Oz27

Situational hitting isn't a skill, hitting is. And Kendrick is a significantly better hitter than Ibanez. And for the sake of argument, Howie's career RISP OPS is 13 points below his usual OPS. In what Baseball Reference deems 'late and close situations', his OPS is only 34 points lower than his career total. So while I hate that our lineup is in a crappy enough place that he has to be hitting cleanup, your argument lacks any basis, Marsaka.

Cowgill leading off...should be fun

That play in Sydney where he climbed the wall for a ball that comfortably landed inside the stadium - about 10 feet from him - was one of the best I've seen.

Assuming Calhoun starts hitting soon... Shuck Calhoun Trout Pujols Freese Kendrick Ibanez Iannetta/Conger Aybar

I can't help but wonder how this thread fits in with the whole "better AW experience for all" thing.

April 9 is still etched in my memory, probably forever. On Wednesday I kept looking at the date and feeling sick. The whole thing still feels so awful. What's important is that the whole thing isn't forgotten. It's one of the greatest Angels tragedies (unfortunately there's been too many of them) and we should remember it out of respect - and to not forget the many important lessons I think we learned from it. I'm so paranoid about drink driving now that I avoid driving at all costs for about a day after a night out. And when this whole baseball thing gets a bit too important or I get a bit too angry, there's no better way to remember that it's not that big a deal than to think about that awful day. RIP Nick, Courtney and Henry. I'll never forget.

While McDonald making the team is anything but exciting, the Romine trade (which I think was a good move) left us with no viable alternative. We need a backup SS and I definitely don't trust Green to do it. If Stewart and McDonald are the two who make it and Green is banished to the minors, that's just moronic. But Green (an offensively-minded infielder) and McDonald (quite the opposite) both making it is something I can tolerate.

Trout Kershaw Cabrera Harvey Machado A few justifications - Troust and Kershaw are non-negotiables, the best hitter and the best pitcher in baseball and both very young. From there you have to consider the position and how valuable it is. I've gone Machado and Cabrera because it takes two of the most offensively challenged positions (SS and 3B) and Harvey for similar reasons. It makes much more sense to take a 3B or SS who can put up similar numbers to any 1B you might take, given the second tier of 1B are significantly better offensively than the second tier of 3B or SS. I only took Harvey narrowly over Sale, you want two starting pitchers at least in a group of five.

The 11th best hitter isn't vintage Pujols, nor is the third best hitter. Vintage Pujols is and always will be much higher than a .900 OPS and, while I'm confident he'll be .900+, it won't be the numbers from his heyday (or close to them).

He was a 3.3 and 3.5 WAR player in 2011 and 2012. Yeah, it wasn't as good as he was in KC, but he was still criminally underrated. We've been big losers out of giving up Callaspo, Bourjos and Grichuk for Freese, Salas and Green.

It's pretty simple really. You take a pitcher who had repeatedly shown over the past few years how terrible he was, bring him into a tougher league, give him a contract that was probably five times as high as anyone else had given him and this was what was bound to happen. The funny thing was I didn't hate the signing before the terms came out. When I assumed it was no more than a 1 year/$2mil deal, I thought there were worse depth signings. And that's all any of us thought he could possibly worse. This is one of those deals that sounded completely ridiculous at the time and lived up to what seemed likely on face value.

Rather than attack a writer I couldn't give two shits about, I prefer to focus on the actual issue which is Arte (and the organization's) increasing willingness to treat people like shit and assume there won't be consequences. I'm not talking about this issue, which doesn't really make much sense and isn't too disimilar to the shockingly bad PR tactics used by organizations everywhere, but there's been too many examples of Arte and co treating people in a way that seems in complete contrast to what he preached when he first took over.

That's in line with what I think. The early signs last year and from parts of 2012 still make me think a healthy Pujols puts up an OPS around .900. Is that worth the contract? Of course not. Is he going to be vintage Pujos ever again? Highly unlikely. But if Pujols does rebound and Hamilton remembers how to not completely suck, this team becomes pretty dangerous.

Seems like most of you got bored and went to sleep?

Vin is on radio now. It's good value, Scott Trumbo aside

Vin Scully spent 3 mins saying Scott Trumbo made a great play to rob a homer.I love Vin, but...

Lol Mark

Was only supposed to start at 41 past this hour (whatever time it is where you are) anyway, so it's actually not delayed.

Go Dbacks!

Well, for one, pitchers get injured. But my bigger concern is performance. There's been significant warning signs for both in the past year or so and we're totally reliant on those issues not getting any bigger. With that, on top of relying on four unknowns combining to be three adequate starters (as well as relying on no injuries) it's unwise to be too optimistic about the status of our pitching. And all Joe Blanton needed to do last year was put up a 4.50 ERA. Kazmir in 2011 only needed a 4.50 ERA. All any fifth starter needs to do is that. But it quite often doesn't happen and teams are left in trouble.

That's a very optimistic outlook, Doc. We're relying on three huge uncertainties to be good, with few realistic options beyond them, and that in itself requires our front two to not get injured and be really good (something I'm no longer comfortable relying on). The odds are we're going to have at least one big hole in our rotation for most of all of the season, with the extremely high probability that one of Richards, Skaggs or Santiago will struggle and/or Weaver and Wilson will get injured. As soon as one of those things happen our depth looks shot and our output will be lower tier at best.

You're right. Trumbo is a good example - he clearly worked hard at it and has improved to a degree (spurts of big improvement mixed in with his usual self) but it's clear walks are never going to be his game. Aybar isn't about to have an OBP 90 points above his average, but any improvement is welcome.

Yep, Ibanez playing the field should only be in crazy scenarios - the type where you have a hitter pitching or an emergency catcher.

You'll find he's MUCH worse than Trumbo...and that's in no way an endorsement of Trumbo's defensive "abilities".

Assuming we carry Green and Romine, that gives us the flexibility of moving Kendrick around a bit. On a Pujols day off, would you have Ibanez at 1B, Kendrick at 2B and Green DHing or Kendrick at 1B, Green at 2B and Ibanez DHing? Because that's pretty clear cut for me. While four man benches are annoying, one advantage we do have with our likely four (Conger, Shuck, Romine and Green) is quite a degree of flexibility, enough to avoid starting Ibanez in the field.