MJLiverock

A month of stats or the piddling 35 AB's is minor but when it was pointed out early in the year that he had lost bat speed and was likely done then it doesn't take another 500 futile AB's to prove he is done. Age doesn't have to slowly erode a player's skills in a nice smooth decline like a model or bell curve, when it hits it hits and hitting ability can come to an abrupt end. The only reason his WAR isn't greatly into negative territory is because of a small sample on Defense creating some ridiculously high defensive value, unless you believe Counsell is one of the best fielding SS's in all of baseball by a long ways. He may not be the biggest problem but he is part of the triumverant of suckitude at SS and is taking a roster spot that could be used for a productive player. I don't want to get into the whole looking for a walk discussion from the other thread but that AB last night was the epitome of the poster's point of just hoping the pitcher can't throw strikes. Counsell watched 5 pitches and then got blown away by a high fast ball on his only swing, the balls he watched weren't far out of the zone, it was pretty obvious he had no intention of swinging until he had 2 strikes on him. Being patient at the plate is fine and good but when you have to hope you don't have to swing then it is time to hang'em up. I know some people think watching the first pitch somehow makes a better hitter or wears out a pitcher, but late in the game, watching strikes from a reliever who is only going to be in the game for an inning anyway isn't adding any value.

The RA on my floor was a pretty cool guy and we all got along with him. He was about 8 years older than us freshman, and was in the National Guard so he was always gone one weekend a month. After all the problems with the hall director went down my RA actually quite being an RA a few weeks later and he started spilling the beans on how the Hall Director and a few of the RA's discussed in meetings about trying to bust my floor for as many infractions as possible and to spend more time on my floor during rounds to be sure to catch anything at all. Of course the jerk RA who liked my girlfriend was all over it, he used to sit outside my door and at 12:00 on the nose bang on the door(waking up the nearby rooms with his banging and yelling) and escort my girlfriend out of the building on weeknights (opposite sex visitors had to leave at midnight on weeknights, she lived in a different dorm). Other than the jerk RA and his issues with liking my GF, the only reason I can think of for the focus on my floor was the jerk guy RAwas cross country runner (my gf was a distance runner on the track team) and the hall director was a marathoner, and the one really annoying female RA pretty much hated anything to do with sports/(men, meat eaters, non art majors, etc.) and my floor had a fair number of football and baseball players whom they must have hated and enjoyed making trouble for.

If it were true I'd have no problem with it. Lots of fans are complete jerks and deserve it. Not to mention I think getting worked up about a gesture or word just because it is deemed "naughty" by some is a waste of time.

I was kicked out of the dorms at UWL my freshman year and it was mainly because my hall director and a couple RA's from a different floor and I hated each other so I would find out your employee's side of the story. In my case I ended up appealing all the way to the Dean of Students who over ruled the hall director and let me stay in the dorm until the end of the school year which was fine since I was moving off campus anyway. My problmes started because I was dating a girl who a RA from a different floor liked so he decided to start writing me up for ridiculous ticky tack things (having a poster of a girl in a bikini on my wall, he claimed it was offensive to women and a violation of the student conduct policy as if it was the only poster of a woman in a college dorm, my room mate left his stero on and went to the bathroom leaving the room empyt since I was in the study at the end of the hall, so the dufus wrote me up for a noise violation, even thouht it wasn't my stereo and I cleary hadn't been in the room for a couple hours, that sort of thing) or blaming me for anything that happened and they couldn't pin on anyone else. The culmination came when our entire floor had a beer party on a weekend and the hall director called the police who searched everyone's room and found nothing since everyone had cleared out already and the police told him to stop wasting their time because literally, there wasn't a single beer can or student around and no tickets were issued. The hall director called me to his office the next day and said since I was the instigator and supplier of all the beer (I was 17 my freshman year) that he was kicking me out. He also gave me a nice speech about how he understood I probably came from a broken home and had a tough upbrining he was just looking out for me and trying to teach me a lesson. Of course I hadn't planned any of the party, nor did my 17 year old face buy any of the beer and his take my family life couldn't have been further from the truth. I was stunned and honestly had never wanted to punch a guy as badly as I did this preachy, fake do gooder. His report to the Dean said all of the Hall Director's information came from a student on my floor, who was my best friend. My best friend showed up a the Dean's office with me and refuted the entire report and said the Hall Director was a complete liar and had never even talked to him and my friend had never said one thing that was written in the report. The Dean over ruled the eviction but thought it would be best if I didn't have to deal with the hall director anymore and I agreed. I laughed the following year when I heard the Hall Director's wife was cheating on him with a student and she left him. He was also gone from the university shortly thereafter, I didn't find out if he was fired or quit but he was quite possibly the biggest, word's I'm not allowed to say here, I have ever met. I hadn't thought about this story in a long time but after reading that a student was being kicked out of the dorms it reminded me of it and made me think of how I hated that lying hall director and his stooge RA that couldn't get over my girlfiend.

