Transmogrified Tiger

Did he even get to the mound? My thought was he made some sort of comment(maybe sarcastic) about the sun to the bullpen.

This is his first start since being hurt.

Perry is a good hitting coach who preaches the right things. However, we have pretty much wholesale underachievement from the offense, a staggering number of people performing below projections. If there was a situation where the hitting coach could be blamed, this might be it. Joshua's promotion is very well deserved. And if any coaching change could make a tangible impact on how the hitters are going to perform, I think this would be it. However, I think there's a lost opportunity to have Joshua be involved with the more formative development for players in our system, and that's something that's crucial in a system with so little history of coaching up hitters well. All in all, I can't fault the team for doing this, but if the hitting continues to underachieve then I think it will have been a mistake. Because odds are now Joshua won't go back to being a minor league hitting coach, and his talents will be wasted on those who either don't need his instruction, won't listen to it from being in the majors too long, or are beyond his help from being in baseball too long.

What day does that one fall on? I have tickets to pretty much every game next week. Wednesday. And it's buck night too.

I'm pretty sure I'll be there next week for Greinke v. Scherzer. I'm very excited.

I've been trying to tell you that Reesing sucks for a couple years now.

Someone on SBI commented that this could give us leeway to push Edu to center back and Bocanegra out wide defensively? Any thoughts?

Picks I really liked: Raley, Kirk, Springfield, Whitenack Picks I thought were good: Rusin, Taylor, Erickson, Bour, Sheppard Picks I didn't really like: Jackson, LeMahieu, Darvill

I'm not much of a draftnik, but here goes. Miller seems to be a great pick from all I've read. However, it is a bit scary to have to invest 4 million dollars into a guy when his fastball is the only real pitch of note right now. Stock as a hitter doesn't seem like it will work out, I have a hard time seeing someone who can't hit higher than .226 in college being a good professional hitter. As a pitcher he definitely could be something. I wonder if Stock will rub against the Cardinals brass in that aspect. If Kelly ends up as Ryan Madson then he's definitely worth the pick, and his stuff won't be the shortcoming. A lot of hits from college competition with that stuff though. Jackson and Bittle are decent value guys. Maybe one of them regains their form(did Jackson have an injury?) and you look real smart for popping them as late as they did. Also, Raisin doesn't like Jackson.

BA has him as the 5th best prospect in Pennsylvania. 6' 177 lbs, 11/4/1986 BA's top 10 Coastal Plain League from last summer: 3. Steve Grife, rhp, Florence (Jr., Mercyhurst College, Pa.) Player ERA W-L APP GS CG SHO/CBO SV IP H R ER BB SO 2B 3B HR AB B/Avg WP HBP BK SFA SHA 14 Steve Grife...... 2.50 6-5 11 11 7 2/0 0 68.1 58 24 19 19 78 11 2 3 249 .233 2 2 1 2 9

BA rates him as the 11th best prospect in Missouri. His scouting report going into last year was much better: 88 IP, 5.11 ERA, 98 H, 70 R, 50 ER, 8 HR, 74/36 K/BB, .284 BAA

BA has him as the 32nd best prospect in North Carolina. Player ERA W-L APP GS CG SHO/CBO SV IP H R ER BB SO 2B 3B HR AB B/Avg WP HBP BK SFA SHA 16 Corey Martin..... 5.56 7-4 16 13 0 0/0 0 68.0 75 50 42 29 55 9 0 4 265 .283 6 16 4 1 9

Player AVG GP-GS AB R H 2B 3B HR RBI TB SLG% BB HBP SO GDP OB% SF SH SB-ATT PO A E FLD% 7 Petraitis, Jordan .364 54-54 217 57 79 14 3 8 54 123 .567 33 12 40 3 .463 6 0 8-13 50 144 16 .924

Justin Bour - 1B - George Mason Player AVG GP-GS AB R H 2B 3B HR RBI TB SLG% BB HBP SO GDP OB% SF SH SB-ATT PO A E FLD% Bour, Justin........ .339 55-55 221 48 75 14 0 17 66 140 .633 24 9 33 6 .420 3 0 0-0 435 21 7 .985

The Cubs took a pitcher from the De La Salle Institute in Chicago, Escovel(?) was his last name.

