ORS

Love this move. Houston is the closest city with a Major League team to me, so now I'll get a Sox road-trip every year instead of every 6 years. Score.

Has it? Their closer and primary set-up man, who are both good, are from within the organization. Hard to call it a weakness when that is the case. That said, I do agree that their production rate of quality relievers leaves something to be desired. I think a big part of that is draft strategy. They've had a high number flops with college relievers, and their successes are with college starters converted to relievers. I think they should stay away from the fools gold that is Craig Hansen, Bryce Cox, et al.

You didn't even mention the best part. He was mediocre because he wanted to be mediocre. Maybe the finest example of armchair psychology I've ever seen.

Just saying. There's two sides to that coin.

An "A", and a "D", like I suggested.....only your math is way off getting to your overall. There's 6 years in the first group....so it weighs more into the overall average. There's 3 in the second. Nice 2 to 1 ratio. (9.5 * 2) + 6 = 25 / 3 = 8.33 More above average than you are evaluating him to have been.

Forgot about 2010. I stand corrected.

2003-2008 (6 years): 4 trips to the ALCS, 2 WS titles.....that's an A. 2009-2011 (3 years): 1 playoff appearance.....a D (a C in a smaller market). Overall: with proper weighting (6 years vs 3), that's a B. However, this discussion of grading made me think of a common concept used in subjective grading, which is what this is, that really applies here. Grading on a curve. Given the nature of the league, there are very good teams, good teams, mediocre teams, bad teams, and very bad teams (A, B, C, D, F) every year....or over a span of years. And, like in curved grading, I think it only fitting to be graded against your peers.....not absolute grading, which is graded against a perfect ideal, which doesn't exist in this population (MLB GM's). On a curve, 10% of the "class" should get an A, 20% a B, and the remaining 70% a C or lower. B or higher means he's been one of the top 9 GM's in the league over his tenure. I can't think of 9 rock solid cases to move him into the lower 70%. Can you? He's easily a B, with a strong case for an A, IMO. I think the disappointment of the last two years is eclipsing the success he had here. Only one other team has multiple titles over that timeframe (STL), but with more years missing the playoffs, and not as many trips to the LCS. Nobody has been the LCS as often. This stuff needs to stop being overlooked.

The dispute is about the relevancy of what he did 5 years ago in the minor leagues, your "proof", as it pertains to right now. Do you not get this? You just told me that the piece of fruit hanging from the tree is an apple. I agreed and said we should make it into some apple pie, because it looks ripe. Now you are saying we shouldn't make it into apple pie because it wasn't an apple pie at some point in the past. Stop derailing the discussion over a past that has little bearing on the future (because you can't compare Bard of 5 years ago to Bard now....he's grown as a pitcher). Risk, what risk? The injury risk is minimal. Effectiveness? If he can't make it as a starter, he goes back to the bullpen. Are you suggesting that he loses his effectiveness as a reliever as well? That seems overly cautious.

Nobody is disputing this fact. The dispute is about whether or not the pitcher he was 5 years ago is conclusive evidence against his ability to perform as a starter now. In my view, it isn't. And, in my view, there's little risk of "ruining" him as a reliever if they do try it. This is why I support trying it. If it doesn't work, it's very easy to go back to the bullpen.

This is true, and a good point. However, at this point, I think 2011 version of Daniel Bard is apples and oranges to the 2007 version of Daniel Bard. All the warts he had as a SP in 2007 were there when he starting pitching in relief. Given the refinement shown in his ability to pitch, it's probably worth it to see if he can crack the rotation. If he can't, he can always go back to the BP.

He was always an effort guy to get the velocity he had as a reliever, which is evident in the dropoff you saw when he was trying to find himself as a SP. Bard is different in that regard. He had easy heat coming out of college as a SP.

You are conflating this concern a bit. Yes, there was concern about his mechanics, and have been subsequent corrections, as it pertains to the ability to command his pitches. This does not mean that, as you put it, his mechanics wouldn't stand up to 200 IP as a starter, which suggests concerns about mechanics that might lead to injury, never the concern with Bard. As his SR stated coming out of college, he throws "easy gas", ie he can achieve excellent velocity with minimal effort (think Verlander). While I agree that there's risk in moving away from what you know you have with him, a good relief pitcher, in lieu of trying him out as a starter. That said, it might be worth the risk/reward if he can maintain his control over the higher load. I'd try it to start the year, but if, and only if, they can replace him (plus more) in what was a very shallow bullpen last year.

No, it wasn't, not the way you put it out there. An objective look would have included his position, age, salary, and it would have left some room for discussion of reasonable expectations moving forward. Instead, your "objective" look was through the lens of a 12-year old's eye.....don't take this as a stab at you individually, I'm not calling you 12, but most 12-year olds just look at the bottom line, the Triple Crown stats, and say "Good" or "Suck" and leave it at that. It was a simplistic look at a more complex issue.

In Time

No, you can't. No talking, no texting, no browsing. It's actually a great theater chain here in Texas called The Alamo Cinema and Drafthouse. There are extra walking aisles between the seating aisles for the waiters/waitresses to stop by and take your beer/food order during the movie (no talking, you write down what you want on slips of paper). They offer a good selection of beers (even their own on tap), and decent food/dessert options (the Guiness milkshake is awesome). They do cult classic movies several nights of the week (I went to see The Big Lebowski in Sept), which I think is a very good idea - they are tapping into a market that has gone ignored by the big movie theater chains, people like to watch movies with other fans of their all-time favorites. In a sense, they are tapping into what the big chains miss, that going to the movies can be fun (the cult classics, the serving of alcohol, and offering better food than stale hot dogs and state fair nachos). It just so happens, they have a very tight no phone policy that they wear like a badge of honor. In fact, for a little while there, they were actually using a customer complaint about being thrown out as marketing for how serious they are. This young girl (late teens early 20's), got thrown out for texting during a movie, so she called in to the customer service line to leave a feedback message. She was pretty whiney and ridiculous sounding, so the used her message as a warning to movie-goers at the beginning of movies to illustrate that their no phone policy is serious. It's a small price to pay for what otherwise is a very good theater experience, and I think it comes from a genuinely good intent. They don't want non-movie-watching activities to take away from someone else's theater experience. Personally, I doesn't bother me if the person next to me is quietly using their phone in the theater, but I do recognize that there are some that find this distracting from watching the movie. Oh, and they also frown upon bringing children to movies after 6:00 pm. They don't say you can't, because if your child can be quiet they'll leave you alone. If your kid is noisy, though, they'll show you the door. All this stuff is up front with warnings before the previews.

Fugg, I'm going to the movies/dinner with the wife and a big group of friends from work tomorrow night. I'll miss most of the game (movie from 7:30 to about 10:00 CST), and the theater we are going to has a strong "no phone usage during the movie" policy. Such is life.

Berkman's is looking pretty good from the winning side if the Cards win.

The joke went over your head.

Incredible game.

You don't know?

Correction: Those of you calling for massive changes have been 100% in alignment with the upper management. That doesn't make it right. The upper management has bumbled a few things that weren't in the scope of baseball operations, so they may have bumbled here by overreaction. Only time will tell.