3 hole
- Thread starter vbsideout
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Grichuk is just a really dumb hitter.
Taking a gutted fastball on 3-2 means you are completely guessing that they are going to throw a pitch out of the strike zone for you to fish for. 3 more Ks added to his total.
Now today MM puts Carp in the 3 hole and it does not work out. Who says we need a true RBI guy. It will be 2+ years and this team continues to slide. Going to be a long 2 months
Taking Carp out of the leadoff spot is just plain silly. For whatever reason he hits MUCH better there. If Wong is going to hit like he has been recently he should be the leadoff guy with his speed, but Carp just don't hit well anywhere else.
All I know is Carp has to bat 1st. It is no longer a small sample size. Take him out of the lead off spot and he becomes a pumpkin so to do it in the 3rd game of a tied series with the team that is directly ahead of you is just stupid. Also it is time to let Pham bat 3rd and Piscotty to Memphis. This team is bad because of it's players that MO has provided and MM has no idea what to do with them. (Bad combination)
Seriously, if Pham and Martinez aren't in the lineup everyday it should be a criminal act against MM. I can only watch Grichuk whiff and Piscotty ground out to SS so many times before I lose my ish.
I dunno what Pisc has to do to go down to AAA.
Diaz is actually starting to hit the ball ok down there, although he has exactly 1 walk in the entire month that he's been down. Not good enough.
Diaz sure is interesting because it's like his approach completely changed from last year. Last year I remember him being patient and really having a great knowledge of the zone and drawing a lot of walks (quick baseball reference search and I see his walk rate was a tad above 10%). He's done none of that this year. It's why I was bullish on him to repeat his success. His approach dictated it. It's like he forgot what he did a season ago or just got lucky for 400 ABs...
Let's not forget it was just over 2 years ago they DFAd this guy and nobody picked him up. You can't expect to have a great team when you have a team full of average players and no superstars. Martinez has been an above average player, but no where close to superstar. Carlos needs to be a stud the rest of the year and it better start tonight. Win a darn game Carlos!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Good point, but supposedly him being DFAd was the fulcrum that made him reassess his approach and he finished that year on a tear and continued into spring of last year. I agree that right now they're a team full of solid and average players. They have no stars. Teams like that can win, but they have to do everything right every night to do so and this team has been far too erratic for that to happen.
Carlos has been a stud and get beat 1-0 or 2-1. Most of his losses were no where near his fault. Heck they even gave him an error on the ball off his glove that Carp couldn't pick up with Martinez covering in plenty of time to get the out. How the heck is that an error on the pitcher?!!!
Poor Carp any time he has to move his feet it is trouble. In Carlos last 7 starts he has given up 5 runs 3 times, that's not a stud.
He's gotta keep the ball in the park a little more than he does but he's a legitimately good SP with a pretty good health record. If you look at what he's done for the Birds in 2015-2017...sure, he's not Max Scherzer, but you're getting great production out of him overall.
Never said he was not solid, but like all the Cards he is not a stud and this team needs some studs to get over the hump. We don't have a true ace. Carlos is a fine pitcher but is not elite.
He's been one of the best 25 SPs in baseball each of the last two years and he's been a little better than that this year. Yeah, he's not Kershaw, but he'd be the best starter on about half the teams in baseball.
If you were picking SPs for 2018, you'd probably put him ~#15 overall considering his age and health. That's an ace.
He's not in the Cy Young discussion, I'll give you that, but you can make the playoffs pretty easily if he's your best SP. He's basically the right handed equivalent of Jon Lester right now, and he's by far the best starter the Cubs have.
I don't want a top 15 anything. I want at least 2 top 5 players at any position.
I want the Cards to have more top tier talent, yes. Although you can make good argument that Pham has been a Top 5 CF or LF and Rosie a Top 5 reliever. That hasn't been enough.
The Cards are not that far from being really good, either. I get not going for it this year given how far back we are from the wildcard and how good the Cubs roster is, but this team has outscored its opponents by over 40 runs already. It is better than a .500 team overall. The fixes are not super hard. A little more in the pen and a decent refresh of the lineup and this is a good team. The rotation is in very good shape when you consider Reyes/Weaver are next in line. Hopefully management goes for it.