We sure do like our California college outfielders with pro bodies and K rates pushing 30%. Jeff Pruitt - Cal State Northridge Player AVG GP-GS AB R H 2B 3B HR RBI TB SLG% BB HBP SO GDP OB% SF SH SB-ATT PO A E FLD% 20 Pruitt, Jeff..... .212 54-53 179 30 38 2 4 0 9 48 .268 26 6 53 3 .332 0 4 24-28 140 0 4 .972

DJ Fitzgerald - 2B - Dyersburg State Community College

Greg Rohan - 1B - Kent State 238 AB, .349/.436/.609, 15 2B, 15 HR, 29/32 BB/K

Eric Erickson - Miami 2008 Player ERA W-L APP GS CG SHO/CBO SV IP H R ER BB SO 2B 3B HR AB B/Avg WP HBP BK SFA SHA 17 Eric Erickson.... 4.15 9-1 14 13 0 0/1 0 78.0 84 43 36 18 68 19 1 9 306 .275 1 4 1 1 7

Let's see some numbers up in here. Brett Jackson - Cal Player AVG GP-GS AB R H 2B 3B HR RBI TB SLG% BB HBP SO GDP OB% SF SH SB-ATT PO A E FLD% Jackson, Brett...... .321 53-53 218 42 70 17 6 8 41 123 .564 29 4 61 1 .407 2 0 11-16 142 5 3 .980 DJ LeMahieu - LSU Player AVG GP-GS AB R H 2B 3B HR RBI TB SLG% BB HBP SO GDP OB% SF SH SB-ATT PO A E FLD% 17 DJ LeMahieu...... .340 66-66 247 48 84 12 3 4 39 114 .462 27 5 38 2 .408 5 2 10-13 90 148 9 .964 Chris Rusin - Kentucky Player ERA W-L APP GS CG SHO/CBO SV IP H R ER BB SO 2B 3B HR AB B/Avg WP HBP BK SFA SHA 10 Chris Rusin...... 4.20 7-4 13 13 4 0/1 0 94.1 95 50 44 27 108 9 0 5 368 .258 5 7 2 1 7 Brooks Raley - Texas A&M Player ERA W-L APP GS CG SHO/CBO SV IP H R ER BB SO 2B 3B HR AB B/Avg WP HBP BK SFA SHA 30 Raley, Brooks.... 3.76 7-3 15 15 1 0/1 0 93.1 80 44 39 26 95 23 2 8 338 .237 2 8 1 0 14 Robert Whitenack - SUNY Old Westbury Player ERA W-L APP GS CG SHO/CBO SV IP H R ER BB SO 2B 3B HR AB B/Avg WP HBP BK SFA SHA Whitenack, Robert... 2.81 5-2 11 9 2 1/0 0 67.1 46 27 21 25 79 5 5 1 242 .190 3 8 0 1 3 Richard Jones - The Citadel Player avg gp-gs ab r h 2b 3b hr rbi tb slg% bb hbp so gdp ob% sf sh sb-att po a e fld% Richard Jones .378 59-59 251 54 95 19 2 17 69 169 .673 27 6 52 5 .449 1 0 2-4 360 26 4 .990 Danny Keefe - University of Tampa Player ERA W-L APP GS CG SHO/CBO SV IP H R ER BB SO 2B 3B HR AB B/Avg WP HBP BK SFA SHA 25 Danny Keefe...... 4.13 4-5 20 5 0 0/0 2 65.1 69 36 30 19 70 7 1 5 261 .264 10 7 2 1 3 Barrett "BJ" Dail - Mt. Olive College Player ERA W-L APP GS CG SHO/CBO SV IP H R ER BB SO 2B 3B HR AB B/Avg WP HBP BK SFA SHA BJ Dail............. 2.97 7-0 11 9 3 0/0 0 63.2 43 23 21 18 64 5 1 3 229 .188 6 5 0 2 1 Matt Williams - Duke 223 ABs, .345/.421/.475, 12 2B, 5 HR, 24/20 BB/K

Mike Weurtz begs to differ. Wuertz had 4.5 years of big league experience to make such a judgment that he was a decent reliever. Jake Fox has 6 weeks of AAA performance and 12 AB's with the MLB team.

Greg Maddux had awesome stuff for the vast majority of his career.

11 AM Central

I would've preferred Scales go down since he'll lose most of his ABs to Miles.

I'm thinking about backing out, my interest in the NFL is pretty much nil at this point. I'll let you know within a week.