MJLiverock

I agreed with plunking Pujols last year, he was probably going to walk him anyway so it really didn't matter and if I recall the Brewers were already down a run and there was no reason let Pujols whack one out of the park. It always puzzles me why people think this cost the Brewers the playoffs, they were already losing and walking Pujols was not a stupid move given he was about the only threat in the lineup at that point of the season.

With Wainwright's injury maybe the Cardinals would be interested in seeing if Weaver can regain his magic under Duncan. The way Bill Hall has been breaking bats this year maybe the team can get a truckload of them for Weaver.

Anyone still have an extra Braun bobble? I am willing to trade a Fielder one from this year for it.

I can't believe Schroeder actually thinks that you have to play for the save (regarding last night's game). Why play for a stat, how about play for the win and the stupid save stat be damned.

Is this game a WMLW game? I found it on channel 660 for any DirecTV subs out there who were wondering.

Couldn't agree more bcf5575. If they can't or don't resign Sheets they can pretty much kiss playoff hopes good bye for the foreseeable future. The staff isn't that good to begin with and taking away the one top of the line guy will doom the staff to mediocrity. A staff of Gallardo coming of knee surgeries while still being a young and somewhat unproven starter, followed by Suppan and Parra and then what? Bush? McClung? That doesn't look good. I don't know that Villanueva will ever be an effective starter for an entire season, I like him but he just can't seem to get through the order a 3rd time because his stuff just isn't good enough. He may be destined to be a reliever or starter in the mold of Vargas. There really isn't anyone in the minors ready to go and be a top of the line guy. Othewise this team will be a .500 ball club with a good offense and a below average staff. The only caveat I see is some sort of blockbuster trade involving Fielder or some of the minor league guys like Gamel or Laporta to bring in a high quality major league pitcher.

I am so glad I finally hooked one my DVR's to the internet, I was able to log on to DirecTV's site and tell my DVR to start recording the game after I saw the 5-1 score since I forgot to set it this morning. I can't wait to see Corey's inside the parker, how did he do it with Prince on first? He had to have been on Prince's heels by the end.

C'mon, Hardy is a career .325 OBP and Hall is a career .318 OBP, I wouldn't call that not close. Hardy is probably the most disappointing of the prospects at this point (with Weeks being close). I heard all the raves of his defense and have seen an average defender so far with limited range and a strong arm. I bought into the miracle of his start last year and thought wow he really was suffering these past years from rustiness and getting used to ML pitching. But now after the 2nd half of last year and first third of this year I am back to thinking he is what he has been for most of his ML career and the first half of last year was the miracle outlier. Hardy looks like he is going to be a .250/.320/.375 player while playing average defense. Hall might boot a few more routine plays, make a few more highlight plays and put up a .250/.315/.420 line. The whole picture of both looks pretty even with each being a little stronger in some areas. I just hope Escobar becomes the answer at SS and at least can bring D as good as rumored.

I remember the opening day shot Branyan hit a few years ago. I was at the game and it hit near Geoff Jenkins name in the lineup on the scoreboard iirc, or at least that is how I remember it. I think Jenks was either batting 3rd, 4th, or 5th, at the time so if you want to look at the scoreboard today to get an idea where it hit at that is where I would focus.

I think Vargas' release came down to money and bodies. The had an entire collection of guys who would be classified as 5th/6th starters, Bush, Cappy, Vargas, Villanueva, Parra. It seems no teams were really jumping up to take any of Cappy, Bush, Vargas off the Brewers hands in the spring. The team certainly wasn't going to cut Villy or Parra, and the agrument could be made that neither really had anything to prove in the minors other than being stashed there for later use. So it came down to the three headed monster of Bush Cappy Vargas with Vargas inline for a few million dollar pay bump. I can see why they kept Bush, he has had his moments and until this year had good control. So really it comes down to Cappy vs. Vargas. Cappy is a lefty and had put up decent years and they gambled he would rebound. I never really bought into the whole Cappy just had bad luck line and thought maybe something was either wrong with him or he just couldn't locate like he used to but the Brewers took a gamble and it didn't work, Cappy was diagnosed with a serious arm problem. It happens, no front office is ever 100% right on every move. If letting Vargas go is the worst mistake they make this year I can live with that. I don't think the team counted on Bush losing control and a few MPH on his fastball, Villy being totally ineffective as a starter, Parra not being able to go 6 innings, Cappy's arm falling off, Gallardo blowing out a knee like a NFL running back, Riske developing elbow problems, Gagne with shoulder problems, control problems, etc. So now the team ends up Tavarez, Dillard, ZJack, appearing with McClung starting, etc. so it make Vargas seem like a bitter loss because he might be better than some these guys but I really didn't see it coming down to this level back in March and I can't believe many others really thought they would be digging this deep for pitchers in May.

