LouisEly

Disturbingly efficient - 86 pitches to get through 7 innings. Only two if his 8 starts have not gone at least 7 innings. Wish the Ks were there. A scouting report would be really nice...

Moving, and I'd rather these go to a good home than move from closet to closet. I have three albums of baseball cards - includes cards from the late 70's to 1990. They're not worth a lot, but there are some autographed cards, including two from HOF-ers. You can look through them before committing to purchase. General rules of thumb: - I will not separate any cards out, please don't ask; I want to move all of them - No card except for the autographed cards is worth more than a few dollars - None of the cards are graded - 90% of the cards are going to be from 1986-1990, but there are a number of 1981-1985 cards and a few late 70's cards - The late 70's/early 80's cards will vary in quality, the 1986-1990 cards will be near mint/mint - Any notable rookie cards are listed; if it's not listed, it's not included (most of my rookie cards are in another box that I don't want to dig through right now). It includes many non-notable (non-Hall-of-Fame type) rookies not listed. - All cards are in vinyl pages in the albums; includes the albums and roughly 150 pages full of cards (9 cards/page) Autographed cards: - Note: I cannot prove the authenticity of any autographs. All are from when I was a kid in the 80's; I mailed cards to players with a letter and a SASE and these are the ones I got back - Autographed cards from: Tony Gwynn, Andre Dawson, Will Clark, B.J. Surhoff, Cory Snyder, Kevin Bass, Dan Plesac, Mike Felder (2), Jim Gantner Late 70's cards: - Tom Seaver, George Brett, Catfish Hunter Early 80's cards (most Topps, some 1981 Donruss): - Paul Molitor, Steve Carlton, Johnny Bench, Pete Rose, Mike Schmidt, Rod Carew, Rollie Fingers, Gary Carter, Carlton Fisk, Rickie Henderson (his second card, 1981 Topps and 1981 Donruss), Tommy John, Joe Morgan, Eddie Murray, Gaylord Perry, Tim Raines (1981 Topps Rookie), Nolan Ryan, Ozzie Smith, Don Sutton, Carl Yastrzemski, Robin Yount 1981 Donruss: - George Brett, Steve Carlton, Rickie Henderson, Reggie Jackson, Jim Palmer, Nolan Ryan, Pete Rose, Mike Schmidt 1987 Topps (these are just the notable ones, includes many more from 1987-1988): - Bo Jackson, Rafael Palmeiro, Barry Bonds, Barry Larkin - 1987 Topps Traded - Greg Maddux (I believe this is his rookie) - 1988 Topps Traded - Roberto Alomar - 1988 Topps Traded - USA Olympic Team (Jim Abbott, Tino Martinez, Robin Ventura, etc.) 1989 Donruss (these are just the notable ones, includes many more): - Ken Griffey Jr., Gary Sheffield (2), Randy Johnson (2), Craig Biggio (2), John Smoltz (4), Curt Schilling (5) 1990 Score (these are just the notable ones, includes many more) - Frank Thomas #1 Draft Pick (2), Sammy Sosa, Juan Gonzalez - Most of the #1 draft pick cards I live in Chicago and work in northern IL near Great America. If you live in WI I can meet you in the Kenosha/Racine area after work. $50 and I'm happy.

Except that his career xFIP, including the last two seasons of sucking, is 4.07. So that holds up. When the past two seasons the player was hurt, it's reason to believe it was an outlier. 1) Ervin Santana, Marco Estrada, Zack Grienke (who has rebounded nicely this season), Jon Lester, all of those guys are pitching as well as they ever have at age 33+. Hell, last year the only Cubs starter under the age of 30 was Hendricks. Lackey was still going strong at 35/36. Tell that to those guys. B) Garza isn't a world-beater, no one said he is. I said he is what he is - a career 3.75 ERA/4.00 xFIP pitcher. Do players regress as they get older? Yes! But no one can predict down to the individual level who is going to do what. The stats are built on the aggregate of data (and I've seen how they calculate the aging stats and disagree with some of the methods - I work in market research and use data and statistics to come to conclusions all the time, it literally is my job), but you can't use aggregate of data to project for an individual data source without projecting a range. To say an individual data source, with certainty, will do X because the aggregate of data has shown Y... well, you will usually be wrong.

The prior 8 seasons suggest that the past two seasons were the outlier and that he would improve. He's not a 2.43 ERA pitcher, and he's not a 5.63 ERA pitcher. He's a 3.75 ERA pitcher/4.00 xFIP pitcher. I'm also not convinced that there are better options in the minors. Woodruff - likely. Hader - maybe, but not this season (depends on how much CS is affecting him, as he was dominant in AA) as his innings limit will be around 150 so you can forget about him starting in September. Lopez - unlikely (his peripherals are much better than his ERA, but again the question is how many innings he can go as well as making the jump from AA).

