Out of the Past

There's no way the Tigers are trading Pudge. They're back in the race. Lo Duca is a realistic target. If he's healthy he would be a major upgrade and with all the time he's missed he would be fresh down the stretch.

The ump was horrible on both sides and he should be suspended for forgetting the pitch count on the one at bat. With that said, I wish FSN would buy k-zone or whatever that thing is that about half the other teams have that has a rectangle of the strike zone and where the pitch was. A lot of times a pitch will appear to be low because of where the catcher caught it but that means nothing. In the one pitch yesterday where Tommy was going nuts when they put the replay from the side it looked like it was at the knees making the pitch a strike. I forgot about that. The scoreboard showed 3-2 before the pitch, then after the ump said ball 3, and then the player flied out. Who was right? Did they show pitch by pitch on TV? I listen to the radio during the games while at the stadium and they weren't sure, or didn't clarrify it anyways. Yes, the ump blew it.

On building for the future, to keep this roster together for the '09 season will take ~$50 million so unless Loria decides to spend the revenue sharing I see more "building for the future" moves coming up.

It's not like the team is "offering him arbitration" as some like to say. The player earned the right to be arbitration eligible but the team has the option to offer it to him or decline to offer it to him. That's why it's said that such and such was offered arbitration. If the team declines to offer arbitration then the player can sign elsewhere.

I was looking at pirates attendance and it looks like they have less than the marlins usually. Sure they got a lot for their series recently with the Yankees, but they usually get about 8-10 thousand each night on weekdays while the Marlins usually get 11-12 thousand. And on Saturdays the Marlins get between 25 and 35K while pittsburgh only gets 15-20K. So who has lower attendance this year overall so far? And why do you think they have it so low, they 've got a new ballpark and all.......do you think this will happen to the marlins even after they get the new ballpark? i hope not....but it proves that even with a new ballpark, if the team always struggles like the pirates, they will not draw a lot of fans. A new stadium will created a buzz for a couple of years but that will soon wear off if you lose and if you don't give your fans any hope of winning. I think their attendance is so low because they are one of if not the most losingest franchise over the past ten years and not only that but because their management is so cheap and incompetent their fans never have hope they'll turn it around. They have a new stadium but don't spend money and what they spend they piss it away (i.e. Matt Morris).

The ump was horrible on both sides and he should be suspended for forgetting the pitch count on the one at bat. With that said, I wish FSN would buy k-zone or whatever that thing is that about half the other teams have that has a rectangle of the strike zone and where the pitch was. A lot of times a pitch will appear to be low because of where the catcher caught it but that means nothing. In the one pitch yesterday where Tommy was going nuts when they put the replay from the side it looked like it was at the knees making the pitch a strike.

Well the good news is in the PBP this morning that Johnson is one, maybe two minor league starts away from rejoining the club and Sanchez is a few weeks behind him. It boggles the mind that by August 1st (if all works out) we could actually have a starting rotation again. I can think of a number of rotations going into September worse than Johnson, Miller, Sanchez, Nolasco and Olsen. And then there's Mitre. :brigginbounce And now our bats now have fallen alseep. No, they haven't. We're OPSing .717 in June. That's not good. Our bats have fallen asleep. League average OPS this month is .722. We're basically at that, so that means we are batting averagely, not badly. OPS by month: =========== April - .785 May - .778 June - .717 Looking at those numbers I can't understand how anyone would say out bats aren't slumping.

Well the good news is in the PBP this morning that Johnson is one, maybe two minor league starts away from rejoining the club and Sanchez is a few weeks behind him. It boggles the mind that by August 1st (if all works out) we could actually have a starting rotation again. I can think of a number of rotations going into September worse than Johnson, Miller, Sanchez, Nolasco and Olsen. And then there's Mitre. :brigginbounce And now our bats now have fallen alseep. No, they haven't. We're OPSing .717 in June. That's not good. Our bats have fallen asleep.

YOUR 2009 Starting 1st baseman is.....Mike Jacobs :banghead I doubt it. I don't see us trading him because the guy is a bad baseball player and contending teams are not looking for bad baseball players. I think what will happen is that next year we wont offer him arbitration and he'll end up signing elsewhere for cheap.

I'm not calling it a steal, but as of right now...I'd still say we got the upper hand. They got one productive year out of Lo Duca in a playoff year and we've gotten squat so as of right now they won that trade.

I am seriously fed up of some fans trashing other teams broadcasters.It has gotten very old. Yep. And quite seriously I didn't find them all that bad, what little I was able to listen to them on Thursday. Then the lame color analyst said that Rich was probably spending his day off "baking cookies with the other Keebler elves." If they said this it's just a tad unprofessional, don't you think? Not a big deal when fans make cracks like that but from the team's announcers it's pretty classless. They deserve to be bashed. I wouldn't be shocked if they are friends and that was just one buddy taking a dig at the other one. I didn't hear it but I'm sure it was friends having some fun. Hutton and Waltz take little shots at them as well.

Well the good news is in the PBP this morning that Johnson is one, maybe two minor league starts away from rejoining the club and Sanchez is a few weeks behind him. It boggles the mind that by August 1st (if all works out) we could actually have a starting rotation again. I can think of a number of rotations going into September worse than Johnson, Miller, Sanchez, Nolasco and Olsen. And then there's Mitre. :brigginbounce On TV Beinfest said JJ could start in the SD series (early July) and that Anibal was three weeks behind JJ. I think he said Mitre was 5 weeks away or 5 weeks behind JJ or something like that.

