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 Instead of talking about the Cubs struggling on their road trip I'll go ahead and take a moment to give you a update on how Felix Pie is doing in Iowa. As you may recall, in one of my previous posts I said the main thing that Pie needed to work on in Iowa is his understanding of the strike zone. Give me a minute to quote myself:
What the Cubs need to do right now is to send him down to Iowa and tell
him that if he doesn't have 40 walks by the MLB All-Star Break then
he's not coming up and will be put on the trading block. Iowa has about
64 games during that timespan, if he's sent down this weekend, and that
really wouldn't be a tough task for someone who wants to move up in the
organization. I don't care about how many homers he hits, how many
highlight reel catches he makes or how many wins Iowa has with him in
the lineup. If he doesn't have 40 walks in 64 games then he doesn't get
called up again.
Pie has now played in six games with Iowa and has three walks. That's a decent total for such a small sample size but still off of the pace that I'd hope for. His overall numbers are horrendous as he's hitting .043 but let's not worry about that right now. It's time to rebuild Pie as a hitter. It's time to get him to learn the strike zone. If every time he went up to bat over the next month he just stood there and watched/studied each pitch go by.....he'd be for the better. Then, after he learns the strike zone and what pitches he's able to hit hard, that's when you start working on the flaws in his swing. It doesn't make sense for him to have a picture perfect swing if he's not hitting anything but air, right?
This is going to take some time, everyone should come to realize this. The Cubs have Jim Edmonds and Reed Johnson to cover the ground in center field for this season so let's think of Pie in terms of 2009. Is it a little early to give up on the guy in 2008? Sure, but let's be honest with each other, he's not helping the team, or himself with the way he is right now. He can put up all the Earth shattering numbers he wants at Iowa but if he can't do it in Chicago it doesn't matter.
Even with all of that being said, Pie has a lot of talent and very well could become the player that Cubs fans want him to be. Everyone just needs to relax and stay calm because it's going to take some more time.
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