[Syd Thrift]

Major Transactions
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June 22: The A's purchased minor league 2B Chris Moore (.342, 5, 33 in AAA OKC) for $2,500. Moore was, as the stats suggest, tearing up AAA but didn't have a spot in the majors with the superlative play of Alejandro Chairez (.292, 5, 19), so instead the Astros accepted a bit of cash for the 30-year-old. For the A's, Moore will fit in immediately as their starter, replacing Ruben Molina (.230, 0, 8), who to be honest would have been just fine as a prospect type guy going into the year but the A's expectations have changed.

June 22: The Cardinals selected Pirates RP Kevin Kading (0-2, 4.76) off of waivers. This is probably the "gamiest" thing that I do here; Kading really didn't necessarily need to leave the Pirates but hey, I want to keep the overall level of transactions in line with what happened in real life. Anyway, it's not like they lost anyting great, as Kading is 34 and isn't exactly a world-beater. On the Cardinals' side of the ledger, they seem to be in constant need of relief pitching and the guy is striking out almost a batter an inning (15 in 17 frames to date).

June 24: The Astros trade P D.J. Fletcher (4-3, 3.33 at AAA OKC) to the Expos for LF Javy Perez (.214, 6, 14 at AAA Buffalo). It's mostly a trade of guys not really working out in their minor league organizations, although I like that the game thinks Fletcher could shine as a reliever (IRL this was the trade that sent Mike Marshall to Montreal).

June 24: The Cubs trade RF Alex Vallejo (.333, 3, 17) to the A's for RP Freddy Uscanga (4-3, 2.97, 6 Sv). This trade is blown up a bit more than the real-life version but I think it makes sense. Vallejo came into Chicago this year expecting to compete for the RF job but Adam Groves (.227, 7, 18) successfully came back from the concussion that caused him to miss all of 1969 and, following a tough start, is beginning to look like the Adam Groves of old. Uscanga has been a good, young reliever for the A's, but in spite of their surprising season, getting a starting caliber corner OF seemed like too much to pass up.

June 26: The Red Sox purchase IF Tony Escobedo (.188, 1, 9) from the Milwaukee Brewers for $2,500. The Brewers continue their fire sale of guys who saw time in Seattle last year and the Red Sox add middle infield depth. Nothing more to see here! I love how that looks like I'm hiding something.

News
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June 22: President Richard Nixon signs the Voting Rights Act Amendments of 1970, a move that lowers the voting age in the US from 21 to 18.

June 22: Reds 3B Bobby Kraljevic (.351, 6, 52) took home his first of what will surely be many NL Player of the Week awards after he went 11-23 with 3 HR and 8 RBI. He's hit a grand total of 17 dingers in his major league career and got a sixth of them in the past 7 days. Not bad!

June 22: White Sox OF Josh Wade (.318, 5, 24) is also under 27 (I guess Kraljevic is technically just above that age) and also took home PotW honors with 15 hits in 28 at-bats. Like Bobby K, it's his first such award, and like Bobby K, it probably won't be his last.

June 22: Phillies SP Jose Agudo (3-4, 2.87), who was having a weirdly good season in spite of horrifically bad control (54 walks in 59.1 innings) will miss the season with a partially torn labrum. Hopefully next year he'll have better command! He's still only 25.

June 24: Congress repeals the Gulf of Tonkin Resolution, a bill that allowed the President to use conventional military force in Southeast Asia without a formal declaration of war. Although Vietnam seems to be winding down, it's got another 6 years before we pull out...

June 24: Really bad news in Cincinnati as Reds hurler Mike Johnston (5-5, 3.78) will undergo elbow ligament reconstruction surgery and miss not only the rest of 1970 but probably won't be back until the All-Star Game next year. The Reds are currently a game and a half back of the Houston Astros and this one hurts.

