Quote Originally Posted by Really Clark? View Post
And going back to the bunting we have discussed, stronger pitching leads to more wins and fewer complain about it in situations that it actually makes sense. Not saying there were not questionable times it was called, but everything becomes magnified when the team struggles. I agree with having 100 IP guy but kind of thought we might get there this year with our staff. The pen struggles amplified a lot of issues with the team that we could have worked around in a transition year.
I do agree that our pitching magnified the bunting issues....HOWEVER...how realistic is it that we will have Lindgrens, Holders, and 2013 version Mitchell's every year moving forward? Truth is, our pitching will likely fall somewhere between the 2013 staff and the 2015 staff, except we won't have the luxury of the high seams. So...that leads me to believe that even with a good staff we're going to have to get away from so much wasting outs and awful base running errors. Both of which have been staples of the Cohen era.

We can't rely on Butch to pull off a miracle staff each year, or else we might as well make him the coach and try to find an offensive assistant. I believe in Cohen, but if all we're asking him to do is give us a sub par offense and then rely on Butch's staff to make our good seasons, what are we doing?

Why not have both, by maximizing offense AND trying to have a good staff. That's what a lot of us are saying. That doesn't mean going full Smitty and never bunting...but it definitely means not bunting guys like Rea, Pirtle, Collins, etc for the sake of one run in the 3rd inning of a scoreless game.

You get what I'm saying I'm sure. As do I with your stance.