danzig6767

I like that the pitchers seem to like Kendall, but I wouldn't be shocked if there were complimentary quotes from the pitchers about Johnny at the beginning of last season too. I mean, if Estrada was really so bad at calling games or working with pitchers that he sunk the team last year, why would Ned and Doug have stuck with him so long? They had Miller as the backup and Rivera and Rottino in AAA, plus any number of defense first scrubs could have been had for little return. Not having made a move would be inexplicable and grounds for firing both of them if the effect was as big as some people are saying it is. I mean, Kendall himself was available for a pittance. Wouldn't getting him have made a much bigger impact on the pitching than getting Linebrink to pitch 25 innings if Kendall's effect is as big as people are saying? I'd be more willing to buy into the negative vibes from the Brewers about Estrada behind the plate as maybe being overstated if this wasn't the third team in a row that seemed to not like how he interacted with the pitching staff and pitching coach.

I realize that most here probably don't care about the Bucks, but the JS coverage of them is even worse than the Brewers, flat out miserable. The only sport they cover very well is the Packers, Bob McGinn is as good a sportswriter as i've read anywhere and Tom Silverstein is also very good at his job.

I think that maybe people are giving up to quick on Alex Gordon Zimmerman is the better player right now and if i was a contender, i'd rather have him at this very moment. With that said, i still think Gordon will end up being a better player long term. He's got his OPS up to .771 this year even though his home run power hasn't really arrived yet in his brief big league career, but i think it's only a matter of time before he's hitting around 30 a year. I understand your thinking on Ellsbury, he likely will never have the power to carry a high OPS like some of these guys at the top of this draft. With that said, i think maybe you're underrating a bit the leadoff hitter aspect. In general, i do think a good number of baseball fans can put to much importance on the batting order because overall, the biggest importance to scoring runs is simply whether the guys in the lineup are productive. IMO though, it's such a boost to an offense if you have a real good leadoff hitter and those aren't exactly in bountiful supply around the league. To have a leadoff hitter that gets on base at a very high clip for the big bats in front of him, being able to use his speed to play small ball if needed late in close games, and just having overall speed to run the bases on hits after he reaches base are all great weapons for an offense. Elldbury is a young kid still and he might already be the best leadoff hitter in the game

Utley is clearly the better player to me, but the Hamilton story is amazing, it must be killing Tampa fans, he's kinda Johan Santana part two. Santana has to be the best Rule 5 pick in baseball history and Hamilton looks to be the next best. Even the Rangers/Reds trade is pretty amazing. Here the Reds pick up Hamilton for nothing in the Rule 5 draft and then after a good year, they flip him to Texas for Edison Volquez. At this point in the season, Hamilton has been arguably the best player in the AL, while Volquez has been the best young pitcher in the league and maybe the best starting pitcher in all of baseball. It's pretty rare to ever see a trade work out like this one has

Are people in the thread going out and saying that Kapler should now be the main starter and Cameron a once a week fill in reserve? Unless i'm blind, at most, some have just said maybe give Kapler an extra few starts a month. That's pretty damn far from saying Kapler should become the main CF.

I don't see much difference between the two when it comes to drawing walks, both are pretty mediocre at it. I think in most years, the guy with the better batting average between the two will always be the guy with the better OBP that season.

One thing i've noticed pretty much after each good start by Sheets and he's interviewed after the game, right off the bat he makes a point to say how much he loves throwing to Kendall even though he isn't asked about it. Now i have no idea how much exactly it does matter given how skilled Sheets is, but i'm certainly not going to sit behind my computer and say that Sheets doesn't know what he's talking about since i've never thrown a single professional pitch.

The main reason i'd be ok with Kapler getting a start once a week or so is he's much faster and a better CF than i expected. When he made the team, i figured he'd be a guy that could play CF in a pinch and not really hurt the team defensively, but he'd be at best mediocre out there. The guy can really run for his age and his instincts in CF are fa better than i expected. While i understand the point that Cameron has a better career track record at the plate, he's also not anything close to a special hitter and i don't think there should be some expected big drop off if Kapler got a few more starts than expected while Cameron is struggling at the plate. It's not like taking out say Braun once a week to play Kapler.