"Usually?" I'm struggling to come up with ONE pitcher who came through the system in the last 30 years and exceeded his projected ceiling as a prospect. It's difficult to even find guys who've MATCHED expectations. Sheets and Gallardo hit their reasonable ceilings. Then... I'd say that Been Sheets and Mike Fiers exceeded their ceilings. Beyond that... yeah, pretty barren.

Aaron Wilkerson has a, uh, "nice game" going through six...

Broxton in the 2-hole... making progress, Craig. Five in the first and no Braun, Thames, or Shaw. Unreal. Aguilar now with an OPS near 1.000, Perez near .900.

After hot starts, Monte Harrison's OPS now below .800 and Orimoloye's OBP is .278 and has 40 Ks to 6 BBs. Stokes OPS now down to .678. (Hears sound of deflating balloon)

I might puke if they go Adell over Baz, Haseley, and Peterson. That would be the worst case scenario. I do not expect Lewis, Gore, or Bukauskas to be there at #9, and won't be surprised if Smith isn't there, but of the four I mentioned above Adell is #4 by a long margin. Actually, he's #5 behind those three and Hall.

To me, it depends on the course. If I'm playing the local muni for $30, yeah, sure, go ahead and connect the portable speaker to your iTunes. If I'm paying $100+ to play a good course, there better not be any distractions.

More errors means more pitches thrown in an inning/game, which means pitchers get tired sooner. Tired pitchers make more mistakes, mistakes get hit (or don't find the strike zone). Maybe the pitchers are getting cold sitting on the bench while the offense scores so many runs. (/half blue)

There really isn't any difference between college and HS when it comes to the top 10. Where you might find a HS arm is a little later in the draft, but you also have your DeGrom's/Kluber's/Keuchel's/DeLeon's/Woodruff's later in the draft too. Looking at that list above, I'd take the next Ben Sheets over probably any of them with perhaps the exception of Allard.

Except for Susac in AAA. Thus the impetus for trying to sell high on Pina or Bandy.

You're new to the board but please read the Fan Forum Etiquette as that conduct is not allowed here. You're free to disagree, but must do so somewhat politely.

Melvin always said that in-season is the better time to trade pitching and off-season is the better time to trade position players. As others have mentioned, by mid-July Garza will essentially have 1.5 years and $10M left on his contract, which is very reasonable. One of the X-factors is the Giants, if they continue to struggle they have Matt Moore to dangle, and he has very reasonable team options with cheap or no buyouts for the next two seasons. Matt Cain is a shell of his former self, hasn't been healthy since 2013, and has a $21M salary this season and next with a $7.5M buyout for next season. I'd think that Garza would be more attractive than Cain. Samardzija has 3/$59M left on his deal; depends on how much of that the Giants would be willing to eat. But the Giants could flood the market with starters and not ask for much other than salary relief in return.

94 pitches (72 strikes) to get through 8 innings - impressive. In a small sample, Dustin Houle, who seems like he's been around forever but is only 23, is quietly hitting .300 in AA. Coulter heating up. Rough April, but 3 HR and a 1.034 OPS in May. He's still in the picture.

Strongly disagree that Sogard is easy to root for, but strongly agree that it is an optimal chance to get (Brinson/Phillips/Cordell's) feet wet and regular playing time. For chrissakes, we think Perez is a better OF than Brinson/Phillips/Cordell?

Puke. Seriously? The Brewers have two full-time OFs on the roster, and they call up hipster glasses? Dude with a career .609 OPS over >1300 PAs?

With Familia being diagnosed with a blood clot in his shoulder maybe the Mets will take him off of our hands just like Milone.

Agreed. "The question with Adell has always been if he can make consistent quality contact" Not looking for another Ray or Clark at this point. Seeing as both are consensus top 100 type prospects, I'll take as many as we can get. Let's see if that holds true in the post-season rankings.

Great to see Zack Brown back in the lineup. 0 ER, 0 BB, 3 K in 2 IP.

I want to know what Thames splits are with and without Braun batting behind him in the lineup. Anecdotally, seems like he's been much more productive with Braun behind him, but I have no data to prove it. I've always thought that having a big LH/RH combo is synergistic - the sum is worth more than the parts.

Agreed. "The question with Adell has always been if he can make consistent quality contact" Not looking for another Ray or Clark at this point. If Haseley can play CF I take him over Adell in a heartbeat. If you have to go HS for some reason, I'd prefer Baz. Or Peterson. I think in this scenario I go Peterson and see if we can squeeze a few hundred thousand under slot to get someone who is sliding at 34.

Roger Clemens or Wade Boggs in the 80's

The Baseball America top 200 list above has Toral at #182. Does he really have that much "helium" that he has valuted to a sandwich/2nd round pick?