TooLiveBrew

I think the discussion threads on the 'Team X extends young player ____ 45 1/2 seasons into the future' displayed evidence that contradicts that, FtJ.

Exactly, and injury concerns like this were dismissed so quickly by so many when people brought them up at the time of his/Longoria's signings.

Power/Speed guys that can't make solid contact. Awesome. http://forum.brewerfan.net/images/smilies/laugh.gif Congrats! I'm still waiting for one of those... My main complaint so far with the game is on plays at first where the pitcher needs to cover. He's usually way too slow to get over. Pretty much any slow chopper to first by a guy with decent speed is a hit, and you can forget about the 3-6-1 double plays. Overall though, good game. A good improvment over '07, imo. Thanks! I've played many, many baseball video games ( http://forum.brewerfan.net/images/smilies/embarassed.gif ). Long overdue if you ask me! http://forum.brewerfan.net/images/smilies/smile.gif Also, I agree 100% about the P having to cover 1B. Lame-o McLamey. Played "that guy" last night. The dude who starts Dice-K, then brings in Josh Beckett in the seventh. Annoying. http://forum.brewerfan.net/images/smilies/eyes.gif // http://forum.brewerfan.net/images/smilies/mad.gif Last year it was easy to hit home runs with the contact swing. Ive found that the power swing actually works this year, as opposed to last year. Of course, if you dont get a meatball your not going to hit it well. The homer runs will come, just keep working on moving the left analog into the zone. That's funny... I feel the exact opposite -- for '07, I could crush with the power swing, and felt for the most part that you might get cheated on a HR chance if you didn't use the power swing. For '08, so far (keep in mind I've only played ~ 12 games, and none online), I've had a lot more success just trusting the players' natural power with the normal/contact swing. When I've used the power swing, I've had a lot more of the pop-ups & 'just missed it' outs.

Can someone describe and/or embed a video of the injury? I've been at work, missing this game. Thanks in advance.

Jason's track record indicates that it's very unlikely that he'd hit that poorly for any extended period of time. He certainly prides himself on being in the lineup as much as he can physically muster, and to be honest I've been nothing short of shocked with how good he's been defensively. For the first time, I see some evidence in real life to support a claim that a C 'calls a good game' with Jason. He's athletic, quick, and his arm has been very solid. Oh yea, and he's been hitting well too! http://forum.brewerfan.net/images/smilies/smile.gif

Using 3-yr. splits on guys as young as Hardy, Weeks, Hart, etc. is not a very effective way of trying to determine true talent imo. I also think that, with Cameron, if we want a more accuarate view, we should be using his road splits v. RHP for the past 3 years or whatever. Overall, this is a bit of a reactionary thread, since nearly all of our main hitters are due to regress upwards toward their personal mean(s). EDIT: Rluz sorta beat me to it... also, I agree 100% that Branyan should be up in place of that 18th pitcher.

I am? You might want to look at some of the things I actually said. I simply saw Gross and Turnbow as the odd men out once Gallardo and Cameron returned, and largely because of the Sheets thing My apologies. I certainly couldn't see that you felt Gross was a solid member of the team.

I have been predicting the disappearance of both Gabe Gross and Derrik Turnbow for the better part of 3 weeks now So... what does the fact that Gabe Gross netted us a quality arm mean to you? You're certainly taking credit like you ran a bum outta town, yet clearly Tampa saw a guy they wanted for full-time PT, and didn't get him for cheap.

I would not take any of the 3 back for Gwynn Wow, you certainly haven't followed Inman then. From everything I've read/heard/seen, he's been a beast in AA San Antonio so far.

I know the Wii added MLB 2K7 this year, and they'll probably have pretty much all the other main sports games. Plus, you can't exactly play Super Smash Bros. or MarioCart on any other console... and the Wii is cheaper. I won't step on anyone's toes from earlier comments, as I own none of the systems in question (PS2 for the dinosaur here). But I know if I were in your situation, I'd go for the PS3 -- from what I've heard, The Show 08 is awesome on the PS3, and I'm an all-day sucker for a good (& realistic) baseball game.

