Riverbrian

I won't argue with you... I'll say you were right... It wasn't done well. Rebuilding with guys like Doumit, Clete Thomas, Jamey Carroll and Kevin Correia while suppressing playing time for young players like Arcia, Hicks, Hendriks and Tonkin is certainly a change from the typical formula.

Expectations have to be light in consideration of the rebuild. Gardy seems to have skills working with his superiors based on his ability to hang on to a job. I think he is around for awhile. To me the question is: What will Gardy do with an actual rebuilding team. We never went through an actual rebuild while Gardy was manager for us. Can he do it... Does it make him the right candidate?

The Tigers drafting 2nd would mean a big winning streak to catch the Orioles. For our sake at this moment... We want them drafting first.

Heard Baldelli say on the Radio that Kepler was participating in full activities today and they are going to see how he does with that. I'm not sure exactly what "Full Activities" means... I assume it means, he ran, threw, hit, went to parade, ate at a restaurant, searched for metal in the sand with a detector and he made a quilt.

What's the record when Astudillo takes a walk followed by a Castro strikeout? I wanna see how good you are.

He treats the batters box like a basketball player treats the three second lane.

With his contact skills... if Rowson can only get him to be more selective. He could become a pretty dynamic hitter pretty quickly.

I'm often under a rack.

Sounds like Smalley.

Those last two flyball outs looked like pop ups coming off the bat but drifted fairly deep. The Home Run might be a factor.

I'm surprised it wasn't. The CF had to pick it up. That's a tough corner in Detroit.

A 4.66 ERA basically means inconsistent. A 4.66 ERA over a season will mean he occasionally has a good game and be problematic for the opposing team. If he was bad every time he took the mound his ERA would be 26.75. BTW... The guy with the 26.75 ERA... that's the one I want the Twins to Face.

Other than the baseball gods love to flip the script.

I'm going over cuz I want them.

I'm with ya... Cheering for the White Sox is like drinking Tabasco Sauce because it cures anxiety.

I am under the opinion that we should try and win this game! Who's with me?

You may be right. However... the only thing that we can agree on is that Perez isn’t good enough. We got that data. Now we got people who want to reach into the Dobnak raffle drum as an alternative to Perez based on either his 20 innings or lack of faith in Perez and Gibson. And if you think 20 innings is sufficient to count him among the 30 pitchers they tried. Then Dobnak should be our number one starter with his under 2.00 ERA. He won!!!

The front office obviously had opinions that led to how things transpired. I think they liked Martin Perez's stuff and I'm sure they liked what Perez was doing in April and May and were working like mad to get him back to where he was then. I won't pretend to know who they should have tried. But, the front office needs to find someone to try. That is their job. Nobody gets through the season with just 5 starters... nobody. I made the same argument last year with Logan Morrison playing every day and I make the same argument this year with Martin Perez. Martin Perez is not producing at an acceptable level... Logan Morrison wasn't producing at an acceptable level. They are both producing very low bars to clear. Don't let sub par play stop you from seeing if someone can clear that very low bar. I don't care if the player is a top ranked prospect, unranked prospect or a AAAA Waiver claim. You have to go to the next man up. Because if anyone can clear that very low bar. You have improved your baseball team even if it is incremental. I don't blame the front office for not requiring a starter at the deadline. The prices must have been too high and they have a long term plan in place to consider... However, the very second that they didn't overpay to acquire a starter. They were committed to having enough to get the job done in house. This has been a playoff team since April. 5 starters with Perez on a 11 start bad streak at the deadline was not going to be enough... Once a starter wasn't acquired, this is when they got to find whoever the in-house option is... instead of waiting for the wheels to come off on the eve of the playoffs to take a guess on Dobnak. But, I'll say again... I am over the moon happy with the front office. We've made significant strides forward and I'm just asking them to take the same approach with the pitching staff as they are with the offense this year. The same approach that allowed Arraez to continue his good play and get a real chance to beat out an 8 million dollar free agent in Schoop who really isn't performing that badly. Dobnak wasn't given a chance to be better than Perez... Now Perez is our 3rd starter and we are sitting here saying we'd rather use Dobnak in game two. I know I don't want Perez, we have enough information to make that call... Meanwhile, the club has gone out of its way to tell me through usage that it doesn't totally trust Dobnak.

You say that there wasn't anybody down in Rochester saying "Try Me" instead of Perez. I assume you mean... they weren't producing decently enough to earn the right to be tried and I get that. I disagree with Dobnak... His numbers were quite strong but I get what you are saying. However... I look at it from the completely opposite direction. I'm not looking at Rochester for someone to earn it. I'm saying it was the production from Perez saying "We should try" somebody else. Perez wasn't earning it and Perez had to be addressed somehow, someway because the offense was going to bring this team to the playoffs.

That’s the point that Jorgenswest was making. The team is tracking spin rates and a variety of different things that suggest that Perez is better. I get this and believe that data is important but as we can all see... The data can be wrong. It has been wrong before and in the case of Perez it was wrong in the timeframe it needed to be right in. The pursuit of the expected result to match that data has led us to no options but a raffle drum pull in late September.

