Off-Topic Forum

Welcome to a Kansas City Royals fan's life.

True!!!!

Texas Rangers life as well.

Nationals trading away Trea Turner. 'Nuff Said.

I understand why the Cubs are cleaning house. They aren't getting to the playoffs with the team they have and there is a good chance of getting some of the players back in free agency during the offseason. What I don't know is why the Nationals are trading off everybody too. I haven't paid much attention to the NL East lately b/c the NL Central has been crazy this year and the NL West is just flat-out exciting.

I also understand the Cardinals moves. They still have a chance if they can just make it to the playoffs as they get some of the starting pitchers back in the final months of the season. The pitching staff has just been so decimated by injury this season. The defense has been pretty good outside of the pitching, but the offense has been so streaky this year. Adding a couple of veteran pitchers to the lineup should help them. Lester and Happ may not be having good years, but if they can maintain starter positions long enough for a couple of guys to come back to the rotation, they will be good upgrades in the bullpen. STL moving Lane Thomas isn't a surprise either since they have a pretty solid outfield right now.

The real question in the Happ trade is WHAT are the Twins thinking with that trade? Are they hoping the minor league pitcher is going to be a star in the future? John Gant has been terrible this year! If he can't get a batter to pop-out or fly-out, he walks them. If STL didn't have such good fielders, Gant's ERA would be WAY higher. Take away Yadier Molina behind the plate and his ERA goes up a bunch more too. I saw him in 1 inning against Cleveland early this week. He faced 5 batters and walked 2 of them. The other 3 all popped out but he also had 2 passed balls that Molina corralled fast enough to keep the runners from moving. He never threw more than 5-6 pitches to a single batter. If none of the batters swung at anything, he wouldn't have thrown more than 4, maybe 5 pitches to each one and still walked them. He was so out of the strike zone with nearly every single pitch. At least one pitch for each batter was in the dirt. He got lucky that the 5th batter hit one JUST short of the outfield fence that was caught or he'd have given up 3 runs b/c of walking the 1st and 3rd batters. The 2 and 4 batters popped out to the infield trying to pull an inside pitch in the hole between 1st and 2nd base. Gant survived the inning, but the team was already down 7-2. He did not help anything but eat up one inning that made Molina work that much harder behind the plate. I'm surprised that even Yadi didn't miss catching more of those off-target pitches. Gant was off in location in every single direction on nearly every pitch. It might have been the worst full inning of pitching I've ever seen from a single pitcher. But I like that the Cardinals aren't conceding the season just yet. They haven't given up anything of potential value (for this season or the future) and are adding to the part of the team that needs the most help to finish this year.

I'm going to go out on a limb here and say some team in the NL West goes to the WS this year. I didn't say it was a small limb though.

The cost of winning a championship now a days. Trade all your players a few years later because you can't afford them. Cubs, Nationals, etc. How many key players left from Cubs WS winners? 

Bryant, Rizzo, and Baez were like the main 3

Still have Arrieta and Hendricks and Heyward. 

As a Pirate fan, I would welcome AAA players.