Dojji

Other than possibly Jay Bruce, Holliday is the only major trade target that makes sense for us.

Why not? It makes no sense to block off the idea of trades with whole teams just because one or two went badly recently.

I think you take it slow with Eddie. It's more important that he be there and viable in September than that he rush back. And I think that since he was perfectly adequate tonight, I'd be fine with it if Farrell was of the opinion that he'd earned another start. He looked like he should be a perfectly reasonable 5th starter type -- a guy who makes mistakes but hangs in there and eats innings. That's all you ask of the last guy in the rotation.

Matt Holliday. On the last year of his deal with the Cards with a team option for 2017, still hitting well but not so well he'd cost mucho prospecto, team isn't in immediate contention. If you're looking for a deadline deal to upgrade in left, the guy to go after is Holliday. If we make 2 deadline deals, one for ESantana, one for Holliday, we'll have had an aggressive but very rational deadline and should be in good shape to contend.

A consistently average to above average starter like Santana is not a "lateral" move if we replace Buchholz with him.

Perfectly happy with the work O'Sullivan did today. if O'Sullivan had a "You Have One Job" speech given to him before he pitched tonight that one job would be -- get through 6 innings. Nothing else was as important as consuming at least 2/3 of the game himself. Mission accomplished. And the bats picked him up which was good. but for a replacement starter I'll take the job O'Sullivan did 11 times out of 10.

Not necessarily. Go offer something reasonable to the Twins and bring in Ervin Santana. Santana is a good trade target since he's usually someone you can count on to be durable, not likely to break the bank in trade, and he ought to pitch well enough to upgrade the rotation over your worst starter.

I never thought I'd say this to anyone RSDD, but you might want to cool it with the massive posting frenzy. I don't have any problem with someone being engaged in the forum, in fact I welcome engagement, it's the only way anyone learns after all. But I look into several different threads and see you having made the last 4-5 posts that were made on all of them. Even for me that's a bit excessive. You're giving the impression of that guy who starts a conversation with someone just to go off on a raving tangent, the other guy gets bored and moves on, and he's still sitting there carrying on by himself at 90 miles a minute. That person is not... a healthy person. Do you understand?

Hembree's an excellent junktime reliever, I'm glad we don't have to count on him for more than that. Sometimes a guy is just best in a subordinate role, like Hembree, like Holt, and possibly like JBJ -- he's thriving in the bottom of the lineup and I for one would be glad to leave him there all year. We need offense all over the lineup after all.

If you don't think that one can infer a great deal about someone's character based on his actions I don't know what to tell you.

No he did throw one at 87 last night, confirmed on the radar. Even if the gun is a little hot, being able to get a fastball into the 80's while throwing the knuckler means he can occasionally "pitch frontwards" (IE lead with the fastball) if he feels a hitter is lining up his knuckleball a bit too well and that might make him even harder to hit.

Ed Cetera

that's where knuckleballers tend to live IIRC. It's a high risk pitch, but if it's dancing, hitters can't square it up resulting in a lot of weak flyball contact. At least that's how it played out when Wake was having a good night. Combine that with our strong defensive outfield and Wright living up in the zone plays to his strengths more than he plays against them.

I haven't even dared to say it. But he's doing a good job of impersonating an ace so far.

Great outing by Wright. Absolutely fantastic. Way to salvage a game.

So close!!!!!! Go for the CG steve

1 more

2 more

86 pitches for Wright, he ought to be coming back out

Another great start by Wright. How is he this unhittable?

I doubt Kluber is available, he's under contract to a poor team at a very affordable rate for 5 more years, that's too much control to walk away from without a mammoth offer.

Believe it or not, Blanco is an above average offensive player. Kinda puts Holt's performance in LF in a new light doesn't it? Brian Johnson is nothing special. dime a dozen LHSP with control issues.

the problem is cashner is kind of the worst of both worlds right now. He's pitching poorly, but used to pitch very very well so a team would ask for more based on that. Also the fact is that Cashner is a guy who gives up a lot of baserunners and a lot of base hits, that's a poor fit for a smaller park like Fenway that can turn those hits into doubles more easily than anywhere else. I do agree that we could use an additional starter. I do feel we should look for someone else however. How about Jorge de la Rosa? He's off to an execrable start in Colorado this year but he's been above average each of the previous 3 years, he might be a good guy to take a chance on.

If there's a team that could get away with going back to a 4 man rotation, it's probably the Boston Red Sox this year. All of our best 4 arms are highly durable and either young, or in their prime years. And if we need to have a bullpen game to give the boys a blow during a long stretch of consecutive games we can probably make that happen between Ross, Hembree and Barnes. Obviously my speculative odd man out would be Clay Buchholz with E-Rod taking the 4th position in the speculative rotation. Buchholz can add to the bottom of the bullpen and come in if we need a bullpen game. May be a better place for him anyway given his durability issues. Add to that the fact that none of our depth options including Buchholz are anywhere near as trustworthy as our big 4 and I feel it may be time to try the experiment, or at least skip the 5th starter a lot more often. With 4 good young durable starters and a lot of depth in the bullpen, along with the ability to switch relivers in and out quickly which we've been aggressive about so far this year allowing us to soak up surplus innings and send a guy down to recover, it might be worth a look.

I think some of our posters are approaching the discussion more from a theoretical standpoint, not so much about the individual pitcher as about calling on the guy who occupies that position in the bullpen deptn in that situation. Our pen has been excellent this year so far, but Layne is still literally the last man out of the pen at the moment.