danzig6767

That's as big a concern as anything While all teams have to face the worry of a starting pitcher or two getting hurt, the Brewers don't look to have much of anything in AAA if someone missed a month or two. There is also the factor of what if one of Suppan, Parra, or Bush just go into a terrible funk or goes through a dead arm period? If you have some pitching depth, you can replace the guy for a few weeks if needed. Our projected rotation if nobody significant is added already has a good amount of question marks, have an injury or two, or one of those guy under perform by quite a bit and the rotation could become a pretty big problem. Not only that, the closer role can get overrated to a degree, but i think sometimes to many just assume that whoever we throw in that role will do reasonably fine. That very well could end up being the case, but it wouldn't be some crazy stretch either for the closer role to be a big problem where lots of saves are blown in heartbreaking fashion, kinda like say what the Cardinals went through last year where every ninth inning was a potential train wreck. I'm reasonably fine with the position players, but as the pitching staff sits right now at least, it would feel like walking across very thin ice if we were to go into the year with this as pretty much our staff. One wrong step and it could end up being huge trouble.

I'm sure other teams can see that Cameron is available and would i'd assume have called Melvin if interested. As for Dunn or Burrell, has anything come out at all to show Melvin has any interest in either guy?

My dad isn't married and doesn't hang out with friends much, so for birthdays and Christmas gifts, i always try to find events or places where we can go somewhere together and he always seems to enjoy these gifts. It can take some time and thinking to find venues to go, but if you put enough effort into searching, you'll find things.

I was born and lived in California as a kid for awhile, but for some insane reason, my folks moved back to Milwaukee. As a kid i loved baseball and played in little league starting at age eight. The Brewers were my hometown team and i became a fan. Then the late 70's and early 80's came, with guys like Yount, Cooper, Molitor, and G. Thomas. I was hooked and adored Yount, i even tried to emulate his batting stance in little league. Somehow i survived the following 25 years of mostly futility without wanting to bail on the Brewers. The only upside to all that futility was that the recent winning made it feel that much sweeter.

Yea, but history has also shown that just getting to the playoffs though is 3/4 of the battle, look at some of the non-special teams who barely made the playoffs and yet ended up winning a title. I can understand why some will say that the Yankees will likely regret these long term contracts to starting pitchers, mainly on the back end of those contracts. For the Yankees though, between their new ballpark, high attendance, high prices they can charge for tickets, and their massive broadcasting rights, they bring in a ridiculous amount of revenues. Unless Sabathia suffers a bad arm injury early in that seven year deal and/or he just doesn't produce well, they'll live with him say not producing much or not at all in years 6-7 of the contract so long as he helps lead the Yanks to a World Series or two the first five years. Developing a CY Young quality workhorse ace from your farm system isn't easy, so they just went out and bought one that isn't old and his 23 million dollar a year salary barely even puts a dent in their revenues. If Burnett blows out his elbow in a couple of years, it's not like most franchises where 15 million in dead money for a season or two is a back breaker. Yankee fans expect to win and be in the playoffs. They pay a lot to fill their park and watch in droves on TV to follow a winner, this fills the Yankees cash cow coffers. I just can't fault them much for these signings given that they've shown in the past that they bring in so much cash that a big contract backfiring on them is hardly crippling. Odds are highly against Hughes becoming an ace this season and probably the next year also. So what should their rich ass franchise do, sit back for a year, two years, or maybe longer in hopes they can develop a great young pitcher or two all while they're sitting on piles of revenues and after shedding tons of more cash this offseason?

