GAME05

wow, this really shocked me to hear. wasn't expecting this at all. with Saito back, i didn't see the bullpen being any particular point of weakness that the team would need to address in a trade. i wonder somewhat if Melvin wasn't particularly looking for a set-up man/closer and this just happened to come at the right price. but why is it stated "Players to be named later"? i thought there was some rule with trades that you couldn't say PTBNL unless that/those players don't have particularly big prospect values, like throw-in AA and Single-A guys? Or is it more that the press just reported the story before MLB had a chance to get their official announcement out? K-Rod already has Boras as an agent, and the Mets reportedly threw some money in. Maybe there was a particular agreement in place that the Brewers would be able to offer less in prospects (and getting the Mets off the hook for his $17.5M contract next year) but agreeing to let K-Rod go as a Free Agent next year. the CBS report was almost sure that K-Rod would become our closer and Axford would be moved into a set-up role. K-Rod has been doing just fine as a closer this year, but why would you want to take Axford out of that role??? A couple bumps at the beginning of the season, but he's been amazing for the past two months. Will we have any farm team at all by the end of July?

heat index of 101 right now in Southern Texas, but it's a relatively mild day--only 93 degrees outside, but normal summer temps are 98 degrees and much more humid. i work outside all day in Carhartt jeans and a polyester shirt. it's been difficult to adjust and apparently it's only going to get worse in a month. people told me in NC that i'd get adjusted to the heat, but you really never do. there was nothing like getting all dressed up for work but being drenched in sweat from just the 15-minute drive from home to the office. what has helped tremendously is to douse my head in water, then also wet a rag and put a cap on over that. the evaporation of the water off my head keeps me considerably cooler and makes things quite tolerable. also, i drink about two gallons of water over the course of a 12-hour workday to keep my energy up. i add that new Mio kool-aid type flavouring. it's zero calories and helps me drink a lot more than if i were just drinking plain water. another trick i use is to clip a caribener to my belt loop and carry a half-size Nalgene of water with me wherever i go. i'd heard somewhere that old-time ballplayers would wear a cabbage leaf under their caps to keep them cooler while they were on the field.

i still can't get over why they spelled basterds with an 'e'.

i heard that a fan nearby shielded the kid's eyes from having to watch his father fall. i'm surprised this doesn't happen for the height of most railings, but it's pretty gut-wrenching when i hear about it, moreso for someone who has a family. that his last words were asking about the safety of his son is harder still, knowing that he was a good father. it amazes me that any announcer could make a joke out of it knowing how great a fall it is and that you'd be landing on rigid seats and cement. the NHL added a lot of netting once a kid got killed by a puck, and i wonder if MLB will do something similar by raising the railings to make it hard to trip over. at the same time, that would also obstruct the view of a lot more people in the upper decks. giving a firmer warning isn't going to do much when a dude is intent on nabbing a ball to give it to his son. a drunk guy falling over doesn't hurt quite as much, but this one does.

this'll be like All In The Family when Meathead and the daughter quit the show, yet it kept running. we're not quite ready to see it end, yet we're also kinda hoping that it does.

i don't matter since i'm out of market, but i'd be happy with anyone (or anything) who would replace Jim Rome. you guys don't know how lucky you have it. my radio station interrupts its sports talk with 15 minutes of classical musical music at the top of every hour. not that i'm against classical music, but it makes no sense.

it's gonna cost me $3,500 at the dentist to not look like a hillbilly anymore.

i add a little bit of salt to my soaking water. although i've tried both husk-on and husk-off and prefer the flavour of taking the husk completely off. possibly it dries it out more, but i found it added a lot more grill taste. either way, though, boiling corn doesn't even come close to the awesomeness of the grilled variety.

i feel like i read somewhere that 90% of the brandy consumed in the US is purchased in Wisconsin and Minnesota. i'd ask for it on snowy days in North Carolina and nobody ever carried it.

i'd never realized how tasty pistachios were until just now. plus since they take a bit of fidgeting to open, i don't feel like having a cigarette--double bonus.

i'm not a soccer player, but it looked to me like the US team played pretty poorly. i've read articles that agreed that Bradley should go, but that there isn't a strong enough fan base in this country to generate the noise to get him fired. obviously this wasn't the World Cup, but i thought this would have created a lot more fans if we were to have won this tournament. is everything about gearing up for the World Cup? are these other tournaments of so little importance?

to add a little bit to what DHonks said, the combative/i-know-more nature of some discussions i think prevents a lot of people from posting their own opinions and keeps potential posters in that 'lurking' stage. it's a bit scary to jump into conversation in the Major League section. i used to visit an Appalachian Trail discussion website until it became too much that four or five people started insulting each other in a battle over who is the alpha male and dominant expert. it's odd the contrast between the Major League Forum and the friendly, helpful Off-Topic Forum. we don't do the Three Strikes policy anymore and have moved away from more heavy-handed moderation, maybe because it probably took up so much time for the Moderators. however, I for one would welcome some return of that to maintain some civility.

i think it's acceptable, but only if you're younger than 14 years old. otherwise, no. i like to consider that if Jack Palance wouldn't have ever uttered a particular word or phrase, then i shouldn't, either.

