batman

I still don't understand what goes through Nedley's head sometimes. He's gone on and on in the past about how Brady Clark is a good #2 hitter and he breaks up the lefties while Craig Counsell is a great #8 hitter. Then he puts Counsell seventh before Moeller and puts Hall in a table-setting spot (#2) and Clark in a run-producing spot (#6). I know he's talked about "shaking things up", but when this is your collection of players, his initial ideas made the most sense. It doesn't really matter, but it's encouraging when your manager says intelligent things and then implements them. When he does the opposite, it is discouraging. And on a related but different subject, here's the "MassBrew On-Base Party" update for a few of our favorites: Scott Podsednik: .314 Geoff Jenkins: .307 Billy Hall: .282 At least Hall isn't making a lot of money. Although compared to Jenkins, neither is Podsednik. Bad yuck boo. ~Bill

08/24/2004 - Brewers (Capuano) at Cubs (Clement) But in the mud and scum of thingsThere always, always something sings -- Ralph Waldo Emerson Go team. ~Bill

And just so you know Bill, Georgia Tech is in the ACC. I did see several ACC & SEC games last spring though, so I hear ya' http://forum.brewerfan.net/images/smilies/smile.gif . Yeah, I always mess that up... Atlanta is in the Southeast, not the Altantic Coast, so I blame the conference for false advertising. Kinda like a school from Milwaukee, WI being part of the Big East. http://forum.brewerfan.net/images/smilies/wink.gif Thanks again for the info... you really should get paid to do this. ~Bill

Thanks for the list, Patrick... you da' man, as usual. Among the high school players, my very preliminary opinion is that after Upton, Iain Sebastian is the man. He's Adam Dunn-meets-Lyle Overbay as a hitter, although I have no idea how good a defender he is at first. I didn't like Miers Quigley nor Eric Massingham, both for injury-proneness concerns, while Zach Putnam was an impressive pitcher. I've only seen these guys once, and often in very limited ABs/innings, but it was better than nothing. I looked up the BA college guys' adjusted NCAA stats (thanks to Craig Burley and HBT) and Jed Lowrie was the best hitter in college baseball last season. Alex Gordon ranked fifth, Stephen Head ranked 60th, John Mayberry ranked 91st, Brian Bogusevic ranked 301st, Jeff Clement ranked 339th, and Tyler Greene ranked 785th. Among pitchers, Pelfrey ranked 27th, Stephen Head ranked 65th, Brian Bogusevic ranked 109th, Stephen Kahn ranked 146th, and Mark McCormick ranked 418th. Head and Bogusevic were mighty impressive last season as two-way players... Head ranked 60th as a hitter and 65th as a pitcher while Bogusevic ranked 301st and 109th, respectively. I like Alex Gordon the best among the college players, but he's the only one of them that I've seen play (AFA I can remember). Jed Lowrie was an amazing hitter last year... do you know much about his defensive skills, Patrick? Same story with Gordon... is he going to stick as a third-baseman? And actually now that I think about it, I saw Tyler Greene a few times and he looked very good defensively. The SEC is on FSN all the time, so that conference was the most accessible last year in terms of TV availability. Anyway, thanks again Patrick for the info. It's never too early to start the draft coverage, is it? http://forum.brewerfan.net/images/smilies/wink.gif ~Bill

08/23/2004 - Brewers (Sheets) at Cubs (Zambrano) Let's go team. MILWAUKEE CHICAGO CUBS AVG HR RBI AVG HR RBI Scott Podsednik CF .247 10 29 Corey Patterson CF .288 17 55 Bill Hall 2B .257 7 44 Derrek Lee 1B .295 26 76 Lyle Overbay 1B .320 13 75 Todd Walker 2B .281 13 40 Russell Branyan 3B .283 6 15 Moises Alou LF .272 29 73 Geoff Jenkins LF .245 19 66 Sammy Sosa RF .256 28 59 Brady Clark RF .265 5 29 Aramis Ramirez 3B .314 25 79 Craig Counsell SS .252 2 20 Michael Barrett C .296 13 54 Chad Moeller C .217 5 24 Ramon Martinez SS .246 3 28 Ben Sheets RHP .067 0 1 Carlos Zambrano RHP .218 0 3 (9-9, 2.89) (11-7, 2.83) ~Bill

You mean we aren't there yet? Yeah, seriously... we're there. I'm just finally coming around to the idea that the rest of the season is going to be like this, which is not something to look forward to. Brutal is probably putting it too nicely. We've all been waiting for Jenkins and Podsednik to figure things out, and Helms too to some extent, but we've got to be at the point now where any reasonable chance of that occurring is slim-to-none. And without those two guys, the rest of the team has to play really well to pick up a win... and while they were doing that in the first half, a whole lot of overachievers are coming back down to more expected levels of performance. I want to believe in Jenkins finding whatever he's lost and Podsednik figuring out how he did it last season, but even I'm having trouble with that right now. And I'm more optimistic than most folks, and so that's saying something. Oh well. I'm looking forward to seeing Big Ben go tomorrow on ESPN... hopefully they can get themselves motivated and have a big game in front of a national audience. I'd love to see Ben bring his "A" game, Overbay slap a few doubles into the gaps, and Branyan mash a few jacks. But ESPN is catching us at the very lowest point of the season, which just adds to the disappointment. Being a Brewers' fan is rough, isn't it? ~Bill

