Roscoe Chill

Anyone have any opinions on the Denmark-Japan game? Denmark needs a win to advance, and if they do they will play in the next round next Tuesday...when I'll just happen to be in Copenhagen. http://forum.brewerfan.net/images/smilies/smile.gif

Hoffman isn't going anywhere. In August/September when he STILL hasn't hit 600 saves, and the Brewers are challenging the Pirates and Astros for the cellar of the NL Central, he'll hit that mark even if it takes him a dozen tries to get there. And it will be marketed as some kind of big deal, even though it is really pathetic that it will have taken so long and so many tries. In actuality most of the fans will have already moved on to not caring, and they won't buy that it's a big deal anyway.

Just because we enjoy following a team doesn't mean we need to have blind optimism about what to expect from them. I am a fan of the team whether they are making a playoff run, or whether they are in the midst of a rebuild. I don't think it negates someone's "fanhood" if they approach the team with realistic expectations of what to expect in the future. That doesn't mean we don't want to see the team succeed, of course we do. We just aren't going to get all bent out of shape when they aren't able to compete on the same level as the Yankees every season. Approaching the team with the realistic approach that they likely will only make the playoffs once every 4 or 5 seasons, and may only make the World Series two or three times during my lifetime doesn't mean that I'm less of a fan. I still cheer for the team even if logically and realistically the deck is stacked against them. Only it's not "blind optimism" that people have. I'm really not going to rehash the solid arguments from some people. And I will say that I don't expect them to be in the playoffs every year. However, being obviously out of it (spare the mathematical possibilities please) by the middle of May is also not what I had in mind. I missed the memo where the Brewers are "rebuilding" again. There was a time when I understood that they were rebuilding. That was before Prince Fielder, before Ryan Braun. Now I don't see them rebuilding. I see them missing the window they had. I seem them chasing win number 78 with bad personnel decisions (was $2M for Jody Gerut even close to necessary?) instead of 72 with a roster full of possible future building blocks. Being realistic has nothing to do with people not liking how the Brewers have evolved over the last two or three years. I think the rebuilding talk is a coping mechanism for those people who think they're being realistic. They are not in a rebuilding mode right now. If you think they are, then I guess you are right to a point, but then you fail to mention that EVERY team save a few is ALWAYS rebuilding. Some just happen to stay in contention due to luck I guess? As for getting "bent out of shape" because they aren't comparable to the Yankees every year, I say I'm not bent out of shape at all. Again, the Brewers crashed and burned in mid May. MID MAY!!! Right now they're one of the worst five or six teams in baseball. I'm not bent out of shape at all. I'm apathetic. And that's sad. One thing I am not is satisfied or accepting because there are supposedly some A pitchers that are going to start helping win Major League games in 2012. When 2012 gets here the same people will tell us that we need to wait for those pitchers to get seasoned, so then it will be 2014. Blind optimism? No way. On the other side of the coin, I think the free passes for personnel decisions gone wrong is just odd.

Are you guys kidding me? You're going to accuse sheethead of acting as if he knows what the final record is going to be? You can look at like three posts on this site on any given topic and someone uses their projections, or someone else's projections to argue that this team was only going to win X games anyway, so why get upset about it? It's even all over this thread. "Your expectations are way too high." "This team is rebuilding, they are not supposed to win this many games." Quite frankly, I wonder why people even post on brewerfan.net the way they spin what happens in to being right on target etc. In fact, I'm not sure why some even follow the Brewers according to some of the comments. It's a lost cause and we all should know that. But perhaps in 2018 the magic will happen! So, I'll go ahead and agree with sheethead and others and say, that yes, the number of wins is not going to be very good this year. And when it IS all said and done, I'm sure those of you who are trying to rip sheethead about knowing what the future holds will say that X number of wins that the Brewers did have was exactly where you had them pegged all along. It's comical.

I'd say he's on very thin ice. How can you not agree? Especially when you have Dale Sveum and Willie Randolph ready as in house replacements. Especially when he's a lame duck anyway. If no improvement is shown, why wouldn't you think that the end is near? But to answer your question, yes, they very well might already know that he's not their guy. Again, timing.

It's really just a matter of timing. You're right there's been plenty of time for an assessment. You're obviously not going to fire a manager if you sweep the Twins. Timing.

Is it really that big of a surprise that a 42 year old closer lost it fast? It's not that hard to figure out. It's not some mystery. He's old. He's done. When will the Brewers figure it out? What are the Brewers 15-24? Even with an average pitcher closing out those games, they're sniffing right around .500. Last year was great, but there was a hint of smoke and mirrors with his success. But whatever.