we're four wins better than last year!!!!

so aren't we essentially trading one bunch of veterans for an identical bunch of veterans? you know, like we did last year and the year before?

you're all heretics.

other relievers will show a better WHIP but are often prone to the occasional blowup inning. maybe Axford lets more guys on base, but he's still consistently in control. i get a lot less nervous with Axford on the mound than i would be with most any other reliever.

i'm pretty strict when it comes to HOF consideration and think it takes some kind of defining, impactful moment that goes beyond statistics. the year Ryan, Brett and Yount made it, they all had that. on top of Damon's numbers not cutting it, he definitely doesn't stick out to me as anything more as having been a decent bat in a lineup. maybe having a Reggie Jackson-esque playoff moment could push him through, but he didn't have that, either. i was looking forward to this Boston series because it seems like a team won't get any real media playoff consideration until we beat New York or Boston, and in some respects that's fair. then again i could care less whether espn or another national outlet says about the Brewers, or if we even get talked about. if we make the Playoffs, they'll all be forced to talk about us, regardless.

i don't have the impression the movie is going to be anything revolutionary like the book was, just your run-of-the-mill man-against-the-odds movie. granted, i like those movies. where the book focused on a new statistical approach, i just don't get the impression we're going to get a discussion of anything beyond what OBP is. if anything, this looks like it'll be a dramatic version of Major League, with the misfits suddenly making it good, and a bunch of DePodesta nerd jokes thrown in.

if it takes three great players to make a championship team and we trade Bogut to theoretically get one (assuming we draft the next Kobe Bryant and not the next Greg Odom), where do the other two great players come from? if the answer is great GM moves and a bit of luck, then there's no reason we can't do that with Bogut on the team. if there's so little talent on the team that we can't make any move to get a high draft pick without losing Bogut, then we probably have a lot bigger obstacles to cover before we'd start gutting the team. plus why would you want to do that before the next CBA is finished? maybe that could give lesser teams more advantages to bring in FAs or make other moves.

yeah, Eastern Time was awful. even if it was the Packers playing, i couldn't stay up late enough to finish watching Monday Night Football. and forget about playoff baseball games that would last to 1 am. Central Time is perfect for football because i could get home from Late Service, have a half hour to change and be just in time for the game to start. baseball is timed so well that i'll be wanting to get to sleep right at the time the game is over. i'm still intrigued by Pacific Time. for anyone with a long commute, having a baseball game to listen to would be nice. but then again you probably don't win that argument when your wife wants to start dinner and you want to finish listening to the game.

if things somehow went horribly wrong and we were out of it at the Break, i think the Brewers are in good position to take the best player/s available regardless of their position. a pitcher could take Wolf's spot in the rotation and we could easily slide any infielder into the starting lineup.

though he's getting better every year, i just don't trust that Fielder will be the exception to power hitters historically falling off just past 30 years old. it'd be great to have him for a few more years, but $23M per year to pay a theoretically marginal player would cripple the team. Seattle once thought Sexon would remain a good power hitter once, too. plus Melvin and Co. tend to be better at developing hitters than pitchers, and finding good hitters in FA. having our two biggest contracts be for hitters banks a lot on Melvin turning things around and developing some pitchers. this doesn't play to Melvin's strength as a GM.

i'm glad you seem to be liking North Carolina so far, Funketown.

at this point i'm still able to go back and forth whether i like the two trades or not. Lawrie and Odorizzi have "special" written all over them, and that's hard to give up. unless they're punching teammates or pledging allegiance to Mussolini, i don't really care what their personalities are--that's what a good manager is there to control. being shocked that an underage Lawrie drinks malt liquor and has a cocky attitude is really holding them to a superhuman standard. i wouldn't be surprised if a lot of current players were actually jerks in the locker room already, despite how they appear to the media. i don't think we really understood how bad Quevedo and Alex Sanchez were on this team until they finally left. would it be about right to guess that the Jeffress/Odorizzi/Lawrie combo makes six All-Star appearances between them by the time they hit free agency? maybe that's even ambitious. but then in Greinke and Marcum it sure looks like they could each be an All-Star in both of their next two years--that's four appearances. so we're talking four versus six. that's a decent bit of production to give up, but then there's such a short window for us Middle Class ballclubs to make the playoffs, that maybe that risk is worth it. or maybe i'm just convincing myself of that because it's what we have now. my fear if we didn't make the trade is that we'd look like the Jason Bay Pirates in four years, having one or two good, young players but with no support around them and fighting a losing battle. keeping the prospects but having a lot of money to spend in Free Agency hasn't shown to be a winning strategy. in some respects, i like the trade based on how Free Agency has historically gone for us. it's near impossible to get the money and then convince a top-flight FA to come to Milwaukee. in some respects, i think some of the value in this trade is in the gamble that one of these two likes Milwaukee and decides to resign with us, even for a competitive salary. if Greinke weren't already a Brewer (his personal issues notwithstanding), i wouldn't hold any hope of him coming here. at whatever price it takes, for me, these two trades becoming a good value for us hinges entirely on our ability to resign one of Marcum and Greinke. if they both leave, then i'll regret the trade. if one stays, then i'll live with Jake or Matt becoming a top-flight player for another team.