DuWayne Steurer

Arguable points all around. A counter argument to using the closer in the 9th could be this example. 8th inning, winning by 1, opposing team's 3-4-5 coming up, and you use the 8th inning guy. I'm sure that 8th inning guy has a *better* chance of getting the 6-7-8 with no damage (presumably in the 9th inning) and your "best" reliever (the closer) should be used in that high leverage situation in the 8th.

I question if Coffey, McClung and Stetter are as good as their small sample size would suggest so far this year. I am (like everyone) pleasantly surprised by how the bullpen has performed, but I also think that several of these guys are performing better than should be expected. As good as Hoffman is, he will, at some point, blow a save or two. I also agree with the sentiment someone else posted that using relievers multiple innings might help alleviate the stress of the workload. I know the innings pitched comes out the same, but I think it's pretty well known that appearances for a reliever are a better indicator of arm abuse than IP. That's why it used to irk me so much when Ned would get Cordero up seemingly every night to throw in the bullpen "just in case"

Would Sheets have been more valuable had he missed the beginning of the season and pitched his 200 IP from the beginning of May to the end of the season? Other than *possibly* affecting the use of CC down the stretch, the answer has to be no. 200 IP of 3.09 E.R.A ball accounts for the same runs above average, regardless of when they occurred.

But Manny doesn't have the eye of the Tiger. Seriously though, the Brewers run differential has suggested a little bit of luck. Provus said a winning % in 1 run games is the hallmark of a good team, I think it's the hallmark of a somewhat lucky team. If you look at the lineup right now, there's 4 guys sporting an OPS over .750, and I seriously question how long Counsell can keep it up. If Hart and/or Hardy don't pick it up, there's going to be a lot of pressure on Fielder, Cam, and Braun to produce. Also worth noting is that exactly one starter (Yo) is averaging 6 IP per start. I question how long the bullpen can remain effective if guys like Coffey, DiFilice, and Villy are asked to pick up almost 4 IP per game 5 times per week. I'm not saying the Reds are better, but it's not black and white in favor of the Crew either.

As others have said, clean the fan if possible, make sure you have proper airflow. There's a fair number of 3rd party laptop fan/laptops out there, some fairly inexpensive that help keep your machine cool(er). Barring that, you might consider working in a walk in freezer.

This is what I don't understand. Does a manager getting tossed automatically fire his team up? Is this something that's ever been stated by a player? Has anyone compiled data that would show the W/L percentage in games in which a manager got tossed? I'm sure those guys aren't sitting on the bench thinking "Boy, Macha really went out there and screamed at him, we better get going boys!" I just don't see it. I honestly don't. I think this team has responded very well to Macha's even keeled attitude, rather than Ned "bi-polar" Yost.

And to Crede and Cuddyer. The Twins only have 2 good offensive players and they are Mauer and Morneau, when other players on that team beat you there is nothing to be proud of. We got beat by one real pitcher as well and that was Slowey. Baker isn't bad, he is basically Dave Bush and the rookie they sent at us is probably a career minor leaguer. Cuddyer isn't exactly a chump, and Crede has always had the ability to hit a long ball now and then. The major thing he lacks is the ability to draw walks, but he can still burn you deep. And all I'll say about the rookie pitcher is.....it happens. When you don't have much to go on a guy, they can look like world beaters. I'm sure the Blue Jays thought they should knock Steve Woodard around in his first career start, and I'm sure the Cardinals thought Chris Saenz wasn't going to be tough to score off of either. It happens.

I guess I'm in the minority that I like having a manager who doesn't run out of the dugout waving his arms and screaming like a 4 year old who can't have a cookie before dinner. I know "that's the way it's always been", but that doesn't mean it's not downright childish for guys like Lou Piniella and the like to be throwing temper tantrums whenever they feel slighted.

