That said if I had one weakness as a team that I think is easiest to fix mid season it is the bullpen, so I'm all for taking advantage now because they could come on very strong at the end if they make some improvements there.
Reviewing the always outstanding link report this morning and Jim mentioned the size difference between a couple of the prospects. And it got me to wondering if there is potentially a notable impact on the pitcher if you do actually have a couple of players who are actually extremely different in size? Rickey of course famously tried to manipulate the size of his zone to draw more walks, but with the increasingly more uniform strikezone calls by umpires I wonder if this is something exploitable on the margins. And if so is it hard to go from the small player to the larger player or vice versa?
I'd handicap the percentages pretty much the same. Cincy does have enough youth that they could make it interesting and for awhile STL could still pull the fountain of Youth trick in the second half, all the more reason to be greedy this weekend and go for a sweep.
He was already pitching himself towards the demotion, so if I understand this not only does it let us try someone else and we have bullpen choices to try. It also gives us control and flexibility about when that suspension happens which is pretty valuable especially given how much we are relying on the pen getting stuck an arm down for even 3 days at the wrong time could be a huge problem.
I've found the IGT pretty readable this year, perhaps underwhelming on some nights but last year it was a ton of posts all about arguing for the sake of arguing instead of the content of the game. I am definitely pro-forum and I really appreciate the in-season quality of the articles this year.
I think at this point the Brewers response is that we don't believe any roster is sustainable we'll just keeping making moves... Which I think I've kind of come around to, every season too many things happen to stick to a single plan.
I'm often with you Nate, but on the flipside the pitcher had come close to the plate in 7 pitches and I don't really want my struggling hitter popping up a meatball there. If Yelich or William watch it go by very different story though
I'm definitely in the camp that we'd be better off with some extra picks next year. Keep some options open to add more young talent then, we already have a ton.
Before they officially blow it by winning tonight I wanted to point out that going into today the White Sox were ahead (behind?) of the Cleveland Spiders pace at 19.44 wins on the year...
ESPN lists us with the 3rd highest Strength of Schedule so far, which passes the eyeball test there are hardly any below .500 teams we have played if you remove our games from their record.
Brice tailed off faster then you remember his April/March splits from last year had him already down to a .583 OPS in 80 PAs compared to his 69 PAs already. So quick mathing would still give him a.273/.325/ .424 slash line if he went 0-11 to get to the same number of PAs. Certainly time well tell if stays near his lofty All-star level production, but he can cool off a fair bit and still be a very good player.
Maybe now is the time to float thinking about doing something fun in a couple of years to celebrate 25 years. With some of the username shifts I can't remember everyone who has been around that long, but I know Turbo was here from the old Power 50 on the ESPN.go message boards days.