BroncoBob27

If we hadn't traded Miggy he would have just hung on until he reached FA, and then we would have gotten zilch for him. He made it very obvious he wasn't going to be staying here long term, the $$$ just wasn't there for him. I don't know why people opt to ignore that. Bad stadium deal and no butts in the seats. The mantra back then......."Money coming in will equal money going out." The money wasn't there and he wanted the big payday.

I have no problem with Red's postgame comments. Neither do I. The kid has been doing this all season. It's just a wonder something hasn't happened before. Yea, he's "just having a good time out there." Problem is, this isn't a little league field. I would bet if we went back in posts to last season when another rookie kid on the Nats was "just having some fun out there" that no body here was sticking up for him. Guess if it's our guy it's okay.

The Verducci effect is a farce y'all. Regardless, if Jose does get hurt in one of these last starts, the FO will have another PR nightmare on their hands. I know they could care less, but still. So you are for shutting him down now, before he gets to that 170 innings? He's at 158.2 innings right now and averages just a tad over 6 innings a start. That's pretty much right on schedule. I don't think if he does get hurt in one of these last two it would be such a PR nightmare. Maybe with the ones that were complaining they were planning on shutting him down at 170 doing an about face and saying they should have shut him down sooner. The normal armchair, hindsight, "I will never admit I was wrong" type fans. His average velocity on his FB has dropped from his last 5 starts compared to his previous 12 starts before those 5. I think he's getting tired, and I can't really see it being a good thing to keep pitching a guy if he's tired, so I say shut him down now. But maybe the coaches are having him not pitch as hard etc or there is some other reason or maybe these few extra days of rest will help. Small sample and all that. I really don't know. I just don't see the point of starting him again this year, although I am excited to see him a few more times so for now all I can do is sit back and watch the man pitch. In his Friday night start he blew that theory out the window.

I really think it's Jose's award to lose, but it will be close. Being in a playoff race helps Puigs case for some voters though. Being an every day player also helps. I'm not a fan of any pitcher winning ROY, but Jose is making a good argument for it happening.

The Verducci effect is a farce y'all. Regardless, if Jose does get hurt in one of these last starts, the FO will have another PR nightmare on their hands. I know they could care less, but still. So you are for shutting him down now, before he gets to that 170 innings? He's at 158.2 innings right now and averages just a tad over 6 innings a start. That's pretty much right on schedule. I don't think if he does get hurt in one of these last two it would be such a PR nightmare. Maybe with the ones that were complaining they were planning on shutting him down at 170 doing an about face and saying they should have shut him down sooner. The normal armchair, hindsight, "I will never admit I was wrong" type fans. His average velocity on his FB has dropped from his last 5 starts compared to his previous 12 starts before those 5. I think he's getting tired, and I can't really see it being a good thing to keep pitching a guy if he's tired, so I say shut him down now. But maybe the coaches are having him not pitch as hard etc or there is some other reason or maybe these few extra days of rest will help. Small sample and all that. I really don't know. I just don't see the point of starting him again this year, although I am excited to see him a few more times so for now all I can do is sit back and watch the man pitch. I look at it as having a plan and sticking to it. They are working him up to being able to handle a full season at this level. To the point of shutting him down in some games when he wanted to go further. Working your body to the point you are tired is part of the building process. If you just work out the same every time and quit before some fatigue sets in, you never get past that point. Let him get these next two starts, give him a good off season program, and monitor it.

Pitchers in highschool also throw way harder. So the damage starts very early now. This is true, I think. IMO, there's plenty of blame to go around. Coaches and parents included. Should kids that young be taught and encouraged to throw certain pitches, such as curves? Some pitches are alot of stress on very under developed arms. How about players that pitch one day, and the other days are playing another position? No time in between to rest that arm. A lot of arguments going both ways on this topic. I'm with Bob on this one. Kids start so young and many never get adequate rest. They learn to throw very stressful pitches early on and coaches and parents push push push, abusing their arm. By highschool they are worried about scouts, and can throw 90+ mph. In highschool. Its good to be dedicated but imagine your arm going through that much. Then college ball and pro ball. And some of you think they just need to pitch more. If we are correct, then I really don't see a viable solution to the problem. Parents and coaches are gonna push. The kids have visions of piles of $$$ dancing in their heads. I suppose one could be pitchers pitch. Period. BUT A lot of players have been drafted as pitchers only to play a different position in the pros, for whatever reason. Scouts want to see all around players.

