CubinNY

Or it could just be the fact that he's, you know, in his late 30's. And had several concussions. I've been told they do wonders for the hand/eye coordination. I use to make fun of him, but secretly I've always admired his skills on the baseball field. He's probably the best defensive CF in the last 25 years. Are you kidding me??????!!!! He is without question the most overrated defensive CF probably to ever play the game. He made his entire career out of making routine flay balls look like amazing catches. Yeah, he was good at making the diving catch, but if you judge the ball correctly off the bat and take the correct line on it (like Andrew Jones) you have to dive a lot less often. Don't let your biases cloud your judgment.

Not even close, IMO.

Or it could just be the fact that he's, you know, in his late 30's. And had several concussions. I've been told they do wonders for the hand/eye coordination. I use to make fun of him, but secretly I've always admired his skills on the baseball field. He's probably the best defensive CF in the last 25 years.

That's great. I wonder though, they seem to be able to produce ML pitchers by the bushel. I guess Mark is a square peg in their factory.

May 12.

Holy crap, if they send Sean G. down AAA will have a damn nice rotation.

"Fat part of the bat to the ball, and with his tremendous bat speed and barrel awareness." Not as erotic as some, but still a little creepy. What the hell is barrel awareness? Never worked much with a hitting coach, eh? No, and I never used nonsensical phrases to describe a good hitter either. I hope Vitters pans out and becomes an every day ML player.

"Fat part of the bat to the ball, and with his tremendous bat speed and barrel awareness." Not as erotic as some, but still a little creepy. What the hell is barrel awareness?

Specifically, what do you take issue with? You can't be disputing that Snider was seen as far more polished and "major league ready" than Vitters, who was more of a "project" right? I mean, I'm not saying he was a (Braves) Cody Johnson type project, but I remember the Guerrero comps, the raw tag, etc. Just a couple quick snippets from different reports on Vitters: I have seen exactly one scouting report that even gives a hint of Vladimir, with this quote: The scouting reports pretty much agree with each other though. Polished line drive hitter, short pretty swing, bat is very advanced, defense needs work. He's certainly not raw offensively, not at least in the minds of all those who wrote the reports. In fact, many said his bat is still certainly good enough to hit at a corner outfield spot if he cannot stay at third. I think the scouts can fall in love with the swing and what not, but his high school numbers were in no way near that level of gush. Those comments are almost sexual.

I don't understand the panic. Not ours, Lou's. The Cardinals are not going to runaway with this division.

Someone help me understand why a group would want the Cubs and not Wrigley. Try not to use, "they can afford the Cubs but not Wrigley", because that would seem like nonsense.

You know why a lot of Cub fans piss me off? Because they don't understand the laws of causality.

For the half inning I listened to the game on XM Marty "the dick, Sr." was harder on Dusty than he was on the Cubs. The dick, Jr. just hates the Cubs because they canned him in favor of Chip.

Don't you dare tempt me to post pictures of Ezequiel Astacio. I wasn't sure who you were talking about so I did a google search and found this blog that contained this wonderful quote:

I think theres a risk in using pythag over small samples. Games like the April 30th 19-5 walloping we put on the brewcrew (I was at the game and it was awesome), have such a significant skewing impact when you are just looking at an 11 game sample. Taking out that game, it drops us from +11 to -3, worth a couple games in the pythag standings. I'm sure there have been analyses done as to when pythag becomes credible...anyone know of any? I think it's right around 100 games. It's not meant to be a predictor. It's meant to show under/over performance for a season.

Harang is the ugliest player in the majors, I think he scares the Cubs with his face.

