Carpenter has a pain in the neck

[Crack Wilson]

He missed his scheduled start yesterday because of it and there is speculation that there is more to it than the Cards are admitting.

 

Just a thought: with the loss of Fielder and the possible decline of Braun, the loss of Pujols and maybe Carpenter and the Reds standing pat with a bad rotation, do you see the Cubbies making it interesting this year?

[TruffleShuffle]

He missed his scheduled start yesterday because of it and there is speculation that there is more to it than the Cards are admitting.

 

Just a thought: with the loss of Fielder and the possible decline of Braun, the loss of Pujols and maybe Carpenter and the Reds standing pat with a bad rotation, do you see the Cubbies making it interesting this year?

 

no.

 

also, the reds acquried mat latos and their rotation doesnt suck.

 

the brewers replaced casey mcgehee and yuniesky betancourt, who might have been worse than replacement level last year, with aramis ramirez and alex gonzalez. if gamel is decent at 1b, they really shouldn't lose that much offensively.

[Crack Wilson]

I didn't say Cubs win the Central, I just said interesting ...after all, the PIRATES made it interesting last year! :-k

[Guest]

To be fair, the Brewers aren't going to get 99% of their starts from their starting 5 again, and the Reds rotation really doesn't look appreciably better than ours(plus they didn't even win 80 games last year).

 

If I had to peg the teams right now, I'd say that the Cardinals and Brewers are both about 87-88 win teams, the Reds are a step behind them around 82 wins, and the Cubs are probably a 75 win team or so. That's a lot to make up, but with the Brewers being an injury away from giving starts to someone worse than Chris Narveson, and with the Cardinals attempting accrue as many high risk players of importance as possible, both of them underperforming slightly is certainly not an impossibility. From there, the Cubs are a breakout performance or two(and they have several candidates between Castro, Stewart, Shark, Rizzo, maybe Volstad, etc) and some pythagorean good fortune from being right there with them. Now it's important to note that these are not likely occurrences(the extreme high end would be 15-20%), but I think too many people think the gap between the Cubs and the division is larger than it is because the Cubs gave 50 starts to hopeless fill-ins last year.

[Crack Wilson]

To tell you the truth, Tiger, I see the Brews doing worse than last year, and the Reds being about the same. (Can Bruce do better than last year???) The Cards are EXTREMELY precarious when you concider the injury prone walking wounded:

 

Holliday down 3 times last year, Freese with not one but 2 chronically bad ankles, Beltran a question mark, Furcal a question mark and Craig already on the DL! Now this thing with the already aging Carpenter.

 

I'm thinking that if all the planets align properly there might be a VERY interesting race in this Central. (sorry Houston, you have a problem)

[Guest]

To be fair, the Brewers aren't going to get 99% of their starts from their starting 5 again, and the Reds rotation really doesn't look appreciably better than ours(plus they didn't even win 80 games last year).

 

If I had to peg the teams right now, I'd say that the Cardinals and Brewers are both about 87-88 win teams, the Reds are a step behind them around 82 wins, and the Cubs are probably a 75 win team or so. That's a lot to make up, but with the Brewers being an injury away from giving starts to someone worse than Chris Narveson, and with the Cardinals attempting accrue as many high risk players of importance as possible, both of them underperforming slightly is certainly not an impossibility. From there, the Cubs are a breakout performance or two(and they have several candidates between Castro, Stewart, Shark, Rizzo, maybe Volstad, etc) and some pythagorean good fortune from being right there with them. Now it's important to note that these are not likely occurrences(the extreme high end would be 15-20%), but I think too many people think the gap between the Cubs and the division is larger than it is because the Cubs gave 50 starts to hopeless fill-ins last year.

 

This is pretty much exactly how I feel.

[Banedon]

My Card fan buddy has been over the top happy with the Cardinals offseason, despite losing Pujols, TLR and Duncan. I told him that Carpenter had been healthy for too long and was bound to have some kind of issue.

[SouthSideRyan]

Maybe it's broken.

[javy knows my name]

Maybe it's broken.

 

:beg:

[Backtobanks]

It's good to see all of the optimism, but with all of the issues posted about the other teams in the division, we have more than our share too. Our BOR starters are better, but the question is whether they are good enough to balance out our horrible offense.

