There needs to be at least a little return on the investment they made in him. Tell him he's starting, tell him he's relieving, just give him a role and let him sink or swim.
I can only imagine that the TJ recovery didn't go as planned and his arm is dead.
If that's the case and he attempts a comeback as a knuckleballer we'll sign him and have cornered the knuckleball market.
I down really see what Cubs get out of this. Matthew Scioscia is a first baseman who is old for his league who cannot hit. Gretzky at least looks like he has a little bit of potential.
I saw on MLBTraderumors that Micah Owings is still available. Has anyone seen him play the outfield? He might be an interesting piece to put in AAA and have him play the outfield and pitch.
Rickey Henderson is my favorite player of all time. I know he was cocky but there is something about a player who is so confident in himself that he can tell the opposing team that he's going to steal a base and can still pull it off.
As for my least favorite player it has to be JPA. I can't think of another player who is so full of himself but contributes at historically bad levels.
I would too. Both Izzy and Ricky are lost. At least we would fill a positional need with Uggla and while we can't seem to develop players the PTBNL might add some value.
Scoring runs wasn't a problem last year and this is essentially the same team. The problem was the horrible defense (which has been addressed) and the inconsistent pitching (which hasn't)
I agree with you on this. I would love to have a ton of guys who have electric arms but if they can only stay on the mound for 10 starts it really puts a damper on the rest of your roster. It's the reason why you have to have good depth. Having someone (or a couple) like Buehrle who have shown to routinely go 200 innings with decent numbers is incredibly important for the consistency of the team.
I think that given the uniqueness of what we have in our rotation, we need to optimize the outcome since we didn't sign anyone new. , flutterer, flamerthrower, junkballer, some guy, flamethrower, repeat
I think what would make most sense is wait for an injury to arrive to another team and try to get a high upside player who is still in the minors and try to trade an out-of-options guy for him.
I think it would be fun to keep this thread the entire year and just add to it every time JPA talks stupid. Since he no longer is on the team I can't imagine anyone would get upset over what he says. It might be fun to keep tabs on our favorite failed COTF.