C.C.

The Cardinals had not shot at Zito even before this Oswalt dea. Agreed! They are decreasing salary this off season... I think the Cards are done with former A's pitchers. That said their payroll is not going to decrease. I believe you are referring to an article by some hack in NYC. Oh? That wasn't true? My mistake then...

He's managed to overcome the hamstring and groin problems, but his incredibly violent delivery and small stature make me wonder how much longer his body will be able to hold up. I do have to wonder if there are any clauses in there involving tractors, though. :lol: I'm not sure about that? He gets his power from his lower half which is compact and strong. Injuries might occur, but anytime you sign a pitcher they are 1 pitch away from shoulder or TJ surgery. It's always a gamble.

The Cardinals had not shot at Zito even before this Oswalt dea. Agreed! They are decreasing salary this off season...

He's a better pitcher then Zito, and he'll get a comparable offer. Look at Oswalt's career stats. He's been consistent his whole career and pretty much free of injury. Why does this shock you? I don't think free of injury is a good description of Oswalt. Why? The only siginificant amount of time he's missed was in 2003 because of hamstring problem. Look at his innings pitch: 2002 - 233 2003 - 127 2004 - 237 2005 - 241 2006 - 177 (so far)

And they still have to get more pitching espically with Clemens and Pettitte gone. Unless Pettitte resigns for a lot less money and who knows what Clemens will do...I'd like to be Lee or Zito this off season. Man, they are going to get a bundle!

I'd think so. Just when you think it can't get any worse. I'm just pulling for a good draft pick out of all of this...

He's a better pitcher then Zito, and he'll get a comparable offer. Look at Oswalt's career stats. He's been consistent his whole career and pretty much free of injury. Why does this shock you?

Marlins win again tonight! Against the Cards no less. If Girardi somehow gets these guys in the playoffs he has to be manager of the year...

Fixed! http://www.wherethedevilarewe.co.uk/pictures/unicorn.jpg[/img]

WOW. Im not expecting much next year. I just threw up in my mouth...

That won't get us very far either if we're running the Les Walronds of the world out there because all our good pitchers are DL'd from over use. What? How do you know that every pitcher that has seen the DL in the Dusty era has a root cause of "overuse"? That's just wild and inaccurate speculation. I recognize you can show pitcher overuse through study, but you have to back it up by showing a direct correlation to overuse and injury. Folks can make a claim that something has to be amiss in the organizational pitching approach (because of the high rate of injuries) and I would agree, but there are numerous other factors too consider. Overuse might account for a small fraction of injuries in the grand sceme of the Dusty era, but I'd argue issues with strength and conditioning and mechanics are more likely and more of concern. Additionally, the organization aggressively seeks high stuff pitchers with power, little control, and raw talent (which often means poor mechanics). Pitchers like this are bound to break-down and when you stock your system with them, what you see is what you get. Overreact much? My point was about Dierker. He's a guy who ignores pitch counts and pitcher abuse, and all I was saying was that, while his offensive philosophy is nice, a good offense won't get us far if our premiere pitchers are ridden to injury (or ineffectiveness--see Zambrano in 2003 postseason). As for Dusty...no, we can't prove that every injury was related to overuse. In fact, clearly some weren't. But it's certainly safe to say it was a factor in our two prize pitchers--Prior and Wood. And yes, Wood's mechanics were a problem from the beginning. All the more reason to be judicious in your use of him. Why pile on a huge workload to a guy who's mechanics render him injury-prone? That goes for all of our arms w/bad meachanics. You say bad mechanics are a bigger factor than overuse. I say the two go hand-in-hand. If a pitcher's mechanics are bad, then one must take care to not overpitch him. And once he learns better mechanics, one must make sure he's not left out so long that he reverts from fatigue. With Prior, it's harder to say what caused his problems, but he did see an increase of 100 ML IP from 2002 to 2003. This is a power pitcher, a K pitcher, so he probably had high pitch counts. That's a dramatic increase. I don't dispute there are other factors with both men, but pitch count and innings played a role. That's why I was among the many happy about Marshall getting that oblique injury--it shut him down for a while. This is another young arm who's seeing a dramatic increase in workload--during a lost season. At best it has no effect on him. At worst.... I'd say it is a mischaracterization to say Dierker ignores pitch counts. He's mindful of them. He has a differing philosophy in regards to the distance a pitcher should be physically able to perform. His writings seem to indicate that if a pitcher is struggling, and this isn't just in the runs scored, he's not going to leave them out there. But he thinks that a pitcher should be conditioned to throw nine innings. I'd reccomend reading his book as it is explained better there than I can do here. But isn't that the kind of thinking that gets pitchers hurt these days? The days of conditioning a pitcher to go 9 innings are over in this day and age. To condition a pitcher to go 9 innings, you need to start in the minor leagues. BTW - I will pick up his book...

