Starlin Castro Unbridled Manlove with a Side Order of Sploogetasticism Thread

[Eli]

On the Castro political scale, I'm pretty moderate, but generally on the positive side of things due to his contract. He is what is he at this point and that's fine.

I'm just saying, hits and All-Star appearances are the preferred metrics of Juan Pierre and Micah Hoffpauir's mothers.

[ChuckD]

Fucking THIS.  There are still twenty-odd teams who'd be fucking delighted to have a 25-year-old shortstop with best part of a thousand major league hits - more than any other cunt in the bigs since he came up.

This is something about the Starlin argument that always puzzles me, but why do otherwise-statistically-inclined fans always cite hits and All-Star appearances when defending Castro?

Because getting hits is better than not getting hits.

Right.  And if you have more hits than absolutely everybody else over a five-year period, I'd say that's a reasonable indicator that you're not a complete disaster, offensively speaking.  Indeed, I challenge you to show me any player in history who meets that criterion and wasn't offensively productive.

I can think of one, but you're not going to like it.

Juan Pierre, right?

That was the second one that I thought of. From the looks of it, Bobby Richardson and Doc Cramer, too. But, no, I was thinking of Starlin Castro.[/stickpoke]

[Yeti]

Eli, I think it's because it's all we got. Starlin was really the first young we've had in a while show some success so I think we rushed to defend him against the morons. And, when it comes down to it, the easiest defense is the fact that he's a 25 year old with 900+ hits and 3 All-Star appearances to his resume (only one was a year where he was the only Cub, BTW). Those are very good accomplishments. I mean, the hit part, if he keeps it up for his career, he's going to approach 3,000 somehow. That being said, there isn't much beyond that you can really cling to. He's had 2 seasons of WAR 3 or more, and that's good, but going into this year, he was averaging 1.92 WAR/season. That's not terrible, obviously, but it's not some world beater (and that's not factoring in this year's -.4, which without weighting this season differently because the 60 games part would pull that down to 1.53). He has been better than most of their alternatives.

That being said, I am completely on board with them moving him as an intregal piece for pitching. However, I just don't think his value is good enough to be the *main* piece and that sucks.

[SKO]

I think also that a lot of the people who hate Castro just for being who he is are also the kind of people to whom hits and All Star appearances are important things, so it's just easy to fight them at their own level.

That said, god I'm tired of this. This is the Starlin splooge thread. Let this be a sanctuary to celebrate what awesome things he does and we can argue over his value literally everywhere else on the internet where people never stop doing that.

[Chuck to Chuck]

Eli, I think it's because it's all we got. Starlin was really the first young we've had in a while show some success so I think we rushed to defend him against the morons. And, when it comes down to it, the easiest defense is the fact that he's a 25 year old with 900+ hits and 3 All-Star appearances to his resume (only one was a year where he was the only Cub, BTW). Those are very good accomplishments. I mean, the hit part, if he keeps it up for his career, he's going to approach 3,000 somehow. That being said, there isn't much beyond that you can really cling to. He's had 2 seasons of WAR 3 or more, and that's good, but going into this year, he was averaging 1.92 WAR/season. That's not terrible, obviously, but it's not some world beater (and that's not factoring in this year's -.4, which without weighting this season differently because the 60 games part would pull that down to 1.53). He has been better than most of their alternatives.

That being said, I am completely on board with them moving him as an intregal piece for pitching. However, I just don't think his value is good enough to be the *main* piece and that sucks.

Yeppers.

[Quality Start Machine]

Eli, I think it's because it's all we got. Starlin was really the first young we've had in a while show some success so I think we rushed to defend him against the morons. And, when it comes down to it, the easiest defense is the fact that he's a 25 year old with 900+ hits and 3 All-Star appearances to his resume (only one was a year where he was the only Cub, BTW). Those are very good accomplishments. I mean, the hit part, if he keeps it up for his career, he's going to approach 3,000 somehow. That being said, there isn't much beyond that you can really cling to. He's had 2 seasons of WAR 3 or more, and that's good, but going into this year, he was averaging 1.92 WAR/season. That's not terrible, obviously, but it's not some world beater (and that's not factoring in this year's -.4, which without weighting this season differently because the 60 games part would pull that down to 1.53). He has been better than most of their alternatives.

That being said, I am completely on board with them moving him as an intregal piece for pitching. However, I just don't think his value is good enough to be the *main* piece and that sucks.

Yeppers.

You guys are overestimating the intelligence of GMs.

[Powdered Toast Man]

Eli, I think it's because it's all we got. Starlin was really the first young we've had in a while show some success so I think we rushed to defend him against the morons. And, when it comes down to it, the easiest defense is the fact that he's a 25 year old with 900+ hits and 3 All-Star appearances to his resume (only one was a year where he was the only Cub, BTW). Those are very good accomplishments. I mean, the hit part, if he keeps it up for his career, he's going to approach 3,000 somehow. That being said, there isn't much beyond that you can really cling to. He's had 2 seasons of WAR 3 or more, and that's good, but going into this year, he was averaging 1.92 WAR/season. That's not terrible, obviously, but it's not some world beater (and that's not factoring in this year's -.4, which without weighting this season differently because the 60 games part would pull that down to 1.53). He has been better than most of their alternatives.

