DuWayne Steurer

But what information are we lacking? If we have hitter vs pitcher stats, we have ALL the stats. We have scouting reports. We know what the guy has done vs lefties, we know what he has done vs righties. If the guy has been playing long enough to have a significant statistical database vs any one pitcher, we have MORE than enough data on his overall stats that are going to be much more useful. You're right that having SOME information is better than none, but I don't see what we're lacking that WOULD justify using pitcher/hitter splits to set matchups.

Don't look now, but Corey's OPS-ing a very respectable .843 vs. righties at this point. 179 plate appearances is still a small sample, but it's safe to say at this point that his stats aren't being driven by being 'protected' from RHP'ers.

He's said some things similar in other interviews this season..........along the lines of "I sucked this spring, I didn't deserve to start, and I had to work hard with the playing time I was given to get my spot back" Which is fine, great, dandy. At least he didn't pout about losing his playing time and go into a career ending mega-slide like Bill Hall.

The closest thing I can remember was Jenkins 3 HR game against the Expos at Miller Park. I think it was in '05 or thereabouts. He had a solo, 2 run, and 3 run homer, and came up in the 7th with the bases loaded. HAD he connected and hit the granny, he would have been the first player in MLB history to complete a HR "cycle" in a 4 HR game. The fact that he came up with just the CHANCE to do it has to be crazily defiant of the odds to begin with.

I look at guys like Mike Cameron and Jason Kendall...........and even Hoffman, who probably could have wound up in L.A., who chose not only to play in Milwaukee, but wanted to stay. There's other guys that have left and said some less than kind things. I guess I take it as 'everyone's got a story', and everyone's going to view things differently. I'm absolutely certain that Stern knew the manner in which he was going to be bounced around, and then eventually DFA'd before this all got underway. Hopefully, his brief foray in MLB will be a good memory for him, rather than choosing to be bitter about it. He got to a level that most ball players never do, if even for a grand total of 8 at bats.

It's one thing to have one pitcher you can't use in a high leverage situation ever. That's already a handicap. But 2? You're basically saying "we've got a 23 man roster unless we're getting our butts kicked, or we're up by 8 runs". And with an 8 run lead, I don't necessarily feel like Supp and Hoff would hold that down if given a chance.

Yes seriously. I understand all the justifications (primarily that he earned his contract by what he did prior to signing it) he has for not quitting and he has every legal right to continue and that's what we expect in this "get it all while you can" culture.. But this is a guy who has very openly set a high standard for himself (for which I applaud him) and when you no longer possess the ability to "play baseball" to even the minimum level required of a major league player to continue to collect a paycheck for doing so is dishonest. That's my opinion. I'm sorry, but this is downright ridiculous. By this standard, anyone performing below replacement level is "stealing" and "dishonest". Nonsense. I also don't understand how it can be your "opinion" that he's stealing. Facts would indicate he's not. He's cashing checks for a pre-agreed upon amount, for services to be rendered. There was no agreement of a specific level of performance. To call that dishonest or stealing isn't an opinion, it's pretty much factually wrong.

The only way this interests me in the slightest is if the end result is cutting Suppan. However, I don't think Loe makes the team any better. This is akin to throwing doo-doo against the wall and seeing what sticks. Well, in my opinion, if you throw a bunch of crap against a wall, all you end up with is a wall that smells like crap. This move seems like making a move to make a move, and nothing else.

Seriously? He didn't sign a contract agreeing to a certain level of productiveness. He agreed to a contract to play baseball for 4 years for the Brewers. This "stealing money" nonsense is getting ridiculous around here.

If they release Suppan, they're on the hook for his salary, unless we eat part of it. They're on the hook for Willis' salary, whether they release him or not. I just don't see how that makes any sense at all unless we throw in something of value. Trade a guy they're going to release..........for someone that they'll surely release immediately? I don't get it.

