2011 MLB Thread

[sophie]

pedestrian effort by lincecum yesterday. what do cards fans think of carpenter stinking up the joint? and al is flirting with Señor Mendoza

Did you see his web gem? I'd hardly call that pedestrian.

 

[Strider]

pedestrian effort by lincecum yesterday. what do cards fans think of carpenter stinking up the joint? and al is flirting with Señor Mendoza

Normal Carpenter. Isn't the first time he's had a really bad game and he usually bounces back extremely well.

 

[El Justo]

web gem? one play, you mean? i look at his stat line and am not impressed 5 and a third, 6 hits, 3 ERs, a walk and 4 Ks. pedestrian, bro.

 

[illram]

Let Timmy

 

[sophie]

web gem? one play, you mean? i look at his stat line and am not impressed 5 and a third, 6 hits, 3 ERs, a walk and 4 Ks. pedestrian, bro.

Meh, I'm willing to let him off after his 7 IP 1 ER 13 SO last start.

 

[Scratch]

Cliff Lee looked ok tonight, complete game shutout, 12 K's, 1 BB.

 

[El Justo]

Clifton Phifer Lee is a beast too. effortless, always the coolest cucumber on the field.

 

[Strider]

I hate it when my favorite team is against one of my fantasy pitchers. Or vice versa.

 

[Strider]

Cardinals pound out 16-hits and score 9 runs. That means in the last fives games the Cardinals have scored 46 runs. Averaging 9.2 runs a game. Halladay can win 10 games with all of those runs. We saw an extreme on one side (AKA barely putting a run on the board) and I'm assuming this is the other side of that extreme. With that said though there are a lot of positives to come out of this offensively and many of the questions have been answered. Such as:

1) Lance Berkman. Yes, the man can still hit. Might not be the best defensive right field in the game, but he's batting .293 with 4 homeruns and 11 RBIs. He's on target to hit 30 homeruns and top a 100 RBI's.

2) Ryan Theriot. Defensively? Average. Offensively? Batting .304 and taking a lot of walks. For a leadoff hitter that's all you need.

3) Schumaker is back! Well his average needs a bit of a boot (.267 right now), but he's back to his 2007-2009 stats of pumping out doubles like they are singles.

This is an offense with A LOT of run and power potential. The Rasmus-Pujols-Holliday-Berkman-Freese middle of the orderish has got to be scary as all hell. These are all .300 hitters with a lot of power behind them. It says a lot when Pujols has the second worst batting average on the team. The third lowest start average? Schumakers .267... then followed by Berkmans .293.

The heart of this order is all career 30-40 HR and 100+ RBI buys (Pujols, Holliday, Berkman) sandwiched between two younger 20-30 HR and 80+ RBI guys (Rasmus and Freese). Should be a hell of a lot of fun to watch. Now they just have to stay off the damn disabled list. We've already had our major injury for the year. I already miss seeing Wainwright pitch.

 

[Scratch]

In 10 GS for the Philly 4: 7-2, 3.00 ERA, 63 IP, 55 HA, 2 HR, 21 ER, 67 K, 11 BB.

Jimmy Rollins got his first RBI of the season last night, so he's now on pace to drive 13 or 14 runs this year. BenFran is in a home run drought right now, but still on pace to hit 27 HR and make Downtown eat a shoe.

 

[illram]

Yeah I didn't understand all the Cardinal handwringing. I thought that lineup looked pretty good in ST. I am banking on good 3B production from Freese in many a Fantasy league, I'll tell you that. Is it the pitching that has people concerned?

And Jimmy Rollins is overrated. I'm sure Philly fans knew that already though.

 

[Strider]

Yeah I didn't understand all the Cardinal handwringing. I thought that lineup looked pretty good in ST. I am banking on good 3B production from Freese in many a Fantasy league, I'll tell you that. Is it the pitching that has people concerned?

And Jimmy Rollins is overrated. I'm sure Philly fans knew that already though.

It's mostly Franklin right now. He's blown 3 saves so far this year. Without him we'd be a very nice 9-4 instead of 6-7.

 

[Lambert Simnel]

It's mostly Franklin right now. He's blown 3 saves so far this year. Without him we'd be a very nice 9-4 instead of 6-7.

'ere! You told me off 2 pages ago for blaming Franklin for all three of those losses!

Anyway, how about Sanchez for closer ? No, I'm not really serious, but Franklin's rehabilitation inning last night yielded a home run, albeit to Kemp who is pretty hot right now. I just don't believe the guy can close a ballgame, and we need to find a replacement sooner rather than later.

Alternative is to wait until closer to the trade deadline, and, if the Cards are competitive, be prepared to overpay for a closer from a team already eliminated. Which probably means getting Chris Perez back. (you read it here first...)

