G-Snarls

It's happening! Per Rogers radio. Ricky up.

He means Gose

Who do you get though?

Idiot

Goins generates 10x the posts that Lawrie does these days. Hilarious.

I don't know what to hope for here. If Goins continues to impress I just hope he's for real and can sustain above average defense and league average batting next year. That would make him an acceptable starting 2B next year. The problem is if he impresses the FO with unsustainable hitting and they don't bother trying to upgrade this off season even though maybe they should. Izturis should stay on the team no matter what, but preferably on the bench as utility. He would still get plenty of playing time due to injury-prone starters in Lawrie and ReyesI like him due to his reasonable ability to play 2B, SS and 3B, something that Bonifacio certainly couldn't do, and neither can Kawasaki realistically (his arm is too weak for 3B especially). For his career (this year is an outlier), his splits vs LHP and RHP show no difference so I don't think "platooning" with Goins makes sense. Given that we aren't getting Matt Carpenter, Dustin Pedroia, or Robinson Cano, there's no top notch 2B we can snag. Going with 2 of Goins, Kawasaki and Izturis might be the best we can hope for. (Heck, we won a World Series with Manny Lee at SS) I've said it so many times I'm tired of typing it, the best money is probably spent on a SP to shore up the rotation and catcher.

For sure. He could easily become the best defensive 3B in baseball.

Which is odd because it seems like the one area scouts can tell you something that the numbers can't

It's also sort of hard to be "lucky" on defense. Everyone makes errors, and someone can come up and look bad over a small sample size if they're nervous and make some bad throws or something. But you can't fake smooth defense like that. I think it's real. Batting? Different story. Very easy to come up and overperform (Goins) or underperform (Pillar) your true ability in a small sample.

I'm also going on scouting reports on very good defense in the minors.

Yech

What? Wow. Cause that translates at the big league level. Nice. It was always command and walks that killed him, his stuff is very good. Has a shot at starting rotation 2014 I suppose.

Yeah. Neither may be capable of hitting over .250 in the bigs, but Goins looks like a much better defender, looks faster (? true) and is younger and cheaper. I'd like to keep both in the organization, but one needs to play in Buffalo. #BisonsNeedToWinToo

1HR in that 6 game home stand. And they went 4-2. Amazing. Pitching and defense matter eh?

That's one of the problems. Buerhle is indispensable to this team now. They can't risk giving up a workhorse like that when the rest of the rotation is so fragile. 18M or not, and 4+ ERA or not, we need him next year.

No Bautista and no Rasmus leaves too little power

With Bautista and Rasmus out of the lineup we have a completely powerless outfield. It's ridiculous.

Ah OK same as any player. Makes sense. But still...

But dude. He won't get 50 R. b. eyes so no way he can be a top 10 katcher.

I want to watch a couple of Mets games to see him.

So... If someone had taken "no home runs" every single game, they'd be leading this thing right? That's ridiculous.

I can't see him getting less than 8-10 but we'll see...

Buster Olney was on ESPN radio today talking about pending free agents who either hurt or helped themselves this year. (3 each). #1 was Josh Johnson, who Olney suggested would probably have to settle for a 1 year deal at 5-6M. Seems low to me but I'd do that in a second if I was AA.

A's sweep the Rays. Woot!!!