Diskono

According to Tom Tango's survey, Durham has been worse than Weeks for a few years now. Obviously that doesn't mean everything, but I think the fact that Giants fans think less of Durham's defense than Brewers fans think of Weeks' is noteworthy. It really depends on what stats you look at. Someone posted a link in this thread that says he's above average offensively and defensively. I don't know if that's true (particularly the defensive stats, which I don't put a whole lot of stock into), but most of his offensive stats have been very close to average for ALL players, not just 2B. If you compare them only to 2B, Weeks looks very good - on the previous page of this thread, I posted a list of regular starters in the AL East who have an OPS+ in 2008 worse than Weeks. Every team had at least 2 of them, and most of them were middle infielders. The Utley comparison is actually quite interesting. His numbers before 2005 were similar to Weeks' current career totals, Utley just had a little more SLG and a little less OBP. Remember, Chase Utley is 4 years older than Weeks, and his breakout year didn't come until age 26 - the same age Weeks will be next season. Weeks had much better offensive numbers in the minors and slightly better numbers in the majors before age 26, so it's hard to argue that its impossible for Weeks to follow that same path. I'm not saying that Weeks will be an MVP-type player next year - Utley's breakout season was highly improbable - but it can't be considered to be out of the question, especially for a player with so much talent.

Exactly. A lot of people seem to forget about him pitching through constant back pain in 2002 and 2003 as well. Geoff Jenkins was considered to be injury prone once, but he hasn't had any major problems in years. A lot of this is luck.

Sorry, I thought I put that in the post - I used OPS+. Obviously that doesn't take defense into account, though I must be one of the few who thinks Weeks' defense is fine. If it isn't, it seems that most agree that Weeks is equal to Durham at worst. As far as next year (and the future), I'd be upset if we gave up on him. He's still a league average-quality player when he's having a bad year. Really, the only thing holding him back is batting average, and if he can bump that up just a little bit, he'll be great. I don't know why he's not getting as many hits as he did in the minors. Maybe he's not quite good enough, maybe his wrist is still healing (like Brad Nelson's)...who knows, but the thought of having .400 OBP with power at 2B is pretty exciting. Escobar might be able to do that eventually, but probably not in 2009.

I'd imagine you could find something like that at Menards.

I actually liked last night's lineup. That said, how about a lineup ordered by OBP? C M Rivera 2B R Durham 1B P Fielder 3B C Counsell SS J Hardy LF J Dillon RF R Braun CF M Cameron P Why does the 4th batter need to be a power hitter?

Every team has somebody worse than Weeks that is playing every day. In the AL East alone, I found 2 on each team: Carl Crawford Jason Bartlett Julio Lugo Jacoby Ellsbury Robinson Cano Melky Cabrera David Eckstein Aaron Hill Kevin Millar Adam Jones and thats ignoring catchers. On the Brewers, we should be more worried about Craig Counsell playing every day.

Yeah, if the Brewers are moving their low-A operations to Appleton, I can't see them moving a second affiliate to a colder climate. Unless they've reconsidered that stance, of course.

You can't expect every AAA player to develop into a Major League All-Star. Gwynn was never projected to be a regular, Nix was already 26 when he joined the Brewers, and Stetter has actually done alright so far. If a player simply isn't good enough, no coach is going to magically make him that way. Most of the players Kremblas has coached that were expected to become Major League contributors, though, have done exactly that. There's really no such thing as a can't-miss prospect - we've actually been quite lucky IMO with how well ours have turned out.

So far, so good for Garth Iorg too. Wonder if he'll stick around as the 3B coach next year?

It's hard to say, Blanco was their only RH on the bench IIRC, and he's mostly terrible. Given the choice, I'd probably lean toward lefty vs Blanco to be honest.

Nobody goes to Dorsia anymore.

I've always wanted to see more teams try a batting order with the best overall hitter 1st, and down the order all the way to your worst hitter. Aside from the first two spots, that's pretty much what we got last night. Here are the OPS of last night's 1-8 hitters: 833 788 897 863 817 786 659 657 Unfortunately, batting a player like Braun or Fielder leadoff would be like using your "closer" in the 7th inning, so we probably won't see that any time soon.

I'm glad someone else remembered that comment. Praising a player for "executing" after grounding out softly to the second baseman? The Brewers over the last 2 weeks must be the best-executing team in the history of the world. Surely you mean HBP more than they expected!

He was brought in specifically to pitch to a lefty, but Pinella brought Hank the Blank in to pinch hit immediately after Shouse came on. I could be mistaken, but I think the rule is that if a new pitcher is brought in, the opposing team can pinch hit, but you can't bring in a different pitcher.

Baseball America did name Sveum the top managerial prospect in AA when he was in the Pirates organization. I know that tons of other guys have probably won awards like that, but he must have been doing something right.

Player-coach anyone? No, I'm not kidding.

My wife opened an account with them awhile back, deposited $50, and mostly forgot about it. A year later, she got a note in the mail saying that her account was being closed due to inactivity, and that the balance was $1. I have no idea what happened there. From the stories I've heard, people seem to have the most luck with smaller, local banks. Of course, there are always going to be a few people that have problems with any bank. FWIW, I had the best luck service-wise with TCF (which won't help you in Las Vegas, I'm assuming).

I have trouble caring about 79 ABs, especially when a majority of them were 7-8 years ago. Plus, it's not like we have any True Yankees on the bench, aside from Counsell.

I don't think you can look at a player's performance in the game so far to determine how well he'll do in the next AB. Different pitchers, different situations, and of course, as small of a sample as you could possibly get. I don't have a problem with Cameron hitting in that situation (as he's been good at hitting all year), but there's no reason not to pinch hit for Hall and Kendall (who have been somewhere between bad and average all year). Maybe Ned forgot what inning it was, or saw Lidge and was on the phone trying to pull of a last-second trade for 3 Albert Pujolen.

What are the odds they play AC/DC at every possible opportunity?

To be honest, I see just as many fees from my credit union (Great Wisconsin) as I ever had with any bank. Not sure if other CUs are similar. I'm considering using E*trade for everything. I have a generic securities account, which sweeps your "cash" into a money market fund that generally pays between 1-4% APY (depending on the fund and various other factors). You can still use that money just like checking account - they give you checks and a debit card, and refund all ATM fees. I don't have one of their savings accounts yet, but I'm sure I'll add one eventually. I'll probably keep an account open at a regular bank, just in case I need to deposit the odd personal check, but otherwise I don't have a real pressing need for a bank with branches nearby.

Ugh, I hate that guy. Why do you have to sprint from the bullpen? You are not the Ultimate Warrior!

I know this is a vent thread, but why do so many of you guys assume that its impossible for a player to get a hit just because they're 0-whatever so far? FWIW, here's Mike Cameron's line with RISP since 2005: .302/.396/.554 To keep this post on topic, we sure do have some underperforming relief pitchers!

I've often wondered the same thing myself, yet we're still stuck here with Golden Eagles.

One of the generic sports jersey/shoe stores in West Towne had the retro-style jerseys fairly cheap not long ago, I think they were $75 for the ones with the more authentic-looking lettering.