A rotation of Yo, Wolf, Bush, Narveson, Parra, and possibly Capuano is a good starting point for 2011 planning. And it will be cheap too. And I think this illustrates the title of this thread so very well. The above rotation gets the Brewers nowhere.

I don't find the organization stuck in neutral, I just think a rebuilding process takes way longer than people realize. I didn't expect us to be a .500 team until around 2010 to be honest, things happened faster than I would have expected given how terrible the organization was 10 years ago. The Suppan deal obviously killed the team somewhat though, if we had signed someone like Lilly instead this team would be so much better off the last couple years. A lot is going to depend on what they do with Fielder, Braun, Weeks. The organization needs to learn how to develop/draft pitching, on base skills and defense more than anything. I do agree that we should trade Fielder, I think we should extend Weeks though and roll the dice with his health.Rebuilding an organization doesn't mean draft a few good young players and have them reach the pros and you are done though. Step 1 is getting some talent in the minors, step 2 is rebuilding the fan base and putting a competitive product on the field and step 3 is turning some of that initial talent into solid minor league depth so the organization can stay competitive long term. We are still in the middle of step 2 right now, the process is not finished yet. Huh? Ten years ago the franchise was in terrible shape. But they're way past that now. They're now two years removed from a playoff berth. They still have two superstars, and they've really done nothing with them in the fold, save the 2008 run made possible by CC Sabathia. I agree that someone like Ted Lilly instead of Suppan would have been so much better, but still in step 2? I think you are really being optimistic if you think the fan base is rebuilding. I think you're being optimistic that this TEAM is rebuilding. I actually think the fan base has peaked. And obviously we all know the Prince Fielder situation. He's a lame duck right now. Sure, they've put a competitive team on the field, and that's really about it....hence STUCK IN NEUTRAL. It's not going to get much better anytime soon, so the fanbase will start getting smaller...the minor league depth? I don't see anything to get too excited about right now. I think the Fielder return will be very disappointing...definitely stuck in neutral. I'm afraid, hope I'm wrong. And yes, the team really can't realistically contend EVERY year, but the team realistically isn't going to have two players on the same team like Prince Fielder and Ryan Braun either. So, if people think they're going to have a better shot in three years or so than they do now. I'm just not seeing it, all things considered. They're definitely stuck in neutral. Not terrible. Not good.

I think you're expecting too much when going for a sure thing at pick 15ish. Marvin Williams was being considered as the #1 pick overall, so your argument actually is a good one. In the crapshoot that is the NBA draft, when you get out of the lottery, I think if you have a chance at a guy who could be dominant you should almost always go for that over a sure thing...unless your team is already loaded.

You know this how? People ask to give names and one is given. Yet, that's not good enough. Trust me? I believe I might have even leaked some inside info on this site three or four years ago that his retirement was coming. But even if you don't buy that, why would he retire from the Twins if he was interested in running a baseball team at this point in his life? Because Milwaukee is an hour and a half from Janesville? His home is in Minneapolis, and not only that he still works for the Twins anyway. That's fine that people are giving names. I'm contributing that this one isn't realistic.

I think the Bucks are set up nicely with their Redd and Gadzuric contracts to make a trade for a player that has value and signed long tem more than set up for the 2011 free agent market. Say a team decides they want to make a run at Carmelo Anthony, Tony Parker, or Jamal Crawford. Or say a team wants to go after a combination of free agents such as Caron Butler, Samuel Dalembert etc. They want to free up cash and want those big, bad expiring contracts, and trade someone to the Bucks to get them. I don't have specific players in mind or anything, but I think that's the avenue all these national sports outlets (Sports Illustrated for one) are praising the Bucks for putting themselves in position to do stuff like this next year.

Ridnour is also a FA, so there's a decision to be made there. Finally, that $25MM for Redd/Gadz won't be available next year, it will be available the following year. Both are under contract for the 2010/2011 season. My bad on including Ridnour, and not knowing about the option for Salmons. But yes, I'm aware that Redd and Gadzuric are on the payroll next year. Hence my comments about the final year of those bad contracts becoming virtually gold in the NBA landscape. Maybe a trade won't be made with these two until next year mid season, either way, my point was their contracts now have vaule as weird as that is. I still think Salmons comes back.