Huh? So it's okay for the players, the employees, to get filthy rich but it's somehow wrong for the owners to make a buck in all of this? The truth is that no one truly cares about the fans and sports in general are becoming too expensive as a family event for the middle class. Where does it stop? How does it stop?The fans hold most the cards in the rising ticket prices and rising salaries, not the owners and players. Baseball attendance is at all time high levels. The NFL sells out nearly every game. So long as fans keep filling up stadiums, what reason do owners have to lower prices? You lower prices in business when buyers avoid your product because they feel it's over priced. What business lowers the price of products that are selling well? Teams set ticket/concession prices at amounts which they feel will sell well and at the same time bring in the maximum amount of revenue. It's basically the same as any business. If the Brewers charge 60 dollars for the box seats and people buy most of them up, why should they charge less just to be nice? If say the Yankees charge 200 for their box seats and they sell at that price, why should they charge less? If a team charges to much for certain seats in their stadium, fans won't buy enough of them and thus the price will need to be lowered. Yea for some families the prices can be to high, so they'll just have to sit in the non-premium seating areas. That's life and not exclusive to sports. When say a band or solo act goes on tour, the fans with more money get to sit in the better seats, that's how entertainment works. Plus, if you attend a baseball or NBA game in most cities where it's not a sellout, generally the expensive seats will be full or largely full, it's the cheaper seats that are more empty. As for the players, they hire smart people who are able to roughly gauge how much revenue the leagues bring in after the many expenses of stadium maintenance, minor leagues, all other non-player employees etc etc. They rightfully so want their piece of the pie. I understand why so many fans get turned off to the money demands of players and their agents, but those demands are only based off the revenues that they know are coming in. Owners wouldn't hand out 50-70-100-150 million dollar deals if their revenues couldn't support the contracts. There is no need to go shedding a tear for a guy like Attanasio, he's made plenty of cash since buying the Brewers. It's not just the players making out well in pro sports. Like i said before, if sports fans actually mean it when they say they're fed up with the prices charged to attend sporting events and the players salaries, then they'll stop filling ballparks and stadiums. Minus that happening, owners will have no reason to lower prices for a product that's selling and thus revenues will continue to pour in which means more huge contracts to the guys those fans are paying their money to see play. Just saying the prices are to high is meaningless to any owner that looks outside and sees his stadium full or mostly full.

Why is Wiggington not viewed with more value than he seems to have? He posted a .876 OPS last year in almost 400 at bats. Overall the last three years, he's been a .800 OPS hitter or better and while he does hit lefties better than righties, he's hit righties at a very solid clip. He hasn't been like Hall where he can only hit lefthanded pitchers. Is his defense terrible? What am i missing with Wiggington?

I know that there are very few NHL fans here, but something happened that isn't really about hockey the game itself to count on. A Dallas Stars hockey player named Sean Avery was suspended for 6 games by the NHL for making a comment to reporters about his past girlfriends. Avery is a known playboy and big mouth, in fact he was voted the most disliked player in the league by other players. Well, in the past he dated both celebs Elisha Cuthbert and Rachael Hunter. Since breaking up with both ladies, Calgary defenseman Dion Phaneuf is now dating Elisha Cuthbert and Rachael Hunter is dating and i believe engaged to Los Angeles Kings center Jarrett Stoll. While Dallas was in Calgary to play a game, Avery was talking to reporters and said, "I am really happy to be back in Calgary, I love Canada," Avery said. "I just want to comment on how it's become like a common thing in the NHL for guys to fall in love with my sloppy seconds. I don't know what that's about. Enjoy the game tonight." That drew him a six game suspension. Some have said the suspension was going overboard given other players have been suspended for shorter lengths of time involving plays where they intentionally took cheap shots which caused harm to another player. While i can see why the league didn't like the comments by Avery and i'm sure his reputation for mouthing off may have factored in, i do think six games for a comment like that is going overboard. Guys can hurt another player and get a few games, but he makes a comment that's really not extreme and the PC police draws Avery a 6 game suspension.

I think the odds certainly favor things not ending well, but my guess is the Yankees aren't focusing that much on the end over the present. From what i see with them, they are hoping that in say the next three years, Sabathia/Burnett help lead the Yankees to a title or at least multiple deep playoffs runs. If that happens, they'll live with fairly likely chance Burnett and/or Sabathia not being as effective or worse injured on the back ends of their long term contracts. Come 5 years from now when Burnett's deal ends and 6-7 years from now when Sabathia's ends, i think they view it that they can afford to eat a bad year or two at the end of either or both contracts given the Yankees print money. Now if either or both break down physically fairly early in their contracts, then i'm sure the team would view that as a disaster.

Prior to the season and then whenever Sheets had the slightest sign of injury, he'd get asked about both his durability issues and his contract situation. During these interviews i almost always sensed an irritated tone to Sheet's responses, like he was beyond tired of answering these type of questions. That's when i started to get a very strong feeling that not only wasn't it likely that the Brewers would make a serious offer to Ben, but also that he was plenty ready for a change in scenery. Not so much that he hated playing in Milwaukee, more that we was simply tired of being asked constantly about whether he can stay healthy. I could see the annoyance in him build up quickly anytime the subject was broached, even when he was healthy most of the season. He'd be pitching well and say get asked, how does it feel to be pitching well and be healthy? Right away his facial expression would change. I think he somewhat dreaded the idea of being back in Milwaukee again this coming year because if he had more injuries again, right away the Sheets can't stay healthy stuff would come back out in full force. Obviously he'll get health questions regardless of where he ends up signing, but i just got the sense that he was really really really tired of answering them here in Milwaukee and thus was ready to move on somewhere else.

