fromthestretch

Farnsworth has allowed 11 home runs in 44.1 innings this season. Yikes.

How much of a downgrade is it to go to Inge everyday though? Offensively, the only downgrade is really in batting average. Inge walks more and probably hits for a little more power than Pudge does at this stage of his career.

That's who MLBTradeRumors is reporting.

I'd be more inclined to agree here had he made the gesture to the pitcher or the opposing team. Since it's his own team's broadcaster, let the team deal with it. The team could give him a fine and be done with it.

Honestly, listening to a Reds radio broadcast is nearly as painful as a White Sox television broadcast these days. Brantley and Brenneman (Sr. or Jr., doesn't really matter) are just terrible.

I havnt heard that the D-Backs were offering Tracy, just that the Braves were demanding Tracy or Connor Jackson for Teixara. From what I've read, it seems the Braves are demanding Jackson, but the D'Backs are opposed to dealing him. They seem to be comfortable dealing Tracy though.

He eventually will probably become a 40/40 guy. He's a stud and there is no chance anyone has the sources to trade for him. Right now, he's on pace for 37/37, so it's not much of a reach to think he could get 40/40 this year.

??? Cubs team OBP: .355 Marlins team OBP: .319

I wonder if that's because he's not behind hitters or is hitting his spots better....could be both I suppose. Well, when he's not trying to throw everything by the hitter, he has some really good sink on his fastball.

One other thing that Z has improved this year is his home run rate. He's getting back to the 2002-2004 Zambrano that did a good job keeping the ball in the yard. Not that he was giving up a ton of homers the past few years, but he's definitely improved in that area this season.

It's not that they can't afford to pay him now. It's that they're trying to delay getting to the time when they won't be able to afford him. They probably feel that they're in a good position to do that since they are remaining in contention without him. A lot of people seem to feel the Twins would probably be best suited to dump Livan on someone in need of a starter and call up Liriano, which might not be a bad idea. However, Glen Perkins is coming off a season where he threw 48 innings total. He's already thrown 90.3 innings this year, so they might want to give him a bit of a break in the second half. Maybe they could move him to the pen to limit his innings and give Liriano some starts down the stretch. Or perhaps they want to limit Liriano's innings, too. He hardly pitched last year and is coming off arm surgery. They might not want to over-extend him this year and just keep him fresh for 2009.

I remember him saying something to that effect. IIRC, he alluded to the fact that it was something Maddux had talked to him about.

Pitches per plate appearance for Big Z 2002: 3.96 2003: 3.76 2004: 3.91 2005: 3.90 2006: 3.95 2007: 3.98 2008: 3.73

Not any chance that he would pitch better than Marquis this year. and this is based on? It's most likely the fact that Marquis has been about a league-average pitcher this season. While it's possible Samardzija could pitch better than that, it's not something I would bet on at this stage in his career. For all the grief that Marquis gets from people, he's been a solid #5 starter. His WHIP for the season might not be all that impressive, but he's managed to limit the damage by keeping the ball in the ballpark. Since May 18 11 starts, 5-3 record, 3.95 ERA, 1.23 WHIP, 6 IP/start He may have started slowly, but he certainly hasn't been hurting this team over the past couple months.

Part of the reason for including Marquis in the deal is salary. He's owned 7 million next season still, and what...3.5 million still this season? Ted Lilly would be a much more logical choice for a salary-balancer. He's got 2/$24M left after this season, so the margin between that and what Halladay's owed is only around $6M total. Not sure if Lilly left Toronto on good terms or not. Anyway, start with Lilly and Cedeno for Halladay and Eckstein, and then start piling on the young guys. I don't think Toronto will want Lilly after he got into a screaming match with the manager... Wasn't it more than a screaming match? If I remember correctly, one of them came out of it a little banged up.

I disagree with everything this post stands for. When a player are slumping like the 3-6 hitters in the lineup. Forcing the player to swing and try to hit the ball to the opposite field often helps. Most slumps are the result of a player pressing. Putting players in motion help two fold. It takes away the thinking aspect of the at bat. Second it force the defense to be moving around and can create more holes for the hitter. The Cubs have had the leadoff hitter on quite a bit lately and they seem to die on first. Lee,Aram, and Soto are in really bad slumps. I feel the best approach to getting out the slump is by forcing the action. You can see how well it is going for the cubs to hit a three run homer. Forcing a player to swing can also force him to swing at a pitch he has no business swinging at. It can cause the runner to be thrown out on a steal attempt if the hitter misses the pitch. And again, Lee is not in a bad slump (unless you're just looking at a two-game sample). He's just not hitting for much power lately. He's still hitting for average and getting on base.