Yeah, the ninja vs spartan showed a lot of the problems with what they're trying to do. Part of what made the Spartan (and many other warriors from that era) so tough was the phalanx, which the Spartans perfected. The shield protected the man on your left, which meant obviously you were protected in part by the shield from the man on your right. Individually, I'm sure their warriors were very capable fighters, but their true strength lay in formation. The other issue here is that militarily, your training, fighting style, tactics, and gear are going to be largely dictated by your enemy. The spartans fought the way they did because it was effective against their enemies. Knights fought the way they did because it was effective. Most military advancements are made because you are forced to adjust your strategy or gear to effectively combat your opponent. I read a long time ago, can't remember the book, so I apologize about the vague details, it was about military innovations, but I read that the French in the 16th, 17th century were fighting an asian opponent, and the fighting style in Europe at the time was fencing, which obviously leads your arm out away from your body. Their opponents, knowing this, made it their tactic to slash the wrist of the fencer, rendering him uncapable of fighting back. To combat this the French fighters innovated by creating metal wristguards rather than the flexible leather ones that were previously used. The Pirate vs. Knight was pretty dumb, in my ever so humble opinion. Muskets and other armor piercing implements are what obsoleted the heavily armored knight. A musket or pistol easily pierces a breast plate or helmet. Game over man, game over. I guess the concept is interesting, but it fails to take so many things into account, mainly, that tactics and fighting style is adapted to suit your opposition.

I think the general consensus was that this was about an 85 win team (.525 win%) I think that the team's talent level is about that, about an 85 win team, mabye even a little better. Figuring from any point forward, you can give them a .525 win % the rest of the way. If you do that right now, you're clocking in at 90 wins on the final day of the season. 90 should have you within a game or 2 of the playoffs in most seasons.

While somewhat of a revalation, I guess it's not all that surprising. I'm never going to meet Uecker, so I can't really bring myself to care what he's like off the air. I only need him to entertain me for 3 hours a day.

I had wanted to attend this series anyway," Yohanek said. "Considering (Marlins) attendance is barely over 15,000 nightly, I didn't feel like this was too much to ask." Boy, that's not a smug tone at all. I have to wonder about a "hobby" that involves shoving kids out of your way to get a 9 dollar ball.

I don't care how much Hanley Ramirez makes, or Coghlan makes, (or HY, for that matter). I simply don't understand why it's "ok" to ask a guy to ask someone else to surrender their personal property. So you find someone's wedding ring on your property. Would it be reasonable to say "I found your wedding ring, I want 20 bucks, and I want you to get your neighbor's weed whacker for me too"?

As a Brewer fan, I don't ever really get worked up over a lack of media coverage, or a supposed "lack of respect" our boys get for being a podunk midwest baseball team. I don't care how much the national media covers our guys, as long as we win. This is different though, I'd like to think as fans we'd want to be thought of as generally decent, courteous, whatever. I know in the grand scheme of things it matters not at all, and people who want to form their opinion of a fan base based on the childish and foolish actions of one greedy person are really acting out of ignorance, but it does to a small degree bother me that this one guy's actions can and will shape how our fans are looked at from an outsider's perspective.

Someone from Brewerfan pointed me to this site....... www.crucial.com. You input the type and model of your PC and it will tell you exactly what your computer can run. They're very reasonable on price as well. I had an old Dell with 256 mb of RAM, and I ordered a pair of 1GB sticks, and installed them with no issue. I paid less than 80 bucks for the both.

Way back when I remember someone here claiming that Wayne Franklin got great run support because the guys "knew he was gonna give them 6 solid innings every time out" Personally, I think it's a crock. I'll certainly concede that there's an obvious human/emotion side to the game that can't be measured, but at the same time, some of the "intangible" crap some of the talking heads (and some of the old school managers and GM's) spout is just such complete and utter nonsense, I sometimes lose hope that baseball as a whole will accept that the game is changing and "Math" isn't a terrible thing.

A team like the Brewers is always "building for the future", but last year *was* the future. Small market teams have to recognize when that window of opportunity opens up for them, even if only briefly. At some point, you have to take a shot. Last year was as good as any. With hindsight it's easy to bemoan the fact that we were pushed out in the first round, but even if all else is equal, you have a 1 in 4 chance of making the series, 1 in 8 of winning it. If you're not going to take that shot last year, then when?

With all the allegations about, heck, just about everyone nowadays, the only thing that might pique my interest is when someone actually gets caught doing something right now. I'm not interested in what someone's high school teammates said they did. Just not. The pitch tipping thing, that doesn't even get to me that much. It's going to be awfully tough to "prove". I suppose our commish could use the "for the good of the game" power he has granted himself and punish A-Rod for something somebodie's roomate's cousin's uncle told a reporter's girlfriend who sat next to Jose Canseco on the bus, but it's probably not worth the effort. Baseball just keeps killing itself by bringing up this crap from the past. Why can't we just acknowledge steroids happened, absolutely punish the guys that get caught, and move on?

