USSoccer

The whole point of this is that Wade Miller isn't going to help us win now, and Angel Guzman isn't going to develop pitching once a week in mopup duty. You're arguing a point that's not being made. And he isn't going to develop if he gets shelled back into the minors ethier. You are assuming that he will be successful. Can you take a step back and see it if he's not? He might learn more working with Rothschild on his pitching while working in the majors for a seaon then by going back and dominating AAA and not learning what it takes at the big league level. As far as pitching once a week, that comes back to a manager being able to find innings for him as I said earlier and also using him for spot starts as needed (we don't need any yet). I saw his struggles in spring, and I'm not ready to say that he's going to go into the rotation and be an instant success. I don't mind them bringing him along slowly. As far as Miller, you are speculating (though stretching a bit for one start) that he will be unsuccessful. All I'm saying as far as that goes is that one start is hard to judge. He might come out next time and really do well. Hey, lets kick Murton off the team because he's been successful in the past, but has looked like a total hack at times this year. Or how about Soriano, I mean just over .200, sheesh, there's a guy who needs to be shown the door. Even three starts isn't enough in my opinion. But you are already judge, jury, and ready to be exicutioner on Miller with only one start and are saying that three starts is some magic number for judging him. Miller suffered a fairly serious shoulder injury and lost 10 mph on his fastball. I'm not stretching anything when I say he's not going to be successful if his pitches aren't going to move. He's never been a location/movement guy. He's been a power pitcher. He no longer has any power. All of your other examples are irrelevant. Murton and Soriano aren't recovering from serious injuries and trying to change their entire approach. As far as Miller coming out an performing well, I don't care if he throws a quality start; if he's still throwing in the mid 80's and not getting any movement, he shouldn't be in the rotation. I simply do not agree with you that Guzman is the person who should have that spot. If I were to agree with you on Miller, which I am 50/50 on to be honest, then I'd say make a trade or sign someone else because I don't want to risk Guzman when he could be good for a long time to come. How is starting him a risk? If anything, his current role is more of a risk because he's not going to get regular work. He's a starting pitcher. He should be starting. There's little risk in that.

So did the crowd boo Aramis?

The whole point of this is that Wade Miller isn't going to help us win now, and Angel Guzman isn't going to develop pitching once a week in mopup duty. You're arguing a point that's not being made. And he isn't going to develop if he gets shelled back into the minors ethier. You are assuming that he will be successful. Can you take a step back and see it if he's not? He might learn more working with Rothschild on his pitching while working in the majors for a seaon then by going back and dominating AAA and not learning what it takes at the big league level. As far as pitching once a week, that comes back to a manager being able to find innings for him as I said earlier and also using him for spot starts as needed (we don't need any yet). I saw his struggles in spring, and I'm not ready to say that he's going to go into the rotation and be an instant success. I don't mind them bringing him along slowly. As far as Miller, you are speculating (though stretching a bit for one start) that he will be unsuccessful. All I'm saying as far as that goes is that one start is hard to judge. He might come out next time and really do well. Hey, lets kick Murton off the team because he's been successful in the past, but has looked like a total hack at times this year. Or how about Soriano, I mean just over .200, sheesh, there's a guy who needs to be shown the door. Even three starts isn't enough in my opinion. But you are already judge, jury, and ready to be exicutioner on Miller with only one start and are saying that three starts is some magic number for judging him. Miller suffered a fairly serious shoulder injury and lost 10 mph on his fastball. I'm not stretching anything when I say he's not going to be successful if his pitches aren't going to move. He's never been a location/movement guy. He's been a power pitcher. He no longer has any power. All of your other examples are irrelevant. Murton and Soriano aren't recovering from serious injuries and trying to change their entire approach. As far as Miller coming out an performing well, I don't care if he throws a quality start; if he's still throwing in the mid 80's and not getting any movement, he shouldn't be in the rotation.

The whole point of this is that Wade Miller isn't going to help us win now, and Angel Guzman isn't going to develop pitching once a week in mopup duty. You're arguing a point that's not being made.

Let me just sum this up: With all the emphasis on depth in the rotation, there's no reason to tolerate below average performance from a pitcher we have nothing invested in, and should have no organizational attachment to. If Wade Miller can't at least get movement on his pitches, or gain a few mph on his fastball, he should be let go with no hesitation. We are not a good enough team to be able to sacrifice 3 starts to see if he can give us anything, especially when we have a obviously viable alternative immediately available.

This has nothing to do with Prior. If you'll read what's being written, people are stating the obvious fact that if Wade Miller is going to throw 85-88 pmh with no movement, he shouldn't be on the roster. That's the point of depth-we shouldn't have to put up with crap in any role. So you put Guzman in the five spot, then call up an arm from AAA to fill the long reliever spot (fill in name of picked prospect here). Then Guzman struggles and/or his pitch counts go too high in order to win ballgames. Then we start hearing cries of overuse and ruining his career ala Dusty Baker. What do you do? Do you send him back to the minors? Do you promote the person you brought up as the long reliever? No continutiy or otherwise. That's not to say that he might not be great too. But I prefer him where he can pitch in more manageable roles and let him play his way into the starting lineup rather then letting Miller play his way out. If you do the latter we could very well end up with a rotating fifth spot for the rest of the year (thankfully it's better then a rotating rotation). I for one think you leave him where he is and let him show you that he's ready to be in the rotation. I guess I just see it differently. What? For one thing you're painting a fairly unrealistic scenario. Guzman having a high pitch count isn't going to have anything to do with the team's success. Second, you're assuming high pitch counts will have a correlation with Guzman not winning ballgames, which it won't. Finally, you're assuming high pitch counts will lead to cries of overuse. I'm assuming Lou isn't going to be Dustyesque when it comes to pitch counts. Your argument makes no sense. Miller isn't going to keep us in many ballgames pitching like he did yesterday. I could care less about continuity. I don't care about "playing his way into the rotation". I care about putting the team in a position to win. Guzman is a better pitcher than Miller. Velocity, movement, control-Guzman is better in every respect. I'd rather see the better pitcher in a starting role. He's not going to be able to show you much pitching in mop up duty. Mop up duty is for the pitcher who isn't any good, and that's Wade Miller.