SADNESS ~Bill

"Durrington trying to get on base here to give Gary Bennett a chance to hit his second home run." -- Jim Powell When this is what it has come to, you know your team has a serious problem. ~Bill

This is really getting frustrating. Kolb and Adams were the culprits today and they are our best two relievers, so you can't fault Nedley. The only thing that might have helped is if Kolb wouldn't have gone out for his second inning, but Adams didn't get the job done very well either. The offense has managed only five hits, too. The five walks are great, but only two extra-base hits as well. And it's not like we have been facing superstar pitchers... Wolf, Cormier, Jones, and Hernandez all have ERAs over four and Rodriguez is at 3.31. Getting Ginter back will help, but Jenkins and Podsednik are still the big problems offensively. Now that we aren't getting good production from Overbay or our right-fielders, we are really going to have trouble scoring runs (not that we haven't had trouble for months now, but at least Overbay was raking and Clark/Grieve were getting on base). If Branyan comes back to earth, which is inevitable, this last month plus is going to be brutal. ~Bill

Dan Kolb sure seems like a one-and-done kind of guy at this point. Obviously with the injury concerns, stretching him out so that he can pitch two or three innings at a time could be dangerous. Still, the fact that he is only used for one inning at a time really hurts his value compared with other relief pitchers who are more versatile. And he really hasn't been the same guy since the All-Star Break, or actually right before it. Hopefully this is just an aberration and he can return to his previous form, or at least something close to it, but I'm afraid his trade value will never have been higher than it was earlier this season. ~Bill

This is only the second time all season that Dan Kolb has been used for more than one inning... the other was not too long ago, August 15th at home against Florida. Interesting. ~Bill

The Phillies must really think Billy Hall is jacking their signs... this is really entertaining, as Todd Pratt is visiting the mound after just about every pitch. Weirdness. ~Bill

Here's something interesting about our catchers extraordinaire. Catcher mlEQA ----------------------- Mark Johnson .226 Chris Coste .217 Kade Johnson .202 [b]Chad Moeller .198[/b] John Vandenberg .198 Lou Palmisano .195 [b]Gary Bennett .190[/b] Froilan Villanueva .185 Joel Alvarado .127 Alex Delgado .121 ----------------------- Isn't it a bad thing when *three* of your minor league catchers are arguably better hitters than both of your Major League ones? Isn't it also a bad thing when your Single-A catcher (Cap'n Lou) is arguably a better hitter than one of your Major League catchers? The final column in the player statistics, Major League EQA (MjEQA), applies difficulty adjustments to estimate what his current EQA would be if he were playing in the majors right now and performing at this level relative to his peers. Interesting stuff. Thanks to Baseball Prospectus' Clay Davenport for doing the work. Also: DHonks: But come on, has Moeller been good enough to deserve that extra day of playing time a week? No, probably not. Subjectively, he is a better game caller. And he used to be good (or at least better) the past few seasons. And he's younger, and likely to be around next season. So I guess that while he doesn't "deserve" the additional playing time, the organization is better off giving it to him than Bennett. RoCo: HOW bad is Grieve hurt, anyway? Well, Adam McCalvy's notes column yesterday revealed that Grieve suffered a knee injury earlier in the season. Here are the relevant portions: It was Grieve's first start in right field since Aug. 7 at Florida, when pain and swelling in his left calf became too much to bear. Grieve suffered from a Baker's cyst, accumulation of joint fluid that forms behind the knee, often due to some other knee problem. The cyst burst, fluid drained into Grieve's calf and his body's natural defense mechanism led to painful swelling. "I was kind of surprised," Grieve said. "I asked, 'How can a little cyst cause that much swelling?' It was balloon-like." ... [Grieve] revealed Saturday that he had been hampered earlier this season by a knee injury, and said an MRI scan revealed a piece of cartilage had broken free and settled near the joint. So Grieve has apparently been hurting pretty bad, or at least bad enough that he may have been unable to play up to his usual level (or at all). I don't know how much better the calf is now, but hopefully once the fluid has drained completely he'll be okay. ~Bill

Gary Bennett catches Victor Santos and the fifth starter. Chad Moeller catches Ben Sheets, Doug Davis, and Chris Capuano. That's just the way it is. I don't think there's any reason to expect Nedley to deviate from the 60/40 split that he's been using all season. It's nice to see Bennett getting "hot", but his post-All-Star Break OPS coming into the game was 694, not exactly something to be proud of. ~Bill