I just don't see what Detroit gains by trading Willis for Suppan. There's no gain there at all. As others have said, if they're doing this to free up a roster spot, they don't want dead weight like Suppan back in any trade.

Hart's OPS-ing a respectable .762 vs. righties. I'd like to see his OBP a little higher from that side, but honestly, that's about what I'd expect. It's not like he's being asked to hit cleanup everyday.

Wow. I hate Ozzie, and by extension, the White Sox, but that was ridiculous. Even if they WERE both balks, West's actions were inexcuseable.

Weeks........I'm not sure who the 2nd guy is. Honestly, a 430+ SLG from Hart vs. righties isn't all that bad. Be nice if the OBP was a shade closer to .350 than .250 though. (Actually, after today, it should go up a touch, as should the SLG.)

It would be interesting to see what that lineup would be able to do. If Hart continues to hit, putting him in the five hole behind those guys might not be a bad idea.They're the 4 best OBP guys in the order (or should be, generally speaking). They should be getting the most at bats. I never can understand MLB managers obsession with putting a punch and judy slap hitter with no OBP skills in the 2 hole because they "make good contact" etc, etc, etc. It's just like putting .295 OBP guys in the leadoff spot "because they're fast". Ignorant at best, and plain stupid at worst.

My initial post was basically a "for the rest of this year" idea. I don't think Hart's a long term first baseman. McGehee has excellent splits. I've been barking for a while that the lineup should be going Weeks - Braun - Fielder - McGehee. But I don't think I'm the *only* one saying that either.

I can see the merits of trading him, given that his value is likely to be higher than it's likely going to be at any point moving forward.

Normally, I'm one to chide others for suggesting we play guys out of position, and I know I've used the line on this very forum "these guys aren't strat o matic cards, you can't just stick them wherever you'd like on the field" But, something I've been thinking about this year, especially as Hart seems to be not only hitting the ball better, but he's been seeing it better as well, at least so far, as evidenced by his early season walk totals is this......... If the Brewers get put in a position where trading Prince, even as early as this deadline, is the best move going forward, could/should the Crew throw Hart in at first base? He's played there before (albeit quite a while ago), and we have Braun, Gomez, Gerut, and Edmonds (if/when healthy) to split time in the outfield. Gerut's not getting enough playing time as it is when everyone else is healthy, and it'd make it easier than finding another 1B option via trade or promotion. With his height, he's ideal for the position, and it's really awful at times watching him play RF. I know he made a pair of nice catches last night, but overall, he's subpar in RF. Thoughts.

Fans have the luxury of only caring about what has already happened. The powers that be have to estimate who are the best players available at any given moment throughout the entire season. Sometimes the results perfectly reflect that, sometimes they sort of do and sometimes they don't at all. I understand that. I put great value in the predictive stats. I honestly do. I'm simply implicating that at some point whether it's talent or luck, you have to look at a 15-24 record and say "crap's not going right" Let me put it another way, because, as you say, I'm a fan only, with the luxury of result being my only concern. IF I were DM, would I bail on Davis? Absolutely not. But at some point, the results truly are what matters. The results sell season tickets. The results are what show up in the standings page. I don't think anyone sits back at the end of the season and calls it a 'success' because the peripheral stats indicate we SHOULD have had a good year, but lost 90 games anyways. It's like if I'm sitting outside and it's 58 degrees. I SHOULD be cold, but it's been really cool the last week, and 58 feels nice today. The result, the temperature is comfortable, despite what the numbers without context would indicate. In the case of Doug Davis or Trevor Hoffman, I'm not overly concerned about what the stats indicate for future predictability. They're neither one of them long term pieces of the puzzle here. At 15-24, unless something major changes, this team can't and won't contend this year. Not that too many people thought they would, but I also don't think it's unreasonable to think this team could have been .500, which is a handful of LUCKY plays from being in a playoff race. Heck, if Hoffman is even an average reliever, and blows 2 of his 10 save attempts, they're 18-21, and mass panic probably wouldn't be the rule of the day.