June 24: Speaking of injuries, it seemed like the St. Louis Cardinals had mostly missed the injury bug that plagued them last year... until now. C John Stuart (.222, 2, 15) looks to miss the rest of the season with a fractured ankle. Stuart had been expected to add a 3rd power bat to a lineup that already included Justin Stone and Lorenzo Martinez, but never got things going, following a 22 HR, 73 RBI 1969 with just 2 and 15 in 1970. The Cards look completely bereft at the position; the new starter is Willis Lizama (.342, 2, 5), a guy who last played in the majors in 1964 before winning the backup backstop job in St. Louis.

June 25: Cardinals RP Jason LaPointe (3-3, 4.75), who has been playing himself off the team levels of bad this year, demanded a trade. The Cards are 30-37 and are going nowhere and don't need him. Aaaand, this demand comes right in line with the claim on Kevin Kading (see above) getting completed. What a fantastic turn of events! Bye, Jason!

June 25: I was a bit frustrated at the time but in retrospect this was an awesome game... Raul Mendoza (4-8, 4.53) and Paul Kahl (4-7, 3.98) have been kind of disappointing all season long for their respective teams, the White Sox and Angels, and so of course today they combined to pitch 25 innings and allow just 1 run in a 13-inning, 1-0 victory for the Chicagos. Mendoza didn't complete the game because the man had already thrown 171 pitches through 12, leaving it to newly appointed stopper Ben Lamar (0-0, 3.72, 1 Sv) to close out the bottom of the 13th for the save.

June 25: Just when you thought the Cubs were going to start walking away with the NL East, it closed right back up. Going into the 22nd the Cubs were 38-25 and held a 2 1/2 game lead over the Mets and, on top of that, were heading into a 4 game series against their rivals at Wrigley Field. Cue the Amazins winning 3 out of 4 games in that series and lopping the lead down to a mere half game...

June 26: The Giants got some bad but not really unexpected news that 1B John Everhart (.295, 14, 47) will be out for the next month with chronic back soreness, which I guess is something with a set date of return now. I brought him in from left field in large part to try and reduce the injury risk but he's wrecked at this point so it was going to happen sooner or later. I took this opportunity to also release 1B Ignacio Castillo (.140, 1, 4), who I'd penciled in as the starter while Everhart was out but dude was not hitting at all and is 38 so it was time to move on. The fanbase, incidentally, did not like me dumping a franchise legend, even one clearly out of gas, and new guy Chris Seek (.334, 7, 47 at AAA Phoenix) may take the brunt of the blame. Well, unless he keeps hitting, in which case the fans will forget.

June 27: Man, Cris Ramos (.281, 0, 7) just cannot stay healthy. The Royals' third sacker, drafted in the 21st round of the expansion draft, tore his calf muscle in spring training and was out until earlier this month, at which point KC brought him right in to start at 3rd. 9 games into his 1970 season he strained his abs sliding into second and now will miss an additional two months. He looks like a guy who has a history of raking in the minors and the Mexican League, so his loss is keenly felt. Prospect Ryan Newton (.255, 0, 6), who had an earlier stint as the Royals' third sacker before Ramos was ready to go, will get the job back for now.

June 28: AL All-Star voting:

CATCHER
1. Jon Hernandez, Baltimore Orioles: 515,463
2. Armando Flores, Washington Senators: 492,601
3. Brad Reed, Minnesota Twins: 450,880

FIRST BASE
1. Mike Miller, Boston Red Sox: 701,459
2. Alex Cardenas, New York Yankees: 683,293
3. Angelo Martinez, Minnesota Twins: 563,918

SECOND BASE
1. Danny Villegas, Detroit Tigers: 599,862
2. Danny Fager, Baltimore Orioles: 535,020
3. T.J. Pritchett, Cleveland Indians: 527,054

THIRD BASE
1. Marco Perez, Baltimore Orioles: 663,948
2. Mike Brookes, Minnesota Twins: 660,942
3. Tom Weiss, New York Yankees: 632,073

SHORTSTOP
1. Ty Stover, New York Yankees: 703,745
2. Oniji Handa, Boston Red Sox: 601,666
3. John Johnson, Cleveland Indians: 545,979

