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I’d offer Jack Flaherty $20MM — if it’s for three years. For one year? I’d say 8 million, max. Whatever happens with Flaherty, the Cards will NOT get a draft pick because no team will sign Jack for $55MM or more, which is the minimum required for draft pick compensation unfortunately. Therefore we’ll likely see Jack packaged with one or more others in some sort of Deadline deal.
Montgomery on the other hand warrants a Qualifying Offer, which as a Boras client he will of course reject with extreme prejudice. I figure someone will give Jordan 75 or 80 big ones over the winter, which would net the Cards a 3rd-round pick as compensation. Outside chance, $100MM+ contract for Monty and a 2nd-round comp pick for the Birds.
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I understand how you could be suffering from Liberatore Fatigue, Bling, a medical condition usually accompanied by a bad case of Arozarena Regret. But Matt really was materially different this year, right up until that short-rest bullpen nonsense. Lower ERAs, better velocity, firmer command of his pitches. Maybe he’ll get that back and maybe he won’t, but he’s still just 23 so I’d implore you to keep the faith, brother Cardfan.
“Liberatore hasn’t shown the MLB performance, and reading commentary, sounds like the front office has grown less certain about him.”
I have to differ, Gags. At least a little bit. I mean, about the nature of, the cause of Liberatore’s disappointing MLB performance this year. Please forgive me for doing a copy/paste of my comment from a couple weeks ago:
Matt Liberatore was excellent in Spring Training, excellent across eight Triple-A starts (3.13 ERA), and then excellent again in his MLB season debut on May 17, twirling 5 shutout innings. (He needed 95 pitches to do so, which is a pretty important detail.)
Then Ollie Marmol did something that MLB managers very, very, very rarely do except in case of emergency. He brought back Liberatore on short rest to pitch an inning out of the bullpen. It took Matt 24 pitches to stagger through that inning, and he’s been beyond dreadful ever since, as his fastball has steadily eroded bit by bit.
He’s now permitted 24 earned runs in his last 27 innings, including that indefensible relief appearance. And take a look at the 4-seamer velocity from the Brooks Baseball website:
5/17 start 95.4 MPH
5/21 relief 96.0
5/26 start 95.2
6/6 94.1
6/12 93.8
6/18 93.5
6/25 93.9
7/1 93.1That’s 2.3 MPH lost in just six weeks. And he lost even more off his slider and curveball velocities. That’s a physical impairment.
And then tonight’s debacle. I think every bad Liberatore start since his pointless, moronic relief appearance can be attributed directly to the boy manager. And every bad game to come. And any trip to the DL this season. When a manager does something extremely unorthodox and it backfires this horrifically, he deserves every drop of available blame.—————————————————–
I don’t know if Liberatore is ever going to get back to what he was prior to his bizarre and fateful relief outing. But he looked absolutely like a #2/3 MLB starter before that.
With Arenado’s salary and age and apparent defensive decline, he’s not going to land any kind of a haul. Not to mention the poor public relations it would create (not unlike trading Goldy). Recall how little the Cards gave up to get Nolan in the first place — when he was three years younger. He’s unquestionably worth less now, even at the Deadline.
I say trade Gorman for Dylan Cease, Monty + DeJong + Hicks + mid-level prospect for Grayson Rodriguez, and Flaherty + Carlson for a great AAA relief prospect or very good AAA starter. But none of it will matter unless and until they jettison Ollie Marmol. He’s bad at many managerial things and above average at none.
Anyway, that’s makes next year’s Opening Day rotation Mikolas, Cease, Matz, Grayson Rodriguez, and either Liberatore or Hudson or Woodford or McGreevy or Graceffo. With a real manager and better pitching coach, it’s not a bad-looking talent collection.
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Also, according to Baseball Trade Values, lefty starter Kyle Freeland’s contract with Colorado is pretty far underwater. In fact, it’s exactly as bad as Willson Contreras, at $25MM in the hole. So maybe just maybe the Cards could include a significant sweetener (Pallante? Won-Bin Cho?) and dump Willson on the Rockies while receiving a pitcher with the potential to turn it around.
