JohnBriggs12

Kintzler could use a spell in Nashville....maybe a long, long spell.

That's the trend in web design and I hate it. pgatour.com used to be one of the best sites anywhere for golf fans seeking information. Now it's awful (information is hard to find) and they actually advertise the "upgrade" in tournament telecasts. Who do these people think are their customers? As for ESPN, it looks like they are copying their awful unreadable magazine.

It's becoming apparent to me that the combo of Kintzler and Wooten is lacking. That may well be the impetus for getting Nelson up so that Estrada can be used out of the pen. Gorzelanny and Estrada might be better in high leverage situations than either Kintzler or Wooten.

Boy, on paper this is not a good matchup for Estrada. Brewers need to put up at least 8 runs. I put the over/under for HR allowed at 3 1/2 and considering he didn't allow any in his last start, I'm taking the over here. Lets hope the Brewers can match the long ball barrage with a few of their own.

I don't see either the Reds or Pirates as that big of threats. Pirates rotation isn't nearly what it was last year, and even with Polanco, who has all of 3 extra base hits in 80 ABs, their lineup doesn't compare with the Brewers. As for Reds, does anyone really believe 33 year old mostly career minor leaguer/middle reliever like Alfredo Simon can repeat his first half? Reds will certainly be in the wild card mix, with that awesome back end of the bullpen of Broxton and Chapman, but if the Brewers stay healthy, I don't see the Reds making up 7 games.

Please tell me I'm not the only one seeing the incredible irony in this. viewtopic.php?f=63&t=29536&start=120 I'm glad I saw this post because I almost hit quote as soon as I read what Briggs posted. The contradictions here may make one's head explode. Betancourt actually contributed on the field that season. He drove in 68 runs, led the league in sacrifice flies, and posted an .826 OPS in the postseason with 6 RBI. Was he great? No. But he manned a key position and the team still won 96 games and offensively in the second half in particular, he helped them win. What has Wang contributed to them winning at a .610 rate so far? Zip, zero, zilch.

Good to see Halton is heating up. Don't forget this guy as a 1B option. He didn't embarrass himself with the big club last year. He needs a red hot couple of months to put himself into the discussion at 1B/backup corner OF.

Yes, beware of small sample statistics, but actually Overbay's been making solid contact most of the year. It's not like he's lucking into anything. His line drive percentage is 25% and that's well above league average. Now he faded last year with the Yankees, and that's something to consider but given that his playing time this year has been more sporadic, it's also arguable that he'll be able to stay fresh enough to keep hitting. Overbay's best isn't great, but it's likely good enough at this point at least for the rest of this year. By the way, Boston is a long, long way from throwing in the towel and becoming sellers. That division is there for the taking and Boston isn't out of it by any means.

Over his professional career, Gennett has a .259 BA against left handed pitching, 163 for 629. My guess is over time, he'll hit in the .240's against LHP in the majors or roughly 40-50 points lower than his overall BA figures to be, but not out of line with a lot of lefty swingers. This year they had a RH hitting 2nd baseman on the final year of a big contract, so they tried the platoon route and for the most part it's worked. But next year they won't want to invest in big money in a RH portion of a platoon there, and Scooter will start most every day. That doesn't preclude them from pinch hitting for him late in games against a tough lefty though or giving him the occasional rest day vs. a lefty. Way too much is being made of very small samples.

Altuve playing for the NL in the All Star game would be quite the story. The Astros are in the AL now.

Bianchi has hit .299/.349/.428 in 426 career AAA at bats. One would expect over a larger sample much better numbers than he's put up this year in the big leagues. The fact that when everyone is healthy, Bianchi will only see spot duty, so they'll live with what he gives them as long as his defense is good. Finding a competent backup infielder is far from priority #1. As for Wang, the team record now isn't proof that they were right in keeping him. It's only proof that the team has the ability to overcome the handicap of playing a man short for half a season. We might not see the results of keeping struggling starters in the game longer than necessary until later in the year. Roenicke has a very long leash with his starters, with yesterday's game a case in point. They may have come back in that game if he had replaced Gallardo when the Brewers closed to 5-2. Sure those additional 3 runs were unearned but he did put the first two of the inning on base. The point is they are taking needless risks for a guy who hasn't shown that "wow" ability. If Wang turns out to be another Matt Ford or Enrique Cruz and never makes any impact in the major leagues it was a failed experiment regardless of the Brewers final record. Sometimes the wrong call doesn't affect the results but it doesn't change the fact it was the wrong call.

