DuWayne Steurer

Some lesser known flicks that I've watched recently on my netflix. Wild Target -- Interesting cast with Bill Nighy and Rupert Grint (post Harry Potter) playing a hitman and his unwitting apprentice. Nighy really is one of my favorite British actors, and he does a great job in this somewhat light hearted crime caper. 7/10 Blitz -- If you watch this expecting a lot of Jason Statham chop-socky action, you'll be very disappointed. It's a pretty straightforward British detective flick that isn't horribly bad at what it does, but I think most people just cruising through the Netflix will see "ooh, a Jason Statham movie!" and expect lots of Jackie Chan style action. There's none of that, and the detective story isn't really even all that clever. 5/10 The Warrior's Way -- I went into this expecting a lot of House of Flying Daggers style wire-work, and while there was some, the Hong Kong action scenes weren't really the focus of the movie. A great cast (Geoffrey Rush makes any movie better), amazing visuals, and a pretty cool story all came together to make this one of my sleeper favorites of the year. Oh, and there WAS an epic 'final battle' scene that did get a little ridiculous at times, and made an excellent capper for the movie. 9/10 Hogfather -- Terry Pratchett's Discworld is a very weird place, and if you're familar with it, you know what I mean. If you watch this movie (or any of the Discworld movies), you have to go in knowing 2 things. 1.) Everyone speaks one language: sarcasm. It's easy to get lost in the dialogue, when every last character is a sarcastic know it all or a sarcastic jerk, or a sarcastic idiot. Strangely enough, it works though. 2.) There really aren't any hero's. There's definitely 'bad guys', and there's people that want to do the right thing, but they certainly aren't archtypical heroes, and for the most part, even the characters who've been painted into the role of 'good guys' are usually doing the things they do for self serving reasons. With those two things being said, it's a very enjoyable (albeit very long) movie that pokes some fun at some of our more well-known mythological conventions, while placing them on a fantasy world that's almost nothing like ours. Good fun if you like British humor, or if you're a fan of stuff like Douglas Adams Hitchhikers Guide. 8/10

What's interesting to me is that despite Hart finishing in the top 25 out of all OPS qualifiers in MLB the last 2 years at under 10 million per, there's a lot of people who bring him up as a trade candidate pretty regularly. I realize the guy's a hack out in right field, but to get pretty consistent .850-ish production from the guy is a big deal. As I believe Al has said, he'd be one the 1 or 2 best hitters on half of MLB teams.

There is not much better entertainment to be had than to sit in the duck blind for a night. You just better not be easily offended by foul language. The 'heckling' (if you want to call it that) of the opposing team's right field, bullpen catcher and pitchers, and anyone else in ear shot (in one instance, people were heckling the stadium workers who were changing trash bags in the garbage cans) goes 10 times beyond anything you'll hear at Miller Park. Unbelievably, incredibly filthy.

Reyes, to me, is like Carl Crawford. He's a really exciting player, but maybe not as good as he is exciting. I certainly don't think he's a guy a smaller market team should be putting 100+ million into.

Diving for ball you can't get to means exactly what? The range issue is mostly based on that and that's why it's overblown. There is far more to the position than laying out for balls. Betancourt is very nifty around the bag turning double plays. His feeds to 2B are generally right where they need to be to facilitate the turn. His hands are quick when he takes the feed from 2B. He also showed the ability to handle tough throws and get tags down quickly on steal attempts. Offensively his approach has led to an average of 73 RBI the past 2 seasons. For a SS, that's productive. From the All Star break through the playoffs, he hit .279 and slugged .439. If you allow for the first half being an adjustment period in a new league, it's not unrealistic to think he'll hit .270-.275 and slug over .400 for a full season in 2012. Batting down in the order, his low OBP isn't as detrimental as it would be higher in the order. Low OBP is as detrimental hitting 8th as it is 1st. Making outs causes you to score less runs. Also, he's got a career SLG% of .391, so assuming he'll slug over .400 isn't exactly a safe bet. And using RBI is a really poor way to judge offensive performance.

Skillset-wise, he's a third baseman. He'd actually probably defend pretty well there. If dude would TAKE A WALK once in a while, and hit with just a little more power, he'd MAYBE be capable of a .730-ish OPS, and even then, I think his defense would still be mediocre-ish for 3B, and he's still have negative value. This guy shouldn't be anywhere near a starting lineup at any position for any major league team. There's just no way Yuni's going to see some sudden boost in his offensive abilities to make me believe he should be playing 3B even as a platoon only guy for someone.

I hope he gets shingles again.

Good riddance. I wish he'd take Ozzie Guillen with him. Baseball is long past needing guys like them around.

The problem with this line of thinking is that every time a bad hitter like Yuni B has a hot streak (which every bad hitter inevitably does), there ARE people who think that it's an upward trend, and an indicator of future success. Bad players, like EVERY player, have ups and downs. Yuni had a hot streak in August, and still ended up having a terrible year. His hot postseason should in NO way be used to judge whether or not to bring him back.

Geography plays absolutely no role in how conferences are aligned now. None. Boise St in the Big East? I'm actually kind of glad the Big 10 (appears to be) is happy to stand pat with 12 teams here. They added one quality program, to allow themselves a conference title game, and that's it. The rest of the BCS conferences have rumors near daily about comings and goings. This morning ESPN says the WVU to Big 12 move is 'on hold' now as well.

Uh..........he was not yelling "at himself". He was pretty clearly looking at Napoli, or someone in that direction.

