rotoherb

hey, 13 games in a row with four our fewer runs scored now! that is just putrid.

I wonder if Svuem realizes that Villanueva actually has better stats against lefties over his career than against righties?

Prince has been on fire over the last week. Unfortunately, he's alone.

no, Cotts would have to pitch to one batter, it's a rule. I have no idea why they didn't pinch hit Weeks for Durham there. Some things don't change, I guess.

A strikeout quite possibly allows three runs to score that inning, maybe more, considering that Cameron followed with a hit and Counsell would have had a sac fly. The DP takes a runner off the bases and adds the extra out. It's definitely worse than a K in that situation.

I wouldn't have been booing Gagne if I was at the game, I would have been booing Ned for putting him in the game. Gagne can't help it if he's washed up and done. At some point Ned needs to think about using Torres for some two inning saves. If Torres is available to pitch two innings when the game goes extras then just put him in for the eighth. Don't do it every game, but for the next 21 games they need to have their best pitchers on the mound for as many innings as possible. It's to the point of the season where stuff like this needs to be considered.

What is Yost trying to prove by sending Gagne out there in high leverage situations? He's clearly not a very good pitcher. How can you keep sending a guy into close games when every fourth hit he's allowed has been a home run? It's just insane.

Considering that he surgery to repair a torn meniscus in his left knee back in March, I'm guessing that they'll take it easy on the squats for the rest of the season. It's possible that he's cleared to hit, but not to do 100 deep knee bends.

It just occurred to me that this was the first game that was blown by the bullpen when they started an inning with the lead since they blew a five run lead in the ninth inning against the Diamondbacks back on July 3rd. That seems pretty amazing considering the pitchers that the Brewers have in the bullpen.

The SS position has taken a downturn offensively in recent years. Even with Hardy's recent 0-for-19 streak, he still has a higher OPS than any SS in the AL. It's not too crazy to think that some team would overpay for his services if the Brewers shopped him around. A team like the White Sox will have a huge hole at SS this offseason and nothing in the minors. I'm sure Kenny Williams will be shopping all over the place for one, they just may not have much to offer.

Love the P50 and I don't want to sound picky, but just out of curiousity, how is third round pick Logan Schafer ranked ten spots behind eighth round pick Erik Komatsu? I've never seen either play, but based on draft status and performance, I would have thought it to be reversed.

The late August/September collapse in 1983 was pretty bad, though that one started with a 3-6 west coast road trip and led into a 10 game losing streak after they returned home. That's really the last time that I can remember this much widespread disappointment over a week's worth of games. That was much later in the season, though, and there was no wild card to play for at the time. The Brewers have a much better chance to right the ship this time around.

The Brewers have five solo home runs in this series and are 0-for-the-series with runners in scoring position. They haven't had a lot go right this series, which was just the opposite last week. If the Brewers had gone 2-2 against the Cardinals and 2-2 against the Cubs, would so many people be jumping ship? They'd still be in the same position that they are right now. There's still plenty of season left to play.

And my point wasn't to manipulate numbers, it was to show that for an extended period of time the Brewers have actually been better than the Cubs. Not for a few days or a few weeks or a month, but for two-thirds of the season. As time goes on, what the Cubs did in April becomes less and less meaningful. It's not about "Momentum!!!!", and I'm not infatuated with "what have you done for me lately". It's about the current strength of a team. This is why ELO ratings systems were developed and are used for games like chess, backgammon and soccer. I don't know why you need to use mocking phrases like "Momentum!!!" and I'm pretty sure that I never said the Brewers were out of it at any point this season.

Cubs the favorites? sure I can go along with that. "Clear" favorites? I'm not sure about that. It's hard to label a team a clear favorite when the Brewers have outplayed them by +58 run differential to +33 since the middle of May and hopefully that gets wider tonight. I don't think I can stress enough how completely average Fukudome has been since April. There's as much reason to believe that this isn't the real Fukudome and not the April version. The Cubs offense has been really mediocre since the middle of May, but that huge April that they had is hiding a lot of that.

and Larussa has a pitcher hitting third next inning because he has no more pinch hitters left on his bench as far as I can tell....

1) the Brewers didn't give up a lot more than the Cubs did. Gallagher is getting wayyyyy shortchanged by most people in this thread. I can only imagine how hyped up he would be around here if he put up those minor league in the Brewers system. 2) Harden has a $7 million club option for next season. Considering his injury risk, it's doubtful that the A's really wanted to pick that up. If the Cubs don't pick that up then they wouldn't get any compensation for him in the draft. As it is, he's not likely a class A free agent unless he can pitch a full season next year without getting hurt. Even then it would probably be close. It's no guarantee that the Cubs will pick up his option for next year, but considering that they have plenty of cash, they probably will do it. If the A's were looking for a major league ready pitcher in return for Harden then the Brewers had no chance to get him anyway.

The Cubs trading Gallagher would be comparable to the Brewers trading Manny Parra as part of the deal. Gallagher is still just 22 years old and had a 2.84 ERA with a 67/22 K/BB ratio in 69.2 Triple-A innings. I guess the question becomes if everyone here would have been OK with trading Parra along with three other prospects for Rich Harden, say Tony Gwynn, Chris Errecart and Jonathon Lucroy (just for kicks, I'm not trying to match things up evenly). I don't think it seems like quite the steal for the Cubs after you put it into that context.

