LouisEly

I'm not calling for beanballs, but the Brewers need some inside fastballs to back these guys off the plate.

Unfortunately as bad as 1B was league-wide last year, it is good this year. Lots of guys off to hot starts, so I don't think there is much demand for Lind right now. Best bets I think are going to be the Angels (if Cron or Pujols continues to stink), the Padres (if Alonso comes back to career norms), and maybe the Tigers (if Martinez continues to stink). But I don't think any of those teams is in any hurry right now, possibly except the Angels. Otherwise it would likely have to be an injury to Teixeira, Cabrera, Gonzalez, or Pujols.

Hall is now listed at 235 lbs. Does anyone know if his fastball has moved up a few ticks on the radar gun now that he has filled out? IIRC, he was around 190 lbs (or less) when drafted and for the first few years of his career.

I think it is because, generally speaking, the players liked Roenicke. If you go back to Braun's comments that, to paraphrase, he was shocked they fired RRR, thought he was a good guy, but thought Counsell was one of if not the best leader he had ever been around. I think it was a combination of poor performance along with an opportunity to upgrade to someone who a lot of people thought very, very highly of as a leader.

Can we hold off on calling the Cubs and Astros models for a franchise until they have actually won something? Until they actually make the World Series, they have done nothing the Brewers haven't done, just with lower attendance.

Exactly. People are not robots - they do not perform the same under different conditions. When morale and motivation are low, people don't always perform up to 100% of their capabilities. Ever had a lousy manager that you didn't always give 100% for? Ever have "senioritis" and not give 100% because you were tired of it? Happens all the time, even with professionals.

And in "team" sports like basketball and football I tend to agree. But baseball is largely an individual sport - it's batter vs. the pitcher. It's not like you have to work with your teammates to succeed in that case. Yes, I'm sure you can find some exceptions but to me they don't occur enough as to matter significantly. In baseball, those "individuals" play 162 games together, double that of basketball and 10x that of football. Morale over the course of a season for a baseball team, I'd argue, is 2x more important than basketball and 10x more important than football. In 2003 the Marlins fired Torborg early in the season after going 16-22, then went 75-49 under that retread McKeon. How is that different? (I could pick apart that argument too and say that both of those sports are about winning individual battles - pro basketball is predominantly a one-on-one sport and football is about beating your man to make a play, but it's not the point of my argument. Yes, those sports are more directly about one person passing to another, but in baseball a team's performance is significantly impacted by the overall defense played, thus making it just as much of a team sport.)

No, but it could be because they have better chemistry in the clubhouse with Counsell at the helm, and bro-hugs are a symbol of that.

Posted this in the other thread, but do you ever recall seeing RRR bro-hugging his players after a big win like Counsell just did? I haven't either. I think that is one of those little things that speaks a whole lot.

This makes more sense. This is one aspect the advanced metrics crowd rarely gets; the personalities and chemistry of a bunch of alpha males in a locker room, let alone factoring in losing. You ever see RRR bro-hugging his players after a big win like Counsell is doing now? I haven't either. I think that is one of those little things that speaks a whole lot.

Or your players are the ones who get a broken hand/finger and end up missing 1-2 months (or a bruised knee/hand and miss 3-4 games) because the other team pitches inside and you don't. Like someone else said, you don't go for the head, you go for their rear end/upper thighs/lower torso. On the topic of managerial impact, players can't fill out the lineup card. If you're in the majors then you have the confidence, ego, and desire to play everyday regardless of whether that's the best decision. Professional baseball players aren't going to say, "I shouldn't play against this tough lefty today because I don't hit lefty's well." It's the manager's job to put players in the best place to succeed, to know when to start players and when not to, to know when to rest a guy and when to have him fight through it. IMO, RRR hasn't been horrible at that but he also hasn't been good at it either. It's some of the little things. It's overusing guys. It's looking ahead in the schedule and planning the right days off for guys based on pitching matchups. It's knowing which pitcher to bring in, based on matchups, in the 7th/8th/even 9th. It's knowing when to run a guy for one inning and when to stretch him for two innings. It's bringing in a pinch hitter just to sac bunt (instead of letting the pitcher bunt, or bringing in your best bunting pitcher to do it, instead of wasting a bench bat). These are the little things that RRR is mediocre at. At this point, for me it falls under the category of "not necessarily the core problem, but at this point it can't hurt and you pretty much have nothing to lose by doing it."

In recent history, the Florida Marlins won the World Series the same year they fired their manager early in the season (Jeff Torborg, 16-22 when relieved of his duties) and brought in old man McKeon to run the ship. Managerial retreads can win a World Series. They had young pitching that came around (Beckett, Willis) with so-so pitching from others (Pavano, Penny), a surprisingly good year from a 29-year-old, and a mediocre bullpen. And they brought in a manager who could better connect with the team. If Peralta and Nelson can come around like Beckett and Willis... Lohse, Garza = Pavano, Penny? Fiers = Redmond? Lucroy = Rodriguez? Braun = Lowell? Gomez = Lee? "I ain't sayin', I'm just saying..."

Yep, too bad. General rule of thumb, when you have four times as many strikeouts as hits given up you've had a good start.

Yes, I am going to defend this: 2012 - .901 OPS, #2 of 17 qualified 3B 2013 - .857 OPS, #6 of 32 3B w/at least 350 PAs 2014 - .757 OPS, #9 of 26 qualified 3B Is it trending downward? Yes. But in case you haven't noticed, all of baseball has been on a downward offensive trend. Yes, he's had a few nagging injuries. And despite those things, every year since they've signed him he's at least been in the top 1/3rd of 3B in offensive production. If he's terrible, then what was Pablo Sandoval last year? Ramirez had a higher OBP and SLG than Sandoval did. And David Wright. Would you rather have Matt Dominguez because he's 26? Yes, he was injured in 2013. But he had enough PAs in 2014 to qualify for league leadership stats. How does that equal "can't stay healthy"? And what the hell does "going to retire" have to do with anything? Is it possible you're making decisions based on small samples (2015) or subjective feelings? At least I have stats to back my viewpoint.

