RockCoCougars

I believe that the only time Counsel has been on base in the past 5-6 weeks was thanks to a HBP. What about Roger Dorn? At least Craig isn't giving us any of that 'ole bull' in the field.

This is mildly surprising. Is Lee much of an upgrade at first? As for the Brewers, I don't really see a spot for him. As others say, if he's still around in a few weeks, I'd give him a minor league deal with the promise of a call up on 9/1. He'd be a decent PH guy down the stretch. I think he can probably do better though.

The dropoff after the Top 4 is pretty severe. I'd be inclined to put McCann in there, but I think the injury will hamper his counting stats. I hate Pujols, but he is near the top of the league in HR, runs and RBI despite the injury and the cold spell at the beginning. No doubt in my mind that his fanboys will get him a top 5 finish again. The only real edge that Holliday and Berkman have on him is OBP. I'll be pretty surprised if he doesn't bypass Berkman in HR and RBI soon.

I made that same argument on this board in 2002. I presented as much evidence as you did as well. Since then, I've studied the matter a lot and realized just how wrong I was. You are correct that defense is not even 50% of the game but it is still very important. Every non-out made by Betancourt represents about 2/3rds of a run on average. That includes the obvious errors and the not-as-obvious 5 hopper that skitters between Betancourt and 2B. Even if Betancourt only makes 1 less out than an average SS every 5 games, that's still about 20 runs and 2 wins over a full season, which is a hell of a lot. That's the difference between an average major leaguer and a perennial minor leaguer. It's the difference between 87 wins and the playoffs and 85 wins and sitting at home. I hear you, but what is the major indicator of 'defense' that we are using? I quoted the term defense, because I would take it mostly to be runs scored against as opposed to fielding metrics. From this reasoning, I would say that good pitching would not only reduce the runs scored against per game, but it would also serve as a type of equalizer by overcoming poor defense. To me, unearned runs would be a good measure of this (yes, I'm old school). To my surprise, the Brewers are actually 11th/15, while arguably the two best teams in the N.L. are 1/2 (Phi, Atl) so the poor defense arguments seem to have merit. At the same time, I would argue that every team makes errors, so things would tend to even out over the course of a season for the most part unless the team is exceedingly brutal at fielding. Even though the unearned runs are high, it seems that this season the Brewers have benefited more than not by crucial errors and/or misplays.

The contract is far too rich for my blood for a guy who is arguably a #5 here.

Though I will grant you that shortstop is the most important defensive position behind catcher, fielding or 'defense' is incredibly overrated here. This isn't football, where defense is probably more than 50%, or even basketball. Good pitching makes up most of the defense in baseball. How many games has the fielding 'defense' cost this team this year? I can think of maybe a couple. To be honest, they've won more games on the opponent's poor defense than they've lost, yet most of the ragging here is on defense. How many games has Kotsay cost this team 'defensively'? I can think of maybe 1 or arguably 2 games that a Yuni error or grounder he let get through may have cost the team the game. If someone is horrible defensively they will become a liability and either play themselves out of a position (Braun at 3rd) or out of the game (Estrada). Most guys are at least passable.

As I said above, I bet we don't see him again until the weekend. Unfortunately the fans in PNC will get to see the hometown boy make history.... doesn't seem fair. EDIT: I mean Minute Maid. For some reason, this upcoming schedule is throwing me for loops. At the same time, I do have to give him props for his defense on Weds. and the DP yesterday. He did most likely 'save' a few runs.

Right now, I say that Prince is still in the lead, but Braun has been closing the gap. I'd put Reyes, Kemp and Fat Albert next in that order.

No, the choice wasn't Escobar or Yuni. The choice was Escobar and (name a free agent starting pitcher who was willing to come to Milwaukee) or Yuni and Grienke. Those with a crystal ball who were willing to risk Capuano's injury history, bravo. But no Yuni means no Grienke. Agreed. My point was that 2011 Yuni has been an improvement over 2010 Escobar, and is a push or slightly below 2011 Escobar (depending on how you value defense). People will compain about everything Yuni, including the fact that he's not a 'smart' baserunner. That may be true, but I remember several boneheaded miscues by Escobar last year, most notably in June when they started falling out of the race.

