Tracer Bullet

might want to read all of my posts and not skim ... I have said I believe twice in this thread now he's made some mistakes and people can criticize those but to call him one of the worst managers or a bad manager when we are 16 games above .500 is just plain idiotic. not really

If we're trying to get Soriano more ABs with runners on, it's easier to just move him out of the top spot in the lineup.

He'd be stupid not to plan for at least 3 innings out of the pen today, given Marquis' recent history. If he doesn't feel like he can get that from the guys down there b/c they're overworked, which is possible, he should add another guy. I'd much rather that than have Marmol face another 3-5 hitters in a 3-run game today.

Should be easy to find, it was quoted here in the one and only thread that ever discussed Theriot and Cedeno...

Yea I dont understand how Lou constantly talks about overworking Marmol, but yet, continues to do it. Hell last week he talked about not using Marmol anymore for 2 innings, and yet, uses him for 2 innings in a 4 run game. Where is Scott Eyre? Last year when Eyre sucked at the beginning of the year, Lou couldnt use him enough, but so far this year hes getting very very sporadic work. It is simple, Lou is greedy and wants to win every ballgame possible. Personally, I like that in a manager. Lou has been around long enough to know when Wuertz has his good stuff and when he doesn't. Lou's been around Wuertz for a year and a half. I'm pretty sure that the day before they met, Lou couldn't have picked Michael out of a lineup. what a crock.

You say that as if he had a .290 AVG and .740 OPS for 4 months and then all of a sudden fell off. In reality, he struggled for almost 3 months, had a huge July which boosted his numbers, then fell back again. Seems odd to me that people claim that Theriot "faded" last August/September when his splits suggest he was pretty bad in April and May, horrendous in June, great in July, pretty bad in August, and horrendous in September. It's more like a bell curve peaking in July than a plateau that fell off in August.

I'm afraid of it too but I'm not going around calling Lou one of the worst managers in the league when we have the best record in the league. That seems odd to me. The best team in the league can't have one of the worst at something? I'd say the 2004 team was among the best in the league, and they had the worst third-base coach in history. who said they can't have one of the worst anything in history? Some things you can egt away with. Like our CF's haven't been great this year. One thing you can't get away with and still have the best record in baseball is have a horrible manager. You can make playoffs with a abd manager if the talent on the team is good enough, but plenty of people seem to criticize our GM as well so. You can't have a bad GM and bad manager and still be a great team. Semms to me Lou is doing something right (and Hendry for that matter). It's hard to argue that Lou hasn't cost us runs over the course of the season with his in-game moves. Whether those lost runs have cost us wins is a game-by-game issue, I think. But his use of his pitching staff, Marmol and Marquis especially, has put us at risk of losing future games. His inability to pry Marquis from the rotation has almost certainly cost us games, though we've overcome some mediocre or worse starts by Marquis to get a W. We've lost 5 of his last 7 starts, 5 of which were bad performances by Marquis (we lost one of his good starts and overcame one of his bad ones). To be fair, he hasn't gotten a ton of run support lately (2, 7, 3, 3, 4, 4, 8), but he also has been taxing the pen as he's only gotten at least 6 IP in 2 of those starts. Hard to say, but I think we could have gotten at least 1 W with a different SP (we scored 7 runs in 1 and lost, Jason went 5 and got hammered) and even if we don't get more Ws, we should at least have a starter that could have gotten us an inning or two more in most of his starts.

Seems possible, but I'd think that's the high end if we're talking performance from here to the end of the season. I definitely think his final numbers could end up there, but if so, he's going to drop significantly over the next couple months (which is also quite possible).

So weathermen are no better at predicting baseball performance than they are the weather, eh? [rim shot]

How old is this kid? If he shows up to the next game, I'd let him play, but I wouldn't force him to apologize (he's probably already humiliated). I'm sure the games are important to many of the kids (some more than others), but it is just a game and it is Little League. It sure sounds like there's more going on than just normal fear of being hit by a pitch. Does he really want to be there or are his parents forcing him to play? I'd talk to him privately and tell him if he wants to play, he has to bat when it's his turn. If he won't agree to do that, you can't play him. But I'd handle it as privately as possible. My gut tells me he's getting a lot of crap from his classmates for this already and probably isn't a real popular kid. And not to criticize, but I don't think I would have laid a guilt trip on a young kid ("you're letting everyone down"). If he's already crying and terrified to hit, he's not going to respond positively to a threat.

My 3-year-old son, whose name is Ryan, told me this weekend that his favorite baseball player is now Ryan Theriot. Do you believe in spanking? Hosak was right all along. You should not allow children to make any decisions.

