He has made improvements, but he needs to make further improvements. He won't be able to rely upon a batting average on balls in play above .400 in the long term, speed to first base or not. Once he starts to face more advanced pitching and defences, those balls in play will start getting turned into outs at a much more normal rate, and his average will nosedive. Right now he's a natural .270 to .280 hitter, and that's even after the improvements he's made in the strikeout department this year. Combine that with a Corey Patterson-like walk rate and he's not going to be much use to anyone in the long term as a lead-off hitter. In fact, he's becoming to look more like Corey by the day now that he's showing all this power.

He's extremely young though, and he has enough time and talent to improve and become the prospect a lot of people think he is. But I hope we don't see Pie in Chicago before 2007. The Cubs should have learnt their lesson with the way they rushed Corey Patterson to the majors. Corey's only now learning the lessons that he should have been learning five years ago, and it's for that reason that so far he's been a pretty big disappointment (though I still think he'll eventually break out, this year or next).

Either way though, on or off, Koronka's still not very good, and the Cubs aren't ever going to need him.

I completely disagree that Mitre hasn't got a single quality major league pitch. Sinker, slider, changeup, all are now solid enough offerings for him to have success at the major league level (that wasn't the case with his changeup a year ago, and so, more specifically, he got shelled by lefties, not just shelled by everyone).

And I'm not sure where these four starts fit in with him being shelled "consistently"...

04/10; 7.2 IP, 2 R/ER, 5 H, 0 HR, 1 BB, 3 K
04/21; 6.0 IP, 0 R/ER, 4 H, 0 HR, 3 BB, 7 K
05/09; 6.0 IP, 3 R/ER, 10 H, 0 HR, 1 BB, 3 K
05/15; 6.0 IP, 3 R/ER, 6 H, 1 HR, 3 BB, 3 K
Total; 25.2 IP, 2.81 ERA, 25 H, 1 HR, 8 BB, 16 K

That's four of his nine major league starts to date. Not a great ratio at all, and he was hit hard in the others, but that's what happens when you try and go through an order three times with two pitches (as I said, his changeup was poor back then, since refined and improved).

On top of that, quoting his minor league numbers as a whole so far this year is deceptive. Firstly, his peripheral numbers are a lot stronger than his ERA, especially when you consider that four of the five home runs were given up at altitude (Albuquerque and Colorado Springs, which both make Coors look like a pitcher's park) and that five of his twelve walks came in one game when he just didn't have it. Secondly, it's mid-May, and he's thrown just 39 innings, which isn't a particularly meaningful sample size. To say he's "hardly a prospect" on the basis of that is ridiculous. What says it all for the sample size is that this year it's the right-handed hitters giving him trouble. He's never had trouble with them before, and that won't last.

And it was never a choice between Mitre and Sisco. Never. So I really don't know what you're harping on about.