Time for a Miller

Toolivebrew, illogical to me, is quite different then just saying illogical. The "to me" or "IMO" can make a world of difference in how a comment is interptreted. And as far as not being classy, I also said I would enjoy attending a game with DougJones, which was a legitmimate offer. I look forward to meeting up during the offseason with all or any regular posters. It seems some people may take this all a little to seriously. I do not hold a grudge against Fatter than Joey for saying "just stick to the crack." This is complex for me to explain since I could take the oversensitive approach that some of the people on this board take and whine about how he is being condenscending towards me and going against the BF.net code of conduct, but that is dumb. Fatter than Joey and I just have a different approach to how we enjoy baseball. I rarely agree with what he posts, but I always read it and enjoy it.

DougJones, you make me laugh. If I weren't convinced of your masculinity I would guess that you were some girl Ned Yost stood up for your junior prom. Your hatred of him just seems illogical to me. I think he did an excellent job managing this young team and he is far less condenscending towards fans/reporters then other MLB managers. I am sure you will recant by next season and I would really enjoy sitting next to you for a game and enjoying a few 6$ beers while you rip Yost's every move (he will be back next year). I'm just thinking that if your willing to pay six dollars for a beer there is no way a man who has so little effect on the outcome of a game will keep you away from Miller Park's green grass, white chalk lines, and perfectly raked infield dirt. I look forward to the offseason and detailed statistical analysis of Yost's performance (slash, non-performance since managers do very little.) I like Brewerfan.net a lot more during the offseason when I need more Brewer talk to fuel my addiction.

Winner, Winner, Chicken Dinner. I got the chance to buy 4 playoff tickets at Miller Park with only one entry. I hope I get the chance to use them.

LouisEly, I have been thinking about the question you posed a lot regarding relievers and number of scorelss outings vs. blow up innings. It is very interesting to me since Turnbow is probably our closer for next year and I commend you with actually going through and calculating the stats you posted. I've wanted to do that and thank you for taking the time to do it. However, your argument is partially flawed. You think that Yost does not pull the relievers out early enough, but in actuality he has been pulling Turnbow a lot earlier. Turnbow is still responsible for the ducks already on the pond though. Also, as Logan pointed out with regards to Cordero, if he is struggling then you really don't have many options left. Cordero has been able to recover and wiggle of the hook at times too.

