RockCoCougars

Makes too much sense to happen, for whatever reason Melvin doesn't seem interested. Too bad, I'm tired of Almonte being kept around due to the 'he can play the infield' excuse.

Well, of course some do. the real question is how unlikely it is. It's got to be pretty rare. According to my calculations, he has an ERA of 5.82 over his last 27 starts (since July 1 of last year), that's roughly 80% of a full season. The most worrisome thing to me is that this stretch has carried into two seasons.

I agree. No way it happens. It took the Brewers forever to make that move with a much worse pitcher in Jeff Suppan. There's no way it happens with Gallardo.They did it twice with Suppan. I'm not sure it's prudent to keep trotting Gallardo out there, good pitchers don't go long stretches like this without reason, and he's killing the team right now. The opponent has scored less than 5 runs once so far this season in Gallardo starts. Why does it seem that every time this franchise signs a starter to a multi-year deal for big money they either turn to crap or they get hurt? Wolf is bucking that trend a little, hopefully he continues.

Funny you bring Alcides up. I caught this on Fangraphs yesterday. http://www.fangraphs.com/...-magnified-incompetence/ Do we have a new 'worst player' in baseball? Probably not, as the Royals fans are talking about his 'Insane Defense'.

By far. Throw out that Atlanta game, and his ERA is 7.8. That's Suppan-esque... actually worse. He's pitching like a combination of Jim Abbott (Brewers version), Jaimie Navarro (2nd stint) and Cal Eldred (final season as a Brewer). Not sure if he's hurt or what, but something is definitely up here, because outside of a few games he's been brutal since mid-season last year.

It is extremely dangerous to go with such a small sample of a few games in trying to compare Estrada & Narveson. Having a pitcher who has done well in MLB, down in AAA staying stretched out and pitching every 5 games is a great problem to have. If Narveson struggles for another 4 or 5 starts and Estrada continues to pitch lights out that is one thing, but I like the idea of having some strong pitching depth in AAA if needed. Narveson was phenomenal in his first few starts and now is averaging out towards his career norms, which is fine for a #5 pitcher. And let's see how Estrada does tommorow anyways. In terms of Estrada in the MLB bullpen or the AAA starting lineup, again I see real value in keeping him stretched out and ready to start as needed. Unless our bullpen implodes, which is not out of the realm of possibilities Right, but Narveson is basically pitching to his career norms. Yes, he's been a victim of the big inning, but that was the case last year as well. As far as Estrada goes, yes it is a small sample, but his stuff looks great to me. Why risk messing with a good thing by sending him to Nashville? If this is just a hot streak, I say ride it out, he may continue to blossom into a solid starter, or you may get a nice first half out of him (a la Victor Santos/Manny Parra 2008). Narveson can be the long guy in the bullpen until the inevitable starter injury occurs.

I think it'd be silly to send Estrada down. He's outpitched Narveson, and has earned the #5 spot if you ask me. He deserves a kudos thread, because he has really stepped up.

This thing will be towards the top all season long, mark my words. I still can't figure out why Betancourt is more of a lightning rod than Soup was- probably because he plays every day.

Exactly. In my posts above, I'm not condoning what McDowell allegedly did, but let's be real- why is MLB bending and doing all this lip service to satisfy GLAAD and Allred while doing nothing to punish Lowe? Though to GLAAD and Alred's credit, they seem satisfied with the punishment, it seems as he who cries loudest gets results (not to mention that I found the family presser, where every word and gesture was recreated with the kids standing right there like smiling pawns to be pretty distasteful). McDowell may be a scumbag, but you have people wanting to crucify him, but on the same team, you have a guy out drunken racing, and he doesn't miss a start. How soon we forget the Danny Heatley, Bobby Phills (not drunk, but racing) and Leonard Little incidents. Are they that afraid of the players union or what?

Wasn't he the 'second spitter' as well?

Way to go troops! I love the celebrations, and hope that they get a lot of play on Al Jazeera. Don't mess with the USA!

Sounds like a typical game in the bleachers at County Stadium. I guess with that bat thing, it'd have had to been on Bat Day. The point that I'm trying to make is that when you take your children to a game- especially if you are not in the family section, you had better be prepared to have them see and hear some things that you don't want them to. It's sad, but that's just the way it is. I have three youngsters and rarely take them to a night game, because I don't like the exposure to drunks. As for your argument about losing your job, you are right. However I will use the 'baseball is different' argument because in most jobs, you are not heckled while you are working. I've heard that McDowell was getting heckled for the better part of an hour before this happened. Who knows what these guys were saying to him, but I would guess that it wasn't G rated stuff. I highly doubt that he was just looking into the stands to pick on people and have some good ole' fan interaction.

This is a complete joke. I don't want to turn this into a political debate, but I think the situation with him and McDowell speaks volumes on how our society prioritizes things.Well, I think it's far worse to hate and ridicule entire segments of society than to be a dumb drunk.Like I said, I don't want to get this too political, but would you have said the same had Lowe hit someone while drunk? To me actions speak louder than words, especially since Gloria Aldred is involved. That tells me that the 'father of the year' candidate in S.F. may have some ulterior motives. There are two sides to every story.