LEFT FIELD
1. Alonzo Huanosta, Cleveland Indians: 622,959
2. Willie Vargas, Chicago White Sox: 586,316
3. Matthew Levario, Oakland Athletics: 574,851

CENTER FIELD
1. Bryant Tarala, Baltimore Orioles: 565,743
2. Tom Brown, Chicago White Sox: 526,466
3. Norm Hodge, California Angels: 488,984

RIGHT FIELD
1. Alvin Romero, Washington Senators: 602,539
2. Frank Meneses, New York Yankees: 577,482
3. John Marsden, Milwaukee Brewers: 508,884

STARTING PITCHER
1. Chris Benavides, Minnesota Twins: 309,562
2. Tracy Mosher, New York Yankees: 308,377
3. Josh Matthews, Cleveland Indians: 289,643
4. Sandy Hinojosa, Boston Red Sox: 288,790
5. Justin Kindberg, Boston Red Sox: 282,084

RELIEVER
1. Montay Luiso, Baltimore Orioles: 320,947
2. Pete Lynn, Minnesota Twins: 287,442
3. Alex Madrigal, Detroit Tigers: 269,075
4. Todd Theisen, Minnesota Twins: 238,241
5. Malcolm Post, Chicago White Sox: 230,986

Still think it's kind of hilarious that the #1 vote-getting catcher is now playing first. I *think* that once he plays more games at first the game will tick him over to that position so he might suddenly drop out but I'm not sure. I've also seen backup catchers play in the ASG so who knows? Also, Alvin Romero is still on course to be the starter at RF for the AL... man, that trade looks really bad for the Angels right now.

And in the NL:

CATCHER
1. Jason Bushon, New York Mets: 555,268
2. Greg Darrow, Chicago Cubs: 482,261
3. John Stuart, St. Louis Cardinals: 469,191

FIRST BASE
1. Joshua Waltenbery, New York Mets: 788,672
2. Justin Stone, St. Louis Cardinals: 695,325
3. Antonio Lopez, Chicago Cubs: 665,620

SECOND BASE
1. Kevin Dwyer, Atlanta Braves: 809,193
2. Pedro Ortiz, Cincinnati Reds: 734,269
3. Billy Tristan, Los Angeles Dodgers: 554,501

THIRD BASE
1. Bobby Kraljevic, Cincinnati Reds: 601,302
2. Pete Little, Houston Astros: 563,309
3. Sean Gabel, Chicago Cubs: 545,715

SHORTSTOP
1. Jeremy Taylor, Chicago Cubs: 568,568
2. Tyler Webster, Pittsburgh Pirates: 462,138
3. Akiho Fujimoto, San Diego Padres: 453,368

LEFT FIELD
1. Jason Workman, Chicago Cubs: 690,858
2. Barry Cooper, San Francisco Giants: 639,843
3. Ernie Griffin, Los Angeles Dodgers: 623,788

CENTER FIELD
1. John Lopez, Houston Astros: 595,628
2. Curtis Hope, New York Mets: 559,662
3. Mark Tooley, Chicago Cubs: 510,904

RIGHT FIELD
1. Jaden Weaver, Houston Astros: 767,966
2. Nelson Hernandez, San Diego Padres: 643,421
3. Henry Riggs, Atlanta Braves: 577,685

STARTING PITCHER
1. Steve Waiters, Cincinnati Reds: 295,946
2. Robert Rivera, San Francisco Giants: 291,890
3. John Mash, New York Mets: 287,456
4. Tony Rivera, Houston Astros: 261,774
5. Fernando Apolonio, Los Angeles Dodgers: 254,676

RELIEVER
1. John Winn, Atlanta Braves: 401,850
2. Paz Lemus, Pittsburgh Pirates: 290,363
3. Geoff Saus, New York Mets: 288,495
4. John Booth, San Francisco Giants: 265,500
5. Adam Eastin, Houston Astros: 262,456

Usually the game likes to use 2 players at every position (save pitcher of course) so it would be not surprising - and yet very surprising - to see Braves slugger Henry Riggs, chasing 500 HRs, left off the team this year. He did to be fair have a kind of awful first half of this month, although he's rallied (now he's .221/6/17 in June).

