DuWayne Steurer

I wasn't talking about Wilson being apathetic.

Apathy is worse than anything.

1. Betancourt. Terrible plate approach, and terrible defense. 2. Wolf. The Wolf/Lucroy situation is just ludicrous. Kottaras (despite having decent splits actually) starts vs. lefties far too often, by the simple fact that Wolf seemingly can not play nice with others. 3. Counsell I was an advocate of his earlier in the year when his OBP was on the positive side of .300, but he's done nothing to show that he's not completely done at this point.

It's weird........I know how you feel here. I can't remember anytime in my past where I've rooted against a Brewers player......not ever. But oddly, this year there's 2-3 guys who, when they do something RIGHT, I just sigh, and realize that all that's done is make it less likely that they'll be replaced, or longer til they'll be replaced. It almost feels kind of dirty.

Well, 2-2 in Colorado is certainly not a bad start. Hoped for more, but expected less. Still a tough 7 games left out west. If they can even go 3-4 in that stretch, I won't say I'd be 'happy', but if they were to finish the trip 5-6, I guess the word I'd use would be satisfactory.

Can't at all be upset about a split in CO. Sorry, I haven't read the rest of the thread, is there any word yet on Marcum?

Weeks 5 is just dumb. He's one of your 3 best performers, so you move him down 4 spots in the order, to limit his at bats. Prince doesn't need 'protection'. Protection is almost wholly a myth. It's unsubstantiated, and full of holes. If 'protection' were real, Prince wouldn't have 22 bombs and 73 RBI with McGehee and Betencourt hitting behind him. To mirror what Logan said, Weeks hitting 5th isn't a good thing, it's just that RR did it yesterday, and got lucky.

150 PA is only about a month and a half. You need at least a year and people usually use 3 years when looking at it.If that is the case, is Casey Mcgehee's season bad luck? Or were his previous 2 years filled with nothing but 'good luck'? If we need 3 seasons of batting data to draw a conclusion, isn't this season, by that benchmark, just bad luck? Look, I'm the first guy to roll my eyes (ok, maybe 2nd or 3rd) when a manager says "he's the hot bat, we gotta get him in the lineup" nonsense. I think in baseball, the 'hot hand' is a myth to a degree. Now a player might get 'hot' and be seeing the ball well, or just be playing better, but for a manager to attempt to predict when that will start or worse, stop, is a fallacy waiting to happen. I guess my thread title was a precursor to a larger question. When is a trend a trend, and not just bad luck? I think most people would tell you that Casey McGehee isn't hitting into 'bad luck' this year, his at bats look awful. He makes weak contact, and isn't hitting the ball hard often (if at all). Now that's not accurately measurable to the degree that regular statistics are, but it's still something we can see. Now, I know that most BF posters want a 3B solution, but (and I'm not trying to be sarcastic here), if we need a 3 season data set to draw conclusions, and McGehee has been stinky all year long, can't we expect that from ANY given point, we should expect, well, what we'd EXPECT out of McGehee? If it were just bad luck, and if McGehee's true ability is a .760 OPS, shouldn't that be predictable from today onward? I would say yes, but I think most baseball fans with a scrutinous eye can look at McGehee's at bats and realize he's mired in a slump that doesn't show any signs of letup anytime soon.

You don't expect a guy with a career .779 OPS in his age 29 season to put up a .760 OPS for the final 65 games? Why?

If Hardy plays his usual solid D, and stays on the field for 140 games, and just puts up even a .750-ish OPS, he'll be worth the contract. My concern wouldn't be either the bat or the glove though, it would be keeping him on the field.

I guess, IMO, 50+ games is not a small sample. Some would argue otherwise. I know there's different bench marks to determine what a good sample size is. For defense, it's 3 years, for batting, bare minimum, we want 150 PA's (and IMO, that's still a small sample size) For finding why a team performs poorly on road vs. home? I don't know. And that's what I'm asking here. I didn't say "This isn't bad luck anymore!" I asked "When is it no longer bad luck?" Yes, perhaps this thread was my knee jerk need to salve my wounds, because of another soul crushingly bad road loss,

I should have been more clear. There's no way to say the 'why' they are so bad on the road. To be honest, I don't expect them to be .333 bad on the road, but honestly, I wouldn't be surprised either. A lot of times, prophecies end up being self-fullfilling. Due to statistical variance, let's say they start out 5-15 on the road. A few of the players start pressing, they play worse on the road. The team all know they are getting poor results on the road, and press even more, and start to put out performance that actually matches the results. Zach Greinke's a guy (and I'm not offering that we go down this whole road again) who's a great example of performance vs. results. Somehow the team is playing .650+ ball in his starts, despite his almost 6 ERA. Even stranger is that despite having an ERA of well over 5, his peripherals would seem to indicate that he's pitched relatively well, and has been the victim of (again) 'bad luck'.