[sarcasm]So Lohse's 3.35 and 3.51 ERAs in a hair under 200IP each of the last two seasons and Garza's 3.64 ERA last year were terrible? And Ramirez's .901 OPS in 2012, .831 OPS in 2013, and his 10th among 29 qualified MLB 3B .757 OPS in 2014 was terrible? Learn something new every day.[/sarcasm]

Lots of guys have looked great in A-ball, some even in AA, but couldn't cut it in AAA or the majors. Let's wait until he's doing this 15 starts into AA before mass hand-wringing and head-banging-on-wall-ing.

You forgot - scout college, juco, and high school teams and watch kids multiple times to get a good read on them! Really, how many times can you watch a kid play? If he has a bad game because he's sick, nervous being in front of scouts, had an argument with his girlfriend earlier that day, etc., how many more times are you going to look at him? One bad game, one good game... not an incentive to draft a guy real high, not an incentive to watch him multiple times when you have a couple hundred other HS/juco/college kids to watch.

Great place for a discussion on lambeauleap.net There's also a great Packers draft prediction thread going on there too...

I noticed that Hall is now listed at 235 lbs. Has he added any velocity with the added weight on his frame?

Two solid years that led to what? A combined 156-168 record with no playoff appearances. The Lohse signing did absolutely nothing for this team other than costing us a ton of money and a draft pick. It also contributed to bringing in a ton of money by being in first place last year for ~135 games or so. If they didn't have Lohse and played at a 78 win pace all season (or worse, depending on who would have started instead), how many fewer fans would have attended? If it was 2.5M instead of 2.8M, 300K fans x $60/fan (ticket, parking, concessions, souvenirs), that's an additional $18M in revenue by being competitive. Lohse cost $11M in salary last season, so his net impact could have been up to $7M positive. It's also been well documented that Lohse is an outstanding presence in the clubhouse and does a great job of keeping the team loose and helping the younger players. You need some veterans on the team to do that and teach the young players how to handle a long season.

This was one of the responses to that article, and I mostly agree with it, particularly the last paragraph: "I don’t think they lost much by trying to give it a go this year. Would they really have gotten more value for anything over the offseason than at this year’s trading deadline or next offseason? (Lohse would have had more trade value than he does now, but as a whole, I mostly agree.) More importantly, the Brewers drew 2.8 million fans last year. You’d lose a lot of the goodwill that Attanasio has built if you blow up a team coming off a decent year. It is easy to say you should do that on the internet, but practically impossible to do it in real life. Especially if you remember what County Stadium was like in the mid to late 1990’s. I don’t see what they really lost in trying to contend the past few years. They might have saved some of Attanasio’s money by not signing Garza or K Rod. They could still have Marco Estrada instead of Lind! But drafting slightly higher and getting a little more international bonus pool money isn’t that great of a reward for giving up on trying to win (and the message that sends to your fans). I respect Attanasio for trying to win while they had a decent enough chance of doing so. We criticize Jeffrey Loria for being cheap and pocketing money while not trying to win, but then criticize the Brewers for actually trying to win. That they tried to win isn’t the problem; it is that they haven’t done a good enough job of developing their own talent for the past several years." I think that you could also argue that if they hadn't "gone for it" they wouldn't bottom out, and then wouldn't get the multiple years of top-5 picks they need to rebuild like the Cubs. They had too much talent to bottom out. You'd still see the mediocrity; it would just be a little younger. Also, if they had traded the young talent (Braun, Lucroy, Gomez) to go full rebuild you would send the message that they aren't trying, and while that would appease some of the hardcore fans and maybe be the right business move it would turn off a vast majority of their home fan base. As a native Wisconsinite, people here love effort more than results. They relate to trying hard but coming up short, not giving up and waiting for a sunnier day, playing in the snow and mud, and giving 100% of what you have regardless of how much of it you have. They cheer the Fuzzy Thurston's, the Gorman Thomas's, the Brett Favre's, the Bob Lanier's, warts and all, because they show up every day. Right or wrong, that's what people in Wisconsin relate to. Things were so dry for so long, just like with the Packers in the 90's, that once they had that taste, that run, they may have held on too long. So what. It was worth the ride. That, and there's 142 games left.

Thanks for the update brewcrewdue80. It really helps us keep everything in perspective. Wishing you the speediest, easiest recovery possible.

I'd argue that the leagues and owners much prefer the boo-ers and cheer-ers. Any reaction - good or bad - is better than no reaction in creating interest. Back to the topic at hand, I will mostly agree with your statement about boo-ing, but there are exceptions. Someone like Gary Sheffield, who deliberately plays poorly in an attempt to get traded, certainly deserves to get booed. I can certainly understand booing Braun for lying about taking PEDs. In general, I think it's ok to boo effort (and a lack of it), but not necessarily results.

This is why games are so long, not because batters and pitchers take too long to get ready. From when the manager starts walking towards the mound to when the pitcher gets to the mound to when he finishes his warm-up pitches and gets ready to go... how long does that take? And then do that 3-4 times per game?

Wondering if anyone here participates in November Project? Anywhere - Milwaukee, Boston, or any of the other 17 cities. If so, I'm wondering if you could help with a research project I'm working on. Drop me a PM and I can fill you in on details. Thanks in advance for your help.