Sunday, July 11, 2010

He's a menace.

I have done a 180 on Ryan Theriot this season.

Too much of this, Ryan.

In previous years, I have defended him saying that he has a legitimate role which can benefit this team.

No more.

 Theriot, when he was playing at LSU.

It started during the off-season when he became the first player in a bazillion years to actually go to arbitration. And, surprise to no one except himself, he lost that arbitration case.

A couple years ago, the statistic TOOTBLAN was created to better track his adventured when he was on base. Still, I said that most of this was due to his aggressiveness, and that many of the mistakes he makes could be corrected.

People have complained about his fielding ability. I said it was because of the fact he was really playing the wrong position and that he should be a second baseman.

And then there was his less-than-stellar OBP which I said was ok due to his ability to make contact with the ball and since he really wasn't a lead-off hitter that it wasn't a big deal.

Ok...so it seems the Cubs listen to me about a number of things regarding Ryan Theriot. They supposedly worked with him on his baserunning. They moved him to second base. And now I have come to the realization, he is not a very good ballplayer.

I'm sick of it. The Cubs have given him every chance to succeed. They moved him to second base...a position his skills appear to be more suited for, and he has looked as slow and sluggish as he did at shortstop. He has also proven to have too week of an arm to play that position too...which is unbelievable.

He got to bat lead-off for a good chunk of this season, and all that did was make people yearn for Soriano to be moved back to that spot in the lineup.

He can't walk (except for last afternoon), and he seems to be getting picked off at first base about once a game right now.

It's so bad now that I would prefer to see Fontenot play second base everyday from here on out.

Starlin Castro has come up from the minor leagues, and outside of a few errant throws to first base, has done just about everything better than Ryan Theriot this year.

I said when Castro came up that it did not make the team any better...I was wrong. It did. Not by much, but it did improve the team.

I want Theriot gone.

Some stupid team will deem him valuable and give us a couple of mid-level prospects for him. So be it.