I disaggree with your assesment of the last two questions thablinghster. You sight that Ned Yost has cost the Brewers a playoff spot with all his "incorrect" moves. Doug Melvin and Mark Attinasio at least publicly disaggree with you as well. Rather then argue this on a point by point basis, which seems to be the majority of what happens on BF.net, I will simply state that even the worst in-game managing performance of all time cost a team 5 wins whereas the best in-game managing performance picked up 1/2 of a win for a team as estimated by Baseball behind the numbers. To site one example of why thinking Ned Yost has cost this team a lot of games is flawed consider the Kevin Mench vs. Ryan Dempster example. I also did not aggree with Yost leaving Mench in there instead of pinch hitting. Let's look at this sitiuation more closely by looking at Counsell, Jenkins, and Mench OBP vs. righties 2007 Mench .264 Jenkins .329 Counsell .341 So there is only a 7.7% chance that Counsell is going to have success in that situation as opposed to Mench. This does not factor in the "flow of the game." The effect that this plays is laregly debatable, however. Many people who think Yost has cost this team a bunch of games seems to feel that a different player would have succeeded when this is largely incorrect. A 7% increase is actually quite large in baseball. If Yost made this "incorrect" decision every game the entire season (largely impossible since decisions like this don't occur that often) it would cost the brewers 12 wins. Let's expand this arguement however since Mench's sample size agains righties this year is severly limited. OBP vs. righties last 3 years Mench .305 Jenkins .366 Counsell .340 If you look at it in this light you would want Jenkins batting instead of Counsell, which is not consitent. There is a 6.1% chance Jenkins gets a on base when Mench would not meaning if this situation happened in every game the Brewers would win 10 more games over the entire year. Again this does not include mitigating factors. Now let's get crazy and say this situation happens in 10 games over the course of the season and Yost makes this "incorrect" move every single time. That would result in less then one loss over the course of the entire season. Now let's spin this move so it makes Ned Yost's decision to leave Mench in the game appear smart, which it may have been. OBP as a pinch hitter over last 3-years Jenkins .278 Counsell .323 Menches OBP last 3-years vs. pitcher 1st AB in game .324 There might be something to the "flow of the game" mumbo jumbo. Baseball can not be viewed in black and white. When a manager makes a move the increase in success is usually very slight. If he brings in a PH they probably would have failed as well. I do not want this to turn into an argument over this specific move. i.e. Dempster was throwing balls and Mench is aggressive, etc. etc. I said I did not aggree with Yost on this particular move already. I was just trying to illustrate that even if Yost is screwing up terribly, which he is not, the amount of games a manager can cost a team is small. I also do not aggree with your assessment on the second point thablingster, that the bullpen has cost this team between 5 to 10 wins and this is "sad." I think our bullpen is adequate to very good, and has probably cost us more then 10 wins. Over the course of a 162 game season no team is going to go undefeated and the best teams are going to lose at least 65 games. This means that somebody is not doing there job. The bullpen has cost us games, but you seem to be demanding perfection, which is unattainable. The sad thing is that despite the fact that Ned Yost is doing a fine job managing a young team that should not be sniffing the post-season yet, it is impossible to convince most people otherwise. A manager does not have a significant impact on the season since baseball is a game of very slight differences between most players. It seems many people want to micro-analyze situations and when there is only a 30% chance of success your going to fail 70% of the time. Ned Yost does a good job of keeping a bunch of young guys level headed with the help of some veteran players. How bout we start saying Ned Yost is a genius since he made moves like playing Joe Dillon and Craig Counsell today. Or how about Saturday when he brought in Shouse to get Griffey out and then brought in King who struck out Adam Dunn to hold onto the lead. If your thinking oh he got lucky, or oh that is what's suppose to happen, then you are going to be fustrated with any manager and baseball in general.

It sucks that the Cardinals and Cubs can not both lose.

Well, I posted this thread earlier in the year when the Brewers went through their 10-20 stretch. After I posted it they turned it around..... for awhile. I hope posting it again will help them turn it around again (and they say baseball players are superstitious). I think the Brewers downward spiral started when I broke up with my girlfriend during the first days of July. Well, over the last week we have completely reconciled and we now both agree that we are back together. I'm doing my part to help the Brewers make the playoffs. What are you doing? I guess if they don't make the playoffs at least there will be a lot less laundry to do around Wisconsin. http://forum.brewerfan.net/images/smilies/wink.gif

Yost was relying on three pitchers to do the job effectively. Suppan, Villaneuva, and Wise. Suppan may have been pulled to early, but when Yost went to the mound it did not look like he was going to pull Soup unless he said he was gassed. It was hot and humid and sometimes pitchers get tired before their pitch count would indicate it (Sheets had an 80-something start where he was cruising, but left). Suppan started struggling the inning before he got pulled giving up a walk and a hit before he started looking really tired in the sixth. Looking at the situation in a vaacum does not necissarily represent the actual on field situation. 5-run, 83-pitches, 1-run in maybe different from one day to the next. Villaneuava cruised through one inning and then gave up a walk and a well hit double. I guess he was no longer being effective so we pulled him for Linebrink who is only a one-inning pitcher. We had a 5 run lead going into the 9th. I do not know of any other situation more ideal to let Wise pitch. He only had one terrible outing remember. It's not like he was officially struggling. He gives up a walk and a HR. So we brought in our closer in a 3-run game to pitch one inning. An ideal situation for any major league closer, and he blows it. Walks are one of the clearest indications that a pitcher is struggling. It's not as if the hits Villanueva and Wise gave up were cheap flares or groundballs through the infield. Yost managed the bullpen extremely well today when it was not the easy 7-inning guy, Turnbow, Cordero formula. I think people who want to blame Yost just have to much love for the Brewers players. Blaming Yost allows fans to pardon anything that goes wrong on the field.