Agreed... You can’t prepare to lose your best pitcher but you can prepare to try and replace your worst pitcher and that replacement improves a roster spot makes the team better and makes the drop from losing your best pitcher less of a drop. As for Dobnak in your reversal of the Arraez scenario. If Dobnak gets the ball and fails. You now know and that is good information that is needed right now for playoff selection. If Dobnak fails... he is off the list of choices for a playoff spot. You are no longer picking blind because you know. Then you choose Smeltzer or Graterol instead. Our option now is Perez who we know is bad or a raffle drum selection who we pray is better but don’t know. This could have been planned for by not settling for substandard Perez production. They bet on the wrong horse and kept betting on it.

I’m not saying it’s on Baldelli. I have no idea what happens in the room. But it’s on the group dynamic that made the decision collectively. Dobnak was called up in August and was used sparingly (20 innings)while Perez pitched every 5th day. The bottom had to fall out to give Dobnak the ball. At the very latest. The very second they didn’t acquire a starter in a trade to replace Perez they needed to begin the search internally for a Perez replacement. Instead they hitched to a struggling Perez and locked into it. Now we are staring at a raffle drum selection hoping to get lucky. We might.

I agree with everything you say with the exception of the highlighted part. I've stated on multiple occasions that just because you have Kershaw or Chris Sale... it doesn't mean the other team is just going to lay down and die. They increase your odds but it doesn't mean that the dice doesn't come up snake eyes. Once the playoff starts it's small sample size on steroids... It is quite possible that Mookie Betts under performs while Steve Pearce wins you a world series title. A bloop that falls in or a rocket that is snagged or a blown call by the umpire can influence the result of the game and the star status of the player will have nothing to do with it. The part I disagree with is: Yes you can prepare for it. Not only can you prepare for it... You have to prepare for it. No, you can't prepare for the Kershaw 5 plus ERA but you can prepare for who gets a roster spot from the fringes and we have a lot of fringe on the mound. You can prepare for who increases your odds. You can prepare for the simple question... who is the better pitcher or player when trying to set a playoff roster. And yes, you can prepare for injuries and suspensions because injuries and suspensions consistently happen and not prepping for them is not taking note that they consistently happen. Right now, the front office is looking over the 40 man roster and deciding who gets on the 25 man roster spot for the playoffs. Odorizzi, Berrios, Rogers, Romo, Duffey, May and Littell should be givens providing they stay healthy this final week. They need at least 4 more arms... maybe 5. Who gets those 4 spots and who doesn't? Gibson? Perez? Smeltzer? Dobnak? Thorpe? Graterol? Stashak? It's playoff time and the who gets those 4 spots question is critical. Wouldn't it be beneficial information to have more data than 20 MLB innings before throwing Dobnak to the playoff wolves. We are all scared to death of Gibson with his health and recent performance and we should all know by now that Perez isn't good enough and now we have to staff the playoff roster with players who were not allowed the opportunity to beat out Gibson or Perez. Who do you choose? The best example I can give you is on the offensive side. What if Arraez was treated like Dobnak was? What if Arraez was only given 20 AB's and after going 9 for 20 at the plate in a couple of starts, he was then held to late game replacement duty during blowouts? What if Arraez was not given any opportunity to be better than Schoop or even Adrianza? The answer is Arraez would not be on the playoff roster under that scenerio unless mulitple people were hurt and now you are rolling the dice with Arraez on the roster, probably sitting anyway, not knowing if he will be the Arraez that we have actually seen because he was given the chance to better than Schoop. This is what happened to Dobnak and Smeltzer. We don't know if Dobnak or Smeltzer is better than Perez. But we do know that Perez isn't good enough. What Baldelli is doing on the offensive side of things... he must do on the mound and he hasn't and we are sitting here with Perez as our #3 starter or guessing if Dobnak or Smeltzer should take his place as the #3. Perez wasn't good enough to keep either from finding out! Now we have to guess on the eve of the playoffs. Keeping Perez in the rotation all the way to late September with a 6 plus ERA since the all-star break is the equivalent of letting Logan Morrison play every day last year. Find someone better. Their performance isn't good enough. Don't get me wrong... I am over the moon happy with our front office. The change from last year to this year is bone breaking and exactly what I asked for with the position players. Now lets' do the same with the pitching staff and my posts are meant to be constructive criticisms.

Participation is never an entire game expectation. If you can participate for an entire game... wonderful but one post in the game thread is considered participation. You can indicate that your participation will be light by posting in the thread for the others to be aware. For example... I have checked Tomorrow night but I do have plans that will limit my participation. I will leave a note in the thread indicating this. You can take a look at it, to see how I did it. Reminder to all: The headcount serves two purposes and I'm hopeful that all will utilize it for the information it provides. 1. It lets everyone know what kind of support you have prior to the game started. For example at this moment 1:02 CST Monday. 9 people have indicated that they will be game threading to some degree Tomorrow Night and it also shows that only 4 are available for the Thursday afternoon game. Everyone can see this before hand will know if it's a heavy or light night support wise. 2. After the week has concluded, readjusting the poll to what actually happened.from a participation standpoint will provide data to help make the determination if 4 is a light or if 9 is light or heavy. These end of the week numbers will be tracked and the information provided could be used for future adjustments if needed.