for that matter

the last thing I read was that deal was all but dead

Baring something completely off the wall he is coming back I just don’t see him moving

Garland is bad. Plain and simple. He doesn’t walk anyone, but he also doesn’t strike anyone out, and that K rate is plummetting. That is a bad sign. He’s never had a FIP below 4.22, and that is going in the wrong direction too.

To be honest, I don’t care what his W/L record was. That doesn’t matter at all because it’s a context-specific stat. Guys who pitch for good teams will generally have more wins, and when you have a good bullpen backing you up you’ll win more games too b/c they won’t blow as many games after you’ve left.

The Cards would be best served ignoring anyone’s W/L and paying attention to more useful metrics such as K and BB rate, FIP, LD/GB/FB %, and maybe even pitch F/X data.

This reads like Tim Haudricourt.

Both those guys would cost serious dollars and would represent a sea change in organizational philosophy. Rosenthal is a solid reporter, but I’ll believe it when I see it.

is too much – he’s 32 and wants a 5 yr deal.

WALK AWAY MO. WALK AWAY.

my guess, too. Can we dump Kennedy off or not? And if so, surely there’s a way to trade some of our outfield depth for an upgrade at 2B.

never start a sentence with a conjunction
keep the faith az

I’ll admit I’m a long-time member of the start-with-a-conjunction club, although I’ll usually rephrase it if I spend any time thinking about the sentence.

Jason Marquis and Garrett Stephenson had a falling out?

jk.

sorry . . . .

Some, myself included, were wondering your thoughts on the Khalil acquisition.

deja vu, all over again. hopefully after missing out on Burnett they don’t settle for another Ponson.

Brad Penny seems to be the sort of guy that Duncan works his magic with. I’m probably in the minority on that sort of notion.

we’ve missed you in these parts. I see you’ve already forgotten where the reply button is located. Welcome back. Maybe we’ll put together some sort of tutorial for you. I assume you don’t need the community guidelines like our friend above, though.

We lubs us some lboros. Nice to see that creepy bird eye around here again.

That is all…

Not really liking this scenario.

If they could work out some kind of 2-3 year thing with Burnett with a low guaranteed rate and a lot of performance bonuses, I’d be just fine with that. But Burnett would be a damn fool for taking a deal like that when the Braves, Yankees, or Sox will throw a wad of green at him.

would be ludicrous, Senate or Presidential. He’d be 50 by the time those contracts ran out!

I don’t like the long term deal either but I’d do it. How many more prime Pujols years are we going to have?

there are only a handful of pitchers that i would give a 5 year deal to…injury prone throwers or throwers over 30 on are not on the list and especially not if you are both. 3 years max and that is just because he is a special talent…he will end up getting more elsewhere…

Please sign Randy Johnson.

Johnson

Johnson

Generally speaking, pitching is a much more risky of an investment. If you want to use a window of 3+ years and project pitching performance for a pitcher, you’ll need to use a much wider range of possibilities vs. a hitter. There might be some reluctance just because of that. We look at Carpenter and Mulder, and think we were the victims of bad luck. Maybe to some extent that is true, but a lot of other teams have similar stories to tell.

Also, while I think your assessment of the farm clubs starting pitching is fair, many of the top pitching prospects are in the upper levels. So they will need to make assessments on many of them soon. If not this season, then next.

I’m generally an advocate of keeping pitching deals short anyway. I happen to think it’s an especially good stance to take for this team, this year.

If he stays, so be it. But if he goes I think there are a couple things to consider.

1) the market is really thin for 2b
2) our budget is getting pretty tight (especially if we sign the pitching that I think we’re all hoping we sign)

Shedding AKs salary would help, even if we had to swallow a million. And we do have in-house, cheap options. Miles is serviceable, Ryan still has potential to be above replacement, and Hoffpauir and Barden have a lot of, pretty successful high minors experience. I know that doesn’t necessarily translate into a good situation for 2b next year, but it certainly is a position where we have some options. And if it meant that we could strengthen our pitching- minors and majors- situation, I would be willing to see if anyone stepped up from in-house next year.

Skip Schumaker is the only position player the Cards are dangling. I would gladly give up Ankiel and a solid B prospect for a starter, but it doesn’t seem like there’s much of a market for Slick Rick.

but after the no-deal last year at the trade deadline and very few talks about that, I don’t even feel like speculating about it. Schumaker is about the only person I’d feel comfortable with trading, and Chris Duncan doesn’t have any trade value, so it’s hard to say… although we probably need to trade both Skip and one other outfielder, since there’s still a total glut in the OF. perhaps Mather would be a good trade chip, but I’d hate to see him go (and mash like 40 homeruns per season over the next 10 years)

This deal would be perfect to me. The Rays get their power-hitting corner outfielder, we get our starter. It’s just icing on the cake that Sonnastine is cost controlled and a lefty. At first I thought the Rays would never accept this deal because of Ank reaching free agency after ‘09. But the more I think about this, unless Ank has a MONSTROUS injury free season, there is probably a high likelihood the Rays could re-sign him. The Rays don’t have the highest payroll, but that would work in their favor. They don’t have any huge contracts on the books so they could afford to spend a little more money. Especially now that they are winning, revenue has the chance to increase.

that Boggs will be a viable starter

But you’ll have to wait and see which relievers fall through. Could even pick up two or three at discounted prices.