Lastly, it’s good to see you, Gags. A much-belated Welcome Back.
I instantly became a huge college football fan as a little boy when I watched the Oklahoma/Nebraska classic on Thanksgiving Day, 1971. Rodgers versus Pruitt, number 1 Huskers and number 2 Sooners. What a game. (My uncle was a college prof who taught in Oklahoma — not at OU, though — so of course I rooted for OU in that game, which the Huskers won 35-31 if memory serves.)
Been an Oklahoma and Grambling fan ever since. (Grambling College Highlights was a TV show on Sunday mornings that I never missed in the early ’70s.) Those Eddie Robinson teams were terrific and terrifically entertaining. It’s only fair that if I had to suffer through the last half century of Illini gridiron malfeasance, I’d also have a successful school or two to cheer for.
“No matter what beating the Cubs is always fun.
Matz gets a win.
Hell has truly frozen over……”Amen on the first point, and I’m really happy for Matz.
As to the final observation, however, I’ll believe that Hell has frozen when Ollie Marmol can get through an entire game without doing something incredibly stupid with either the defensive alignment, batting order, or bullpen usage. Tonight’s brainfail was Gallegos entering the game with a 5-run, 9th-inning lead.
The only time you ever use one of your top two or three relievers to protect a very big lead very late in a game, is when he needs the work. And of course with Gallegos this evening it was the exact opposite circumstance. He’s now thrown 3 of the last 4 days, and with no abbreviated outings — he’s averaged 20 pitches per appearance.
Now, thanks to the indefensible use of Gallegos tonight, he can’t possibly pitch tomorrow, and probably shouldn’t be used on Saturday afternoon either. Ollie Marmol: what a maroon.
“Not defending, but pointing out that at least three key relievers were supposedly unavailable Friday night – Hicks, Gallegos and Stratton. So there was almost nobody left to pitch. Just Thompson and Hudson, I think. In fact, they ended up having to use Stratton at the end.”
I feel like you’re making my point for me there, Brian. Stratton was “unavailable.” Unless he was really needed. In other words, he was available but Ollie waited much too long to use him. Anyway, if Marmol truly had to use Leahy (which of course he didn’t) then he could and should have used him when the score was 5-1, not 7-6.
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“Now, one could back up from there and question usage in prior games that made them unavailable… Because the starters are not going deep, a lot of pressure has been put on the pen and it is not going well.”
Cardinal starters are going as deep as other teams’ starters, so that’s no excuse for management or Marmol whining about “running out of relievers.” Only four teams’ starters are going meaningfully farther into games than the Birds’ starters: Twins, Rangers, Astros, and Mariners. On the other hand there’s eight teams with rotations averaging less than five innings per start: Tigers, Frisco, Rockies, Reds, Red Sox, Royals, Rays, and A’s (who are getting exactly what they deserve after that moronic Murphy trade).
The other 18 teams are all getting between 5 and 5.5 innings per start, and the Birds are just a smidge above 5 1/4. But one reason why there’s a periodic innings crush in the bullpen is that the manager refuses to deploy a longman/swingman to eat chunks of 4-5 innings when necessary. Even though he’s had converted starters like Woodford and Matz at his disposal, Marmol has ignored their ability to toss 60, 70 pitches or more, and instead used them as 1-2 inning guys.
Funny thing is, Marmol has addressed this matter. When asked by a reporter a couple months back why he didn’t deploy anyone in the pen as a conventional longman, Marmol replied that he had “eight relievers who he trusted in any role.” So we see that not only is he rotten at math (you can’t cover the innings shortfall with 1-2 inning relievers if you repeatedly pull your starters after 5 innings or so) but he’s also rotten at Sports Psychology.
Because every single retired reliever will tell you that relievers are at their best when they have a defined role within the bullpen. Maybe it shouldn’t be that way, but that’s how it is. And Marmol jerking guys around in ill-defined roles is undermining the bullpen, we can have no doubt. Heck, just in the past month or so we’ve seen Gallegos used as (1)Closer, then three days later the (2)7th inning guy, then soon after that the (3)8th inning setup arm, and then several days ago he came in with the Cards losing in the 8th inning — a (4)low-leverage modified mopup situation. So, four different roles in one month. For your best relief pitcher.
