Clem Fandango

Wow. Castro is [expletive] great this year

It's a redneck event that takes place at a bar called The Florabama (it's on the Florida/Alabama border) there people show up in the thousands, get drunk on the beach, and throw mullets around for a competition and get hammered. I've been once since I've been here because people wouldn't shut the [expletive] up about it, and that was one time too many. It's thousands of people at one location and nearly all of them are either drunk rednecks or good ol' southern folk who believe in a good time and following Widespread Panic around the country. Rocker fits right in next to the [expletive].

Whew

I have a friend whose first name is Brennan. She's a lovely girl.

How the hell did he hit that out?!?!

How was that not a strike?!?!

Either Votto lost weight or he's wearing tighter clothes because he looks awfully svelte this season

RUSSELLLL http://i.imgur.com/c4qRfQo.gif

Well how bout that (sort of)

I want a Bryant single. Asking for home runs doesn't seem to be working.

If somebody could tell me it's too early to be alarmed by Russell striking out in 11/19 AB's, that would be swell. It's too early to be alarmed by Russell striking out in 11/19 AB's

One pitch, one out. Keep it up!

WOOT!

Ugh. Mullet toss. The worst.

I love Carlos Gomez and would welcome him with open arms

eh. He's a bit older and was pretty bad last year and has been looking pretty crappy this year. Balfour does appear to be toast, unfortunately. His velocity in 2013, his last good season, was sitting around 93.3. It was 91.6 last year. It's 89.7 this year so far.

If the Cubs signed Soriano 5 minutes from now, Wada or Grimm will do that before he will.

60%

Soriano is not an amazing reliever anymore, and I hope those of you saying we should get him know that he will cost a lot to be very average. He was worth 0.7 fWAR last year. He was of equal value with guys like Zach Putnam, Casey Fein, Fernando Salas, and Ryan Webb, to name a few. He is not in great company like he was several years ago. Not to mention his 2nd half ERA to close out the year last year was 6.48. He was not reliable. But he's probably going to ask to be paid like he is. Soriano is a bad investment at what he's likely going to ask for, and with Boras as his agent I can't see him settling for what he's actually worth (~$4-$5 million at best). An upgrade over Schlitter? Probably, but so is my dead grandfather (Schlitter is the worst). But he's simply just another middle reliever now. He is no longer special, so don't expect him to be some sort of savior of the bullpen if he were to get hired.

Some of those starts not going deep have totally been a result of Maddon pulling guys early, keeping pitch counts low. Perhaps he's saving their arms for the long haul, but I don't think letting them reach 100 pitches will kill them in the end. He pulled Hendricks at 90 pitches today. He gave up a runner or two but he has to gain the resiliency to get out of jams like that if he's going to succeed, and I would've been much more comfortable giving him the opportunity to get out of the jam as opposed to bringing in Jaxon or Schlitter or Coke to bail him out. And his last start he had gone 6 while giving up 2 earned runs and he got pulled after 81 pitches. He could've potentially reached the 8th inning before reaching 100 pitches. I think it's time to take the kid gloves off of Hendricks. He threw 147 innings in 2012. 166 in 2013, and 180 in 2014. He's on an appropriate schedule to reach 200 innings this year. He doesn't need to be babied. Sorry, went on a mini rant there.

Yeah, he drilled Lawrie, but Lawrie did make a hard slide on Escobar that injured his knee and put him out for a few days. It was an arguably justified retaliation.

Same. Shoulder injuries never seem to end well. They always seem to lead to surgery or vastly diminished stuff for those who avoid it. Obviously hoping for the best, but any sort of shoulder injury never leaves me thinking things are going to come up roses in the end. That said, spending millions of dollars on Soriano because of a handful of games is a bit of a knee jerk reaction. He hasn't exactly been a shut down reliever himself for a couple years now. ERA's the past two seasons have been 3.11 and 3.19 with FIP's of 3.65 and 3.08. That's fine and well for a middle reliever, and certainly represents an upgrade over Schlitter and the like, but he's gonna ask for closer money, he's 35, and his velocity has gone down each year since 2009. It was 91.2 last year. If he continues the trend, I'd prefer to spend several million dollars on a guy who can consistently hit higher than that. He also barely threw his two seamer and cutter last season . He was primarily a 4 seamer and slider pitcher. According to Pitch f/x, when he was with the Rays and Yankees his cutter usage was up in the upper 40% and 50%. It was 5% last season. I doubt that was organizational philosophy (his last year with the Yankees, cutter usage was down to 11.4%, which carried over to his Nationals stint in 2013 [11.9%]). Pitch f/x says his cutter is still decent, but his slider has negative value (and has for the past 3 seasons), yet he's throwing his cutter less and his slider more. His cutter averaged 89.5 last season, perhaps the loss in velocity has led to a lack of faith in his cutter. Either way, he's basically a two pitch pitcher now, and only one of them is of any value (4 seamer). Yes, Soriano represents an upgrade over guys like Schlitter, but they are there because of some injuries to Grimm and Wada and Ramirez. While I'm not as optimistic about Ramirez, Grimm and Wada should have better odds for decent results (knock on wood), and Wada should be back very soon which will almost certainly remove Schlitter from the roster and get rid of one headache. We shouldn't throw in the towel and go to drastic measures like signing a 35 year old guy who is going to need to report to extended spring training for at least a week or so before getting back into game action for $10 mil if that's indeed what he's demanding. Let's see what Wada can do when he gets brought back, and wait for the returns on Grimm and/or Ramirez before looking for bullpen help. Perhaps by then Vogelbach has boosted his value up and he can be packaged with other expendables for a reliever if need be

As long as they need to. He could be Babe Ruth, he's still got no place on the major league roster. No need to rush him. Let him crush AA and build up his trade value. We're gonna need it.

I'm fortunate that most of my friends I talk baseball with are open minded and if they are not keen to a lot of sabermetric analysis, they're curious to listen to me about some of the basics so they get a better understanding of baseball. And there are some of them who know enough that we can have enjoyable conversations about baseball every time. It's my brother I have to worry about. I've had to talk him down off the "Trade Starlin Castro" ledge several times now. Also had to convince him that Lester doesn't suck after his first start. And when I told him Soler was running into some bad luck despite hitting the ball hard, he said "Nobody cares about your moneyball [expletive], Logan".

They've used him 3 out of 4 games too! Too bad we can't do things like that because that would be bad or something.