SenatorShriv

I wasn't able to follow the league on a regular basis this season. Would someone who was able to follow along More closely be able to give us a summary of what we learned about the players who participated? Obviously I can read the stats but I wondered if there was anything that those numbers might not tell us.

Gut instincts are that Weeks and Cain are the most likely candidates to outperform those projections. Gamel seems to be the most likely to fall short (especially on the batting average.) I could see Gamel starting off really hot and outperforming those numbers, then cooling down in the second half as pitchers really get used to him and the season takes its tolls.

Maybe I surround myself with optimists... I expected the Brewers to be competitive in the division and thought that with a little bit of luck we could have been in the race and possibly made appropriate moves mid-season to keep us in the running. Obviously I was completely wrong and maybe I was delusional for thinking the team could be competitive in the first place. To be clear I'm a huge fan of Escobar. I think that he could develop into something truly special. But I don't think it would have been the end of the world to let him spend another season in AAA refining his skills. Mostly I was disappointed with the return that we got on the trade. JJ Hardy was enough of a proven commodity that I thought we could have gotten something better in return. I know for a fact that I was right about that now because ANYTHING would have been better than Gomez. (adjusted font size --1992)

When I look at the "bad" list I'm not so sure that any of those trades really hurt us that badly. By that I mean that we never traded away someone who would have been a key player on a playoff team. Hardy for Gomez is the only one that causes me any heart burn. The free agent signings on the other hand have been absolutely awful. *I would actually remove Hoffman from that list he was great last year, which was probably the only year that they thought he would be around.

Most of the stats being used to compare these guys are useless? I guess I don't follow. It is a full season worth of stats so there isn't any sample size problem. Which stat don't you agree with? BA? OBP? WAR? OPS? What would be the correct stat to evaluate Hardy and Gomez at this point? At the beginning of the season many thought that this team could be a playoff contender if some things broke the right way and we added a couple of key role players. Obviously the wheels came completely off this season for a variety of reasons, but there is no doubt in my mind that this team would have been much better with Hardy at short and someone (anyone) else in center. This was a horrible trade. We traded a proven asset for a high risk / high reward prospect. There wasn't any reward.

I thought Braun's bad defense cost him two extra runs in the third. With two outs he failed to get to a fly ball that he should have caught and then made a terrible throw to the plate that should have been at least a close play. Obviously Yo isn't pitching his best but he sure isn't getting much help out there.

I haven't been paying close attention to the minor league system this year so I'm just getting around to noticing that Brendan Katin is having another nice year at the plate. His OPS is currently sitting at about .900. Seeing as this is his third season in Nashville, it seems pretty clear that he isn't in the Brewer's long-term plans as an everday player (nore should he be), but it surprises me a little that he doesn't seem to be on the radar as a bench player either. He is 27 so he is probably reaching his peak performance years so if he doesn't get a chance with the Brewers or someone else soon, his ship may sail. The questions include... Does Brendan Katin have a path to the major leagues with the Brewers? If we were to include him in a trade package during the off season are there teams that would want him on the bench or is he destined to be one of those "really good" baseball players who never get their shots at the major leagues? Aside question - how is his defense in RF?

I have stayed out of this thread for a long time because random typos, occasional grammar issues, and the like don't bother me too much. Anyone who is forced to publicize that much material on a daily basis (which gets edited by several others along the way) will have some of those issues from time to time. I have always thought it was off-base for people to criticize the occasional language flubs from politicians, radio hosts or tv anchors who have to speak everyday to large crowds of people who are recording and hanging on their every word. I have to do a lot of public speaking for my job and there are times when the brain just goes wondering and you screw something up or say something that you don't really mean. I'm willing to cut the MJS writers some slack on these issues. They are putting out a lot of words every week for diehards like us to rip apart. What I'm not really willing to cut the writers, editors and managers at MJS much slack on any more is the overall lack of creativity in their Brewer's coverage. MJS seems to lack the ability to tell an interesting story when the season isn't interesting and that shouldn't be the case. In order to keep me subscribing they are going to have to start getting a little bit more creative than giving me a game summary, box score and two quotes from Melvin or Macha. Cruise the minor league forum and there are tons of interesting stories there that would make for an interesting article or two. Why not occasionally feature a couple of Brewer's experts having a "debate of the week", trying to do a weekly prospect ranking / update, doing a breakdown of classic debates (example - who is the best Brewer's 3rd baseman of all time?), come up with random articles that do stupid things like breakingdown baseball slang but find ways to relate it this year's Brewers, polling the players to find out which teammate has the worst case of jock itch, where their favorite hangout is, etc... There are so many other things that could be covered that would help make the season more interesting for the average fan... I came to the realization a long time ago that being a Brewer's fan was going to require me to care about and find enjoyment from of a lot of other aspects of the team than just knowing what happened in the game. If the MJS were better at helping me stay interested over the course of consecutive long and disappointing seasons I would appreciate it.

I would be fine throwing some of the Covey money at Barret Loux to see if we could get something that sticks. What do people think he will get on the free agent market. I would imagine it would be very incentive laden.

