MJLiverock

JDLR didn't bother me much at the time and I wouldn't look back on that one. IIRC he was out of options and just wasn't effective but given his talent probably wouldn't slip through unclaimed to AAA so getting a useful, needed player for him wasn't too bad in the short run. I will never understand the Cruz thing, the guy was a masher in the minors and had a great OF arm. He was never really given a chance in the MLB level. I remember some criticism of his K rate and questions about his ability to hit breaking stuff. For whatever reason the Brewers just never really seemed that interested in him, he didn't get the hype like so many other prospects. I think even at the time either Melvin or reporters made it seem like a change of scenery was needed for Cruz and Nix or at least I always viewed as Melvin wanted Nix more than Cruz. Of course GM's let go of guys early but it doesn't mean everyone should just forget about some of the players Melvin let go of when some of his biggest supporters laud picking up guys like Davis, McGehee, etc. Melvin has certainly not been as infallible as some would have us believe when they declare him a top 5 GM. I don't want the guy fired yet but eventually he will get fired, it happens to every GM eventually. I think he is OK for a GM, great for rebuilding a franchise that has nothing but I am not sold on him getting a franchise to the next level. I think he is overly conservative at times and is content to tinker around fringes of things without big risks leading to avoiding big mistakes but also limiting upside.

The risk with waiting to let Prince walk and collecting two draft picks is they can turn out to be JM Gold and Cutter Dykstra. I think I would rather have guys who have already produced in the minors than risk it. But of course squeezing every bit of time the team has Prince is tempting. It will be a sad day when Prince is gone and I don't think it is as easy as saying having two average to slightly above average guys offset having an elite performer. We went through this when the team lost Sheets and Sabathia, a certain group said no big deal the pitching will be ok because other guys will step up and a few more average guys will replace the below average types. There is something to that elite level that just isn't a linear improvement versus the average guys. Championships aren't won with average to above average guys there are almost always some elite players sprinkled in to carry the load by themselves at times. The only bat the Brewers have in that category right now aside from Prince is Braun, I don't know if they really have anyone else on the horizon that has that high of a ceiling. The only way a team like the Brewers can ever really be considered a championship contender is when they have the luxury of paying elite talent below market rates like Prince/Braun are getting paid right now. The team barely made the playoffs once with this "advantage" and had to trade for another elite type player to make it happen. To say the Brewers will be a contender without Prince is just not realistic unless a lot of their pitching becomes much better than anyone outside of the Brewers is thinking, because with Prince the team is basically a .500 type team right now.

I think Gerut should stop shaving until he starts a game, he may look grizzled enough at some point that Macha would think he had a new player on the team.

Hart also exhibited another gaff in the outfield last night as well, but I have never been a fan of his fielding or the ideas a couple years ago of putting him in CF just because he is fast. I am not going as far as some and saying he should be DFA'd but playing in a soft platoon or even a strict platoon for awhile doesn't bother me. A few AB's into the season I don't think a judgement can be made one way or the other but over the last year and a half he hasn't been impressive, not entirely awful but not really anything but average to below average. If the Brewers had another young corner OF bat banging on the door I could see the point of jettisoning him but they don't and they already have the lost arby case salary to contend with either way. He has upside, or at least I hope he still does and they dont' have an obvious better option. They may as well see how he does with the idea that he wouldn't be back next year if he doesn't produce closer to the 2007 Hart, rather than the .750 OPSing average guy he has has been given he may get $6MM in Arby next year. I would like to see Gerut get a little of the Edmonds PT either in CF or RF, even a bit of Gomez's just to see if he can play like his past success which similar to Hart are getting a few years old but showed he had some ability at one point.

Sort of jumping in the middle here but I took Topper09er's original beef to be one that I think about with the run expectancies and such as well. Yes, over the long run aggregate of all the data out there a runner scoring from second with no outs is x%. But that percentage has to vary significantly if the next three batters are Ryan Braun, Prince Fielder, Casey Mcghee vs. Royce Clayton, Chad Moeller, Ben Sheets (just to think of the rally killing black hole the bottom of the order used to be). A manager would be pretty foolish to bunt the runner to third with Braun coming up given the much higher than average likliehood of he or Fielder getting the runner home and chance for more runs. But using a guy like Clayton to bunt and hope a guy like Moeller can just hit a flyball or hit to the right side and score the run may make more sense because the odds of getting more than one run with those guys coming up is pretty small. I think this the sort of game situation/player situation stuff that makes those long run aggregates less important or less of a rule to live by where you have to trust the manager to recognize the situation.

