Bernman23

Hardy did exactly what we needed with nobody or one out. Those were some backward approaches by Hall and Hart. Both were trying to hit grand salamis and be a hero. We don't need heroes, we just needed to extend the lead.

That's the same ol Brewers type inning right there. That's how you give a team new life. They know they should be trailing by at least 2 more runs.

Such a bad approach by Hall. He had an excellent pitch to hit early in the bat and he just watches it.

And what looked like another slider owns Rickie Weeks. Stop trying to pull everything! I don't think Kendall scores on the wild pitch even if he took third on the wild throw to second.

GREAT job by Ryan Braun of perpetually distracting Lilly during Bill's at bat. Bill got plenty of great pitches to hit and eventually took advantage. 2-0 Crew.

I always thought it was pretty obvious Alou wouldn't have caught that baseball. Alou has had multiple leg injuries over the years. He's wasn't near the athlete he was earlier in his career. The ball was traveling towards the stands over a railing (and as a result Bartman had every right to the baseball) that sat rather high off the ground. Alou's glove wasn't ever that close to the ball actually. No chance. Cub fans were just looking for a scapegoat.

He was rushed obviously and saying that he wasn't is proving that you have a bias here. Gwynn skipped A+ all together. That's not the typical blueprint for a minor league prospect. JJ Hardy had 336 at bats in A+. Corey Hart had almost 400. Even a great prospect like Braun had 226 at bats at A+. It's not just about age, but rather not overwhelming prospects with such major jumps in competition. Low A to Double A is a major jump in competition. And he wasn't even considered near the level of a prospect as Braun, Hart, and Hardy were. He was promoted that quickly simply because he was tied to Weeks and Fielder. You throw 2004 out of the equation BECAUSE HE WAS MOVED TOO QUICKLY. Moving too quickly was the cause of his awful season. I'm not throwing it out because it was simply awful. Your logic was circular. If you want to talk about his PCL performance, that's valid. I brought up walks for two reasons. First, each walk represents a plate appearance. In each plate appearance you could be struck out. So they should be included in a players strikeout percentage. You're still not factoring them into the percentage of time a player strikes out. All you're doing is dividing strikeouts by raw at bat totals. Strikeout percentage should be K's/AB's+BB's+Sacrifices. Tony Gwynn walks a higher percentage of the time than Ichiro (at least he did in the minors). He also sacrifices himself more than Ichiro. So he's going to be punished more so than Ichiro if you're just looking at raw AB's. Second, I used his walks to refute his strikeout percentage as the sole indicator of how well he handles the bat. They show he's more willing to work the count than some. If you work the count, you have more 2 strike situations, and thus more of an opportunity to strike out on one pitch. He's not like Ichiro or Vlad Guerrero, who pretty much swing at anything near the zone from the first pitch in an at bat. The more you swing, the less chance you have to strikeout, as long as you aren't swinging at junk.

Ichiro's K% in his career 9.7% Gwynn's K% in the minors 16.1% I've pointed out before how fallacious it is to use Gwynn's minor league numbers as a whole because of the way they rushed him. 2004 should be completely thrown out of any discussion regarding Gwynn. In 2003 and 2005 his K/PA rate was 1/8.4 and 1/7.8. Ichiro's has been 1/11.1 in his career. You didn't include walks as plate appearances in your totals, which benefitted Ichiro's numbers. I don't have their sacrifice bunt totals, but that would further close the gap. I acknowledged Ichiro would a little bit lower K rate because he doesn't work into counts where he could strikeout as much. Still, the discrepancy isn't dramatic. Tony Gwynn Jr. handles the bat well.

No he really doesn't. If he did he wouldn't strike out as much as he does. Nonsense. Ichiro's K numbers aren't that much better than Gwynn's minor league numbers when he had been firmly established at a level. And like I said before, a higher proportion of Gwynn's strikeouts are from taking pitches as opposed to swinging, than most players. Ichiro's not putting full focus into taking walks as often because he has a greater ability at achieving more than one base with a hit. Therefore, he's not going to watch strike 3 as often. Nor is he going to have as many walks.

Sacrifice bunts to not count against OBP. Sacrifice fly balls do. H+BB+HBP/AB+BB+HBP+SF is the formula. Swinging bunts count against your OBP because it's too difficult for official scorers to determine if they're intentional or not. I'd rather a guy attempt a swinging bunt than an outright sacrifice, if they have that level of bat control. A swinging bunt, like Ichiro often uses, has a higher propensity of being a hit. Tony has that Ichiro-like bat control, at least to a lesser extent. He's executed a few swinging bunts during his time in Milwaukee.

Good point. I thought the .326 OBP he had last year wasn't really representative of his performance, even with the late season slump. Sacrifices shouldn't count against your OBP, just like they don't count against your average.

