Baseball Diamond News

Friday, January 18, 2008

Too much pitching?

Since my last post the Cubs have signed 3 more pitchers. Usually I wouldn't complain about signing pitchers especially if it meant that Dumpster and Marquis would be gone, but that is not the case. First this week the Cubs signed Chad Fox to a minor league deal. Everyone might remember him when he was a Cub in 2005 and Dusty Baker put him on the mound in a game he most likely shouldn't have been in and blew out his arm. At the age of 37, I don't expect much from him, but maybe the Cubs felt they owed him one. Next they signed Jon Lieber to a 1 year 3.5 million dollar deal with incentives that could earn him 4 million more. This isn't a bad signing if it points to the departure of Dumpster or Marquis or even both, but it doesn't look that way at moment. This also means there is no way Sean Marshall or Sean Gallagher will pitch in MLB unless a bunch of injuries. Lastly they signed Shingo Takatsu to a minor league contract. Why? He was awful his last year in MLB and then went back to Japan for 2 years. In his first year back he put up decent numbers, but last season he was awful. What makes the Cubs think that he will all of a sudden get his ability back at the age of 39. Though as I write this I suspect they signed him so he can make Fukudome feel more comfortable in training camp, if that is the case, good job Cubs, just don't keep him on MLB roster.

Saturday, January 05, 2008

Cubs trade Pagan

The Cubs traded OF Angel Pagan back to the team they acquired him from, the New York Mets. In return they received 2 prospects, OF Corey Coles and Ryan Meyers.
Two seasons ago Corey Coles was rated the best strike discipline in the minors for the Mets and hit pretty well .341/.407/.421, the only problem most of his hits that year were singles. In 07 his numbers weren't as good. One good thing is he can always fall back on pitching as he was a pitcher before he was in professional baseball.
Ryan Meyers there isn't much on, but from what it looks like there isn't much of a ceiling on him. He looks to have good control of his pitches, but after that his stats weren't very impressive.
The only reason I can figure the Cubs made this deal was to clear a spot on the 40 man roster as neither of these guys look to see the light of day in a Cubs uniform. This also puts more faith/pressure in Felix Pie to succeed in CF as Angel Pagan was currently the best option as backup CF.


 
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