That’s one of the things a bad manager does. He over-experiments, as though players were ABPA cards, which they ain’t. And boy howdy does Ollie love to tinker. With the defensive positions, with the lineup slots, and with the bullpen roles — although he’d probably say something profoundly inane like “there are no bullpen roles, other than pitcher.”
Anyway I’m in danger of over-ranting. The man’s record speaks for itself. Especially this year.
“The thing with Walker is…if they give him games he should be able to be an OK corner outfielder just on athletic ability….but they need to let him play at least a full season out there.”
Agreed. And not jerking Jordan back and forth from RF to LF and back again, would probably help a lot. Speaking of which, announcer Brad Babyface Thompson tonight when talking about Dylan Carlson and the other outfielders, suggested that the Cards are currently “figuring out” which player is best at which position.
This is JULY, Brad. These decisions, these essential evaluations should be done during the offseason, or during Spring Training, or by May 1st at the very, very, very latest. The regular season is not a permanent laboratory for defensive alignments, bullpen roles, and batting orders. Well, maybe the latter two to a limited degree, but certainly not the former.
“Absolutely pathetic performance from the bullpen. Oli decides to use 2 AAA guys and look what happened.”
Romero was victimized by terrible defense — Arenado wasting time trying to get the lead runner with a four-run lead instead of just taking the double play was one of the bigger mental blunders of his Redbird tenure. And then there was Gorman’s miscues, of course.
And Kyle Leahy, making his MLB debut, entering the game with a slender one-run lead in the 7th inning? A truly incredible act of managerial negligence. You are supposed to break in rookies with as little pressure as possible, and let them acclimate to the big leagues before tossing them into high-leverage situations. Every competent manager knows this. Heck, even the IN-competent ones know this.
But not our Ollie. And it wasn’t just the fact that he brought the unfortunate Leahy in at the absolute wrong time. Not only did More-Mal mis-use the poor rookie, instead of mercifully removing him with one or two men on base, he left the rattled rook in to fully load the bases after permitting the game-tying solo shot. This obviously gave the next pitcher zero margin for error, and we all know what happened next. (Innumerable pitchers-turned-broadcasters have opined that it is simply bad managing to bring in a reliever with the bases loaded. Of course, sometimes a manager is trapped into this kind of decision. Not Ollie, not tonight. He could’ve removed Leahy with one man on, but chose to leave him in. And leave him in. Ask him why, and I’m sure our Boy Manager would tell you something like this:
It’s only 17 innings, but Leonel Sequera — at 17 years old, the 2nd-youngest of 128 pitchers with 10+ innings in the Florida Complex League this year — just allowed his first walk and first extra base hit yesterday.
His opponent slash line is .250/.262/.266. Not too shabby.
“That is one you can’t pin on Ollie – it’s almost like something from the beyond.”
The meltdown by Hicks on the throw, well *that* specific failure can’t be blamed on the manager. But let’s look at the game as a whole. Starting with the starter.
Matt Liberatore was excellent in Spring Training, excellent across eight Triple-A starts (3.13 ERA), and then excellent again in his MLB season debut on May 17, twirling 5 shutout innings. (He needed 95 pitches to do so, which is a pretty important detail.)
Then Ollie Marmol did something that MLB managers very, very, very rarely do except in case of emergency. He brought back Liberatore on short rest to pitch an inning out of the bullpen. It took Matt 24 pitches to stagger through that inning, and he’s been beyond dreadful ever since, as his fastball has steadily eroded bit by bit.
He’s now permitted 24 earned runs in his last 27 innings, including that indefensible relief appearance. And take a look at the 4-seamer velocity from the Brooks Baseball website:
5/17 start 95.4 MPH
5/21 relief 96.0
5/26 start 95.2
6/6 94.1
6/12 93.8
6/18 93.5
6/25 93.9
7/1 93.1That’s 2.3 MPH lost in just six weeks. That’s a physical impairment.
