VanceJergins

He had a good start against Detroit between his horrible starts. But it does seem like he's coming back down.

Am I missing something obvious here where the answer could somehow be something other than "of course"? Yeah, I guess you are. If getting Sabathia means clearing out all of our valuable prospects, I am not sure he is worth it. I am not saying no, I just think it is an interesting question. Yes, but you hinged it on whether or not Sabathia is "that much better" than Burnett, and I would respond, even without anyone even knowing exactly what "that much better" actually is, yes, Sabathia is easily that much better than Burnett, and then some. What is the appeal of Burnett at this point? His numbers have generally been medicore to awful for a while now, and he's got a serious injury history. His only appeal would be in bumping Marquis, but looking at Burnett's numbers, is that even all that appealing? I'd argue anyone of value used to get Burnett is much more of a waste than the boatload it would take to land Sabathia. The last 3 years he's had an ERA+ of 115, 115, and 119. Each of those years he's had an ERA under 4, with 2 of those season in the AL East. I think he's very likely to have a good second half, the only thing that really worries me is his injuries. I think it would be stupid not to get him considering it will barely cost anything, player wise. I don't see who else we can get, unless the Braves or Astros are looking to deal Hudson or Oswalt. I still think we really need to snatch up Milton Bradley.

Is the game going to be blacked out on TBS since its on CSN? I would NOT be ok with that.

I was eating some top notch taco bell when the game ended and it caused a perfectly good burrito to go to waste. What a shame.

Sure, that's easy, I know that stat without even looking it up: irrelevant. So there's no correlation between wildness and giving up runs?

Yeah, that seems like crap.

I was thinking "why did it have to be Ankiel that beat us?" But then I realized that Pujols and Glaus are the only ones that wouldn't make me think "wtf, how did that happen."

That'll learn him. Still hitless, but at least my threat got through. I can't wait for the week where he rebounds. If Ramirez doesn't rebound this week I'm going to fly to wherever he is and call him stupid. I believe that should take care of it.

That'll learn him. Still hitless, but at least my threat got through.

If Ramirez gets a weak out on the first pitch again, I'm going to fly to St. Louis and call him stupid.

With a .470 OBP, there aren't a lot to see.

There's several issues with Burnett. 1) He hasn't been any better than Jason Marquis this season. Could he suddenly get better moving to the NL? Probably. How much better? Unknown. He's got great career numbers, but he hasn't shown any consistency this year. In his last 7 starts, he's given up 2 runs or less in 4 of them, but in the other 3 he's given up 8 runs a start. 2) He has an opt out clause after the season. So if he's good, the Cubs lose him. If he stinks, the Cubs have to keep him for 2 more years at 12 million per year. 3)He does still have that long injury history, so even if he is good, he could get hurt the day after the trade. Of course the main positive is that he has proved that at times, he has been a very dominant pitcher. Is that worth all the issues? Maybe. I certainly wouldn't trade Hill to go get him though. I'd rather take the risk on Hill suddenly finding it than gamble on Burnett suddenly finding it, especially since Burnett's gamble if gone wrong also puts a significant dent on the payroll and requires us to also lose our only backup SS. Burnett only looks like he's been as bad as Marquis because Marquis has a great defense backing him up. They have similar HR rates, and Burnett smokes him at K/BB. I don't judge a pitcher solely on DIPs/FIP but when you have a glaring difference like there is for Burnett compared to Marquis I take notice. Burnett's never been this bad before and he's only 31. There's no reason to believe he won't be at worst league average the rest of the way and his peripherals point to him being much better than that. Best of all he's cheap. Cedeno + junk should get him. Yeah, looking at their careers, Burnett's numbers are much more likely to improve, while Marquis will probably stay the same or get worse. Although, Burnett is much more likely to get hurt.

I was just thinking that. Holy crap, he's owned Lohse. 5-5, 2 doubles and a HR.

Considering nobody wants Burnett, we shouldn't have to give up that much. I would guess something like Cedeno and a throw-in would be enough if we took most of his salary.

Guys like Hoffpauir and McGahee are nothing more than throw-ins. Pie still has value but it's dropped this year. However, I think a package of something like Vitters, Pie, and Gallagher is quite a package.

What a terrrible article. Maybe he ate the original one and had to come up with something last minute.

If the score holds, there will not an above-.500 team in the West after today's games. That is pathetic. They are all already under .500

Why'd you have to ruin it? This could have been an extremely entertaining thread.

Are you going to keep pretending that you're not being ridiculous?

To be fair, nobody could have predicted such a miraculous win.

DO YOU BELIEVE IN MIRACLES!??!?

i don't think the problem is physical. he doesn't seem to have a very good mental makeup. How do you figure that? because he went from striking out 2 guys in 6 pitches to totally imploding. Its not like he went Rich Hill out there. He walked a guy and started getting hit. I don't know how you can blame that on a poor mental makeup. I'd blame it on his stuff not being as sharp.

i don't think the problem is physical. he doesn't seem to have a very good mental makeup. How do you figure that?

Like an hour ago it looked certain that we were going to gain a game on the cardinals and brewers.

Maybe they should just shut him down for a couple weeks or something.