jazzytrav

Nice to hear it from the perspective of someone that watches him everyday. Welcome aboard visitorsdugout http://forum.brewerfan.net/images/smilies/smile.gif The pitching has been solid outside of a couple Fogg Starts and a rare bomb by Harang last time out. Why does this never, ever happen against the Brewers? Harang is my least favorite pitcher ever. Dude could throw a left-handed one-hitter as long as it's against the Brewers.

Exactly. This was touched on a little bit in this thread as well, and Rluzinski has some great graphs using data from Gameday. As long as he throws it 10 or less times per game, no one will be expecting it. It's not like Benny really needs another pitch to be successful, so there's no reason to overuse it.

1. I think he's a terrible manager. As cubfan pointed out, he's not a good in-game manager. Perhaps he would be okay with a team of veterans, but unfortunately (fortunately for us), the Reds hired him for their young, up-and-coming team. I think that was probably the worst hiring they could have made. 2. I really have no idea, but my personal feeling on it is yes, he did ruin their careers. As others have mentioned, the game has just passed him by. They have innings-limits for a reason, and he ignored them...why? It's almost this tough guy thing that he has going. Tough guys don't take walks, they swing more. Tough guys throw 250 innings a year, even if you're 23 years old. Tough leadoff hitters are fast and play CF, regardless of how worthless they are at everything else baseball-related. Tough guys end up having shortened careers because idiots like Dusty Baker are their managers. Just my opinion. 3. Again, I would say yes. I'll echo the words from cubfan: I know it seems easy to say in hindsight, but everyone could see the entire defense was riled up. There was no reason he couldn't step out there and say a few words, or even just to give everyone a break to collect themselves. 4. While I disagree with Ned quite often, I actually kinda like him as a manager. And it's quite obvious from my post that I don't like Dusty. So no, I would not take him over Yost at any time or any situation.

I'm astonished that you contacted Directv more than once and got the same answer each time http://forum.brewerfan.net/images/smilies/smile.gif Regardless of how stupid the answer is, at least you don't hear a different answer every time to every question you have like I used to get.

I'm very curious to know how much this contract is for. Part of the reason I don't understand doing this is because if Longoria is dominating the league by the 4th year of his contract, he's inevitably gonna start whining for more money and how underpaid he is.

I think the key is that he not start using the change to replace his curve in situations where he would normally throw the curve. He's already a good pitcher as a fastball/curveball guy, but tossing in 9 or 10 changeups in there (if he keeps it at that) could make him even better. I think the second graph that Rluz showed (bar graph of pitch speeds) was the coolest because you saw a ton of fastball/curveball, and just a few splashes of changeup. I'm sorry, you're absolutely right. I think the idea that was really going through my head is that because he has a mid-90s fastball, his changeup should be more effective than someone that throws in the high-80s. That's mostly a gut feeling, but it seems logical that if a guy throws mid-90s heat, the hitter has to be more prepared for the fastball, making the change that much more effective.

Yeah, this is just getting more weird. Someone in the organization had to have seen his green card or drivers license at some point. Almost makes you wonder if the organization knew about it but didn't want to tell the fans. Thanks (slapping my own forehead) http://forum.brewerfan.net/images/smilies/smile.gif

Rluz, I think you need a title. Like "Pitch f/x guru" or something. Those graphs are so cool it's sickening. It's odd to think how well an 86 MPH changeup can work, but it almost seems like that ever-so-slight differential would make even more of a difference if hitters are aware that the pitcher has a low to mid-90s fastball. If there's a 15 MPH difference between fastball and changeup, I would think it would be easier for the hitter to detect changeup. But with the slight change of 6-7 MPH, it seems like it would be nearly impossible to detect. As long as he gets a fastball or two by them first, that changeup could be devastating.

I think it makes both of them look bad. There's no reason ESPN couldn't have gone about it a different way and confronted him off-camera. At the same time, Tejada could have just looked at the camera and said, "You're right, I lied and I'm very sorry." Instead he decides to untuck his shirt (what was up with that?) and walk off the set. I found the last question pretty interesting as well. The interviewer asked, "Does the federal government know about this?" I imagine this would effect things outside of baseball. He had 14 years to brace himself. I don't feel bad for him. Edit: Anyone else find it interesting that ESPN got their hands on a document from the Dominican government before MLB did? Especially with so many questions regarding the age of some players?

Yeah, it is nice that he came clean. And at the age of 19, I might have done the same thing. But 14 years is an awful long time to learn between right and wrong, and it conveniently came 1/2-way through a huge contract. I don't like to be a pessimist, but I also don't like to be a sucker.

I also think it goes beyond numbers, though the numbers that rluzinski provided are somewhat telling. I think it goes to scouting reports. If the scouting report says that this guy doesn't swing at the first pitch, why wouldn't you just lay an easy strike in there every time and get ahead in the count? It's not like I want him to starting ripping at every first pitch from now on. It would just be nice to see him do it a little more so it's not so obvious every time that he's going to take it. Make the pitcher throw you a real pitch, not an easy strike.

