Murphy it is

[Jim French Stepstool]

4 hours ago, MrTPlush said:

Why would we not want Berry on the field directing baserunners? 

We would. I'm just looking at it as a promotion for someone who could be a ladder-climber.

I agree, he's a terrific guy to have on the baselines.

[Thurston Fluff]

18 minutes ago, Jopal78 said:

Perhaps but even so the other side of the coin is also true: the manager approached him regarding a need “the team” had, and tried to persuade Weeks into helping  “the team” by playing out of position and instead of being on the bench, yet Weeks said no. I assume the reason was because of his ego, or because of contract status, etc, at the expense of potentially helping the team win more games

That's a very large assumption. It could be as simple as him not thinking he could do it at a level that would actually help. If the manager really wanted him to do it he could have just put him in the lineup and said you have no choice.

[Pugger]

5 hours ago, Underachiever said:

Without any rationale to back it up, I wanted a new face in there. Maybe he was the brains behind the whole operation the whole time!

I imagine in my disgruntlement over CC's departure, I could have picked apart any hire. My first snarky thought was, "what, Pat Corrales wasn't available? Frank Lucchesi? Larry Bowa? Bobby Valentine? Lee Elia would have been a good choice. <Insert old grumpy-looking guy name>?"

I wanted a fresh face too.  I thought a guy coming in from a successful operation elsewhere could jump start the team and add a new prospective and attitude to the place.  Let's hope the guys respond to Murphy like they seemed to with CC.

[Pugger]

4 hours ago, MVP2110 said:

Do we have old threads archived anywhere? I'd love to go back to the thread when we hired Counsell to see how we reacted back in 2015

If memory serves most here were excited/pleased with hiring CC back then.  I was pretty ambivalent.  He just seemed way to laid back to me (he still is IMO).

[Pugger]

3 hours ago, Fear The Chorizo said:

Didn't realize bench coach meant the guy in that position has to be the organizational expert on defense, either.  

For an organization that is currently full of mlb players who are pretty good defenders, it doesn't bother me one bit if their bench coach's m.o. as a player was getting on base and baserunning.

Perhaps folks are wondering if Weeks isn't being groomed to be the manager down the road and this is what is making some nervous?

[hawing]

5 hours ago, MVP2110 said:

Do we have old threads archived anywhere? I'd love to go back to the thread when we hired Counsell to see how we reacted back in 2015

Welp, here's the first IGT with Craiggers at the helm: 

 

[Oxy]

46 minutes ago, Pugger said:

If memory serves most here were excited/pleased with hiring CC back then.  I was pretty ambivalent.  He just seemed way to laid back to me (he still is IMO).

Really?! Huh.  I always thought the opposite.  Baseball is all about being cool and calm...(unless the umpires are involved). CC always seemed like a nervous nelly to me.  Constantly looking like he is agonizing over every little thing, lots of exasperated headshakes and furrowed brows and wildly throwing sunflower seeds at his face the hit his mouth with maybe a 90% hit rate. 

I've always loved his results though and 99% of his decisions, so didn't really care about the body language stuff.

[HarryDoyle]

If we're just going to go status quo, at least tell me CC is bringing his hitting coaches with him.

[HarryDoyle]

23 minutes ago, Oxy said:

Really?! Huh.  I always thought the opposite.  Baseball is all about being cool and calm...(unless the umpires are involved). CC always seemed like a nervous nelly to me.  Constantly looking like he is agonizing over every little thing, lots of exasperated headshakes and furrowed brows and wildly throwing sunflower seeds at his face the hit his mouth with maybe a 90% hit rate. 

I've always loved his results though and 99% of his decisions, so didn't really care about the body language stuff.

I was just glad Roenicke was gone.

[MrTPlush]

2 hours ago, Jopal78 said:

Perhaps but even so the other side of the coin is also true: the manager approached him regarding a need “the team” had, and tried to persuade Weeks into helping  “the team” by playing out of position and instead of being on the bench, yet Weeks said no. I assume the reason was because of his ego, or because of contract status, etc, at the expense of potentially helping the team win more games

Week's did us a favor...he ended up a better manager of himself than RRR could do. Kinda like Mark Kotsay should have refused to play CF.

[Sixtolezcano]

9 hours ago, Oxy said:

I don't know what this means...We would be beyond stupid to not listen to calls, but we'd be equally beyond stupid to shop him at any cost.  There is an argument that his value will be HIGHER at the trade deadline that it will be in the offseason.