I can understand why players and agents don't like the fact that some small market owners are taking in 20-30 million a year in revenue sharing money that was intended to be spent on increasing payrolls and instead those owners are either just pocketing the cash or paying down debt with it which is basically the same thing as pocketing the money, only it looks better to the public for whatever reason to say they are paying down debt. You understand right that Attanasio chose to keep that debt in place when he bought the team? By assuming that debt, it allowed him to buy the team for a lower price and with all the profit he's made over the years that has allowed for him to lower the debt, it simply makes the team worth that much more money whenever he chooses to sell the Brewers. In fact, it's a bit misleading IMO when it's referred to in the media that Attanasio is paying down the "teams debt" because really it's just Attanasio and the ownership groups debt since they are in effect the Milwaukee Brewers by owning the team. There really isn't that much difference between Attanasio taking his profits and sticking them in his bank account or paying down the debt, but when he pays down the debt instead, he can make it look like the "profit" he made is less. If you own a business and say it's 100,000 in debt and i gave you 50,000 for the hell of it, whether you put that 50 grand in your bank account or pay off half your debt, you're up 50 grand regardless. Attanasio and other small market teams that get large chunks of revenue sharing dollars can do what they want with the money, they own the teams, not me. That said, i still can see the players side and the side of a percentage of fans who get annoyed when some owners instead use those revenue sharing dollars to just enrich themselves vs what was supposed to be the intention of revenue sharing. Obviously Attanasio has spent more than other small market teams though and wouldn't be a main culprit in who Boras was talking about.

Potential upsides, but huge upsides is stretching things

That is not really true for the NFL. Rarely do great QB, RB, or WR ever make free agency. Who was the last very good QB to hit free agency because a team could not afford him? The same thing could be said for running backs, most good ones in free agency were either split time guys or older guys. It might be true with the NBA but I really do not pay too much attention to it. However, I think football has proven time and again drafting smart and small free agent signings make you good. That is the best case scenerio for baseball as well.I agree and don't really get how Ennder came to that conclusion. For the most part in the NFL when free agency opens up, the list of players available consists of only a few Pro Bowl level players, sometimes less than that, and then mostly complimentary pieces that aren't hard to replace. The number of Sabathia or Teixeira level of football players who actually hit free agency is very tiny, almost never happens. Football is such a violent sports that when players are offered big money by their original teams, they almost always take it because a tore up knee can happen on any play. In the NBA, teams get to offer more money to their players than other teams can, so a pretty large percentage of good young players end up resigning with the team that drafts them. The stars that do end up leaving usually are doing so in a desire to play elsewhere, not because their team won't pay them. I don't think CC or any Yankee player will care one bit if they win a ring or two and some fans say it was only won because the Yankees are so rich. The vast majority of players never get a chance to win a ring, much less multiple rings. If Sabathia manages to do so while in New York, i'm quite sure his only emotion will be to be thrilled and it will be something he cherishes forever. I've yet to ever hear any athlete win a title in any sport and then later say that the title felt hollow to them because they played for a well off marquee franchise. The only downside i see in this choice by Sabathia is if he struggles in New York after getting so much money and with reports that he didn't really want to play there, the press and fans can be brutal out there when they turn on an athlete. This contract strikes me as a huge risk for the Yankees on two levels. First off, seven years is such a long time for a starting pitcher and odds are they'll be lucky to get even 5 good years from Sabathia. The Yanks though print their own cash so they can more survive Sabathia declining. The opt out clause they included seems crazy to me. To be obligated to pay CC for seven years regardless if he say tore up his shoulder in year 2-3 of his contract, yet at the same time Sabathia gets to redo his contract after three years if he pitches great and wants to opt out seems nuts to me.

To be fair to Putz, i believe he pitched through injuries last year and the prior two seasons he posted WHIP totals of .92/.70, he was dominant. I don't follow Seattle though so i don't know how much exactly his health issues affected him.

