If you want to be a Negative Nancy, there is plenty to be negative about. However, there are also plenty of reasons to be excited for this team, both in the present season and in the seasons to come.

I don’t know what it would take for me to stop supporting this team. Maybe picking up Barry Bonds, Rafael Palmiero, and Jason Grimsley (again) in one fell swoop. Long ago I came to the realization that this team stole my heart and earned my allegiance and there was little I could do to change the situation. Occasionally we may pick up players I dislike (The Great Manatee) but that does not impact my desire and commitment to the team.

enough said, imo. There are areas I refuse to sit in even with free tickets due to the atmosphere during games, anything with a letter is one of them. Look at most of the lower bowl during Suns games, I doubt many of those people even know a basketball game was going on…
I said this on the Suns board last night: this is Arizona. No matter what sport gets our passion, we all should be use to these type of fans by now. Just how many of the people we see around town wearing Cardinal gear were fans two, three, even four or more years ago?

way to dump on an entire profession.

chris would get some relief from that which he cannot stand on the field if he could bring himself to stand up, wait in line, and purchase his own hot dog! (or are they serving caviar down there..?)

Well said, Jim.

The more I think about it, I’m not sure there’s much that would make me outright stop supporting this team. They’ve pretty much been my religion (or something like it) since I found out about that baseball was coming to Arizona in 1997. I had DBacks sheets and everything. The only thing I can think of off the top of my head is if Eric Byrnes is offered another contract, or if they re-hired Bob Melvin; even then, I’d probably just be righteously indignant to outraged on the internet and maybe write a letter to the powers that be.

I love this team, no matter how much they annoy me at times.

especially that blurb at the end that I think even ’Hacks could agree with.

What would make me stop being a fan? Well, to be honest, probably if the Dbacks were managed like the Marlins — salaries kept insanely low and inevitable fire sales after every odd success year.

It’s something that Pirates fans can do, why can’t instantly-gratified Arizona fans do the same?

might be a dumb question, but I hope you submitted it to the Republic.

I’m going to a game tonite.

But tbh, after reading Jim’s and other member’s posts I realize how little I actually know about baseball. But praise be to Allah I love it.

dont often see eye to eye on fandom issues, but I think he seized more middle ground in this particular kerfuffle.

I dont know Mr Thomas, but sense he’s at least as upset over his sizable financial investment as he is with team performance. The two are related, of course, but not interchangeable, and I think any seasoned baseball observer should be able to appreciate “underlying” positives with this team that were largely absent in 2004 (altho it should be mentioned both clubs suffered significant injuries).

The root problem isnt really Mr Thomas, however. He’s a product of the fact baseball season tickets are an inherently contradictory product segment, somewhat tangential to being a fan (in Jim’s holiest sense). When you have seats like that and the team is good, let me tell you, it’s pretty nice. Everyone wants to kiss your ass, and you basically sit in your unsold seats for free, after resale profits and potential tax treatments.

But when the town is turned off (for whatever reasons), you can feel trapped. You cant resell, and inevitably attend more lousy games than you want. When your kids finally turn on it, it’s pretty normal to curse the heavens (or Derrick Hall) and ask why you’re shelling out 15 G’s a year. Because your investment is more than normal fan emotion – it’s financial, in a big way, as well.

I suspect Mr Thomas is at least as concerned with losing money as with losing games – and I cant fault him for that. He is who he is. MLB’s system, especially in Phoenix, is designed to seduce and partner long term with capitalists like him – moreso than with “fans” entangled by little more than personal entertainment and allegiance.

….Michael Jackson is dead.

…for me to stop rooting for the D-Backs. I’ve been with the team since the beginning and remember the 2004 and 2005 team well. I remember the announcing team selling the hell out of the ‘04 team trying to pimp how they were great fun to watch and that people should support them, and there was support even if they stunk it up. It was painful, it really was, but it was worth going through to see them in 2007 do as well as they did. If you really look at it, the D-backs have 4 NL West championships and a World Series in 11 years. They’ve kinda gone through the up and down of the entire spectrum of most teams in a much shorter span.

No, I’ll be continuing my support of the team. Unless they do what Sarver is doing to the Suns…good lord, now there’s a long term fandom that’s painful to continue.

