TooLiveBrew

You know, with the addition of Sabathia, the Brewers imo should be projected or expected to take at least 3 of these next 4 from Colorado. That's the first time I've felt that way on a 4-game series in... well, a long time.

He hasn't yet received permission from Branyan to use periods. Russell decides when things end.

right elbow joint irritation Interesting. This does look like an 'injury', but then again Soup's past 4 performances have seemed to be crappiness from out of nowhere. Yes, he's no world-beater, but he's not as bad as those most recent starts. Get better whether you're really hurt or not, Jeff! EDIT: I certainly think this could be a legit injury.

Perhaps a risk worth taking for the Cubs. Oh, for the Cubs, I think absolutely. If he pans out at all, they have the coffers to retain him without question. That'd be a smart guy to target, injury WOAHs & all. Do the Cubs have the tools to make this deal? Knowing Hendry, the offer will likely be Gallagher + Pie or thereabouts. Beane would probably be silly to pass up an offer that contained those two.

Nice! Keep it up, Brewers fans! I just dropped a little reminder over at that Indians board.

Imoh it's not that 170 is a magic number. It's that it's a ballpark estimate for the upper range of what his shoulder might be able to handle. In general, I agree with you on the pitchers, but due to expansion & the power/'roids evolution of the game, you have to protected the few talented arms you do have, sadly.

Oh, of course. But then again, we agree on the Twins to some extent. http://forum.brewerfan.net/images/smilies/smile.gif Perry is by no means a guy I 'like', but in this case the criticisms of him in the comments were almost exclusively ad hominem.

You may want him to be that strong, but the fact is that he's never thrown 140 IP in his career, and the most he's done since 2004 is roughly 135 IP. I know it's frustrating that the game has changed from how it used to be, but to pretend that working Parra up over 170 IP this year isn't a huge risk just isn't objective imo.

Dare I say, nicely done by ESPN -- getting the That 70s Show reference in there, possible playing off the Drew Carey Show Cleveland tie-in. I'm probably giving them too much credit to think of the DCS tie-in, but still... nice. I feel that this thread should superstitiously be locked & held on the 52d page, should we get that far prior to C.C.'s first start on Tuesday... and then re-opened after the game! http://forum.brewerfan.net/images/smilies/wink.gif

The same media outlets that started reporting last night that the Brewers were going to receive "two low-level prospects" as well as Sabathia, mis-reading a report that was stating the Brewers' offer to CLE had changed to include "two low-level prospects". I still take agent39's word until proven otherwise.

The comments that follow that article are absurd. Perry wrote a decent objective investigative (at least re. stats) piece, and the FANZ!1! can't seem to stomach a bit of critique. No one is really addressing the points in the article, just that 'Perryz a idiot and only lvoez big marketz!'

"The trade also clears up the future of Mat Gamel, another gifted hitter but a liability as a third baseman. Gamel will move to the outfield, and he eventually could take over a corner with Hart shifting to center field." That's from the article linked by KCasper13 in the 'Sabathia-LaPorta articles' thread. I know this has been one possibility discussed, but I was under the impression Gamel would be groomed at 1B. I'd love to hear other (like better-informed) opinions.

Fwiw, the Indians discussion I've seen is that many would prefer Brantley to Green. Not saying Brantley's available, but they certainly like them both, as we do.

why not CCounsell and BHall at 2b and Dillon and Branyan at 3B? JKend, CC, or Dillon leads off and away we go... You know, that's really the best move if Rickie keeps playing as poorly as he has. With the deal for Sabathia, it's pretty clear that this season is not for developing any players. What applies to Hall & others should apply to Rickie. I am still of the insane delusion that Rickie is going to hit much better than he has, and continue to hope. If he starts slow out of the AS break, Counshall makes sense.

He will single-handedly cut Branyan down with one mighty slice of his bat-saber, only making Russ-i-wan more powerful than we could have ever imagined. Not sure what to expect, but here's his career batting production (42 PA): .300/.317/.475/.792 (OPS+ of 107... as a pitcher!) My random, completely unscientific guess -- .275/.295/.450/.745

The guys at the Cubs forum are almost...laughing at us? They still aren't taking us seriously. Sounds (comfortingly) familiar, doesn't it? I agree that the Cubs are likely still going to stay ahead, but with so many head-to-head games left with them (7 at MP, 3 at Wrigley), the idea that things are settled is ridiculous. Something tells me that once Sabathia starts pitching, things won't look quite so silly anymore.