June 28: A vigil for Wizard of Oz star Judy Garland turns into a protest as NYC cops do 1960s NYC cops things and raid a gay bar in Greenwich Village. This escalates into the Stonewall Uprising, the first major gay protest and is considered the event that birthed the modern gay rights movement.

June 28: US troops ground troops withdraw from Cambodia, a country they were never in in the first place. Don't worry about it, guys!

June 28: The Yankees faced off against the Red Sox in a vitally important June doubleheader and managed to wash the Sox twice. Boston came at them with their best two pitchers - Justin Kindberg (10-6, 2.58) and the recently off the DL Michael Pesco (3-1, 1.37) but Dutch phenom Olbe Olthof (10-5, 2.76) struck out 11 to carry the Yanks to a win in the first game, 5-3, and then back-of-the-rotation guy Chris Wilson (3-1, 2.63) overcame a wild night (6 BB in 8 IP) to hand a 2-2 tie to ace Jesse Kelly (6-2, 2.05, 8 Sv) to win it in the 9th. The sweep puts New York 2 1/2 games up on Boston and puts their magic number at 90 (okay, maybe a little early for that).

June 28: I don't know if this is overly waffley, but... Dodgers 2B Billy Tristan (.318. 7, 29) is probably going to miss most/all of the next couple weeks with a sprained knee and my original thought was to do with the position what the Dodgers did last year, which was to spell him with David Parsons (.140, 2, 5). Parsons is 36 and although the sample size is tiny he's flat-out not hitting? He's also unhappy with his role. What purpose is he serving for LA? I'm going to cut him and take my chances with minor leaguer Francisco Pena (.274, 2, 10 at AA Albuquerque). Pena got 108 at-bats and looked pretty OK last year in the majors but for some reason - the AI's love of crappy, 30+ year old AAAA quality players in the high minors, I guess - he was all the way down in AA so far. If nothing else, he figures to be a much better fielder than Parsons, who was really eroding on D, and he can't possibly hit as badly as Parsons was, right?

June 28 (end of day): Power rankings!!!

1st (1st) Houston 46-28 .622
2nd (3rd) New York (A) 43-29 .597
3rd (10th) Cleveland 39-31 .557
4th (7th) Chicago (N) 41-29 .586
5th (2nd) Cincinnati 43-30 .589

The big story at the top is Cleveland. The Tribe had a really bad April (7-11) that put them out of the pennant in the eyes of some pundits (who? LOOK. This is my universe and I GET TO MAKE UP FAKE PUNDITS) but they've been 32-20 since and lately are on a 3 game winning streak. They're 3 games behind the Yankees and a half-game in back of the Bosox. They're also the most upwardly mobile team; the most downwardly mobile are their rivals in Boston (39-30), who fell all the way from 4th to 13th this week. The Red Sox did just get back Michael Pesco and his presence is sorely needed.

In the NL I think the big story is still that West race between Houston and Cincinnati. The 'Stros just won a series at home vs the Reds, 2 games to 1, and so that's why they're on top of the division and the power rankings right now. The East race is way closer than you might think given that the Mets are not in the top 5; they're just a half game behind the Cubbies and are, to be fair, 6th in power rankings.

And at the bottom:

20th (14th) St. Louis 31-41 .431
21st (20th) Milwaukee 29-45 .392
22nd (17th) Detroit 30-40 .429
23rd (23rd) Los Angeles 28-45 .384
24th (22nd) Montreal 24-48 .333

Both the Royals (now 19th) and the Braves (17th) moved out of the old crab pot, replaced by the slumping Cardinals and Tigers. I looked at the Cards below and will be reviewing the Tigers soon as well. The only really and truly awful team remains the Expos, although I kind of think the Dodgers are in that general vicinity as well.

