adambr2

He's pressing badly. I think he's putting too much pressure on himself especially with no HR's yet this year.

Just once when we get a leadoff runner on in an inning, can we just leave him be and try to get him home via the old fashioned way of trying to get additional hits, rather than proactively trying to make outs?

Maybe Wang wants to go back to the Pirates and figures he's already in town so he can save a trip with this performance.

agreed, it was a stupid move, not a move that cost us the game though. Yeah, in the scheme of things, this was rather irrelevant. Stupid, yes. Annoying, yes. Cost us the game? Uhhh.... Doubling down and quoting yourself that it cost us the game? Weird. Coolcool, I always show as much of the conversation, as long as it's not too long at any part, for context. Hope that's okay with you.

Right, giving away outs is no big whoop. You get 27 of them, no one ever lost a game just giving away one. He's not saying that, Im sure there are examples, but there are also plenty of examples where small ball lead to a team winning. All he is saying is that one play or two plays are not the reason we are losing tonight Small ball has its time and place. Bunting with 2 strikes with a bench player and sending your catcher against a very good defensive catcher is not small ball, it's stupid ball.

Right, giving away outs is no big whoop. You get 27 of them, no one ever lost a game just giving away one.

Smallball killed that inning. Ugh. No the inability to lay down a successful bunt screwed that inning. A manager with a regulation size brain would not have 1) Pulled a pitcher for a PH just to bunt and 2) Had said pinch hitter bunt with 2 strikes.

You know, every once in awhile, RR will start to grow on me. And then he'll do some insanely stupid things like he did that inning and everything goes back to normal.

I am confused by this. It has been a disappointing season? Or did you mean series?

You are awful, Rickie.

Thornburg is ridiculous. Did we actually develop some starting pitching?

Yeah these are the Cardinal's announcers. They're not just an impartial MLB crew.

Ryan Braun was our last "star talent" in the minor league system. And it's been 7 years since that. Prince Fielder was one. Rickie Weeks was one too, even though he didn't turn out to be a star. The Scooter Gennetts and Logan Schafers of the world, with apologies to them, are a dime a dozen. Every team has them. They fill a hole for cheap to free up salary to use on other parts of the team, and that's about their best purpose.

Cardinals announcers ripping RR for bunting with Gomez there.

Really need to salvage tomorrow's game if we don't come back in this one. Getting swept out of our field by the Cardinals would really put a damper on that 9 game winning streak. It's frustrating that year after year we just don't have an answer for this team.

Mark Attanasio came out and talked about the process of signing Lohse(and Garza for that matter) and how in both cases, he was the one who brought it to Melvin. It was Attanasio who wanted to sign both. In the case of Lohse, Melvin was the one who was skeptical because of the loss of a 1st round pick. Not to mention of course if you have the 1st round pick, you can't "give it away," for any signing. And I think they're a whole lot more than ONE injury away from being a 55-60 win team. Frankly when this is your track record in the first round: Matt Laporta - Bust. Used to rent CC. Brett Lawrie - Probably just an average MLB player, used to rent Marcum. Jake Odorizzi - Used to rent Greinke, then get Segura. Evan Frederickson - Who? Eric Arnett - Bust, already gone. Kentrail Davis - Has managed to crack AA and put together a .754 OPS after 5 years in the minors. Kyle Heckathorn - Probably the last option out of the bullpen in Nashville. Dylan Covey - After turning down $1.6M to sign with us, ended up drafted by Oakland in the 4th round two years later. Taylor Jungmann - Coming along slow posting a 4.33 ERA in Huntsville last year. Jed Bradley - Still middling in High A. Clint Coulter - Still developing with some upside but so far has been overmatched at every level above rookie ball. Victor Roache - In High A, hit .248 and OPS'ed .762 in Appleton last year. Mitch Haniger - After a nice season in Appleton, didn't show much in High A last year. losing a 1st round pick is a pretty negligible detail. Sad, but true. I was against the Lohse signing simply for that reason, but frankly, with Seid's track record, the missed pick at #17 or whatever it was had a low chance of ever becoming a productive MLB player anyway. Obviously, grading a scouting director on 1st round picks alone is arbitrary, but the fact of the matter is that the first round picks in this system since Jack Z left have simply not panned out (with the jury still out on the picks from the last couple years.

I see Shaun Marcum didn't make a 25 man MLB roster this year. I remember most of us thinking he wouldn't age well, but out of the majors at age 32 was a little worse than expected.

I just care about winning. If you have to pin me down, I'd say I probably like the gold alternate and retros slightly more than the others, but at the end of the day, I really couldn't care less as long as we have more runs than the other team. That said, I won't deny that there's probably a demographic out there that buys uniforms mostly on look that the club wants to appeal to.

That really crossed the line from aggressive to stupid. Twice.

I didn't want to get into it but there are a ton of assumptions in those ERA numbers. Frankly, I think a 4.00 ERA for Thornburg for a whole season is pretty optimistic whereas a 3.80 ERA for Estrada is probably what you can expect. The point being, Estrada will most likely outperform Thornburg over the course of a season. A team in contention puts the better pitcher out there. Or at the very least, it's a defendable decision. Trouble is that you're not going to get more 170 IP if you're lucky out of either. Thornburg through 140 IP over AAA and MLB last year, and Estrada has been around the same. Even if he stays healthy, it wouldn't be wise to push him past 170.

Just a dumb, dumb inning. Dumb bunting in front of Overbay/Weeks especially with 2 strikes, dumb play by Davis, had a gift and managed to squander it.

Anyone else not see the folly of the strategy of the bunt there when your 1 out and man on 3rd options are Rickie Weeks and Lyle Overbay?

Just because that worked doesn't make it smart with 2 strikes. Must we always bunt in every possible bunting situation?

You do realize he is already under contract for 4/$14.25M? Or do you mean after the completion of that? I meant through his mid-30s, though I guess you are right that he would probably not agree to a new extension unless his current extension was superseded so he gets a higher salary. Something else to consider: if we buy into developing advanced metrics that say Lucroy is perhaps the best pitch-framer in baseball, is there another skill that is less likely to decline with age? I think Lucroy would take 5/$50M at the end of his current deal in a heartbeat. I think it's us that would not. Molina was 29 when he got his deal, Lucroy will be 31 if we were to do that. I would just enjoy the fact that we have a total bargain barrel deal on him for the next 4 years. If he gets a lucrative deal after that, either with us or somebody else, best of luck to him, he deserves it.

You do realize he is already under contract for 4/$14.25M? Or do you mean after the completion of that?