Cubs Sign So Taguchi

So what... get it?

Oops, wow, I didn't know his stats were that awful last year.

Taguchi is a solid defensive replacement. He's lost a step but he's alright as a reserve outfielder. But I don't know how many times I've seen him make some stupid mistakes. He'll get on base, reach second, and not score on a base hit. I figure that the Cubs will give him a chance in order to help Fukadome. A countryman should do him some good.

what the heck, why not sign admiral morimoto?

Leave it to the Cubs to pick up Cardinal sloppy seconds (Miles, Edmonds, etc.). The key is to pick them up before they are washed up, a la Lou Brock.

i dont get this he has lil value in a already crowded out field,besides when are the cubs going give haufpower excuse the spelling but this guy abosolutly tears the ball up but they keep over looking him the past 2 years in spring training and at the mlb level every chance he has gotten why sign a 39 year old nobody lets give the kid a shot.

I genuinely understand that it is good to have depth (sometimes stock it up in AAA)...but the problem I have here is that we have no use for him. Defensive replacement? Well, we have enough of those. Right now, there is: Reed Johnson, Kosuke, Milton, Alfonso, Joey Gathright. That would seem to be enough for me. Hoffpauir can play an OF spot when needed. There truly is no roster spot for him unless Taguchi has decided (or been forced into) the idea of being the "defensive replacement guy who replaces a defensive replacement guy when the original defensive replacement guy gets hurt". Sorry, I know I was being obnoxious.

Guys stop overthinking, its for Kosuke. We almost signed him last year to convince Kosuke to sign with us. There isnt to much chance hes on the team by March 15. And can people stop calling Gathright a defensive replacment. Unless hes replacing me in the OF he isnt an improvement. Hes not a plus defensed in any way.

He's 39?

He's so Taguchi!

I have like 3000 'so taguchi' jokes ready that are just as good, if not better!

Hey Prison,

When you can take another teams trash and still win the division you can talk. Edmonds was not St. Louis trash anyways, he was San Diego's. Just look at the trash the Cards have played with the last 2-3 years.

justme,

I see your point but wouldn't you rather try and help the guy you are playing all that money succeed then tell him he is on his own. I would rather pay a little more for him to succeed then just let him continue to fail.

masciob-

Don't necessarily have a dog in this fight -- but in the past 2-3 years the "trash" won a world championship in St. Louis. Been a long century for the boys in blue...

masciob you can say that taguchi isn't cardinals trash either he is the Phillies...

I actually think the Cubs are high on Hoffpaier, that's what gave them the confidence to take on the risk in Bradley. They thought they could replace that pop, at least in the short term.

Good point Tough, I had forgotten that he was with the Phillies. My mistake even though So is very forgetable.

I agree with everything except the parts about Jae Kuk Ryu. The Cubs will not get anyone else except Peavy if that trade is made. Why would Ryu be included anyways?

Hmmm u make a vaid arguement thestrict it all does seem very odd that all those pieces fall in to place at the same time,but doesnt hendry need aproval from the new ownership before making such a big investment and i havent heard anything concrete suggesting he's gotten anything yet

Actually, I've heard the same about Gathright; he's not a natural defender. But his blazing speed apparently makes up for it. I was shocked by how good his defensive numbers were, at least on FanGraphs.

Peavy to the Cubs is not happening and Peavy plus a player that was signed today DEFINITELY is not happening.

True but if its late in the game a runner on second ill take my chances with soriano because of his arm and increase the odds he may throw out the runner at home or make a runner on third think twice about going home on a short fly with less then 2 outs.

This signing aside, given it's a minor league deal - Hendry has signed too many bench players, so he's making some more trades before spring training.

I'm afraid all Hendry has done is make this team worse if he doesn't get Peavy all this wheeling and dealing of low-rate talent makes No sense

WOOOOOOOOOOOHHHHH

HENDRY YOU ROCK DUDE
This signing is soo not necessary, pretty much stupid, taguchi is 39??? And bats below average??? Probebly hendry needs some pear advise lol here some advise tard trade for cy young award winner peavy and get rid of fukadome, WHAT A WASTE besides the derosa trade and miles signing, wow that's bad, someone mustve sticked a piece of paper on your back with the number 13 on it

OH WAIT DID I SAY ROCK???? I MEANT SUCK LOL GO W.SOX

Dude i have my doubts dont think we have enough to get peavy but could u imagine a starting rotation that featured dempster and lilly as your 4th and 5th starters DAMN!!!

thestrick9, if the cubs SIGN peavy, i assume they will sign A-Rod next.

And back to Gathright, his range is exactly what makes the stats less reliable. He has great range, but his routes on line drives often lead to runners advancing an extra base. Of course he has good range, but ever scout agrees he takes bad routes, which is ok when the ball hangs in the air, but on gappers that should be cut off, he doesnt always make the play.

Poll time. Sox Menace is:

(1) A sixteen-year old boy.

