batman

To clarify, there is no amount of "buying" that could help this club to the same extent that a productive Scott Podsednik and Geoff Jenkins would. Those two players were keys to our offense coming into the season, and Team Canada put together a collection of players to complement them. Lyle Overbay has been a huge surprise, and that has helped enormously, but our offense just isn't built to produce with negative contributions from Jenkins and minimal contributions from Podsednik. If those two players were producing as they were expected to coming into the season, we'd be an average offensive team (or perhaps a little worse, but certainly better than we are now). ~Bill

I don't disagree with you about being sellers, Jason, but it just seems like everyday brings a new revelation about how we aren't a very good offensive team. Without a productive Podsednik or Jenkins, we have a lineup filled with average or below average players and Lyle Overbay. When your leadoff hitter has a sub-.330 on-base average and your #3 hitter has an OPS under .750 (!), you just aren't going to score a lot of runs. Add in a horrible catching duo and our collection of valuable but not exceptional players like Counsell, Ginter, and Grieve just aren't going to be able to carry the team. In other words, we shouldn't change our trading strategy because of our particularly acute offensive struggles of late. Selling Vizcaino has always been a good idea, as has been dealing Spivey and probably Counsell. I like all three of those players, and they all can be valuable contributors, but none of them is particularly cost-effective and they are all unlikely to be retained beyond this season. This Brewers team has gotten this far with [edit: corrected "without"] a below average offense. With some good fortune and a return to form from the aforementioned duo of underproducing outfielders (and hopefully some improved play from our other under-contract-and-sucking-"star", Wes Helms) they will likely continue to play well, at least as long as the pitching holds up. We should be reveling in the goodness of this all, not bemoaning the fact that we don't score a lot of runs. ~Bill

Getting dominated by Greg Maddux isn't the end of the world. Why is our offensive futility such shocking news every day? Good pitchers will get us out. We won't score a lot of runs very often. And that's how its been since the beginning of May. Nothing has suddenly changed. When we score four or more runs, we have a good chance of winning. When someone like Greg Maddux brings his "A" game, we probably won't win. That's just how it is. ~Bill

I gotta agree with you, MB... at this point, we don't really have any Triple-A relief pitchers that I would feel comfortable inserting into our big league bullpen. While Childers was described by the Brewers' brass as being "down on the depth chart," his success at Triple-A seemed to make him one of the better relief options available. As of now, who do we have? Ben Ford? Matt Childers? Dan Reichert? Childers wasn't easily replaced, which is an important consideration, and he was also a successful relief option in case of injury or ineffectiveness. Did we really need Peter Bergeron this badly? Couldn't Chris Magruder have filled that fourth outfield spot just as well? I wouldn't have a problem trading him if he was to net something valuable in return, but that wasn't the case. Its not the end of the world, but I would feel much better if Jason Childers was the AAA closer, helping Indy win some games and ensuring that we have someone who doesn't suck ready to go in case we need him. ~Bill

Best. Google Image. Ever. Nicely done, danzig! http://forum.brewerfan.net/images/smilies/wink.gif ~Bill

Victor Freaking Santos. How good is this guy? He's now 9-3 with a 3.80 ERA. Wow. If you haven't read about his journeyman career, check out a game recap I wrote for the Daily Brew during the last Cubs' series. www.brewerfan.net/ViewDai...portId=270 Pretty interesting story, and a Jose Paniagua reference. How can you go wrong? http://forum.brewerfan.net/images/smilies/wink.gif Great win today. Great win. Very pleased. ~Bill

