Forum Replies Created
-
Posts
-
Kelly has to be extremely disappointed. His career has stalled a lot in the last year or so. But often, those highly touted guys will come around and be good players once they can stay in the lineup for an extended time. He still might be our catcher of the future.
Meanwhile it sounds like Knizner is a good candidate for tutelage under Yadi. Although the running game is not used like it once was, he still will need to show he can at least be reasonably proficient and keeping base runners honest if he is going to play the position at the top level.
Hey, Bike Mike. Good to see you and Walton still here, but where’s Pugsley?
Great to hear from you, Carter! Pugs stops in now and then as well, as you no doubt saw.
Keep those cards and letters comin’.
Neither hurler has a lot of commamd today. Unusual for Mikolas, from what we have seen, but this has been Lynn’s problem so far this season.
I was a little surprised Lynn did not take the $17.5M QO. A longer term deal is more security obviously, but he had to know no one was going to pay him $17.5M per year. So you tske the high salary for a year, invest well, and see what you can get on a 2 or 3 year deal after this season.
Love those classic Twins uni’s. Makes me think of Harmon Killebrew, Tony Oliva, Jimmie Hall…Lance Lynn (what, Lance Lynn???)
If my numbers are correct, I believe the Twins have outscored us 17-2 in the three games. They are under .500, but look like the eventual ALCS opponents of the Yankees when they play St. Louis.
The club is 12th in the NL in runs scored and batting average, 11th in OPS. We are actually worse than last year, when we finished sixth in runs scored.
Obviously Ozuna has not provided the offensive boost planned when he was acquired, and our twin culprits Carpenter and Fowler are having almost historic early season woes.
Add to that an uncertain bullpen, where different guys are rushed on and off the roster and the guys who stay on have not performed all that well for the most part, Norris being the most notable exception, and it is a wonder we are still over .500.
I think the offense will come around. Ozuna will be better over the last 75% of the season than he has been, Pham is pretty much a given, Martinez can hit. Wong and DeJong should be better, although it’s far from certain how much better they will be. Molina will eventually return and hopefully stay consistent.
Carpenter and Fowler can’t be any worse, but they may not get back on the field enough to prove themselves unless Gyorko and Bader become equally bad.
You can’t go down on strikes with the bases loaded without swinging.
In general, I think Cardinal hitters take too many good pitches. Pitch selection seems to be the biggest issue with Carpenter. Wong has some of that as well.
Not sure if that is Mabry’s influence, but our hitters seem to be “defensive” in their approach. We have a lot of “Randal Grichuk” type ABs where guys will flail at pitches well out of the zone, and watch good pitches by.
In general, I would stress to guys to be ready to pull the trigger early in the count. It’s great to work the count when you can, but if you are struggling making contact, then be ready to jump on that first pitch, or the 1-0.
Repeating what I have said before, but I would keep Wong regularly in the lineup this year and see where he stands at season’s end.
He plays solid defense at a premium defensive position, adds speed to the lineup, balances a mostly righty-hitting group, and can occasionally turn on a pitch and give you the long ball. What has been missing is consistency, but last year’s .285 batting average and .376 OBP were more than acceptable. Let’s stick with him throughout 2018 and see if he can get to around those numbers again.
One of those games where neither team seemed to want to win it. They were a combined 0 for 16 wRISP i believe, before Hosmer came through.
Yet another rough night for Dexter, and Carpenter strikes out in his only appearance. Unfortunately the guys who usually come through, Pham, Gyorko, and once in awhile Ozuna did not do much either.
One positive continues to be Wacha. He usually gives us a good start. He’s gradually become more durable and dependable. He started his mlb career as a phenom, then struggled as an injured, unreliable guy. Now he is settling in to a very good mid-rotation starter who usually gives you a chance to win.
But he couldn’t have lost his talent
Sometimes that happens though, mudville. Some guys don’t age well, or they develop bad habits and can’t seem to come out of it.
Carpenter seems to have lost something. I think he goes to the plate with a mindset that he is going to work for a walk first, and only swing if he has to. Then often he falls behind in the count, and the pitcher has the advantage.
He did actually swing at the first pitch once in a game I watched last week, but it was not a particularly good pitch. It was on the outside border, and he fouled it off. I think he needs to get more aggressive early in the count, but only on pitches he can drive. He’s just really messed up and is defensive in his approach, but this has gone on awhile.
Jay has carved out a nice little career. When coming through the Cardinals system, who would have thought he would make more impact with the Cardinals than Colby Rasmus.
You just never know how things will play out. The Angels drafted Randal Grichuk before Mike Trout. Back in the ’60s the Reds drafted Berni Carbo ahead of Johnny Bench.
And on the theme of former Cardinals, both Grichuk and Carbo spent some time with the Cardinals, and had some good moments with the club including some regular playing time. But Bench and Trout are two of the best ever.
As these shifts become more common, hitters will learn to adopt the inside-out swing, and get their hands out first. If I see a shift like that, I take the first pitch I get that is on the outer half of the plate to the opposite field.
But to the point on the Cardinals, as 2016 says, using your best lineup will have a greater impact than employing radical shifts.
Whats sad is they’ll like use 5 bullpen arms tonight. Weaver has got to go longer in games.
When you are up 7-0, and your starter only goes five something is wrong. Weaver was at 92 pitches and exhibiting better control than usual. I can’t see pulling him at that point, although with another off day Monday I guess the thought is that the bullpen can be extended some in this series.
Man, you do not usually see a home run game in Petco. Great to see the offense snap out of it. What a difference when we have Pham back, and play guys that can actually hit (ie Gyorko and Bader).
