Hopefully, we got another year at SS with Peralta and he was just tired at the end. That gives us a season at least before SS reaches crisis stage.

IMHO, 1B is a non-issue next year with Piscotty taking the base.

I'm not acting like anything. Baez has changed his approach. But you wouldn't know that since you probably only watched that one game of his this season. He's not swinging at everything. He's not trying to hit every pitch out of the park. And he doesn't do his leg kick on 2 strike counts.

Here's the problem: a LF that hits .290 w/ 20 bombs is elite. A first baseman with that line is just average.

He doesn't swing at everything and he's changed his approach, eh?

Then explain this:

Swings at the same number of pitches outside of the zone
Swings at more pitches overall
Makes more contact with pitches when swinging outside of the zone

Also, his walk rate went down and K-rate stayed the same.

So, what *is* your evidence?

His K-rate last year was 41.5%. You stupid or something?

And thats fine and dandy. Perfectly okay with Piscotty taking over for Holliday as long as we got someone not named Adams to play 1B.

I guess the Cubs didn't actually sign Eddy Julio Martinez yet. Apparently the guy has like 500 different agents negotiating for him and now MLB is going to decide on the matter. What a cluster ****.

With what we saw from Pham this year, being healthy, I don't see how you don't have a plan for him to be your CF from here out or atleast give him a big chance to take it.

Holliday, Grichuk, Pham, Jay (****), Piscotty, Heyward.

The more I look at that, I'm not sure they bring Heyward back. It's risky either way. Holliday is probably done, or atleast should be getting less PT and At bats in left. Piscotty is probably the long term LF'er.

From my perspective, you'd love to see Pham take over the CF job, with Heyward in RF and Grichuk in LF, Piscotty at 1st.

I like Pham for the 2 hole as well.

Pham will be a 28 yr old with one hot month in the majors and a career full of injury issues. Not to mention sub-standard strike-zone awareness.

There is no world whereby letting Heyward walk to avoid blocking Tommy Pham makes any sense.

They absolutely cannot let Heyward walk because they simply do not have enough young talent on this team anymore. Wong and Adams have to be seen as iffy. Carpenter's 1 season away from starting his decline as well. Grichuk is a mistake hitter and 6-hole guy and Piscotty is solid, but he's not a superstar. He's not as good as he's been over the last 6 weeks.

Besides, this team has had a payroll in the bottom 1/3 of major league baseball the last 3 years while also putting in 40K/gm. They absolutely cannot just roll Piscotty/Pham/Adams out there and toss out a $115 million payroll (which will again be near the bottom) when the Cubs just handed them their ass.

Heyward had better be back unless the Cardinals make a simple baseball decision - notably that his run prevention skills do not make up for his lack of power. If they decide that they'd rather have Cespedes or Upton and the RH power they would provide, so be it. But if they let Heyward walk over money and replace him, essentially, with Matt Adams and Tommy Pham, then they can just eat the biggest bowl of dicks.

Pham has always hit though. Injuries have been his derailment. Not to mention the upside of him performing makes me have to watch less of Jon Jay ground out to short.

My idea of letting Heyward walk has less to do with them staying in house and moreso of them looking to spend that money elsewhere on an upgrade.

Yeah, he has strike zone issues, but find me an unflawed CF to plug out there and we'll go wit that.

There's not a better option than Heyward, unless you really like Chris Davis.

Davis would be a disaster here. He'd hit .225 w/ 18 HRs and 150 strikeouts and Mabry would call it a success because he cut his Ks by 25%.

Davis would simply be a square peg pounded into a round hole. We'd move him away from what he does well and eventually turn him into a complete non-factor.

Are you planning on putting Heyward in CF?

Theres no easy fix, because to fix it, it's gonna have to come from the guys here.

Wong has to quit being such a hacking ass, Heyward (if signed) has to be the slugger everyone hopes, Grichuk and Piscotty, Adams has to pull his head out of his fatass etc.

I don't really know what you do.

Outside of giving up half out farm system for Goldschmidt, I don't know what to do.

I would go with Grichuk in CF but if Grichuk doesn't establish himself as a legitimate option there, then yes.

Pham's a 4th OFer. You simply cannot build a lineup that pencils him in as a starter because his past injury issues make him way too risky to rely on. Hell, Grichuk gets hurt as well so you probably need Pham as a backup to Grichuk as it is.

Piscotty is at 1b until Holliday is gone.