Teams In Review
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June 22: This time last month the Kansas City Royals were looking like kind of a success story as an expansion franchise. Now they are the worst team in the American League. 19 straight losses will do that to you. The hitting is slightly better than league-worst (10th with 245 runs scored) but the defense is just plain bad, with both the starters' ERAs (4.98) and the relievers' (4.66) ranking dead last in the junior circuit, with a league-leading 66 errors and league-worst -40.7 zone rating to boot.

Rotation: As fun as it would be to just blow everything but and start over, I think the current rotation is about as good as it can get, which is to say it's mediocre. I do feel like RH Eric Tyler (3-5, 5.28) looked much better in relief last year than as a starter but there's really nobody worthwhile to transfer out of the 'pen. One guy to keep track of: 23 year old Rick Rodriguez (4-2, 3.92 in AAA Omaha) is on the top 200 prospect list and is striking out more than a batter an inning in the minor leagues so far. He's also given up 6 HRs in 59.2 IPs but Royals Stadium might be the best ballpark in the league for a gopher specialist to learn the craft.

Bullpen: I've already begun switching guys out of here but the current crop of relievers is not exactly performing either. The only relievers with more than 4 appearances right now both started the season in the rotation: RH Ryan Hicks (3-4, 7.36) was actually outstanding last year (11-9, 3.16), and also LH Eddie Euceda (0-7, 5.34). I don't really want to outright dump either guy, to be honest. None of the 3 other players are pitching super well either, which complicates things. Meanwhile the game thinks there are several guys in Omaha who could be brought up but their stats do't really look to me like they're performing all that well in the minor leagues. I'm standing pat for now (which, "standing pat" really means "not making more roster changes on top of the ones I made during the losing streak").

Infield: C Chris Flores (.235, 0, 1) isn't exactly lights-out with the bat but he's still hitting about as well as Jay Byers (.203, 2, 15) and has a stronger arm, so I'm going to just switch out to him at backstop for now (the two were in a hard platoon previously, so this means Flores will start taking the majority of at-bats vs. RHP).

Third base has kind of been a big mess all season, with the losing streak seeming to coincide with moving Jeff Nation (.312, 6, 29) off of the hot corner. He's still hitting at least, but even in trying out guys long-term I can't go Butch Hobson at that position. 32 year old Mexican League veteran Cris Ramos (.312, 0, 3) tore a calf muscle in spring training; since he was supposed to be the guy there to start the year anyway, he has the job back now that he's back from that injury. We'll see...

Outfield: Honestly, the outfield looks pretty set, both for now and into the future, assuming Jeff Nation doesn't have to move all the way down to first base at least. For the time being, I could see either him or RF RJ Dominguez (.265, 6, 12) win ROY, and the only reason CF Dave "Cookie Monster" Corona (.302, 9, 29) isn't in there is because he played too much last year to qualify.

June 22: Hey, also the Los Angeles Dodgers (27-40, 5th NL West) have quietly fallen apart since a really good April. They went 13-7 that month, then fell to a more realistic 11-17, and so far in June... 3-16. Yikes. If it wasn't for the Royals' big streak, this swoon would be the talk of the town. As you'd somewhat expect with a team in a pitchers' park, the pitching is meh (301 runs allowed, 8th) with the offense tying them down (250 runs scored, 11th).

Rotation: I'm not ready to make major changes to the rotation for now, outside of what's already happened (reliever Keith Pacheco (1-2, 4.19) has moved into it). That does mean leaving LH Andres Castillo (5-8, 4.86) and RH Andy Ring (3-7. 5.74) alone for now. Both of them were very good last year and in Castillo's case in particular the peripherals don't look any worse than before. For that matter, Ring's still sporting a 65/35 K/W ratio over 84.2 innings.

