Well, the follow-up to all this is Berkman's trainer called into a talk show twice apparently defending Berkman. So, I guess Milo and all the naysayers were wrong. Berkman said he consistently weighed 222 when he was an Astro except when he was injured and he went up to 230. But, that is just weight and doesn't necessarily mean he is in shape. But, his trainer vehemently defended him and Berkman had his own rebuttal. I guess when things go sour we start looking at who is to blame. Berkman said his big mistake in 2010 was having knee surgery in spring training...as he never recovered from that and had no leg power in his swing. He also said you couldn't be a professional and not work hard all the time. Kudos to it being straightened out. I guess he is not guilty....even though some still think otherwise.
he *looks* more fit this year than he has in five years. I'm a big Lance fan, but: * muscle weighs more than fat * dude jogged out grounders on a regular basis (and that sucks) So, he could have been 220 with a potbelly and now 220 with more muscle. perhaps.
Horse s***. I saw back in January an interview with him on the local news. He said himself then that he was doing more than he ever had. I'll try to find the interview. It was on KPRC.
Not saying you're wrong, but is the word of his trainer really the be-all, end-all of truth? You don't think his trainer might have his own bias?
well, he had good reason to work harder than he ever had to. he just screwed a whole previous season due to a knee injury/surgery. he even took blame for the Astros 2010 downfall given his subpar play and understands that he didn't earn his money leading to his trade. that doesn't mean he wasn't working hard in the off-seasons prior. it just means he had extra incentive this time around to prepare himself best as possible as he was in-between clubs and coming off an injury season. so, if you want to say he put in more effort and preparation this off-season compared to past off-seasons, then i would tend to agree with you but given the circumstances he did what he had to do. maybe he didn't feel he had to do as much previously as that is what spring training is for? the type of training is obviously important, too. bagwell cut his career short because he went into weightlifting and not the style of lifting/training best for baseball.
Much ado about nothing... Guy is having a great year(so far) for a good team. The Astros suck. Of course Astros fans are going to complain. (And I'm an Astros fan) The people who we should really be mad at is the Astros front office. Still proving themselves to be below average in competence. I'm not saying that we absolutely should have signed Berkman, because we shouldn't have. We have some good, young talent. What I am saying is that when you're a career-long Astro, and you get ditched "for the rebuilding effort", "as a favor", over someone that has been on the team for four or five years, and is not as good as you, it's gonna be a motivator. And then, after the favor is done, when you want to come back to the team and finish your career there, and the team doesn't want you back, but keeps the comparable player (with significantly lower offensive stats) instead, it's going to be an even greater motivator for you to play the best baseball you possibly can. Screw people who think like this. I'm a Berkman supporter and always have been. Yeah, he might not have been as great as he could have been on the Astros, but he got screwed over by the team. I would rather have Berkman on the 'Stros 100000 times over than Carlos Lee. Berkman got screwed out on his chance to be this town's next Biggio or Bagwell.
Much rather have ditched Carlos Lee and kept Berkman. Carlos Lee is the main reason why resigning Lance was not a considerable option. Playing LF at MMP is much easier than playing the OF in St. Louis (where Lance is playing now)
I am a big Lance Berkman fan, not so much a fan of Milo anymore, he is starting to slur and sound like Harry Carey.....needs to retire, IMO. Glad Lance is doing well, and agree about Lee...man did that signing backfire. DD
I haven't been a fan of Milo for years now. Those gaps of never saying the inning, score, situation, or whats actually happening at any given moment are just infuriating. He's been done for 10 years. It's beyond time for him to move on. I'm actually still ticked how he blew the call when the Astros finally won the NL and were going to their first World Series. He called it like it was the end of an inning during the regular season.
I'm not a big Milo fan...but I was surprised when McTaggart backed up EVERYTHING Milo said the following day on the radio. He said that part of why the Astros never considered bringing Lance back was because they had zero expectation that he would put in the kind of work he ultimately did for St. Louis. I love Lance. One of my favorite 'stros of all time. But I never for a minute thought he deeply cared...or was very interested in his training coming into a season. Watching him play last season was to watch him go through the motions. I think this is human nature. He was comfortable here. He didn't feel the need to tax himself to much. But then he went to NY...and then found himself having to earn a spot on a team in the offseason...and that's a pretty strong incentive. I don't know that he would have put in the work he did for St. Louis had he come back here.
What MadMax said.. plus, I think everyone would. Whether last year when Carlos was better or now. But how would you have proposed making that one work out? It wasn't financially feasible, so I don't think you can just say it like that and pretend it was the ownerships fault I guess you can say we should have had Lee coming off the bench at 15-20 mil or whatever the hell he's making (not gonna bother looking it up).. but that's a huge pill for anyone to swallow. And to do that (or to make those 2 platoon in LF) is spending 25+ mil on 1 position on a still losing team. At that point, you gotta take Lee as a sunk cost and work with it rather than exacerbate the financial issue. If the team had any chance of winning, it would have been a completely different story
This... Good for Lance, but if he only put that kind of effort here, we'd be in a different situation...but that's not the case and he'll have a great year...at our expense...
