I think Maholm will get no more than a 2 year deal. I think he's a pretty decent #3. I suspect the reason the sabermetric front office likes him is because he gets a lot of ground balls, and actually does a pretty decent job of limiting home runs.
Sabermetrics can do a nice job of explaining abberations from one year to another, or to show that some player is actually likely undervalued or over-valued based on more conventional stats, but the goal of a pitcher is to prevent runs from scoring by getting the other team to make outs, and Maholm over the course of his career has an ERA+ of 96, and has only been better than 94 twice in the six years since becoming a regular starter, and those years were ERA+ seasons of 114 and 105. Just hard to imagine that is because of the Pirates having a bad defense for his entire career and that at the age of 29 he is poised for a breakout season....
OR he's just a guy that will make all his starts and not make a crap ton of money.
DING!!! DING!!! DING!!!
We have a winner!
Can someone explain why Hoyer thinks he was wrong in calling up Rizzo last year? In 356 ABs, he had 101 RBIs. That seems like a reasonable cause to call someone up.
As others have said, he thinks it was wrong because Rizzo obviously was not ready, and Hoyer apparently has some foolish belief that a big part of the GM's role is knowing what minor league players are ready to perform at the major league level and not to bring them up before then. Unless the guy is someone who will develop and grow at least as fast at the major league level, AND having him up is not going to reduce the prospects of a contending team, I have to agree with him.
The starting 1st baseman is Bryan Lahair, the starting 2cd baseman is Darwin Barney, and the starting 3rd baseman is Ian Stewart. How is that being as competitive as possible?
It's not. There really is no other way to look at it.... which would mean that the Theocracy is leaning into the total rebuild approach I have urged.
I'm actually getting excited about seeing which of these players will emerge as genuine finds.
Sort of assume that any of them will. Of the players added to the major league roster from outside the organization so far, I would not hold my breath in anticipation of even on emerging as a "genuine find."
I think the idea that Cubs management is flushing this season down the drain is as naive as the idea that they are trying to win the pennant this season. I think that their major goal is to succeed long term, but have a subsidiary goal to be as competitive as possible whenever doing so does not have negative long term effects, and does not bust the budget.
Most things in this world are not either/or.
True. But it is when we are talking about the Cubs' 2012 season.
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