cardinalnationhouston wrote:

DMENS wrote:

PadsFS wrote:

DMENS wrote:

PadsFS wrote:
He was also paid market value for those years.

In today's world, I think that is a strong compliment to the player.

Not when you include the two bad years. Market value on a free agent contract means they performed to the mean of all other free agent contracts.  He was not a steal or a bargain.  He was exactly even. 

Once again, I think that is a compliment to the player in a world where there are so many bad contracts and players that fail to live up to the money. Of course I would rather a guy exceed expectations, but for somebody to pitch five years and pretty much meet market value, that's still pretty good.

You seem to be working from a different definition than the rest of us. To you, exactly even is not good enough. A guy needs to be a steal or bargain to satisfy you. That's fine, but I personally think it is highly unrealistic.

Cardinal Nation is a tough crowd Dmens. Many thought of Lohse as a #4 at best when he was signed so i would say he exceeded expectations. A weird injury derailed his time here to be fair. When he pitched healthy he was the ace in all 3 years. Give the guy his props guys. I would be happy to see him signed but we would have to lose Westie and Garcia to fit the in. Bon voyage Kyle. Don't forget to write.

I never understand the people who think the lohse deal was a bad deal...we paid what the market demanded for a piece we needed at the time...and he performed brilliantly imo. Some of the same people who were complaining that they thought lohse's deal squeezed us somehow over the next few years FA wise would probably be the same people complaining that Mowitt didnt go out and sign an FA arm after hot stove watching all winter...

I don't know that I would ever call Lohse an ace, but when healthy, he's been a solid starter.

His three healthy seasons with us, he's gone 45-17 with a 3.33 ERA in 599 1/3 IP.
Sure, he's only struck out 373 batters in those 599 IP, but he's also only walked 129 batters, so he still has a nearly 3-to-1 K/BB ratio.

For some reason, though, people look at him like the guy who went 10-18 in his two injury-plagued seasons.

It's kind of like how people used to look at Yadier Molina - for a number of years after 2006, people treated him like the .216 he hit in 2006 was the true measure of his ability, not the outlier of his entire career.

DMENS wrote:

PadsFS wrote:

DMENS wrote:

PadsFS wrote:
He was also paid market value for those years.

In today's world, I think that is a strong compliment to the player.

Not when you include the two bad years. Market value on a free agent contract means they performed to the mean of all other free agent contracts.  He was not a steal or a bargain.  He was exactly even. 

Once again, I think that is a compliment to the player in a world where there are so many bad contracts and players that fail to live up to the money. Of course I would rather a guy exceed expectations, but for somebody to pitch five years and pretty much meet market value, that's still pretty good.

You seem to be working from a different definition than the rest of us. To you, exactly even is not good enough. A guy needs to be a steal or bargain to satisfy you. That's fine, but I personally think it is highly unrealistic.

I was satisified with his contract/production.  I won't miss him and I don't want to roll the dice again.  That's the difference I guess.

When you can't outspend other teams, then you have to make sure you come out on top with your FA contacts.

cardinalnationhouston wrote:

PadsFS wrote:

DMENS wrote:

PadsFS wrote:
He was also paid market value for those years.

In today's world, I think that is a strong compliment to the player.

Not when you include the two bad years. Market value on a free agent contract means they performed to the mean of all other free agent contracts.  He was not a steal or a bargain.  He was exactly even. 

He was good for sure, but I don't know if you recalled how we called on our "most consistent" starter in the 2011 or 2012 playoffs and he proceded to get shelled.

If we are going to spend money on a FA, like two other guys we spent $12M on, Berkman last year and Beltran this year, then I want to get Berkman's 1.093 World Series OPS and 31 HRs or Beltran's 1.486 OPS in the NLDS along with 32 HRs.

Lohse is worthless if he can't be counted on in the playoffs. We already have an innings eater we can't pitch in the playoffs in Westbrook.

Aren't you one of the Holliday apologists? I am confused.

Lohse isn't worthless, I shouldn't have said that. But to count on him as an ace or top 3 pitcher on the team is a mistake.

Pitchers (ie game 7 of the NLCS) completely affect the outcome of a game.

I am not going to get into Holliday on this thread.

PadsFS wrote:
I was satisified with his contract/production.  I won't miss him and I don't want to roll the dice again.  That's the difference I guess.

When you can't outspend other teams, then you have to make sure you come out on top with your FA contacts.

I don't disagree with you on those points for the most part, Pads. I will miss him but I don't think we should roll the dice on him again. What he did here worked out well for us and I refuse to let a few bad spells spoil the whole of what he accomplished.

Also, I understand the need to "win" the free agent game with limited resources relative to some of the other big spenders in baseball. But not every guy has to be a steal. You just need to make sure you do get the bargains from time to time, and more importantly, avoid the bad deals. We did just that on Lohse.

Jmodene1 wrote: I don't know that I would ever call Lohse an ace, but when healthy, he's been a solid starter.

His three healthy seasons with us, he's gone 45-17 with a 3.33 ERA in 599 1/3 IP.
Sure, he's only struck out 373 batters in those 599 IP, but he's also only walked 129 batters, so he still has a nearly 3-to-1 K/BB ratio.