I guess you are worried that we would "go for it" this year by keeping everybody, making a poor FA signing or two and then win 88 games yet have 2% chance of getting to the WS let alone win it.  And in the process we lose Burnes and Adames for zilch.  That's only slightly concerning to me.  I just don't think Adames or Burnes is going to get much in return this offseason, I have higher hopes for a better return at the deadline--especially when combined with the minimal chances of everything breaking right and making a miracle run in the postseason and getting some high draft picks.

I don’t believe 2 months of Burnes will be higher than an entire season of Burnes.

[Fear The Chorizo]

33 minutes ago, Sixtolezcano said:

I don’t believe 2 months of Burnes will be higher than an entire season of Burnes.

But then again 4 months of Burnes leading a Milwaukee rotation might have them in contention for another playoff run, which would be pretty valuable, too.  And if they do opt to sell at the deadline instead of now, I think it has the potential to bolster the return they'd get for guys like Williams and Adames compared to starting an offseason firesale right now.

Unless a team knocks the Brewers' socks off with a trade package this offseason, I think he's a Brewer to start the year - and there will be enough teams looking for an impact starter at the deadline to drive a trade pricetag into a range close to what a "fair trade value" would be for 1 full season of Burnes in July.  If a team wants to grossly overpay right now, I'd say make the trade with Burnes going elsewhere.  But if you don't get that type of overpay now, you'll get an overpay at the deadline that would amount to what fair value would be for a full season.   

[torts]

1 hour ago, MrTPlush said:

Week's did us a favor...he ended up a better manager of himself than RRR could do. Kinda like Mark Kotsay should have refused to play CF.

Thank you for being the first to correctly recognize ragin ron.  The rest of you should be ashamed

[brewers4eric]

I think there is some value in sticking with Murphy and the rest of the coaching staff for 2024.  Thinking about it though, I have some doubt in his coaching abilities, if he coached Counsell at Notre Dame he failed to correct Craig's batting stance.  

[torts]

43 minutes ago, brewers4eric said:

I think there is some value in sticking with Murphy and the rest of the coaching staff for 2024.  Thinking about it though, I have some doubt in his coaching abilities, if he coached Counsell at Notre Dame he failed to correct Craig's batting stance.  

A batting stance that got him drafted and to the majors in 3 years and winning two world series?

[rickh150]

22 minutes ago, torts said:

A batting stance that got him drafted and to the majors in 3 years and winning two world series?

And a huge character flaw in valuing the Cubs.

[edfunderburk]

8 hours ago, areacodes said:

Of course opinions are allowed - that is the whole point.

But typically when you have the following takes:

People are expecting to see some type of reasoning/logic behind your opinion.

I didn’t know I had fans here in the forum - cool 😎 

[Turnbows Barber]

2 hours ago, Fear The Chorizo said:

But then again 4 months of Burnes leading a Milwaukee rotation might have them in contention for another playoff run, which would be pretty valuable, too.

I wonder how much the front office feels the same way.  Or if they worry that with Burnes they could be just good enough to be in playoff contention but not good enough to be legitimate World Series contenders and have it be 2022 all over again.  I imagine it would be far from ideal for them to want to move Burnes at the deadline and have offers that are really good but also not want to go through what they went through in 2022 after the Hader trade.  Moving one of your best players at the deadline while leading the division once went over poorly enough (even if it has worked out well in the long run), I imagine doing it a second time in three years would go over even worse with players/fans.

[Austin Tatious]

Very happy with the Murphy hire.  I am not buying all the angst and arguments that it’s boring.  He’s reputed to have a strong presence as a leader and has player support and respect.  He has a long track record of developing talent and that’s precisely what we need.   We have a long list of young players who need development and he was as good as anyone on the list in that respect.  

I also like the continuity aspect.  He knows our pipeline well and with where we are in our cycle of promoting young talent, I think we 100% made the right choice.  

Do I think we take a step back next year?  Yes I do and I’m ok with it although I hope we stay competitive.  We’ve proven that we have the best organization in the division and keeping Murphy in place allows us to continue that.  You take a step back and then potentially two steps forward in a year or two if we get more young pitching.   I suspect much of the top of our next draft or two will be college pitchers with high spin rates.

