TooLiveBrew

How much do you think having a better defensive 1B would help? Well given that Prince's biggest problem defensively thus far has been bending for low balls, and that the primary area (imo) where a 1B can separate himself from others is scooping low throws... I'd say a heckuva lot.

But it's like striped bass fishing! You have to cloak your intentions!

Very similar to our very own Power 50, but less breadth and a bit more depth. I know this isn't related to the Brewers at all, but it's a stellar breakdown of some of San Diego's top minor-league talent. Since I live in Portland (AAA afilliate), I've been looking for something like this as a primer for the coming season. Very well-done piece, though it seems that's simply par for the course for Denis Savage & John Conniff. MadFriars.com Top 20 Padres Prospects (2008) Rank Name B/T Pos. Height Weight How Acquired 1 Chase Headley S/R 3B 6'2" 215 2005 2nd Rd. 2 Mat Latos R/R SP 6'6" 215 DFE 2007 (orig. 2006 11th Rd.) 3 Matt Antonelli R/R 2B 6'1" 195 2006 1st Rd. 4 Cedric Hunter L/L CF 6'0" 190 2006 3rd Rd. 5 Chad Huffman R/R OF 6'1" 205 2006 2nd Rd. 6 Wade LeBlanc L/L SP 6'2" 180 2006 2nd Rd. 7 Kyle Blanks R/R 1B 6'6" 285 DFE 2005 (orig. 2004 42nd Rd.) 8 Yefri Carvajal R/R OF 5'11" 200 2006 Signed in D.R. (at age 16) 9 Kellen Kulbacki L/L OF 5'11" 190 2006 Supplemental 1st Rd. 10 Drew Cumberland L/R SS 5'10" 175 2007 Supp. 1st Rd. Of the remaining 10 players on the list... 7 P (6 SP/1 RP), 2 C, 1 IF. Only Joe Thatcher (#13) made the cut from the three pitchers sent to the Padres for Scott Linebrink in 2007. Thatcher's 27, so not exactly a prospect anymore. The MF guys think he could be the second setup man/7th inning specialist, but also point out that he may never become more than a LOOGY. EDIT: The following is from a Ducksnorts.com (Pads blog) interview with Savage & Conniff: "Ducksnorts: You have Cesar Ramos ranked #20. Who missed the cut because of him, and why? Savage: The most unpopular decision John and I ever made - Will Inman. When we first started this roundtable, I mentioned that nothing replaces what we see with our eyes. We saw Inman throw once - and we were not as impressed as we thought we should have been. His velocity was way down. His location wasn't good. We expected to see more. We admitted it was a bit unfair to count one bad start against him, but it is all we had to go on. Even in a bad outing, certain traits of future success are evident. Inman didn't have that this time around. Having said that, I expect Inman to have a tremendous year in 2008. Very reliable people I have spoke with say he was a far different pitcher in the Milwaukee system, and they admit to being surprised at how different he appeared in the Texas League. Unfortunately, we could not weigh what he did in the Milwaukee system fairly without seeing him. Our steadfast rule has always been not to rank any player we have not seen. That is why Nick Schmidt only appears on our All-Injured team and not anywhere in the top 60. Inman will find it again. and we will be there to applaud his efforts."

Who is it that had/had the sig saying something to the effect of "When #4 retires, the state of WI will belong to #15"

He only had 84 at-bats so we don't know if the Reds' player is any good and his numbers don't mean a ton because it's such a small sample. Joey Votto 2006: 508 AB, .319/.408/.547/.955 (AA) 2007: 496 AB, .294/.381/.478/.859 (AAA) You are very correct that the MLB time is too small a sample, but we do indeed know that Votto is a very strong offensive player.

"Do Pitch Counts Count?" I'm really intrigued to hear what our own have to say about this article/study. The most interesting tidbit from the article imho: "But what stands out most is that, after controlling for all these other variables, every pitch thrown before age 26 knocks off half an inning in the latter half of a pitcher's career. That is a pretty huge effect. Consider, 100 extra pitches a year-just three pitches a start-means 55 fewer innings pitched down the road." That shocked me, to be bluntly honest. Sure, it's not a precise, scientific number, but wow. Could the argument be made that a smaller-market team like the Brewers should be working their Gallardos, Villanuevas & Parras into the ground over the next 3 or 4 seasons? Maybe we missed out on Dusty Baker after all!

What Baker said is just moronic. In terms of Votto, if it aint broke dont fix it. You just get teh feeling that dusty is trying to completely change his players appraoches which will inevitably completely screw them up. Just let them play and let them use the instincts they have. I know. If I were one of his players, I'd already know to either ignore anything he said to me, or just do the opposite of whatever Dusty advises. So, to recap, it's not even April, and Cincinnati players already know to ignore what their manager thinks/says. I get the feeling 2008 is not going to go very well for the Reds.