Or it could just be that someone busted out of a slump at the right time or managed to get a hit in a key situation. "Gelling" has little, if anything, to do with it. My senior year, our team had no chemistry issues. We went 21-10 that season and lost in the sectionals. It had nothing to do with chemistry. Having good team chemistry certainly doesn't hurt, but I highly doubt it has much of an effect on winning and losing, especially at the higher levels. I guess you'll just never understand but I have been on teams that everyone liked each other but people still played how they saw fit and wouldn't make the slight adjustments to better pair with teammates games. I had that each of my first three years playing soccer in high school. My senior year we started out horrible but one day we held a team meeting with no coaches talked about somethings and then went on a 10 game win streak making it to semi-state. After the team meeting everything just clicked and we were all playing one step ahead of he opponent because we knew what each other were going to do. The Colorado Rockies last year had this happen. They sucked and then all of a sudden it clicked and they were always one step ahead of their opponents. Although in baseball because it is very much an individual sport this probably doesn't happen except in very very rare cases like the Rockies last year. I've been on teams with some players that didn't get along, yet the team won. I've been on teams where everyone got along great, but the team didn't succeed. Chemistry doesn't necessarily make people hit better or pitch better, just like a lack of it doesn't necessarily make people go into slumps. I don't think a lack of team chemistry is causing Ramirez and Soto to slump, and when they eventually break out of it, it's not going to be a result of better team chemistry. As you mentioned, baseball is a bit different than other team sports. Just because everything "clicked" for the Rockies, doesn't mean they had improved chemistry. Maybe their hits were coming at more opportune moments, an injured player got healthy, or a few more hops went their way.

This is actually a nice problem to have. We know how well Fontenot has hit right-handers, but DeRosa's been solid against right-handers for the past two seasons.

Those might be three of the least frequent walkers on the roster right now. Edmonds and Fontenot are taking bases on balls, as is DeRosa. For July: Soto: 69 PA, 3 BB Lee: 76 PA, 6 BB DeRosa: 68 PA, 8 BB Ramirez: 66 PA, 6 BB Theriot: 76 PA, 6 BB Edmonds: 55 PA, 9 BB Fukudome: 65 PA, 4 BB Fontenot: 51 PA, 9 BB Edmonds and Fontenot have been the best at drawing walks this month. Soto and Fukudome haven't been walking much at all.

Or it could just be that someone busted out of a slump at the right time or managed to get a hit in a key situation. "Gelling" has little, if anything, to do with it. My senior year, our team had no chemistry issues. We went 21-10 that season and lost in the sectionals. It had nothing to do with chemistry. Having good team chemistry certainly doesn't hurt, but I highly doubt it has much of an effect on winning and losing, especially at the higher levels.

No one even came close to saying that. And again, that can easily be addressed without taking BP away. I doubt taking BP away is going to make the situation any worse. I just don't see how it's really going to help.

I don't think it's an issue with players "using everything up in BP." These are professional hitters. They aren't going to go out there and completely exhaust themselves on some BP swings. If that were an issue, I'm sure it would have been addressed long ago. And considering the number of games these guys have played and the number of rounds of BP they've taken in their lives, I find it very hard to believe that they are having trouble adjusting between BP pitching and game pitching.

If a player appears tired, rotate in some bench players for a spot start here and there (not all at once, but you get the idea). Eliminating batting practice for the purposes of rest doesn't seem like it would help all that much. These guys don't take BP 162 times a year. I don't think it's about rest, it's about mixing things up. It's not a serious effort to fix things, but there's not much you can seriously do to fix a slump. Players generally don't just work and practice their way out of slumps. I understand that and agree with what you're saying. I just think it's an odd decision. Soriano is only a couple days away, so if you want to mix things up a bit, why not just wait until he's back? That gives you a good opportunity to move a few people around a bit. If you truly think BP is having a negative impact on a player or two, maybe have those players skip it for a day or two. However, I'm not sure having the entire team not take BP is going to really help anything. I'm not sure it will hurt anything either, but if you're looking for a fix, this seems like an odd choice.

If a player appears tired, rotate in some bench players for a spot start here and there (not all at once, but you get the idea). Eliminating batting practice for the purposes of rest doesn't seem like it would help all that much.

You need to do better at something so I'm not letting you practice it anymore. Maybe he is seeing a pattern of just "putting on a show" in BP instead of actually working on their games? Perhaps he is "taking away their fun" until they show they have come out of this slump in actualy game action? It almost like Lou saying: " No X-BOX or PS3 kids until your homework is done". Maybe he doesn't know what to do so he's trying something random. Not a real comforting thought, but that's what occurs to me. Yeah, taking away batting practice when the offense is slumping doesn't exactly sound like the greatest idea. If you don't like the approach your players have during batting practice, address the issue. Don't just take it away. To me, that's like saying, "Zambrano didn't throw strikes today, so I'm not going to let him warm up before his next start." Actually, I don't think it's anything like that. Not allowing a pitcher to warm-up is inviting injury. Not having batting practice is no big deal. Perhaps I was stretching a bit on that one. However, I don't think taking away batting practice for couple games is a smart answer. It seems like a knee-jerk reaction. I'm not saying they need to take more BP, but if you're struggling with the bat, working on your hitting isn't exactly a bad thing to do.