i'm so easily manipulated. one comment from my dear friend at Twunch, and here i go, posting on the interbot again about the baseball i so dearly love. some updates.

we have moved again, this time within knox vegas to a house we bought. thanks to directv, we now have the mlb network for the first time in our lives, granting us perhaps 3 more games a year. since we have yet another kid on the way, we get to watch that much less, but it's nice to know it's there.

ok, the baseball. it's too early to do a season preview, and that's not really what this blog has been about from the start. let's just get back to the little blurbs all three of you who've read this blog all know and love.

as i type this, albert has hit his fourth homer of the young season, and the cards are sitting at a 5-2 record. here's hoping for another standard season from the mang, by which of course i mean another thor-like performance. we're currently tied with the fucking cubs for the lead of the nl central, but trust me, no matter what, they will find a way to fuck this up. it seems that we have at least three, and perhaps even four pitchers available to fill out our five man rotation. hell, even piniero has made me feel all giddy inside for the '09 season, though he too will manage to fuck that up, i think.

carp. if it's true, it's what i've been hoping for for two years. it's the reason i felt it worth starting to post again. it's the reason i still believe as only a man who still is amazed when a lottery ticket turns into nothing at all can believe. please, carp, please.

oh, and i went to church yesterday for the first time in several years. that's gotta help, right?

some thoughts on the new cards this year.

dennys reyes and trevor miller are both left handed. they will do. that is all.

khalil greene should prove that he is capable of sustaining his previous levels of offensive production, while creating only a slight decrease in infield defense as compared to izturis. he ma also show at least a touch of emotion while in st louis.

joe thurston will manage to look like a big leaguer and sign with someone else for way too much next season. he will then fail, but we will have got what we needed from him. well met, sir.

freese and barden will probably rotate out for their memphis equivalents (or troy glaus, should he prove not to be totalled) as the season progresses. they will show promise, but still need seasoning, which they will not really get.

colby rasmus will start somewhat slow on paper, but be an OPS force from day one.

there, the season preview i promised i wouldn't do. why you trust me, i'll never kow.

spring training spill

i determined as i waited for blogger to load that i would post a blog to whichever blog i had neglected for longer, then i realized i have a lot more to say about baseball right now. here goes.

spring training has me all excited. i can't wait for grapefruit league games, hearing who is tearing it up in "live" bp, who has learned to throw a cutter in the off season. i watched more pro football this off season than i ever have before, but it's no substitute for baseball. i think that this year my be the watershed year in which i become capable of following at least the whole national league, if not both leagues. as a still relatively new baseball fan who has been absorbing concepts for the last few years, it took me a while just to follow the entire nl central. no more. every day when i get home from work, i give my wife the details of what went on in baseball today, and i think that will be expanded in 07.

at what price belliard? we could have had jabba as a backup 2nd baseman for less than gollum. not that brass could have forseen it, but it is still something of a loss. hell, i'd almost consider jabba to be a backup right fielder, as deep as he plays 2nd. i guess it worked out for the best, what with management's hope to make the whole team of albert and former angels.

i have made an ankiel category. i don't know how to feel about the guy. his meltdown was before my time, so i don't have that bad taste in my mouth. i guess i'd like to see him succeed as an outfielder, but not just because tony feels guilty. if he's not a major waste of organizational resources, fine. if his bat is real, fine. if he is doomed to be a career minor league guy, let someone else try with him.

i have a strong feeling about trades in the works. we have a lot of rp's and of's. some of them are relative bargains, too. i'm expecting the proverbial "impact bat" by the all star break.

god, i love baseball.

at what price belliard?

this smacks of trading for trading's sake. luna for belliard seems like a great way to take on salary, but that's it. while it is true that belliard will probably be taking more time away from aaron miles than was hector, it still doesn't really solve any problems. not that they would have taken it, but couldn't we have given them miles and some low level prospect or something? my dislike of gollum is occasionally proved unnecessary, but only occasionally. he's got a few clutch hits for us, but not nearly enough to make me like having the shortest middle infield in the majors. hector luna, on the other hand, may not have always come through in the clutch, but he did hit. it seems like we left him on base in the ninth quite a few times this year when he represented the tying run...

whatever, in a year or two, it may prove that walt saw the possibilty of magic, or some such nonsense, but for the time being, belliard seems like a good money sink and nothing more. here's hoping there's another (meaningful) trade in the works.

three day withdrawal

three days with no baseball in the middle of the summer is great for our players, but for me, it's like trying to hold my breath for the same length of time. ok, maybe a better analogy would be not eating for three days, which i might actually be able to survive; thinner, desperate, but still going. the all star game was fine (except for phil garner putting cabrera in at third as a defensive replacement instead of rolen... makes as much (defensive) sense as tlr putting yadi in center, and it cost the nl home field advantage), but hardly memorable, and didn't quite fulfill my need (the all star game is like methadone, to use yet a third simile to describe the same thing).

some post-break thoughts

aubrey huff to the astros... i know a lot of cards fans and bloggers were hoping to snag this guy, but it doesn't seem that big a loss to me. true, they traded him for some bags of sunflower seeds, but still, i don't think it pushes them over the top or anything.

rotation woes... i'm not exactly an optimist, but when it comes to the cardinals, i guess i generally expect things to go pretty well. the last two years have spoiled us in terms of win totals. the rotation should regain some footing in the second half. reyes is strong, weaver is an improvement on ponson, and eventually, mulder might be able to throw a ball better than they did in my third grade coach pitch league twenty years ago. carp has taken some bad breaks, but is still dominant, and i think we're hitting marquis' good stretch he seems to have every year at a good time.

trade deadline... we need to trade for a real left fielder. i'm perfectly content with luna, gollum, and luna at second, but the left field travelling roadshow has got to stop.

wow, this might be my longest post. go second half cards!