MPrior

Ronny over Theriot is not a marginal difference. Well, to be fair, it might be. I don't think it will be, but it might. Cedeno, it's true, has not had extended success against ML pitching. I hasten to point out that I'm not suggesting that he's no good, or that he shouldn't be played because of that, I'm merely saying that we only want him to start because of the probability that he will be a better player. So if he were the starter, it's possible that he would only be a marginal upgrade. However, I still want him to start, and I believe that he'd be a significant upgrade, especially when you consider his defense on top of his offensive superiority.

If I were a manager, I'm pretty sure I would command my team to never, ever, under any circumstances attempt to steal third base. The risk:reward ratio is even higher than it usually is.

I have a few questions for those who were able to watch the game - Do you guys agree with Lou's decision to take Hill out when he did? I mean, yeah, he'd just given up a solo homer and walked Todd Helton, and even from the box score it was obvious Rich didn't have his best stuff (all the walks and whatnot), but he'd only thrown 84 pitches and it was only the 6th inning - and I've got to think that Rich was at least pitching well enough (he'd only given up 3 hits, after all) to stay in the game instead of Wuertz. Secondly, how was Wood? Were the hits off of him legit? I'm especially interested in the triple. Did it get misplayed or something that allowed that to happen? Judging from how filthy everyone says he was, it seems surprising that Podsednik and Spilborghs would do that to him all of a sudden.

While I am a Cedeno supporter, and I think he's the better bet to be an adequate SS that Theriot, I can see what Truffle is saying. Theriot was given the starting job at the beginning of the season, and proceeded to hit the cover off the ball - he's doing very, very well. Permanently benching him now, purely from a player-manager relationship perspective, may be a bad idea. It does two things - it bewilders and angers Theriot, who hasn't actually done anything to lose his job, but more importantly, it calls into question the trust between the manager and his players. And I know that, to some, that may be a complete non-issue, but I'm sure Lou doesn't feel that way. As a matter of protocol, if a manager wants to be respected by his players and avoid unrest in the clubhouse, he shouldn't just bench a guy when he's hitting as well as Theriot is. That said, I agree with Brinoch - try to get them both in there as often as possible while Soriano's injured. Afterwards, gradually phase Ronny in and Ryan out. Outright replacing Theriot now would probably be a mistake.

I'm pretty much in agreement with this. That Soriano signing was beyond stupid, and while I like the guy, anything that gets us out of his contract is wonderful.

Wouldn't that be the answer to what do Jim Edmonds and Paris Hilton have in common? Oh come on now. Edmonds obviously needs it more than once every five days.

Forgive my ignorance, but does he even make that much? Isn't that around the major league minimum? If he's not on the major league team, does he still make that? I believe being on the 40-man major league roster makes him eligible for the major league minimum. Gotcha. Thanks.

Forgive my ignorance, but does he even make that much? Isn't that around the major league minimum? If he's not on the major league team, does he still make that?

Badnews, I'm sure there is a case to be made here, but you're sure not making it very well. You are, as Tim already pointed out, attempting at every turn to demean those who disagree with you, even on issues that are ENTIRELY matters of opinion, such as this one: Not only is your post dripping with condescension and hyperbole, you're basically telling someone that the fact that they enjoy something that you don't enjoy is stupid and inferior. What does that contribute to any discussion of the value of the DH? And, as a side note, in the situation above, I'd be willing to bet that the manager either stays with the pitcher or eventually goes to reliever a whopping 100% of the time. You also are putting words into people's mouths, dramatically overstating their arguments (which in some cases they never made at all), and ripping them for it: and and and You're pretty much stretching others' arguments to the point where they're unrecognizable, and then blasting them for it, in addition to your condescension. You're not helping yourself out here - you've yet to provide anything particularly convincing. Also, there's this: Very few of the cogent arguments against the DH in this thread have had anything to do with this. It's essentially a strawman argument. Oh, the irony. So you're getting on people because their metaphor isn't perfect. Few metaphors are. And again, it's entirely irrelevant to the point of the discussion. So for all of your blustering, I've yet to glean anything from your posts other than arrogance, condescension, childish insults, hypocrisy, strawman arguments, and hyperbole, all of which are apparently there because you're having trouble expressing your opinion (which, as far as I can tell, may actually have some merit) in a coherent way. I don't even necessarily disagree with you all that strongly, but it really bothers me when people on this board are such jerks. There's absolutely no good reason to be that way. As far as my feeling on the DH, I agree with Soccer10k. What's most important is that both leagues play by the same rules - and I would prefer that those rules be NL rules (i.e., no DH), but either way is probably fine, as long as they're the same.

Sarcasm? It doesn't seem like it - and if I'm right, and it's not, then who said anything about a problem at leadoff? I'd feel pretty conflicted about Bonds on the Cubs, but his monster bat would sure go a long way to assuaging my concerns.