That being said, I am completely on board with them moving him as an intregal piece for pitching. However, I just don't think his value is good enough to be the *main* piece and that sucks.

Yeppers.

You guys are overestimating the intelligence of GMs.

Maybe that means we finally have a genius as ours?

[SKO]

Eli, I think it's because it's all we got. Starlin was really the first young we've had in a while show some success so I think we rushed to defend him against the morons. And, when it comes down to it, the easiest defense is the fact that he's a 25 year old with 900+ hits and 3 All-Star appearances to his resume (only one was a year where he was the only Cub, BTW). Those are very good accomplishments. I mean, the hit part, if he keeps it up for his career, he's going to approach 3,000 somehow. That being said, there isn't much beyond that you can really cling to. He's had 2 seasons of WAR 3 or more, and that's good, but going into this year, he was averaging 1.92 WAR/season. That's not terrible, obviously, but it's not some world beater (and that's not factoring in this year's -.4, which without weighting this season differently because the 60 games part would pull that down to 1.53). He has been better than most of their alternatives.

That being said, I am completely on board with them moving him as an intregal piece for pitching. However, I just don't think his value is good enough to be the *main* piece and that sucks.

Yeppers.

You guys are overestimating the intelligence of GMs.

Which GMs are you referencing? If you look at teams that are likely sellers this year, you have Oakland, where the GM is anything but stupid (despite giving up Addison Russell) and also values defense and on base percentage above almost all else, neither of which is Castro's strong suit.

If you're just referring to how stupid Ruben Amaro is, well, he's dumb, but he's dumb enough to think he can get far better players than Castro for Hamels, so that's of no use to us there, either.

Entirely possible the Mets desperation to find anything of use at SS might lead them to deal a pitching prospect of worth for Castro, but overall I don't see how "stupid GMs" are lining up to throw good pitchers at Theo in return for Starlin Castro.

[Chuck to Chuck]

Eli, I think it's because it's all we got. Starlin was really the first young we've had in a while show some success so I think we rushed to defend him against the morons. And, when it comes down to it, the easiest defense is the fact that he's a 25 year old with 900+ hits and 3 All-Star appearances to his resume (only one was a year where he was the only Cub, BTW). Those are very good accomplishments. I mean, the hit part, if he keeps it up for his career, he's going to approach 3,000 somehow. That being said, there isn't much beyond that you can really cling to. He's had 2 seasons of WAR 3 or more, and that's good, but going into this year, he was averaging 1.92 WAR/season. That's not terrible, obviously, but it's not some world beater (and that's not factoring in this year's -.4, which without weighting this season differently because the 60 games part would pull that down to 1.53). He has been better than most of their alternatives.

That being said, I am completely on board with them moving him as an intregal piece for pitching. However, I just don't think his value is good enough to be the *main* piece and that sucks.

Yeppers.

You guys are overestimating the intelligence of GMs.

Which GMs are you referencing? If you look at teams that are likely sellers this year, you have Oakland, where the GM is anything but stupid (despite giving up Addison Russell) and also values defense and on base percentage above almost all else, neither of which is Castro's strong suit.

If you're just referring to how stupid Ruben Amaro is, well, he's dumb, but he's dumb enough to think he can get far better players than Castro for Hamels, so that's of no use to us there, either.

Entirely possible the Mets desperation to find anything of use at SS might lead them to deal a pitching prospect of worth for Castro, but overall I don't see how "stupid GMs" are lining up to throw good pitchers at Theo in return for Starlin Castro.

Yep, not as the headliner. It really hurts that Almora continues to disappoint or he could be a major chip.  I don't see enough pieces to cobble together to trade with Castro for a Hamels unless Castro ges back to an 800+ OPS.

My guess is that if the Cubs want Hamels, the header would be Baez, not Castro at this point. And maybe even Baez is too low. Could be Schwarber.

[InternetApex]

Castro is like Cutler. Not as good as I hoped and dreamed and prayed he'd be. Not as bad as the shitbirds think either.

He doesn't have Cutler's contract and was homegrown so they didn't have to give up part of the future to get him. So if he's not Jose Reyes then oh, well, fuck it.

He's not Juan Pierre either. He's just not. Your breath is bad.

[Eli]

My guess is that if the Cubs want Hamels, the header would be Baez, not Castro at this point. And maybe even Baez is too low. Could be Schwarber.

I'm sure the Phillies would love Schwarber, but I don't think the Cubs want to do it. If they did, Hamels would probably already be a Cub.

[World's #1 Astros Fan]

Castro is like Cutler. Not as good as I hoped and dreamed and prayed he'd be. Not as bad as the shitbirds think either.

He doesn't have Cutler's contract and was homegrown so they didn't have to give up part of the future to get him. So if he's not Jose Reyes then oh, well, fuck it.

He's not Juan Pierre either. He's just not. Your breath is bad.

I like this.

[Eli]

He's not Juan Pierre either. He's just not. Your breath is bad.

Definitely not. Pierre had a couple of 4-WAR seasons in his career.

Which is what I'm sure you meant.

[SKO]

Starlin is Starlin and he's here till he's not and I hope he does well while he's here. All of you go to your rooms and leave his splooge thread alone.

[Chuck to Chuck]

Starlin is Starlin and he's here till he's not and I hope he does well while he's here. All of you go to your rooms and leave his splooge thread alone.

The way he's playing, that won't be an issue.