I'm guessing you are a believer in the results being all that matters.Shouldn't they be? Who's going to sit around at the end of the season and say "Well, we're 74 -88, but it was a lot of bad luck!" At some point, the results have to outweigh everything else. Sure, DD and Hoffman have had horrible luck. I agree that the useful metrics would indicate that they haven't pitched as poorly as the numbers seem to show on the surface. But the end result is.......they're 15-24 and sliding. The season's a quarter of the way over. Is it over for them? No, but they're in a pretty deep hole at this point. Baseball, as with any business, is results oriented. As it should be. The stats are great predictive tools, but being able to predict something, and seeing it happen are two different things. I don't care if DD has a 4.5-ish FIP at the end of the season if he has a 6 ERA and a 7-14 record, the results say he had a bad season. An unlucky season, but I'm less concerned *at this moment* about what the peripherals suggest DD *should* do based on what he's actually doing.

Not to take anything at all away from the Bucks here, they've played hard and absolutely deserve the three wins, but I STRONGLY suspect the Hawks figured the Bogut-less Bucks were going to be a cakewalk, and have played accordingly. I'm hoping it's too late for the Hawks to 'turn it back up a notch' now that they've got their backs up to it.

We can say these things, but that doesn't make them definitively true. Fan is short for fanatic. Just because fans scream bloody murder about competitive imbalance doesn't mean anyone or anybody is owed anything. A year off, and a salary cap is not the be all end all solution that people seem to think it would be. The players are making a proportionally smaller slice of the pie than they have in quite a while. Why should the players feel beholden to fix the competitive imbalance in baseball by making less money? People get mad at how much they make. Several members of this forum expressed ANGER at Corey Hart for going to arbitration and making as much as he could based on the system. This is 100% mind boggling to me. Just baffling. I wonder how many of those people would turn down a raise at work and say "no boss, I haven't been performing up to my standards" It doesn't matter that people don't want baseball to be 'real life'. It is. Especially to those staking and making millions of dollars in it. People want to blame the players, while some of the owners (ESPECIALLY those getting revenue sharing money) are making money hand over fist. Again I say, just because the absolute diehards would come back after a year away, I 99.5% believe that a lot of the casual fans won't come back.

Absolutely not. We don't have a roided up McGwire and Sosa to bring the fans back this time. I know some of the people that fancy themselves the 'hardcore' fans might like nothing more than sitting in Miller Park with about 12,000 other 'fans', turning up their noses at the 'FAIR WEATHER FANS' who'd give up on baseball after another work stoppage, but it's those same fair weather fans that have allowed the Brewers to have a payroll that's allowed them even a short window of competitiveness, and pay Braun, and pay Yo, and bring in guys like Cameron and the like. Granted, some of the money has been spent unwisely, but at least they were able to do it. I look at the NFL's version of 'parity', and say no thanks. Baseball has problems that do need to be addressed, but taking a year off and once again COMPLETELY alienating the fanbase is the wrong way to do it. I know Brewerfan is made up of mostly hardcore fans, but keep in mind most fans aren't that 'in' to baseball as we are. They're not going to keep coming back when these guys take a year off to fight over billions of revenue dollars.

Good lord. A few folks say he's slipping a bit and this place goes into an uproar. I love his stories. I would not want anyone besides Ueck in our booth. I'll rue the day he finally turns off the microphone for the last time. That all doesn't mean that once in a while it's frustrating listening to a game and you don't know what's going on, and *in my opinion* this happens more frequently than it did in the past. I know the guy's a legend, and deservedly so. Again, I absolutely loathe thinking about the day the guy hangs it up, but that doesn't mean he's above reproach on a message board.

Ueck's play by play ability has been slipping for several years now. His STORYTELLING ability is still topnotch, but it's not unusual for him to miss most of the action in a given half inning anymore. It's still awesome to listen to Bob, but I'd really like to know what's going on in the game and Ueck waxes poetic more and more often these days.