Sorry for the early start to this game thread, but Ueck just announced that tommorow's first pitch changed to 3:05 CDT and I wanted to make sure everyone knew that. Someone will sticky this tomorrow. This has been a public service announcement brought to you by Miller Beer and Usinger's Sausage. EDIT: Actually, 3:05 was the scheduled start time. My bad... should have checked first. Regardless, here's your super-early game thread. Enjoy. http://forum.brewerfan.net/images/smilies/wink.gif ~Bill

endaround: Agreed about Dusty... Felipe Alou is really lapping the pack in PAP this year. That's one thing I really appreciate about Nedley... he has done a great job of limiting pitch counts and stress on our starting pitchers. homer: You only have to go five innings to get the win, so Vic would get it if we hold on. EDIT: I also prefer MLB.com's Gameday deal. After the game, CBS Sportsline has excellent game logs, but during the game MLB.com is the best. ~Bill

Todd Walker hasn't been playing much at all... he only has eleven at-bats this month. The Cubs' faithful are in "Free Walker" mode, but Dusty prefers Grudzy I guess. And Tom Goodwin is a proven professional hitter , and so that's why he gets to pinch-hit first. Also, remember how I said yesterday that Kyle Farnsworth had missed some time with arm soreness? Remember how I said that he had been pitching with incredible frequency? Now he's back, and Dusty uses him on consecutive days. Give the dude a break, Dusty... he's white! ~Bill

I don't know if this was mentioned on the broadcasts, but the Cubs activated RHP Todd Wellemeyer from the disabled list and optioned Brendan Harris to Triple-A Iowa before the game. I'm not sure if Wellemeyer is available or not, but that means Ordonez, Bako, and Walker are the only healthy Cubs on the bench now. ~Bill

Ok, someone needs to explain what just happened. I think JP did a good job, but that didn't make any sense. Hall started stealing before Clement pitched, and then Clement just chilled on the rubber and uncorked a wild pitch that allowed Hall to go to third? Bonehead play by Hall, I presume? Nice hit, Brooks. ~Bill

He can't even bunt. Gary Bennett is terrible. ~Bill

I'm late to the party, but just in time to hear Geoff Jenkins' hit a home run. I can dig that. http://forum.brewerfan.net/images/smilies/smile.gif ~Bill

Ah, The Rick. If only I was that cool. http://forum.brewerfan.net/images/smilies/ohwell.gif If Santos' Vampire split keeps up for another month or two, I'm sure I'll be motivated to figure it out somehow. At this point, though, I'm just going to hope he turns things around, 'cause that might be a difficult project. http://forum.brewerfan.net/images/smilies/wink.gif ~Bill

Someone should try to find something (meaning I'd like to know but no clue how to find out) about why Santos is better at night. He was asked about it after struggling in the start at home against the Twins and had this to say: "I have the same routine, the same preparation. I think it's just coincidence. Today I just had no control of the fastball. I fell behind, and you can't get hitters out like that." I wish we had access to his minor league splits, 'cause that might help determine whether this is just luck or if its a larger trend. I really have no idea how else to figure out what's up. ~Bill

Why couldn't Santos have started yesterday and Davis today? Does Nedley not realize the dramatic difference between sunshine Victor and darkness Victor? If not, that's pretty lame. If he does, and he chose to start him today anyway, why? Not a huge deal, but I just don't understand the reasoning. ~Bill

The thing about finding in-game managers that you like is that most of us don't see very many games of teams that aren't the Brewers. We get a good feel for the divisional opponents, but even that is not a real, day-in-day-out perspective on what the manager does in certain situations. You can get a pretty good "executive summary" of how someone handles their club, but unless you watch the team every day and really pay attention, its hard to separate the good from the bad. That said, a few of the managers that I find to be solid tacticians (mostly in small samples, mind you) are Eric Wedge, Carlos Tosca, and Buck Schowalter. All three are way down on the list in intentional walks given, sacrifice hits, and stolen base attempts. I think Lou Piniella is very good, too. The only managers I see consistently, however, are Baker, LaRussa, Miley, Sacrifice Jimy, and Stealin' Lloyd. I don't really like any of them with the exception of Miley, who also seems to have problems handling his bullpen. I don't think there's a manager I'd rather have in the NL Central than Nedley, warts and all. ~Bill