I absolutely agree that characterstics are identifiable by individuals, and not teams, statistically speaking. I agree, that statistically, and logically, what I'm saying doesn't make sense, I know that, I get it. I'm usually the guy arguing for that. However, I also know (not suspect, I know) that there's a human element to performance, and I know that it absolutely can be affected by a players mindset. I know that in theory, we're supposed to believe that every time those guys go out there, they blank it all out, get in the batters box, or on the pitchers mound, and they just do their job 100%, every time out. And if something happens that isn't within their normal abilities, it's statistical variance, or good luck, or bad luck. I do not know if these guys, any, a few, some, or all of them, have any mental anxiety, or whatever you want to call it, when playing on the road. I do not know this at all. And we can't know. It's not quantifiable, it's not measurable. I can't tell you, any more than anyone else on here that such a thing might be occurring. But just because we can't know, doesn't mean it's not worth hypothesizing about. Russ, I'm not singling out you, or anyone else, but it seems over the past 12 to 18 months, any discussion that even hinges on soemthing that can't be statistically measured is scoffed at, if not outright dismissed here anymore. Is it pointless to discuss? Sure! So is everything else we throw around here. Doug Melvin doesn't give a toot that we can't stand Betencourt, or that no team has made the playoffs since 94 with 2 negative WAR players in their starting lineup. I don't post here because it's meaningful to the Brewers in any way, so what does it matter if a discussion has statistical merit, or not? I'm 100% in the 'stat guy' camp, but I still firmly believe that human players have biases that can be subject to outside influences in their day to day goings on.

Catching up on my instant queue, I've had a chance to watch some lately. Harry Brown. I liked this one, but I readily admit I'm a straight up sucker for British crime/gangster films. Michael Caine is absolutely fantastic, and the film pulls off the 'geriatric vigilante' subject matter in a believable way. It's excessively violent and vulgar, but that's not a turn off for me (might be for some). Really a good, if not obscure title, that I highly recommend if you're a fan of films like Gran Torino or the like. 8/10 Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part 1. Tough to rate this on its own. I just watched it on disc last week, then went and saw part 2 yesterday. Part 1, on it's own, leaves a lot to be desired, but of course, there's a ton of setup to part 2, and really shouldn't be judged on it's own accord. If you've watched them up to this point, no matter what any reviewer says, you're going to see both of the Deathly Hallows movies. Part 1 is definitely a drag, as it seems the kids spend an inordinate amount of time just not doing anything other than trying to decide what to do next. I'm not even going to give it a rating, as this isn't mean tto be a stand-alone, and as this is 'DVD rental" thread, I can't really judge it (yet) with the 2nd half as part of the consideration. Drive Angry For God's sake, don't watch this. 0.5/10

At this point, if any of the positions of need can be upgraded easily/cheaply, it should be done. In this case, if they can upgrade 3B without giving up any major chips, they should do it, regardless of need at other positions. Needing a SS should not preclude getting this deal done if it's on the table. A SS, I'm sure, is still something Melvin knows is a priority. But this deal is here and now, and lets do it. Casey isn't 'slumping', he isn't hitting loud, hard outs, and just getting unlucky. Any Tom Dick or Harry can watch McGehee's at bats and see he just is flailing right now. I don't think it's a good bet that Betemit would out hit McGehee the rest of the year, I'd say it's almost a virtual lock, the way McGehee looks at the plate right now, and honestly, it's not like he could be much worse defensively.

The improvements that should be made are blatantly obvious, and at least a few of the needed imrpovements should have been addressed before the regular season even started. I digress, that's a discussion for another thread, not this one I suppose.