For what its worth Dave Bush was a good AA pitcher too and we see where that has lead.

This is the first year that I've noticed this trend a lot (in a good 18 years of watching baseball coherently), and maybe because I've looked at it in a different light. But I always thought that your best reliever should pitch the 9th, your ultimate last line of defense. Now I feel that your best reliever should be used to kill any type of rally, or "momentum" (there's that danged M word again) that the other team is building. If you end that in say the 7th, or even 8th I would think that it would be really difficult to build that back up again in the 9th against another tough reliever. This is one of those things that reading this site for the past couple years has opened my eyes to. Why not use your best reliever in the situation where you need the "relief" the most? Wasn't the old Rolaids Relief Man Award a play on putting out the fires? If it is the 8th inning and the tying run is in scoring position why not bring in your best available pitcher to end the rally or potential loss of the lead. Or even situationally, if the heart of the other team's order is up in the 8th wouldn't you want to use your best pitcher against them rather than trot out the 2nd or 3rd best option to face the opposing team's best players so that your best pitcher can face the bottom of their order in the next inning if you are lucky enough to hold the lead. I mean if you are the Mets wouldn't you want to use Billy Wagner in the 8th versus Utley and Howard rather than hope someone else can get them out so you can use the Wagner for the ninth and get a save?

I was a huge Simpsons fan through the 90's and could quote almost every episode but lately the show seems to have lost its luster and is rarely funny anymore. I don't know if it has just run out of material or if it has just become too tame in comparison to shows like the Family Guy and South Park. I loved Family Guy from the beginning as well and get a lot more laughs from that show now than the Simpsons. South Park has risen the bar in the recent years to what I think may be one of the best written shows on TV. The satire level is off the charts with both plot and timeliness of the episodes. It is not just a gross out show about vulgar kids but a pretty good social commentary with laughs built in. Simpsons almost comes across as preachy now and kinda lame. Family Guy is still what it always has been, a ridiculous story line and a bunch of vignette gag jokes that may or may not have anything to do with the plot, but it still makes me laugh. Peter Lois Meg - I am in the Lisa is annoying camp and really don't the Lisa centric episodes Bart Stewie Brian Advantage to the Simpsons on other characters based onthe sheer number of other characters we have gotten to know, gotta love Moe, Mayor Quimby, Duffman, Comic Store guy, and Mr. Burns, and on an on but I have to give mention to Adam West as the Quohog Mayor as great.

Make sure you look at the model number and stats of any TV you buy at Wal-Mart. There is a reason their Sony TV may be cheaper than a Best Buy or Circuit City or American TV, etc. Wal-mart used to get the lowest end model of the same size and fool people into believing it was the same TV as other place but really had a slower processing chip, or less lines of resolution, or slower refresh rate, etc. Just make sure you are comparing apples to apples and not just looking at brand name and screen size. I would lean toward a Sony, Samsung, Panasonic, although 37" is sort of an odd size so Sony may not make one. I know of nothing but nightmares with LG but that was mainly the plasmas and mobile phones. Vizeo has never been a favorite but some people have liked them for the smaller TV's.

Or even take it a step further, if a guy just pitched a pretty good 8th inning and appears that his "stuff" is on why take him out? (other than obvious L/R matchups in key situations) Why run the risk the guy coming in won't be on his game on that particular night, can't throw strikes, breaking stuff not there etc. I thought most of the bullpen guys could go multiple innings this year. Sure you might not be able to bring the guy back the next night after 2 innings of use but everyone else should be well rested. Of course a 2 inning save wouldn't fall into the new tradtion of 1 guy for the 8th and 1 guy for the ninth. (pared back long nested quote --1992)

I can't believe how bad this picture quality is, the graphics are actually blurry on my HDTV. I had to email Fox Sports and let them know of how weak it is to have a national or regional game of the week and not put it in HD.