My 3-year-old son, whose name is Ryan, told me this weekend that his favorite baseball player is now Ryan Theriot. I'm not sure how much more of this I can take.

punt or kick

True, but Cedeno didn't have much time before that or after that in April, while in May he had a 2 day, then a 3 out of 4 day, then a 3 out of 5 days where he had at least 3 at-bats. It was a little more split, but it was definitely less sporadic then him just getting 1 start every 6 days, and he only finished with 6 less plate appearances than he did in April. The thing about bench players is that they're typically going to get more starts when they're hot, especially with a manger like Lou. Injuries play a factor in that as well (sometimes players are pressed in service even when they're cold, and sometimes players get hot and are blocked by other hot players) If Cedeno hadn't outperformed what Fontenot had did in April in the first couple games of his big stretch, he never would have gotten to start 8 out of 9 games. Did Cedeno get more starts in April because he was hot, or was he hot because he got more starts? Did he go cold in May because of a lack of playing time, or did he not get more than a couple starts in a row because he didn't do anything in those 2 games? It's a tough conundrum to answer, and I don't think it's fair to say that he didn't do anything in May because of lack of playing time when in April the very reason he got more playing time was because he was hitting better to begin with. That's very circular reasoning.

Now that's a stupid trade offer. If you know this guy and don't punch him in the face the next time you see him (for the comment), you're a better man than I. I don't know him outside of NSBB at all. He's a good enough guy, though. He is, after all, the People's Champ. I'll pay your membership to nsbb for a year if you punch him in the face...

You mean a young player who gets a handful of ABs each week, often in a pitch-hitting role, isn't excelling? No! I'm just saying that for those people who say that the season he has had right now is the reason he should be getting at-bats. If you throw out Cedeno's second month on the basis that he's not getting regular at-bats, it's hard not to throw out the first month on a similar basis. He played only slightly less sporadically in April then he did in May. The only debate is between him and Theriot. There is no way that we should put Theriot and Cedeno together, even in the interleague lineup, on a regular basis without some injuries. That's why I was countering the argument that UMfan stated that: It's simply not. If Theriot gets put in the lineup (and it's certainly not criminal that he's in over Cedeno right now) then Cedeno does not have a spot other then being a spot starter. Cedeno's not the best hitter on the bench that would be the logical choice to put in during a DH situation, and there's an argument to if he's even the second best hitter on the bench. I don't really want to get into the Cedeno/Theriot yet again. But people had issues with Cedeno's pro career before this year. When he put together a great start in sporadic time, that still wasn't enough. The fact that he didn't keep up those numbers in even more sporadic ABs shouldn't surprise anyone. I don't contend Cedeno should start based on his 1 great month this season. But to suggest that his ABs were as sporadic in April as they were in May is just wrong. During Soriano's injury, Cedeno had a stretch where he had at least 3 ABs in 8 out of 9 games. Those were 33 of the 45 ABs he had in May - 33 ABs in 9 game w/ just 1 day off is regular playing time. He had 13 hits, including 4 doubles and a HR, and 2 BBs during that time. In April, Theriot was also very good in both OBP and SLG (not as good as Cedeno in either, but very good). Since then, Theriot's power numbers have plummeted so he was at about .400/.340/.740 for the month of May. I'll take that OBP from Theriot and I'd much rather have the .400/.340 line than vice versa from him. But I don't think it's fair to say Cedeno got the same opportunities in May that he had in April, so comparing the numbers without context is horribly misleading.

NSBB league, 14 team 5x5 H2H league for which I did not prepare much: Peavy (DL) V Martinez Webb Tulo (DL) CB Young Furcal (DL) Swisher Dice K (DL) YoGa (DL - season) Street Loney Lilly Kelly Johnson Encarnacion Wood Melky Bourn Milledge Reynolds A Cabrera Bonser (auto draft accident) Of my first 12 picks, only 3 are not either injured or performing significantly below expectations (Webb, Young, Street). I guess Loney isn't terribly behind his expectation, but seriously. This is pathetic.

You mean a young player who gets a handful of ABs each week, often in a pitch-hitting role, isn't excelling? No!

Now that's a stupid trade offer. If you know this guy and don't punch him in the face the next time you see him (for the comment), you're a better man than I.

Odd how many people are/were happy (or relieved, or whatever) that Prior re-injured his shoulder.

they are told what to say about 50% time. At least that's what an NFL ESPN expert that I know has told me. Ellsbury is good but the others are once in a generation type talents Ellsbury is just an all-star caliber player. In other words the others could one day if they pan out make the HoF Ellsbury if he pans out will be an all-star 4 or 5 years. 5 guys taken in the same draft, just 3 years ago, are all "once in a generation type talents"?

tomato/tomahto

strike that...reverse it

This post is insane. The first paragraph is testosterone driven junk. Do you have anything on which to back this up? Any evidence of routine 130 pitch games in the good ol days or that having young pitchers throw tons of pitches would "build arm strength" - you know what would be great, if every high school pitcher pitched both ends of a double-header. That would certainly build arm strength, so they should be immune from abuse injuries in the future, right? Posts like the one you're replying to act like the game itself hasn't changed over the years. Mound height, types of hitters, types of pitches...all factors that change how pitchers can approach the game. pitchers are babied into becoming pansies...lots of changes

i'm mostly indifferent to him, and there's a LOT of announcers i'd less rather listen to. You can mostly avoid the other really bad guys. When I was in South Bend and got the Cubs on Fox, I hated Otto (Carter was also terrible). But the only baseball I get to watch anymore are Cubs games on WGN, some Tigers games, and the weekly broadcasts on espn or Fox. So I have to hear Morgan if I want to watch baseball Sunday night until he dies or retires b/c espn ain't firing him.