Comments on: The Brewers are talking to Rafael Furcal

By: okwhitefalcon

okwhitefalcon — Wed, 16 Nov 2011 00:09:39 +0000

Matheny said these philosphies are engrained in him and represent the overall vision of the franchise. He mentioned how this was incorporated into the interview process with specific questions on how’d he handle certain situations.

Personally I’m much more concerned about probability of Tyler Greene being an everyday shortstop and Mo and Dewitt not getting the deal done with Albert.

By: cintiphil

cintiphil — Tue, 15 Nov 2011 23:46:13 +0000

I saw him play against the Reds many times, and it seem to me that he was a very good clutch hitter. Some guys hit little, but get the big hits when needed. I felt Yuni was that kind of hitter, or it seemed so.

By: paperlions

paperlions — Tue, 15 Nov 2011 23:01:37 +0000

Yeah…but….those don’t represent opportunities to win, they represent opportunities to manage.

If a guy isn’t good enough to start, how is he suddenly the guy you need when the game is on the line? He’s not.

Matchups are great…as tie-breakers or if you know which hitters have big splits, playing while ignoring talent is dumb (e.g. having a lefty specialist that can’t get anyone out is worse than having no lefty at all).

These are philosophies with no evidentiary basis or with clear evidence against them….kind of like making late inning substitutions under the guys of keeping bench guys sharp…there is no evidence whatsoever that such a thing is true, none at all.

By: okwhitefalcon

okwhitefalcon — Tue, 15 Nov 2011 21:53:34 +0000

Matheny made no bones about his commitment to “The Cardinal Way” with emphasis on situational execution of the fundamentals. He stressed that he would be “no clone’ of TLR but would use the philosophies he learned about matchup based bullpen management and late inning substitutional defense to ensure the best opportunity to win when those opportunities presented themselves.

By: paperlions

paperlions — Tue, 15 Nov 2011 20:10:30 +0000

Here is my one request…if they are going to continue to employ dumb ass “strategies” (in good conscience, I can’t call giving away outs on purpose a strategy), like sac bunts….then fucking teach guys how to bunt. Besides the fact that they should rarely be employed and that successful sac bunts still decrease the likelihood of scoring in that inning, the Cardinals couldn’t have been successful more than 70% of the time the tried to sac bunt.

By: okwhitefalcon

okwhitefalcon — Tue, 15 Nov 2011 20:05:56 +0000

On the Furcal subject, not sure how much he’s still on the Cards radar.

I just heard a Matheny interview echoing Mozeliak’s Tyler Greene and Daniel Descalso double play combination possibilities up the middle next year in STL.

For those who concerned about Matheny being a TLR desciple, MM used the words “gritty” and “sacrifice bunt” within seconds of each other.

It’s sounding more and more like Matheny will be Michael Corleone, taking over the family biz for Don Tony.

By: paperlions

paperlions — Tue, 15 Nov 2011 19:58:08 +0000

Who misses an OBP of .271 and SLG of .388…in a hitters park?

By: cintiphil

cintiphil — Tue, 15 Nov 2011 19:25:35 +0000

I don’t know about being better off, with Furcal. I like him, but he is not the hitter he used to be.
They will miss Yuni’s bat.

By: Kyle

Kyle — Tue, 15 Nov 2011 17:56:29 +0000

Anyone but Yuni would be an upgrade. Furcal still seems to have a bit left in the tank.