I got a chance to watch the AFLAC game and it was very cool. Cal Ripken obviously puts a lot of himself into the whole production, from the wonderful stadium to the off-the-field activities to the commentating, and his enthusiasm was very apparent. I kept some notes while I was watching but didn't record it, so I missed bits and pieces. Here is an attempt to organize them into something readable. In a lot of cases this is based only on one inning pitched or two or three at-bats, so take it for what it's worth... I reserve the right to change my mind if I see more of these guys. http://forum.brewerfan.net/images/smilies/wink.gif - Jonathan Egan, a catcher from Hephzibah Georgia, was impressive behind the plate. I was somewhat surprised that Baseball America didn't include at least a brief write-up of him in their recap, 'cause he looked fantastic defensively. In the first inning, he fired a strike to second on a tough pitch to throw on and should have had the runner easily (the second-baseman covered late, so the runner was safe even though the ball beat him by several feet). He nearly threw another runner out a few innings later, again making a strong throw right on the money. He blocked pitches well, showing solid footwork, and was a very wide, "quiet" receiver. Impressive, to say the least. He's also a good hitter, sporting a slightly open stance and real quick, loose hands. His swing (but not stance) looked a bit Chad Moeller-esque, but in a good way (I think http://forum.brewerfan.net/images/smilies/wink.gif ). - Justin Upton, who I presume was the best (or at least most highly-thought-of) player there, showed nice plate discipline and good mechanics at the plate. He has a bit of an odd trigger to his swing, pivoting his front knee in kind of like Jim Edmonds, but he kept his weight back nicely. - I didn't like Miers Quigley, a big lefty from Roswell Georgia. He throws across his body and falls of the mound toward third-base, reminding me a little bit of Mitch Williams (not quite that extreme, but the same off-balance delivery). He gave up a wind-aided home run to Ike Davis, a left-handed hitter from Arizona whose dad was a big league pitcher, on a high-and-inside fastball. Davis was impressive, with a really quick stroke (there were a lot of long swings, so he stood out quite a bit). He struck-out in his two other at-bats, but I was more impressed with his mechanics with the stick than just about anybody else. - Beau Jones is a big dude. A LHP from Louisiana, he throws a bit like Quigley, 'cept he falls more off toward first than third (but that varies, as he was pretty inconsistent with his delivery). Both guys have good fastballs that seem to be max-effort, but neither threw a whole lot of breaking pitches. The commentator described them as "funky southpaws," which I thought was very accurate. - Cameron Maybin (North Carolina) looks *a lot* like Billy Hall. He's tall, lanky, and I guess "wiry" but obviously very strong. His swing is kind of long, but he definitely looks like he could be really good. - Iain Sebastian (Georgia) looks like Adam Dunn or, as the commentator (not Ripken) said, Lyle Overbay. He's a big thick dude with an open stance, very quiet hands, and a mighty quick inside-out stroke. - Chris Volstad (RHP Florida) is really, really tall and throws a wicked sinker in the mid-80s. His delivery is silky smooth and looks like a more polished version of Roy Halladay in terms of his windup/delivery. The ball comes out on a downward plane from a high arm slot and sinks like crazy... very, very impressive. He also threw a nice breaking ball that moved quite a bit horizontally but not much vertically. - Eric Massingham (RHP California) has sort of a Trevor Hoffman, start-delay-stop delivery from straight over the top... not sure why BA described him as throwing from 3/4s. He's a nice pitcher, but I wouldn't want to be his elbow or shoulder, as the torque he puts on his arm is waaaay too much. He's got wicked stuff, but his max-effort delivery makes me think "Nick Neugebauer" and not in a good way. - Andrew McCutcheon (OF Florida) looks like quite a powerful hitter, with a long-but-quick swing. He reminded me of Maybin... very fast and a good hitter. - Bradley Clark from Tampa has a slow, methodical delivery. I would love to see more of him... not sure what to think at this point. - They interviewed Zach Putnam (Michigan RHP) and he said his pitching coach is Tom House. He got his mechanics evaluated with the advanced biomechanical cameras and got his delivery compared with Prior, Clemens, etc. He seemed like a really good kid. Those were the highlights. Did anybody else (Patrick?) get a chance to watch this, yet? Any thoughts? ~Bill

Indeed, KyBrewer. We've got Helms, Durrington, and Moeller left on the bench and Clark, Counsell, and Bennett due up in the ninth. It ain't looking real good. ~Bill

Thanks much, Tim. Was the first double a bad play by Podzilla? How 'bout the triple? ~Bill

Argh... I cannot believe we are losing this game. ***? Anyone who has been listening and/or watching, please recap this inning for us. I'm pretty certain that the Gamecast doesn't tell the whole story. ~Bill

I'm coming up with .851 OPS for Wes (.370 OBP + ..481 SLG). He came into the game batting .346/.423 ... I didn't account for his double. ~Bill

Nice job by Travis Phelps rebounding from the poor outing in his debut. Now let's get some more runs... 'cause that's what offenses do! http://forum.brewerfan.net/images/smilies/wink.gif ~Bill

He's 1-for-3 with 2 Ks and an RBI double. ~Bill

6-1 after 5. ~Bill

We're abusing Padilla like a government mule. Beautiful. ~Bill

For anyone tuning in, who is going to come on to pitch? I have a feeling it is Bennett... am I right? ~Bill

Wes Obermueller's OPS - 769 Chris Magruder's OPS - 740 I'm just saying. http://forum.brewerfan.net/images/smilies/smile.gif ~Bill