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Rat. Let your intuition guide you. But my thought is ,that as much as you want to help this guy, it’s likely that you would be better not to involve yourself with his ‘matters of the heart’ unless specifically asked.
Fernandez has been getting outs with pitches up and out over the plate. That’s partly blind luck and, but mostly, it’s because the hitters haven’t figured him out yet. If he pitches the seventh, I don’t think he will finish the inning.
Lee – Nice post. Thanks.
I’d love to know the reasoning behind bringing up Fernández rather than Woodford. Most likely, the staff at Memphis didn’t see a promotion coming, so they started him last night and now he needs his off days.
Speaking of Rosenthal there’s a parallel between him and Hicks in that they both wanted to get out of the bullpen and into the rotation. It didn’t work out for Rosenthal and, so far, it has not worked out for Hicks. When you’re a starting pitcher, and you make a mistake, you have other innings to redeem yourself, or at least, camouflage your mistake. If you make a mistake as a reliever, depending on the circumstances, you could wind up being dog meat.
The Cardinals need to win at least 3 of the next 4 games so the (highly) Esteemed Rat can stop being so grumpy, and maybe even get back to being his cheerful self.
For the 1,000,000 time….. The manager makes the cuts at spring training, and that determines the roster. When a player gets injured or is grossly underperforming, the manager asks the front office for input. Then, the manager and front office personnel talk it over and decide what to do. The front office, of course, will do their best, but with deference to trade constraints and financial constraints.
Obviously, I don’t know if any of this is absolutely true. But it’s probably not too far off. The idea that it’s only the front office that makes the roster decisions sounds a bit like an attack on our front office.
The Angels have a notoriously bad front office and look where the Angels are again despite having the ‘great’ Joe Maddon as their manager, and look at where the White Sox are despite a very talented roster.
And look where the Cardinals are.Sounds right to me, also. Plus, you would hope that the front office could trade for another really good reliever given the prospects this organization has. Of course, it takes two to tango, and if no other organization has a reliever that they would trade, then we just have to win with the players we have.
I think that nearly all pitchers nowadays have little motivation to throw more than 100 pitches in a game. Many of them think that, if they get through 6 innings, they’ve earned their millions for that day and that now they’re entitled to go back to the dugout and enjoy the rest of their day. What happens next in the game is somebody else’s problem. Wainwright and a few other hardened veterans are exceptions. Guys like that want the win.
I don’t understand the criticism of Marmol when his team is in first place. LaRussa routinely left pitchers in the game too long, and the win became a loss. Then, in his postgame meeting with writers, he would come up with some lame reason that he made up for doing what he did. I hated that.
Personally, I like having a manager who sincerely works with a front office and respects the inpu that a front office generates from data that it gathers. LaRussa and Schildt were not like that. Matheny was, and still is, clueless about managing a baseball team, IMO.
I guess what I’m saying is that I like having honest teamwork between the front office management and the on field management. I believe that most managers think that the responsibility for a win on the field is theirs, and theirs alone. It’s a mistake to think that, IMO.
Dan McLaughlin and Brad Thompson are talking about Donovan like he’s a future HOF’er. Jeremy Hazelbaker looked like a future star for awhile, too.
Woodford is almost like a sleeper. It’s as if nobody (except kscardfan) has noticed that Woodford is not the same pitcher he was a couple of years ago. His pitches move much more and he locates his pitches better.
I thought Whitley was going to be really good, also. I’m expecting him to figure it out again.
There’s no room at the Inn (i.e. MLB) for all the talent they have in the minors. I was just thinking that, rather than just look at a kid stuck at AA or AAA, maybe they could get an elite bullpen piece in a trade.
I hope Hicks has his head screwed on right when he comes back. He could be an elite bullpen piece.
You would think that, with all the talent the Cardinals have at the minor league level, they could put together a package for an elite bullpen arm. Maybe there isn’t anybody available that they like, or more likely, other teams are overvaluing their players and undervaluing what the Cardinals have, with of course, the Cardinals doing the same. It’s nice that the Cardinals are not in a position where they are desperate to make a trade.
Ali Sanchez gets DFA’d. Makes sense. But it seems like there are more DFA’s now than there used to be. With two less teams
in the Minors, they have to keep the line moving.I don’t understand why Marmol, and possibly the front office, or the coaches at Memphis, are holding Woodford back. He has gotten better and better since drafted. He deserves some innings. Maybe they’re shopping him, or maybe one or more of his coaches simply believe he’s not ready. Maybe Marmol gives the starts to Liberatore and Thompson so the front office can see what they’ve got with those two. Just guessing, just trying to figure it out like everybody else.
I like Bader’s enthusiasm and his all out style of play. He might be the best center fielder in the game. I hope the front office extends him. I do take issue with Marmol pulling him out of a game for not running out a batted ball. It just seams kind of bush league to pull a major league player out like that. Bader must have looked at the situation and decided he wasn’t going to start a feud with Marmol over this. Kudos to Bader for acting like an adult who looks at both sides of the situation, and then does what’s best for all.
I can’t say that I am against the electronic strike zone because those bad calls by umpires make me sick. But I would mention that Mike Shannon’s defense of the umpires is that
‘they are part of the game’. That’s true. Players make mistakes, coaches make mistakes, managers make mistakes. Everybody makes mistakes now and then. Mistakes are part of life. If MLB goes to the electronic strike zone, it takes some of the human element out of the game. It stops catchers who are adept at framing pitches from getting a strike called on what might have been a ball. It stops pitchers and batters from trying to influence the umpire’s calls. I don’t like feeling cheated by an umpire who is lazy or incompetent. But I don’t think the electronic strike zone is the answer unless the bad calls get so out of hand that something absolutely has to be done because too many fans are being turned off by the bad calls.That last pitch that VerHagen threw to this Walls kid batting .154 was way up in the outside corner. It was a good pitch.
Nobody knows what the rest of Walls’ career will be like, but he’ll always have this game to think back on.
I always thought that Matheny’s success was the direct result of the winning momentum established during the LaRussa years. The momentum eventually petered out and Matheny got exposed.
‘Matt Carpenter is swinging the bat like Lou Gehrig for the Yankees. He hit his 4th HR for them tonight after only being there a couple of weeks. Unbelievable.’
I wonder if he’s eating the same salsa that he was eating when he was hot while playing in St. Louis. It’s almost magical the way Luke Voit, and now Matt Caroenter, go to New York and become stars. The Yankees somehow know how to bring about the best in certain athletes.
I disagree with you, cranny. I want to give Marmol some more time. We haven’t been winning more games partly because the pitching has been unreliable, but also because of underperforming players like Dickerson, DeJong, and O’Neill. I don’t think another manager would help with that. It’s possible, maybe even likely, that the players that are underperforming are having trouble because of no contact with trainers and other staff during the offseason, and they just got out of shape. Marmol is still figuring out how to handle pitchers, but he’s getting better at it. I like Marmol’s willingness to bring rookies up and give them a chance. LaRussa would never do that. All he would do is harp on the front office about what he wants them to do. Matheny was a lost cause from the beginning.