Lucroy's career RC+ is 84(which is right around the last 3 years for Kotsay too), it is only about a season's worth of numbers but outside of his hot start this year his numbers are below average, he isn't nearly as good as some make him out to be. He is an average to below average hitter but there were threads about geting him in the All Star game, and constant complaints about getting him up in the order despite his mediocre production because he his the first Brewer catcher in years who isn't on his last legs or just downright awful. Look at all the complaints about him not catching Wolf, as if he should be catching 162 a year. His OBP this year is .317, Kotsay is .312 not much difference there. Gomez should start over Kotsay but that wasn't part of anything I said. I mentioned Kotsay playing when Gomez was hurt or for Hart or Morgan when hurt. But of course if Gomez plays CF and Morgan were in LF or RF against a RH pitcher people would complain that Gomez was playing. Just like the people couldn't be happy he did well when filling in for Braun, it was all about ignoring results. Kotsay is sort of the other side of the coin of Counsell. No matter how terrible Counsell is there is a segement that defends him yet Kotsay can do no right and shouldn't be on the team.

The complaints about the use Kotsay seem over the top to me. When guys get hurt he is going to play. He did fine filling in for Braun before the All Star Break. He played a lot early when injuries to Hart, Morgan, and even Gomez opened holes in the OF. The whopping 44 innings he played of CF while Morgan was hurt was billed as the end of the world. The only guys that automatically should be in the top 5 of the line up are Weeks, Braun, Fielder, Hart, and Morgan when he plays. If one of those guys are hurt and Kotsay plays he isn't the worst choice to have in the top 5. I know some think Lucroy is the 2nd coming of Johnny Bench but he doesn't get on base any better than Kotsay and since Kotsay is LH he should get slotted accordingly (I'll agree it is stupid to put him right before or after Prince). The rest of the potential line up fillers like Betancourt, Gomez, Counsell, Wilson, McGehee aren't noticably better than Kotsay either so I don't get all the hand wringing, seems like compalining just for the sake of complaining.

I still think there is a decent chance Prince signs with a team that has protected 1st rounder.

So how on earth are they calculating defense for guys that played 30 years ago? I can't believe it is is too accurate for that metric. The current system has questions, let alone putting a number on the old timers.

Exactly. Additionally, look at the ERA in innings 6-8 6th: 5.28 7th: 4.5 8th: 4.11 Yep, those 20 losses by the bullpen are the most in baseball. That cleary says the bullpen wasn't getting the job done regardless of what WAR says should have happened vs. the mytical replacement players.

MLB Network showed a stat right about the time they interviewed Prince and Rickie about the trade, the brewers bullpen has lost 20 games this year, the most in the majors. I didn't realize it was that bad in comparison. This looks like a pretty good deal to fill a. Hole that was hurting the team. Shouldn't preclude getting a SS either since it doesn't sound like much was given up.

I wonder how long the perception that he tells it like it is and isn't a company man would last if he was calling 162 games or how long it would take to start noticing his catch phrases or repetitive comments. He's a fresh voice but if he we were listening to him every single game I wonder if he would fall into the same things that annoy people about Bill, just in a slightly different way.