 

[Strider]

'ere! You told me off 2 pages ago for blaming Franklin for all three of those losses!

Even if the blown save in that game wasn't entirely franklins fault it's still inside of the 'aura' of closing duties.

Anyway, how about Sanchez for closer ? No, I'm not really serious, but Franklin's rehabilitation inning last night yielded a home run, albeit to Kemp who is pretty hot right now. I just don't believe the guy can close a ballgame, and we need to find a replacement sooner rather than later.

Yeah. That homerun last night has been worried also, but what I really don't like about last nights game? 3 groundouts. Franklin simply isn't a hard ball pitcher that strikes batters out and that is what you need for a closer. You want some lights out who doesn't give up hard contact.

Alternative is to wait until closer to the trade deadline, and, if the Cards are competitive, be prepared to overpay for a closer from a team already eliminated. Which probably means getting Chris Perez back. (you read it here first...)

Perez is awesome. I would love to get him back. Who'd we trade him off for anyway?

 

[Strider]

As of this post Berkman has smashed in another two homeruns and made plenty of decent plays in rightfield.

Edit: Pujols sends two deep also and the Cardinals win another one with 11 runs scored and 19 hits. Averaging 9.5 runs a game in their last 6 games.

 

[Thoughtful Thug]

Still don't understand why Manny Ramirez took steroids. He would've been averaging a lifetime somewhere 28 HR per season without it.

Indians posting a team 2.47 ERA and the bullpen somewhere around 2.08 ERA. By far the best small-market team around even if they do always lose their best players to big-market teams.

Need the salary cap for baseball, or it is always just going to be small-market teams playing as they are a minor league development league for big-market teams. Annoying!

 

[El Justo]

rollins may be overrated in terms of his avg draft position and all that. however, i would take him as my starting SS over all but maybe 4 or 5 guys, tops. i ain't pimpin' him, mind you. he's unconventional in some ways. but he has value, especially out of the 3 hole.

 

[Lambert Simnel]

Perez is awesome. I would love to get him back. Who'd we trade him off for anyway?

You really want to know ? You'll cry when you find out...

Spoiler :

Mark DeRosa
http://cleveland.indians.mlb.com/news/press_releases/press_release.jsp?ymd=20090726&content_id=6076368&vkey=pr_cle&fext=.jsp&c_id=cle

Anyway, what's done is done. The outbreak of hitting is pretty welcome, and the line-up does look pretty impressive. No doubt we'll come back to earth shortly, but there is a lot of power and quality there.

I guess I'm still a lot more doubtful of Theriot than you are. On the other hand, I was very pleased to see Molina go 4 for 4 - as our catcher, he's the man, and he's going to be playing 120-140 games as long as he avoids injury. So it's really good if he isn't stinking up the place with a .200 BA.

 

[Strider]

You really want to know ? You'll cry when you find out...

Spoiler :

Mark DeRosa
http://cleveland.indians.mlb.com/ne...ent_id=6076368&vkey=pr_cle&fext=.jsp&c_id=cle

Ouch... that was a bad trade.

Anyway, what's done is done. The outbreak of hitting is pretty welcome, and the line-up does look pretty impressive. No doubt we'll come back to earth shortly, but there is a lot of power and quality there.

If anyone is going to bring them back to earth it'll be Kershaw tonight. This will be a really good test of how good this offense really is. If they can put up 8+ runs against him then we might be looking at the real deal. Although I'd be plenty happy with 4-6.

I guess I'm still a lot more doubtful of Theriot than you are. On the other hand, I was very pleased to see Molina go 4 for 4 - as our catcher, he's the man, and he's going to be playing 120-140 games as long as he avoids injury. So it's really good if he isn't stinking up the place with a .200 BA.

Theriot is laying off and being much more patient than he has been the last few years. I think his average will drop to the .280 range, but I expect him to keep taking walks at a pretty nice rate. All he really needs to do is get on base 1/3 of the time. He looks a bit slow on defense, but we didn't expect him to be Brendan Ryan. Otherwise we'd currently have a SS that is batting .194.

 

[Strider]

It really doesn't seem to matter who the Cardinals slot into the lineup. La Russa sat Berkman, Molina (who went 4-4 yesturday) and schumaker in last nights game and they still managed to put up 13 hits and 9 runs and forced one of the best NL pitchers (Kershaw) out in just 4 2/3 innings.

I'm still expecting the offense to slow down a bit, but this might just be for real guys. When you pump out 13 hits and 9 runs with 3 of your normal starters taking day off something is going right. Also K-Mac looked pretty damn good. Not dominating good, but good nonetheless. Give him a bit more time to work on those pitches and we might have a mini-wainwright on our hands.