TooLiveBrew

Luckily for us, the J-S has found another 'writer' that can out-do TH's idiocy! Huzzah!

WOW. "Embarassing" only begins to address that.

Was there anyone after Dan Plesac? (Drafted Rd. 1, 1983). Sheesh, I hope so.

Might be that Braun has done significantly better in the field relative to other LF?

Don't forget about the claim that he would hit over 20 HR's this year. Outrageous! http://forum.brewerfan.net/images/smilies/wink.gif

Pic not working for me... I might be the only one, though.

"I don't know why an extra [$600,000] was a big deal." Yeah, Tyronn, why was it such a big deal? That's such a disingenuous comment -- if it wasn't a big deal, sign the contract.

What really kills me is all the outrageous claims at the beginning of the season about what a offensive juggernaut Cameron would be this year after leaving Petco Park. What outrageous claims? I can only remember people making the reasonable assertion that moving out of a batter-killing park to a HR-friendly park would help Cam.

I'm not sure if this was a Pedro thing or not, but did the person who delivered them go to a suburban Norman Rockwell setting, or a rough neighborhood? What does that have to do with anything?

He's been hitting lefties OK; righties, not so much. A decent option to back up the left-handed hitting Giambi. I like this move for the Yanks; low risk, moderate reward. This also allows NYY to use Betemit to back up at 3B & 2B more often. Now whether anyone thinks that's a good thing or not is up for debate. Also, Richie hasn't been hitting lefties OK, he's been destroying them to the tune of a 1.045 OPS, playing half his games in Safeco.

Is Blanton under salary control for Philly after this season? That's one reason to take him over A.J. Burnett, especially when you have to sell off the top portion of your farm system to net a SP.

the guys on ESPN radio have no clue. Water is wet... etc. http://forum.brewerfan.net/images/smilies/wink.gif Pena certainly warrants a shot in the bullpen at least every bit as much as Gagne & Mota at this point. And honestly, given Yost's comments on how Gagne looks 'close' in terms of stuff or whatever, that makes me think Eric is 'safe' (well, that & 10M other reasons). Mota simply does not belong throwing meaningful MLB innings. I'd be fine with them keeping him as the 'long man', which in Ned-speak means you just throw garbage innings, be it 1 or 3.

I guess the 30 major league GM's that didn't give him a job this spring must puzzle you too and I'm not all that impressed with an .800 OPS when he's never been more than a platoon player. Yes, it puzzles me that the Brewers were (at most) one of a handful of organizations that did their scouting homework correctly (heck, J.P. Ricciardi sez Adam Dunn stinks!) instead of basing personnel decisions on things like, 'He's a platoon player'. Yes, he is, and one that destroys RHP, which is the vast majority of plate appearances. Oh yeah, and good defense at the hot corner. But aside from that, he's just useless. And to that I say, who cares? If Branyan hits a HR in four consecutive games then doesn't hit one for 2 weeks, how does that win less games? Exactly. But, he strikes out, so...

Yes, it's the position of the ball. The next time some buddies start talking about where the fielder's feet are, ask them if it matters where the feet are when the ball bounces over the 3B bag & into LF/foul territory for a double. It's all about the position of the ball. http://forum.brewerfan.net/images/smilies/smile.gif

Scummy. Sad to see someone take advantage of another's generosity.

I think you're assuming it's done as a blog post would be and that is highly unlikely. It's simply NOTHING like posting or blogging. Just as a newspaper's website doesn't work that way, I would think the Brewers site is the same way. Thanks for the input -- and yes, I was assuming it was done like a blog post. That's how I figured the interwebs would work! http://forum.brewerfan.net/images/smilies/wink.gif Clearly someone messed up here, but I doubt it's McCalvy. Glad to hear you say this. I certainly think his accuracy, especially when contrasted with the JS's coverage, is very good & consistent. The picture of "Mike Cameron" & this error certainly don't fit with Adam's track record, but I figured a couple mistakes along the way were understandable. If it's the editor(s) making these mistakes (& that certainly sounds like the case), then sheesh! Wake up!

The interwebs can work a bit differently -- in my (very limited) experience, the title & article are submitted by the author. It's basically like making a big post on a forum, where you enter in a subject line (title in this case) & body (article in this case). That's my own experience, though, and I certainly don't know or claim to know what system/software/service Brewers.com & McCalvy use.

I like how the 'most knowledgeable of gurus' neglects to mention the staggering numbers Branyan posted at Nashville. Who could've seen success coming in the bigs after putting up a measley OPS of 1.146 at Triple-A? Nope! He just ate some punny cereal and *poof!* mash-time!

