Bleacher Bums Forum

Rock Shoulders was drafted as a switch hitter. He is a switch hitter. The Cubs have not turned him into a switch hitter. Sometimes I really like the stuff posted on this board, other times I think maybe this is the worst board in the history of the internet. You know, because of all of the baseless hyperbole.

I've told them a million times to quit exaggerating.

I don't know, perhaps it is just because I am stupid and prejudiced, but if the Cardinals had told Pujols "just to try it," that might be stupid.  And if they had told hit to "just try it" at the very start of their last trip to the WS, I would think that even you would join the ranks of the ignorant and prejudiced who would say that was stupid.

As usual, you ignored the context of the discussion.  I said that he had no reason to say that it was stupid to ask a new draftee to switch hit.  If we had been discussing Pujols trying it at the start of their trip to the WS, I would not have questioned his statement.

Kessinger was a career .626 OPS guy.  I doubt it was his switch-hitting offense that created his career. 

As usual, you ignored the context of the discussion.  I said that he had no reason to say that it was stupid to ask a new draftee to switch hit.  If we had been discussing Pujols trying it at the start of their trip to the WS, I would not have questioned his statement.

In other words you did not quite mean what you wrote.  That's good, because what you wrote did not really make sense.

What you wrote was I don't care how often it has or hasn't happened.  Until it is tried with a particular player, there is no reason to say it is stupid jsut to try, except out of ignorance and prejudice.

Now, let's eliminate the WS context and simply have the "particular player" be Pujols.  Or perhaps a player showing no split differential at all.  Or perhaps a green 18-year-old playing away from home for the first time and still getting his feet wet in the world, not just in professional baseball (and THAT is the context which was involved).

It would seem that having a new draftee to switch-hit essentially on his first day in camp, when he had not done so in the past, and when the team really did not know how well he adapted to change, let alone something as major as switch-hitting, might register of the stupid meter.

I thought Wilken said our draft class was one of the greatest collections of talent he's ever seen.

I'm not sure how many top-5 drafts Wilken has had the opportunity to draft.  Toronto was a really good team during the 90's, and not a mega-spender as I recall.  Tampa had some high picks, but he wasn't there long, and my recall is that at least one of his draft seasons there there were issues with management, they made him pick some college dud pitcher for signability reasons or whatever.  And then his six years with the Cubs, he hasn't had great deep megabucks drafts. 

So relative to the 20 draft classes or whatever that he's been in on, perhaps this one does seem the most exciting.  Certainly the most aggressive. I don't think Toronto or Tampa had him doing the Maples and Dunston super-duper-slots.  Or paying fifteen guys at 4th-round-or-higher price. 

It is striking that as astonishing as this spending commitment was to us, other teams do it too.  And there were six or seven other teams who spend about as much or more. 

Also, the Cubs drafted seventh, and the top six prospects were already off the board. The Cubs then took the top remaining prospect. So six teams had a head start even before you consider supplemental picks.