Interesting stuff. I'm certainly willing to re-evaluate my bias in favor of collegians, although I do agree that the available data is still pretty limited and its hard to isolate different variables (like the strength and conditioning that Patrick points out). Still, this is yet another solid research project that has found little variance in risk between prep players and college players. I've always believed that the further one gets from their "peak age," the more difficult it is to accurately predict what kind of player they will be. It seems intuitive, but sometimes I get the feeling that scouts do way too much "projecting," especially with young high school players. That is still a big risk, but if the injury question isn't as clear cut as it was once thought to be, then the equation changes quite a bit. I do think that adding the best quality players possible to the system benefits them insofar as we have more qualified coaches and trainers (arguably... at least we *should*) than they would have access to at college. I still think the "best quality player" calculation is much harder to figure when the player is an 18-year old high schooler versus a 22-year old collegian, but that's why scouts are important pieces of the puzzle. One thing that I've thought about before is this: what if an MLB team made pre-draft deals in the vein of Moneyball, only they exclusively took mid-20th round picks and signed them for very minimal contracts (or didn't sign them at all), instead opting to invest that money in the Major League club? Could a franchise survive for a long period of time relying exclusively on trades and free agents to stock their minor league system? Could the added payroll at the MLB level make a difference in improving the team? Probably not, but it would be an interesting experiment. Good stuff, guys! ~Bill

01. Joe Mauer - Twins [C, high school] 02. Mark Prior - Cubs [P, USC] 03. Dewon Brazelton - DRays [P, MTSU] 04. Gavin Floyd - Phillies [P, high school] 05. Mark Teixeira - Rangers [3B, GA Tech] 06. Josh Karp - Expos [P, UCLA] 07. Chris Smith - Orioles [P, Cumberland] 08. John Van Benschoten - Pirates [P, Kent State] 09. Colt Griffin - Royals [P, high school] Other notables include Mike Jones at 11, Casey Kotchman at 14, Bobby Crosby at 25, Jeremy Bonderman at 26, and David Wright at 38 (among others). Interesting. ~Bill

Rumors are floating that Mark Prior has been hurting since at least his last start. Anybody want to place odds on whether or not he has a torn ligament in his elbow? I'd say its got to be at least 25/75 right now. Talk about a tough loss for the Cubs if that is indeed true. Maybe they'll get RJ for themselves instead of pawning him off for Nomar. ~Bill

That could be right, Toby... I'm using Firefox on OS X, which sometimes allows me to do things that otherwise don't work. Most of the "no right clicking" scripts don't work, for example. Definitely go with a Yahoo! Briefcase, Al. ~Bill

Yep. ~Bill

Hmm... not sure. Try right-clicking on the image and choosing to open it (either in a new window or whatever). Then hit "back" and see if it shows up. ~Bill

RoCo, I know you can't *just* walk to score runs, but we did get five hits tonight. That's 14 baserunners. If some of those walks were "refused" and instead the batter was "aggressive" and tried to get a hit, who's to say they would have reached base at all? We'd probably just see more Jenkins' at-bats that result in 4-3 rollers. Ginter and Podsednik both doubled. Put a couple walks before one of them and we have an additional run or two. Add a single and we've tied it up. We had the component parts tonight, in other words, we just didn't "put them together" well. That will be a problem on some nights, but it doesn't mean our offense shoulder alter its approach. If Jenkins and Helms would manage a few extra-base hits and Overbay would continue hitting doubles, we've got enough ammunition to drive home baserunners. The offense has problems, no doubt. But its because some of our players aren't very good, not because we drew nine walks tonight and only got one run. ~Bill

Moderation, my friends. Indeed. I've fallen victim to overreaction more than my share of times, but tonight wasn't as bad as it is being made out to be. We got a lot of baserunners... that's a good thing. If we keep getting this many baserunners every game, I guarantee we will score enough runs to win a lot of games. We might never be an offensive juggernaut, but I think there are a lot of positives to take out of tonight's game. Jenkins isn't one of them, although he did draw a walk. That's a start, right? ~Bill