For some reason, though, people look at him like the guy who went 10-18 in his two injury-plagued seasons.

It's kind of like how people used to look at Yadier Molina - for a number of years after 2006, people treated him like the .216 he hit in 2006 was the true measure of his ability, not the outlier of his entire career.

In 40% of his time here, and 50% of his big contract, Kyle Lohse was awful.  He was above-average the rest of the time.  Great.  He was roughly even then to what we paid.

If he would have been good those two years, we wouldn't have had to rely on Suppan, Boggs, etc too, which hurt our team.  We were counting on him to be healthy.

DMENS wrote:

PadsFS wrote:
I was satisified with his contract/production.  I won't miss him and I don't want to roll the dice again.  That's the difference I guess.

When you can't outspend other teams, then you have to make sure you come out on top with your FA contacts.

I don't disagree with you on those points for the most part, Pads. I will miss him but I don't think we should roll the dice on him again. What he did here worked out well for us and I refuse to let a few bad spells spoil the whole of what he accomplished.

Also, I understand the need to "win" the free agent game with limited resources relative to some of the other big spenders in baseball. But not every guy has to be a steal. You just need to make sure you do get the bargains from time to time, and more importantly, avoid the bad deals. We did just that on Lohse.

We paid Barkman $20Million and basically got one year out of him.  We got nothing for $12Million this year.  That's no bargain.  If we hadn't won it all last year we'd probably consider it a bad deal.  But what we did get out of him made all the difference. $20M well spent.

I appreciate what Lohse has done for us, but on the other hand, he sucked in 2011 post-season and this year when we needed him most he came apart like a cheap suit.  I'm all for spending the money elsewhere.

blingboy wrote: We paid Barkman $20Million and basically got one year out of him.  We got nothing for $12Million this year.  That's no bargain.  If we hadn't won it all last year we'd probably consider it a bad deal.  But what we did get out of him made all the difference. $20M well spent.

I appreciate what Lohse has done for us, but on the other hand, he sucked in 2011 post-season and this year when we needed him most he came apart like a cheap suit.  I'm all for spending the money elsewhere.

Nobody is talking about Puma here, bling. Nor did anybody say he was a bargain. Nor did anybody say we should splurge on resigning Kyle.

And Lohse sucked when we needed him most? Came apart like a cheap suit? He gave up 4 ER in 18.1 innings, going 2-0 in three starts before his bad start again San Francisco. But then again, nobody could stop San Fran at that point. Just ask Lynn, Carpenter, and the whole Tigers starting rotation.

He won the play-in game against Atlanta, pitched 7 lights-out innings at Washington (the game Lynn gave up a walkoff HR), and beat Matt Cain head to head in the NLCS. I'm not arguing he deserved a hero's welcome when we came home, but to say he sucked when we needed him most is asinine.

blingboy wrote:

DMENS wrote:

PadsFS wrote:
I was satisified with his contract/production.  I won't miss him and I don't want to roll the dice again.  That's the difference I guess.

When you can't outspend other teams, then you have to make sure you come out on top with your FA contacts.

I don't disagree with you on those points for the most part, Pads. I will miss him but I don't think we should roll the dice on him again. What he did here worked out well for us and I refuse to let a few bad spells spoil the whole of what he accomplished.

Also, I understand the need to "win" the free agent game with limited resources relative to some of the other big spenders in baseball. But not every guy has to be a steal. You just need to make sure you do get the bargains from time to time, and more importantly, avoid the bad deals. We did just that on Lohse.

We paid Barkman $20Million and basically got one year out of him.  We got nothing for $12Million this year.  That's no bargain.  If we hadn't won it all last year we'd probably consider it a bad deal.  But what we did get out of him made all the difference. $20M well spent.

I appreciate what Lohse has done for us, but on the other hand, he sucked in 2011 post-season and this year when we needed him most he came apart like a cheap suit.  I'm all for spending the money elsewhere.

I didn't really care for the second Berkman deal either, but he did come off a 32 HR season. Furthermore, we had leverage for Berkman by having Allen Craig on the roster. Lohse's injury seasons caused us to replace him with below average players. Not only that, but if you are going to be out for 40% of your contract (cough Chris Carpenter cough) then you should be elite to make up for it and I don't think Lohse gave back enough value to merit "missing our ace" sentiments.  Not from me at least.

My point about Berkman was that in talking about good deals vs bad deals, it's not about how much production you get out of a free agent signing but how much difference it made.

As to Lohse, game seven of the NLCS is when we needed him most, and he did suck. If you think it is asinine to mention it, OK.

but you shouldnt mention game 7 w/o mentioning the wildcard game, game 3 vs. giants and game 3 vs. nats. if he didnt pitch like he did those 3 times, very good chance we wouldn't have even gotten to a game 7 in the nlcs.

not to mention, great down the stretch in the regular season. remember, we only won the wildcard by a couple games. w/o those performances, what he did in the playoffs might never have happened.

