Dojji

Nevermind Foulke, I want to go to the Dodgers and see what their asking price is on Kenley Jansen. I'm through with third-string options. Pay what it takes to bring in a guy you KNOW will get the job done, stop the bleeding for a few years, and move on to other problems.

This is why you don't try to go cheap on the back end of your bullpen. How much talent has the failure to retain Papelbon's services already cost us? The fallout from two failed trades and now possibly a third on the horizon as well.

He wants people to believe he's a 3B so people might promote him to the majors. If he was that good at third, he'd be playing it in the minors. It is darn hard to find a good third sacker right now.

I don't see how Snyder helps us. He's not a third baseman. EDIT: Ok, conceded that Snyder has played a little third base in his time but he's definitely not an everyday third sacker. People who can hit like he can and play third aren't in AAA.

And that's exatly what you're not going to get with Bogaerts. He's not ready.

Yes, the KC broadcasters are outright irritating, but as a fan who remembered the end of the Brett era, it's nice to see that team take its legacy back. Some oldtimers know what I mean when I say that this the way they used to do it in KC. Lots of pitching, lots of D, a solid balanced speed attack and enough power in the middle of the order to get by. Nice to see them find their way.

It's still wrong to say Theo didn't build the 2007 team. He'd lost his way by 2011, but what he did for this franchise includes some pretty impressive accomplishments.

As things stand right now has Halladay done enough to be a Hall of Famer? I say yes. The level of dominance he displayed as in his prime as a pitcher was greater than any post-Pedro starter and his run from 2005 to 2011 rivals Pedro's peak years with advantages to choose from each -- Pedro was as much more dominant, as Halladay was more durable -- both very, very important attributes in an ace type starter. 200 wins, 2000 strikeouts, two Cys, and a track record as one of the most durable and effective pitchers of his generation ought to get him in.

The glove wag was an adaptation to a problem he was having with tipping his pitches earlier in his career. You may not like it but it's necessary.

You know I did a bad job explaining the point I had in my head, when someone else had to come along after my post saying exactly what I'd tried to say, in less than 10% of the total words.

Perhaps so, but I can see pro athletes wanting the big payday for a couple reasons. First their bodies could give out on them at any time. If you have maybe 20 years of earning time at the absolute most, and have a long post-professional sports career to plan for financially, getting as much as you can when you can get it is necessary. Second, the owners are going to get their cut whatever happens, but they get that cut because they have players who make the team and the sport watchable. A cut of that revenue going to the players is entirely appropriate. Whether you or I could do fine on less money than is going to the players is immaterial -- the product nets X amount of revenue, and it's fair that Y% of it goes to the players. Frankly more of it should go to the yutes than actually goes to them -- no other sport in the big 4 inhibits its rookies' earning power more than baseball. That's besides the rather obvious fact that most of the salary rules in place are about limiting a player's earning power to begin with. The players get stepped on quite a bit, even with the "millionaires fighting billionaires" dynamic going on.

I'm not paying him based on 2011, that said, if he wants a reasonable deal in the 11-15M AAV range, I'd consider it.

http://media.courierpress.com/media/img/photos/2010/08/25/Cardinals_Pirates_Bas_John7_t607.jpg Yes. Yes it would. It would also be perfectly legal as long as that substance was rosin. If Buchholz rosined up his glove arm so he wouldn't have to go back to the bag and break the pace he wants in his game that explains almost everything.

It needed to happen. I'm convinced a very large part of what Tek is doing is trying to drill knowledge into Salty. Salty is only just now at the age Tek was when he started to come in to his own. Tek was not a very good defensive catcher at the outset -- he had to have years of experience first.

We've had Nieves, Farrell, Pedro and Tek all giving our pitchers pointers and ideas this season. That's a lot of high octane mentorship. Between these 4 guys that's a ton of experience, savvy and baseball knowledge. Quite frankly, I think we also need to give Saltalamacchia his due as an improved pitch caller. He has made significant progress there this year.

The biggest reason Adgon lost favor here was that when his power went away, we started to panic because of the big contract. That's not going to be an issue with Napoli. If he slows down Carp starts playing and he doesn't get renewed next year.

"Many things have to not continue to go particularly wrong" is not the same thing as "many things have to go particularly right."

If they were hit back in time, then when did they land? [/couldn't resist]

This statement is incorrect. We acquired one starter and the rest of our pitching has been more than adequate, and had the talent to be more than adequate from the outset. Our depth is also pretty decent, especially if we get Morales back. The overreaction to the underperformance of our pitching staff last year during the offseason reached the point of comedy several times. They got a pile of something. I wouldn't have been the one who wanted to pay Mark Buejrle to pitch in the AL East at 34, and I wouldn't have been the one who had to try to hitch my season to Josh Johnson. While it's true they didn't give up a ton, they got some question marks back, no doubt about it. Nnnnnot really. We've had above average luck, which contrasts starkly with our horrific luck last year and maybe that makes it seem like a bigger contrast, but so far what I see is a pretty danged talented rotation starting to play up to their ability. I mean, which of Buchholz, Lester, Dempster, Doubront and Lackey -- a rotation that includes 3 former Cy Young nominees and one more talented prospect just starting to come into his own, were bad bets to pitch to an ERA of under 4 this year? We love to hate Lackey because of his injury-filled last few years, but he was reported healthy and the reports turn out to be well founded. Only Dempster was a good bet assuming normal health, and he's certainly pitched well in his career. No one needed to call it 100% o the time. All they had to do is point out, accurately, that it was hardly unreasonable to expect it of either pitcher. Buchholz has been a revelation this year, granted. He's the only one that's even really exceeding reasonable expectations.

He's going to regress a bit at some point this season. He's good, but he's not Pedro. That said, I saw a lot of 94's and 95's with significant movement last night, and even though I predict he'll regress. I don't think he's in any danger of not being a Cy Young contender barring something health related.

That's incredible.

The 2 hr's last night were two of the hardest hit baseballs I have ever seen at any ballpark, ever. It's time to create some kind of appreciation thread to discuss the excellent acquisition that is Mike Napoli. It's looking like he's an excellent addition to the middle of this lineup so far. I've wanted this man on the team for YEARS now, and we've finally got him and he's doing everything I hoped he'd do. I couldn't be happier.

Speaking of Mr. Nava, his splits for the season are so far the opposite of last year V. left he's hitting to a .968 OPS with 2 HR's in 20 PA's V right he's hitting at a .906 OPS with 3 HR's in 78 PA's It's too early to really take splits to mean anything, but whatever issues were keeping him from being effective against LHP last year seem to be behind him for now.

And Yaz was small for a corner outfielder, even a generation ago when the average athlete's height was about 2-3 inches shorter. I certainly don't intend to take anything away from Mr. Yastrzemski. He was a heck of a ballplayer and he deserves to have his number up on the wall, but let's not pretend that a guy putting together a hall of fame caliber career despite his size means that size is not an issue at all.

I took a dim view of Carp early on because I didn't think we needed him, and I thought he endangered Nava's position, Nava being (IMHO) the more useful player. I thought he should have gone away in order to keep Iglesias up a little longer. Looks like the bench is big enough for both of them and they both have come up very big at times.