John Salmons is a Buck next year for $5.8M, unless they don't want him...which I can confidently say is not the case. So I don't know where all this resigning Salmons talk came from. When they got him, it was brought up that with the contracts of Redd, Gadzuric, and Salmons, the Bucks would have over $30M of "contracts" to trade in the off season to bring a player or two of value back in return. After the last three months, I think it's safe to say the Bucks will have ~$25M of "contracts" to trade in the off season to bring in a player of value to team up with Bogut, Jennings....and Salmons, among other role guys (Luc, Delfino, Ilyasova, Ridnour). http://forum.brewerfan.net/images/smilies/smile.gif That's the unique part of the NBA structure. We piss and moan about Redd's contract for a few years (with good reason) and all of a sudden their bad contracts become valuable resources once they hit the final year (same goes for Gadzuric). Fear the Deer...next year.

Terry Ryan is from Janesville and has worked with less. Terry Ryan is a Twin, and he's retired. He's not interested in the Milwaukee job.

He's the All Time Saves Leader! He can't be done. Suppan has started over 30 games forever, there's no way he got old fast (actually not that fast). This is starting to become a disturbing attitude trend for the Brewers brass. Yeah, I know Suppan was taken out of the rotation, but he should be taken off the team. How many more games is this team with a small margin for error to make the playoffs going to lose because the reality of the Hoffman situation is not accepted? We shall see. I like Hoffman, but it's not even close as far as him vs. hitters right now. It's not all that hard to believe that he done got old fast and just isn't able to do the job anymore. Sure, he might get it done here and there. Consistently? It's obvious to me that it's not going to happen. Unfortunate, but my gosh, accept the situation, deal with it, and move on. Macha's post game press conference was plain old bizarre last night. All this fluff about Rick Peterson means nothing to me after hearing one comment from Macha yesterday.

Prince has a sore hand apparently...probably due to banging out concrete and wood in the dugout after a bad AB.

First of all, what does Yost have to do with Macha? If I had the choice I would take Macha over Yost any day. That said, that doesn't mean anything in regards to who should be the manager of the Brewers. Whoever said that Yost was vilified a couple years ago and was insinuating that the thought has changed is wrong. The same people who loved Yost unconditinally then, are still singing his praisies. Personally, if he's hovering around .500 at the All Star Break it will mean that Macha doesn't deserve to go anywhere. That won't happen though.

As far as brackets go, I really have no idea how it's possible, but if Butler and West Virginia can win today, I have a pretty decent shot at first place out of 56 people. That's with no champion, and only two final four teams correct (assuming Duke wins too). I'll take it, but that's downright pathetic. For the record, I think both Kansas State and Kentucky will win, but it's still interesting.

Yes, I think the one shot where the Cornell player went up, had someone right in his face...AND Ryan Evans came over and at the very least had to be in the guys line of vision, but might have even altered the shot, and might have even got a piece of it...but it still went in...kind of summed up the game. That shot, and the 'shot' that went in that was supposed to be an alleyoop. When you add to the 65% shooting some of the calls that the Badgers weren't getting (did anyone else see the blatant elbow pick on a Badger that led to a made three?) and you get a tough uphill climb on your hands. I'm not saying the refs lost the game, but when you're down 12, it's a lot different than being down by 5. I really think Jordan Taylor will become a star next year to go along with their other star Leuer. I also have a feeling that Duje Dukan will become one of those guys that Bo Ryan supposedly DOESN'T get. And then in two more years hopefully they add Tokoto. It'd be nice if a guy like JP Gavinski would just move on (assuming he's graduating). I respect Bo for not driving busts out of town and all, but five years of it instead of 4 is like a kick in the groin.

JP Tokoto.

Bo Ryan should be fired. Cmon dudes, Cornell couldn't miss, and the refs gave them that extra push that made a Badgers win pretty much impossible today. Leuer is going to play in the NBA, however he is far from an automatic lottery pick this year, and probably will never be a lottery pick. I don't want to get in to next year, but I guarantee they'll be better than they're picked to be...again. Hughes turned in to Kam Taylor 2.0 over the past month or so, not so crushed to see him gone. Leuer and Taylor show next year...with Duje Dukan future superstar getting his start.

If you have DirecTV, their exclusive channel 101 has been showing it often since Sunday night. I have no idea if that's going to be just for the first episode. But in any event Channel 101 makes having DirecTV worth it almost on its own.

Trevon Hughes: 15.4 points, 4.7 rebounds, 2.7 assists, 2.0 turnovers, 41.2 fg % Jordan Taylor: 10.2 points, 3.1 rebounds, 3.6 assists, 1.2 turnovers, 39.8 fg % Jason Bohannon: 12.0 points, 3.7 rebounds, 2.2 assists, 1.3 turnovers, 48 fg % Mediocrity at it's finest. Sorry to keep pounding whoever said that, but it was a silly statement at the beginning of the year, and it's even sillier now.

Trailer Park Boys.