DuWayne Steurer

Yeah! Women are inferior and can only get one out! GOOD INSULT! I believe the inference is man vs boy....not woman. A woman couldn't get one out, just keeping it real.

This is where I think the game could be headed. And I could probably talk myself into being ok with it. Lots of strategic options to explore by maybe letting a team take 1 or 2 players out and re-insert them.

Most of janesville that sits in the rock river valley is completely flooded today. Lots and lots of rain and no place for it to go.

I feel like with a lot of ex-Brewers, there always springs up any number of "let's bring back Sheets/Lucroy/Hart/Weeks/Prince/Jenkins/Burnitz/etc, etc, etc, etc, etc, repeat ad nauseum" threads. They are favorites, guys we know, they're familiar, comfortable, whatever..... but yeah. When there's usually cheaper, better younger options available, and there's almost always reasons the team moved on from those guys to begin with.

Dickerson is probably an .800 OPS corner outfielder with subpar defense, going into his age 29 season. He's really easily replaceable, and he's not really cheap. He's not expensive (yet), but he's not cheap. He doesn't take walks, probably not a lot of room for growth in his offensive skill set.... so yeah, I can see why Tampa saw the state of the market this off-season and saw that it would just be easier to cut him loose than just hope they'd get a few pieces for him when they needed the roster spot now.

I guess my concern would be that the almost .900 OPS guy he was last year is not who he really is. Is it possible? Sure, he may put up a few more seasons like that. 2 years ago he put up a .760 OPS, while hitting .266. The bad thing about his OPS is it's VERY dependent on his batting average. He's never hit 60 extra base hits in a season, and he doesn't draw a lot of walks. I mean, he is what he is. A very average 1B with average power and sub-par defense. If the Padres are lucky, they'll get a few good to really good seasons out of him. That's a heck of a dice roll though, and one I can't possibly imagine they should have taken, given his history.

I guess my first baseman isn't the guy I'm really worried about making productive outs. I'm not going to say that there's not a statistical plus to not striking out, but I don't know that there's really much of an actual statistical value over the course of a season to Hosmer striking out 110 - 120 times as opposed to 150 or 160 times.

A 1st baseman who's got a career OPS below .800, who plays (according to the metrics) really bad defense (but keeps winning gold gloves), and they gave him 8 years. At least the AAV isn't horrible?

Well, I think, as others have pointed out... you're talking about something that's been done less than 10 times ever in like 117 years of baseball. When you say "could" I mean, are we talking like 1 in 1000 odds? Sure, even the Yankees "could" win 110 games, but are the odds of them doing it worth discussion? The Cubs bullpen right now is not good. Their rotation is good, but not great. Their offense is very good, but not "best ever". I'd say for them to put up a win total that would have them in the discussion among the greatest teams of all time (110 wins..... is honestly one of the greatest teams ever), they're a long ways from that. So yeah, I kinda see where everyone else is coming from on this. EVERYONE has to have a peak year. NOTHING can go wrong. NO long term injuries, and even then, I think 110 would be a long shot for that club, as currently constructed.

Guys. Reminder for everyone. Debate the topic. Agree to disagree. Keep the personal attacks and jabs out of it. Understand that people will disagree with your opinions. Cool? Cool.

It's even wilder that we defend the pocketbooks of billionaires over the millionaires (and tons of guys playing for league minimum) who actually perform on the field for us. I don't think fans are defending the pocketbooks of billionaire owners. I think fans want their teams that they root for to build good teams. Spending willy-nilly on overpriced veterans when there are cheap and younger and often better options available is what's good for the team and a lot of fans understand that. It's not so much choosing a side, it's fans that understand what's best for the team in terms of wins and losses in the long run.

Guys.... let's stop repeatedly posting links to Twitter flame wars here. It serves no purpose here, it's cluttering up threads, and we just don't need it here. We're going to just trash posts referencing the flaming garbage that's going on over at Twitter from here on out. If you're posting actual news or trade/signing rumors, cool, bring it on. But just posting links to flame wars? Keep it out of here please. Thanks.

I'm gonna be honest, I could spend 50 million pretty fast if I set my mind to it.

For a long time, it seems that players have at least partially been paid for past performance. NOBODY expected Pujols to be a .950 OPS player in even the last half of that contract. NOBODY. Yet he got almost a quarter of a billion dollar contract, and the Reds turned around and gave almost the same thing to Votto. When Votto got that deal, EVERYONE said "by the end of that deal that's going to be a lot of dead payroll." So... owners/GM's are not paying for past performance anymore. Did they ALL suddenly figure it out in the same offseason? Nah. I think that some teams have been shying away from these contracts for a while now. More and more teams are going with stat-minded GM's in the last 5-10 years, and if they don't, they have analytics people on their payrolls. Teams don't want to go over the luxury tax to pay 33 year old aging superstars for things they did 3 years ago. If players are upset about this, they NEED to look at where they stand with 6 years of cheap team control, the arbitration process, and guys like Chris Bryant getting a "record" 1 million dollars (or whatever it was) assigned contract coming off of an MVP season. Look at the way teams screw guys out of service time (JJ Hardy, Zach Davies) to save a few bucks, or get an extra year of team control. The players agreed to these terms...... and that's what's screwing them over now. When you don't hae to pay guys for their first three years, and then pay them sparingly for the next three, of COURSE teams will use and abuse that system to their own benefit in every way that they can. Is it collusion? Nah. Teams are just finally figuring out that paying guys over 30 the biggest dollars over several years makes very little sense. Something will have to change in the next CBA, or the only guys that are going to make the huge paydays are going to be guys like Trout, Harper, and Machado, the guys that hit FA while still in their prime years.