Bullpen: The Dodgers' bullpen has actually been sneaky good this year (3.06, 3rd). That feels like an asset that's going to get sold off but... this is the World Series champs from 1968 and they're not quite ready to break things up just yet, I don't think. Weirdly, stopper LH Mike O'Leary (3-4, 4.54, 9 Sv) has been maybe the most volatile regular member of the 'pen this year.

Infield: Eddie Dimmock (.184, 5, 25) is still as good a fielder as he's ever been but he's been very, very bad with the hitting so far so I think a change is necessitated, at least partially. Backup Jason Davis (.320, 0, 2) is going to work into a much stronger platoon situation.

Billy Tristan (.315, 7, 28) on the other hand has been hitting as well as ever but at age 40 he's kind of an awful second baseman now. With no real place to put him I'm going to mix in David Parsons (.103, 1, 2), who is 36 himself but is still passable at the keystone.

Brian Maccioli (.193, 4, 13) has also been awful but he's also only 24, is a Gold Glove level defender when healthy, and could probably be better. There are bigger issues; I'm probably going to keep him there for the rest of the year at least.

At shortstop, that's where I'm making the stand for now... I'm calling Luis Solis (.303, 2, 20 at Albuquerque) all the way up from AA to take over for Jason Staiti (.186, 8, 30). Solis doesn't look like he's anything super great in the field but at 21 he's still got room to grow and, well, Staiti just looks a lot like a guy who was pressed into a too-large role for his ability last year.

Outfield: Neither JD Heil (.200, 1, 5) nor Nick Harper (.200, 1, 1) are doing much of anything at the moment. I'm sticking with Heil on account of him being the Dodgers' 9th best prospect going into the season. Either way, they're warming the seat for Danny Hohman, out for the year; well, unless Hohman comes back and can't play center anymore...

Chris Granneman (.227, 6, 30) was .246/15/59 last season but looks like he just plain cannot hit against left-handed pitching and at 35 this is probably just who he is. The guy on the roster to platoon with him would have been Jamal Rhone (.258, 3, 10) but Rhone is 37 himself. Do the Dodgers need to bolster their lineup with old people? Instead I'm calling up prospect Ray Costa (.269, 6, 18). Costa at least should be an upgrade in the field given that he came up as a center fielder.

June 22: The San Diego Padres (31-40, 4th NL West) I think are mostly here because somehow they're only 10 games off from having played an entire season. I mean, they still aren't good, but a .437 winning percentage is pretty firmly mediocre I think. They're actually pretty okay with the runs scored (4th with 298) although that may just be an artifact of all the games played, as they're 11th in average and 9th in OPS. They do have a pretty top-heavy lineup with some good players. The pitching is about where you'd think (10th in runs allowed with 339 based on a 4.43 starters' ERA (10th) and 4.07 bullpen ERA (7th)). Out of all the expansion teams they are definitely the least moribund.

Rotation: I feel like whatever changes needed to be made in the rotation, I've already made. The 5 guys right now don't look fantastic but I think they're uniformly good enough for now.

Bullpen: The one guy who looks like I need to drop sooner rather than later is long reliever / attempted LOOGY Alejandro Rodriguez (1-2, 7.86). He's 35, he's walked more guys than he's struck out this year, and now that the team has called up LH Miguel Urbina (1-4, 2.79 at AAA Salt Lake City) they really don't even need him as a lefty specialist. Good-bye, Alejandro, probably to your major league career.

Infield: 1B Diego Garcia (.196, 3, 12) was fine last year (.257, 12, 53) but he's been really, really bad, including a .154 mark against lefties. Long-term the Pads are getting former Yankees starter John Chapman back after the All-Star Break but for now I'm just going to have him platoon with corner IF Eli Ware (.286, 1, 3).

Also, I've been trying to just let him hit out of that slump but 2B Jake Gray (.126, 3, 5) is just plain not cutting it out there. His backup Ivan Negrete (.214, 1, 4) is pretty bad too but they've got nothing else. How bad are things here that the Pads actually miss Jeff Beckwith (who, by the way, is still hanging on as a backup on the Yankees' AAA team)?