No kidding, Stevo. Lost my first try at this post due to the merger, but I tried to say that this reminds me of Automator's line to jaybird on job-hunting: "If Juan Pierre Dusty Baker can find work, you can find work." Wow. *shakes his head* I genuinely feel sorry for Reds fans. But then again, this is the same Johnnie Baker of the career .278 BA - the 'swing at everything' approach worked so well for him! Votto's put up fantastic numbers over the past two seasons. Has he struck out over 100 times in both? Yes... but his cumulative BA from 2006-2007 is easily over .300, with a great OBP/SLG/OPS. Dusty Baker does not understand baseball. If that isn't clear by now, I don't know how it can possibly become clearer. EDIT: Might as well start taking offers on Dunn now. Baker's just going to want to bench him by July, and given that his managerial style should have the Reds well out of contention by then, there'll be no trouble providing the 'we're out of it, so let's play some youngsters' justification.

7) At a sporting event, do you wait until the game or match has a "dead air" moment to get up to use the restroom or buy food? I wait until the middle of inning, etc. to do what I need to do, it is just plain good etiquette Amen to this. I believe that you should be docked life points for getting up & obstructing others' views mid-inning/mid-AB. This is a very rude thing to do imho. Obviously there are extenuating circumstances where you have to make exceptions, but 95%+ of these occurances should have been avoided. It's mostly people being too ignorant/arrogant imo.

I am curious to check these over to see if indeed Capuano was only throwing it up there in the lower 80's as has been suggested in this thread as well as in another thread. He certainly saw his velocity drop, and it coincided right with his injury iirc. Imo his 'normal' range for the FB is 87-91, where the end of last year saw more in the 84-88 range. Until we see that Chris has lost velocity while healthy, I don't think there's much reason to get worried.

http://www.sportsbonehead.com/wp-content/uploads/2007/09/ned_yost_bonehead.jpg

Controlling diabetes is no easy task and to suggest he's doing it to cover PED's is ridiculous. Given that there have been tons of players to exploit diabetes meds, it really isn't ridiculous. I have to respectfully disagree with you guys. Perhaps in this particular case, Reed isn't correct, but it's not like this is some wild theory with no backup.

If I have one issue with the show, is that I don't necessarily think the most deserving person will win the top prize. It seems the goal is to not finish last each week. Someone who excels in nearly every show yet who stumbles badly on just one challenge can find themselves "out", as Heidi Klum would say. Yet a relatively poor performer who rarely if ever shines manages to stick around. This is the bane of every competitive reality show. And I couldn't agree more with ya, jamie. PR is a solid show, as is TC... but let's be honest, they're basically the same show. Different flavors of ice cream.

Well, apparently I got the attention of my immediate supervisor and he was essentially in agreement with me and was already in discussions with the Regional boss for quite some time over this issue and now I he wants me to sit down and chat with himself and the Regional boss on Monday and my immediate supervisor (whom is actually not only my boss, but also my friend) has continually sent me e-mails stating, "I am not in trouble" and that he wants me to call him. Glad to hear that you had a good feel for the situation. It sounds like so far, things are moving in a positive direction. Good luck in your discussions. http://forum.brewerfan.net/images/smilies/smile.gif

http://imagecache2.allposters.com/images/pic/CLASS/186-019~Coffee-Posters.jpg Clearly, in the 7-8 cups v. 20-25 cups per day debate, the math is on Ned's side.

If $200K more is all Fielder needs to be happy, he can go endorse shoestrings. I get the feeling he wants more than that, but at the same time his agent would advise strongly against any extension.

I know he's going to be much better than Ryan was last year, but if he can't get near league-avg., our IF defense won't be able to improve very much. That was a big problem last season.

Ned, most of us that don't like you really, really want to like you. Just relax, and don't overthink things out there.

Not to be confused with FIB, FIP can tell you something useful. Parra's upside is higher than most of the SP who'll break camp with the big club. However, since he has options & others don't, he'll be best used at AAA imo.

Haim Spielberg

But isn't that addressed by simply switching back to the 'classic' mode? It seems unfair to fail to reward the developers for their forsight in not just scrapping the old style entirely.

The day we can't compare ourselves to football hooligans is the day that it's time to hang up the fan-spikes.

Exactly, dvoiss. 2007 & 2008 will balance out him making north of $15 mil. when he's 35.

It would only be an upgrade if Vargas was never needed, or replaced with someone equal. The argument though is to replace Vargas because there is no room for him, since he's out of options. That, or pitching him stubbornly just 'cause. There isn't room for him on the 25-man once Yo is back. This doesn't have anything to do with Parra imo.

Vargas's salary is not the only concern. It's that you either have to pitch an inferior (compared with other internal options) SP, or stash him on the DL without a real injury. So why would a Vargas for prospects deal at some point not make sense?