KSaw

Did you watch a Mets game last year? Thole was badly injured and came off the DL and played the season way below 100% and caught Dickey every 5th day. Melky has played this year in better health than Thole did in 2012.

Lol. Ya, he can ONLY throw from his knees. Loved how Thole gunned Billy Hamilton a few times this year. Wish he'd get some playing time. He was in such a groove last year with the Mets before he got hurt and he was smacking line drives all over for Buffalo. Let him play!

See!! You loved that post but no 'Thanked'. LOL!!! I vote Seth MacFarlane for best director.

Thole throws 2 mph slower (avg) and is more accurate and uses better footwork. His best time to 2b beats JPA's on the watch btw.

Huh what? JP has improved? Thole hits for average. We haven't seen any sample size this year and he played almost all of 2012 while injured.

And I'd prefer they actually make an in division trade and ship him today to the Yankees. They could actually use him and would probably overpay. J.R Murphy and a bag of balls would work for me but AA could probably also get Slade Heathcott too. Slade has been a K machine, which would be good if he weren't an outfielder. His prospect ranking is tanking as fast as Deck McGuire's but he's still 22 and has all that toolsy upside that AA loves.

It's favorite poster! The results will be as accurate as when a Twilight movie gets named Best Picture during the Teen Choice Awards or the MTV Movie Awards.

That's vote worthy! Lol!

A strict platoon player who was moved to the outfield because he was as bad a second baseman as Bonifacio, if not worse.

Guess again. Thole is a better defender and hits right handers well when he gets regular at bats. JPA continues to play because it would rock the boat huge if he sat and because his power and athletic ability (supposedly) still give him a higher ceiling.

He's not even the worst regular starter in club history. The 1977 team was a joke! The players in 78, 79, 80 and 81 were pretty horrible too.

Took a quick peek-- in his MLB career, going back to 2006, back-to-back days V the same opponent = poor results. Even earlier this year v Texas he allowed an inherited runner to score and took a blown save. When you need to fool hitters and use a lot of cross angle on your pitches, you tend to get hit if they get a few shots at you. That said, he's pretty effective. He has become a smart pitcher over the years. I bet that he has a few decent years left in him (if used correctly).

Trading Cecil makes the most sense. Juan and Luis Perez will be around next year, along with Loup.

All of it are factors. The question is what is the driving primary factor. The new rules for pitchers are quite dramatic. They seemed so subtle on paper. It is really worth mentioning. It won't take long for an experimental 20 inch pitcher's rubber to appear somewhere.

Free agency never ceases to amaze. He is a weak CF at best but in this year's market he will be able to sell himself as a CF.

Think we are all forgetting that Rajai Davis will be testing free agency and is looking for a starting job and a lot more money.

Bonifacio is not a Cardinals kind of player. Wong had been mentioned in Garza talks. I don't think that Casey would be enough of a centrepiece.

Speaking of relievers, Farina is now closing at AA. His health is no longer a question. He should be in Buffalo soon. It's been a long time since he was a top 10 organizational prospect but the 3rd round pick from Clemson was indeed exactly that and had been pegged as a future late inning arm. He's 26 now.

Not opposed to that but Janssen is just as easy to move next year and might be needed next year for that matter.

Moving Oliver and selling high on Cecil seem like no brainers to me.

Last year there were a couple national articles on the growing number of strikeouts across baseball. This year, with the crazy K pace, there has been more media attention and speculation as to why. This was discussed briefly last month in this forum. Anyway, after thoughts of the the scouting being better or the pitchers being more specialized and the pitching being deeper and even the drop in PED using being the answer, the primary cause may simply be the rule changes to 8.01 in 2007 and the interpretation changes of 2012. Hitters, pitchers and coaches seem to be slowly coming to the same conclusions. Pitchers not having to keep their ENTIRE pivot foot in contact with/ in front of the rubber gives pitchers 44+ inches of angle from 1st to 3rd base to deliver from, instead of just 24 and creates a new and almost unfair advantage. Pitchers can also now have their pivot foot lose all contact with the rubber while in the full windup if it reengages before release. Pitchers have recently been using this to land their foot at a drastically different place on the rubber to shift the hitter's view last moment and to release far from where they began the windup. This was not intended in the rule change. It was so pitchers would be ok if their back foot slightly lost contact as the foot shifted to its side, which was common. Pitchers are using the new freedom to as much advantage as possible! It all may be as simple as the supposedly subtle rule changes and pitchers getting used to them and learning how to get away with more.

Don't think about it for too long. Manny is an excellent fielder who will become elite with experience. It's not close.

He got by on good hand-eye coordination and slapping and running and driving the odd mistake minor league garbage pitch for a double. He's not a major leaguer with that approach. The problem now seems to be that he has become very good at putting the bat on the ball but often on bad pitches to hit, resulting in weak contact. No one is going to challenge him in the zone with a fastball if they don't have to and right now they don't have to.

U Have you watched him play? Firstly, he's not very fast. He is quick and is a smart base runner. His body type tends to fill out and slow the speed. He has no elite tools. At the plate he's actually comparable to Jim Negrych with more HR power. Now I'm not saying that he's bad because he is pretty good. It's not that he isn't good. It's that scouts believe that he's right around his peak now. For what that's worth.

I've said this before but... Teams have so much computerized data and have a better idea than ever before as to what and where the next pitch will be from a given pitcher in a count or situation. It's backward that many teams have abandoned giving high priced players a take sign. This ego driven junk really took off in the mid 90s and almost no one gets a take sign anymore. Buck Showalter, LaRussa and Pinella resisted and Buck is last man standing. Logic says it should be the other way around.