One inning of good offense in three games and you should have swept? Hmm... Please keep hoping for the pixie dust to work. We gave away the first game and anyone who was watching knows it. wolf is right. i think he completely understands that the cardinals aren't as good as they've been playing. but at the same time, it's not like the cubs played brilliantly against the cards and got unlucky. That's all I was getting at. Not sure how I get called the homer when someone who's team had one good inning just lost 2 of 3 games and he thinks they could have swept. Pot-kettle and all that. I admire your ability to call people out without knowing anything about what they say or believe. My belief that the Cardinals are at best an 85 win team is a recent one. If you had asked me before the season I would have told you they were doomed to lose at least 85 and could conceivably lose 90+. These early wins are all wins in the back. If they play like I expected them to play in the preseason from here on out (81 wins +/- 10, more likely -10) they'll be around an 85 win team. The reason for such a huge +/- is because there are so many unknowns on the team. Right now those unknowns are all positives which isn't going to be the case at the end of the season. As I have posted in this very thread (nice critical reading comprehension skills, btw) they are getting incredibly lucky right now, with ground balls specifically. Basically, they are hitting them where they ain't and the other team is hitting them where they are. Those two things will balance out because right now it's benefiting the Cardinals at historically unprecedented levels. It's going to be a struggle for this team to be above .500. I think they are a lot more likely to do that now than I did before the season, but that has nothing to do with blind optimism or raised expectations. It has more to do with the wins we have in the bank already and the fact that Adam Kennedy's ld% is in line with his career norms, Kyle Lohse is pitching to levels more in line with his first 3 seasons development than last season and that Albert's elbow scuttle in the preseason was everything I thought it was, sensationalized old news. The Cards could be in it for the duration for the simple fact that they take walks and don't walk people. They also play pretty good defense (for the most part). They will have to be near perfect in the pitching department, but the NL Central isn't that tough.

But he did. He threw a meatball to Dunn. That was a meatball too. Man Dun hit that ball far.

I don't think so. Baseball is a team game unless the pitcher strikes out 27 guys and gives up no hits. If a player makes an error in the field (non pitcher) and the next guy comes up and hits a tater why should the pitcher bear the brunt? right, it's a team game, and the team lost because Dempster coughed up a 2 mile bomb to Dunn. but according to his ERA, he was totally awesome, so we get to win the game, right? what does winning the game have to do with with this discussion?

I don't think so. Baseball is a team game unless the pitcher strikes out 27 guys and gives up no hits. If a player makes an error in the field (non pitcher) and the next guy comes up and hits a tater why should the pitcher bear the brunt?

In 1973 Mike Schmidt as the everyday starter hit .196. In 1986 Barry Bonds as the everyday starter hit .223. In 1990 Sammy Sosa as the everyday starter hit .233. So enough judging a player based on his first year as an everyday starter. cedeno at age 23 had a 54 OPS+ schmidt at age 23 had a 93 OPS+ bonds at age 21 had a 103 OPS+ sosa at age 21 had a 92 OPS+ in two cases cedeno was 2 years older than the player, and all of the players you mentioned were doing something well - hitting for power, drawing some walks, or both. cedeno wasn't doing either one. pointing this out for no other reason than to say that the comparisons aren't good ones. you need to find someone who was completely unproductive. Keep stretching Truffle, you'll get there some day. That's not the point and you know it.

That's awesome! Lou, a little bit of Dusy, a Little bit of Ned, and a whole bunch of over-managing. Cub fever, catch it!

Dempster deserves better.

About what, changes in the lineup? He said about 10 times over that Dusty was the only person who didn't know that Patterson was sucking at the plate. He then went on about some other problems with Dusty. I was only listening while I was in the car.

Yeah because everyone else has been hammering Cueto for us. How about we give him a month straight to play instead of only playing him against right handers with electric stuff. Lou is setting him up to fail. Normally I would agree with you......but cmon, he has been horsecrap the last 5 games he's played He went 2 for 4 with a double in the Cardinals series. Your stats are really killing his theory. I never posted a theory lol. I'm thinking he's looking just overmatched and lost at the plate. I knew he was amazing in AAA....I just find it hard to believe that he cant at least foul of some pitches and look like a major leaguer. How is it that a "stud" prospect cannot hit lefties AT ALL? That's an honest question He can. He has. He will continue to. Indeed. I'd like to add that one needs an awfully long bat to hit lefties from the bench.