MJLiverock

I am away from home for the entire evening about 20x a summer/fall for softball, 10x for Brewer games, 7x for Badger football, none of which my wife or kids attend with me. Both my kids are under 4 so their bedtime is earlier than most of my softball games completion so my wife rarely brings them out. Getting to 40 nights out over 6 months doesn't really take much. The sporting events are on top of work dinners, dinner with friends in town, etc.

Surely she can't be the first woman you've seen dressed more for fashion/looks than weather/comfort.

Not aimed at you specifically Monty but why is every roster decision that people disagree with pushed off of Melvin and onto RR or Attanasio? Brewers sign controversial players and immediately someone says it was Attanasio meddling, even without a shred of evidence. People don't like the 25 or 40 man roster (neither Morris nor Halton on the 40 man as you acknowledge) and it is because RR made the decision or pushed Melvin on when to add guys from the minors to the 40 man? I seriously doubt RR made Melvin sign YB or Attanasio called that shot. Melvin is the GM and until I hear from the team that Attanasio or RR made a signing or roster decision happen against Melvin's wishes I'll assume Melvin is doing the job of GM and building the roster.

I saw that article yesterday and was surprised that the new Brewer TV contract was only $20 million/year after so much conjecture of a number closer to $30 million. Still dwarfed by the big market teams TV deals but every $10 million helps.

I've hated the idea of Gonzalez at 1B since it was announced he would be the replacement for Gamel and Hart. I got into a little Twitter spat with Hardricourt over it since he tried to defend him as "having a little pop" so he wouldn't be bad at 1B. That said, what is RR supposed to do at this point? Melvin did nothing to address the issue in spring training by brining in any of the experienced 1B that were floating around for next to nothing. There isn't even really a back up at the MLB level at this point to argue as someone who should be playing 1B. Maldanado is inexperienced and the back up catcher and despite a great year at the plate last year leaves me skeptical that his bat can play at 1B. Davis hated it and barely played it and was by all accounts not good at it. Ramirez has never played it at the MLB level. For some reason Melvin thought another back up infielder like YB was the answer instead of finding a 1B and letting Gonzalez be the back up infielder. As far as where Gonzalez bats I doubt it really matters a whole lot if he bats 6th, or 7th or 8th for month. I can't really fault the manager in this situation his hands are pretty tied by the construction of the roster.

ahh the old gotta see a lotta pitches cliche. Plenty of terrible hitters see a lot of pitches, Jason Kendall comes to mind, and plenty of great hitters hit the first good pitch they like. I consider seeing pitches to be one the most useless stats there is in determining a hitter's ability. Nothing annoys me more than watching a batter take straight as an arrow fast ball down the middle of the plate just because they never swing at the first pitch only to pop up a curve ball 3 pitches later.

I see the term window tossed around with almost derision by some posters and have to disagree with it being a negative. There are always going to be periods of time or windows of opportunity when a team should be going for it or taking that extra push to win. The opportunity to have the elite level talent in a couple of players that is needed to win championships only comes along every so often for most teams that can't just buy it on the open market at any given moment. For the years when Braun, Gallardo, (and Fielder while here) and a decent core of players like Lucroy, Hart, Weeks, are around they should push the envelope. If they didn't I'd say they wasted the prime years and chances to win with a talented MLB roster while always playing for that mythical future improvement. At some point you have bet the cards in your hand or you never win. The Brewers spent many a year playing for tomorrow to no success in the 90's, finally just admitting they had nothing at the MLB level letting payroll bottom and starting over, building the prospects to get a sold MLB team and it became time to go for the championships. Now in the future if they are a 75-80 win team and making trades or signing high dollar closers or building a strong bench I'd questions those moves as frivolous or poor use of minor league talent. But when the MLB roster has enough core talent and an elite level player or two I see no reason to keep the team down and hope that in 3-5 years the teams is better or some other elite talent develops while the prime of the elite players in hand are wasted. I have yet to feel remorse over any of the prospects traded by the Brewers over the last severals seasons despite some claims at the time that Inman, Garrison, Brantley, Dickerson, LaPorta, Thatcher, Gillespie, Jeffries, Odorizzi, Escobar, Cain, Lawrie, were future stars. A few of these guys namely Lawrie and Odorizzi and Escobar may still be above average players but the Brewers also got back Segura, Hellweg, and Pena to offset some of that talent. I'm starting to come around to the notion that the current inefficiency in baseball valuation are the prospects. The fail rate is so high that outside of the few very obvious guys that never get traded for anything Trout, Strassburg, etc., teams may be better off dumping off prospects for proven talent and letting someone else overpay for potential.