Outfield: This is where the real meat of the Pads' lineup is, so no changes are a'coming here.

June 28: It's really hard to see how this St. Louis Cardinals team was a dynasty as recently as 1967. They had a couple of very middling years but now they're 30-40 and just don't look like they're doing anything that really causes them to underplay. Pitching has been awful up and down - the bullpen has been worse with a 4.88 ERA (dead last in the NL) but the starting pitching hasn't been much better (4.46 ERA, 3rd worst) and the defense has had no range at all (ZR of -27.9, also dead last in the NL). I think it may be time to pivot towards youth...

Rotation: The first thing I see, now that I'm talking about going young, is that 24 year old prospect Dusty Collins (2-4, 6.06) is walking almost a batter an inning (31 BB in 35.2 IP) and is clearly not ready for the big leagues yet. Because I'm in the mood to be obstinate, I'm replacing one prospect for another in the rotation, calling up Ed Chavera (4-4, 3.15 in AAA Tulsa). The scouts aren't really high on his potential but he's the best I see in AAA at the moment. Also on the bubble right now is 38 year old Octavio Vargas (3-6, 4.77), who is seeing his K rate drop in each of the last 4 seasons and has given up 11 dingers in 83 innings so far. Still, he was an All-Star as recently as 1967 and still very good in 1968 so I'm going to stick with him for a little while longer at least.

Bullpen: The bullpen is still a mess but for the most part I've knocked loose the absolute worst of this staff and now most everyone is just some shade of mediocre. One thing I did that I'm now not really sure about was bringing up 34 year old career minor leaguer Dusty Green (0-2, 4.15, 1 Sv) and installing him as the stopper. He wasn't completely awful but why do this when one of their top prospects is 25 year old Rick Legere (6-0, 2.49, 4 Sv at AA Arkansas)? Everyone else in the bullpen was also younger so I wound up pushing Green all the way back to the minor leagues. I expect he'll see more time this year.

Infield: Catcher is now an official mess with the loss of John Stuart. For now - and possibly for the rest of the season - the Cards are rolling with Luis Garcia (.200, 0, 1), who was cut by the Dodgers in the offseason after hitting .174 as a backup for them in 1969. He's still considered better than Willis Lizama (.295, 2, 5), who is basically only in the majors because of expansion. Then the team's top prospect at catcher, Michael Debose (.161, 4, 29 at AAA Tulsa) looks completely overmatched in the high minor leagues. The #2 and #3 guys are a guy in A ball who is out for the season with an arthritic elbow (and given that injury, that could just be the end of him) and a 19 year old kid in short season A. In short, there is nothing on the horizon... scratch that! The Cards' real, actual backup Jose Medina got the biscuit meniscus at the end of spring training but will be back in around a month. So there's that!

I'm not super enamored with SS Dusty McCully's (.170, 1, 8) stick but he's above average in the field and that's a thing the Cardinals desperately need right now. I pushed Tom Depew (.284, 2, 12) over to 2nd to accommodate McCully and frankly I think I might stick with this even after Chris Johnston (.234, 1, 13) gets back from the strained abdominal muscle that put him on the DL at the beginning of this month (he still has 3 weeks before he gets back). Johnston was a starter on those dynasty teams but he's also 35 and is only average afield at this point in his career.

Outfield: Ray Herring (.234, 5, 26) hit .291 and .290 the last two seasons for Cleveland but has fallen way off so far in average. The thing is, when he's not hitting like that, his deficiencies in center field become much more pronounced. Jake Leone (.171, 1, 7) is only incrementally better out there but man, for now I think St. Louis needs to go with the slightly younger guy (Leone is 24, Herring is only 27). Not helping Herring's cause, he only knows CF. I will need to train him up in ST next year (well, probably I'll just go into the editor and give him some XP at those positions).