I can't believe some of the comments here. Gennett has played the equivalent of one major league season and he's put up a slash line of .317/.353/.482 and people are comparing him to Counsell and Eckstein? Really?? Lack of power? Seriously? He's carrying a .482 career slugging percentage. I'd be very interested to see the bat speed numbers on Gennett. I see a guy who really does appear to generate quite a bit of bat speed and hence will hit with plenty of power. I don't know if Scooter plays golf, but if he does, I bet he hits the ball a long way. Power is not an issue. His first full season in the big leagues was considerably better than Paul Molitor's of .273/.301/.372. Had he put up these numbers within one season, he'd be a ROY lock. Walking more?? He's batting in front of Braun, Lucroy, and Ramirez. He's going to see strikes, and he's a good enough hitter to square up and put them in play all over the field. Most of his AB's vs. lefties have been against the type of guys that give all lefties trouble, hence the term "lefty specialist". I completely agree that if he were facing lefty starters regularly, his numbers against them would be better. He's just too good a hitter not to have some success against them eventually. The solution is that vs. lefties, you just flip-flop him in the batting order with Segura. It's not like this team doesn't have enough RH mashers that they couldn't get by with Gennett in the lineup against a lefty. The other thing the doubters point to his Gennett's fairly modest minor league numbers. But you need to dig further and look up his Arizona Fall League year when he raked. At some point too, what he's done in the major leagues trumps his minor league numbers. This guy can hit and easily passes the eyeball test, and his ability to use the entire field in the day when shifting defenses are affecting offense all over baseball makes him more valuable, not less.

Has to be almost a given that Schafer will be in Milwaukee Sunday, and Figaro will get optioned back doesn't it especially with schedule lightening up a bit.

I'm not sure the Rox are sold on Ryan Wheeler as Morneau's replacement just yet. That being said, their lineup is such that when healthy is good enough to absorb that change. But they do need pitching, badly. I not only like Morneau, I like LeMahieu as a utility guy and he could be had as well. But I'd hold off till the offseason.

He's gassed, humid day, well over 100 pitches. He badly needed an outing with no HR allowed. I'm fine with him walking a hitter as a signal he's done than getting taken deep.

Safe enough lead yet to have Wang take an inning today?

Meanwhile Estrada's got a one hitter going through 6. Amazing. Some of that can be attributed to fatigue after 16 inning game the night before, but kudos nonetheless to Marco.

Let's be fair. Neither were highly touted coming out of the amateur ranks. They both performed well in the minors, but showed enough warts to warrant that there were reasons they weren't highly touted. Davis is a corner outfielder with a terrible arm, and really only one plus tool (his power), and Scooter is a decent defender who's OBP is very highly batting average driven. I like that both guys are successful, and contributing to our ML success. But hinting that they are proof that system isn't (or wasn't) devoid of talent is false equivalency. Huh? That statement is proof that what qualifies as "talent" or deserving of "tout" is a bit too limited in it's scope. Gennett's BA driven OBP is a lot like Paul Molitor's was his rookie year when he walked all of 19 times, but I guess in this age, Molitor wouldn't be highly touted either.

Pretty good job by the JV team today so far.

There's one!

Might need a couple of innings from Wang to get through this one with Estrada at 75 pitches through 4. So 6 or 7 more runs would help.

Marco keeping them in the park....barely.

I'm writing him in on my ballots.

To your points, there are some veteran umpires that are up there, but there are a lot who are in their 30's too. Ever hear of age discrimination? By and large, umpires are younger and healthier than ever. I think age in some respects makes them better not worse though. Fraternity?? Yeah but what profession isn't to some degree. In the NFL the Referee goes under the hood to review calls made by his own crew, sometimes including his own call. I don't think umps from different crews in NY are influenced by fraternity. 99% of the reviews involve calls at 1B and tags on steal attempts. Those are pretty cut and dried.

I think the Brewers would do that if a guy showed he's clearly not being challenged at a level, especially a guy who was a 4 year college player who turns 23 in a month. Helena doesn't seem the right place for him. The Brewers M.O. more often would be for Demuth to bypass Wisconsin all together and start next year in Brevard or just give him a month at Wisconsin next April and then move him up. Interestingly, DeMuth's Indiana teammate Schwarber, spent about 5 days in Northwest League at Boise and he's now up at Kane County. DeMuth did have higher BA than Schwarber at Indiana...will be interesting to compare one who was 4th overall pick to the other who was a 5th rounder.