Out of the Past

He's the same guy. He still can't hit. He still takes circuitous routes on balls. He still throws to the wrong base. He still overthrows cut-off men. He still nonchalantly catches balls. He still wears his hat funny. He's the same guy.

There's no sense in Reggie leading-off and anyone trying to justify will look foolish, in my opinion. Last year he saw 3.52 pitches per AB. This year the pitches per AB is down to 3.10.

Watch the game, forget the ridiculously small sample size of 28 at bats in which numbers can be skewed with one great and or terrible afternoon. He looks better at the plate and is taking more pitches. Not to mention he has struckout just 3 times if he bombs, he bombs He's not taking more pitches so I have no idea what you're talking about.

I don't mind keeping Abercrombie at the leadoff spot with the way he's played there so far. But when he sinks back down to the '06 Abercrombie......bench. He already sunk lower than '06... at least based on OBP and SLG. To me he's the same disaster, different year.

Good thing we won the game eh? Olsen would be getting raped today on this board if he didn't. For whatever reason most Marlins fans adore Olsen. Last September when the Phillies beat the crap out of him there was an Olsen lovefest in here because he beamed a hitter and I think even if we lost last night's game there would be an Olsen lovefest because he called Utley an a**hole.

It is good to beat the Phillies ace like we did. He slipped for a few minutes, and we took advantage of it, coming from behind to beat him. As far as Olsen goes, good for him. He threw down the gauntlet and the Phillies cannot stepup. The way Olsen has bounced back to dominate the Phillies, relatively, since last season has been impressive. When has Olsen dominated the Phillies? Like I said, relatively. Last season the Phillies killed Olsen. This season? He has beaten them twice. The offense bailed him out twice.

It is good to beat the Phillies ace like we did. He slipped for a few minutes, and we took advantage of it, coming from behind to beat him. As far as Olsen goes, good for him. He threw down the gauntlet and the Phillies cannot stepup. The way Olsen has bounced back to dominate the Phillies, relatively, since last season has been impressive. When has Olsen dominated the Phillies?

It would be nice to have a good CF but right now our strength is our run scoring and our weakness is our pitching. Trading DTrain for a CF would weaken our weakness. I wouldn't do it. Do you honestly believe that? I'm not knocking Train but he has been less then desirable as a #1 this year. I don't think we would lose that much by parting with Train to add more defense and offense. His work ethic and clubhouse presence is not replaceable IMHO. Don't get me wrong I love D-Train but it might be about time to think about moving him. The problem is his value is probably at an all time low. Good thing is there will be a huge demand for pitching at the deadline and Dontrelle's track record speaks for itself. Well I think we're last or close to last in runs allowed and I know Mitre is pitching very well but I still think DTrain is our best starter. I expect by the end of the season his ERA will be around his career ERA. Aside from DTrain we have a lot of question marks in the rotation and we're scoring plenty of runs without a CF.

It would be nice to have a good CF but right now our strength is our run scoring and our weakness is our pitching. Trading DTrain for a CF would weaken our weakness. I wouldn't do it.

It took 8 replys till someone finally realized his real name :lol I think something that should be pointed out is Ramirez hitting 3rd. He is batting a low 200 with RISP and under 200 with runners on period. Maybe Fredi should re-think some things. I don't think those stats tell the whole story. First, they haven't updated the splits since Friday. Second, most of the year he was hitting in front of a struggling Dan Uggla. Combine that with an aggressive hitter and you can explain a .176 batting average with an OBP of .311 with runners on in just 33 AB. In those 43 PAs he's walked 10 times while K'ing 13. I think that's a legitimate indicator of being pitched around (and him trying to make things happen often times). Can't mess with a good thing when the team is doing so well with Hanley at 3. The kid is a great hitter but the fact is he has stunk with RISP and I see no need to make creative excuses for him and to somehow put the blame on Uggla is a head scratcher.

More and more it becomes apparent the damage Girardi did to this franchise last season. It's a disgrace, I hope he's happy with himself sitting up in the broadcast booth this season. I doubt another team with a young staff will ever entrust them to him again. Last year some expressed concern about the numbers of innings some of the rookies were pitching but I don't remember anyone saying Girardi should shut them down while we were in the WC race.

