Fools Gold - Stay The Course

[blackinkbiz]

Haha! Got to give Basil credit. He was 100% correct. I probably enjoyed and bought into the "best defense in MLB" a little too much and believed they could at least capture a WC. Of course, no one saw the Brewers coming--yet again!--even though I knew the Cubs historic first-half offense couldn't last.

Man, this season looked so promising until July. If they could have just kept their head above water that month we'd likely have acquired a starter at the deadline and would be looking forward to the WC round.

But, that's Oli's teams for you. Incapable of playing consistently over 162. The injuries, horrific baserunning, defensive falloff, and increased suicide rate from prolonged exposure to Walker and Gorman ... didn't help.

[Carp4Cy]

Haha! Got to give Basil credit. He was 100% correct. I probably enjoyed and bought into the "best defense in MLB" a little too much and believed they could at least capture a WC. Of course, no one saw the Brewers coming--yet again!--even though I knew the Cubs historic first-half offense couldn't last.

Man, this season looked so promising until July. If they could have just kept their head above water that month we'd likely have acquired a starter at the deadline and would be looking forward to the WC round.

But, that's Oli's teams for you. Incapable of playing consistently over 162. The injuries, horrific baserunning, defensive falloff, and increased suicide rate from prolonged exposure to Walker and Gorman ... didn't help.

Just to play devil's advocate -

if we had:
dumped Fedde sooner,
Brought up McGreevy
Brought up JJ at some point when everyone got hurt
Not traded so many in the pen OR traded Helsley for another MLB contributor instead of a lotto ticket (yes 1 for 1 trades off the 26 man can and DO happen)
Acquired maybe 1 more piece at the trade deadline

Do all this and we might be in an entirely different position right now. Its not like we are 20 games back of WC as it is. We can never know what might have happened if we didn't make missing the playoffs a self-fulfilling prophecy.

[Hoosier59]

The Cardinals didn’t try to do ANYTHING! That’s the problem. They didn’t try to win, and they didn’t try to do a proper rebuild. They just let some contracts walk and then stood pat. It wouldn’t have taken that much money or added players to at least be in the wild card equation. They wanted to see what they had, blah, blah, blah.
Now it seems they are planning on doing basically the same thing this off season. If they don’t want to try and win, then why do they want to own the team? It really doesn’t make any sense to me.
At the beginning of the year it seemed there a few power house teams, and people just assumed that those teams would win everything. Most of those teams are in the playoffs, but not without their problems, and nothing can be assumed now.
If the Cardinals would have, at least tried, well they could be in that mix.

[BrummerStealsHome]

As of 9/18 I'm hoping for 81 wins. Funny how perspective changes.

86 was completely unrealistic.

Had they not sold at the deadline they’d likely have been over .500. Also, who saw the Brewers w/best record in MLB and both Cubs/Reds both as a playoff teams?

Division was much better than anyone expected. 86 was optimistic but not insanity.

Of course. He's got a thing for me, I think,

86 wins is a .531 win percentage.

The Cards were .547 at the end of June, .543 the halfway point, and still .526 at the ASB. Feddie imploded after his last quality start on 6/19. If he hadn't the team probably would have limped through July a few games over .500, and may not have become sellers (7/31 was 110 games in . . . a .531 win percentage at 110 games is 58 wins, instead of the 55 we had). Yeah, 86 was optimistic, but I'm' an optimist, but not at all unrealistic.