We Got The Whole 9

Flex those horsefeathering flippers Tommy

Cards are in swing mode and suddenly Butler looks efficient

I like seeing Willy and Javy going center-right consistently

Damn he might go 6 now. Great inning.

horsefeathering nasty

Cease threw 89 pitches according to milb.com, 56 for strikes (63%) That's not that bad. They probably just fouled him off a ton. Seems he was definitely right around the zone, from purely looking at the numbers.

He still has a lot of work to do against RHP

Holy horsefeathers wOBA up 33 points

Willy must've put in some hard work yesterday

Candy! Great job of recovering by Butler after the leadoff walk and wild pitch

Losing the zone

Cease gave up a HR but has 7:0 through 3 innings

Cubs have a 5th starter

there was nothing special about that throw The fact that he didn't throw it away was pretty cool

Great swing

Carpenter does lead the league in O-swing. He's a really tough out. I thought Butler did fine.

Looking like young Big Zs fastball

please turn off your Tapatalk signature before I block your posts At the risk of seeming like I don't give a horsefeathers I should advise you that I am quite the daredevil Sent from my SM-N900T using Tapatalk

Weird that it took a dude who hadn't played baseball in about a decade a while to adjust to professional baseball. Over his last 15 games Tebow is hitting 327/413/436 and probably will be promoted soon. I don't care how much you hate a guy, his progress is remarkable. Sent from my SM-N900T using Tapatalk

Didn't notice Berg got promoted to Iowa Sent from my SM-N900T using Tapatalk

Lackey has a 3.4 SIERA and Jake a 3.5 Sent from my SM-N900T using Tapatalk

I think teams are going to be all over Burks in trade talks. Little excites FO more than toolsy OF and when they show excellent plate discipline to boot... the ceiling is too high to ignore. Vosler, too (sorry, I mentioned this in a past thread). I fully expect him to be high on the list of players we make available. That infield versatility along with a bat that is awakening, showing phenomenal control of the zone. If he keeps this up for another couple months, he's in AAA and knocking on the door. Those 2, I fully expect to have some high value. They are having remarkable seasons thus far. Sent from my SM-N900T using Tapatalk

As many HR+BB as IP makes it a pretty easy choice. Hopefully he gets right in Iowa. Sent from my SM-N900T using Tapatalk

Hitters had an .890 OPS against Butler the *first* time through the order last year, he walked a couple fewer guys but it's also harder to walk guys when all hitters are hitting .328 (!) against you. The point here is not that Butler is terrible, I think he's potentially a very nice find. The point is that in all of these cases you're looking for improvement beyond what they've done thus far. Butler has gotten shelled in MLB and been effective with weak peripherals in AAA. Montgomery has been effective with weak peripherals in MLB. If you start Montgomery you can keep Butler in AAA and have both being treated as SP for potential future seasons. If Montgomery struggles you can always turn to Butler too. But by starting Butler you're continuing to inch the door shut on Montgomery starting, because in the next few weeks he's not going to be capable of throwing enough IP to be considered for the 2018 rotation. It continues to mystify me that the front office talked up Montgomery as a future starter for the entire 2nd half of the season, Maddon trusted him in the playoffs more than Rondon and Strop, and now they won't let him have a role beyond next-gen Travis Wood even though there is ample opportunity. I have extremely high regard for their evaluations of pitchers, but in this case I have a hard time understanding why they aren't giving Montgomery at least the briefest of opportunities to fail out of that role. Butler just got off the DL for an ankle injury too and hasn't been lighting AAA on fire, so it'd be trivially easy to justify. Well, Monty's role is becoming one of the biggest x-factors a pitching staff can have these days. I get where you're coming from, I also want Monty to get a shot at the rotation, and coming into this year, I had him locked in for 2018. But that role, that bridge guy who can save the pen after a SP gets shelled or pushed out early, and pitch multiple innings, is really invaluable. Especially right now as half of our rotation is shaky and nobody is pitching deep into games, they feel like they're gonna need that bridge guy probably often. So they don't want to lose that weapon. But honestly I think with those 2 as SP you can expect probably similar results, with maybe a slight lean in Monty's favor. Something like a 1.5 KBB and 5 innings at best of hopefully decently suppressed contact and likely a couple runs. So I think they figure they'd rather get that and still have their multi-inning guy who they can count on and have needed quite often in the early going. But I agree and want Monty to get his rotation shot. Maybe as the 1-4 settle in and hopefully start going deeper into games, we won't have such a dire need for that bridge role and can afford to take that chance. For now they probably prefer stopgaps for the 5th spot. Sent from my SM-N900T using Tapatalk

To me, he's kind of tailor-made for Oakland. Why would Beane trade him? They've got 5 young guys(or cheap at least) in Graveman, Triggs, Manaea, Hahn, and Cotton. My guess is Beane values that a bunch and allows for trading off Gray, who probably scares him at this point anyway. Actually, your response, I basically typed out the same thing but I erased it before I posted... so I agree with your point 100% I guess the thought process behind it is that he's old with major risk. Maybe Beane would want to sell high if he does keep this up through June. Sent from my SM-N900T using Tapatalk