June 28: The Atlanta Braves, like the Cardinals, are looking pretty bad this year and don't look like they've got a lot of chance at being better. Unlike the Cardinals, however, they were great just last season and I think it's still OK to be unrealistically optimistic about these guys. They're also 13-11 in June - still not near the levels they need to be to hope to get into the pennant race, but certainly miles better than the 6-15 mark they put up in April. Defensively their rotation is even worse than St. Louis' (5.14 ERA, last in the NL) although the bullpen has done a decent job of bailing them out when they can (6th in the NL with a 3.72 in spite of playing half their games at the Launching Pad). On offense they seem like less than the sum of their parts, although I guess that 2nd worst OBP (.313) is fueling, or rather de-fueling, a lot of the only-7th hitting attack.

Rotation: Trevon Dean (6-9, 5.54) continues to be awful - he was just knocked out of the box in the first half of a double-header today vs. San Francisco - but he won 21 games last year and is still young (28), so I'm probably going to stay with him for the entire year to see if he can work things out. I do think it's time to push knuckleballer Colin Rose (0-3, 3.26) into the rotation and Felix Carranza (4-4, 5.00) seems like the best guy to drop out of it. Also, I feel like it's time to call up prospect Tony Morales (6-7, 3.72 in AAA Richmond), who isn't blowing up the minors but at 22 years old he's been good enough to pitch in AAA, which I think is good enough to give him a shot.

Bullpen: I'm a little afraid that with these moves I've pushed a bunch of mediocre arms into the bullpen. We'll see. Kevin Pennock's (5-7, 6.12) Braves career is on life support right now and really was only saved by the fact that he's been kind of decent in 3 games of relief (1.12 ERA, 3 H in 8 IP) after being a disaster as a starter (4-7, 6.61). Well, that and the fact that he was 18-8 last year, but even at that the guy is 36 so a dramatic fall-off is entirely within the realm of possibility. I also demoted - remoted? - Andres Rivera (3-3, 4.69) back into the bullpen. He was pretty bad there last season after coming over from San Diego but was actually really good for the Braves (2.81 ERA in 12 G and 16 IP) before the bad turn in the 'pen (5.17 ERA there). Hopefully he finds what he lost there.

Infield: In what will undoubtedly be a very unpopular move among the Braves faithful, I've decided to part ways with longtime C Pat Molina (.202, 2, 12). He'd already lost the starting role to Shaun Dennehy (.275, 3, 12) and at 39 just doesn't look like he's able to block bad pitches, field bunts, and do all the little things you expect a catcher to do... and yep, fan interest "almost crashed".

I'm not really happy with Mike Medford (.211, 3, 16) or Franklin Martinez (.241, 4, 24) at third but then, Vicente Luna (no at bats in 1970) should be ready to go in about a week after missing the first half of the year with a fractured hand.

I like Ryan Dietrich's (.214, 2, 8) glove at short but he's hit a level of hitting over the past couple years where the one isn't enough to carry the other. Instead I'm calling up 24 year old prospect Jon Reid (.295, 3, 19 in AAA Richmond), who looks like he just missed the top-200 cut. He looks like he'll be a lot better with the lumber and has the tools - range especially - to develop into a quality defensive shortstop in the future.

Outfield: Center field is an absolute mess this year. Neither Brian Dees (.160, 6, 14) nor Franco Panizzi (.143, 1, 3) have shown up at the plate at all, and while I'm OK with this being a defense-first position... you have to do *something* when half your games are in Atlanta. Josh Damon (.246, 5, 18) is a guy who I've used to fill in there a bit... but I'm going to make things a step worse, probably, by calling up 25 year old Bill Baugher (.288, 14, 39 in AAA) from Richmond. Baugher profiles more as a corner outfielder - in fact he won the Silver Slugger last year for the Texas League by hitting .248/8/36 for Shreveport (guess it was a hitters' league) - but I'm going to see if he sinks or swims in center this year.

Long-term, LF Ruberto Yebra (.243, 1, 14) yas been effective when he plays but he keeps getting hurt and I'm starting to wonder if those 140 at-bats this year are more than just a slump. If so, well, that makes the choice on Baugher easier...