DuWayne Steurer

Who said Hart was a bum? I actually said I liked Hart. I just don't see re-signing him now, when there's cheaper in-house options during a time when the team is almost certainly not going to contend. The popular notion is that Hart will re-sign for 5-ish million. We don't know that. He might ask for 10, and he's on the wrong side of 30, with bad knees. I never said the guy was a bum.....just that he doesn't appear to fit the long term plans of this club. And if he doesn't fit the long term plans, what's the point of signing him to a one year deal to push the team to 78 wins instead of 73, when the team COULD be using those at bats to see if Halton or Morris could be a future player? Even if you put the odds at 10% that either of those guys can give you an .800-ish OPS over a full season, and become a fixture at 1B, there's almost zero chance that Hart is a long-term option there.

So in the meantime, you'll pay him 3-4 mil for the first half of the year so you can flip him for .....what? If he was already under contract, I could see this scenario, but I can't see paying the guy what he'll likely get for the express stated purpose of turning him around for a prospect.

Without just quoting Greg's post and saying "yup"...... that's pretty much the reason I don't want to re-sign Hart. I've always liked the guy, and could never get on board with trading him when we had a cost controlled, .850 OPS guy who was pretty easy to plug into the 5 or 6 (or 2?) spot in the lineup. But now......we're on the other side of the contention window, and signing an aging, oft-injured guy with brutal knees just doesn't make sense when there's a lot of cheap in-house options that have varying degrees of "this guy could be just as good" The Brewers MUST develop their own talent to make it back to contention. They simply MUST. By denying these guys one more spot in the lineup every day by bringing back a creaky, aging Hart to win 75-80 games next year, we're just spinning the wheels. Davis, Morris, Gamel, Green.......it's very plausible that none of these guys are better than Hart. I get that. But I just don't think next year is a contention year, and denying the opportunity for one or two of those young guys to even show that they can stick and be productive at the big league level is counterproductive to what this team is going to have to do to get back to a contention window where going after guys like Kyle Lohse would actually make sense.

The problem here is that if Gennett hits .250, his OBP is going to be below .300, because he rarely walks. Weeks, for all his foibles, was still getting on base the last 2 years with a .328 and a .306 OBP despite posting BA's of .230 and .209. Gennett's OBP is tied almost entirely to his batting average, so if he stops hitting (and hitting for power, which I suspect so far is kinda flukey), he will become almost completely worthless. How likely is that? Gennett's a 23 year old who has hit for average throughout the minors. Given his age, he is likely to get better not worse. It certainly isn't out of the realm of possibility that he improves his walk rate. So why worry about what will happen if he not only stops progressing and actually starts to regress. At least not until there is some reason to think it would be so. I was only responding directly to the "If Gennett hits .250" post. I don't think it's all that likely that he does, but my point is IF Gennett hits .250, for an entire season, I suspect he'll have very little offensive value. I would expect an OBP south of .300 and about 25 - 30 doubles and no more than 12 to 15 homers. Again, IF he hits .250, which is what I was responding to, he's probably going to put an OPS in the .650 to .675 range, with average to mediocre defense? That's just not going to cut it. All that being said........I don't think Gennett WILL regress like that. But there's no denying that most of Gennett's offensive value is tied into his BA over a full season.

The problem here is that if Gennett hits .250, his OBP is going to be below .300, because he rarely walks. Weeks, for all his foibles, was still getting on base the last 2 years with a .328 and a .306 OBP despite posting BA's of .230 and .209. Gennett's OBP is tied almost entirely to his batting average, so if he stops hitting (and hitting for power, which I suspect so far is kinda flukey), he will become almost completely worthless.

Thanks Casey (I think?!?) :D Anywhoo.....that's really all my post was. When someone says "worst lineup ever", and I see Ted Simmons in there, right away my initial reaction is ........"whhhaaaaaaaaaaaaaa?" And, I certainly count myself amongst the statheads, absolutely. You don't even have to BE a stathead to say "wow, Simmons sucked the fat one in '84." I guess the entirity of intent of my initial post, based on thread title (since corrected) was seeing Ted Simmons in ANY kind of "worst ever" gave me cause to say "how in the world......?" because he was very good, bordering on great for most of his career, and was still very good during much of his time as a Brewer. (And even bounced back a bit in 85.)