Just saw the new Forbes baseball report. They estimate the Brewers had $201 Million in revs in 2012 and a $9 million profit with a $100 Million payroll. It seems the operating costs by most teams range in the $80 to $100MM range outside of payroll so if the Brewers can get a bump in TV money, keep the park full, they should be able to keep revs in the $200MM to $220MM range giving them room for the payroll you describe, pending how much they want for a "net income" in any given year. The caveat I have had is that what is that $100MM to $110MM payroll going to get in the baseball market of tomorrow? The bump in Brewers TV money pales in comparison to most teams. The Phillies had 2012 revs of $279MM and expect to double their TV money. The Brewers revs even at $210MM to $220MM will put them in the lowest third of baseball teams as the new money rolls in.

I wish I could have shaken Deion's hand after that moment. McCarver was complete arrogant jerk leading up to it and got what he deserved in the locker room.

I got hooked on the show from beginning because of the connection to The Shield. If you haven't seen that show from the beginning check it out while waiting for the new Sons of Anarchy season.

As I said earlier in this thread, I will not miss this UW senior class one bit. Seriously 5-22 from the floor for the 3 seniors who actually play.

My current car has bluetooth and I've had bluetooth in cars going back to 2002 and I have paired my phone but when I leave bluetooth on it drains the battery on my phone much quicker. I never remember to turn it off once out of the car or take the time to turn it on again once in the car. I don't talk that much on my phone and most commutes are pretty short for me so it easier to just leave bluetooth off and talk directly on the phone for those rare times I need to talk or answer it while driving. Once in while if I know I'll be in the car for longer or I know I'll be makiing/receiving a call I'll turn it on, especially now that I have an app that toggles it on and off.

Just reading his velocity was way down too, one tweet said he was visibly frustrated after the short outing - - understandable but gotta hope nothing wrong. added: just 18 strikes in 42 pitches, with velocity drop and injury history brings bad juju.

Haven't Stricker and Tiger been buddies for a long time? I seem to remember something about Stricker being one of the only guys from the tour Tiger really hung out with prior to the whole tabloid mess. I saw Stricker speak at a UW function last year and I know he got a lot of questions about how Tiger was handling the scrutiny/tabloids and divorce, etc.

Anderson was hyped because he was tall when he was a freshman and sophomore. Guys like that always pop onto the radar because of the hope of how much they can improve as they grow accustomed to how tall they are. That was why Anderson had schools like Kansas sniffing around when he was young. By the time he got to be a senior and barely averaged double digits and wasn't dominate playing against lesser competition he fell off most big time schools radar and no one really thought of him as a 4 star guy anymore. Yes, I do think Gasser is overrated. I used Jarmusz just because Jarmusz was praised locally for any smidgen of positive play and even had fans asking why he didn't start which he eventually did despite being terrible. I dont' think Gasser is terrible, just overrated and nothing more than a role player. Gasser wasn't going to get a scholarship offer from WI until Blue left and Diamond Taylor got kicked off the team, so it isn't like Gasser was coveted by WI or other B10 schools. Gasser feasts on the bottom feeder competition and disappears versus the better teams with better guard play, like most WI players he doesn't do much to create his own shot and just hangs around the perimeter. Last year versus Nebraska, PSU, Northwestern and Iowa he averaged 10.2 points a game and shot 45%. Up against MSU, OSU, MI, IN, teams with decent guards, he drops to 4.7 points. Throw in the Marquette and N.Carolina games for quality non conference and he averaged 4.5 pts and shot 34% against better quality teams. All of this while playing over 30 minutes a game so it isn't like he's not on the court. In the NCAA tourney he put up double digits against Montana and then was 2-5 and 9 points combined versus Vandy and Syracuse, again disappearing once the competition got better. Then I look at this year's team which exceeded all expectations and didn't appear to miss him one bit, their biggest problem is consistent offense, something he doesn't bring to the table.

yeah, it's not that I think Jackson is great but like the old saying, in the land of the blind the one eyed man is king. If Marshall can improve I can see him getting more playing time. Gasser is another guy I've never been sold on. He seems like another Jarmusz, a WI kid who people look to give him more credit than deserved because of where he is from rather than actual talent. He was not impressive defensively against the better guards in games last year and that like most WI players is always mentioned first with offense a distant second.

Zack Greinke will fly back to LA today have elbow examined by doctors. per team twitter feed and dodgers.com

I have never been so happy to see a senior class graduate and leave a program as I am for this WI Basketball class. I have never been a believer in the "this is the year Ryan Evans breaks out" that is supposed to happen every year, he is a bench/role player at best. Evans and Bruiser should never be on the court at the same time. Bergerran is solid defensively but has never really blossomed on the offensive side, and the other 2 seniors never see the court unless a blowout and one of them was found via open try outs. Seeing Decker and Jackson taking over at the end showed where the real talent on the team lies and it isn't in the senior class. Thankfully the incoming freshman class looks like they have some guys who actually want to score and aren't just gritty dive on the floor guys.

