Ruf and Franco not in the lineup today. ***fart noise***

Woody wrote:Ruf and Franco not in the lineup today. ***fart noise***

See, for the Gillick thing to give me any hope, he'd have to see today's lineup, and fire someone.

I've seen enough of Brown and Sizemore, for different reasons. I have no problem seeing more of Asche

Howard has started 34 of 35 since the big benching. I have to think that's to squeeze all of the paste out of the tube, pipedream trade wise, but dumber things have happened

jamiethekiller wrote:feelin pretty good that Gillick is at the reigns here.

Wish I could, but I felt pretty well uninspired by his comments. Again, I think the major problem is in scouting and development rather than the construction of the major league roster, and I don't see any urgency to address that. Certainly, harking back to people who were drafted 12 or more years ago doesn't do it for me.

OTOH, the plan to improve draft position by sucking and to make it easier to spot talent that way seems to be well in place, so I'm not saying there's no hope.

swishnicholson wrote:I think the major problem is in scouting and development rather than the construction of the major league roster, and I don't see any urgency to address that.

I'm concerned about that, especially on the pro scouting side, but to be fair a lot of the problem was poor draft position and losing picks through signing free agents. The last two or three drafts look strong

I hate that excuse. Somehow the Cards have overcome similar obstacles.

JFLNYC wrote:I hate that excuse. Somehow the Cards have overcome similar obstacles.

And a lot of other teams haven't. We all want them to scout better, obviously, but having high picks helps.

They obviously drafted pretty well through 2008 or so, and most agree they have done well the past two or three years. So unless they were just temporarily stupid for the other three, I think I'm raising a reasonable point.

Grotewold wrote:

JFLNYC wrote:I hate that excuse. Somehow the Cards have overcome similar obstacles.

And a lot of other teams haven't. We all want them to scout better, obviously, but having high picks helps.

can we at least trot Franco and Ruf out there on a usual basis this September?!

JFLNYC wrote:I hate that excuse. Somehow the Cards have overcome similar obstacles.

We're all not lucky enough to get competitive balance picks like the poor little cardinals.

In looking at it, too, the Cardinals got Miller and Wacha at 19, Wong at 22.

Before Crawford and Nola, the last time the Phillies had a pick that high was Savery (ouch) in 2007. Before that, Drabek.

Grotewold wrote:

JFLNYC wrote:I hate that excuse. Somehow the Cards have overcome similar obstacles.

And a lot of other teams haven't. We all want them to scout better, obviously, but having high picks helps.

They obviously drafted pretty well through 2008 or so, and most agree they have done well the past two or three years. So unless they were just temporarily stupid for the other three, I think I'm raising a reasonable point.

I don't follow the draft/minors all that closely, just sort of high level overarching views of it, and my take is, that they had a certain draft strategy in the early to mid 2000's which, along with some luck and good bargain bin shopping, netted a stacked major league roster and a bunch of well regarded prospects. At that time the draft strategy changed, since they were consistently without a first round pick and then picking towards the end of the second round as the first pick, they started picking guys who were more "athletic" instead of toolsy. So we wound up with a bunch of guys who'd win a track meet or own the weight room but couldn't hit a curve or track a fly ball. Thinking that since there wasn't an immediate need or even a need on the horizon, they'd be fine with guys who'd take longer to develop. This was a major miscalculation on Ruben's part, he paid his big club like he believed it was true and designed his draft strategy that way as well. So when the clock hit midnight and 80% of the big league roster turned into pumpkins and were still signed for forever and a day AND none of the draft picks panned out, he wound up in the mess he's in now.

Probably true

re:grote's temporarily stupid remark, that's one interpretation. another one is the removal of arbuckle that also coincides pretty closely.

and i'm not even a huge fan of arbuckle. Also, the first rounder is one pick and it helped the nationals to be 1.1 for two years in a row with great talents. but drawing the talent curve (plus all the things in place that mess with the idea of every player getting drafted in exactly the right order of talent) there shouldn't be that much difference between 3.1 and 3.30.

Also building the team around sore armed pitchers doesn't help. It worked splendidly for a few years. But then. No good.

sydnor wrote:re:grote's temporarily stupid remark, that's one interpretation. another one is the removal of arbuckle that also coincides pretty closely.

That's definitely a factor. But half of my point was the last 2 or 3 drafts look good

The last four drafts do look different than what came before. After the top tier in the system of Crawford/Nola/Franco/Quinn, there are a lot of guys who aren't putting up eye-popping numbers, but are age-appropriate or a little better (think 20 year-olds at Lakewood), and at least holding their own as they rise through the system: Knapp, Cozens, Z. Green, Pullin, etc. It looks like a strategy of trying to grow a bunch of guys who might not be stars, but could be cheap, useful big-leaguers.

This is arguably a smart approach for a big-budget team… or at least it would have been a few years ago, when it was still fairly easy to buy top-level talent. Now that every team is at least rich enough to lock up their homegrown stars, AND the international pipeline has been narrowed, I'm less sure it still makes sense. They need to hit a couple lottery tickets, where a Jose Pujols turns into a huge power bat or Yoel Mecias emerges as a #2 starter.

Who knows. I don't recall anyone predicting Giles would shoot fire from his eyes

I actually do--the line about Giles was always "if he could improve his command...".

I just didn't believe it'd happen. Given how seemingly far away he was at that point, I probably would have given Aumont better odds. But it's a little different with relievers: if you have one great pitch you can locate, you don't really need to "hone your craft" for very long, and if you have two, you're Giles.

you guys are thinking of scott summers

Hollands is on his way back to Philly to get his forearm checked out