pacino wrote:the best two things about the second half were to see kendrick's rise and utley's resurgence. these both mean good things for next season.

how about seeing that big piece can still be BIG PIECE? I'm sorta viewing this second half as Utley and Howard rehab assignments, since they played most of 2011 injured too. I'm encouraged. Howie's good for 44 next year mark my words.

i feel like howard has sucked balls. sure, he has power, but he barely ever hits a freaking baseball.

You're concerned about having a below-replacement level hitter batting cleanup in the lineup?

call me crazy

bottom third 1B we're paying 20 bills a year to. great decision. but he hits balls far.

He's an RBI man and we need those.

he's not 100 percent, he didn't have a spring training, and he's coming off a leg explosion injury. He has hit the ball well these past few games though

One of the slew of guys BP replaced Goldstein with mentioned Our prospect Andrew Pullin. He had a pretty nice start with his GCL performance this year. He is supposedly a solid line drive hitter at this point. The thing that's cool is, the Phil's are going to try to make a 2nd baseman out of him. He's a lefty hitter out Centralia, WA.

He's a long way away obviously but he's definitely on my follow list.

wait...isn't Superman from Centralia???

Well yes. Since you already blew his secret identity I guess we can reveal it now. He pitches righty AND lefty and everything:

http://switchpitching.blogspot.com/2012 ... ullin.html

Howard is cooked, let's not talk about it mkay

Steaks reports Chase is back at third taking grounders today.

Matt Gelb ‏@magelb
Sort of an odd scene: Sam Perlozzo and Rob DiClementi, the team's bat boy, acting as runners while Utley fields challenging balls.

My concern about Utley making the throw from third decreased a little last night after Ryan Zimmerman released that dove

I just have a hard time visualizing Utley making the stop on a hard ground ball to his right, planting and throwing hard to first.

aw narts

I'm on record as saying this is an extremely stupid idea, particularly if it's true that it doesn't have anything to do with him wanting to save his legs by moving from 2B.

Chase (and Jen) were on FOX29 this morning talkin dogs and he was asked about the 3B thing, and he claims playing 3rd is just about the same amount of strain on the knees as playing 2nd. I would disagree, but OK...

My only hope is that this experiment works and he goes full-on roid monster in the offseason and shows up at like 240 lbs. next spring

We all will be havin a laff when Rube gets Kinsler this offseason.

After the deadline Rube made a comment about there being something bigger or intriguing (or words to that effect) that was discussed and which might be revisited in the off-season. The whole push for Chase to 3B would make a lot more sense if what Rube was alluding to was possibly getting Kinsler from the Rangers.