I also find any criticism of his age to be laughable.  As long as his health is fine, and every single human on earth has that issue, there’s no reason why he couldn’t comfortably manage for five years if desired.    

Regarding Weeks, Drew Olsen has some great thoughts.  He said Weeks is all about winning and is as competitive of an athlete as he ever covered.  He was also a strong and key leader when he was a player.  Olsen told a story that Braunie was in the dugout complaining about the shadows with the roof open and Weeks stood up and laid into him that they had to deal with it.  The other players thought effectively Weeks just chewed out our biggest star and it was effective and obviously made an impression.   

I am much happier with Murphy than I would have been a retread like Mattingly or an outside guy who is unproven and could exacerbate brain drain in a very well run organization.  Let’s keep it going.  Let’s not pretend that Craig didn’t rely heavily on Murphy.  They were joined at the hip.  These are all pluses IMO.  

Maybe if we were in a different circumstance or stage in our roster cycle a guy like Gabe Kapler would have fit.  But for where we are today, I think Murphy was the right hire. 

[Pugger]

8 hours ago, Oxy said:

Really?! Huh.  I always thought the opposite.  Baseball is all about being cool and calm...(unless the umpires are involved). CC always seemed like a nervous nelly to me.  Constantly looking like he is agonizing over every little thing, lots of exasperated headshakes and furrowed brows and wildly throwing sunflower seeds at his face the hit his mouth with maybe a 90% hit rate. 

I've always loved his results though and 99% of his decisions, so didn't really care about the body language stuff.

You're right, he did look like he agonized over everything during the games and was very monotone during post game PCs hemming and hawing all the time.  It will be interesting to see how Murphy is.

[valpocrewsader]

Disappointed...

Murphy is linked to Counsell, so there's a decent level of taint there. I really don't want to see Murphy's face any more than I want to see that SOB Counsell's face. His continued presence on the bench will just be a haunting reminder of how he backdoor'd his way into the job 'cos his buddy left us in the lurch by bolting to the arch enemy while turning his back on his hometown & hometown fans. ... Cruel joke. ... Yuck.

Weeks has always been one of my least favorite Brewers ever. Horrible reads and anticipation on defense, seemed like bad instincts / low intelligence. Chased low & away breaking balls over and over and over again, seemed like bad discipline / low intelligence. And anytime he spoke it just sounded like low intelligence. Never had much respect for him as a player or as someone to have any kind of special feel for the game or baseball mind.  Honestly, he always seemed like the opposite of what would make a good coach. Hopefully I'm off with my observations.

[Oxy]

You know folks, there is always a chance that CC is letting the Cubs pay him significantly more than any other manager in history purely to submarine their team for as long as he is there.

That, my friends, would be epic loyalty (a little too epic...sleeper cell spies creep me out even if it's effective and would make a  good movie).

 

Then again, it's only baseball😎

[PlayerHader]

19 hours ago, edfunderburk said:

This is a fan forum … I thought opinions were allowed

if I enjoy a meal & say - that is the BEST hamburger ever - evidence would be hard to provide … I simply hate the choice … both Murphy & Weeks … I’d like a clean break from Counsell rather than best buds in Murphy … I don’t think much of Weeks but I could be wrong … just simply a preference thing & a desire for something different 

Opinions are allowed. As are questions. You didn’t just say that you didn’t like the hires. You said they were their worst choices (yes, in your opinion). I was only curious as to why you felt that way. Opine on.

[nate82]

6 hours ago, valpocrewsader said:

And anytime he spoke it just sounded like low intelligence.

Judging someone by the way they speak and giving them low intelligence is not a good idea.  People who speak at an intelligent level are usually morons or also known as politicians.

This reminds me of this:

 

[edfunderburk]

33 minutes ago, PlayerHader said:

Opinions are allowed. As are questions. You didn’t just say that you didn’t like the hires. You said they were their worst choices (yes, in your opinion). I was only curious as to why you felt that way. Opine on.

Briefly … Murphy is Counsel’s buddy & I don’t want a chummy relationship between the Cubs & Brewers 

As for Weeks - I didn’t ever come away from hearing him speak thinking “that’s a sharp guy, there - he gets baseball”

I don’t need anyone to agree with me or approve my reasons for not liking either hire … simply a preference thing for me - I preferred other candidates

I posted immediately after hearing the news of Murphy & Weeks … both names were disappointing to hear

No matter who plays or coaches for the Brewers, I’m all in & will support them fully