I don't have a problem with Gomez in the 2 hole to start the season. It isn't like the Brewers have an automatic guy to put there. Zaun is an old catcher who may just hit into a double play every time Rickie gets on base, at least Gomez may beat out a play or two. Edmonds is still just as much of a question mark given he hasn't played in a year and if he does have some ability left it would be nice to have a guy in the 5 or 6 hole who can drive the ball.

Maybe thinking of Braddock? I second or third the question of tinkering with Stetter's delivery, why mess with it for a LOOGY, especially one that seems to help make him harder to hit. Maybe they thought he wasn't throwing enough strikes? IIRC, he seemed to get behind in the count late last year when hitters took pitches but I could be totally wrong.

I haven't had a chance to look yet but any word if either of these games are on TV?

I don't watch or care about the play in game now, I can't imagine another 15 or so of those games drawing my interest. How much money would this really add? I don't think the TV audience would be as big as they think and attendence certainly won't be that great. First round games as it is are not sellouts. This whole idea is pretty bad, why water down an already great product. They would almost have to play some of these first games at the home court of one of the teams or these teams would be forced to spend the entire week at the round one site. Kinda throws into question the lame excuse of they can't have a football playoff because the student athletes can't be expected to travel or miss school for the playoff structure. I think it would also eliminate a lot of the Cinderella type stories because the mid major teams would have to play one more game before getting a shot at anyone meaningful.

Briggs should be happy to hear they apparently tried for Dye. I think he has posted they should at least look at Dye a number of times.

I'll admit you got me. Completely forgot what day it was.

Not to hijack the thread by delving further down this road but that still doesn't have any proof or real substance that Attansio forced Melvin to do the deal or even meddled. All that shows is that it contributed to Suppan agreeing to the deal that was offered by the Brewers. i.e He was offered a pile of money, met the owner who lives nearby and thought he was a decent guy with nice plans or maybe the pile of money wasn't offest by a jerk owner. I just don't see having dinner with a potential free agent signing as any proof of meddling or focing the deal by either side. It just seems like one of those conspiracy theories that point to minor things as proof a grander scheme or plot. Meet and greet dinners happen all the time in the business world and a contract negotiation like this is really just another business deal, almost like a job interview from both sides. When my company hires a receptionist, I don't meet the person, when we are hiring for a VP level person for high dollars I meet the candidates, have lunch, make sure they fit, etc, but I also didn't give the approval to who got that far or force HR on who their final 3 candidates end up being. Before I commit big dollars to someone, especially a new person or as the first time doing so, I would want to meet them. As time goes by the may fade as the trust in the GM is built or comfort level of being an owner builds.

Not to pick on your post but I have seen this bantered about a few times - - that Attanasio having dinner with Suppan is some proof he meddled or that he forced Melvin to sign Suppan. I can see the possible correlation but it appears to be just a likely a simple coincidence. Maybe Attanasio just wanted to meet the guy before committing big dollars to him at Melvin's request, maybe he just wanted to make sure the guy wasn't a jerk, maybe he really just happened to be in LA and it was a nice gesture, maybe Attanasio was just excited as a fan and owner for his first big free agent signing as relatively new owner. I just don't see that having dinner with the guy before inking him is somehow proof Attanasio forced the deal. I have dinner all the time with prospective clients who want to meet me and my team before committing big dollars to my firm and in many cases nothing gets inked just a friendly meet and greet.

I'll go 83-79. I think the pitching will be a few wins better but the offense will be a few wins worse, netting to minimal improvement over last year. Escobar will slightly outproduce Hardy of last year, McGehee will be a bit worse than last year, Hart will continue to struggle and will eventually lose playing time. Counsell as the super sub will regress from his resurgence last year. Catcher will be a slight improvement and 2b a wash. I think people forget how incredibly good Lopez was a Brewer, he had a .407 OBP and even prior to his acquistion McGehee and Counsell played out of their minds. I opptimistically hope Weeks can match the production the team had from 2B but it could easily be another offensive postions that takes a step back even with a decent year from Weeks.