Webb’s injury just can not be over-emphasized

Well, you’ve been doing a good job of it the past week or so :-) It’s a big blow, to be sure, but the fact his replacements (our #6’s, if you will) push a collective 8 ERA, reflects an organizational shortage – not merely Webby’s considerable value.

The difference between 11-3 and 2-9 is 7.5 games, not nine. More importantly, extrapolating an 11-3 start onto this season is fool’s gold, in terms of projected regression, run support and distribution of that support. Haren has pitched better than Brandon did in his CY campaign – and is 6-5. Scherz and DD have a 3.53 ERA and are a combined 8-12. I wouldnt guess BW would receive as poor support as those three, and dont know where he fits in exactly, but the point is you dont either.

Nine wins is a wish. A 3-3.5 ERA CY candidate is probably worth half that – over an entire season. And if he’s “worth” more, it’s likely the organization’s fault rather than luck.

We’ve been unlucky with 2009 ytd injuries, no question. Webb, Jackson, Drew briefly, and Snyder’s reduced role has hurt as well. But injuries happen around the league, even to star players. It’s part of the game, organizations contingency plan for it, and adjust to mitigate (if not erase) the damage.

We’ve been unlucky, but by my guess, by roughly half the magnitude of good luck received in 2007.

Here’s the top 10 ERA studs in the league today:

Haren
Cain
Lincecum
JoshJohnson
Cueto
Gallardo
Jurrjens
Santana
Duke
Billingsley

Median ERA of 2.86, mean a little lower. I, and most services, consider your 3.04 projection for Webby too good, but for the sake of discussion let’s use that. Brandon pitches in a hitter’s park, so in real terms, he’s right there with these 2.86 guys – many of the best pitchers in the league.

Five studs are supported by lineups which score more per game than the 2009 Diamondbacks. Four (Cueto, Lincecum, Cain, Jurrgens) are on teams that score less. The tenth pitcher, Danny Haren, pitches for Webby’s team. So, in terms of projecting “your” Brandon Webb’s W/L, this is a pretty good cross section of year to date “comps”, no?

The ten aces have 112 decisions between them, and have won more than two thirds of those (75-37), which is, of course, outstanding. Two points. First, not one of these stalwarts has won eleven games. Not one has won ten games at this juncture. Second, the mean average W/L of this top notch group of comps is 7.5 W-3.7 L…not quite four games over .500.

Could Webby go 11-3 again? Of course. But you’re making that possibility sound like a reasonable expectation when 11-3 is unreasonable for anyone yielding a run or even a run and a half less than his team normally scores – which is where Brandon historically lies. His 11-3 start was a function of his talent and a bunch of factors beyond his control that are unlikely to recur in 2009.

I agree one cant cover or “erase” an absence like Webb. I didnt mean to imply that. It’s a significant loss. Much of the loss has to do with Brandon’s established excellence (ie the ERA). Part of it has to do with just how bad our #6’s are (ie below replacement level) – which is a separate organizational issue, indirectly related to Webb. None of it has to do with those factors beyond his control (ie run support & distribution) which contributed to the earlier 11-3 mark.

the impact of Webb’s absence will only increase, with almost 60% of the season left to go.

If they keep running out guys with no business starting in the major leagues (7.7 ERA), then sure. But that’s not the impact of “Webb” – that’s the impact of hoping all your workhorses stay healthy, and not having much of a Plan B when they dont. Pitchers get injured. If it wasnt BW, it could’ve been Haren – with a very similar team impact. Davis or Scherzer could have gone down, and while the impact wouldnt be as great, the Buckners and Petit’s of the world would still be stinking the place up.

Look at our #6 starters last year. Petit, Edgar and Max were collectively under 4.5 ERA – without Max they were over 5. And maybe that wasnt even sustainable, but they were still a run or two better than Buckner, et al. Petit and Edgar were (more or less) what you’d expect MLB #6’s to be. These guys are worse, and given we agree sixes will inevitably start across the course of the season, I think Josh is culpable for that. I dont expect him to replace Brandon Webb, but I didnt expect him to fling this kind of chum into the briny either.