I was just thinking about how high mine and many others expectations were for the Brewers going into this season and couldn't help but think of the Cleveland Indians team going into the 2006 season. After the 2005 season the young Indians team had finished with a 93-69 record in 2nd place and were a popular pick to win their division in 2006. The core of the team was full of relatively young players, Martinez, Hafner, Sizemore, Pheralta, Blake. The pitching staff had one ace pitcher, Sabathia, and a few other decent pieces like Lee and Westbrook with a sort of cobbled together bullpen. The team went out in 2006 and put up a 78-84 record and finished in fourth place. Their pythagorean W/L predicted a 89-73 record for them in 2006 but for some reason they just couldn't seem to win. The offense didn't drop off, but the pitching regressed a little but still the young team lost a lot more games than expected given the talent and stats. Offense 2005 .271/.334/.453 as a team finishing 5/3/3 in the league in the respective stats and scoring 790 runs 2006 .280/.349/.457 as a team finishing 4/3/4 in the leage and scoring 870 runs Pitching 2005 Team ERA 3.61 for 1st in league, #4 in K's, and #2 in BB's, allowed 642 runs 2006 Team ERA 4.41 for 6th in league, #13 in K's and #2 in BB's allowed 782 runs Basically the offense improved but the pitching gave up a few more runs, K'd a few less guys but overall didn't drop to the worst staff in the league. Maybe this is just an example of a fairly young team learning to play the game and do the little things right that are hard to measure with stats like baserunning, defense, timely hitting/good AB's in late situations, not walking guys in key situations, etc. I don't know what it means for the Brewers but the general disappointment many felt with the 2006 Indians drop off just seemed to push to look into it more since I remembered them as a young an upcoming team which I feel the Brewers are. The early season Brewers problems seem to be running deeper than just missing a few of the little things as they have had some sharp drops in a few areas but again they are a very young team that may need to just play more to get it all going at once. Brewers offense 2007 .262/.329/.456 good for 11 / 11 / 2 in the league. I guess I didn't realize how much they relied on the HR last year. 2008 .241/.319/.389 good for 14 / 11 / 12 in the league. Avg. is a little lower but wow what a drop in SLG Pitching 2007 Team ERA 4.41 for 9th in the league, 3rd in K's and 4th in BBs. 2008 Team ERA 4.57 for 13th in league, 11th in K's, and 14th in BBs. Wow, not K'ing anyone and putting a lot on via the free pass. even with an improved D (which I know is a point of contention) more balls in play via no K's and more free passes is putting guys on base. Frankly I am surprised the team ERA isn't worse. I know Fatter than Joey has been pointing out the BB's issue quite a bit (as others probably have as well.). The Brewers may be a young upcoming team but they need to seriously improve the offense even off of last year's numbers which outside of the big power really weren't that good. As dismal as this year's production seems the only real difference is the lack of HR's since the team really wasn't that great at BA or OBP last year.

Except for the career numbers that JeffreyScott posted showing Gwynn more likely to get on base vs. a RH'er than Dillon. Gwynn vs. RH .262/.316/.325 Gwynn +.048 in OBP Dillon vs. RH .228/.268/.359 Dillon +.034 in SLG I just don't see using Gwynn in that situation as some egregious offense in managing a game.

But again why does it have to be power in that situation? It was 6-2 in the 6th inning why is it necessary to have a HR or extra base hit? Neither wins the game there is plenty of time left and why not use the option most likely to keep the inning alive. Were you screaming when JJ took a walk instead of swinging for the fences when he was at the plate just before TGJ? If Gwynn gets a single there nobody is complaining now all of a sudden because he made an out Yost screwed up. Yost makes me scratch my head plenty of times but using Gwynn there is not out of the realm of reasonableness. I can just imagine the gnashing of teeth if he used Dillon in a RH vs. RH match up and Dillon making an out.

Minors? What about High School ball? or American Legion? If minor league stats were all that then Joe Dillon would be an all star.

A single with the bases loaded and two outs usually requires getting the ball to the outfield. Right I forgot, TGJ has never hit the ball out of the infield. What is his BA these days? Or alternatively I should get in the camp of we should have kept Gabe ".188" Gross for these situations because once in a blue moon he hits a HR.

Not ot pick on you Steveo about this since I have seen in posted many times but what is wrong with Gwynn at that point? So you would have hated getting a 2 run scoring single and keeping the inning alive and would rather hope for the mythic 5 run home run? I don't get the vitrol for using Gwynn in that situation, he represented the best chance of keeping the inning going by not making an out, which the Brewers needed since they were down by so much. The general consensus on this board is seemingly OBP is best (or alternatively not making outs) so why all of a sudden with the bases loaded is a HR the only acceptable outcome from an AB?

Yeah all Gross needs is regular playing time. Oh yeah, he still stinks in Tampa.

The insider article doesn't really say anything new. It points out in his All -Star season he had 24 saves in the first half and zero in the second half, basically saying the wheels fell off the wagon then and how odd it must be to have that many saves in the 1st half and go to zero in the second. The rest of the article talks about his control problems and need for a change of scenery since he gets booed everytime he is announced in Miller Park.

I think Turnbow's problem will be that the AAA strike zone is the same size as the MLB strike zone.