TooLiveBrew

Angel *was* playing & just "taking care of business" for several years. Eventually, he ran into a wall so to speak & couldn't keep going. Sure, every player has to overcome obstacles, but that doesn't mean rehabbing from an injury is anything comparable to social anxiety disorder.

Skynyrd -- "Freebird" Doesn't fit with the acoustic guitar criterion, though. EDIT: Thought of one more, because I'm a big Dave Matthews Band fan. DMB's version of "All Along the Watchtower"

Not sure how closely related the next two stats are with speed (my assumption is that they are related pretty strongly), but his bunt hit success rate & BABIP were way below recent years in 2010: BUH%: 42.9%, 38.5%, 36.8%, 24.5% BABIP: .356, .364, .355, .304 His O-Zone swing rates were way up last season, and as a result, pitchers were throwing a lot less in the zone to him. I don't know if he can retain the discipline that made him a solid singles/speed hitter, but we have to hope he can.

If it's Almonte, I think I'll go bang my head against the wall.

The outbursts weren't really due to winning or losing, though. They were due to him being a hothead & getting into it with other teams, not his own.

Based on what? He had a good 2010 season. This seems like an alright pickup. I'm not in love with giving Dykstra for him, but oh well. This quote from McCalvy's blog enty, though, makes me feel sick: – With Boggs out of the picture, it looks like the Brewers’ Opening Day outfielders will be Ryan Braun, Gomez, Mark Kotsay, Morgan and Jeremy Reed.

Sam, great job! It's cool to hear you talk at length, and especially about stuff that's discussed on the BF forums. It's too bad you haven't gotten any other feedback on this, but you did really well.

This not only shows a complete lack of understanding of social anxiety disorder, but goes far enough to be really disrespectful. For someone who sounds like he either was in, or has some experience with, the military, I'd advise you to look at how "shellshock" & PTSD were initially treated & discussed. Mental illnesses suffer far too frequently from the 'he's not tough enough' treatment.

Thanks for the update on Salome. Best of luck, Angel. Thanks to Coach Steve for filling us in.

The latest on Granderson at LoHud's excellent Yankees blog is that they're still not sure if he'll be ready for Opening Day (I linked to the whole blog as opposed to a specific post because there are several mentions of Granderson). The most recent comment is: Granderson said it’s 50-50 whether he’ll be ready for Opening Day. He feels fine going through baseball activities, it’s just a matter of how quickly the Yankees move him. Based on conversations with Granderson, Girardi and Brian Cashman, I think the team legitimately doesn’t know whether he’ll be on the Opening Day roster. I believe they’ll probably move with caution and my guess is that he won’t be in the lineup on Thursday, but I don’t think it’s out of the question. Per other Girardi quotes, Dickerson is being considered to start in place of Granderson if Curtis isn't ready. I haven't seen anything at the LoHud blog that suggests Dickerson isn't in the mix for the MLB roster, and I'd trust their beat coverage over ESPN any day of the week. And honestly it doesn't change my opinion on the deal whether or not Dickerson makes the Yankees' 25-man, obviously I feel he would've been a nice addition to the Brewers' 25-man (or at the very worst, nice OF depth). My general stance agrees with cwolf -- in my opinion this deal was giving something of value for something that could have been had for free in another few days. I'm not claiming Dickerson is some savior, just that LH hitting players that play CF/OF defense as well as Dickerson are harder to find, and therefore more valuable, than long relief pitchers like Mitre. Obviously it's nice for the Yankees that they can always send him to AAA if they need or want to, but that's a luxury the Brewers used to have as well. With all that said, I genuinely hope Mitre comes in this season, pitches really well, and makes people like me feel a-ok about giving up Dickerson for him.

Why is he not even making the major league club in New York? He was traded Friday. The Yankees have already announced that he's not making the 25-man?

We'll remember it if Gomez sucks... or if Mitre sucks.Two very likely scenarios

I think if Morgan ever stepped out of line too far, Prince could just eat him. That should take care of it.

Wquentin Smith answers an ad in the school paper and becomes the primary back up point guard? Haha -- well-played http://forum.brewerfan.net/images/smilies/smile.gif I wanted to re-visit some comments before the Butler game For me, this isn't what it's about. It's about the quality of athletes that Ryan & his staff are (or aren't) able to entice to attend UW. The team that happened to beat them was a lower seed, sure, but that's not what bugs me one way or the other. If they'd gotten to face Florida, I have little doubt that the Gators would've shredded the Badgers... unless of course the Badgers' threes were falling, aka the only way this team could win. The doubters that dislike Ryan's system not being able to recruit better athletes are absolutely not wrong. In general, the Badgers couldn't guard this season, nor could they get to the hoop, & both are due almost 100% to an overall lack of athleticism. Bo's system is too heavily reliant on jump shooting imho.

Gomez' sterling spring also made Dickerson more expendable. Yeah. That huge, breakout .320 OBP season is surely right around the corner for Gomez now that he had a huge ST. ST stats always are a good indicator.

If you're "obsessed with OPS", you should already know that as CFs go, Cameron was very good with the Brewers. Reasons to be excited? Quickly getting overshadowed for me by reasons to be pissed at Melvin.