I haven't kept track of it the last 5 games but I know he's been a victim of poor defense, having to get extra outs in multiple innings, and poor offense in many of his losses. Keeping the ball in the park is hard for most guys this season. Little guys are hitting 450 foot HR's and LOTS of guys are hitting Hr's to the opposite field. The ball has frickin dynamite in it this year.
Martinez was a lot better at it until this year. Maybe it's a fluke. But it is the piece holding him back from being a top 10 guy.
A lot of pitchers were better at keeping the ball in the park until this year.
Not to the same degree. Martinez gave up 13 HR in 2015 and 15 in 2016 along with only 5 total in 2013-2014 in over 100 IP. He's already given up 19 this year. It's an increase that's much faster per inning than the change for the national league year over year.
Ok stop. Statistics lie. Whats the standard deviation for their scoring??? They are 4th in the league in scoring margin. But thats a joke. They score 30 in four games against colorado then cant score for two weeks then they go double digits in 3 straight. That stat does not reflect their true offensive capabilities.
Their launch angle is great right now and exit velocity is out of this world but their base running is not so hot. Take all the stats you want, but the only one that counts is they are 2.5 out and not in the playoffs.
W/L is a stat just like runs scored and runs allowed. It's a numerical tally of how you played. It's subject to its own biases and luck factors. Guys get hot and cold. You run into an opposing pitcher on a day when he's lights out. You get some lucky bounces and calls. Your bullpen blows up more than it will on average for a couple months. Etc.
Runs scored, runs allowed, and wins/losses are all measures of your true talent level. Runs scored/runs allowed is actually a better predictor of your future record than your actual W/L record, because it is a more accurate measure of your underlying talent level. It still has its own flaws, to be sure, and the average MLB team has an understanding of what those issues are.
Every team's offensive capability floats around. Certainly, the volatility of performance affects the actual W/L projection if you run it out on a game by game basis. I couldn't tell you how. But it's secondary by far to your overall average runs scored per game. The Cardinals, scoring 4.6 runs a game on average, are scoring 3 runs per game, 4 runs per game, 5 runs per game, etc. more often than a team like the Pirates are, who are scoring only 4.26 runs a game.
Keep in mind that the Cards have only scored 7 runs 23 times, and they've scored 9 runs only 11 times. The Cards score 2-6 runs about 2/3rd of the time. We've only scored 0 or 1 run 13 times. The Pirates have done that 20 times. The Brewers (who are also scoring 4.6 runs a game) have scored 0 or 1 runs 15 times. The Cubs, who are scoring 4.7 runs a game, have done it 18 times.
There is not good evidence that this lineup is blow-out prone in either direction relative to other teams we are competing against. It is in our heads. The reality is the Cards are about .4 runs a game better than their opponents so far this year, which implies we are a better than .500 team.
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If anything, the Cards have been lucky on the pitching side moreso than they've been lucky on the hitting side. Our rotation has only missed 3 starts (excluding Reyes.) That's pretty darn lucky even with some of the bullpen chaos we've had.
This is an inconsistent, mediocre team. You compared them to other inconsistent, mostly mediocre teams. I am pretty sure July was our first month above .500. We are one game over after a 3 game winning streak and all of the sudden everyone thinks we are cured. We play bad baseball.
But they're right in the middle of this race at the moment. You don't have to win 100 games if the other teams in your division are playing bad baseball too. I remember a pretty bad Cardinal team that snuck into the playoffs and won a WS. I also remember a one that won over 100 games and swept in the WS. You would think the Cubs would pull away but they haven't yet and they just put their catcher on the DL.
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I wouldn't say we are cured, nor would I say we're one of the top 5 teams in baseball. We're probably an 84-88 win team in terms of talent. The hot streak has put us right on line with about where we should finish.
What don't you get about it does not matter if you're great when the other teams your division aren't great either? The Cubs SHOULD be running away wont this thang but they aren't. Great teams can fall apart in the post season and mediocre teams can get hot. They made no moves so play out THIS season and worry about next season this winter.
OH has to go and for now he has to stop coming into a game with a lead.
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