That one's gotta be on McCalvy. He's usually very good with attention to details. However, I recall earlier this season that a story on Cameron was up on the Brewers.com front page, neatly paired with a picture of Rickie Weeks. Hey -- they all look the same, right? http://forum.brewerfan.net/images/smilies/ohwell.gif Now legitimately, I realize both are just honest mistakes (& I want to stress again that I think McC does a solid job), but both are glaring. When stuff like that happens, you just know McCalvy is going, 'Why couldn't it have been a typo in the game notes?!' Just a simple mistake before clicking "Post" on the server, but certainly makes you look bad -- and all the hard work done on a full article gets glossed over. http://forum.brewerfan.net/images/smilies/smile.gif

Those are all good points, Bucky Rules, and I think it's probably fair to give Yost the benefit of the doubt here. I also agree with logan's point that game logs, not splits, are the best way to assess usage. However, the splits, combined with Yost's professed belief that his LOOGY is successful against RHB as well, makes me worry about future usage. When I have some time, I can go through the game logs to take a better look.

I am not grading him against the league average -- if you chose to do that, that is certainly one way to do it. My approach was to grade the player against what I had hoped they could bring to the table. Yeah, this is where the divide sits. Thanks for expounding, FtJ -- helped me to understand your methodology & some other rankings (Kendall & McClung the obvious examples). I prefer to compare to players' peers, others to their own personal expectations. It's not like Cam is going to get grounded for getting a C-! http://forum.brewerfan.net/images/smilies/smile.gif

I know what [VORP] means but I am horrible at explaining what statistics mean. Am I the only one that gets this image whenever VORP/WARP is discussed? http://www.discountgames.org/NES%20Nintendo%20Web/NES%20Images/Super%20Mario%20Bros%20SS11.png He likened any move as to more of a "tweak" here and there versus a major change. Sounds like a bullpen target to me, and that people hoping that Weeks will get replaced at 2B are going to be disappointed. If they were used truly in long relief (sorry for repeating--three innings at a time when needed) then bullpen use would be down for the other pitchers, which I think would make them better down the stretch, fresher, etc. if we nuke Mota for DeFelice or Dillard we would also marginally improve. I think that at this point it's pretty clear that at least Mota (& perhaps Gagne too) needs to be taken away from Ned. I'd prefer DiFelice, but Pena or Dillard would probably do better than Mota as well. I'd also like to add that the visual imagery of 'nuking Mota' is very satisfying... thank you, Tbadder. http://forum.brewerfan.net/images/smilies/smile.gif

Cam has 50 hits, 20 more singles would be a 40% in production I said 10-20 as a range, not 20 exact hits -- the point being that he's a handful of hits away from a significantly higher grade by anyone's standards. If an A is around a .900 OPS, and a C- is .800-ish, that's a ton of variation within that range of .100 points http://forum.brewerfan.net/images/smilies/smile.gif Do you think his defense has been disappointing? That was roughly half the grade I used for each guy, and I certainly think Cam's D has been (objectively) well above average. Meaning, his offense would have to get graded at roughly a low D or F to get him down to a C-.

I expected more out of Cam, I think he has been marginally disappointing. I think part of what's interesting in this thread so far is the varying expectations fans had for players. I personally don't find the difference between 10-20 more singles disappointing enough to give Cam a grade as low as 'C-'. I just think that his stellar D combined with approximately predicted offense, that's good enough to be in the B/B+ range. But again, here I am discussing made-up, highly subjective letter grades from obsessed fans. http://forum.brewerfan.net/images/smilies/smile.gif Gold Glove-caliber CFs don't let that many squeeze past them. What, two plays? I can easily think of twice as many plays Cam made that almost any other CF doesn't get. I know you've been a critic of the Cameron move from literally day 1, but you could be a bit more fair.

Are you troubled by what Yost said in the press conference about Shouse? Or are you troubled by how they're actually being employed. I know you cited the number of RHBs faced, but in a vacuum, that may not be the fairest way to view the situation. No, not the press conference comments alone (though the comments appear to indicate that there's fire with the smoke) -- the usage of the pitchers is what worries me. It's more of just a general concern, though, as opposed to, 'Yost misuses Stetter & Shouse against big RH bats.' I also can't think of any 'standout' misuse moments. However, to see that both of our lefty specialists have been used just as much against righties is troubling (to me) moving forward. When you add in that the manager is on record professing his highest confidence in Shouse's ability to get RH batters out, that concerns me quite a bit. Just like with other stats, what's happened in the past has little to no bearing on what's going to happen in the future. However, also like other stats, the past results can be used to try & form a reasonable estimate on what is likely to happen. So far Yost hasn't been burned by his use of the lefty specialists v. RHB -- and beyond just worrying about the results evening out a bit, I'm concerned that Ned will view 'Shouse/Stetter not having many 'bad' results v. RHB yet' as emboldening evidence that, 'Shouse/Stetter are more than just lefty specialists.' I sincerely hope the second-half distribution of AB in terms of LHB & RHB is much more heavily-skewed in favor of AB v. LHP -- not because I can forsee how those ABs will turn out, but because those matchups are not putting the player in the best position to succeed (what I would define as a manager's #1 job).