treebird

completely agree. last year i allowed my expectations to get incredibly and unabashedly high. i doubt that ill ever expose myself like that again. i dont think ill ever be as crushed by a sports team again.

the sooner he gets the shoulder surgery behind him, the better.

ichiro hits a lot of line drives. he's 9th in the AL this year in ld%, and this has been a pretty down year for him.

they don't need it rocket

we should concentrate on winning innings at this point. Agreed. cubs lost 4 innings, won 1, and tied 4. thats an improvement over saturday.

glad to see all the cardinal fans found their way to the game thread tonight of all nights. what a coincidence.

I agree, all are traits of a good manager. I'd love to see someone like Tim get a shot. This is a "job" for him and he tends to incourage posters, rather than just spout out opinions. He has a great knowledge of our entire system and knows the game. Some of the names floating around are okay, but do they know this team like Tim? There are actually a couple of posters here at NSBB I'd highly consider. more dap for da tree plz

And what exactly do you base this opinion on? Watching him play? Well I'd venture to say that there are a lot of Cardinal fans who have seen him play more than you. Stats? The stats say he is slightly inferior to DLee as a fielder. So are you prepared to say that DLee is also only slightly better than average "on his best day"? I think not. Here's the best idea: don't make blanket statements about a player's fielding ability (especially when you don't watch them everyday) because fielding statistics are horrible, and so you really have no way of knowing how good in the field Pujols is. My fiancee is as diehard about the Cardinals as I am about the Cubs. Living in central Illinois I get both Cards and Cubs games every day. Don't tell me I don't watch the Cards play. I actually might have seen more Cards games than Cubs games this year. I wouldn't make a statement without a way to back it up, and I'd appreciate it if you'd do the same. I still don't think you watch every game. im pretty sure it's not okay for you to tell people their opinion is invalid on the basis of whether or not they've watched every cardinal game this year

Doug Mientkiewicz > Todd Helton>Derrek Lee>>pretty much the rest of the NL first basemen, including Pujols. no way is minky better than helton or lee. just because the red sox thought he was good enough to put out in the field at the end of their games last year doesn't mean he's the best in the league. hugely overrated.

I've always kind of liked Valentine.

he's a lot different from dusty.

completely unrelated. if you want to start a thread about how neifi should stop playing so well (?) feel free.

they haven't even made the playoffs yet ok, at this point, I'm anticipating they make it. Figured that was implied by my response. if we're just anticipating they make it, im going to anticipate that they'll have as good a chance as anyone to win in the first round of the playoffs and that it'd be silly to think otherwise.

they haven't even made the playoffs yet you could certainly make a case that they're olaying over their heads right now.

A's win 11-0. 6-1 road trip after sweeping the Royals. They are now 17 games over .500 and an even .500 on the road. wtg a's

And what exactly do you base this opinion on? Watching him play? Well I'd venture to say that there are a lot of Cardinal fans who have seen him play more than you. Stats? The stats say he is slightly inferior to DLee as a fielder. So are you prepared to say that DLee is also only slightly better than average "on his best day"? I think not. Here's the best idea: don't make blanket statements about a player's fielding ability (especially when you don't watch them everyday) because fielding statistics are horrible, and so you really have no way of knowing how good in the field Pujols is. I still think Pujols is a slightly above average fielder and doesn't deserve a gold glove. I'm not knocking him as a hitter. He's one of the best I've ever seen, and he's not a poor fielder, just not gold glove caliber. Derrek Lee and Todd Helto are two that are much better than he is in the field. Todd Helton>Derrek Lee>>pretty much the rest of the NL first basemen, including Pujols

brownlie's leaving now, so no dice.

Didn't he get in trouble for something he said? I thought I remember him being fired for something other than performance. No, that was the manager that succeeded him. Tim Johnson, succeeded Gatson and was fired because he lied about being a Vietnam veteran. http://espn.go.com/page2/s/list/lies.html GOOD WORK EXPERT

8-0 a's in the top of the third. i know it's the royals, but jeez.

Didn't he get in trouble for something he said? I thought I remember him being fired for something other than performance. I don't think so. Multiple sources I found via google mention him being fired for being in last and how it is curious that he hasn't gotten another job.

I think the best way to handle the situation with Dusty is to make him want out. Maybe end up having a deal where he gets to leave and the Cubs only pay him a portion of what he is owed. it could be like george at play now "dusty, the asbestos-installation crew should be up to do your office any minute now."

There was an old thread about "Dusty Proofing" the team. Unfortunatly Hendry does not do anyone any favors, as he's provided Baker with bad alternatives to young, cheap productive players at every turn, full well knowing Baker's managerial tendencies. That said, if Baker is to be back in 2006 the team has to be put together more intelligently than this year's bunch, and I hope pressure mounts from fans and media to do just that. Rip them in the media, rip them at the convention, whatever, just ensure that Baker cannot use anyone as a crutch in 2006 if he must be here. I just don't see the point in having to "Dusty-proof" a team. Often times these aged veterans are great bench options to young players. Their experience helps them in coming off the bench and being ready to play. The problem, as we have all seen, is that Dusty uses them too often and in bad situations when better options are available. I don't want us to have to sacrifice a decent bench so that Dusty can manage this team. The best option is simple and that's to replace the simpleton that's managing this team. if dusty appeared to have a big positive influence on players by bringing us awesome chemistry and tricking crappy guys into playing well and allowing us to bring in guys who are supposedly bad influences who act good with dusty around, it might make sense to do this. however, since none of that stuff happens, it doesn't make sense to acknowledge dusty's shortcomings to the point that you have to structure your roster in weird ways and not just fire him.

I'll agree with that. Besides, there's no way Dusty has a clue what any of this stuff is, so it's not like it could be used to defend his decision making. As far as Dusty knows, Matt's hitting .400 and doesn't deserve to start anyway.

To be fair, he had a high BABIP at West Tenn and has been legging out tons of IF hits there too. didn't most people agree that he was irrationally lucky there as well? i suppose it's possible that a guy with moderately above average speed has learned the secret of the crap single, but id be pretty surprised.

i don't think he's hot though. if he was hot, he'd be hitting the ball hard on a more regular basis. I think that's a difficult statement to make for a batter who's come to the plate 2 times since July 30th. i was only speaking about what he was doing when he was playing. people saw it as a guy on a hot streak, i did not.