Ron Robinsons Beard

Of the three young guys, I view him as having the lowest ceiling and lowest floor. That isn't really a knock on him, so much as it is acknowledgement that Burnes and Woodruff have huge upsides. Peralta is the youngest of the trio by far, though, so there is room to grow. If he can hit his spots, he has proven that he can get major league hitters out. There were some reports that he was hitting 96-97 on the gun in Spring Training, but we didn't see that in his start last week. If he doesn't have that higher velocity, he'll need to rely on control and deception to have success.

I like Hummel as a possible Mickey Tettleton type - like Tettleton, a switch hitter playing C/OF/1B. Did Hummel catch last year? At all?

Cards and Reds are both solid teams (Cards moreso than the Reds). These count the same as winning 10-2

Perhaps one of these days we won't have a nail-biter.

Man, why? Just why? I wasn’t very confident last night and it worked, I am trying again.

Man, why? Just why?

Will be interesting to see who gets the save chance tonight if the lead holds. My hope is Taylor Williams. My guess is Barnes.

No walks! C'mon Junior!

That wasn't hit very hard at all. Did he have a legit shot at that play? Yes, whoever was at 3rd was jogging. Grandal was there waiting, and held up his hands like "What are you waiting for?"

I think Grandal was thinking the same thing. Would have been an easy out.

Yep ... baseball is grand. You can serve it up, but good luck getting them to eat it

Dubon is coming off a serious injury and hasn't played since last May. He's not the answer yet.

Just looking at that Blue Jays roster to see if there were any other fits, and other than Stroman and Aaron Sanchez, it's pretty barren. I personally think Giles would be a solid buy-low guy.

No link or any speculation, other than the Blue Jays seem to be in a total rebuild, and there are indications that they are looking to deal major league assets for prospects. Ken Giles is formerly a very high-end reliever who fell out of favor in Houston last year before getting shipped to Toronto. It would make sense that they would make him available. Thoughts?

Nelson is coming off over a year of no pitching, and has been building up and working toward taking the ball every five days ever since he starting throwing pen sessions last fall. He's also been a starter his whole career. The idea that working out of the pen is less taxing on an arm I believe is a fallacy. Getting up and warming quickly, often several times a week, can be extremely taxing on arms and, in Nelson's case, core joints. The last thing I'd want to do is put him in the pen with the expectation that he make several 3-4 appearances a week in a fireman role. And if you'r going to pitch him sparingly out of the pen to protect his arm, he may as well not even be on the team. If this team has proven anything in its 5 games so far, its that all their relievers are going to be used often. Ok but maybe it’s gonna take a while for him to strengthen the arm, to build up to 90-100 pitches. Could take longer than the month some think till ready. It could be months with another setback. Jimmy didn’t sound too concerned so maybe your right. When is he supposed to start throwing again? They had him built up to 60 with a week to go in Arizona. They haven't given any indication that he won't be starting the season in the San Antonio rotation, and their season starts Thursday. It would be nice to know what their timeline is, but it's possible they may not know for sure. I imagine it's all going to depend on how he looks and, more importantly, how he recovers between starts. How bad will the residual soreness be? If he makes his first start this weekend and is on a 60-75 pitch limit, there's no reason why he wouldn't be able to continue building with an eye on making his 2019 Brewers debut by the end of April. It wouldn't surprise me if they'd want to avoid pitching him in cold-weather games, as those can be tougher to get joints loose and break up that scar tissue in his shoulder. I don't think they would have announced him as a member of the Missions if they weren't planning on him getting work from the get-go though.

Nelson is coming off over a year of no pitching, and has been building up and working toward taking the ball every five days ever since he starting throwing pen sessions last fall. He's also been a starter his whole career. The idea that working out of the pen is less taxing on an arm I believe is a fallacy. Getting up and warming quickly, often several times a week, can be extremely taxing on arms and, in Nelson's case, core joints. The last thing I'd want to do is put him in the pen with the expectation that he make several 3-4 appearances a week in a fireman role. And if you'r going to pitch him sparingly out of the pen to protect his arm, he may as well not even be on the team. If this team has proven anything in its 5 games so far, its that all their relievers are going to be used often.

Team is 4-1. So far the pen hasn't been a problem. Wilson has looked great, and others have been good as well. On paper, yes, it doesn't look strong. But fortunately they play the games, and players can defy expectations. Agree more good than bad. Wilson looks great, Guerra and Albers really good to go with Hader. Claudio great on lefties, anderson should be solid. Williams- meh. Barnes needs to go, and Will probably soon replaced by fields. Jeffress replace Williams, then pen with a good jj back to strength again. Plus whoever is pulled from the rotation once Nelson is inserted.

Team is 4-1. So far the pen hasn't been a problem. Wilson has looked great, and others have been good as well. On paper, yes, it doesn't look strong. But fortunately they play the games, and players can defy expectations.

Or people could stop posting asinine, childish threads on April 1st. I vote for that. Keep yellin' at that cloud!

No HR tonight. Yelich regression has begun.

Count the same as winning 12-2 Unfortunately they are not good for the blood pressure, though.

So, not so much RIP?

Wooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo!!! Take that annoying drunk Cincy fans!

No one throws heat in sub-40 degrees

Apparently the team's closer committee is made up of Josh Hader and Hader, Josh.