And then tonight’s debacle. I think every bad Liberatore start since his pointless, moronic relief appearance can be attributed directly to the boy manager. And every bad game to come. And any trip to the DL this season. When a manager does something extremely unorthodox and it backfires this horrifically, he deserves every drop of available blame.“Given the money spent on this team, it’s the worst team in the past 60 plus years.”
You’re too kind, Texas. It’s the worst Redbird winning percentage in over a century. Since 1919, to be precise.
I’ve always been one of Mozeliak’s biggest supporters — and let it be said yet again, during his 16-season tenure the Cards have baseball’s 3rd-best record behind only the Dodgers and Damn Yankees. But he picked Marmol to manage this team despite Ollie being perhaps the least-qualified skipper in major league history.
Really, let’s think about this for a second. Never played or managed above A-ball. How many MLB managers in history had that paucity of experience? Then add to that, he had precious little experience at even coaching baseball. And at age 35 he had almost zero experience at managing different types of people in a variety of circumstances, thinking on the fly, etcetera, etcetera.
Mo chose Marmol when a different internal option with two recent Triple-A managerial championships plus playing experience at the highest level was available (Clapp, of course). On nothing more substantive than a hunch, Mozeliak tethered himself to Marmol and I grudgingly have to say they should go down together. The choice of Marmol has been a borderline disaster. Not unlike the Fowler, Ozuna, and Contreras transactions.
“Wow. This is easily the most brutal season I can remember….”
It should be, unless you’re older than Larry King’s dad. Cards haven’t had a winning percentage this terrible since 1919.
Marmol must go. Can’t fill out a lineup card, can’t run a bullpen, can’t do anything at an above-average level, that I can see.
Now that I’ve researched the subject, tonight’s use of Gallegos by Ollie “Empty Resume” Marmol was even worse than I’d imagined.
Gallegos threw 24 pitches yesterday. This season he had never been asked to pitch on zero rest after throwing 20+ pitches. More specifically, he had six previous games of 20 or more pitches this year, and he was given at least two days of rest after each game, except for May 25th/27th — and in that case, he was only required to throw five pitches in the latter game.
So Gallegos was asked tonight to do something distinctly more strenuous than he’d done all season. That’s bad. But yes, it gets worse.
Last year, Gallegos DID pitch on zero rest after throwing 20+ pitches, on two separate occasions. On May 30/31 he threw 25 pitches in the first game, and was cuffed for two runs in one inning in the second (27 pitches).
And then on July 12/13, Gio threw 23 pitches in the first game, and once again surrendered two runs in one inning in the second (28 pitches).
And of course Marmol was Gio’s manager for both of those poor outings last season. He saw it up close. Imagine how profoundly idiotic a manager (or any person for that matter) has to be to do the exact same dumb thing three times in close succession. There’s isn’t even a cliche for it, like the “fool me twice, shame on me” bromide. There is no “fool me three times” expression because the logical assumption is that no one would be stupid/stubborn enough to get fooled the third time. Except for Ollie “Empty Resume” Marmol.
When asked at the postgame presser why he left Gallegos in even after the Jose Altuve home run, Marmol replied that he wouldn’t have done so if he’d known Gallegos would surrender another homer.
Does this guy really think he’s earned the right to make smart aleck responses like that? What a horse’s ass.
“Absolutely brutal performance by the bullpen tonight!”
Not the bullpen. Just Gallegos. Stratton for one was fantastic, mowing the ‘Stros down 1-2-3 on 10 pitches.
“Anyone know if Gallegos has a history of being bad on the second of consecutive days appearances? He does not do that much, but was throwing meat balls tonight.”
Gallegos both this year and for his career has in fact been outstanding when pitching on zero days of rest. But there’s a big “however” attached to that.
However, tonight Gallegos was appearing after throwing 24 pitches last night, and that’s almost surely just too much for a back-to-back, esp. with the 3-batter rule. To use Gio at all was highly questionable at best. To leave him in after Altuve’s homer was an inexcusable disgrace on Marmol’s part. And yet, not unexpected.And again, as Jimmy Edmonds described in great detail during the 7th inning, the proper move tonight was to try and get two full innings out of the extremely well-rested Stratton. And Stratton obliged! He cruised through the 7th on a handful of pitches. Then after that you likely go with Hicks if it’s close and someone else if it’s not.