Beinfest is very good with trades. He, usually, robs teams, a good % of the time, or comes out even. Other than the Cubs, who has he robbed? Are the Cubs trade invalid all of the sudden? And...he's gotten the good end of some other trades. As much as Kevin Gregg gets bashed, getting Gregg for Resop ended up being a very good trade. Paul Lo Duca (who's on the decline) for Gabby Hernandez (one of our better pitching prospects) is looking nice for us. I still like the Owens/Lindstrom trade for what it's worth, and I predict the Mets will regret that trade one day. Again, he's made some mistakes (Derrek Lee, and you can make a case on the Brad Penny trade, as well), but...for the most part, Beinfest is good when it comes to trading players. Are you kidding on Hernandez? The guy has an ERA over 6 in AAA. I was never a Lo Duca fan but to say we robbed the Mets on that one is ridiculous. On the Owens and Lindstrom trade, for all their potentioal they haven't done much. If in the future they do, then you can say we robbed the Mets. But as of right now, you can't say we robbed them with one guy injured and the other demoted to the minors. If you go through all of our trades under Beinfest and you look at the objectively you would see that we've being robbed in as many of them as we've robbed the other GM.

Four years ago we gave away Brad Penny to get Lo Duca because Redmond wasn't a starting caliber catcher so now we'll trade for him and make him the starter? I doubt it.

Beinfest is very good with trades. He, usually, robs teams, a good % of the time, or comes out even. Other than the Cubs, who has he robbed? Well so far it looks like we did get the best of Detroit, but all those pieces have yet to blossom. If Willis can turn it around, they will have gotten the best of us in this one. Miller might be good, but do you ever see him winning 22 games in a season ? Other than Miller and Cam I'm not impressed by anything we got and they are still question marks. It looks like DTrain may be done but whta the future holds for Cabrera is a bit of a question mark as well. Did he top out at age 23? I guess we'll find out in the next few yesrs. I'm not a fan of giving $150 million to a guy with conditioning problems and that's what the Tigers did.

Since 5/21 the DBacks are 12-21 but they've managed to extend their lead from 3.0 to 3.5 games.

Beinfest is very good with trades. He, usually, robs teams, a good % of the time, or comes out even. Other than the Cubs, who has he robbed?

My guess is his ERA around 3.50 and his WHIP around 1.30 had something to do with it.

I didn't consider the age difference. If the verbal abuser is much older then I do have the problem with the younger guy kicking his ass.

Honestly I like McPherson, but AAA is AAA. De La Cruz did well in AAA, but he sucks in the majors. Maybe in September for McPherson, or if an injury occurs somewhere. De la cruz doens't suck. He's a rookie so we have to give him sometime to get used to the mlb competition. C'mon he does suck, there are much better options in the minors than him (Volstad,Thompson,Hernandez). Thompson and Hernandez have both stunk this year.

If someone is screaming and cursing at you I don't have a problem if you kick his ass. I wouldn't recommend it but have no problem with it if you do it.

Last year his fielding was crappy and he was criticized by some posters aboput it but this year his fielding has improved a little and Jacobs, Cantu and the catchers have been horrible so they've gotten most of the criticism.

Incredible! Watch for yourself... http://web.minorleaguebaseball.com/media/p..._free&_mp=1 It's fake. http://www.mercurynews.com/columns/ci_9689158 In fantasyland, the Triple-A Fresno Grizzlies are grooming the Giants' greatest ball dudette ever. Gatorade fooled many Internet viewers with a viral video of a ball girl scaling the wall in the left-field corner - a step with her left foot, a step with her right, and a leap to 12 feet off the ground - to snag a long foul. It seemed obviously manipulated to us, but not so to everyone. The video ("ballgirl" on YouTube) caused such a stir that it will be on ABC's "Good Morning America" today. The ad's creators told the Web site Shoot Online they filmed the commercial during and after a Grizzlies home game against the Tacoma Rainiers. The play-by-play voice is Doug Greenwald, son of Hank. The game footage is real. As for The Catch*, it was filmed after the game, with a stuntwoman named Phoenix Brown and a series of rope rigs that were later edited out of the picture. Yep, too

Coke >>> Pepsi. Yes. I worked for Pepsico and had to conceal my Coke drinking for years. They're very touchy about that.

Guys, win-loss record is the most meaningless thing in baseball. I refuse to even call it a stat. A stat offers insight into how good a pitcher is. Obviously Olsen's record doesn't tell others that he's been a good pitcher this year. Yeah, that's not what this thread is about. It's about the fact that he is pitching well and he is only 4-4, which says that he isn't getting any help from the team. Isn't getting any help from the team? So, what, are we supposed to be more concerned with Olsen claiming wins rather than the team getting them? Interesting. Maybe I didn't make myself clear: I understand what's being discussed here, the fact that he has poor run support. Bottom line is, though, Olsen HAS pitched well, and that's all we can ask from him. He has given the team a chance to win more often than not. Listen, I don't care if Olsen gets a no-decision for the rest of the year. As long as he pitches well, and the Marlins win, even if one of the relievers claims the win, we should all be happy. That is, if our goal is to see the Marlins win. If you're more concerned with seeing Olsen discussed in the Cy Young race, by all means continue discussing in this thread. I agree with everything, msg. If it was up to me I would do away with wins / losses for pitchers.