Rob

I'm not so sure you can say it was abberations based on sporadic use. I'd say he was getting sporadic use because he wasn't performing well, not the other way around. Yeah, I know he's a streaky hitter, but we really can't afford to pick him up and pray for a hot streak. When he's cold, he makes Neifi look like Barry Bonds...

Tony Clark's OBP: 2001 - .374 2002 - .265 2003 -.300 2004 -.297 2005 - .366 He's hardly a sure thing to bring our OBP up. Last year was his only adequate year OBP-wise since he hit 30 back in '02.

So there's a 40% chance that Jacques Jones won't suck? Or that he'll suck so much he'll implode...

Yup

Yeah, I know we're tops in Def. Eff, but that seems flukish to me, doesn't it? Besides, with DLee dropping out for awhile, we should be looking to upgrade our defense in any way possible. Oh, and the numbers I found said moving from right to center cost about .2 runs per season, though they were sandwiched in the def. spectrum by moves costing 3.7 and 4.5 runs, so it would probably be about 4.1 runs. By contrast, Podesednik had a 21 run switch. Oh, and LF and RF is about .5 runs different. I know it's kinda strange, but it does make sense to some degree. The numbers bear it out a bit, it makes some sense from evaluating personal traits, and there's the best kind of evidence... anecdotal! :lol:

Well our bench was nicknamed "The Lemons" a couple years ago, "The Carrots" could work in the stands, I guess.

Hey, I love the DH... but only in the All-Star game. I'm not paying to watch the pitchers swinging away in that kind of game, damnit!

Call me crazy if you must, but I think our outfield defense, while good, could be performing to a much higher level if we just shuffled the players around. JJ seems like he could handle center without much trouble at all. If memory serves me right, he was worth about 13 runs over average in right field last year. The transiton between right and center certainly wont be costing us more than that. And I just can't get over what a difference it make in Scott Podsednik's game to move him to left field. He went from being 10 runs worse than average in center to 11 runs better than average in right. While that's too much of a swing to assume all of it was real, it does make sense in our case. Pierre has tons of speed but gets bad jumps and takes bad routes to balls, and his arm could barely let him throw a tissue into a garbage can from 3 feet away. Left field being less spacious would allow him to get away with those bad jumps and routes and still be able to cover everything, and it would keep him from having to show off his arm on such long throws. Murton would obviously be the one left out. He does have the range to play right, but his arm would be decidedly worse than average for a right fielder. I just don't think it would make nearly as much of a difference on him moving from left to right as it would for Pierre from center to left though. Thoughts?

Definately. Although it's one of those things where if it goes wrong, everyone ends up screaming "WHAT WERE THEY THINKING?!?!??!?!" Really fun. That's why we need to make sure it doesn't go wrong, not once, for the entire year. :shock:

As a fan base, we pump enough money into the system to sell out Wrigley every night and clear the shelves of tons of merchandise. We are supporting a 100 million dollar payroll. When we are putting that kind of money into this team, I believe we have the right to expect the team to perform at a level above .500. That's not to say that we expect to make the playoffs with the team that's getting our 100 million dollars, but that we expect our money to be spent wisely enough to do well on the field. We "are" booing Hendry. Expressing massive displeasure with his acquisitions combined with the performance of them is the easiest way to buy him a one-way ticket out of town, or at least to show him what we expect of him. Do you notice that nobody is booing Zambrano right now? We aren't upset with him being on this team, despite his struggles. JJ is another story entirely. And just as it is that we wont boo Z, we aren't going to boo Murton for that line either. As for Pierre, I'll agree that he'll be better than the numbers we got last year. But he's not better than anything we've had leading off since EY in his first few years, he's better than last year. CPatt hit .261/.307/.486 out of the leadoff spot in '04 in 250+ AB's, and Walker hit .294/.370/.535 out of the leadoff spot in 250+AB's in '04 also. Pierre couldn't approach those numbers if he played out his ass the rest of the year. It's not okay to boo somebody because he is performing just as expected. It's rarely okay at all. But I'll say again, the fans aren't displaying their disgust with the player so much as they are at the front office. It's not like we've got John Rocker out there, who deserved it just for being himself. We've got an extremely good young core of pitchers and a few position players I'd be hard pressed to move for any reason. There's no reason not to be excited about some of the parts together on this team. Besides, even .500 teams put together some lucky wins and make it into the playoffs. Thanks in advance for responding to the entirety of my post instead of picking out one line you have issue with. :D

Astros win :(

fastball high 1-1

strike at the knees 0-1

Berkman with the double... runners on 2nd and 3rd with one out.

Hey, I like Willingham a lot... but I doubt he puts up a .900 OPS for the year, when Derrek Lee couldn't even do that playing half his games in that park. Well since you're adjusting for the park, an .800 OPS out of the cleanup spot isn't bad at all. Besides, he has the potential to go a lot higher than that. He has an insane walk rate and prodigious power, all it will take is getting lucky on a few hits to put up Dunn-esque numbers.

Yeah, that's kinda what I was thinking. I love Maddux and all, but I'd love Abreu that much more.

Actually from a quantifiable point of view, the squeeze play is wonderful. The breakeven rate on it is extremely low, so it's not a bad idea to lay one down in a lot of situations, providing the batter at the plate can handle bunting well at all. It's funny that us stats people can fall in love with some of the little things in baseball, like the squeeze play and stealing home (typically through a double steal), isn't it?

He's gonna last til AB #51, just you watch.

Brandon Webb gave me a scary outing when he came back out for the 9th and let the first two runners on, but Valverde came in an closed it out so webb would still give me the save. =)

I noticed we were taking pitches when I was scratching my back, so I scratched back there until I got raw. And we won. All hail me!

Sweet, I was wondering how long it'd be before even our "finesse" pitchers have no control.

Fantastic news!

Woohoo! A few of my friends stood outside the stadium at 4 or 5 o'clock this morning and got those cheap tickets for the game. I'm on my way to St. Louis!

Rob, 60 day DL, alcoholism rehabilitation

Does anybody know if the automatic no-trade clause til June 15 for players who sign deals in the offseason applies to minor league deals? I could see Carlos Pena coming over from the Yanks as a pretty good deal.