Here are some comments from the NYYFans forum's discussion on the deal (NYYFans is a good comp. to Brewerfan, but obv. for the Yanks): - I would take anything in return...even if it means paying Prince Fielders buffet tab. (comment made before return was known) - I literally said "Thank God" when I saw this thread. - Milwaukee? Would have accepted beer in return. It didn't even have to be cold. - They actually got a decent baseball player for Mitre? Nice job by Cashman. - Thanks Sergio for your 2009 services. What a lightning in a bottle we had with Sergio Mitre in 2009. I'm not sure you're familiar with the Yankees' roster. Gardner, Granderson, & Swisher are the only sure things. Dickerson & Andruw Jones are likely to be the two reserves they keep. At the very worst, they picked up very useful LH-hitting CF/OF depth for a pitcher they were probably going to release. He thinks Mark Kotsay is a good option, so be careful using that term http://forum.brewerfan.net/images/smilies/wink.gif

I really, really, really don't understand why Melvin made this move. Mitre is exactly the kind of player that's available on the waiver wire once teams make their final moves to get the 25-man rosters set. And we gave up a cost-controlled, RHP-favoring, strong defensive CF to get him? I hate you right now, Doug. And that. On a different note, nice pickup by the Yankees.

Taylor's not the only problem. Leuer & Nankivil were hardly down there posting up at all. Leuer might as well have been 5'10" tonight. I hate the swing offense, not sure if I've ever mentioned that. If I'm coaching against the Badgers, I tell my perimeter defenders to not even worry about being beaten by dribble penetration. The Badgers don't attack off the dribble as a general rule, they just don't. They run weak pick-and-rolls, fake dribble penetration & look around for who to throw out to for a 3-point attempt. I think that's why I've started to love Bruisewitz so much -- he's like the only player who attacks the rim on offense. Oh, and one more grumble. On top of playing a crappy pick-and-roll game on offense, the Badgers defend it poorly to boot. They switched SO much on the perimeter on defense this game, it was just making me sick. With the way they played, they deserved to lose. The recipe to beat the Badgers this season was to over-commit to the perimeter against them on defense, since they wouldn't attack the rim with the dribble, and attack the rim off screen plays on offense.

Lower velocity from the relievers? What a random comment.

The swing offense sucks. I hate it. It's designed to be about as reliant on the jumper as an offense can be.

This post is dedicated to craigharmann, with his San Antonio forecasted high of 86 & sunshine this afternoon. Pitchleague too, though he actually misses this crap! http://forum.brewerfan.net/images/smilies/wink.gif Here's the storm just getting started yesterday afternoon: http://i.imgur.com/vT3hG.jpg And here are some shots I just took: http://i.imgur.com/nCTvG.jpg http://i.imgur.com/Y0Q91.jpg http://i.imgur.com/Zmnyg.jpg http://i.imgur.com/7C6DK.jpg http://i.imgur.com/cKBNj.jpg Those evergreens look about as ready as I am for winter to be over. Snowfall totals from this storm are supposed to be between 9" & 15" once it's all done.

I can't get too worked up over Hunt's ST coverage. His writing style wasn't unknown, and he was an emergency option. He should've kept the 'this sucks' stuff out of the blog, but I can't say I was surprised given that it was him writing. That said, the blog would've been better off just handing the keys off to the ASU students doing such a great job on the P&CJ blog.

The second column features MLB composite lines for the '10 season, & isn't related specifically to any of the individual players. Obviously SLG is also an important element of offensive performance, but for simplicity's sake I just went with OBP here. 2010 MLB OBP <span style="text-decoration: underline;">Career OBP</span> <span style="text-decoration: underline;">(Lineup Spot/Position)</span> Weeks .355 .329/.330 Dickerson .356 .334/.326 Braun .364 .360/.337 Fielder .385 .346/.350 McGehee .342 .336/.324 Hart .329 .324/.342 Lucroy .300 .312/.319 Betancourt .296 .313/.319 That's actually a lineup that I feel pretty good about, as opposed to being concerned about black holes. Betancourt at #8 isn't as bad, and obviously Counsell (.344 career OBP, .322 in '10) gives some flexibility against righties there. Against lefties, you could slot Hart or McGehee in at #2, move Lucroy & Betancourt both up a spot, & put Gomez 8th or 9th. Once you factor in the context of player age/improvement for this lineup, it should easily be one of the best in the NL. Ryan, Prince, and Jonathan are all pretty safe bets to have higher OBPs than their career rates. Weeks isn't quite as safe a bet, but will still outperform .355 imo. I think Lucroy's offensive production will improve in general this season, and frankly don't think he'll be far off the '10 MLB catcher line of .249/.319/.381/.701. He'll probably have a slow start due to missing ST, though. I know there are some that don't like Dickerson, but given current personnel, I think he'd actually be a good option as the #2 hitter against righties. He has a MLB OBP north of .360 against RHP, along with a MiLB overall OBP of .366. I think if you forecast something like a .350-.360 OBP from him this season, that's right in line with what he's done as a professional... and actually fairly conservative if you're talking about shielding him from lefties. If Corey Hart can replicate his OBP from last season, he's a good choice for that 2-slot as well. The more I think about it, the more important I believe it is to not let Gomez make tons of outs when Dickerson is a strong candidate to not only outproduce him, but be well above league averages.

If Axford prefers a song I don't know why he doesn't just pick it for himself.