Last night, they weren't quite sure where the ball was going. But... they seemed to do just fine. Not sure how wildness or BBing guys helps a pitcher at all. The kind of unpredictability I think best helps is in changing velocities, arm angles, & pitch types. The gun readings on Chicago telecast were slow. Mota was throwing hard, and recording 91-92 on most of his fastballs Thanks to JBriggs & others that weighed in on this. That is very encouraging, but I remain extremely guardedly optimistic.

Maybe the FSN gun had Sheets higher, but the Comcast radar had him topping 90 maybe two or three times. Unless there's some other information, I can't agree that Ben's velocity looked fine. His CB was great, though.

Sorry TLB, I was trying to be a little tongue-in-cheek there. I should have posted that sentance in blue. I'm guessing that could mean that Rickie's just got bad luck right now? Oh, missed that. Sorry! The problem is that Rickie isn't picky about his pitches. I don't fully agree with this. I think Weeks has some of the best pitch recognition on the team. He appears to read breaking balls well out of the pitchers' hands. It's been relatively rare that Weeks has had to even check his swing on a breaking pitch that misses the zone. I want him to be more aggressive too, but he's made several 'loud' outs so far this season.

Sorry TLB, I was trying to be a little tongue-in-cheek there. I should have posted that sentance in blue. I'm guessing that could mean that Rickie's just got bad luck right now? Oh, missed that. Sorry! The problem is that Rickie isn't picky about his pitches. I don't fully agree with this. I think Weeks has some of the best pitch recognition on the team. He appears to read breaking balls well out of the pitchers' hands. It's been relatively rare that Weeks has had to even check his swing on a breaking pitch that misses the zone. I want him to be more aggressive too, but he's made several 'loud' outs so far this season.

Giving this a bump, and the post from Rotoworld. It's been suspiciously quiet on the Sheets front -- last night's outing really, really worries me. Despite allowing four runs -- three earned -- and walking seven batters in five innings Tuesday night, Ben Sheets was the winning pitcher as the Brewers beat the Cubs 10-7. It was far from a great outing for Sheets. His lack of control was a major concern; he missed his last start due to triceps tightness and had walked only four batters in 28 innings prior to tonight's game. Nevertheless, he improved to 4-0 as the Brewers' offense had a huge game. Four players had three-hit nights, including Mike Cameron, who was making his Milwaukee debut. Nothing from the post-game interviews?

... as opposed to heading to AAA. Fight the power, Brady! Stole this from Rotoworld: The New York Daily News reports that Brady Clark is expected to retire rather than report to Triple-A. Clark was designated for assignment by the Mets last week and cleared waivers.

Rickie's got his approach backwards What about Kapler then, whose %s are roughly the same?

Rickie's got his approach backwards What about Kapler then, whose %s are roughly the same?

That study showed a number of things, Yost is in the top 10 in close games won, he is a top 10 manager in winning more games than expected, and he is in the top 10 in regards to getting his players to perform. Now, you can argue that he's making a lot of mistakes, but he must be doing some things right in order to get that top 10 status in each of those categories. That's fine if you want to gauge manager performance on W-L record. I don't think it's very accurate. Nice try Your snarkiness brings nothing to an objective discussion. I'm not 'trying' to do anything & am flat-out exhausted with the constant baiting in this thread. Looks like any Ned discussions that I actually want to participate in will have to be back on private messaging. EDIT: Fwiw, anyone that wants to discuss Ned via PM, I'd be happy to get away from this thread & still be able to discuss Yost. Perhaps no one will, which is no big deal.

One assessment says quite the opposite. Of course their study is very limited, but it think it has more value than some random number. But that's using W-L to evaluate a manager, not saying that, on aggregate, a manager's decisions add up to 3 wins. All that study looks to do is take close & late performances by players into account, along with whether or not a team outperformed its pythagorean expected W-L record. A talented team with an awesome manager can easily play 3 (or more) wins of their pythag. in any given season. So for you that win total is... As I said, irrelevant. What is going to matter is the divisional race, which by all accounts is not expected to be greater than maybe 5 games. Also by all accounts, the Brewers & Cubs are the two most talented teams, and expected to finish a very close 1-2.