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Anyway, tonight really, really should be the last straw. “It’s Marmol or both of you, take your pick,” should be the owner’s text message to Mozeliak. Or however such things are done these days.
The Cards’ five worst winning percentages since WWII:
This season .416
1978 .426
1990 .432
1995 .434
1955 .442Last time it was lower than .416 was 1919.
Fire.
The.
Manager.Trades need to be made, and Mozeliak probably needs to depart as well. But the one biggest best change by far would be removing the overmatched, underqualified, and inexplicably arrogant buffoon in the dugout.
Great to see Tink back on the beam, with those five shutout frames (and just 59 pitches). In June he now has a 1.40 ERA and has walked just 2 men in 19 innings.
Here’s some Tink Trivia. Over the past two seasons (~90IP), he’s allowed batters just a .127 average with runners in scoring position (8-63) and an even more meager .115 with multiple men on base (3-26). Not too shabby, eh? And with the bases loaded, batters are hitless. Okay, that’s because he’s never loaded the bases.
And he’s severing the running game this year. Last season base stealers were 10-for-15 when he took the mound. But this year they’re just 3-for-7, which is pretty amazing these days. (The Midwest League success rate this year is 77%.)
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Zack Thompson has a sub-2.00 career ERA as a major league reliever in a non-trivial sample size of around 40 innings. And the Redbird bullpen has been fairly awful this year, with Gallegos the only arm with a sub-4.00 ERA and at least 10 innings pitched (not counting the injured Helsley, of course). So it was half crazy to move Zack back to Memphis to try and be a starter again, just as it was half crazy to remove Ian Bedell from the Peoria bullpen where he was absolutely dominating this season.
Outstanding relievers are getting more important every year, what with the paucity of starters who routinely go 6 or more innings. I understand the front office desperation for starting pitchers, since so many are exiting after this season. But highly successful relievers should be left where they are. Period.
As for the specifics of the Z. Thompson situation, I think it’s fair to say that overall he’s a failed starter and extremely successful reliever, for his professional career. And I’m not sure it’s relevant, which innings he gets shelled during, as a starter.
Starting and relieving are two different animals. You don’t have to pace yourself as a reliever. You don’t need more than two pitches, or one very good one. And the preparation — both between games and at the ballpark — is different from starting. Not to mention the more fundamental mental fact that Zack will have more confidence when he’s returned to a role at which he’s already enjoyed conspicuous sustained success at the MLB level. And despite what Ollie might believe, confidence & comfort play a significant role in major league performance.
I don’t know if this back-to-starting nonsense has ruined Zack, but it quite clearly is not working at all. So the only reasonable course is a return to what HAS worked. Right?
“Best comment I’ve read this season…. and I’ve read a lot of them!”
I’ll second that, Nyquist. I suspect Andujar speaks for many of us geriatrics and near-gerrys.
“Ask the Royals about Matheny. Matheny inherited a very good situation here and did well for awhile before running out of steam.”
These are comments worth dissecting, I think.
We can’t ask the Royals or their fans what they think about Matheny, but we can see how they did before he arrived, while he was there, and after he left.
In the two seasons immediately preceding Matheny’s managerial tenure for Kansas City, the Royals won 36% of their games, for an average victory total of 59.
In the three campaigns under Matheny, the Royals won 43% of their games, which projects to 70 wins per full season.
This year (their first post-Matheny, of course) Kansas City is 18 up and 42 down, for a winning percentage of .300. This is one time when a .300 average is not so good.
So, let’s review. Pre-Matheny, average season 59-103. With Mike, 70-92. Post-Matheny, on pace for 49 wins. It ain’t the amazing magical instant transformation of Bruce Bochy & the 2023 Rangers, but it sure looks like Mike Matheny inherited garbage and nevertheless made the Royals markedly better during his tenure.
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In St. Louis, Mike Matheny took over a club that just lost Albert Pujols to free agency, had a mediocre farm system, and was forecast by Vegas to finish 6 games over.500. Not sure I’d call that a “very good situation” to inherit. That club finished 14 games over .500 and advanced to the NLCS where they lost in seven games.