I agree a single is a single, and very easy to measure and very easy to say a single is better than out, or a double is better than a single. Pretty binary easily observable so room for error in measuring it isn't that big. But what is an out of zone play? Was there a shift? How hard was the ball really hit? what was the spin? Is there a bias in the categorizing of the play? How do you quantify exactly what replacement level is? Or that the replacement level player would have made the play. These are all open to interpretation which creates noise or errors around the number derived and they aren't as binary as a hit or an out. Maybe player X is really good at moving to his left and is terrible going to his right but has a bunch of chances one way or the other in the small sample of a half a season or part of a season. How are outfielders with really a very limited number of chances that call for above and beyond just average OF ability whacked with huge negative numbers on D? I don't believe in adding a bunch of imprecise factors together and then using the final number as a very precise one. I applaud the efforts to quantify defense but when someone says a guy with a defensive rating of 7.1 is noticably better than someone with a rating of 5.2 over half a season I don't buy it. Those numbers feed into the WAR calculation and are used to justify some meaningful difference between being 0 or -0.7. Not to mention the issue of replacement level. I know we'll just have to disagree on the precision of WAR. I don't have a problem with using it over larger samples to give the general impression of how good a player is, i.e. good, bad, average but when people start using it to say adding this guy or that guy is going to win/cost half a game or whatever I'm skeptical in the difference between the players, especially in partial seasons or for one season.

I'm not arguing that Yuni and Casey haven't been terrible, I'm arguing that all those guys with WARs around 0 are also terrible and trying to say that -0.7 and -0.08 are essentially equally bad because the WAR stat isn't accurate to the level of detail to make statements that one is better than the other. I believe the margin of error on the stat is fairly large since it is made of a mythical replacement level, the way defense is added in and the way UZR/150 can bounce all over for a player when defensive ability probably doesn't really vary that much. A guy's UZR can fluctuate hugely, guys go from being awesome defensively to terrible in a year and back to awesome again, I don't buy that defensive ability fluctates that much. I accpet that UZR can give an idea of the general ability but not that you can start plugging it into a derivative stat and start stating that fluctations of decimal points of that derivative (WAR) are that precise or accurate to make statement like -.7 is vastly different than 0, especially since replacement level isn't even that exactly defined. Not to mention the differences over small samples in defense. Just looking at the Cardinals, Tyler Green. His UZR/150 at SS this year is around 7 but when he moves over to 2B, an easier position, his UZR is -46. So he is a decent defender at SS one of the worst defenders in baseball at an easier defensive position? J.J. Hardy gets praised for his D all the time but he is negative for the year on the UZR metrics. Renteria, whom many thought would be an upgrade this year is also negative on D, Theriot is terrible, just like Yuni. Once I started looking at SS for the Reds, Cards, and Brewers they all stink but I can't buy into there being a big difference in suckitude between a -.7 and 0 WAR which is around where the other teams are getting. Platooning 2 bad players still results in bad numbers for the position. I'd rather not have 2 positions on the diamond being terrible but given the roster their isn't much choice, Counsell and Wilson aren't any better. Calling up Green and dumping any one of the 3 SS players may be the only potential upgrade. They won't dump Counsell and I don't think anyone will claim YB or Wilson and if so who cares. SS and 3B has suddenly become two weak spots all over baseball which makes finding an upgrade difficult.

I'm not sure about that. In 2008-2009, there was talk of moving Hardy of SS to 3B to make room for the 'next Ozzie Smith' down in Huntsville.Well if you belive in UZR or UZR/150 it would seem smart so far this year with Hardy having negative value defensively and Escobar being one of the best in the league.

Braun stated himself that if he doesn't play vs. the Reds he isn't going to play in the All-Star game. He was pretty straight forward in the interview with it and said it wouldn't be fair to the team to sit out vs. the Reds and then play in the ASG. If they determine he can't play vs. the Reds I hope they just retrocatively DL him and call up someone. The series is too important to have Josh Wilson playing LF and also working with a short bench, weak as it is. Braun said his lef felt better yesterday but when he tried to go 100% it started to hurt immediately. It didn't sound like it was something that would be better in just a day.