[Guest]

Optimism, in this case meaning "We have, at the very, very most, a 20% chance of pulling even with the best teams in the division".

[imb]

leave it to backtobanks to start bringing everyone back to reality

[NonProfitCow]

I didn't say Cubs win the Central, I just said interesting ...after all, the PIRATES made it interesting last year! :-k

The Pirates were 1 game better than the Cubs last year.

[XZero771679666304]

I don't hope Carp is hurt because I think it means anything to the Cubs, I want him to be hurt because he's a [expletive] dick and he deserves it.

[MWV]

Bulging cervical disc.

[Backtobanks]

leave it to backtobanks to start bringing everyone back to reality

 

It's okay if you want to watch the Cubs play before you come back to reality.

[Crack Wilson]

I didn't say Cubs win the Central, I just said interesting ...after all, the PIRATES made it interesting last year! :-k

The Pirates were 1 game better than the Cubs last year.

True, but they were in 1st place at the ASG break (if memory serves)

 

THAT I find interesting.

[Crack Wilson]

Bulging cervical disc.

Anyone know anything about this malady?

 

Holliday has been sidelined ALREADY with back problems, will make a start today.

[Soul]

Bulging cervical disc.

Anyone know anything about this malady?

 

Holliday has been sidelined ALREADY with back problems, will make a start today.

 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spinal_disc_herniation#Cervical

 

Usually gets better without surgery.

[Crack Wilson]

Bulging cervical disc.

Anyone know anything about this malady?

 

Holliday has been sidelined ALREADY with back problems, will make a start today.

 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spinal_disc_herniation#Cervical

 

Usually gets better without surgery.

Thanks

[Hairyducked Idiot]

To be fair, the Brewers aren't going to get 99% of their starts from their starting 5 again, and the Reds rotation really doesn't look appreciably better than ours(plus they didn't even win 80 games last year).

 

If I had to peg the teams right now, I'd say that the Cardinals and Brewers are both about 87-88 win teams, the Reds are a step behind them around 82 wins, and the Cubs are probably a 75 win team or so. That's a lot to make up, but with the Brewers being an injury away from giving starts to someone worse than Chris Narveson, and with the Cardinals attempting accrue as many high risk players of importance as possible, both of them underperforming slightly is certainly not an impossibility. From there, the Cubs are a breakout performance or two(and they have several candidates between Castro, Stewart, Shark, Rizzo, maybe Volstad, etc) and some pythagorean good fortune from being right there with them. Now it's important to note that these are not likely occurrences(the extreme high end would be 15-20%), but I think too many people think the gap between the Cubs and the division is larger than it is because the Cubs gave 50 starts to hopeless fill-ins last year.

 

This times 100.

 

The Cubs have upside and are at least as good as last year's team even without that upside.

[XZero771679666304]

leave it to backtobanks to start bringing everyone back to reality

 

It's okay if you want to watch the Cubs play before you come back to reality.

 

 

Well we can't all be disciplined realists, B2B.

[TruffleShuffle]

i like 7-team trade b2b more than over-the-top negative b2b.

[Backtobanks]

i like 7-team trade b2b more than over-the-top negative b2b.

 

I'm not "over-the-top negative". I'm just being realistic. I was hoping Theo would field a decent team with a chance to be competitive in 2012 while rebuilding for the future, but he decided to forget 2012 (and maybe 2013) while going for 2014 and beyond. I've accepted this fact and am willing to watch the growing pains of the kids for a year or two instead of throwing out a bunch of "if this happens" and "if that happens" maybe we can "make it interesting" (which is still not contending. Until we really see something on the field, the BOR is better, the defense might be a wash (subtracting Ramirez is a plus but losing Pena is a minus), the bullpen is still an unknown depending on who's out there, and the offense is worse. If that's being "over-the-top negative", then we have a different sense of reality.

[Crack Wilson]

Tiger said "If I had to peg the teams right now, I'd say that the Cardinals and Brewers are both about 87-88 win teams, the Reds are a step behind them around 82 wins" ......WOW! The loss of Prince is worth 15 games?

 

The exchange of Pujols for Beltran is worth 10 games? And subtraction of Franklin who blew about 10 saves, and the return of Wainwright mean nothing?

 

Sorry, buit I don't see how you arrived at those estimates.