if he says all he wants to be is on the MLB roster, he’s definitely thinking he wants a defined role, either set-up or just getting enough time to stretch out and become a starter at some point in the season.

all that uncertainty, and he still keeps going.

I hope you’re right… because at the end of the Reyes fiasco Tony / Dunc never talked to Reyes about what he needed to do to improve and make it back.

Are you Edward Scissorhands? Because that post was beautifully hedged!

http://www.instantrimshot.com/

Did you know that McClellan leads the team with 3 wins? He is 3-0.

I have a list of 10 Spring Training trivia questions at Whiteyball, and I don’t think I’d get 2 of them right (if I hadn’t made them).

I think hitters and pitchers performance should be taken with a grain of salt. The biggest indicator in the spring (when comparing performance) is health in my opinion. You do have a point that pitchers seem to be even more of a crapshoot though.

He is what he is, a mediocre swingman with so-so stuff who’s just about worth his spot on an MLB roster as a long-man. I think he does get his stats hurt a bit by all the wierd spot starts and low-leverage garbage innings we have him pitching in; I’ve always had a soft spot for him and I reckon if he was used as a one-inning reliever against mostly RHH he’d be average-ish. Thankfully, we have enough quality pitching in our pen now that that’s not required and he be the dumpster guy.

I remember back before the start of the 07 season, when Izzy was a re-habbing question mark and it looked like it might be a competition between Thompson and the late Josh Hancock for the CLOSER spot. Ugh.

I seemed to recall that PK used to be better and throw a lot more strikes and get lot’s of ground balls including getting DPs. So I looked at baseballreference:
Year G GS IP BB SO *ERA+ WHIP
———-—-———-————————-+
 2005 40 0 55.0 15 29 144 1.109
 2006 43 1 56.7 20 32 133 1.376
 2007 44 17 129.3 40 53 93 1.523
 2008 26 6 64.7 19 32 83 1.407

Sorry, about not getting FIPs. But I just wanted some data to test my recollection. So how did his WHIP jump way up? Did hitters figure him out? Did he lose somethings? Is he no longer able to throw his sinker for strikes because of the movement? Likewise, I have a soft spot for PK, even though my dog hates him.

Tony could do a lot worse things than putting Perez in Memphis. In fact, for Perez, this could be a blessing in disguise: he can iron himself out, and come up in three weeks/a month or so with his best stuff. That would be better for him than to start the season rusty and be removed from the closer role/taken out of the bullpen altogether because he walked as many as he k’d.

And I’m a guy who normally doesn’t approve of La Russa’s questionable rookie-handling moves. This one, I’m ok with.

pressure of major league level when he has not had enough work in ST is a recipe for arm trouble. La Russa and company did the right thing. He really needs extended ST rather than Memphis.

I took Motte in the last round of my fantasy draft. That little move could pay off for me nicely.

15 K’s to 1 BB is ridiculous even in spring training

leave little to be argued about

you didn’t find Izzy’s adventures into BBland exciting?!?!?!?!?

to work on his “stuff”…… mainly because he was delayed by his injury. It will be much easier for him to do that in Memphis without all the pressure and questions that will no doubt be happening to the Cards MLB bullpen. Motte, Franklin and Kinney will be the closers as needed….. it would be hard to slot Perez in his “current” condition into that mix without possibly messing him up anymore.

Kinney was excellent in 2006 and he looks like he is back to full health. He has the pitches and the temperament to close, but doubts about the stamina of his arm probably kept him from consideration as the designated closer. So Kinney, in effect, replaces Russ Springer. But he could just as well replace Isringhausen v.2008, part time. That’s not the backhanded compliment that it might seem to be….

maybe Duncan sent him down, not TLR

the closer’s role hasn’t been given to Motte. All public statements indicate it will be matchups that determine who closes, whatever that means.

Whatever points he may get for letting a rookie close will be overshadowed by his public insistence that the team’s number one priority was to avoid having a rookie closer.

one of the two, Motte or Perez, could be on the roster.

Here I thought not good relievers like Thompson could be replaced by more talent.

He doesn’t seem to be that great a pitcher. Either in the majors or the minors.

He walks way too many people. 22 in 41 innings last year, 4 in 7 innings this spring. In his minor league career it’s 72 in 109 innings.

It’s not a case of Reyes, where he totally dominated the minors but struggled in the majors (for whatever reason). Perez has control problems in the minors, too.

If you looking at the standings or projecting a player’s effectiveness. I personally like wins when looking at the standings, but will admit I get a warm and fuzzy feeling when we get a quality start but lose the game.

At least the pitcher needs to have SOME input into a QS and, in general, the pitchers with the most QS are the better pitchers (just look at the NL QS leaders vs the NL win leaders last year – the QS guys are generally all excellent pitchers, whilst there’s some wacky win ratios out there).

I actually don’t think QS is bad for a counting stat.

I bet somebody picks him up for the minimum, though. He’d probably not be a bad move for someone short of a DH.

why would they release him? was he a disruption?

I’d take the chance with him coming off the bench. Just because he could eliminate late inning relievers in the vortex his twirling swing creates.

Why didn’t they trade him instead of releasing him and getting nothing?*

*sarcasm directed to those who thought trading Adam Kennedy was actually an option.

Did you read the lineup post?

They sent Perez down last season, mid-year, to work on his slider. He seemed to have the right attitude about it then and I suspect he will this time, too. Plus, he had the injury in Spring Training and could probably use the extra work.

Awesome for us fans, shitty for the team!

and I guess this projection means Pineiro will probably be the starter. But who knows – maybe he’ll still be Spring Training Pineiro….

Saw that they’re doing all the pitches, too.

Been gone for a while.

them Cardinal outfielders!

can we do that, i don’t know, 20, 30 times this year, little Dunc?

guess he didn’t. Not sure which would have been more interesting to watch.

twitter.com\dgoold. he has links to matt leach’s feed on his site. leach sometimes has good stuff, too.

Assuming K-Bot’s software upgrade doesn’t glitch, and Yadi’s ’08 is keepin it real.

But they have a lot of wins to make up after the loss of Sabathia (4.7 wins for just the Brewers!) and Sheets (4.6 wins).

And I mean the good kind. They have a good defense, and there starting staff is well balanced. I could easily see them winning 85 games.

it was ahead of (I think) only detroit and washington.

it’s certainly a useful reminder of the importance of drafting and farming for depth as opposed to just the sexy pick at the top of the draft (porcello and detroit, looking at you).

quote from goold:

It was a tailspin that lasted more than 20 at-bats… It corresponded with Mather getting a virus that sapped a lot of his strength. Mather said he lost 10 pounds because of the illness.

I noticed that Joe looked really skinny in the game the other day, but this is just absurd; it seems like at least one or two of these guys get viruses that sap xx pounds etc every year. That seems really bizarre to me; I’ve never known anyone who got sick like that, and this seems like a systemic thing.

They need to seriously look into cooking their food, or something.