Pitchers in highschool also throw way harder. So the damage starts very early now. This is true, I think. IMO, there's plenty of blame to go around. Coaches and parents included. Should kids that young be taught and encouraged to throw certain pitches, such as curves? Some pitches are alot of stress on very under developed arms. How about players that pitch one day, and the other days are playing another position? No time in between to rest that arm. A lot of arguments going both ways on this topic.

The Verducci effect is a farce y'all. Regardless, if Jose does get hurt in one of these last starts, the FO will have another PR nightmare on their hands. I know they could care less, but still. So you are for shutting him down now, before he gets to that 170 innings? He's at 158.2 innings right now and averages just a tad over 6 innings a start. That's pretty much right on schedule. I don't think if he does get hurt in one of these last two it would be such a PR nightmare. Maybe with the ones that were complaining they were planning on shutting him down at 170 doing an about face and saying they should have shut him down sooner. The normal armchair, hindsight, "I will never admit I was wrong" type fans.

risk vs reward the risk may be low but it's not zero. reward? there is none, Jose is already awesome and established and the Marlins are playing for nothing. If that's the case then the Marlins should've shut him down after the midsummer classic when he was ERAing a 2.71 on an already bottom dwelling team. That's a dumb thing to say. The Marlins needed to increase Fernandez's IP workload from what it was last season. Teams have historically tried to increase IP by 30 or so each season for young pitchers. The idea is that increasing the workload in marginal increments would alleviate stress on the connective tissues and also build up arm strength safely. Shutting him down in July wouldn't have done Fernandez any good, either. Agree. Fernandez is a special case, but this is what I would like to see happen in the minors. Gradually increase their pitch counts, which will, or at least should, gradually increase their innings. I believe that would decrease the amount of injuries at this level.

I've been waiting for that Bert blyleven comparison..... Took me by surprise. Have no idea how what someone else did 43 years ago relates to today. Not to mention trying to compare a HOFer to a rookie. I'm sure if someone were to take the time they could go back to those years and find plenty of pitchers with tons of promise that didn't sustain that kind of workload. Right now that's exactly what Fernandez is, a young pitcher with tons of promise.

Help attendance? Which really means revenue. Problem is that 77% of the home gate isn't much different than 23% of the away gate, so moving a start from away to home is almost meaningless, revenue-wise. Which they know better than anyone here. Yeah, they sell a few more hot dogs and other stuff, but I rather think that they are much more interested in promoting the new (and hugely popular) face of the franchise generally. As they should be. As it stands, he's gonna miss 3 starts after his final 2, and the most important one of those 3 would be the last game against DET. How cool would it be to watch him shut-out or hold Cabrera, et al to a run or two in the final game? That sells a lot of tickets for next year. If it was me, considering that he obviously should be the ROY and should have a chance to perform all the way (or nearly) to the end, I'd cut him loose for the last 3 starts at 6 innings max each unless he falters badly along the way in any start. They baby young ams. What good has that done? The incidence of arm problems across MLB has only increased. Increase his IP limit by 10%? Big deal. Let the kid pitch. He's earned it. Higher attendance means every thing revenue wise. And of course they are promoting him. It helps attendance/revenue for next season. They baby young arms in the majors because they baby young arms at every other level. Little League, high school, college, and the minors. Until they start getting guys used to pitching longer in the minors, you just can't expect them to lengthen their output in the majors. You can't take somebody that isn't used to extending himself, and then all of a sudden extend him at this level. Bodies have to become adjusted to the increase in work load in any aspect of life. Try running a mile every day for months. Then one day run 3. See how that works out for ya. He might be okay to pitch the season out. But he might not. It's why they say they don't want to take the CHANCE. Better safe than sorry. I agree with them.