Did the commentators explain the ovation by saying that St. Louis fans are perhaps the most knowledgeable in the game?

Not to let this one take activity from 'The' Yuni thread, but I think that people are forgetting that if Yuni wasn't here, Escobar would be. Escobar has been pretty much brutal at the plate- I have no idea how he has a positive 'WAR', but look at the stats. While it is true that he has about .5 extra assists per game, meaning that his range is better, you have to consider that K.C. has about 15 percent less strikeouts as a staff, and gives up about 10% more hits. These two numbers would indicate that Escobar has more chances to make a play than Yuni. Betancourt has made 13 errors, but not many have caused me to curse out loud. It seems like every mistake Escobar made last year was crucial. He was pretty much terrible last year, and judging from the stats doesn't appear to be much better this year.

Yes, the wildcard is a viable option- I've been cheering against the Braves pretty hard for the past month or so. People weren't considering this in '08 either until the Mets imploded. To me, playoffs are playoffs, I could really care less about the matchups.

Who would have thought that the Brewers would have gotten K-Rod? If that happened this afternoon instead of the night of the ASG, people would be going nuts right now. The fact of the matter is that there were no clear trade upgrades. You also have to consider that both McGehee and Betancourt have been hitting the ball well as of late. If they were mired in their doldrums, the odds of a trade would have been greater.

Unfortunately, it looks like he's going to get the record on the road...

I clicked because I wanted to see the responses. Like you, I've thought about it, but it sounds too good to be true. I always look at any company that advertises heavily during Judge Joe Brown and Maury with a jaded eye. A cursory Google search found lots of complaints. http://www.complaintsboar...cket-wireless-c6793.html

That may be the case, but at least Robidoux got a chance to play every day at the big league level for a stretch. Gamel was Machaed. Since we are talking about mid-80's phenoms, I think Beckham smacks a lot of Gregg Jefferies. They both had tons of hype, that's for sure. All that said, would I make the trade? Of course, but the Sox will want a lot more than Gamel.

I still don't understand why Houston is playing hardball with Barmes. They are the worst team in baseball, and he's a free agent in his first year with them. They had no problems dumping Berkman, Oswalt, Pence, etc. but Barmes is untouchable? How does that work?

I don't bemoan the Brewers for not dealing for him as much as I do the Cardinals getting him. I would have been fine with any other team.

I hope that it doesn't, but this one could end up biting the Crew. It looks like Furcal is healthy and getting going- if so, he's a huge upgrade over Theriot at short and at the top of the lineup

Bill James actually looked at this, years ago -- I forget which book it's in. He ran a computer simulation with one lineup full of OBP guys and one full of SLG guys (I think he used one player who exemplified each type) over hundreds of games. The OBP team scored a lot more runs. You could do a more sophisticated version of the study with, say, one team that's .400/.400 and another that's .300/.500, and I'm pretty sure (though I don't have the knowhow to test my intuition) that the OBP team would win again. Not making outs is the single most important part of a baseball offense. Interesting. Thanks for the post, I'll try to Google it later. My only argument against this would be with guys like Carroll/Counsell who rarely sniff a .400 SLG. If they had a say, .340/.360 line, how would they fare against a .275/.425?

Don't see too much not to like here. I think they got him for a good price, and I love the versatility. He swings a decent stick too. The only drawback here is that he hasn't been playing much shortstop of late.

He's no better than Narveson, so I don't really see the point.

So let me get this straight... Houston has basically been Philly's AAA team the past few years, but they are playing games with Clint Barmes? What is their motivation in keeping him?

Without looking at stats, it seems Pence absolutely kills the too bad that he's not out of the league, but it's nice that he's out of the division.

And Lopez with more hits this summer in a Brewer uniform than Counsell....