So I started messing around with Open Office over the last week, and was using it for a few hours today with some documents that I had on a little usb drive. I went to edit a document that I had saved on the thumb drive, and now it will only open everything off of that drive in read-only format. To edit, I have to highlight the text, and I get a warning message that "The document can not be edited, possibly due to missing access rights. Do you want to edit a copy of the document?" Even if I move the doc to my computer (documents or desktop), I get the same crap. Do I have an issue with the thumb drive, or open office? And either way, is there an easy way to give myself permission to edit the docs on this drive without having to highlight the text in each and every document that I want to work with? EDIT; I deleted the last copy that I saved to the drive, and everything seems to be accessible again. Didn't do anything different. Pulled up a doc, edited it, clicked "save as", changed the name and saved. Must have fat fingered something, but I don't know what.

Interestingly, (and this is a personal observation, which I'm well aware can be skewed by perception), I have not seen Braun swing or even offer at many (if any) 2-0 pitches this year. I wonder if there's a direct order from Macha or Sveum to guys like Hart, Braun, maybe a few others who did show lack of patience at the plate last year to take no matter what on certain counts. EDIT: Took a look at the numbers. Brauny's gone to 2-0 19 times this year. He hasn't put the ball in play on the 3rd pitch in any of those at bats. He took 10 walks out of those 19 PA's when he took the count to 2-0. In a vaccum this doesn't mean much. I'd have to see the context compared to other hitters.

The basic OBP formula is (H+BB+HBP)/(AB+BB+HBP+SF) - however, I've seen more elaborate versions of OBP. An old Bill James article I used to have calculated OBP as something like (H+BB+HPB)/(AB+BB+IBB+HBP+SF+CI). I think the logic behind not crediting OBP on an intentional walk is that it takes no effort on the batter's part to reach base on an IBB... even with a HBP, you have to get hit in the body with a ball.I don't like that formula though, because whether or not the batter had to put effort into attaining that walk, he did reach base, he did not record an out, and it does increase that team's run scoring probability in that given inning. Given that we now use OBP, SLG, OPS and others to calculate run probability to a very high degree, I think it's only right that intentional walks are counted, as they are part of the formula.

There's a lot wrong with how defensive statistics are compiled. On a routine base hit to left that the outfielder scoops up and lobs back to the infield, there is no statistical data, and no *chance* recorded. However, if said outfielder bobbles the ball or lets it skip under his glove and the runner gets a base because of it, it now becomes a *chance*, and an error. Even last night, as BA pointed out on the television broadcase, on the aborted steal attempt by Hunter Pence, Rickie made a great diving catch of the ball thrown by Kendall (though one could argue Rickie should have been there already, ready to take the throw), and there's nothing statistical recorded about it. Had he NOT made the catch, either Weeks or Kendall get credited with both a chance and an error when Pence then takes that base. And when you look at it, everything is a "chance" for an error, any and every single time a fielder touches (or tries to) the ball. In that aspect, the idea of "fielding percentage" is more or less critically flawed.

Dear me, DON'T spend your 20's fretting about not going to college right out of high school. You DO eventually go, and it works out for the better. DO rent that apartment on Jackson St. when you're 18, DON'T buy the mobile home. You may think having "your own place" is better than renting and all, but you want to talk about an albatross? (But don't worry, that eventually works out ok too) DON'T take the 17 year old Buick Regal on a driving vacation to Wyoming and South Dakota. You make it back, but just barely. Once that car gets back in your driveway, it never moves again (Except when the junk man comes to buy it from you for 60 bucks) And DON'T worry about not taking the job at GM when your wife's dad tries to get you in. That wouldn't have worked out so well.

Suppan pitched terribly last night. That strike zone was huge. Both strikeouts of Carlos Lee were giftwrapped by Blue behind the plate. Even with a strikezone that went from the armpits to mid-shin, and 3 inches off both corners, Supp still managed to walk 4 guys and fall behind several others.

That's all fine, and to a point, I agree. But people getting visibly upset about it? If Bush doesn't go the distance with this, it's not because BA mentioned it in the booth.