I posted a plea for votes from Indians fans (many of whom already want to see the Crew do well now with C.C.), complete with warning on the 'Send me spam emails!' boxes, on the fan forum I wasted the better part of my Sunday with... well, that & this forum! http://forum.brewerfan.net/images/smilies/smile.gif Also, I voted so much for Hart I lost count.

I'm sorry, but Bill Hall came in at number four for third base? That's just sad. To be fair, there were so many votes for Russell Branyan that the couter rolled back over to 0. Clearly his 943,654 votes (note that keeps him off the top 5 leaderboard by one vote http://forum.brewerfan.net/images/smilies/wink.gif ) correctly tallied would have been 5,943,654, crushing runner-up Chipper Jones. Also, I agree that Burrell not being on the roster is an absolute joke. Soriano & Fukudome are total jokes as starters, production-wise (but I don't think Braun was top-3, either, a topic discussed inside & out).

I really don't understand his problem. His bat is so fast it's ridiculous. He walks enough, so his eye has to be pretty good. He's a student of the game, and if the reports are correct he works as hard as anyone. I have to go on record acknowledging that I was very wrong about Rickie this season, too. The funny thing is that he could play a huge role in any second-half surge, have a great couple of months from July/Aug./Sept., and it wouldn't do enough to get the entire season line up to 'good' or 'respectable'. I just hope that happens. Otherwise, Yost has to get him into the bottom of the lineup. People forget, but when Weeks first came up, he was very good. It's actually even worse memories, as Rickie was incredible in Aug. & Sept. 2007

last time I checked MLB is still deciding who makes the playoffs by W and L. That's a tired line. Rluz tries to post some insightful stuff here, and routinely gets greeted with criticism. It's like there are some people that think objective analysis is people being ridiculous about the Brewers (not pointing just at you, ELCABALLO). Some posters here appear to take great joy in seeing projections fail. They're projections. All you can do in baseball (imho) is try to target certain ranges into which teams/players fall. For example, it's unwise to say, "Prince Fielder is a 50 HR hitter". Instead, I'd describe him as someone that will hit in the 35-60 HR range in any given season. Same with teams. All you can say about the Cubs is that they have the talent to win 85-95 games in 2008, and to get more precise than that imo is where people who know their way around the numbers better (like Russ) come in. No, Run Differential doesn't decide the outcomes, but you'd think someone providing the great resources that rluz does would be greeted with a bit more appreciation. These are two guys that other teams had really never seen before. Is it possible that opposing teams now have scouting reports on them and have made adjustments? I like the observation, rotoherb. That's very likely the case, though fluctuation from month to month is common. It could be scouting (I think that's played a big role), or it could be that they just randomly have fluctuated in a manner that appears to show decline. I hope it's the scouting. http://forum.brewerfan.net/images/smilies/smile.gif Something else that needs to be watched is what's going on with Carlos Marmol. The over-use of Marmol has been talked about at Brewerfan's forums for a while now. It's interesting to see some results that might fall in line with that. Guess we'll see in the second half.

Yeah, certainly was a gray area, but that rumors thread probably would have been about half as long as it got with most of the one-liners taken out. I certainly tried to not just post one-liners, but I bet I was guilty too in there.

Looks like my avatar change a couple days ago didn't jinx it. I love that! Clearly we should all shun brettac1 for not having the same powers with Rolen. http://forum.brewerfan.net/images/smilies/wink.gif Great article by SI this spring. That's ESPN's magazine. Buster Olney. http://forum.brewerfan.net/images/smilies/smile.gif

Wow, notice the background of that graphic is a shot of Miller Park. Impressive!

what's that link again? I think it's on page 2 or so in here.

I just mean that you can't say, 'The deal only works if we make the playoffs'. We could have made them without CC, and we could miss them with him. The deal imo has to be analyzed in terms of how much it improves the big-league club's chances of playing into October, since that's why it was made. Imho the given is that LaPorta is going to be good. But so is Sabathia, and we get two more picks to help replenish the system. With Sheets likely gone after 2008, the time is most certainly now. To be honest, the player we might wish we'd traded 4 or 5 years from now could be Braun, as silly as that sounds today. Of course his contract extension changes that analysis a bit. Do I think it was the right move? No. But I'm not the GM... Well you're a more honest fan than most, that's for sure. http://forum.brewerfan.net/images/smilies/smile.gif I certainly don't register as a blip on the radar screen when compared to Melvin's knowledge either.