with a platoon. Blanco can start when Z and Wells are going for his D since they are the groundball pitchers. In the other instances, let’s use Fontenot against righties and Baker against lefties.
And if it takes a 40-man spot to get Townsend, no thanks. Otherwise, no harm in giving him a shot, much like B.J. Ryan. Last night’s line doesn’t give much confidence that he’ll help this year though.
I would go with the 2nd half of our ‘Cajun Duo.’ Unless you subscribe to the theory last year was a fluke, Fontenot’s stats are quite similar to last year:
AB R H 2 3 HR RBI SB BB K AVG
08 243 42 74 22 1 9 40 2 34 51 305
09 295 30 69 16 2 9 35 2 30 69 234
Basically the same power and walks, little more K’s (actually was on pace to do much better this year, but had a brutal July where he walked 3 times and struck out 17…). A few of those lineouts, flyballs and flares would have fallen in, his average would be similar.
He has used an option this year. You only use one option per year. A player can be moved up and down as many times as a team would like and it still only uses one option. Scales’ option this year has already been used, so bringing him up again (or then sending him back down) wouldn’t impact his options.
re: King of the Castle -
Cap’n piece was funny as heck, though I did like Koby’s better. Depends on what the voters were looking for: humor or analysis…
I’d much rather see Blanco. Baker and Font aren’t hitting either, might as well have the strong glove in there.
In a comparison to last year’s numbers, I am not sure why you are using counting stats to compare, as it doesn’t tell us much. If you look closely, he already has 50 more at-bats this year, but has lower H, 2b, 3b, and RBI while having the same number of HRs.
Last year Fontenot had an unsustainable .355 BABIP, inflating his numbers. This year his BABIP is .276 – a little low, but probably not as unsustainable as the really high BABIP of last year. Much of his low BABIP is coming from a significant drop in line drives and an increase in ground balls, and interestingly a huge increase in infield flies.
His BB% is lower, his K% is higher, and when you add the low BABIP compared to the unsustainable high BABIP, it leads to his very low BA, very low OBP, and bad SLUG.
My second baseman? Freddie Sanchez. Oh, wait, that’s right, he’s a Giant now. Too bad, because he always seems to hit like crazy when the Cubs are in the vicinity.
Blanco I would keep as my backup/late inning infielder, to be sure. Platooning Fontenot and Baker makes sense, but that’s a lot of manpower basically dedicated to one position. Be different if one or both of them were real good.
Hording mediocre middle infielders seems to be a passion of Hendry’s. I would stick with Fontenot at this point because of his power and experience. Play Jake Fox at 2b, just kidding.
I don’t really see a difference between Scales and the others either, maybe Scales pissed off Lou, was late for a bus or horked all over Lou’s travel bag after his first pinch of chew.
I was surprised Lou didn’t go to Guzman or Marshall for the ninth yesterday, unless they needed a day off.
Baker/Fontenot platoon is fine with me. We can’t have All-Stars at every position. Blanco’s a late inning defensive replacement. Baker seems to get hits in big spots, and I have a feeling Fontenot is going to get hot down the stretch. I can’t explain it, but I just have a feeling.
To answer your question, the Cards’ off-day will DEFINITELY hurt us. Unfortunately, they have a fantastic top of the rotation. Their back end is terrible, but every off day they have is an opportunity for them to stack their rotation.
Anybody know anything about Ryan’s velocity? He seems to be not pitching great (some walks, some hits), but he hasn’t allowed a run yet!
Stick with the Cajun.
Surprising that nobody mentioned AAAron Miles. Must be because he’s rehabbing.
Get Heath Bell assuming he clears waivers, send Marmol to Iowa for seasoning, and send Gregg to the Padres for a bag of balls and a half dozen maple bats.
I can pretty confidently say that Heath Bell will not clear waivers.
Now, the Cubs could put a claim on Bell and make a trade for him, if they win that claim, but I would think that the following NL teams (with worse records that the Cubs as of today) would also put a claim on Bell: Marlins, Braves, Cardinals, Brewers, and possibly the Mets or the Astros.
I would love for the Cubs to be able to pick up Bell, but strange decisions would have to be made by other teams for that to actually happen.
I also hate our closer options. Did anyone think at the beginning of the year back when we seemed to have a few good options, that we’d end up with no confidence in any of them? I don’t even remember discussing it much, other than whether we were happy with the choice of Gregg over Marmol or whether Marmol should have gotten the job. Now neither of them can handle it. Gregg them both.
The point is moot now since Blanco’s hurt but I’d have chosen to go with Baker if for nothing else than to give him a chance to show what he can do. I hope Dave’s right about him being DeRosa’esque.
Congrats Cap’n and also great job Koby … thank you both for being the first to jump in so future contributors will know what to expect. I thoroughly enjoyed both entries!!
Is Blanco really hurt?
I’m getting the feeling the Cubs are using the DL like a parking spot for extra players.
They don’t have much choice, since most of these guys are out of options.
Yes. His ability to hit is badly broken and the prognosis doesn’t look like it will get better anytime soon.
I would think a a player would prefer to stay on the big league roster on the DL at the MLB minimum than head to AAA.
Bring back Todd Walker, Jerry Hariston Jr and Ronny Cedeno.
I have thought this at least three, maybe four distinct times this year because for awhile there they seemed SO against using the DL when they should have, but then all of a sudden when a roster move was looming … voila, a handy injury. I wondered about Harden, definitely Patton, Miles, and now Blanco (though he’s not out of options so that would have been an easy fix). Believe it or not it even crossed my mind when Soto all of a sudden came up hurt in batting practice (???) … remember he really sucked at the time. I think I dismissed it though because he was sort of getting a little better and they wouldn’t intentionally put themselves in that position with no other viable catchers, would they? Anyway I’m glad I’m not the only one who wondered.
Interesting, but he didn’t suck at the time. His last game was on June 6th.
From 5/1 – 6/6, he put up a line of .250/.336/.565 OPS: .902.
Right! Which is why the very next line of my comment said I thought he was getting better. Did you not see that or just choose not to gray box it because then you’d have had nothing to correct me about?