To be fair, I did say that I appreciate what Lohse did for us. Those games you mention were good clutch performances. He also did a good job taking up the slack from our fallen/struggling aces the last two years. Not everybody is a game seven guy, I understand that. He will win a lot of games for somebody.

To be fair to Lohse in game 7 this year, he would have had to hit a home run to go along with a complete game shut out if we were going to win that game.  That loss had plenty of blame to go around and Lohse having a solid outing wouldn't have changed anything.

One more point, I think most people would be very happy to have Lohse back for Westbrook's contract (in lieu of Westbrook), but that just wasn't going to happen.  So I am sorry to see him go in the sense that he is better than Westbrook, but I'm not sorry to see him go given the resources it would take to re-sign him and the fact we should be fine with replacing his production with our young guns (who I believe have a higher ceiling).

No one is saying he should be re signed. I do think he was a lot better than some here give him credit for though. I really think we could get 3 more really good years out of him but i doubt he will be as good on another team. He was something like 17-4, i can all but guarantee none of the 3 kids will be that good this next season.

desmetlax12 wrote: To be fair to Lohse in game 7 this year, he would have had to hit a home run to go along with a complete game shut out if we were going to win that game.  That loss had plenty of blame to go around and Lohse having a solid outing wouldn't have changed anything.

One more point, I think most people would be very happy to have Lohse back for Westbrook's contract (in lieu of Westbrook), but that just wasn't going to happen.  So I am sorry to see him go in the sense that he is better than Westbrook, but I'm not sorry to see him go given the resources it would take to re-sign him and the fact we should be fine with replacing his production with our young guns (who I believe have a higher ceiling).

I have no idea where this thought is coming from.  Rosenthal and Mujica didn't give up any runs.

Lohse gave up a single to Matt Cain in the 2nd that was pretty costly and that Pence "double" on a thrice-hit ball sucked, but to load the bases beforehand really burned us.

PadsFS wrote:

desmetlax12 wrote: To be fair to Lohse in game 7 this year, he would have had to hit a home run to go along with a complete game shut out if we were going to win that game.  That loss had plenty of blame to go around and Lohse having a solid outing wouldn't have changed anything.

One more point, I think most people would be very happy to have Lohse back for Westbrook's contract (in lieu of Westbrook), but that just wasn't going to happen.  So I am sorry to see him go in the sense that he is better than Westbrook, but I'm not sorry to see him go given the resources it would take to re-sign him and the fact we should be fine with replacing his production with our young guns (who I believe have a higher ceiling).

I have no idea where this thought is coming from.  Rosenthal and Mujica didn't give up any runs.

Lohse gave up a single to Matt Cain in the 2nd that was pretty costly and that Pence "double" on a thrice-hit ball sucked, but to load the bases beforehand really burned us.

My point was that we didn't score any runs in that game so it was not only Lohse's fault (or pitching in general) for the loss of that game.  The offense shouldered a good chunk of the blame.

desmetlax12 wrote: To be fair to Lohse in game 7 this year, he would have had to hit a home run to go along with a complete game shut out if we were going to win that game.  That loss had plenty of blame to go around and Lohse having a solid outing wouldn't have changed anything.

One more point, I think most people would be very happy to have Lohse back for Westbrook's contract (in lieu of Westbrook), but that just wasn't going to happen.  So I am sorry to see him go in the sense that he is better than Westbrook, but I'm not sorry to see him go given the resources it would take to re-sign him and the fact we should be fine with replacing his production with our young guns (who I believe have a higher ceiling).

I agree with all of it.

Not many pitchers are healthy for 5 years. 

Actually, I can't think of a Cardinal pitcher who has been healthy for five straight years. Probably have to go back to Gibson....

So when you sign someone for a long contract you just have to accept that the odds are you are going to have a season or two where they have a some injuries.

Problem with him was the injury was pretty rare and weird and it wasn't diagnosed correctly, or it was but it took a couple of years to diagnose.

I've seen that problem in runners and skiers, but never in a base ball player.

DiscDogRob wrote: Not many pitchers are healthy for 5 years. 

Actually, I can't think of a Cardinal pitcher who has been healthy for five straight years. Probably have to go back to Gibson....

So when you sign someone for a long contract you just have to accept that the odds are you are going to have a season or two where they have a some injuries.

Problem with him was the injury was pretty rare and weird and it wasn't diagnosed correctly, or it was but it took a couple of years to diagnose.

I've seen that problem in runners and skiers, but never in a base ball player.

Bob Forsch i think. Possibly Cox, Morris or Tewksbury.

I'm not even sure Gibson was healthy for five straight seasons... lemme think...

He had a broken ankle towards the end of the 1962 season, so 1963-66 were healthy seasons for him.  He broke his leg (actually, Roberto Clemente broke it for him) in 1967, so there's only four straight healthy seasons for Gibby there.

He was healthy from 1968-70, but spent time on the DL in 1971, so only three years there...

He was healthy in 1972 but went on the DL in 1973, so only one healthy year there - and although he didn't spend any time on the DL in 1974 and 1975, he was a shadow of his former self by that stage of his career.