I think if Yost was fired during the year then Kremblas would probably replace him. With that being said I find it much more likey that Ned Yost wins the manager of the year award then him getting fired.

I'll take a chance. Throw me in there to please.

Seems to me like I really need to try this new beer. As for the 'What's a good beer' question, I'll throw in my 2 cents. I usually get MGD at a bar since I am not a huge fan of lite beers and there is not much of a selection at the local bars around here. I like BerryWeis, Creamy Dark, Summer Shandy, Leine's Original, Leine's Red... basically all the Leineis. They are all good and have different unique flavors. It's really no different then someone liking fish or liking shrimp. The Great Dayne has some terrific beers. I've tried most of them, but usually reccomend the Crop Circle Wheat to Noobs. It is nice tasting and non-offensive. I actually enjoy Milwaukee's Best quite a bit. It's cheap and does not taste like a light beer. The only beer I will completly avoid is Heinikan and I'll drink Bud light, but it gives me a headache, even if I do not drink a lot of it. In summary, if it's cold and has alchol in it, I'll drink it. I'm excited to try this new Miller beer.

I am probably being slightly unfair to Soriano. A lot of my dislike for him stems from the fact on how greatly he is overated by many people. I was mostly focusing on his stats last year which was a contract year for him. He struck out a lot (5th in MLB) and got caught stealing a lot (tied for 3rd in baseball, Him and Scotty Po did not do well on the basepaths last year). He was playing for the out-of-contention-by-May-Nations though so he was able to swing away more and making an out on the basepaths was less of an issue. I also have some angst for him since I think his 40-40 season is vastly overrated by the general public. He lacks skills defensively and was not the type of player a team on a budget or long-term plan could afford to sign. I have seen other players transition to a new position much more gracefully who actually played good defenes previously. Robin Yount comes to mind or how bout someone more recent, such as A-Rod. I believe he said he would refuse to play at one point, which should be forgiven, just like Capellan should be forgiven. It is just fustrating when a player can not look at there own shortcomings like his defense at second base. He obviously has more talent and production then Menchkins and I would probably want him on the team if we could get him for the same price, but I'll take players that aren't grossly overrated. After defending him for 4 paragraphs I would still like to say his behavior after hitting that homerun was unexcusable. He carried the bat a good portion of the way down the line, skipped backwards smiling like a jackass so everyone knew it was a homerun, and completely showed up the pitcher.

This guy is a turd as well. I could not believe his smile and backwards jog after he hit his 11 HR of the year yesterday. It might be funny if he did that after his next strikeout which will be his 55th of the season. I suppose after winning 3 games in a row to climb within 4 games of .500 his jerky celebration was warranted. Soriano always has alwaysstruck me as a selfish-player. I won't move to the outfield, I strikeout a lot, but hit homeruns, I steal a lot of bases, but have a less then average success rate. I'll make more money as a crappy 2nd baseman then a crappy defensive outfielder. Me-me-me.

Yes, DougJones, sometimes people do make the right calls and sometimes they do not. I apologize for the sweeping generalizations, but if Brewerfan has taught us nothing it's that often times, if not always, baseball statistics can be spun to say X was a bad move or X was a good move without even including day-to-day factors such as Braun's lingering wrist injury. My hypothetical argument (sounds smarter then pretend scenario doesn't it http://forum.brewerfan.net/images/smilies/wink.gif ) in regards to Cordero probably should be addressed in a seperate thread. I was just attempting to point out what many people seem to do. That is blame Yost for making poor decisions after the fact. I was attempting to make Yost-haters take a stance before CoCo is given another oppurtunity since Yost will undoubtedly stick with him, the right move to make IMO. However, if this move proves unsuccessful then the anti-Yostenites will be crawling out of the woodwork.