Innings aren't the same as total pitches. If you have a guy throw 9 every game but he does it in 90 pitches, that's a lot less stressful than a guy who goes 5 every game but throws 120+. Liriano only had 5 outings with 100+ pitches, none over 110. I think the biggest mistake may have been having him start less than a week after he missed a start with elbow problems. He had as many sub 7 inning outings as he had 8 inning outings. I agree about pitch counts, but innings pitched is still stressful. Perhaps not as stressful, but who knows? Look no further then the South Side and their staff. Last year they had low pitch counts, but threw a ton of innings. Which may answer why their staff (with those same pitchers) aren't nearly as effective this year.

I guess we'll never know because Dierker has never made it out of the first round of the playoffs. I'm just saying.... In fact he's only won 2 games in 4 trips to the playoffs.

Well isn't that what Dusty did in 2003? Dierker was never 25 games under, so we'll never know if that's true. Me personally,as much as I despise Dusty, I don't hold the pitch counts against him in 2003. 99% of managers would leverage that talent . The Twins are doing it now, so are the Tigers. I agree and be prepared for posters who don't....

not really. dierker at least has some thought behind his decisions. So did Dusty doesn't mean either of them is right...

Well isn't that what Dusty did in 2003? Dierker was never 25 games under, so we'll never know if that's true.

Couldn't resist the Dierker plug eh? I'm going to keep banging that drum until the game of musical chairs is finished. I've already made my plug on the Trib site. I'm just trying to get someone else to take the ball and run a little with it. his treatment of pitchers is enough to make me look elsewhere. Can you elaborate on that? Dierker was one of those managers that believed pitchers should throw complete games. He frequently left his starters in longer than I thought was appropriate. I think the Cubs can find a manager no worse than Dierker that will be cheaper and not have a history of pitcher abuse. Sounds like Dusty all over again.

See I don't believe the Cubs will resign Pierre. I think he'll get a 3-4 year deal somewhere else. I think the Cubs are sold on Pie for the 2nd half of 2007 or 2008.

Couldn't resist the Dierker plug eh? I'm going to keep banging that drum until the game of musical chairs is finished. I've already made my plug on the Trib site. I'm just trying to get someone else to take the ball and run a little with it. his treatment of pitchers is enough to make me look elsewhere. Can you elaborate on that?

Couldn't resist the Dierker plug eh? I'm going to keep banging that drum until the game of musical chairs is finished. I've already made my plug on the Trib site. I'm just trying to get someone else to take the ball and run a little with it. I know I read your your article on the TRIB site, and to be honest I had to look up his managerial record, and it was quite impressive. He's one of those guys you just forget about, because he never managed a major market team...

Actually I think you'll find Riggleman to be more appreciated than you think by most fans, at least on this board. He had a bad team in 1998 that he got to the wild card (largely thanks to Sammy). It would be interesting to see what he could do with a team that had talent out of more than one great slugger and one amazing rookie pitcher.. It's amazing that he never got consideration to manage another team.

Couldn't resist the Dierker plug eh?

The sad part is I don't see alot changing until they hire a GM and Manager that values OBP. It amazes me how the rest of baseball values this and the Cubs are either blind to it or are stubborn in thier outdated ways... It's depressing!

Here's my conspiracy theory of the day: MacPhail wouldn't let Hendry fire Baker because MacPhail's gonna can 'em both at the end of the year. Discuss. No way does that happen. Hendry just signed an extension.

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