Ortiz really wants him, but does not speculate on a combination of prospects that would get him here.
Bottom line, you need to make a guess at the future ROI with and without Machado. In acquiring him, you definitely boost the chances of a World Championship, which is a huge return. But then you also take on a lot of risk, since most likely he’s a 75%-of-a-season rental.
Ideally we send a couple of top prospects, and can also dump Carpenter on them rather than Martinez as Ortiz mentions. But that is not going to happen as it will likely take three solid prospects, and maybe a fourth lower level guy.
Man, we are fortunate to have “Pham the Man as Usual” in the lineup. Without him last night, we could very well have been shutout.
With Weaver going tonight, two runs won’t get it done. And as has been discussed for awhile now, the evidence is getting overwhelming on Carpenter. You would think he has burned his goodwill and Gyorko would be in there.
Plus you are playing the Padres, Jedd’s old team. It’s getting ridiculous. Fowler is in the same situation, although his backup is not quite as proven as the option for Carpenter. But Bader is one of those “toolsy” guys (speed, defense, some pop in the bat), the kind I would go with if your de facto starter is not gettin’ ‘er done.
I am still onboard with Wong. As the manager, I play him every day this season and see where we end up. If he does not cut it, then next Spring it’s a battle for the starting job.
It’s a little bit a Pham re-do for me. I would have played Pham a lot more in ’16 to see what he could do. Those “toolsy” guys I put out there when the situation is right for them, and let ’em get after it. But Mike does not do that with some of those players. He looks at how a guy did against this pitcher or that, and how he has done the last few times out, and makes his decision.
Wong got it going last year, and I believe he can be a 4-5 WAR player with a full season of playing time, with plus numbers on both offense and defense.
Russell seems to have stalled out in his career. He looked to be a future star, even a Machado-type player but has not done well the last year-plus. Still he makes a lot of sense in a potential deal for Machado.
St. Louis would probably need to offer DeJong and a couple of pitching prospects. O’Neill is an intriguing player as well, and one they might like to have. But my guess is they are looking primarily for pitching prospects.
Right now I would think any team making a deal for Machado would need to get a good sense that they can sign him. If not, the return Baltimore will receive is not going to be overwhelming.
PS…I would not start Carpenter at second under any circumstances. Wong, although not hitting all that much, is still outhitting Carpenter and is much better defensively.
Plus I get the sense Wong will hit pretty well with playing time, but Matt is not the hitter he once was. The only reason he is playing now is the goodwill he has built up from past success.
One thing we have not mentioned is that Ozuna has not done much either. In fact his OPS is basically the same as Carpenter’s (.605 to Carp’s .601). Carpenter is actually getting on base at a better clip, .305 to .277, but obviously Marcel is hitting with more authority.
Still most of us feel Ozuna will get hot at some point, given his past two seasons are an upward trend. Carpenter is on a downward trend for awhile now. Then you have Dexter, who has the worst numbers of the primary starters. But then Bader has not exactly set the world on fire. But he brings strong defense.
The guy who should definitely be playing every day is Gyorko at third. Then you can more-or-less spot start Carpenter occasionally at first, and work between Fowler and Bader until someone steps up and separates himself.
I would also play Kelly every day, and run Pena out there once a week or so. In this Padres series, I would start Pena on Sunday, and play Kelly these next three.
Outscored at home 13-1 by Minnesota, after an exciting sweep of the rival Cubs. Quite a letdown.
Like many here, I do not understand the continuing use of Carpenter. The guy’s production has been like an escalator going down for three years now. On the TV broadcast McLaughlin said something about how his batting average with two strikes has noticeably decreased in recent seasons. This year he is hitting something like .077 when he is in a count with two strikes. The book on him is pretty easy – throw him a first pitch strike and get ahead, as he won’t swing on the first one. Then work to stay ahead in the count, preferably with pitches up in the zone, and you got him.
Matheny needs to use Gyorko and Wong on a regular basis, and of course Martinez at first. On occasion he can spot-start Carpenter at first against a righty, but you do that at most twice a week.
Fowler gets a pass right now, but when Pham is back you can’t keep him in there, can you? Again, you might spot start him here and there against a righty pitcher, but that is about it.
Both guys, Carpenter and Fowler, have hit big home runs to win games for us in the last week or so, and you hope that will be a sign that they are breaking out of it. But it just ain’t happening.
When you are a competitor, and in the heat of the moment in a rivalry game you sometimes say stuff like this. I think it’s great – shows passion.
Nothing wrong with it at all. I happen to be reading a book about Dizzy Dean right now, and Dean was the king of this sort of thing. He was constantly making boasts about what he would do to an opponent, and most of the time he backed it up.
Clunker game last night. But that happens in the course of the long season.
Hopefully today we see better results with Martinez throwing.
Agree with Tommy on this one. Your better move was to leave Hicks out there. Not only was Norris the wrong move for the reasons Tommy mentioned, but now you have completely eliminated any chance of using him today.
This mindset of relievers only being used for one inning is one reason these guys’ arms get burned up. Once a pitcher is warmed up and into the rhythm of a game, pitching a couple of innings is not as stressful as pitching one inning two days in a row.
Today you pretty much are stuck with Holland as your closer, should the game go that way.
Overlooked in all this was getting into a bullpen game early in the first place, which was due to Weaver’s continuing problems. He needs to pick up the pace, or he may lose his spot when Wainwright returns, or possibly if Flaherty ends up getting a few starts and looks good.