Ruthless? It's time to give Gamel a chance. He can flat out hit (I see he had a five hit game last night), and has nothing left to prove in AAA. Assuming Prince leaves, I think the job should be his to lose. He's not going to replace Prince's power, but I think that he can put up Overbay (the Milwaukee version) type numbers. Before he is given up on, I want him to get some significant playing time to see if Macha succeeded in ruining him or not. Escobar got a full season to play, so why not Gamel? Hopefully the team resists the temptation to sign some aging scrub (Derrek Lee, etc.) this off-season.

This is a complete joke. I don't want to turn this into a political debate, but I think the situation with him and McDowell speaks volumes on how our society prioritizes things.

That doesn't appear to be the case though. He's hit a lot of balls hard to the outfield that have ended up being caught, so I think that he's been a little unlucky. It's not like Jason Kendall where almost every at bat ended up with a weak grounder somewhere.

I guess that I'm not understanding how people can argue that Betancourt is playing poor defense. How many balls has he let go through his legs? How many bobbles on a sure DP grounder? How many poor throws to first? Not many that I've seen. I'll I hear about is this lack of range. Most of these that I've seen have been balls hit up the middle and probably would have ended up as infield hits anyway. In my view defense is very overrated on this site. Baseball is not like football or basketball where arguably defense is half or more of the game. In baseball, a huge chunk of your 'defense' lies with your pitcher's accumen, or lack there of. I believe Sparky Anderson once said that pitching was 85% of the game or thereabouts. I don't think that it's that high, but it's probably a tad over 50%. Kick in your hitting, and where does that leave defense? I'd say maybe 15%-20% or so. I'm not saying that you can put a little league defense out there, but most guys in the majors, including Betancourt, will make the routine play over 95% of the time. Very rarely do you have truly atrocious defensive players (see Braun's rookie year at third), and they tend to play themselves out of a position pretty quickly. My argument here is that the difference between Betancourt and an 'elite defensive' SS is not that much over the course of the season. The elite guy may get you an out or two extra a week or 10 days.....basically maybe saving a few singles. Food for thought, Loe came in last night and put two guys on in less than an inning in free passes, so who has hurt the team worse in the past two weeks, Loe or Betancourt?

Lowe is a tool, has been for years from what I've heard. He will get off light compared to McDowell, who everyone has convicted in their minds of attempted battery with a dangerous weapon.

I find it kind of interesting that digging back into the archives, some of the posters destroying Betancourt on this thread felt that keeping Suppan around was not hurting the team- 'because there was no decent replacement'. In my view, Soup hurt the team much more than Betancourt ever could (on the field- not even factoring in the horrible contract). I always put the smell test on a player using my eyes, because stats don't always tell the whole story. In many of Soup's 'good' games, his pitching line looked better than he actually pitched- with lots of line drive/fly balls deep to the outfielders, etc- I remember one 'quality start' in Petco with about 6 outs that would have been homers in Miller Park, how do you quantify that? Who here watched a Suppan start where he was OK the first few innings without dreading an implosion. Don't get me wrong, past statistical performance is useful for analysis, but it's not the end all, be all. Betancourt has been much better than advertised, and is certainly an upgrade over Escobar (I'm talking 2011- not future 'upside'). The stats thus far have born that out- small sample be danged. In my opinion, people are dwelling on past statistics and the pundits without giving the dude a chance. If he truly stunk, I'd be the first to admit it (because I love to bag on guys who aren't pulling their weight) but he hasn't to this point.

And Yuni comes through with his first dinger....

Take Boras out of the equation, and people's perception would change. Frankly, I think that if all things were equal, and both signed long term deals, Prince would be more popular than Braun. At least that's the feeling I get from family, friends and other fans. A lot of people are turned off by Braun because 'he's cocky'.

I hope that you're right, but I'm concerned about the velocity drop (didn't watch the last game but supposedly the fastball topped at 91) and accompanying reduction in K/9 rate. I'd be less concerned if this was a control issue, but that doesn't seem to be an issue (possibly location, but he's not walking a ton of guys). Opponents are hitting .297 against him, which is almost Suppan-esque.

But people back in 2008 thought that Ray Durham was the answer (on JS Online, at least) and Rickie was a .240 hitting bust.... they were hoping that the Orioles or Braveswould be 'gullible' enough to give us Brian Roberts or Kelly Johnson for him. Rickie is proof that hard work (paired with immense talent) pays off. I think that he's a top 3 second baseman now, and one of the best leadoff hitters in the game.

Like I said, I'm not making any outright accusations- when I was Yo's age, I was no angel- but part of me questions why he was in Lincoln Village after bar time. We've seen guys like Bill Hall (a 'man about town' by many accounts) implode after getting a deal from the Brewers, so I am a little concerned. Something isn't the same with Gallardo, I'm not sure if it's a physical issue, the league has picked something up or what, but he doesn't look like he did in 2008 in prior to the ASG last year. The Brewers do seem to have an All Star Jinx in recent years... Jenkins, Turnbow, Capuano, Hardy and Hart have all had extremely rough stretches after their ASG selections, so maybe that is the cause.

The only way Gallardo would sniff the minors would be on an injury related rehab. I'm not sure if he's hurt or what, but with a handful of exceptions, he has pitched poorly for about the past 2/3 of a season. I don't want to start any rampant speculation, but I still have that robbery during the wee hours of the morning in a less than desirable neighborhood last summer in the back of my mind. I sure hope that he doesn't have any personal issues that are affecting his play.