Not to turn this religious, (and certainly not to defend Pujols but........) you're comparing paying homage to one's Deity to Sully, from Monsters Inc? Those aren't exactly comparable.It depends on how you look at it, I think. Your argument is valid, but mine is as well. On the surface, its an action done every time you get on base, regardless of whether its Pujols, Morgan or Molina. If one is a problem, the other should be too. Plus, the Pujols thing just bugs me because it literally doesn't happen anywhere else. What would happen if a basketball player did that every time he hit a basket or completed a pick and roll? Or what if you did it at work every time you turned in a report or sent out a client email? It's just so over the top to me, and that's what makes it so grating and unnecessary. I agree that it's grating, but given the locale, I'm going to say no more.

Some would certainly say it is. If I were going to point to Pujols though I'd look at the fact he watches his home runs for like an hour each and every time as showing up other teams more than any beast mode could. I agree, but Prince watches some of his tape measure jobs too. What gets me is when Pujols watches a long fly ball, and it ends up not going out of the park. To my knowledge, Prince has never done that.

The only place where I though the negativity was over the top was the IGT's. POsts like "Game over" when it was 3-0 in the third inning got kinda old.

The thing is, there are players across the league that do some sort of demonstrative thing every time they get on base. Pujols is one of many who crosses himself and points to the sky each and every time. That's just one example that comes to mind at the moment. I've brought this up on Twitter and a few other places and no one has ever been able to tell me what separates the two and why one is showing up the pitcher/opposing team and one is not. Not to turn this religious, (and certainly not to defend Pujols but........) you're comparing paying homage to one's Deity to Sully, from Monsters Inc? Those aren't exactly comparable.

Interesting discussion, it seems the Brewerfan community is pretty evenly divided on this. I was never horribly irritated by it or anything, it just that after a while, it was a bit contrived, and overdone, and it REALLY culminated with game 6, having a guy in a sully suit throw out the first pitch. As someone else pointed out, that seemed like something you'd see at a minor league hockey game. They had their fun with it, and I'm glad it's done with. I honestly hope next year's group has fun and finds their own way, but I'd like to see them 'have fun' without having to have a contrived celebration after every single basehit. To use another football analogy, the Packers were beating the Rams 24-3 this past week, and it was later in the 4th quarter, and a Rams WR caught a 1st down pass and got up and did a pretty elaborate celebration dance/thing/jiggly, and it's like "come on dude, you're losing by 21 freaking points, with 7 minutes to go"

Actually, it's because they didn't deserve it.

I saw far too many at bats that went like this ....................... Strike 1, looking Strike 2, looking Strike 3, swinging at garbage in the dirt. Or this. Weak ground out or pop out. Followed by McGehee chuckling or shaking his head, as if he's in total disbelief as to what's happened to him. .................to believe he's going to regain his lost mojo. Casey's toast. He was a fringe prospect who had a great rookie year, a decent sophomore year, and a terrible third year. He's not, nor ever was, a superior guy who'd be worth much in a trade.

The Brewers lost because they got ouplayed over 6 games by a team that was similar in talent. It happens. I don't understand why we always have to fabricate some other explanation for these kind of things.Just to be absolutely clear Russ, I was not pointing at "Beast Mode" as to why the Brewers lost this series. It just got plain tired after a while.

My heart says go for it, my brain says don't. Decisions made based on gut feelings or 'heart', are usually wrong decisions. Having Fielder back would be great, but like others have said, the downside is the last 3-4 years where Fielders creeping towards his mid-30's and getting paid A-Rod money to play like Carlos Lee.

Clancy, I think you're under estimating how truly (historically) bad Braun's defense was at 3rd base. In his rookie year, if you go by just WAR, he cost the team almost as many win with his bad defense as he provided with his bat. The third baseman was not the problem in this series.

Terrible. All the build up for that? Terrible.

That's not at all what I was saying. But yes, it is obnoxious when it becomes necessary after every single base hit.

I never really got on board with this. I remember watching the Packers, and seeing Nick Barnett making tackles 7-8 yards downfield, and doing his samurai dance, and thinking "really? is that really time to celebrate?" Well, this beast mode is no different. It got to the point where every hit was reason for it. These guys could be down 7-1 in the 8th inning and someone would rap a 1 out single, and sure enough, 'Beast Mode' would be happening out on first base. I mean, ok, it might be kinda cute and whatnot, and I get the backstory with Fielder and the kids, but do we need to go BEAST MODE for every single hit? I really enjoy having a team that has personality, and I enjoy watching a team that has fun playing ball. I'm not saying don't have fun out there, I'm not saying 'don't display emotion', but at some point, the antic isn't emotion, it's just a preset act that you're expected to do, and it loses any meaning when you're doing it for every single base hit in every game. At some point, it'd be nice to put aside the antics, and just play ball. I'm sure my sentiment will be wholly unpopular, but I'm ok with that. It'll give the board something else to rant about besides RRR or the Cardinals.

All year long, I've had a harder time than I should have had, enjoying a team riding it out to 96 wins. Watching Betancourt play everyday, coupled with Roenicke's baffling/mind boggling managerial decisions were hard to take. I wasn't a fan of Yost, but I didn't have this level of dislike for the guy. I know Macha was boring, but he at least knew how to use a bullpen, and knew in game strategy, and didn't sound like a maroon during an interview. In the end, it was a lot of fun, but in retrospect, I can honestly say it wasn't as much fun as it should have been, for a 96 win team. I've never had as much dislike for a guy as a player as I have had for Yuni. I got no beef with him as a person, but as a player, I just couldn't stomach him being on the field. I know in the end, the wins are all that should matter, but baseball is a product, and like a movie, the entire 3 hours are what you're paying for, not just the end result.