I understand that. I get that. I'm just saying........any list of 'worst ever' Brewers that includes Ted Simmons 'seems' wrong. That's why I explicitly used the word 'seems'. The title 'all time worst line up' however, would sort of imply that Ted Simmons was the worst DH in Brewers history, not just the guy who had the single worst season of WAR.

Braun could cure cancer, and in some people's minds, it would still be a PR move. He is, literally, doing something no pro athlete has ever done before. Who cares if it's a PR move? He's still doing it. "I want him to do a presser in front of live microphones taking questions" How about calling individual fans, who can question what he did, and why? "Meh......PR move" No matter what he does, it's a lose/lose for Braun. Nothing short of the ridiculous suggestions of 'voiding his contract' and 'playing for free' are going to please some people at this point.

I realize Simmons had a really bad year in '84, but his inclusion in a Brewers 'worst ever' list really seems wrong.

Tulo is a terrible comparison though. He's got a proven track record of being an .850 or so hitter. A 2 month slump from Tulo does not mean that he's suddenly a .750 OPS hitter. He's got a long track record of being better than that that gives me no reason to believe he won't bounce back. There's no track record for Segura for us to judge that his first half wasn't just a ridiculous hot streak, his true talent, or something in between. I don't think he's a .900 OPS hitter, and I don't think he's a .600 OPS hitter like he's been in the 2nd half either, but the truth is, we really don't know yet.

I don't think it's that people are 'down' on him, I think it's that that people are only saying that he's a very limited player (2nd base only) with a few holes in his skillset (little power, and low OBP if he doesn't hit for high average).

I'm 100% positive that there's no empirical evidence that optimism or momentum doesn't carry over from season to season, so I won't ask for any. With that being said, I'll never root for the Brewers to play poorly or lose, but I'd much rather see them get a top 5-7 pick than win meaningless games at this point. At this point, my hope is to see the young guys like Davis, Gennett, Gindl and such continue to play well, while not messing up the team's draft status.

Um...............bye.

As nice as it is to see Scooter hitting well, I'm going to temper my enthusiasm for a while. Anybody can hit well over a small sample. The Yuni-Bomber had an .848 OPS for March/April of this year, for point-in-case. Scooter's minor league sample is just too large a body of work for me to get over-excited about what he's done in just over 100 big league plate appearances. All but one of his homeruns have pretty much been wall scrapers. I'm not saying I'm not happy with his production, I just think the precedent of a .745 OPS guy who's slipped at every step of the ladder coming up is suddenly a .900 OPS guy coming up is a pretty rare occurrence. I think the explanation that he's just having a hot month over and above what his normal production should be expected to be is a lot easier to swallow. I'd still be surprised if Scooter can put up a .725-ish OPS over a full season, given his inability to draw too many walks.

I can see the angle where Braun 'lied so much to himself that he believed it'. People do this all the time. If they tell a lie often enough, in their own mind, it becomes truth. This isn't a rare phenomenon. I'm not saying that this is what happened in this specific case, I'm saying that it is entirely plausible.

Didn't he basically say those things in the statement? I mean, I'm going back and reading the statement, like, right now, and in not so many words, he touches on those exact points, more or less.

So the only way you'll believe him, is if he tells you what your pre-defined notion of truth is, based on...........what, exactly? You've made up your mind that he used since high school, and you need to know this. Why? To set your mind at ease? Will you sleep better at night? Do our pro athletes cheating cause so much consternation that the lies they tell about their cheating create this much drama? THIS is what's silly about the whole thing. I know this will come off as I condone cheating and/or lying, and I don't. It's just the ridiculousness of the standard that's being applied here. "We deserve the truth" Why? He got caught. Busted. He's doing his time. "I don't believe him." OK. Great. Whatever. "I want to know more. I feel like this isn't the whole story" Who's to say it isn't?" "A written statement is a weak-sauce way of apologizing" Who gets to define the parameters of how he releases his statement? Everyone wants to define the parameters of the Braun.........SAGA here, and that's just not how it works. They want to set X, Y, and Z coordinates for the truth, how he tells the truth, the media in which he gets to tell the truth, how he should feel when he tells the truth............... the sense of entitlement fans feel these days is simply....... staggering at times. I used to feel like of all of my friends and family, there wasn't a bigger baseball fan than myself. I'd listen or watch to every game. I was loaded with Brewers merchandise. We'd get season tickets. It's not Braun, or the scandals that's turning me away from the game. It's not the Brewers being bad that's turning me away. It's baseball's (and by extension, the writers, and the fans) 'holier than thou' attitude that .......'we're better than everybody else......and it's insistence on tearing itself open from the very center of its own ugly core, just to prove that it's the cleanest thing going. I can't even put it into words how I feel. It's almost like baseball's drive to clean up the game has become a bigger problem than the players that are using.