Then Matheny led the Birds to baseball’s best record in two of the next three seasons. To me, that’s vastly better than “did well for awhile.” That’s a tremendous four-year run that seems like a distant dream now.
The Matheny years in St. Louis did indeed run out of steam as it became clear that John Mabry could not coach young batters who were still developing — “get ahead in the count then swing hard at anything because it might be a strike” was his mantra, spoken or unspoken. There were other problems, but in my opinion it was 80-90% Mabry + Fowler that led to Matheny’s demise here. Anyway, if the Birds won’t replace Marmol with Stubby, and insist on someone who’s won a pennant, then I’d be as happy with Matheny as I would with Ned Yost, Ozzie Guillen, Mike Scioscia, et. al.
But really, it shouldn’t come to that.
Stubby could be our Snitker, if only the front office will give him a chance.Which of the dropped pop-ups? The one in foul territory or the fair one?
This team is deflated, defeated, discombobulated. And you know that last one is bad because it has “disco” and my name in it.
“I read something a little while back where a scout said Oakland is the worst team he has ever seen by far. They might end up with a worse percentage than their 1916 counterparts in Philadelphia, as well as the infamous 1962 Mets.”
The A’s are doing something pretty darn rare: they possess baseball’s worst record by far, and yet their record in 1-run games isn’t terrible. Not nearly as terrible as the Birds, for example.
With tonight’s loss by Oakland, they are now 8-11 in their 1-run decisions.
This means that in games decided by 2 or more runs, they are 4-38. I’m not joking.—————————————
Meanwhile, about the Cards. I didn’t see all of the game. Any explanation why Gensis Cabrera pitched the deciding frame instead of Gio Gallegos? I mean, three days ago Marmol wouldn’t trust anyone other than Gallegos in the 7th inning with a 4-run lead…and now he refuses to bring him into a tied game in the 9th? Is Gallegos injured, or was this just another example of Marmol force-feeding an extra-high leverage situation to an undeserving reliever?
Looking around the majors, I see six managers worse than Marmol, 16 better than him, and seven I’m undecided about. That makes him somewhere between the 17th and 24th best manager working today. And that’s not nearly good enough, for the St. Louis Cardinals organization. (It’s not unlike when John Groce was the Illini basketball coach. He wasn’t terrible, but he was certainly unworthy of that proud program.)
By my estimates, Ollie is simply average or worse at everything. I can’t think of one aspect of managing at which Marmol is above average. He has rarely if ever puts the best lineup on the field, at their best defensive positions. He pulls starters early with some regularity — which would be fine, except he also refuses to have a longman/swingman in his bullpen…then he whines that his bullpen is overworked and puts 2nd-and-3rd-tier relievers in the highest leverage situations possible. (Gave away a pair of games this season inexcusably using Hicks that way.)
Having never played or managed above A-Ball, Marmol seemingly has zero understanding of the importance of roles at the MLB level, especially in the bullpen. In the most glaring example, last Tuesday Gallegos was his closer, protecting a 2-1 win. Then in the team’s very next game, he brings in Gallegos in the 7th inning with a 4-run lead. Unsurprisingly this backfired horrifically. No other manager in the majors would have done the weirdness Marmol did with Gallegos back-to-back. Marmol clearly thinks he’s the smartest guy in the room, and he ain’t.
I could go on for 1,000 more words, but Marmol’s shortcomings have been covered quite well by others here. I’d probably give Ollie until the All-Star break to get the club back to .500, but then I might feel differently if they get humiliated by the Rangers over the next few days. And of course Stubby is the obvious choice for interim manager, having won multiple AAA championships as a manager, and reached MLB as a player. He was the logical guy 18 months ago, and still is.
Am I the only person who was cursing the manager when he removed the .500-hitting Mercado for the .229-hitting Burleson, with the go-ahead run in scoring position in the 8th inning? (Burleson’s numbers lately are in fact actually much worse than .229, by the way. He’s a meager 12-for-65 since mid-April.) All because a righty pitcher entered the game. He fanned the badly slumping Burley, of course.