I hear Casey, in general I have no problems with TDS for internet and phone but logging into the website on those rare occasions is always a pain. I can never remember the password because it is one of those ridiculous x number o letter, with a number, maybe a capital letter, some special characters but not all are eligible passwords that doesn't work with any of my other passwords. Not to mention their stupid PIN requirement to make any changes on service. They act like your phone information is the most critical info in the world and make it harder to obtain than my financial records. I asked them once about it and they claimed customer love how it protects them from having their long distance company switched or service changed without their knowledge. Really are people still unlawfully switching long distance carriers? There is zero money to be made in long distance carriage and if someone changed my internet service to a slower speed I'd probably notice. As part of my internet service they gave me 100 minutes of long distance a month for free, they already give me landline for virtually nothing so I said sure, give me the 100 minutes of long distance. I have never once used this long distance because they also require another PIN before making the connection. I have no idea what this PIN is and they won't tell me over the phone since it is such sensitive information. Really? Being able to make long distance phone calls on my land line is worth this much security effort?

Record: 77-85 Division:3/4th (Reds win division by at least 7 games, with Cardinals 2nd and Pirates Brewers in general record ) All Stars: Braun Disappointments: Rotation in general is very inconsistent and young guys wear down at year end. Offense takes a step back as the guys like Braun,Aoki, Ramirez, Hart and Lucroy can't quite duplicate last year's success and the bench remains terrible. Surprises: Gomez duplicates last year and Weeks gets back on track. World Series: Angels over Dodgers

If Crosby so much as makes the 25 man roster he is instantly my whipping boy. There is so reason that guy should be able to make the roster. Even worse than my immediate anger over Izturis making the roster last year. Espeically infuriating are the mentions of him playing 1b. Gonzalez is a horrible enough choice for 1b given his bat, let alone plugging a guy who couldn't hit 4 years ago when he last played.

Just hearing on the radio the Bucks made their annual trade of either recently drafted or recently signed players in a flailing attempt at ????? made me want to revisit my earlier post in this thread to see if anything had changed. Nope. BTW TLB, excellent summation of the Bucks front office.

With 7% salary inflation (which is also close to the annualized TV contract money expected after the current jump is done) that $25 million contract in 10 years is like a $12.7 million contract today and will likely represent less than 10% of payroll for teams like the Angels, Dodger, Yankees, Cubs payroll in 10 years, just a a $12.7 MM deal today isn't a big deal to those teams. A $150MM payroll today could very well be approaching $300MM in 10 years at the expected inflation rates for top tier revenue teams.

Some big market teams though have piles of money and what is a crippling contract to the Brewers is a minor annoyance to them. At some level these teams have their young talent, their scouting in every foreign land set up, and still have a boatload of money to spend. Teams like the Brewers aren't going to trade or sell their cost controlled talent to them and money in the bank doesn't win championships or make fans happy so they may as well spend it, because next year another pile of cash will roll in and a few contracts will drop off. Regarding Hernandez's deal, Seattle's TV contract expires in 2015 and is expected to increase dramatically, probably a double from whatever it is at now and locking up their biggest star who also happens to play the most premium paid position on the diamond may not be so bad.

I know Craig and he is a well respected analyst, although I used to chide him about his prediction that DirecTV was going to lose all of its subs 5 or 6 years ago due to people switching to cable for broadband. Those 97% margins have to be in reference to incremental margins on existing networks and can't possibly include the capex or D&A associated with the lines. Time Warner's overall margins have been in the mid single digits most years and just reached 10% for 2012. Their EBITDA margin is about 35% or so which of course strips out the taxes, interest on debt and Depreciation of the rather large capex required to improve network speeds. There has been some news lately about trying to improve speeds nationwide and the general reluctance of the broadband providers to invest to improve their networks. My guess is they are just finally turning a profit on therm and are hesitant to launch another round of upgrades that many customers won't notice or pay up for the incremental increase of going from 30MB speeds to 100MB or even a 1GB speed. When video streaming via TV shows and communications finally overwhelms the networks and bogs things down people will demand more speed. I get 15mb speed via TDS DSL and it is pretty consistent, they just ran new fiber in my neighborhood to deliver 30mb but I doubt I'll upgrade unless they give me a great deal because the 15 works just fine for my needs right now. I can stream video through my DirecTV box and Netflix without issue. I know Obama had talked about increasing the penetration of high speed networks during his first campaign but nothing really materialized out of it. Something the rural electrification act of the New Deal would probably be a nice boost for some people. My parents still can't get high speed because they live smack between 2 cable companies whose territory and lines end about 300 yards on either side of their lot and I don't see either one adding those 300 yards just to bring in 15 more houses. And the hill blocks wireless data signals from being strong enough.