(2) A twenty-year old girl doing a sociology project.

(3) The dude who wrote that hilarious "KW responds to Blogger" post that Tim linked to.

(4) Keith Law, in disguise, and kickin' it with the peeps.

2

reference a scouting report chicubs, or a stat, or another UZR, Range factor, anything other than 'scouting reports from kansas city', because every scouting report i saw from his time in the minors and with the Rays said no such thing, not using stats/facts to back up what you say is stupid.

"P.S your farm system sucks more than the yankees lol and they lose their 1st round picks to free agent signings

Go Scrubs Go
lmfao"

rolf lololol ur funny d00d

C'mon dude all I got to say is your a cubs fan and you lose, 100 yrs lol you guys can never win nothing, hhmmmm maybe top worst offseason trade

4) a hairy broke guy who waits at tj maxx for cubs jerseys of players who got traded to get them for cheap

i'm not hairy I just like Mark Bellhorn

Also please let it be known my lol's are in jest, and I would never use them like that.

Hey

Go buy mark bellhorns shirt at tj maxx its only 5.99 lol and don't forget to get ron santos jersey in the kids section because after he cryed for not going to the hall of fame the saw him as a kid

(I need to be in the hall of fame because im diabetic so feel bad for me please)

LMFAO

That last comment was for womenless "thestrick9"

THE MAN WITH THE WORST ACCOUNT NAME

Applaud for the idiot........

"CubFanRaysaddict"

C'mon man don't waste yo money on crappy shirts, chicago raised 200 million dollars the past 10 yrs selling kerry wood and mark prior shirts to cub fans and thos guy only played 2 seasons in their 10 yrs combined contracts

Save that money for a bj upton or kazmir shirt something worth your time or save it for summer gas lol

Hahaha thestrick9

If I actually worked at wendys lol your pimply face probebly would be my daily customer always staring at the fries hipnotized by the many layers of meat on the baconador

Oh wait I should stop cuz you probebly left your computer and driving on the edans xpressway to a wendys as I type lmao

I would cry if the Cardinals signed Taguchi for 900k. He is not even replacement level. He is not good on Defense anymore also.

UZR/150 has him as -17.9 for last year. God forbid what he will be next year. He has no power and no OBP skills. He is not even worthless he is a negative.

Wow thelosingstrick9 must be dining in wendys he hasent posted a comment in almost a hundred years lol

Sorry, hypnotized by fries and Baconators.

I might make some kind of attempt to find somehting else but for right now this is all i have.

Bob (Tinley Park, IL): Hey K-Law, thanks for the chat. What do you think of the Cubs signing Joey Gathright? Low OBP, kinda reminds me of Pie, so why not just keep Pie as 4th/5th OF'er?

Keith Law: Pie has actual upside, whereas Gathright just kind of stinks. And Gathright's a lousy defensive CF too.

I know thats not really a scouting report or anything, but its 2am and im going to sleep. Oh well I guess i know nothing at all about sports because Gathright isnt a plus defender. I appologize.

I would cry if the Cardinals signed Taguchi for 900k. He is not even replacement level. He is not good on Defense anymore also.

UZR/150 has him as -17.9 for last year. God forbid what he will be next year. He has no power and no OBP skills. He is not even worthless he is a negative.

Posted by: FlimtotheFlam | January 16, 2009 at 12:58 AM

-------------

Nah...The Cards just tend to not sign anybody besides Royce Ring this offseason and will force Pujols to pull out of St. Louis b/c the front office wont bring anybody in to help him...

Sox MeNass, you keep talking and the Cubs will keep beating your boys. Answer one question. If the Sox are better than the Cubs, why are the Cubs 8-4 against the Sox over the last two years?

Here’s the thing I don’t quite get. Why do people think that 100 years of not winning a World Series matters to the average Cub fan? It’s as if winning a World Series in 1958 would’ve made some difference in our everyday lives. I don’t live in the past, whether it’s the 1906, 1969…or 2005. I live in the year 2009 and in 2009 the Cubs are a much better team than the White Sox, Cards, or any of these other teams these guys root for. To those mental giants who write these sort of posts, I say…Go ahead…live a few years behind the times if it makes you feel better, but honestly, it doesn’t make any difference to me – or, I’m presume – most any other Cub fan. We’ll live in the here and now where the Cubs of today are vastly superior to most teams. You can go ahead and root for your teams of years gone by.

