jacksonianmarch

Kimmi, it hit at a bad time. It's not about the recovery now, it's about building up arm strength. Also, I think his injury was more than a patellar subluxation. With how long he was shelved for, I bet he sprained a ligament

Station, Rusney was billed as a 5 tool guy. Well, the power is not there, the hit tool is suspect and his defense is lacking. He's a speedy guy with a good arm. That's about it

see em all the time

Station, that is asking a lot from a rotation that is basically a who's who of promise without production from 2 through 5. When you are trying to develop your pitching, having a s***** catcher is not good. Like I said before, if you had Lester, Lackey, et al then this kid could be fine. But with an ace and a bunch of s*** afterwards, his errors will be magnified. Buch's goferball is proof of that.

He did it all while being an absolute sieve defensively on a team that was going nowhere. He has to help the rotation along and he cannot do it right now.

Station, Swihart's offense is a bonus. He might end up being a very strong offensive catcher. But his receiving has been panned, he was the worst defensive catcher in baseball last yr and there are grumblings of discontent with his framing and calling of pitches. If you had a rotation that could coach him up, you live with it. Your rotation is so suspect that they cannot bring along a young, green catcher.

I'd 60 day DL Pablo with strained abdominal muscles. No acute component, just persistently strained from the inside out

He wont be for long. Swihart has to go down until you can deal off Hanigan

11ER in 140IP. That's Mo in the playoffs. It's silly

Pablo needs to follow Tony Horton like Eddy Lacy did. That dude looks like a house

Tyler, 12 base runners in 5 innings is not good pitching. Kelly was lucky as hell. His WHIP from last night was 2.40. That's twice what it should be

He's getting $95 mil over the life of his deal to be a professional athlete. There are some plump baseball players, but there aren't any plump third basemen in the game today. With a heightened focus on defense in analytics, being athletic is required for most every position except DH and at times 1b. The fact that he thought he could continue his eating habits into his thirties is also distressing. You can eat like a house in your 20s and work out and that's usually enough. Into your thirties, the weight sticks more. This is a phantom DL stint that I think lasts a lot longer than 15 days. He'll be out for 30 at least and if he doesn't come back 20-30 pounds lighter, he'll be buried in some hole in the Ft Myers complex

12 base runners allowed in 5 IP by kelly and only 2 runs?

Totally agree. But if that is the ultimate goal, you cannot basically go in with what you have

If the guy played up to his contract, he'd have more than one ring

In a perfect world for you guys, ERod would be no higher than 3rd in your rotation. In my perfect world, you guys lose by 20 every night

Judge has started out well in AAA, knocking on the door of the big club. .391 with 3 doubles in his first 5 games. The only downside is the 1:8 BB to K ratio. Ben Gamel and Slade Heathcott have gotten off to quick starts as well. Sanchez and Refsnyder not to much The story of Connor Mullee could be made into a movie. College SS converted to the mound. Then has 3 major arm surgeries. Now 28, he is pumping mid 90s cheese and has K'd 6 in his first 3IP in AAA. Hope he sees the big club at least for a cup of coffee for his perseverance There has been a Dante Bichette Jr. sighting! .400BA and 2 HR in his first 4 games. He hit 3 taters all of last yr. He has seemingly been around forever, but he will play this yr as a 23 yr old, so he does have time if he blossoms. Tampa will be one of my favorite teams to watch this yr, as they have the most speed of any team you are gonna see. Mateo and Avelino together might steal 130 bases between them. Mateo is clubbing the piss out of the ball to this point. 1.049OPS with a .391AVG, a double, 2 triples and 3 steals. He needs to cut down on the K's, 9 in first 5 games, to take advantage of that speed. Many publications like him better than Sanchez and Judge for the top spot in the farm and he likely wont be in Tampa long. Miguel Andujar has started strong. He's a tooled up 3b who has been pushed aggressively to this point without the performance to back it up. He's repeating Tampa this yr and he's OPS'ing 1.2 right now with 2HR in 4 games. He just turn 21 and if he has a strong year, would definitely be a top 100 prospect nationally.

Pleased to this point with the start. Both losses vs aces with Zimmerman silencing us and Keuchel settling down after allowing a couple runs. The funny thing is, an umpire error cost us the Keuchel game. Regardless, we have won with some timely hitting and dominant pen work. Considering only 3 guys are over .250, our bats haven't yet erupted. And on the staff, CC has the only quality start. Tanaka has had some atypical wildness, but has been able to get the big outs when needed. CC had a good performance in Detroit and if it wasn't for Girardi trying to see him go into the 7th, he'd have looked even better. Pineda was in the zone far too much and saw the ball fly out of the park on a chilly game. Eovaldi had the same issue. Severino fell apart after Ellsbury played an out into an EBH. Overall, maybe we have been lucky, maybe we are showing well, I don't know. The rotation needs to give more than 5 innings and multiple runs. The lineup needs to get going aside from our 6, 8 and 9. The pen cannot sustain a sub 1ERA. But to this point, I'm happy

Vasquez is a dominant defensive catcher who will probably be a s***** hitter long term at the big league level. But you have enough bats in your lineup to sustain a drop in production at C. You need better pitching and you certainly aren't bringing in anybody new right now. A good catcher can improve a staff. It wont turn s*** into gold, but it might prolong an outing by an inning or so and might drop the ER by a few over a period of time. A good catcher is like having a coach behind the plate. A bad catcher is like having an anchor behind the plate. Most pitchers want to be told what to do, have general agreement with the plan and execute. Very few guys want to call their own game pitch by pitch, and if you have the drag along a rookie, then it could drag the performance.

We know two things about your team. Your offense will be top 5 and as currently constituted, your rotation will be bottom 10. Price was a badly needed ace on the staff, but the rest of the rotation was s***. They might pan out and it is awfully early to make a panic move. You've got a kid in ERod who should add stability to the 2 slot, but as constituted, it sounds like you'd kick Wright out of the rotation. He was the only non Price guy to give you anything of value in his first start. If your ace, offense and pen carry you to striking distance at the deadline, DD will have no choice but to strike for a starter. If you made the playoffs right now, Price, ERod and who? Your playoff rotation would stink beyond the 2

Rotoworld says the sox are planning on calling up Vasquez. Can you say panic? Although it might actually be a good move. Swihart losing that popup against a rolling offense was Buch's undoing. BTW, could that wiry db be any more soft?

After reading your first two words, all I could think of was an old Xzibit rap, lol

Actually UN?, I've been saying that. You've taken the cautiously optimistic approach

What the Yankees did with ARod and his bonuses was justified. The bonuses were marketing bonuses and they can't market anything if it's falsely obtained. Their compromise was a good one, i.e. Money goes to charity

Kimbrel is making a great part of the lineup look limp