Just to be persnickety, Ben Brown wasn't drafted by the Cubs, he was traded for a two-month rental on David Robertson, which is a heck of a deal if Brown settles in as the passable back-end starter he appears to be.
I get your point and in some circumstances I would agree. But overall I’m not a fan of rushing pitching prospects, especially one who lost a good part of an important developmental year because of a shoulder injury. Then when said pitcher is by far your best pitching prospect in a system that overall lacks pitching (I think only 5 or 6 pitchers in Cubs’ top 30 prospects and one of those is strictly a reliever), well I think caution is warranted.
I understand the logic, but logic tends to go out the window when a guy has a great game going in September. So, you either put him in the bullpen, where he won't be building his arm or routine to be a starter, let him start in the majors, where you basically have a glorified bullpen game every 5 days, or you do what they've been doing and play the long game with his development.
And PCA is battng 7th. Imagine if he was higher in the order with more protection.
I actually trusted Counsell to put the best lineup out there rather than stick to traditional and veteran preference lineups like Ross did.
Put him behind or before Tucker
Nope, no different. The response was to the OP stating that the Cubs built their roster is home grown and as you can see....it's not.
Well sure, my issue has always been with Hoyer.Leave it to the guy dumping on Suzuki to put him in the 3 hole in his ideal lineup.
When I say built through the farm, I mean that we made trades or drafted players who have been in the minors as we have developed them. PCA, Busch, Happ, Hoerner, Steele, Brown, Amaya are young players we brought up from AA or AAA. Horton will be here soon. Shaw will be back up as well. Making trades to get rid of old players for minor leaguers is the way to not only rebuild the farm but to move up to the big club. Houston did it this way as well as Cleveland and they are playoff bound every year.
The only team Suzuki is hitting 6th or 7th on maybe is the Dodgers. Suzuki's OPS+ the last two seasons is right behind Bryant and Rizzo's 2016 seasons. Do you really think Suzuki would hit 6th or 7th on that great team? And Suzuki has been a better hitter than Bregman each of the past two seasons.
He would not be hitting 4th. Someone doesn't remember all the 1 run losses in May and June in 2023 with Seiya posting a .400 OPS for 2 months in the heart of the order. If that didn't single handedly keep that team out of the playoffs, he made sure to guarantee it by not being able to catch a pop up and blowing a game in September. There is some hope that maybe keeping him out of the field will keep him healthy enough to not miss significant time but as we are seeing with this wrist injury, even that seems unlikely to get a full season out of him.
The last few years have been maddening. It's basically Busch, Nico, Happ as the holdovers of players capable of having a situational at bat once in a while.
How about the great Dansby Swanson bases loaded one out and he strikes out like only Dansby can do