2 more starts both at home, max of 12 IP. Reasonable, even if it is very apparent they are doing it to help attendance. He has 11 1/3 innings to go to reach that 170 mark and is averaging just a tad over 6 innings per start.

i think if brantly can work out his kinks he will be solid. glad to see dietrich doing well. read something from frisaro a while back about solano and dietrich manning second and third next year. That's a lot of kinks to work out.

I do recall a quote of him saying he didn't care if they fired him (pre-firing) because he had a contract and would be getting paid anyway. May just of been an Ozzie-ism, or maybe it was showing he really didn't care. But then if they had given me a very good team and then stripped me of it's best players 3 months into the season, I may of copped an attitude.

Speaking of Samson.......Didn't notice it until the wife pointed out a Yahoo Sports article, but has anyone noticed the absence of anything Samson-related for quite some time?? That author (forget who, but I do seem to remember he hates just about anything Loria/Samson) speculated that the ex-stepson may be on his way out. Just food for thought.

I am deeply concerned that Loria/Samson will have Fernandez skip the next 2 starts (both on the road) and have Fernandez next pitch at home to maximize the financial returns from Fernandez's remaining starts. Hey, let the Loria hate flow over you, there's nothing like a ridiculous postulation -- any excuse will do to lob a stupid-bomb at Loria. On another thread, I forget which, someone (not you) asserted that merely throwing a baseball was unnatural. Which is not true. Man, for thousands of years past has thrown rocks at the heads of mastadons and buffalo and a lot of smaller stuff hoping for a knock-out and a good meal. Those attempts, while mostly failures, were all fastballs, not curves or sliders or sinkers or even cut fastballs. It seems that ligament problems stem mainly from trying to impart unnatural spin -- that is, anything other than a pure fastball -- snapping off curve balls, etc. The only thing that bothers me about Fernandez is that he throws a fair number of curves. It seems to me that if you want to protect a young pitcher's arm, it would be a good idea to count total pitches thrown, not innings, and weight it for the types of pitches thrown. Which follows what I stated. Limit the amount of pitches per start, and then the amount of innings thrown in the season. They can call it whatever they want.

That's a separate issue. I'm talking about what is causing the recent increase in errors this month. I'm going with the fatigued theory. I do think he will be fine IF he can master the offensive angle of his play. One can only hope that this season does teach him how much it takes to play a full season and maybe work a little harder in the off season with his conditioning. This season was a write off from the start. A learning process for a lot of our players. And a season where the fans need to show some patience. I think next season will be more of a telling factor of what we really have. If he, or any other player, isn't living up to expectations then we do something about it. It's far too soon to be writing any player off.

He's our new John Baker. Remember when John Baker used to hit and you used to hate him? Never hated anybody. In Baker's case, I always said he had a nice bat but was terrible at defense. Nothing more. Not many agreed openly with that.....Until he was gone. What's the difference between what you used to say about Baker (or Gaby Sanchez) and what I'm saying about Hechavarria? Hechavarria is a lot like one of your other favorites, Emilio Bonifacio, who has moved on to have quite the mediocre career (just traded for nothing not so long ago). Perhaps Hechavarria is better than his defensive #'s. No one has ever said that defensive #'s are perfect. They're flawed, but at the same time, I see no reason to fully ignore them. And while we're at it, while defensive #'s are far from perfect, offensive #'s are pretty accurate. Hechavarria's offensive #'s pretty much put him in a category of: "he has to be Ozzie Smith defensively to have any type of relevant value because he can't hit for s***." You seem to defend defensive, toolsy players who can't hit a lot more than solid offensive players with no position. I don't know why that is, but you have a history of doing that. Maybe because sh*tty offensive players are written about more on here, and you like to be the contrarian at all times. It seems like you only post on here now to critique other members of the board. I don't have now, nor have in the past, had any favorite. But I will defend those that are being exaggerated against. I'll do that quite often. Just going by what has been reported on about him from many more than just his coaches. The only thing I have agreed with is that I do believe he is getting fatigued right now. But yea. I do like defensive players. It's what this team is supposed to be built on. "Pitching, defense, and speed." It's why this ball park was built in it's current configuration. When they want to bring the fences in and start building an offensive minded team, then I'll start looking at things differently.