I don't really think this is a reactionary thread, though. Or maybe I'm just taking it the wrong way. I guess I'm just going on a gut feeling that I've had about a lot of Brewers at-bats since last year, and it seems like every time I look up it's a first pitch fastball right down the middle. Not just this year, but last year as well. It just seems more pronounced this year, which would make sense if they were doing it last year and other teams caught on to it. This is just the first thread that I've seen on it, and Rickie is the guy that usually takes a lot of pitches. I realize that it's a good thing to take a lot of pitches, but it would just be nice if these guys could go up there and possibly think about swinging at that first pitch. Most of the time, if they saw that pitch with any other count, they would rip it. So why not go up there and see that first pitch as if it's any other pitch in the count? But since it's the first pitch, there seems to be some kind of law that says "let it go by". If I'm a pitcher, I would see that and see an easy way to get ahead in the count. Maybe this is a little bit of a knee-jerk because it's mostly gut reaction since I don't know how to find out any stats on it, but this feeling has been growing for me for over a year now about some of these guys. It's almost like there are certain at-bats (a lot of them) where they're mechanically going up there thinking, "No matter what, I'm not swinging at the first pitch." It even seems like Braun is doing it now, too. Geez, I realize the guy is trying to draw more walks, but it's obviously not working very well and I imagine he would be much better at belting 45 homers if he knocks that 1st meat pitch. Come on TLB, it's the beginning of the season...let me freak out about something http://forum.brewerfan.net/images/smilies/smile.gif

So why would you go out of your way to make a midseason splash if, since you can't really count on anything, you can't count on the new guy to make a difference? He spent $10 mil on a closer, $6 mil on a CF (arguably one of the best FA acquisitions), and added a lot of other bullpen arms to a bullpen that was, in my opinion, our biggest problem. I guess I just don't understand what it is you want him to do to "do everything he can." Also, for all we know, he might make a huge trade before the deadline if we're in the thick of it. Just because he didn't last year doesn't mean he never will. But if he does, remember it's most likely for a guy that we have to sign long-term or he's just a 2-3 month (hopefully 3) rental.

So when should they wait to fix it? I guess it just seems obvious to me that he's letting them throw strike 1 right down the middle. Maybe I'm wrong.

Pitch 1: (Enter Brewer player) tries to show patience and takes a strike right down the middle. Sometimes it almost seems like they're all under orders to take the 1st pitch. It also seems like the pitchers know this so they lay a meatball right down the middle to everyone.

So you would rather have Jenkins and Estrada than Cameron and Kendall? Seriously?

I would think some teams would offer him 6 years because the big money teams need pitching and can eat the money if he gets injured twice a year.

Living down in Chicago I listen to 670 The Score on my way home from work. Sound like Fontenot is leading off followed by Theriot. Out number 1, out number 2. Nice.

That outfield is pretty pathetic right about now. As for the hop, I can't quite understand how that would be hot-dogging it because it just looked stupid. Admiring a home run at least looks cool sometimes, but that hop just looked idiotic. It's too bad we don't have an outfielder to deal them...

Wasn't one of his injuries elbow tendinitis? I could be wrong, but I thought that's why he was out for the end of '05 and beginning of '06. I realize Brett Favre never really talked about money, but the guy made $11 million last year. It's easy to not talk about money when you're making gobs of it. But you may be right. Maybe it isn't all about money. Maybe he just wants to be somewhere that he's appreciated by the fans, and maybe that's more important than money. If that's the case, I doubt he'll stay. It's very much related to this: Benny has gotten so much crap over the years about his injuries from Brewers fans, and regardless of whether they're justified, he's not going to have some strange loyalty to a place where most casual fans, and some hardcore fans, think he's a wimp.

I really don't have anything to back this up, so take it for what it's worth, but I imagine every team in the league has 2 or more bullpen arms that they wouldn't trust in important situations. I tend to think we're fairly lucky to have as many reliable bullpen guys as we do. As for Turnbow, that guy is the ultimate tease. If his slider is on, he's nearly unhittable, and for the entire season of 2005 and for almost half of 2006, it was on. I just don't understand how that disappears. If it was a physical thing, it probably would have been caught by now, so it seems like it has to be in his head. Last night he threw about 20 straight-as-an-arrow fastballs in a row (with a few badly-attempted breaking balls that didn't break at all). After he was done getting lit up with fastballs, he threw 4 of the nastiest sliders that I've seen since 2006. I just don't get it.

Wow. I can't believe he asked Gabe if Braun was going to come over for Passover dinner. I'm impressed, though. He seems very articulate, as others have mentioned.

Except the starter throws them all at once, then has days of rest. Sorry, I wondered if that was confusing the way I said it. And I realize that they're not equal, but if you figure a starter throws 100 pitches every 5 days (which usually doesn't happen anyway) and Turnbow threw 64 pitches in 4 days, they're very roughly similar.

...and he needs to wear them at night.

I imagine this would be very true of a lot, if not all, MLB bullpens. I really don't think this is fair. Sure, they can go back-to-back days, but not ALL THE TIME. Look at Turnbow's gamelogs from last year. April 3-4, then off until the 8th. May 19th, 20th, and 21st...off until the 27th. That pattern is apparent through the entire season. Then he pitched May 27th, 28th, 29th, and the 30th. That's not back-to-back days...that's destroying a pitcher's arm. He threw 64 pitches in that 4 day stretch. That's essentially the same amount of pitches a starter would throw in that stretch of games, except Turnbow is throwing high 90s heat the entire time while probably being in more challenging game situations. He dominated for the first three games, then guess what happened on the 4th consecutive day of pitching; 3 runs on 18 pitches. You can say all you want about how Turnbow should just be ready to come in to any situation and be successful, and to a certain extent I agree. But I blame a lot of his blowups on Yost mismanaging him and fans having a short leash for a guy that was completely dominant for 1.5 years not too long ago.