This has nothing to do with Prior. If you'll read what's being written, people are stating the obvious fact that if Wade Miller is going to throw 85-88 pmh with no movement, he shouldn't be on the roster. That's the point of depth-we shouldn't have to put up with crap in any role.

Dave Veres had a reverse split, IIRC.

It shouldn't. If they trot him out for 3 more games and he's beaten around like a pinata again and we lose a couple of them, the two or three losses should mean more than a few hundred thousand dollars in sunken rehab costs.

Considering it adjusts for eras and the latest craze is to accuse anyone who played baseball between 1985 and now of steroid abuse, I'd say it does. :D Does it adjust for watching film available now of the opposing pitcher before a game? What?

This is an important distinction. Terrible doesn't exactly mean x runs allowed or y hits allowed, it's more of what his stuff is like and what type of contact he's generating. Well, yeah. Even if he'd had a quality start today, his stuff was terrible. He was getting hammered all over the place, and it wasn't like he was missing any bats. You can tell he's used to being able to get the high fastball past left handed hitters-except his fastball used to be like 10 mph faster than it is now. You can't sneak 86 mph pitches that stay stick straight past major league hitters. There's seriously no reason to tolerate that kind of performance, either starting every fifth day or being a mop up guy. That's supposedly why you create depth. We have nothing serious invested in Wade Miller, and he needs to be treated like a placeholder, and nothing more. We can replace a place holder with no hesitation.

There's no reason to waste 3 more games to see if the $1m investment in Wade Miller will pan out. I'd give him one more start. If he's terrible again, I'd stick him in the bullpen, and DFA him the instant Prior is back. I honestly could care less about Wade Miller. If he can't throw harder than 88 with no movement, he shouldn't be on the team in any capacity.

It's the one main decision i disagree with lou about so far. miller's throwing batting practice up there. Guzman hasn't exactly been lights out in the bullpen so far. Neither of them has a meaningful sample size this season. I'll take velocity and the ability to miss bats over Miller's non velocity and poor location every time.

Miller and his 85 mph fastball are awesome. I'm so glad the Cubs did the "right" thing by not putting him in long relief. /sarcasm.

Argentinian soccer players, but it applies to Ginobili. Batistuta :evil: :evil: :evil: :evil: Diego Simeone acted like a sniper put a bullet in his back when Beckham nudged him in 1998. But no one dives like an Italian soccer player.

I agree with what you are saying, but experience tells me that otherwise intelligent business people often cut off their noses to spit ethier faces, and purely for personal reasons. He who sets out for revenge should first dig two graves. Well, yeah, that's the other side of this. I'm assuming Reinsdorf would think rationally about the situation. The other thing is that being a baseball owner is a little different that being a basketball owner. It's not like Cuban can be in the dugout like he's on the bench for Mavs games. Reinsdorf would be wise to keep these things in mind, because at the end of the day, Mark Cuban has been good for the NBA. All that being said, I'd rather the Wolves owner buy the Cubs.

I have a hard time believing that Reinsdorf would try and block Cuban from buying a crosstown rival. From a purely business standpoint, Cuban owning the Cubs would be a great thing for MLB as a whole. Reinsdorf would benefit from that. From a marketing standpoint, it could easily set up a situation that creates a very real crosstown rivalry that both teams could exploit for profit. Cuban's Cubs vs Jerry's Sox. When push comes to shove, if Cuban has the money (which he does), I can't see Reinsdorf blocking him just because he doesn't like him.

Don Levin. What he's done with the Wolves is amazing. He's be an owner that would really care about the product without having to worry about an investment group.

Then people would have been complaining that Piniella is wearing down our starting pitiching. i don't give two craps if he wears down marquis. Not to mention he had only thrown about 80 pitches to that point.

As others have mentioned, this game was very poorly managed from a pitching staff perspective. Marquis should have started the 7th, Wuertz should have started the 8th.

C'mon Ronny....

if he does, i will wage a war on the folks who complain that he doesn't hustle. a war that will never end. I'm pretty sure I'll be right there with you.

Aramis is doing a lot of hard running in cold weather. Anyone else worried about the hamstrings?

What?

It depends how much you love what you're doing. I love my job, so I'm at work early and stay late. The 72 hours stuff is probably a non-issue, but if you're being watched and judged wouldn't you want to make an impression? There could be several factors involved here that we're not aware of through the article. Witht hat being said, I'm not going to get all over him, especially if he was offered the transition time. After all, these guys are people that have lives away from baseball. Not acceptable. You've got to be kidding me.