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Wolf's salary is $9.25M. The $5.25 is already taking the $4M into account.

People did. I wasn't one of them, but people did.

Over a single game there is a ton of luck in baseball, over time the skill wins out though. Over time isn't necessarily one year.

Oh, let's not forget that McGehee is obviously going to be bad next season, right? Nobody has ever said McGehee is going to be bad. There are doubts that he will repeat 2009 and it is possible Gamel would be a better 3B in 2010 than McGehee.

PitchF/X is where the focus should be, location, velocity differential between pitches, break on the pitch, etc.. If you're a pitcher getting lit up chances are you're leaving the ball up in the zone. it's that simple. Funny you mention that after the article Russ posted earlier today. I find hard to believe that anybody who watches baseball wouldn't believe luck plays a large role in baseball.

I am not so sure about that. I think most fans are results driven. They would probably say "Wow, Yo just blew that one by that guy."

Half a run of ERA over 180 innings is about one win.

A SS doesn't really have to hit well to justify a starting spot if they can play even average defense. The average SS put up a line of MLB - .271/.328/.394/.721, NL - .268/.327/.396/.723 in 2009. Even an average SS is typically a pretty poor hitter. We probaly really should split off into an Escobar thread.

$10 for a future purchase as well. Amazon has DA:O PS3/Xbox360 for $45 with free whipping and no tax. Amazon has had some pretty good deals on games for a few months now. I added "winter" to the title since there seem to be a few good games coming out by early March in 2010. Most notably Mass Effect 2 and Final Fantasy XIII. I also have some interest in Army of Two: The 40th Day and Crackdown 2. The original Crackdown was a lot of fun especially after you powered up your agent to leap tall buildings.

He hit .328 at AA at age 21 and followed that up at age 22 hitting a combined .299 in 555 ABs divided between AAA and the majors. Hart hit .302 at AA at age 21 and hit .281 the following year at AAA. Weeks hit .259 in AA at age 21. Yes he hasn't shown the power of Hart or Weeks yet but he's a much more accomplished base stealer in the minors than either of those two. It isn't all about the power with Escobar. He doesn't walk much either. Don't forget to look at OBP when comparing players. It is more important than BA. Escobar was 2nd on the Nashville team in DP's hit into. No one here doubts him. I'm not sure who is disagreeing that Escobar has the tools to be a really, really good player and/or All-Star. I have some doubts. He has plenty of time to mature though. I think we need to keep in mind that we are talking about next year, not 2-3 years from now. The discussion is where should Escobar hit right now. Not where should he hit in 2011 and beyond. Right now Escobar is probably expected to be our 7th best hitter. That isn't a guy I want hitting higher than 6th in the lineup.

I would think Macha will use Gallardo as the Opening Day starter. He doesn't really seem to think Gallardo is even a #2 yet though(about 0:50 in). He also was pretty happy with Looper last year.(about 1:08 in) Link

Suppan isn't really the problem either. His contract is. I f we had him for about $8-9M less, I doubt there would be anywhere near as many upset people. His contract is horrible and he isn't great, but he is still one of our 7 best starters.

I stopped caring or watching the NBA when the Bucks lost in the conference finals to the 76ers. I see no reason to restart watching a sport where many of the fouls seem arbitrary.

Parra is exactly the type of pitcher you should be targeting for 2009 Several posters have said that here. TheCrew07 immediately comes to mind. Parra is the type of pitcher we should be targeting, yet he has constantly been bandied about as someone we should be trading for a sure thing. I personally think we are on the outside looking in and Parra is the type of guy we should be trading for/hanging onto to build towards the future.

I might. I didn't mean to slight Capitol Brewery and maybe I did. I was just kind of trying to make the point that beer is so diverse that if a brewery doesn't make a beer you like, it doesn't mean it is making bad beer. I will admit that I believe most people who contribute to this thread probably believe that. I try to keep some stuff Beer Advocate has about reviewing a beer in mind. Specifically this part The Sierra Nevada Celebration Ale for instance. It was to hoppy for my liking, but I can see how TLB would like it. I am not sure if I posted about that beer. I don't think it was bad, just not to my liking. It really is a segmented hobby. There is a fine line between beer snob and beer geek. I know I cross the line into snob often especially with the people I work with since they are of the Miller/Bud mass produced preference. I have never reviewed a beer on Beer Advocate, BTW I love their monthly magazine, and probably never will. I am just not good at going beyond good/bad, like/don't like stuff on beer, although I do know hoppy or wheat flavors. I did like the NG Snowshoe. So did my wife. I have been drinking mostly New Belgium Fat Tire lately. Kind of thinner than I usually drink, but I am still trying to branch out from just wheat beer. The only thing about beer I wiil pimp more than NG is Beer Advocate. That site and their magazine are tremendous resources. Respect Beer Basically, if you like hoppy beer, go with mostly TLB selections, if you like wheat beer go with either fstorm(where are you man?) or myself. Beer is so incredibly diverse much like when I was a kid going into the store and picking out Graf's soda, some like grape, some like orange. Oh yeah, Hops N Props is on March 6th in 2010. I hope to make it and see some of you guys there.