Russ, of all people, I'd not expect you to even hint sarcastically that next year's performance will be affected by this years horrible road split. I mean, it's a serious question though, it seems like EVERYTHING around here lately is 'it's bad luck', 'it's bad luck', 'it's bad luck.'. Whenever something is happening, that is not up to expectations (Greinke, road performance), it's not just a poor performance, it's 'bad luck'. At SOME point, playing like a AAA team on the road has to be something more than bad luck. We're talking 50 games here. I know there's nothing statistical to analyze, all the road stats will show as that they suck. But this team is absolutely shizophrenic. The road/home OPS splits are absolutely atrocious, and at some point it can't just be written off due to statistical variance. It just so happens that all the 'bad' hitting is done on the road? I'll buy that, to a degree, but when you're 60% into a season, there's got to be more to it than that. Just because the 'why' of it is not statistically measurable doesn't mean it's not a real thing.

Ok, so I've been dreading this road trip for a few months now. If the Cardinals come out of the ASB and even play halfway decent ball, they could easily put up a 3-4 game lead (at least on the Brewers), if this road trip goes the way everything indicates it will. So when the season is more than half over, and a team is playing .333 ball on the road, when can we STOP saying "it's just bad luck" and "the numbers will even out" and when can we start saying "this team sucks on the road"? I'm not even asking for a reason WHY they suck on the road, I'd just like to know when one pathetic road trip after another stops being bad luck. Sadly, I predicted a 3 - 8 road trip before the ASB hit, and I don't even thing I'm joking. And that might be optimistic.

You mean like if in the 8th inning of a one run game, and the other teams 3-4-5 are coming up? Pff....I don't believe Roenicke (or any MLB manager, honestly) has the critical thought process (or the guts) to pull a move like that. The funny thing is people ragged about Macha, but Axford had 9 saves in which he worked more than 1 inning last year. Macha was never afraid to bring in his closer early if the situation warranted it.

Probably just using range factor, which is a terrible way to judge defense.

For one thing, WAR is cumulative, it's not a rate stat. A guy who's played slightly above average baseball for 20 years will have a higher WAR than a guy who's been an all star for 3-4 years. As I understand it, a 2.0 WAR is an average player for 150 games. a 5.0 would be an all star caliber performance, and an 8.0 WAR is an MVP/Cy Young level performance. So if you have a guy who's 1.0 WAR after 75 games, that doesn't mean he's below average, that means he's on pace to be just about average. Now a guy like Ripken will have a high WAR based on his defense. A shortstop can have MUCH higher fluctuations in defensive WAR than a 1st baseman. Also, take into account that the league OPS during Ripken's time would have been a lot lower than during Pujols, time, and WAR is compiled relative to your competition.

Basically, the Brewers were the benefactors of the Mets absolutely having to get out from under that horrible vesting option. I realize closers pitch 'high leverage' innings, but there's just no way any closer is worth 17.5 mil, (unless he's giving you 70 shutout innings I suppose). The Mets ultimately had no choice but to move him for whatever someone was willing to give. In this case, yes, the Mets had to give the Brewers a lot of cash. But I don't think the money Rodriguez was making *this year* was the issue. It was the vesting option, and as others have said, if the Mets pulled him out of the closers' role just to avoid the vesting condition, the union would have absolutely filed a grievance on Rodriguez's behalf.

I don't see them offering arby in this case, so Type A/Type B won't matter. There's a chance, no matter how small, that he accepts the arby offer, and there's no way Melvin and co. want to be on the hook for a 10 mil + salary for K-Rod next year.I haven't watch K-Rod much in NY but do you think his days of receiving a multi year deal are done? If so, then ya no way we offer arby but i just think there are too many teams who are always looking for a closer or bullpen help, that will offer up a 2-3 year deal. If he's a type A, then there's the possibility that that alone might be a deterrent to a few teams looking to perhaps sign him. Unless they have a protected pick, I can't see TOO many teams willing to give up type A compensation in return for an overpriced (and mildly over rated) closer. Maybe I'm wrong here, I'd just hate to see him offered arby, see a weak market, and have the guy take it.

I don't see them offering arby in this case, so Type A/Type B won't matter. There's a chance, no matter how small, that he accepts the arby offer, and there's no way Melvin and co. want to be on the hook for a 10 mil + salary for K-Rod next year.

I saw the story on ESPN that a guy almost fell, and was grabbed by his buddies to keep from going over a 20 foot drop while reaching for a ball. Not only that, but the story said he was standing on a table to reach the ball. It would seem that the awareness of this should be pretty high right now. I guess I don't get the allure of risking my life for a 9 dollar ball.