Need.

Either upgrading the bullpen, or upgrading the rotation (which in turn upgrades the bullpen, i.e. KMac would move back to the pen).

Larry B. had a part in the mothership’s “round two” feature, where he advocated trading for someone like Francisco Liriano, that I found to be an interesting option that I hadn’t previously thought about.

After trading for The Riot, all we heard from Mo on down was, “No – he really is good. He was moved to second base because that other team had a REALLY good short stop, but Ryan Theriot is good. Trust us!” Turns out, he’s scrappy and gets his uniform dirt encrusted all the time, and he is an adequate lead-off guy (which we DID need) with uncanny OBP ability – but as a defender he looks like he’s playing with a cardboard glove. It’s time to face the truth/lie and admit there was REASON to move him to 2b, get a + defending short shop who doesn’t give away outs, and move on. Trade him, move him to second, don’t care. But the guy is a liability not an asset at his current position.

 had a real 2nd baseman, would the riot be as much of an issue?

Considering all that’s gone better and worse than expected so far, I think we’re playing fairly close to our overall talent level, which will compete for the division and wild-card.
I think we have some good in house options to work our MIF problems, but we desperately need a good lefty in the pen.

http://deals.woot.com/sellout

Healthy Holliday, Punto, Craig, and Freese. I could live with a Craig/Punto team at second (where Craig gets three ABs or something and then is taken out/moved to spell Berkman) and The Riot at SS, or some other alignment, but the point is that Punto is a rock solid fielder and the Cards NEED to have that. Craig, Skip, and The Riot holding down those MIF spots just screams defensive fail to me. Descalso has been awesome defensively but he can’t hit at all. So, Freese needs to be back and play in bubble wrap. Honestly the wise move is dumping Skippy completely. He serves no purpose at all with all of those guys healthy. None.

i may have just landed myself a job 1.5 years from graduating. game developer dying for C++ programmers. the only hangup would be whether or not they would go part-time with me, because, bish, i’m finishing school. but if they’d work around my school schedule, that would be amazing. make loads of money and graduate with non-trivial experience? bet

do you hang up or listen?

http://sports.espn.go.com/mlb/columns/story?columnist=crasnick_jerry&id=6661060

i just don’t know. With the way it feels like this team has been playing (if you know what i mean) it seems that we should be 6 billion games below .500. but as it stands we’re very possibly a proper contender, it feels too soon to call any area in need of an upgrade over any other.

I’d suggest giving Raul Valdes a try. Since returning to relief after his May 12th start, he has 15 strikeouts and 1 walk in 13.1 IP. He was also a superb LOOGy for the Mets last year. The cardinals don’t need to trade for a LOOGy just like they don’t need to trade for a right handed reliever. Instead they need to make sure the bullpen has the best 7 relievers within the system.

10 great ways to make your dad feel special on fathers day

first, i think the bullet we need is a left handed reliever. i really feel that given the current 40 man roster + DL of this club, IF THE ROSTER IS MANAGED PROPERLY, all we need is a left handed reliever. that being said, i have no confidence that this roster will be managed properly. the things that worry me are the last 4 spots on the roster- the last 2 bench spots and the last 2 bullpen spots. for what it’s worth: my ideal 25 man (playoff roster??) is as follows:

Position Players:
Molina, Laird/Anderson, Pujols, Theriot, Descalso, Berkman, Jay, Rasmus, Holliday, Craig, Punto, Freese, Greene

Starting Pitchers:
Carpenter, Lohse, Garcia, Westbrook, McClellan

Relief Pitchers:
Boggs, Motte, Sanchez, Salas, Left handed pitcher X, Tallet, Franklin

i am ready to be murdered here based on the inclusion of Franklin. i would prefer right handed reliever X here- don’t get me wrong. Augenstein, perhaps. that being said, Franklin being the last reliever bothers me a LOT less than Batista and Franklin being the last 2 relievers.

i also feel that especially if we make the playoffs, we are going to see Albert playing 3B more than we expect. Tony seems to like this, and despite my reservations, there’s just no getting around the fact that having Albert, Colby, Berkman, Holliday, Jay/Craig, and maybe even both (if Craig is playing 2B) in the lineup at the same time adds dramatically to the offensive firepower of this team (with all due respect to Freese, who i just have absolutely no trust in anymore). and if our defensive infield is Pujols, Punto, Theriot/Craig, Berkman, i can’t say i am extremely upset about that. having Punto in the game just makes me so much more comfortable with our defense.

now that i’ve written a book…

…between Joba the Hut and KMac?

http://www.stltoday.com/sports/baseball/professional/article_9a4e7134-978e-11e0-8009-0019bb30f31a.html

Pretty sweet…

:=8)

apologies if i am repeating, but in the Washington Post today:

"Our fans are more tolerant of [Miguel] Batista, [Trever] Miller and [Jason] Motte than they would have been of Franklin."

really, Tony? you’re lumping Motte in there with Batista and Miller? really?

Sanchez is out for “a few days” (not just unavailable tonight, which is what I thought they were saying earlier today) with shoulder tightness.

Just throwing that out there for (un)amusement purposes. BTW, there are still 8 games remaining that are threatened to be blacked out on U-verse.

http://urlybits.com/2011/05/gravity-defying-baseball-bat/

If we lose Sanchez for the year (don’t say I’m being over-dramatic, josh Johnson was supposed to miss a few days with “shoulder tightness,” he’s on the 60-day DL now) it all but assures a full season of franktista.

I hate when injuries derail promising seasons. So damn unfair

first and foremost, to stay healthy. unfortunately, that is easier said than done. but there would be less problems if there weren’t tons of injuries. starting to seem normal.

second, similar to last year, Cardinals need to ditch the detritus i.e. batista, franklin, schu

third (most aggravating): players need to play where they should play (once healthy). Punto at short with Greene to back him up; Theriot or Craig at second (sucks that Craig’s kneecap is fractured, but that was a nasty collision with the metal fence in houston’s peewee golf playground); don’t send guys like Boggs down to the minors when they are doing better than guys who are staying on the team… sends a bad message overall.

I would do two things. The first based on an unsubstantiated hunch.
Watching Theriot’s face when he screws up; watching his face when he does something good, like hit a sharp single, or steal a base, or actually complete a double-play; watching his body language when he totally gives up on a ground ball he knows (all too quickly) that he can’t get to [a kind of a “why waste the effort” attitude]. All this gives me a hunch that he isn’t well liked by his fellow players.
Thus, bench him. Team morale may improve, in a ‘wow, Tony really does have some balls’ sort of way. Greene will eventually hit, and with some power too, if he plays every day. and Punto is an Alex Gonzalez type.
I still remember hearing how the Braves gave Gonzalez a standing ovation in the clubhouse when he re-joined the team last year and they gave up on the very unpopular Escobar.
The second bold move would be two cull one, two or even all three of the bullpen trio of Franklin, Batista and Miller.