Everybody says he can't hit and he's this huge liability in the field. Okay. We've already shown that he gets on base, he doesn't K, and he's no worse than his peers in the clutch. What was his FP last year? .989? With an RF of 4.73? Ramirez was .963 and 4.34 respectively. Again, I'm not trying to say he's better than Hanley, I'm just using his stats for comparison. Are you saying that with a straight face? Eckstein's RISP: .063 / .273 / .063 These are not typos I used the 2006 statistics since a month of baseball isn't really a good sample size. Raise your hand if you think Jorge Posada [.371] is going to win the AL batting title... Eckstein was -4.1 in the clutch versus -4.3 for Ramirez [Reyes 8.8 FWIW]. From before I knew that Hanley's '07 RISP numbers were crappy and that Jose's were pretty good so when I saw Eckstein's crappy '07 numbers I assumed that's what you were talking about. Anyway Eckstein's career RISP OPS is .703 and that's pretty crappy even for a SS so I don't know how it is that you figure that he's no worse than his peers in the clutch.

http://thebaseballcube.com/players/L/Todd-Linden.shtml

Everybody says he can't hit and he's this huge liability in the field. Okay. We've already shown that he gets on base, he doesn't K, and he's no worse than his peers in the clutch. What was his FP last year? .989? With an RF of 4.73? Ramirez was .963 and 4.34 respectively. Again, I'm not trying to say he's better than Hanley, I'm just using his stats for comparison. Are you saying that with a straight face? Eckstein's RISP: .063 / .273 / .063 These are not typos

Also, Eckstein was -4.1 in the clutch versus -4.3 for Ramirez [Reyes 8.8 FWIW]. So you can spin these numbers a lot of ways. My only point is that he is NOT aweful. And I am CERTAINLY not trying to take anything away from Hanley! What does clutch mean, and what do these numbers represent? Yankeefan21.. are you going to answer that????

miggy still has the ability to be a plus 3B...if you dont want to believe that it's ok I don't agree. At his current weight he's terrible. If he loses weight he can be adequate. Last year after losing the weight he was adequate.

Fredo leading off is really dumb. The last time I made a similar comment about him leading off he had the game winning hit so tonight he'll get 3 hits or something.

Wilson blows He's having a tough year but he's does have a career .917 OPS vs lefties. I would grab him in a second especially if Cody will be out a while.

Hermida needs to hit second. I think he should lead off. He has speed and the ability to get on base. Hermida will draw more walks than De Aza but Hanley will draw more walks than Hermida and will most definitely steal more bases. That'd be one hell of a hit and run situation with Hermida at the plate and Hanley at first. Uggla would be much better utilized hitting somewhere around 5th or 6th. It'd get some power down into the bottom part of the order. I really like the look of this: Hanley Hermida Cabrera Willingham Abercrombie/De Aza Uggla Boone Olivo Pitcher Out of all the lineups thrown in here by everyone I have to say Reggie hitting 5th takes the cake as the most ridiculous. I agree with EW about Hermida leading off. He will get on base and will make pitchers work with his knowledge of the strike zone.

I hope they close the $30 million gap between the city, county and team because if they wait around for another year and go back to the state with the same "economic development" argument I expect them to lose again. Regarding the potential economic impact from an all-star game I think the state economists probably took that into account in their report. I don't think the economic impact of the game would be that significant. Maybe it would cover the $2 million for one year but I doubt it would even be that much.

I guess he doesn't know about sophomore slumps...

nice work by Tank Why Tank? Makes no sense. why not? huge situation and he comes in and slams the door He's not good at getting righties out. It made no sense but it worked. Reggie still can't throw.. two bad throws tonight.

Why Tank? Makes no sense.

I would be happy with average 1B production out of him. I hope he does better than that but I wouldn't want to depend on it.

Who cares about about a game on a neutral field? Sorry FishFan79, but this isn't like the Saints playing a "home game" against the Giants in the Meadowlands; the Saints were clearly on hostile turf. This turf is easily as neutral as you can get. More importantly, this should really have more of a Super Bowl atmosphere. 90,000 fans? That's awesome. My only beef is; why England? How many Brits do you see in the NFL? Canada or even Australia would seem to make way more sense. It may be TV reasons, timing and such like, the 5PM kick off is mid-day ET, and 9am PT, so its accessible. The new Wembley is amazing, and it WILL sell out. I think that there is quite a large fan base in the UK, the Superbowl is always high in the ratings, even the World Series draws over 100k over here, which believe me for Channel 5 in the middle of the night is staggering. I am not sure about 16 games abroad though, as I said previously the tickets are extremely expensive in comparison with other events, and there was a lot of complaints for the pricing of FA cup final tickets at Wembley, and they were much cheaper. Any more than a one off and the prices will have to drop dramatically. The game will be neutral in all honesty, they have chosen the 2 markets which Britons frequent most often, but I will be supporting the Dolphins. Those middle of the night WS games are tough indeed. I was in Scotland during the '97 WS and basically I had to put toothpicks in my eyelids to stay awake. I was there for work so I couldn't sleep durign the day. I went to a Giants / Dolphins game probably around '93 or '94 and I remember a big chunk of the crowd was rooting for the Giants. Many more than when the Jets are here. I guess the Dolphins are losing a home game but the Giants playing at DS would be pretty much a neutral game anyways.