I have a difficult question for all the Yost haters who think he does not manage the bullpen well. What should we do with our closer who has blown the last two saves. I think Yost should stick with him, but if he blows another save, or even two, people who have the luxury of hindsight, which is always 20/20, will say we should have let him setup a game before returning to the closers role. They will then proceed to call for Yost's head saying he needs the to be axed etc. etc. So attention to all the lazy-boy managers out there. How about you make some tough managorial calls before the results.

Braun had wrist problems. Since this is vent thread. GRRRRRRRRR. The Brewers are causing us all to yell.

I think Yost does a good job managing the bullpen, integrating young players into the major league, and giving players days off. He has also handled the slight controversy in the outfield quite nicely explaining the players roles and ending any ill feelings before they began. Watching Yost and Bobby Cox, his mentor, on cable indicates their extremely similar style of managing. I think people who have a problem with Yost would have a problem with any manager the Brewers will ever have. I've heard lots of criticism of Yost for the line-up tonight that got no hit, but really what is he supose to do when a lineup-gets no hit. It's not like a crappy batting order ended up killing rallies. Braun needed a day of rest since he has that lingering wrist problem from AAA. I ask you who else was he suppose to start? Tony Gwynn in right or center instead of Bill Hall or Corey Hart? Put Graffy farther down in the order maybe, so Fielder would get one more at bat then maybe we would not have been the victims of a no-hitter. Most managers don't stack their line-up against the no-no. They manage to win. Yost is one of the better managers in the game and will be with the Brewers for many more years. Baseball is a game with a small success rate often times where the manager gets little credit when things go right (ex. Villanueva out of the pen, the win % when leading after the seventh), but all the blame by some when things go bad (a pitchers meltdown and the accompanying ahhh he should have pulled him ealier). Also, I am tired of people continually critisizing Yost when he gives players days off. It's a long season and you increase your chances of staying healthy and therefore winning more games by resting players. Some people would only be happy if the same 8 guys started every game and Ben sheets pitched everygame (not the Sheets haters though). The best managers in the game know that most players can't play a full season. He has not had a winning season since they really have not had the talent level of other teams. Also having a winning season every year is difficult for the best managers and big-market teams. Tommy Lasorda had only 13 winning seasons with the Dodgers in 20 years. I personally think managers have little to do with a teams final record. A lot more is determined on the field by the players with the stick and ball in their hand. The manager is a perfect scapegoat for some people and so be it. Milwaukee has one of the better managers in baseball. Get use to seeing his face in the dugout. He is going to be here for a long time.

At least it was not a pefect game.

I would also like to put in for an oppurtunity to get this nice tickets you have there. Sorry you can not go.

It is almost 4am and I am still dwelling on the Brewers loss. I am fuming about Texas and they're now get-away-day games cause I need the awful pictures of the last game out of my head. The 0-2 counts, me causualing saying hmm Coco just doubled, tripled, quadrupled, oh no quintupled his run total for the season. I need the next game to come soon, even if it is a more conventional loss it will be better then this. I am predicting a win since I will not be watching the game on TV.

Hmmmmmm, I saw this coming. A CoCo melt down against his own team. I could not have scripted this loss any worse.

I like Braun in the 3-hole. I think he might have more power then J.J. and J.J. is a prototypical 2 hole hitter. They do seem highly interchangable though. Go Go Brew Crew, end this terrible skid. Also, I don't want Sheets biting on his finger at all tonight.

The inning is over, man the Brewers are going down like a college Freshman this game.

A series win would be really nice. It seems like it has been ages since we got a series W. Oh what a brutal stretch of games.

Nice win and the Cubs blow a 4 run 9th inning lead. At least we only blew an 8th inning lead.