Maybe I'm not reading your post correctly or maybe mine wasn't clear. I was commenting that Bo doesn't preach for WI to try for offensive rebounds but instead preaches take a good shot and get back on defense. Which is why they are near the bottom of the B10 in that categaory. I read your post to mean WI allowed too many offensive rebounds to Cornell which may very well be the case in this game. As far as over the back calls go, watch Ryan Evans play, he is over the back constantly, he thinks he can out jump everyone like in high school but ends up over the back. He gets called for it sometimes but not everytime. I think that is why he looks so surprised when he gets some of the fould he does, because he plays out of control so often that they just don't call everything he does when out of position or crashing into people. I still don't think WI lost only because Cornell was hot, WI was fairly hot too (at least shooting above their season average) and still failed to crack 70. I think the crux of my post as I wrote it was that Bo did a good job getting the most out of this team but this team just wasn't that talented. If you told me a team that was 7th in total scoring per game 6th in field goal percentage made, 7th FG% allowed 9th in 3 PT FG% allowed 9th in offensive rebounds 7th in Free throw attempts would finish in 4th place of an 11 team conference I would be surprised. Generating a 4th place finish while doing so poorly in those stats is quite remarkable but also telling once the tournament time arrived.

The problem I have with just chalking it up to Cornell getting hot, having all the shots fall. etc. is that WI shot over 50% for most of the game as well (vs. 44% for the year) and still couldn't crack the 70 point mark even though Cornell wasn't taking a lot of time on their end. This is a reflection of how deliberate and unwavering the offense is even in the face of falling further and futher behind. WI shot fairly well, cetainly better than vs. Illinois but still got blown out by 20 points. It was as if WI was playing in a different game than Cornell. I think this also exposes that WI's defense is probably overrated when people just look at the scores they allow. Sure teams typically dont' score a lot but how much of that is due to WI being so deliberate and slow on the offensive end limiting posessions and not because they were some lock down defensive team. WI's field goal percentage against was 42.4% for the year, which was 7th best in the Big 10 even though they allowed the fewest points per game. Their 3 point field goal percentage against was 34.3% which was the 9th best in the leauge. Neither stat shows they are a great defensive team, just that they play really slow and take up a lot of time on the offensive end. Looking at the team stats in relation to the other teams in the conference really shows that this team acheived about all it could considering they were 7th in total scoring per game, 6th in field goal percentage made, 4th in 3 point FG% and 1st in free throw percentage made. On defense they gave up the fewest points, but were 7th and 9th in FG% allowed, 9th in offensive rebounds, and 2nd in defensive rebounds. To me that looks exactly like what Bo preaches - - take up time on the offensive end, defensive rebounding, don't worry about offensive rebounds and get back on defense. Blocked shots and steals were 7th and 8th, both of which Bo doesn't try for because he likes positioning instead and doesn't like to foul, not to mention not really having the athletes to do either. The problem is the scoring ability was pretty weak and the actual making people miss wasn't good. This is a reflection of the weaker recruiting and ending up with guys whose other options were often mid major programs. WI also ended up 7th in free throw attempts, another sign they spend way too much time jump shooting from the perimeter and not driving or at least making the defender work to defend. The old hall mark of making more than the oppenents attempt at the line was gone with the offense this year.

You mean the year that their third leading scorer and leading rebounder was out for the season with a dislocated elbow?Or 03-04 when Tucker missed all but 4 games on a team that could've competed for a final 4 birth with him. Or 04-05 when everything was lined up for a solid run... but Harris went pro a year early. Everyone seems to think going to the sweet 16 is easy, well, only 2 teams have done it the last 3 years: MSU and Xavier. Excuses, excuses for underperformances or else people just have too high an opinion of where they could reach. Other teams deal with injury and other teams don't have such thin rosters from poor recruting that losing 1 player dooms them every year. This year's team lost no one and their lack of any offense off the bench was exposed and overall lack of talent was exposed. Next year's team will be very thin at guard and offense will be tough to come by. You are right, getting to the Sweet 16 three years in a row isn' t easy but how many teams view getting to the Sweet 16 as the zenith of achievement? I think that is the problem people are seeing or getting frustrated with, that WI can't take the next step beyond just being a decent team somewhere in the 20-30 range in ranking/advancement when all is said and done. I saw posts on forums trash talking about how great WI was because they made the tournament and UNC, UConn, and AZ didn't. I would take those teams last 20 years of basketball accomplishments in a heartbeat over WI's. I'd gladly miss the tourney once in a while if it meant seeing the final four or winning a championship more often then once a century.