I saw this and still maintain the Dwight vs Jim conflict was the best part of the show. I think it really would have been best to see this show go off the air a year or two ago. Of course I was a big fan of the Brithsh Office and liked the series Extras as well so I like to see a series go off the air a little quickly rather than stick around for a slow painful death with a few bright spots amongst the chaff.

New Glarus has some hints at their 2010 beer schedule on their website. They are adding Moon Man(No Coast Pale Ale, whatever that might be) to their year round lineup. Year Round Kind of surprising since most of their year round lineup usually comes from either an unplugged beer(like the Crack'd Wheat for their Imperial Weizen) or a seasonal beer. Looks like they are having 2 bocks in their seasonal lineup. A Wisconsin Bock(?) and a Wisconsin honey bock. Possibly 4 months of D-Man instead of 3, although making it a full time beer would be great. Road Slush comes back, my wife loves that. Seasonals I know, I know, I constantly plug New Glarus and I am sure some people are tired of it. I just really am happy to have a brewery like them locally. I really have not liked any of their Unplugged series, but that series is the biggest reason I like the brewery. They try stuff outside of the norm and in my opinion mostly fail miserably. They make really good wheat beer and solid porters and stouts albeit only seasonally. I can understand some people not liking New Glarus much especially if you like hoppy beer. They don't make really hoppy beer. Much like I don't really care for most of Capitol Brewery's offerings. I think they are mostly "thin" beer. I like their Island Wheat but think most of their beer is good beer watered down. I like beer you can't see through when poured in a glass.

the upgrades at C and SP'ing could allow for a large net gain I think we are about maybe a win worse as a team right now than the team as it was constructed just after the Looper signing. Right about 83ish wins. I think the common belief is that Gomez is a better defender than Cameron but it is probably around half a win better or less. Even optomistic projections put Gomez somewhere around 2+ wins worse on offense I believe.

I did something similar to that for the NL pitchers from 2009 and came up with this. I used 32 starts per spot in the rotation which means I dropped off 2 starts by the starters with the worst ERA.Link NL Spot - ERA/Innings per start 1 - 3.19/6.3 2 - 3.77/6.1 3 - 4.24/5.8 4 - 4.73/5.7 5 - 5.65/5.2 AL Spot - ERA/Innings per start 1 - 3.27/6.4 2 - 3.98/6.2 3 - 4.47/5.9 4 - 5.08/5.5 5 - 6.47/5.1 Wow does that 5th spot balloon way up in the AL.

Yes, Gomez to this point wishes he hit as well as Kendall. Kendall's has a better or close OPS with a higher OBP in the last 3 years. Kendall .301/.309/.610 .327/.324/.651 .331/.305/.636 Gomez .288/.307/.592 .296/.360/.657 .287/.337/.623

Thanks for the tips guys. I live in the Madison area so I doubt I would go down to Cudahy.

It's really not "unrealistic" that Prince Fielder is not on the team in 2011 for one reason or another. Blowing out his knee isn't realistic, but being traded is definitely realistic. It is unrealistic to think he is only keeping the players that have contracts right now. My point is that yes we don't have to pay guys the next year if they get injured, but to only count guaranteed contracts is at best misleading.

I will say that I honestly am not concerned what the average player put up when deciding batting order. I think you have to build a lineup looking at what you have. Weeks career OBP is about .350. Add to that he hits for a lot more power, he doesn't have to steal a base to get to 2nd, and he is clearly a better hitter than Escobar. While it might not be preferable to have Weeks bat leadoff, he is probably our 3rd best hitter depending on what McGehee puts up. Hart put up disappointing numbers in 2009 and 2008 but his 2009 was still 50 points of OPS higher than Escobar's numbers. With a higher OBP I will add. While Hart's numbers are worse at his position than Escobar's are for his, Hart is still the better hitter. If anything, Escobar might outhit McGehee of all the guys in our lineup. Escobar's minors numbers are better or comparable in the last couple years to McGehee's with a better OBP. I don't think McGehee will hit as well as he did in 2009. I kind of doubt he outhits McGehee though. I will add that after the last couple years of seeing our guys tear up AA I am a little skeptical of numbers put up in the Southern League. McGehee 2008 AAA .345/.429/.774 2007 AA .338/.422/.760 Escobar .333/.368/.701 .363/.434/.797 In my opinion our hitters are split up like this Tier 1 Fielder Braun Tier 2 Weeks McGehee Hart Tier 3 Zaun Escobar Tier 4 Bench players Tier 5 Gomez Pitchers

It is much easier to wheel and deal when you are a mid seventies win team compared to when you are a team a player or two away from competing for a playoff spot. Unless Seattle way outperforms their Pythagorean record again, they were a mid seventies win team at the start of the offseason.

It's a big time boom or bust trade and frankly, the Brewers as currently constructed needed that type of player if they were going to have a real chance to surprise people next year and win 90 games. If the Brewers wanted to win 90 games in 2010 they needed to surprise peole and have a player like Cameron in CF. At this point, Gomez wishes he could hit as well as Jason Kendall.