The Reds give Zambrano fits. Not surprising with patient lefties and whatnot. I hope good Zambrano is here tomorrow, because he's likely to get shellacked otherwise.

Call up Murton!

Holy crap DLee OWNS. That's a hell of a line, and a fair number of PAs too.

They have boobs at Hooters?! Not to mention bad food and a 15% chance you'll taste aqua-net in the air. I've been to a handful of Hooters in my life, and most recently I found the ladies to be the most attractive and physicall fit I'd seen, and the food to be the worst. My mamories were always "good wings, girls that don't belong in those outfits", but this time was opposite. Freudian slip?

But getting Greene would remove Theriot from the lineup entirely, which is a much bigger deal. Greene is also younger, plays a position of greater scarcity (and plays it very well), and likely - I stress likely - wouldn't cost as much as Roberts to acquire. At the very worst, he wouldn't cost much more.

Even though I support Obama, I'd still vote for Clinton if she were the nominee.

This is an excellent post, even though your first two points are exactly the same. I think the real question here is, and I know this is difficult to evaluate without bias, but if the DH were on our side and not the other, would we prefer it? Would we support its adoption in the AL? The only people to whom I could address this fairly are Sox fans, and I don't really want to talk to them, and even if I did, I wouldn't want to hear what they have to say about baseball. My first two points may seem similar, but they are actually two separate ideas. The first is that the pool of players from which AL teams are constructed is simply larger - there are players like David Ortiz, Travis Hafner, Jim Thome, etc. who, if available, probably wouldn't be signed by an NL team because of their inability to play reasonable defense (and/or health/durability concerns). The second has to do with flexibility - let's say, for whatever reason, that Mark Teixiera becomes available through trade. Obviously, he's a tempting player, but any NL team with an entrenched 1B probably wouldn't trade for him, while every single AL team who didn't have an entrenched 1B AND and an entrenched DH would probably be interested. So there are two different concepts: one, the overall pool of possible players for AL teams is bigger and better, and two, that AL teams will be better able to accommodate quality new players, regardless of their defensive abilities. With respect to your hypothetical, I'd like to think that I'd still favor getting rid of the DH, but I'm not sure how I'd feel if, say, David Ortiz was on our team as the DH. I'm fairly certain that at the very least, I'd be totally amenable to instituting it in the opposite league, purely in the interest of fairness and parity.

I'm not necessarily a traditionalist, but something about each player playing offense and defense is appealingly simple, so I wish they'd get rid of the DH. The players would never allow it, though. The bigger issue at hand, though, is that one league has it while the other doesn't, and it really does constitute an advantage, and I believe it's a large part of the reason that the AL is so much better than the NL. For one, an AL GM has a greater pool of players from which he could reasonably build his team, because of the many hitters who are good enough to hit, but not really to play the field - additionally, these "extra" hitters are often very good ones. How many times do we say of a player "he belongs in the AL as a DH"? If that's true even half the time, it follows that the players in the AL will be better on average. Secondly, AL GMs have more roster flexibility, because they don't have to worry as much about redundant players. The Cubs, for example, would never go out and pick up an available first baseman, because we have Derrek Lee, who plays nearly every day and is awesome. However, an AL team with a fantastic 1B might still go and acquire a good 1B and just play him at DH. Lastly, many pitchers MAY prefer the AL because they don't have to bat, run bases, etc. I don't know if that's actually true or not, but it's reasonable to think that it might be the case (obviously, Zambrano would be an exception to this rule). I'm sure there are more things I can think of, but the point is, the DH contributes to league imbalance, and makes the game a little less fun for that reason. So if we're not going to get rid of it, we might as well institute it in the NL.

Zambrano walking no one in 7 innings, throwing 106 pitches, 72 for strikes, is a very good thing. Let's hope he keeps it up.

12 outs on just 22 strikes. That's pretty sad.

Yeah? Well David Eckstein doesn't even hit homers, because he knows there's no way to get your uniform dirty on a homer. Waste of an AB.

Only if it's white chocolate White chocolate hustles more.

Petition to officially make "Ankiel" a verb. All in favor?

Well, he's no Antonio Alfonseca - not yet - but you're missing the point - he now has mystical closer experience that he didn't have before. He's now unstoppable, and his rise to the ranks of 45 save ultra closers like Alfonseca, Jose Mesa, Joe Borowski, and Bob Wickman is all but inevitable.

Today, something magical happened. Kerry Wood got his first honest-to-goodness save. And to those of us who were watching with our eyes, and not doing silly math stuff with our pocket calculators, clearly witnessed the flipping of a great cosmic switch - Wood, with this three-run save, went from sham closer to experienced veteran game-ender. You see, he now has a save. I think we can safely conclude that he will become the greatest closer in baseball history. Those who disagree have obviously never seen a baseball game. I mean, sure, he allowed a baserunner, but it was Craig Counsell. And he's batting 1.000. So no big deal.