That is the claim from TGJr detractors that irks me the most. At least give him credit for his obvious strengths, one of which is handling the bat well. First off, you really can't assume anybody is the player they'll eventually be at their peak, when they've only appeared at the plate about 210-220 times. And that applies to Gwynn more than most. He was rushed through the system to keep pace with supreme prospects like Fielder and Weeks. When allowed to stay at a level for an extensive period, moving at his own pace, he showed marked improvement in plate discipline and overall ability. What his minor league statistics at Brewerfan.net don't include are his playoff statistics, when he played his best baseball at the end of seasons, further indication of his ability to acclimate to a level when give the chance. He has continued this trait at the major league level, raising his OBP 50 points from his 1st to 2nd partial season. We saw how outstanding his plate discipline could be when he was comfortable at levels in the minors. Twice in a minor league season, he walked more than he struck out. 75 K's/appr. 600 PA's and 31 K's/appr. 280 PA's are rather good strikeout ratios when you consider his approach at the plate. He realizes he's not going to win a home run derby, so often he works counts, takes pitches, and tries to get on base. That approach is going to cause strikeouts every now and then because he'll be hitting with 2 strikes. If you've watched Gwynn while he's been at Milwaukee, a disproportionate amount of his strikeouts are looking at pitches on the corners, while he's trying to work the count or draw a walk. Gwynn shows his bat handling skills with his ability to adjust his approach and make solid contact if that's what the situation calls for. Yesterday provided two great examples....... First, we need to get the runner in scoring position for our boppers any way possible. In a do or die bunting situation, he does, calmly laying down the bunt, successfully moving the runner over. Second, a runner on third w/ less than 2 outs in a key spot. A walk in that situation is only passing the responsibility onto your next teammate to get the RBI. If they give you nothing to hit, there's nothing you can do about that really. But there's no need to take pitches (like TGJr. does if there's nobody on base). If you get a pitch to hit, sweet stroke it into the outfield or bang it on the ground, and let's take control of the game. He took the right approach, executed, and the Brewers went on to win a close game. Those are perfect examples of why people have been saying Tony handles the bat well, and they aren't located anywhere in the statistics everyone is using to de-legitimize his abilities.

The entire thing stinks, and what I find ironic is that in his press conference also, he was asked if he thought hitting Prince was retaliation, and his response was, "it sure looked like it". So he's basing his opinion on shear observation and circumstance, but he can't possibly understand why people would be questioning his intentions in an even more obvious situation.

None of Yost's explanations in his post game conference made any sense. Tom Pipines: D-Bow is statistically a better pitcher when beginning an inning as opposed to inheriting runners. Yost: He was on 3 days rest.....that shouldn't matter. Yost: I brought in McClung under the stipulation that if he allowed a baserunner, he was going to be pulled for Turnbow. What is the logic behind that exactly? Especially in a close game. $^$$&*%^(^&%^%$^&$? And he immediately jerked his head away from the reporter as he claimed McClung's pitch was not retalation. That's a pretty tell-tale sign a person is lying.

Larry had the same numbers virtually as a right-hander from '04 to '06 as he did as a left-hander. Teixeira actually hits slightly better right-handed. And of course what is Shouse's long history against righties? Good or outrageously bad? Because that obviously should be a/the major factor.

In other words, they are equally capable of batting right-handed, and thus making Shouse ineffective with his career .400 BAA and 1.000+ OPSA? I mean that's a technicality Brian. It's not as if they are going to do Shouse and the Brewers a favor and bat left handed. I'm quite positive Linebrink's career splits against lefties or righties aren't near as pitiful. Make them hit lefty against a better pitcher in that situation.

I'm not kidding when I say Yost might be the worst manager in the major league. He's wholly undeserving of managing a team this promising. Shouse against a righty with the game on the line, when will he ever learn. It cost us the game at Philadelphia. And it contributing substantially to one of the losses at PNC or Great American Ballpark. What are you saving your best relievers for? You won't have a save situation for them to be utilized if you keep on trotting out inferior relievers. You have to play inning by inning from the 9th inning on the road and afterward. They are sudden death situations. And he kills this team with those decisions. Good thing he preserves them for garbage time work in games which are already decided. http://static.yuku.com//domainskins/bypass/img/smileys/ohwell.gif Cross the next bridge when you come to it. Then I thought I'd seen it all before twice bunting with 2 strikes and position players at bat. Counsell could accidentally bunt the way he makes contact. Way to let the opposing team off the hook. And of course that was the difference in the game. He should not be the Brewers manager in 2008.

Prince, why should we not boo exactly when our team is 9 games under .500 the last 3 months? I think you'd acknowledge that is an underacheivement. Especially how the Brewers are rolling along and then give up 5 in the ninth, but never come back on anybody in the final frame. This team has a lot of talent and it's pathetic the lack of success they've had. Not to mention our division stinks. We should be 20 games over .500 with this start and this talent. You're lucky the fans don't wear bags on their heads to the games. You're doing your part, now it's just a matter of getting everyone else to be accountable. I'm going to have to start reminissing of Brewer glory days of the recent past like when Brady Clark made that over the shoulder catch. At least we didn't have any expectations back then.

I found a way to circumvent the latest Brewerfan in game thread gimmick, and talk about the game, without actually talking about the game. I was completely Don Money in this thread and that's all there is to it. *holds up #1 foam finger*

I just beat my little sister in a game of boggle!

As Kid Rock would say.......let's get some lunch.

As you might have guessed......I got caught shoplifting the valium...and now I'm typing this from a jail cell.

I'm on the road trying to see if I can steal Braun some valium from Walgreens in case he has another at bat late in a close game. I might need two bottles for Weeks.

We've lost many more games this season we should have won than vice versa. Teams are coming back on us left and right, but we have few comebacks to speak of. We've been struggling to win in close games since the early part of the season. To me, that's a product of 3 things: youth, not playing the right way, and the Boston Red Sox syndrome. The third, I'm not sure how you can cure. It's a lot of pressure for players to bear the burden of ending a long streak of futility. For the Red Sox, it took a cocky guy like Curt Schilling to come in before the season and matter of factly state they were going to overcome all the history. We might need that brash player with experience to lead the team. We need more players who can do the little things at the plate, in addition to everything else. I'm not talking about extremes like Craig Counsell guys. I'm talking about more complete hitters like Lofton (I know he personally is not available anymore). Momentum and confidence are major factors in sports. When you don't keep on putting the pressure throughout a game you continue to change the momentum in the wrong direction and increase other team's confidence.

Hart!