I'm not discounting the difference... I would just like to know what people feel it is. I think Yost is easily a -2 or -3 on that scale. So the overall win total is basically irrelevant. Take however many games you have the Crew pegged for winning, and subtract 2 or 3. That could end up being the difference between playoffs & watching from home. Look at it this way, if we still had Braun butchering it up at 3B, with a suitable replacement at that position ready to be called up from AAA (please, all do your best to refrain from Branyan jokes! http://forum.brewerfan.net/images/smilies/smile.gif ), wouldn't it just be common sense to make that move & put Braun in LF? And might it not also end up being a huge mistake at seasons's end to have not made that move, when the division could be decided by 3 games or fewer? I think the gamble that Doug Melvin is taking on keeping Yost around as the manager, hoping that Simmons can help Ned overcome his knuckle-headedness in-game, is the most easily correctable mistake he's made/making in his tenure in MIL. It sickens me that Doug is willing to just roll the dice on this.

Interesting argument: I don't think we can deny that baseball is a culture whereby managers try to get their starters wins and their closers saves. This is a great point by Tbadder. And going beyond FtJ's nice insight on how W's will help Ben's payday, I feel it'd be remiss if we also didn't note that W's help the Brewers, too. Not meaning in the sense of the team's overall record, but in terms of Sheets's FA status after this season. The more W's Ben accrues, the better chance he's a Type A FA come this offseason. And that is a big deal. So...barring an abnormally bad bite by the injury bug or something like that, you feel this Brewer roster should win roughly how many games this year? And the actual win total will be more like ... While I 'get' what your overall point is here, I think it's extremely foolish to discount the difference one or two or three games will make. I mean, we moved Braun to LF bc his defense was costing us games, why shouldn't the same logic be applied to the manager? EDIT: Not sure I'm following here. Gwynn was announced against the RH pitcher. Lou does a pitching change. So a lefty was brought in to face Gwynn. Now if Yost goes to Kapler he gets Kapler vs the left hander because the pitcher must face one batter. My fault, forgot the RP has to face one batter. Yours is clearly the way to go; unfortunately, this wasn't Ned's way... even though he was handed this option on a silver platter. In this instance, burning two PH's was the correct move, imo, since you had a golden run-scoring chance.

I don't see blowing two of your three pinch-hitters in the seventh inning as a good move. Given that there was a great run-scoring chance, I want to see Ned send his best hitters up. What they do against same-handed pitching doesn't even have to factor in. Send up Kapler, and if Piniella burned his lefty to bring in a righty, then you play Gwynn to his strength as opposed to a weakness. Even though the O showed up for 10 runs, tonight there was no such thing as enough runs (not that you argued that there was), and given the circumstances I think the situation was worth two pinch-hitters. I'm sure Ned has input on how many pitchers they're carrying, so I can't simply say, 'Oh, he's handcuffed.'

He's the best manager the brewers have had since 2001 or so at the very least. I just think it's that just had the best talent in that timespan. He's really average to below-avg. as a manager, imo. What totally baffled me today was why he let TGJ hit v. Marshall. I hope this can be evidence of someone not using results to frame their analysis of Yost. Gwynn got the BB, but why he was left in is beyond me. Why leave Kapler sitting on the bench? If Lou went to the righty, even then I think burning your 2nd best lefty PH is a good trade.

Hello everybody... I have been lurking in the in game threads for a few seasons now and have decided today will be the day I become an active participant. I enjoy following along while Jim and Bob keep me company here at work. That being said, if the Brewers happened to get crushed tonight I will except full responsibility and go back to lurking... Welcome! Don't run away if they lose tonight -- it'd only be a small sample ( http://forum.brewerfan.net/images/smilies/wink.gif ) of your game outcome-influencing powers!