A little off topic, but lets stop talking bout 100 years for the Cubbies. The main reason I see that the Cubs have not won a WS in 100 years is ownership. There are 4 types of owners.
Corporation owners- Teams that are owned by a corporation, they normally will not win cause the corp. is more interested in profit/loss and a tax writeoff than winning (The Cubs are an example.) I will explain later in post.
Owners who spend no matter what the cost to try and buy a WS ring. (Yankees)
Owners who spend effectivily and win (possibly a WS ring).
(Marlins mid 90s).
Owners who use the team for a tax writeoff and dont care about winning (Royals)
Getting back to the Cubs. Yes it was 1908 when the Cubs last won the whole thing. But it was 90 years ago this year when the Cubs became part of a corporation. In 1919 the Wrigley Corp bought the Cubs and even tho they had winning seasons after word, the mindset of management was not the same. In 1981 the Tribune Corp bought the Cubs and the mindset was still the same, only recently the Tribune made an effort to improve the team and this was done only to maximize the price of the team.(Winning teams sell for a higher price.) To show what the difference is between an owner and a corp. running a team.
1900-1919 (20 years)
1903-1914 12 straight years with a winning record.
9 years 90+ wins
4 years 100+ wins
5 World Series 2-3
1920-2008 (89 years)
1929-1939 11 straight years with a winning record.
12 years 90+ wins
1 year wit 100+ wins
5 world series 0-5
Amazingly the Cubs despite all the years of being a doormat of the National League still have a overall record of .514 winning pct. I do hope the Cubs can be sold and soon this was supposed to be done last year, and I feel that a blockbuster trade(s) are just waiting.

So according to your logic, the Royals shouldn't have won a WS either? And they did in 1985.

Yes more cardinals sloppy seconds for the cubs... first aaron Miles and now taguchi.... I hope they go after ray king next that would be sweet or maybe even Joe McEwing....

The only people in the country that seem to think Ron Santo is a HOFer are the Chicago media and Cubs fans. Everybody else thinks it is rather silly.

Well "HenryRowengartner" its time to put you done, 1st of all I want to give congrats to the cubs, everyone else jumped off the disaster train and they stayed on and became the 1st and last 100 season loser, wow great accomplishment, cubs wasted millions and millions of dollars on wood and prior and that didn't take the cubs anywhere, you guys even tryied to sign them again but they got tired of taking your money and chilling in your lil old stadium, bye wood and bye prior, now cubs pride is going down after sosa became garbage and you had to keep people entertained by making a lil dumb song, GO CUBS GO, wow real lame, now cubs are going to the japanese market and picked up and old chopped liver player name fokudome, funny name but funnier stats for a 17 million dollar player lol and supposely soto was the best but alexei had better numbers with less games lol everytime cubs lose in the playoff they find some scape goat, like that guy you guys life you ruined, shame on you, and goats??? Lol maybe you should stop trading and signing players who helped to take you out in the playoffs, 100 yrs and counting and a weak farm system, best prospect is pie? Haha I can keep going on and on but I love seeing you guys everyday in the northside with your lil inside out hats and blue "maybe next year" shirts walking around wrigley field sad, its funny to me is soo many ways.....

So bring it cubs fans sox are ready for the future we don't think about the past, go take care of diabetic ron garbage old santo, future never hall of famer

NORTHSIDE WHITE SOX FAN

GO SCRUBS GO

"The only people in the country that seem to think Ron Santo is a HOFer are the Chicago media and Cubs fans. Everybody else thinks it is rather silly."

This isn't close to being true.

Sox Menace is the absolute epitome of your typical White Sox fan. They are completely obsessed with the Cubs. They have a massive inferiority complex because they know that, no matter what they do, the White Sox will always be "the other baseball team in Chicago." And their organization, rather than simply going about their business, perpetuates this complex with Guillen and Williams' constant whining about the media coverage given to the Cubs and some kind of perceived slight or bias against the White Sox. Sox Menace spends half the night in a Cubs thread (about a minor league siging of So freaking Taguchi for God's sake...), and now 12 hours later he's back in the same spot, continuing his butchery of the English language. Of, and Mr. Menace, before you rip the Cubs for siging Fukudome, perhaps you better go back about a year and notice that your boys on the south side actually offered Fukudome a contract worth $4 million MORE (4 yrs/$52MM) than what he got from the Cubs, but were rejected.

Not sure how many more times the numbers need to be trotted out, but to those that think that Ron Santo shouldn't be in the HoF, or that his support is based on sympathy for his condition, please take a look at them one more time.

Brooks Robinson was considered the best 3rd baseman of that era, and NO ONE argues that he belongs in the Hall. His career numbers:
A line of .267/.322/.401. 268 HRs, 1357 RBIs, an OPS+ of 104, and a .971 fielding percentage.

Now compare Santo's numbers:
A career line of .277/.362/.464, better than Robinson across the board. 342 HRs, 74 more than Robinson in 8 LESS seasons. 1331 RBI, only 26 less than Robinson in 8 less seasons! An OPS+ of 125, superior to Robinson's 104. A .954 fielding percentage, the only category where Robinson outshines him. Santo also made 9 All-Star teams, won 5 Gold Gloves, led the league in OBP twice and finished in the top 10 7 times. Top 10 in MVP voting 5 times, and Top 5 twice. He even led the league in BBs twice.

I don't feel like I'm being a homer when I say that, to me, it's simply mind-boggling that a man with these credentials isn't in the Hall. Santo would deserve to be there regardless of what team he played for.