Ennder

No you generally pick one small part of the post out, crack a joke about it and move on while ignoring the meat of the argument. But like I said it is futile to try to discuss anything with you so I'm not getting into it again.

And if we ignore all his home runs he has been even worse! Didn't say to ignore his HRs, saying his stats look a tad bit better because of one good game in the first week. Hall has been a pretty prolonged slump, Hardy had a really bad week to start the year and has been what we expect out of him minus a couple extra base hits since. Hall has seen a pretty steady drop in his OPS since that first week other than one brief 3 game hot streak all against lefties. He has been terrible against righties all year. Hardy started the year 1/17 and done largely what is expected of him since other than losing a little power. If one of these guys needs to sit down because they are 'struggling' it is Hall for sure.

I'll be really mad if they demote Parra or Villanueva after such a short period of time. If they want to replace Bush I like giving anyone but Weaver a shot.

oops yeah, typo.

Some kind of rule that we have to put the tying run on base every time we have a lead in the 9th inning.

Sounds like Mota/Stetter.

Mota or Torres for the 9th?

Hardy hasn't really been struggling to hit, the problem has just been he hasn't hit for any power. Lots of singles and walks and that is it. Sure he had a crappy first 4 games or so but since then he was hitting .275 with a .365 OBP. If he can just start adding the power we are in business.

Wow that wasnt' anywhere close to a strike on gameday.

I think the whole pink bat mothers day thing is why Hall is playing today instead of resting. I bet Yost rests him tomorrow unless he does something amazing later today.

I don't think innings eater means he pitches a lot of innings per game. Guys who pitch a lot of innings are usually called horses, like Livan Hernandez. Innings eater generally means a mediocre guy you can stick in the rotation and not worry about those innings, compared to say Parra or CV who you have no idea if they will last in the rotation. You know Suppan will soak up 190-200 innings for the rotation every year.

Brian Anderson is ok but nothing special. Most of them stink so I guess the competition isn't that fierce.

Gwynn could be a decent player if he at least had doubles power and if he walked more. It is more than just the fact he doesn't hit HRs.

It would be very easy to argue it statistically, not that I'm going to do that but I'm sure someone else will~ I think momentum exists in sports but it is minimized in baseball compared to others.

I didn't just use his career numbers but I'm not going to try to convince you of anything because I know it is futile.

To be fair they tried to bring in a left handed hitter but couldn't find one and no I don't think Lofton was much of an option. He can't hit lefties anymore, his peripherals are going in the tank and he is barely adequate in LF now much less center.

Mid to high 4 ERA would mean something around 4.50-4.90 for an ERA over a season for Bush. That is projecting him highly? He has a career ERA of 4.64 and one season where it was higher than that range. I guess I fail to see why you think my opinion is high on them. I stand by what I said, any GM with a brain would understand that one year of ERA spike does not undo everything else a pitcher has done for a pitcher in Bush/Capuano's age/experience level.

Hardy is hitting .275 with a .364 OBP and a .697 OPS since the 5th game of the year so he doesn't bother me as much. Obviously he needs to start getting some extra base hits but I can live with the OBP he is giving us. Hall is hitting .184 with a .268 OBP and a .628 OPS since the 5th game of the season. He has been pretty dreadful for quite smoe time now and his 2 HR game is making it look better than it has been.

Nice description, this is pretty accurate... though I think Girardi is a mediocre manager who screwed the Rockies over by his pitching staff usage.

30 years of watching baseball, no team is as ever as good as they look when hot or as bad as they look when cold. My answer is still no though.

I would have fired Yost. I wouldn't have signed Gagne though to be honest I don't think it is as bad a deal as most do. I didn't expect a Red Sox type blowup out of him but I didn't think he would be dominant either, adequate is where I would have put him. The money is just too much. I personally don't think spending lots of money on a closer is ever a good idea. Firing Yost is the big one but I mean it is an easy thing to say from the outside looking in.

The real problem with ERA is you need about 500-600 IP for it to really mean much and most people use it as a judgement over a 200 IP or smaller sample. If you want to know how good a pitcher someone is look at their last 3 seasons and average it out and you most likely have the reality. This obviously doesn't work well if there is an injury in there or they are young and improving or old and declining. Looking at the peripherals is a much better starting point and Capuano's didn't really change very much from his career numbers.

Whatever. If you're going to look at it like that, then it should be noted that outside of that 6-game slump during the past month, they have merely played .500 baseball. There have been no winning streaks. .500 baseball mixed in with 6-to-10-day slumps and no prolonged winning periods = bad overall results during large chunks of the season. Again, a bad trend and cause for concern with everything going on, in my opinion. If you disagree, and choose to continue to believe there is nothing to worry about, that's your perspective. Just because there haven't been any winning streaks doesn't mean there won't be though. Teams have ups and downs and a lot of people on this forum freak out at every down. I'll tell you right now if we go out and start playing better and win a bunch of games and get back in the playoff race we will have another half a month where the team looks rotten at some point this year. It is just how things go.

No. We were on the bubble with Gallardo and I think his injury probably hurt as much as any other player on the team going down could have. Our most important players were Sheets, Gallardo, Braun, Hart and Fielder and we had viable minor league replacements for the hitters. Sheets or Gallardo going down long term is a disaster. If Sheets misses any starts this year I just don't see our pitching holding up.

This isn't 10 days though. During the past month, the team is 11-18. One of the 2007 skids you referenced in your post earlier was actually 2 full months. So, to claim the slumps that get people upset over are "little 10 day slumps" is completely misleading. And the biggest concern is that the team doesn't appear to be making progress. The hitting still looks terrible. Five of the starting position players have a BA under .250. None of the starting position players have an OPS over .800. The starting pitching has been marginal, at best. No starter other than Sheets has won in well over a month. Gallardo is out for the year. Gagne has completely imploded. With approximately 1/4 of the season complete, these are totally legitimate things to be VERY concerned about. That isn't true though. If you are going simply by wins it is a 13 day slump at most and really most likely a 6 day slump with the losing streak. They didn't have a bad record long term for anything but those 6 games. Last years big slump around August was really august 5th to august 28th. They went 5-14 during that stretch. Yeah it stinks but a 3 week slump happens to most teams. The Cubs as an example were 6-16 from May 9th to June 2nd last year and 9-13 from Aug 2th to Aug 26th. Every team has a completely nasty 2-3 week period at some point. If I really wanted to split last year into the easiest terms it would be the following. 24-10 4-13 18-9 11-14 8-20 18-13 We had a very bad run in late May and a miserable Late July/early August. This is pretty normal though, I could do this same thing with any 75-85 win team and get the same tyep of results. Some hot streaks some cold streaks.