Since May 19th, Brewers' run differential: +39, Cubs run differential: +26. As it just so happens, May 19th is exactly halfway between the start of the season and today, 44 games both before and after that date. The Cubs dominated those first 44 games with a +76 run differential while the Brewers floundered to a -28. 88 games is still a small sample size when it comes to run differential. That 19-5 loss to the Cubs back at the end of April is causing a 28 run swing between the two teams. I don't think it's unreasonable that the Brewers could play even with the Cubs for the remainder of the season. Considering that both teams play each other six times out of the last 12 games of the season, just being within one or two games of the Cubs at that point will give them a legitimate shot at winning the division. Of course, if the Brewers are within a game or two of the Cubs at the end of the season then it's quite likely that the loser of those two teams will be the wild card anyway.

Does that Gabe Gross guy ring a bell? I agree that Melvin definitely prefers to get major league ready talent in return, as do most GMs. He really hasn't had a whole lot of top talent to trade, outside of Carlos Lee.

Just looking at the Cubs run differential for the season to date doesn't tell the whole story. Take a look at it month by month: April: +52 May: +39 June: +11 Why is it trending downward? Part of it is Soriano getting injured during June, but an even bigger part of it may be the two rookies that the Cubs have in their lineup. Check out what Fukudome and Soto have done this year: Fukudome April: 837 OPS May: 792 June: 789 Soto April: 1060 OPS May: 868 June: 747 These are two guys that other teams had really never seen before. Is it possible that opposing teams now have scouting reports on them and have made adjustments? These are also two players who don't have a past performance to base a solid second half prediction. We can't just say "Oh, June was just a slump and they'll break out of it". What is closer to the truth, April or June? I'd be willing to bet that neither hit's as well as he did in April for the rest of the season. Something else that needs to be watched is what's going on with Carlos Marmol. Here are his stats since June 15th: 8GP 6IP 5H 7BB 6K 10ER 15.00 ERA It's possible that he's just going through a rough period and will turn it around, but numbers like that over three weeks may be indicitive of a hidden injury. If he can't turn it around then that would greatly affect the Cubs for the second half of the season. I can't argue that the Cubs haven't played better than the Brewers up to this point or that the Brewers haven't gotten a little lucky to even be this close to the Cubs. But the season is just too fluid to assume that because the Cubs outperformed them to this point that they must outperform them from now on. Both teams will have different rosters by the trade deadline and each team will likely have it's own set of injuries to deal with. I agree that the Cubs have a better chance to win the division than the Brewers, but I don't believe that it's as hopeless as your posts make it out to be.

Sutcliffe was traded to the Cubs in June of 1984 for Joe Carter. He went 16-1 with a 2.69 ERA for the Cubs and won the Cy Young award, leading them to the playoffs. Anyone who was around at the time remembers how unbelieveable he was that summer. That Joe Carter guy ended up doing ok for himself as well....

The Nationals were roundly criticized by everyone far and wide for not trading Soriano at the deadline and rightly so. I'll be very shocked if they don't trade Sabathia. Can you even name another All-Star type free agent to be who wasn't traded at the deadline by a team out of contention? Soriano is the only one, which kind of proves the point. Getting a few Double-A or higher prospects who project as starters in any capacity in the majors is better off than the two draft picks and mlb GMs know this. The Indians aren't going to keep Sabathia just because they aren't offer a top prospect. Other teams only need to make an offer that's better than the two draft picks threshold, which isn't a whole lot. I'm not saying that the Indians will take a bucket of balls for him, but Shapiro is going to take the best trade offer. He's not going to settle for two draft picks if anything better was ever on the table. That would simply be hurting your own team.

The Indians don't really have much of a choice in what they will take and I think that's one thing that people are missing when discussing this trade. There are really only a handful of clubs who are willing and able to trade for two months of Sabathia and the Indians have no choice but to accept the best offer they get, even if it's not very good. All of those clubs know that and no one is going to budge much from a low offer. During the offseason the trading team can always use the "we'll just keep him if that's your best offer" leverage, but Cleveland doesn't have that at all. If they don't trade him then they end up like the Nationals two years ago when they didn't trade Soriano and claimed that they weren't offered anything to make the trade worthwhile. The difference between Sabathia and Sanatana is that the team who signed him knew they had to sign him to a longer contract so the trade really wasn't for just one year. Trading for Sabathia comes with no guarantee that he'll sign for longer.

I mentioned this in a different thread, but I don't really think that it would take a Gamel or LaPorta to get Sabathia. Just look back at all of the trade deadline deals for a two month rental over the last five seasons. Two month guys simply don't command that much on the trade market, especially when it is well known that they won't resign with their current team. Bowden claims that he was offered nothing for Soriaon a few years ago, Carlos Beltran was traded for Travis Buck, Mike Wood and Mark Teahen - none of which were top 50 prospects according to BA. Sabathia may be bit better than most of those trades, though the Beltran sweepstakes was a big thing at the time, but based on the recent past I don't think the Indians will get any top 20-30 type prospects in return. I can't remember the last trade deadline deal where a two month guy was traded for a top 50 prospect even, maybe Ugueth Urbina for Adrian Gonzalez in 2003? Even Gonzalez was a fringe top 50 guy at that point. If I had to guess, I'd say that they'll get either one solid, major leaguer with a reasonable contract or two to three middle tier prospects. Maybe some team will overpay, but everyone knows that the Indians have trade him and will wait them out.