I don't see why the Harvey situation shouldn't be an instance of caution for the Marlins in how to handle Fernandez. Piling on the innings at a young age is always going to be risky. Fernandez has a lot of innings under his belt for such a young age. I realize this remark isn't totally in his case, but..... The way pitchers are handled in the minors, I have to agree with this statement. The minors should be used to increase a pitchers endurance instead of babying them. Basically taking young bodies that are still developing and helping them to develop their bodies into their chosen trade. There's good reasoning to both sides of this argument, but.... Guys like Fernandez are a little different. They are still developing, except they are doing it at this level where they are far more in the publics' eye. Limit the amount of pitches for each start, let them get to a predetermined amount of innings, and then shut them down.

He's our new John Baker. Remember when John Baker used to hit and you used to hate him? Never hated anybody. In Baker's case, I always said he had a nice bat but was terrible at defense. Nothing more. Not many agreed openly with that.....Until he was gone.

Errors aren't Hechavarria's problem. These complaints did not start over the past two weeks, although they've grown larger over the past two weeks. However, anyone who thinks we're just complaining because of two weeks is being a BroncoBob. Hechavarria's problem isn't that he's trying to do too much on routine plays. Hechavarria's problem is that he grades poorly with his range or lack thereof. The only reason why people think he's great defensively is because he's flashy on routine plays. He has had a terrible year, but let's all give him a golf clap for his RBI 3B the other night. It'll at least make BroncoBob feel better about it. Really haven't watched many games this year. And haven't really put my own thoughts out there. Other than saying some folks prefer to exaggerate the negatives, to the point they make things up, and totally ignore the good things. Pretty typical around here. Been happening for years. Just reading what guys with the credentials of those quoted in the PBP and other places, and then reading what some here want us to believe.....Guess which way I am leaning. But if Erick and a couple others think they are more informed and smarter than the guys the PBP quoted then I would suggest calling the Post. 561-820-4100. Let them know who you are. I'm sure they will start quoting you guys instead. Could be the start of a new and very fruitful career. No need to thank me for the idea.

remarkable that at the moment he even grades out lower defensively than Hanley, who we decided shouldn't even play the position. Shoulda stuck with Escobar. The only worst defensive SS this year been Asdrubal. Stats aren't really important to the FO though Another guy that makes a ton of flashy plays. It's weird, really. Maybe the fact that they don't range well or something makes it to where they can make the "spectacular" plays that would be routine grounders for the above average fielders. I don't think he really makes spectacular plays though??? He's made quite a few this year, specifically in the Milwaukee series that we got swept in ... Good article on this in Sunday's PBP. According to that, only in the last 2 1/2 weeks or so has his glove been missing, nearly doubling his year's error total. He went into August among the defensive leaders for shortstops. Cookie Rojas thinks he is fatigued. I think I'll go along with that (along with high praise defensively from Don Mattingly and Perry Hill) instead of the "what have you done for me lately" faction. Going into the season we all knew his bat wasn't ready. I would agree with anyone that says that needs work.

Ummm, didn't get to watch the game (business meeting), so can someone please explain to me what happened? Particularly w/ Hech? Nothing. But somebody has to be the kicking boy. Saturday night he had an RBI triple and scored a run. Wanna bet how much is said about that?

I doubt Olivo would want to come back here.

wtf is solano hitting 5th? wtf is solano in the lineup? He has a .559 OPS since his return... Beefcake He's not gonna take many walks, for sure. It's one part of his game I would like to see more improvement at. And he isn't a power hitter. That's gonna make the stats people cringe at his offensive numbers. But, for the most part, he does give you pretty good ABs. Not to mention he has the highest BA on the team with RISP.