I think endaround just beat me to my point about the profitablity aspect of team ownership. I look at it almost like real estate, you won't make much in profits in each year but the gains come from capital appreciation when you sell the thing. I would guess most team owners aren't in it to generate income for them to pay their personal bills, they like owning the team and look to make a big profit when they sell it down the road. There are a few owners who have inherited the team and the team is the big income generator for the family but most of the guys who have bought the teams in the last 20 years are looking for that jump in valuation when they sell it. As long as they can keep it cash flow neutral for the most part they should be happy and reinvesting money into better players, etc. only helps the long run value of the team when they sell it. Sort of like owning a nice big beach house and remodeling the kitchen - - there are only so many places on the water and having a nice kitchen makes it easier to sell for more money.

What recruits or underclassman can be counted on to provide offense? I think half the time Hughes looks so out of control is because they are hamstrung and playing 3 on 5 when on the offensive end and he is forced to well, force stuff. Evans, Bruesewitz, Jarmusz, are all very weak offensively, Wilson has very brief flashes but barely plays. When the team struggles they have no one on the bench to come in and provide an offensive burst. Evans keeps getting hype for raw talent but he does not impress me at all. He can sky and run but that is it. How many times does he get called for fouls for over the back or running into people as he is out of control. His shooting ability is pretty suspect as is his ball handling skills. Wilson is going into his junior year next year having barely played. Even a big guy like Bergerren who redshirted one year and was supposedly a good recruit barely gets on the court. Anderson coming in looks like another big tall guy who can't play considering he doesn't even dominate in high school in a pretty weak competitive environment. WI may have 4 guys over 6'10" next year who barely play or are just a guy. That's four scholarships eaten up by guys that don't contribute. If Taylor gets in foul trouble next year who else is a point guard? I think this team will be in worse shape next year than this year's team. As soon as I started criticizing the make up of this team at the beginning of the year I got the old, "your're not a Badger fan" routine but I never thought they were a top 3 in the Big 10 team. The Big 10 has improved from Bo's early days and winning championships by "coaching up" mid major type players is going to be a whole lot tougher. Basically that is where I think WI is as a progarm, recruting like a mid major despite playing in the Big 10 and having great facilities and some banners in the rafters. Look at the other schools who offer scholarships to many of the guys that WI signs, mostly mid majors. WI isnt' beating out other Big 10 schools for guys lately, or even Marquette. This idea that Bo can do no wrong or that he is such a coaching genius is starting to bother me. WI shot the ball pretty well today but still couldn't break 70 on the offensive end even with the other team running bit and not playing the slowdown game. Too many possessions for WI of passing around the perimeter for 20 seconds which seems to be their entire offensive set. Even when trailing by double digits they display no urgency to score. Zone defenses make it worse because they let WI swing the ball around the perimeter wasting time. Coming from behinid is more difficult because they have no press or trapping defense. Man to man for 40 minutes and nothing else, ever.

I wouldn't bet on a return in 6 weeks. I would bet on a torn muscle, especially in a high movement area like his lat will take toward the long end or more than any estimate they put out there. Building up the strength in the fibers to withstand a few hundred swings and a few hundred thows a day to get back into baseball playing shape will take time beyond just getting the fibers to grow together. If I were to bet on his return to effectiveness, playing every day it would be on the over of the 9 week period. I agree with Crew07's point earlier about the seeming trend or pattern of Brewer players being hurt or complaining of an injury for quite sometime before an MRI is done. I just don't get why a professional sports team doesn't send guys for MRIs quicker or more often when these things come up. Trying to save a couple grand here or there when millions are invested in the player salary and success of the team seems silly.

Does it concern anyone that the Brewers could have 4 LH starters?

I don't think he meant it as traditional utility player who is basically a back up at a couple infield positons who only plays if someone needs a day off or is hurt. Guys like Freel, DeRosa or Hall for a period were different. They started nearly every game but had no set position they may play 3B vs. a lefty, 2B vs. a RH or play OF if a guy needed a day or shifted for PHing options etc. Many of those traditional utility guys were slap hitting mostly glove guys rather than guys with a decent bat that could play multiple positions who a manager tried to get in the lineup for hitting rather than defense or the other mentioned reasons. I am sure there guys over the 100+ years of baseball that were like that but seeing a manager work the lineup to get them in rather than the other way around makes me think of them differently than just a back up infielder utility guy.

I'd take that bracket in a heartbeat for WI. KSU and NM haven't really done all that much OOC and WI had already played MD, Gonzaga, and MU.

Invader, your post reminded me of another, I've been to probably a dozen foreign countries but none of them are Canada or Mexico.

I have never seen Titanic. I have never been to Door County. I have never ridden in a MiniVan. I have never watched an entire Bucks game on TV.