Shockwave was the best, but you did have to be an experienced rider (to know how to keep your head from rattling around) in order to really enjoy it. Towards the end of the day on weekdays (we had season passes for about 4 years when I was a kid) we wouldn't even have to get out of the cars, they would just let us keep riding because there was no one in line. I haven't been back in nearly 6 years. Did they finally tear down Iron Wolf? I always liked that one as well. The girlfriend and I were just talking about trying to pick up some tickets and heading down there this summer with her niece and nephew, but I'm afraid that too much will have changed for me to enjoy it. What was the name of the bobsled themed coaster that they tore down in the early 90's?

I used to work for a guy who was getting his balloon pilot license and it was a ton of fun. Eventually the weird schedule caught up to me, but it was a lot of fun. They frequently needed people to ride along in the basket, which was great, but I got to the point where I enjoyed driving the chase vehicles way more (this was long before GPS and Google Maps were common so it was much tougher than I imagine that it would be today.) The guy I worked for now has his own business - Lake Geneva balloon Company. http://www.lakegenevaballoon.com/LGB/Whats_New....html He's a fantastic guy and LOVES the baloon company. If anyone is looking to go for a ride I would give them a call.

Well now that I know my license plate is already taken I don't think that I can take that job.

I am considering a job opportunity in Anchorage Alaska. The job would be at least a two year commitment so I want to make sure that Anchorage is someplace I could handle living for a while. I'm prepared for the cold (I've always been the fat sweaty kid so that doesn't bother me too much.) I'm also aware of the 24 hours of darkness during the winter and I think that I can handle it. Does anyone know much else about living in Anchorage?

I guess I was asking if he will qualify as a type A or type B player?

If Bush leaves via free agency would we get a draft pick in return?

What does this mean for Sheets career? Do you think that he throws in the towel or makes one more run at it? I hope that he will come back to Milwaukee as an announcer once he decides to hang up the cleats.

I've really enjoyed watching Edmonds play this year. I'm completly in the (very vocal) Brewerfan camp that Cain and other younger players should be getting more playing time, but Edmonds has certainly earned every minute he's been on the field. That being said, I would totally be ok with trading him to a contender for a A or AA pitcher with some upside if there was someone who wanted a veteran on the bench. I'm sure that he wouldn't mind playing a supporting role for a playoff team.

Lawrie may end up being slightly more valuable than Weeks in the long run if he can stay on the field, but I don't think his production will regularly match that of a healthy Rickie Weeks.

I think that most of our pitchers were due for slight improvements anyway. I don't think that he has looked GREAT behind the plate, but he has shown me that he has the potential to be very good defensively with a little more experience.

As long as he doesn't pitch again tonight in the series finale against the Twins I'm totally ok with his work load. Hoffman should be brought in if there is a save situation. He has pitched well over his last outings and I would be confident putting him back in there occasionally. I actually like the idea of being flexible with the closer and having Axford go two innings occasionally when necessary, knowing that we have Hoffman to take pressure off him during subsequent games.

I'm really glad that this didn't come down to another tie or loss because of bad officiating. I would like to have seen an easier victory, but they had a lot of good challenges on the goal throughout the whole game. They'll need to finish more of those opportunities if they hope to keep advancing but for right now I'll take the win and getting out of this round.

I bike to work 2-4 days a week depending on what my exact schedule is. Usually I toss my suit or dress clothes in a bag on the back of my bike and wear something else for the actual commute. I find that it helps me relax and get focused on the day before jumping into the daily grind. I only live about 4 miles from work so it isn't that big of a deal. The nice thing is that during construction season it is faster than driving and even during the rest of the year it only takes a couple of extra minutes. Sometimes on the way home I'll take a longer route and let it serve as a workout. I would strongly encourage everyone to try it a couple of times a week over the course of a month. Once you learn a few tricks (shortcuts, how to carry your stuff, etc...) you'll realize how much better it is than driving.

No doubt that was an amazing play, but I don't think that it should be overlooked that the first baseman had to make a barehanded grab. He was correctly positioned on the outside of the bag and had to reach back onto the infield side with his bare hand to catch it. Regardless of whether it was opening day or the world series, I for one have not seen "thousands" of plays that were that good.

Painful is an understatement. I never could figure out what Joe Morgan was really getting at. His two inning long blather about small market teams making "excuses" for not signing players was brutal. At the very least he should have acknowledged that revenue streams are different for each team.

Funny, I was going to start this thread tonight but I was thinking about how to do it to make it not about the performance during the Cardinals series and rather about Hoffman's stuff or something like that. The home run by Stavinoha seemed like a great pitch, but I've made comments during all of his appearances so far this year saying that he looks like he's lost a tick on his fastball. I would be interested to see if his fastball has lost 1 or 2 mph from the last two years. That could make a lot of difference in the effectiveness of his change up and slider. I'm hoping that it is just a bad start to the season and haven't even begun to lose faith in him. Does anyone remember where his fastball was sitting last year?