I get the sense that it's not just money with Sheets, that he really doesn't want to pitch in Milwaukee anymore

Sabean is a hard GM to figure out Yea he was blessed to have a roided up Bonds, but he did put enough around Barry to win lots of games over multiple years. That said, he's made some extremely head scratching moves as GM, stock piled old players when he should have started rebuilding, gave out maybe the worst contract n baseball history to Zito, and seemed to take pleasure in making sure that many years he wouldn't have a first round pick. Yet, he's often drafted quite well, especially at finding young pitchers even though his free agent signing wiped out draft pick opportunities. Now he's back adding more aging vets to a team that should be getting younger.

I'm not a huge fan of their chicken, but love their mashed potatoes and gravy. That gravy is just fabulous and tastes great smothered on biscuits.

I saw lots of McDonald's posts in this thread and it yet again makes me wonder how that place stays so popular? Of all fast food places, i think by far that McDonald's has the worst food overall. I understand how all the marketing can work on kids, but is that what gets adults to keep coming back also? I have to be starving and with no other fast food places being close before i'll go to McDonald's, their food mostly tastes like crap. As for worst experience, it's any time i go to Taco Bell and ask for no onions, only to bite into a nasty onion that leaves me dry heaving and ready to vomit.

Imagine this scenario for those who want to sign Abreu, trade Cameron, and move Hart to CF. Also pretend Gamel is platooned at third with Hall. Weeks at 2nd, Fielder at 1st, Gamel at 3rd, Hart in CF, and Abreu in RF when a righty is on the mound. What a potential defensive nightmare, our pitchers would be on suicide alert

Wow, i just checked the home/road splits for Green and they are big time extreme. If you wipe out last year where he had injury issues 2007 Home--.670 OPS Road--.840 OPS 2006 Home--.628 OPS Road--.863 OPS 2005 Home--.684 OPS Road--.772 OPS If Green was really being hurt that badly by playing in Petco, this could end up being a very nice trade for the Cardinals and a big upgrade from Izturis.

I can grasp what you're trying to get at. In the end though, if say two closers in the same division take part in roughly the same number of save opportunities and one closer blows 7-8-9 more games than the elite closer and thus their team loses another 4-6 more games, didn't that closer alone cost that team 4-6 wins to their competitor? I'm in agreement with most baseball fans who hate the rigid manner in which nearly every manager uses their best relief pitcher and feel it's silly that in say a 4-2 game that the 8th inning reliever could face Hardy/Braun/Fielder and the closer faces Hart/Hall/Kendall, yet the closer gets the socalled "save". That said, i just see when legit playoff contending teams have a shaky closer situation and they blow quite a few save opportunities, while another team or two they are closely fighting for a playoff berth has a much better closer, that position alone can cause a 4-5-6-7 game swing and easily be the difference between why one team makes the playoffs and the other stays home given how close so many playoff races are decided by. These factors all together conflict me on how to value closers. Let me ask you a hypothetical from a stats perspective. For pretend lets say the Phillies were in our division and we were fighting them for a playoff berth, Torres had been our closer all season, and Torres/Lidge had basically the same number of save chances. Lets also say Pujols was their firstbaseman instead of Howard and Pujols was healthy all year. Which player matchup would have swung more games in the standings to the Phillies, Lidge vs Torres or Pujols vs Fielder? BTW, in case you planned on telling me this, i understand that Lidge will likely never have another season where he doesn't blow a save. I'm only asking this strictly from how a stats cruncher would view this hypothetical and because i can't help but think that the closer role is on one hand way over valued/over paid, managers are dumb to only use their best reliever in the 9th inning, the save stat itself is silly, and yet, the difference between two teams fighting for a playoff berth can so easily be swayed by 4-5-6 games simply by having a better closer than your competitor, thus that closer role was hugely important.

Saying Gagne had a good "second half" implies that for half of the season, Gagne was a good pitcher. Looking at his splits, Gagne had a good month in September, but in July/August, his combined ERA was above five. One good month covering 11 innings sure wouldn't be enough for me to not only give Gagne an assured 5 million, but possibly more if the ruling went against us.

Yea, we could be in so much better shape if it weren't for all those leads blown in the third period earlier on in the season. Hopefully the team doesn't end up one or two games short of an NCAA bid, they kick themselves for gagging away all those leads.

All i make of the Padres situation is how vital it is to capitalize on chances to make the playoffs when the opportunity is there because except in the case of teams like the Red Sox and Yankees that print money, the next season things can very easily go wrong and you won't be near making the playoffs.

Is there a place to find out the percentage of 1,2,or 3 run lead saves a closer had on a season?