The Brewers are giving the most PA's to their best players just as the other teams are. Casey and Yuni just haven't been hurt to knock down their playing time (Hart, Lucroy, Morgan have all missed time) or there hasn't been a viable replacement around to sub for them. Counsell is awful at the plate and Wilson hasn't been around all year and isn't very good either. The Reds production out of SS using the 405 PA's from Janish and Renteria is -0.08 WAR just using a simple weighted average for their numbers. So although neither has 300 plus PA's platooning or sharing the duties between 2 bad players is no better, just as getting more of Counsell's bat wouldn't be helping anything. The rest of the post just falls exactly into my issue with how WAR is used. Claiming miniscule WAR differences like 0.4 vs. 0 is actually that precisce and quantifiable. I don't buy that WAR is that precise given the inputs to create it.

Most teams only have a few players with over 300 PA's but looking at the Reds, they have their 4 best players over 300 PA's and no one else. But they do have Janish with 246 PA's and a -0.2 WAR, and Renteria with 159 PA's and a 0.1 WAR. The Cardinals also only have 4 players with ovner 300 PA's but they do have Theriot at 334 with a 0.4 WAR and Descalso at 238 with a 0.4 WAR and Schumaker at 186 with a 0.4 WAR. I seriously doubt that WAR is so precise that it can be used to determine there is any difference in a -0.2 and a 0.4 player over 250 or so PA's and a few defensive plays. That is probably my biggest beef with how WAR is often used - - assigning a precision to the stat claiming that decimal place differences in players has a meaningful or exact quantifiable difference. What is the margin of error on the stat 1, 0.5? The defensive stats are suspect over small samples, not to mention the whole debate about how accurate they are, also the accuracy of the mythical replacement level. I have no problem with using WAR to say player X is bad, O.K. or good, but when it is used to say a guy who is a few decimal places away from another guy is some meaningful difference or can really be translated into wins I have diffculty in that premise.

That's fine but Gamel could have just as easily struck out on 3 pitches. When neither choice is ideal it doesn't mean you have to stay the course and that any change is automatically dumb. Sometimes the reactions make it seem like the choice is sending Craig Counsell's bat vs. Joey Votto's bat up there when in reality there isn't much difference in the choice and either can make sense. Casey has stunk for all but one month this year, Gamel has done nothing thus far at the major league level, this year or any year, choosing between the two isn't such a black and white, horrilbe vs. great choice.

For the complaints of using Casey as a PH there what should RR have done that was such an obvious better choice? Let Gamel bat? It isn't like he has been tearing the cover off the ball. You could argue he should have batted but it isn't such a slam dunk that he was a better choice than Casey. Use one of the great PH'ers on the Brewers bench? There are none.

Love Ron R.'s willingness to pinch run for his catcher and use his back up to ph right away for Gomez.

That is the first I've heard of that one, almost makes some of theDodgers payments to Jones andRamirez seem reasonable.

One of the key ingredients in a good bloody is a couple spoonfuls of pickle juice, got that one from Dell's Bar in La Crosse.

TLB's post reminded me I used to drink Raspberry Stoli and Red Bull when I was tired or new it would be a long night. The raspberry flavor took some of the edge off the Red Bull taste. Now more of a Maker's or Woodford reserve on the rocks or even a Patron on the rocks if I have liquor. The old fashioned or T&T are also good winter/summer choices of mine. I like Margaritas if I make them, most restaurant ones are way too sweet for my taste. I make killer Bloody Mary's, it was my signature while bartending my way through college. I basically took my favorite parts of how about 3 different bars in La Crosse made their Bloodies and combined it into my own conconction.

That's about the best lineup the Brewers can put out there right now, hopefully it translates into some runs.

I don't know what surprised me more, Avatar not winning, or Hurt Locker winning the Oscar. I guess I should have known the Oscar would not go to a wildly popular big budget shoot 'em up when a terribly contrived, slow movie about a "topical" theme like the Iraq War was available. But Hurt Locker wasn't even really about the War, it was just so meh and so utterly nonsensical in terms of reality that I can't believe it won but I think it fell into what the Academy voters want to believe the main character and job would be like rather than any reality of the military or the abilities, rules, and life they live.