This statement was so benign, it accomplishes almost nothing. The people that felt like "Braun's a dirty cheating liar"........well, they still (and most certainly always) will feel that way. The people that feel like Braun has been unduly raked through the mud, or are still big Braun fans, are going to believe the "I only used in 2011" bit, and continue to feel the same way about the guy. Of course Buster Olney throwing out the Anti-Semite story with zero proof, and no players coming forward to back it up only serves help that cause. He's going to be a lightning rod for a while, and it's like arguing politics. Nobody's going to change their mind anytime soon. Calling someone naive or whatever is just silly (IMO). "Do you really believe he only took in 2011?" Maybe? Maybe not? I only have absolute proof that he took in 2011. I'm not about to take the word of some former friend who pops up out of the woodwork at some opportune time who' suing him pro se, and says he was using since college. Clearly, that guy DOESN'T have an agenda. At this point I don't CARE if he used before 2011. He's busted, he's doing his time. Let's get this crap-tacular season over with, let's stop having a biogenesis/Braun/A-Rod story in the headlines every single day......because honestly, it saps the interest in baseball. It really does. Let's get to 2014, and go from there.

I honestly don't care how much he K's, as long as he puts up an OPS around .800. Chris Davis has struck out 152 times for the O's already. I don't know that this has caused a lot of consternation for the O's and their run production.

Jettison Weeks. Trade A-Ram Trade Gallardo Gomez....... I look at this way. Melvin will not shop Gomez. It's just not his way of doing things. Also, the difference between Gomez and Schafer is 6 WAR right now. Is whatever package you get back going to be 7 or 8 wins (by the end of the year, most likely) better than the players they replace? That's a tall order. I know a lot of people think Schafer can fill in, and will be better than he has been this year, but I just don't see it. I honestly don't. He's good defensively, but he's just not doing anything with the bat.

It could be that Francisco is just reaching his peak (and will be going into his age 27 season next year. His walk rate is certainly up from previous years. He's not a world beater, but a slash line of .250/.320/.480 isn't an unreasonable expectation I would think. And any guy that hits .250 with 20 - 25 homers can and should reach 75 RBI in the middle of an order unless he's abominably bad in RBI/men on situations. Most guys will hit within 10% of their career norms in RBI situations. Over the course of a season, when your RBI/men on/RISP plate appearances tend towards small samples, you can certainly have seasons that look like outliers, and this is where the 'clutch'/'unclutch arguments come from, but most players will normalize to their career numbers in RISP situations given enough plate appearances.

Calling the hitting 'bad' is a bit overstating it, I would say. Lucroy and Gomez have been very good, and despite cooling off in the 2nd half, Segura is still at a 117 OPS+. Juan Francisco has been very productive as a Brewer, and aside from Weeks, Schafer, and Betencourt, there haven't really been any offensive 'black holes'. The Brewers are 8th in the NL in runs scored, which puts them squarely in the middle of the league, which is not bad, considering Braun has missed most of the year, as has A-Ram, and Hart has been out all year.........the three guys expected to put up the biggest power numbers. Gennett, Davis, and Gindl, in their short time up, have been more than admirable fill-ins, and have helped more than hindered the offense. Braun will hit next year, of that I have no doubt. A-Ram just needs to get healthy. I'm comfortable putting Francisco over at 1B (his glove notwithstanding I suppose), and finding a RH platoon partner for him. I would be perfectly comfortable trading Aoki, and letting Gindl and/or Davis man RF. Or put Braun in RF, and put Gindl/Davis in left.

When do ESPN and Yahoo print retractions?? Wait. LOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOL. Yeah. NEver.

Unfortunately, I think the Braun situation, coupled with injuries to Hart and Ramirez, probably get RRR off the hook.

Predictable, after walking the bases loaded to start the inning. Too bad for Thornburg. He deserved a win.