It took the Boy Wonder 25% of the season to realize the 22-year-old Nolan Gorman might not be a strict platoon player for the rest of his career, but even though Ollie’s apparently corrected that bit of idiocy there is apparently no hot streak or cold streak or combo of the two sufficient to neutralize the Boy Wonder’s destructive righty/lefty obsession. His stubborn, simplistic pseudo-understanding of the sport at its highest level is so narrow and abacus-driven that it’s almost like he never played or managed above A-Ball in his life. Oh, wait….
“Don’t like using Libby out of the bullpen. We need starters who can keep us in games.”
Mike, you mean you’re opposed to bringing a young starting pitcher back on short rest to throw a needless mop-up inning out of the bullpen with a 7-run lead, after throwing 95 pitches in his previous outing? Just because intelligent managers never ever, ever do this with young developing pitchers, that doesn’t mean it’s a managerial blunder.
Seriously, Ollie Marmol’s stupidity and arrogance know no depths, no boundaries whatsoever. Even in a beautiful blowout victory he finds a way to drop some mercury down the well.
“So, they are going to take a guy (Liberatore) who is stretched out and put him in the pen? But maybe short term? Once he is out of a starter’s routine, then what? Back to Memphis to stretch out again? Or just throw him out there? And if we are not pivoting to a 6 man, then why was the extra starter pushing everyone back a day done right now? Is there some sense to this? I’m confused.”
I share your frustration, Bling.
Deep dysfunction here, by my lights. Liberatore was excellent in Spring Training, and then excellent in AAA this year, earning an MLB start — and he excelled! Again! I mean, it was kinda thrilling, wasn’t it? Regular mid-90’s velocity paired with a well-located curve and the occasional other offering. And zero runs, folks. So even though the club needs a good starter desperately (for both this season and beyond) that near flawless performance against the only meaningful division rival, earns him, what, a nebulous bullpen role?Matz stinks in 2022, stinks again in 2023, and until further notice that apparently gets him a permanent rotation slot.
I swear, if this team never, ever, ever signs another free agent, it’ll be soon enough for me. Every %$#@ing roster decision and player usage choice is contaminated by over-prioritizing our precious free agents — well, that and the present manager’s destructive fetishistic obsession with maximizing righty-lefty matchups while batting, and minimizing R-L when pitching.
“Obviously with O’Neill and Carlson both out, you have to get creative, but Yepez isn’t creative he is destructive. Yepez must never be a choice in the OF ever again.”
Agree 100,000%. Maybe more.
And it isn’t like we didn’t already know this about Yepez. The Boy Wonder in the dugout played poor Yepez in the outfield dozens of games last year — twice as much as he did at his natural position of Designated Hitter. Just one of the numerous managerial gaffes in Marmol’s brief career.But much worse, the thing is, young Mr. Marmol does not learn from his mistakes. At all. Because there’s Yepez right back in the outfield again this year. Maybe Mr. Analytic didn’t read the numbers at Fangraphs or Baseball-Reference over the winter, where they let you know how objectively horrific Juan’s outfield defense is. Pro Tip: It’s possible, Ollie, for a player’s defense to be so incredibly dreadful at a position that it outweighs any contribution he might make with the bat. It happens.
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On a more cheerful note, the 7 homers tie the club record, set against Brooklyn in 1940 and equaled versus the cubs in 1996. (And the ’96 game is legit, as McGwire was not yet on the team.)
Despite the negative attention, Denkinger handled the scrutiny with grace, later reflecting on the call ahead of the 2014 World Series between the Royals and Giants — Kansas City’s first since the ’85 Series.
“It’s life, and it goes on,” he said at the time. “I’m obviously reminded constantly that I made a mistake. You know what? I was an umpire for more than 30 years in the Major Leagues. I know I made a lot of mistakes. That one was just blown out of proportion.”
So a professional umpire blunders a relatively easy call with the World Series in the balance, and after three decades of reflection his conclusion is that the call was “blown out of proportion”?
(Bleep) him. He can burn in Baseball Hades forever, with the Black Sox, Bonds, and Bud Selig.