Here's a question. How many guys were great, good, or even acceptable, showed a series of several seasons of decline, and then showed a sudden bounce-back? I know the popular refrain is "bring him in on a minor league deal and see if he has regained his form", but can someone give a ballpark estimate of how often a player "bounces back" once they hit the downturn/decline phase of their careers? Lincecum is probably done. Even a small amount of resources or roster spot spent on a guy like this is (IMO) a roster spot and resources that could be spent on a guy that isn't already burnt out.

That's a low AAV. He might not be worth it the last few years, but that's not really a terrible contract for a guy of Darvish's quality if he stays reasonably healthy. Sucks that he went to the Cubs. Eh.....what can you do?

I'm fine with Suter being on the team in a long relief/spot start role. He's probably earned that. But we've seen way, way, way, way, way too many guys like Steve Woodard, Junior Guerra, Taylor Jungmann, etc, etc, etc, etc, etc, come up, look good for a start, a few starts, or a full trip around the league, and then just get figured out, and then look like garbage.... to think that Suter is anything more than what he is. A back end filler or bullpen guy. I can't for the life of me imagine that Stearns plan is to go into the season with Suter slotted into the rotation, even until Nelson gets back. They're going to get SOMEONE. It's gonna be Darvish, or Lance Lynn, or Cobb, or maybe even someone who's name hasn't even hit our radar yet, but I'll bet a case of brewskis that before the 3rd week of spring training, the have another starter on the 40 man that's not there now.

I wonder what it's like to be able to almost effortlessly leap over another human being (who is 6'6")

That's actually false. Players are taking a smaller chunk of the revenue pie than they have in quite a while. The owners can "afford" the players salaries. They're just choosing not to pay big dollars in years when players are in likely decline phase.

Patriots lost. I am glad. I have zero rooting interest in the Eagles, and did not watch the game, but still...... just glad the Patriots lost.

Both leagues averaged 5.5 IP per start last year. https://www.baseball-reference.com/leagues/NL/2017-starter-pitching.shtml Also, the NL had 7922 relief appearances last year, and the AL had 7737, so only 200 fewer relief appearances (virtually the same, more or less). The AL managers are switching out pitchers at the same time in the game, and just as often. The DH is not keeping AL pitchers from swapping out pitchers and creating favorable pitching matchups when needed. The relief pitching explosion is the new moneyball. Teams have found that with an average offense, average rotation, and a devastating bullpen, you can be a good team. Look at the 2015 Royals. THey were 6th in the AL in runs scored (slightly above average). they didn't have an ace starter (Chris Young and Edinson Volquez had good, not great years), but the back end of their bullpen was fantastic. Look at the way teams have used Andrew Miller. Dude's one of the best relievers in baseball, but has only been a closer one year. AL managers are "getting it" that getting through the lineup twice with your starter, and then going to your bullpen ( if it's good) is how to minimize run scoring from the opposition. We're probably less than a decade away from some teams averaging less than 5 IP per game from their starters for an entire season. I know people want to the pace of game to speed up, but this is how the game is played now. I can honestly see, as someone else said earlier in the thread, roster expansion being something the league or the players union brings to the table soon, as relief specialization becomes an even more integral part of the game.

Fair is what the market says is fair. I'm getting tired of the players and agents whining about it all. The economics of employment are changing in MLB much as they have in society in general. Deal with it. Except that the players share of revenue by percentage continues to grow smaller and smaller, year by year. The "market" should dictate that the players could be paid handsomely, and then some at this point (which they are). Players salaries are disproportinately and artificially held down because of the 6 year rule, and then by the time they are able to actually hit the free market, teams are now saying "you're too expensive to pay on the open/free market", which is actually false, based on the reported revenues that teams are making.

Giannis hurt today...... man oh man if he's out for any extended amount of time they're screwed. Right now they're within 1.5 of the three seed, which is TOTALLY do-able. The cavs are melting down big time, and getting Jabari back is nice, but they CAN'T win without Giannis for an extended period. Henson had a big game..... 19pts, 18 boards, (against the Nets). Man, I don't want to get suckered into thinking this team can do something. Is it so much to ask to just win ONE playoff series??

Watching "hack-a-shaq" strategies is awful, and has caused the NBA to change their rules regarding fouling at the end of games. watching players who aren't good at things is boring, and fans aren't paying to watch guys who shoot 40% free throws shoot free throws 12 times in the last 2 minutes of a game. It might be "strategy", but it's boring. Most pitchers wield a bat with the same amount of skill as a 9 year old would have facing mlb pitching. It's sad and pointless to watch. Sadly, most managers don't even really have a lot of their own strategic thought when it comes to double switching and bullpen use these days anyways. There's so much by-the-book usage that most everything that happens after the 5th inning is pretty predictable.

Obviously never got to watch Kramer play, but just based on hearing of his exploits (and knowing how dominant the Packers run game was in his time), it boggles my mind how it took this long. Now I can transfer all my mind boggles to why Leroy Butler still isn't in.