Over the years, i've seen a fairly large amount of games in which Piniella was a manager. I never felt he was reckless in the amount of times he had runners trying to steal bases or do hit and runs. So far this year the Cubs have only attempted 50 stolen bases and 119 in all of last season. As for "riding the hot hands" of relief pitchers in close games, what managers don't do this? Every win is important for teams that are legit contenders, it's human nature for managers to bring in most the relief pitchers that are getting the job done vs bringing in guys who aren't as good. Look at the appearance totals for relief pitchers on teams who win more than they lose and in almost all cases, the best relief pitchers on those teams will pitch a lot because they are playing in so many games where they are trying to hold on to wins late vs being behind late in games so often In regards to evaluating managers almost strictly by team records, i agree that can be very off base given no manager can win a lot of games with crappy talent and even poor managers can win a lot of games if they have lots of talent. Of all the major sports IMO, i think baseball managers have the least impact given the baseball is so much individual matchups that a manager has either very minimal impact on or no impact at all. Managers though do have to manage a bullpen properly and use good sense when make late game substitutions and that can impact a few games over the course of a season. Back to Piniella. Whether he's overrated or not is up to individuals to decide, but i don't share your dislike of him and i'd be perfectly fine with him being the Brewers manager. The only beef i have with him is i think he can look pretty damn silly at times when a few times a year Lou gets into his over the top antics while arguing with an umpire. Then again, i think the vast majority of managers look like dorks when they get all crazy yelling at an umpire.

People can try and look for reasons to think the Cubs are overrated and due to come crashing back to reality, but so far in the NL 1st in runs scored 1st in batting average 1st in OBP 2nd in SLG 1st in OPS 2nd in walks taken 3rd in team ERA Yea the Cubs have played a lot of home games and their schedule hasn't exactly been brutal, but they aren't 38-21 largely by semi-fluke via mainly just winning a ton of one run games. They are a really good baseball team and mix that with them having 7 games on us already, the odds are strongly against the Brewers catching them. If the Cubs instead were one of those teams you tend to see every year that starts hot mainly by winning tons of one run games, i'd feel more confident that eventually those one run games with start turning into losses and their record will adjust accordingly. That's not the case though, they have scored 331 runs and only given up 238 while the Brewers are fortunate to have won more close games than not and are over .500 even though they've given up more runs than they've scored.

Frustrating game for me I have money on Detroit and they put 58 shots on goal to 32 and still lost.http://forum.brewerfan.net/images/smilies/mad.gif

I've seen many dumb things said on message boards, but the above ranks pretty damn high up there. So you want people to believe that removing Prince and his 50 home runs and 1.013 OPS from last years team and instead adding Kazmir would have AT LEAST been seven more wins for the Brewers last year?

If Hall was traded, my bigger concern would be with Branyan compared to Dillon. Given there are many more righthanded starters, Branyan would get the bulk of the at bats in any Branyan/Dillon platoon. Over the rest of the season, i'm fairly confident that Dillon could hit well enough vs lefties in the starts he'd get that any potential drop off from Hall to Dillon wouldn't be that harmful. Branyan though is by no means at all a guarantee to hit well all season in his platoon role. Considering Branyan's history, it would be no surprise at all if he slumped badly which lead to his batting average plummeting while strikeouts racked up in huge bunches. If that happened, i'd rather have Hall around to play everyday and see if he could turn things around. Obviously the best case would be that Branyan could be reasonably productive all year in his platoon role. As with any possible trades though with Hall or any player, whether he should end up being traded IMO would entirely rest on who the trade was for and what we gave up if it was some package deal. I also share your curiosity to see how Dillon would produce if given enough fairly consistent at bats, at least in a platoon, to get comfortable. It's nearly impossible to get an answer either way for any player that's getting between 10 and 20 at bats per month.

For me, how i'd handle this situation would be this 1. Tell Bill Hall to immediately end his talking to the media about trades, that includes his agent. It does absolutely no good for the team or Bill Hall's desire to be traded. 2. Tell Hall if he shuts up/also his agent, the team will consider looking into any possible trades, but only if he promises to always play hard and be 100% a team player during the process. 3. Let Hall know that trades often don't happen easily or quickly and that the team will only trade him if the deal makes sense for the team, they won't trade him just to make Bill happy. 4. Lastly, tell Billy that while the team will look into any interest in him around the league, it's by no mean a guarantee that a trade could be made anytime soon or at all this year that makes sense for the team. If during this time Hall acts in any sort of insubordinate or anti-team fashion, he'll even lose his part of the platoon and become basically a pinch hitter.

Those two reasons combined is why i feel any playoff chances are very very likely going to have to come via the Wild Card

The worst part is if Kendall eats that ball, the two hoppers to Hall is likely a easy DP

Hall has been nearly as bad as Braun at third

Yea Braun hit into the DP, but be honest. With a runner on third with less than two outs, are you really saying that Weeks and Cameron aren't low on the totem pole for guys you would want up in that situation?

Man, i know it happens to other teams, but i sure wasn't confident we'd get the guy in from third even though there were no outs.

Ugggg Rickie, i knew he'd K

I obviously wasn't around to see the old timers on the list, but of hitters that i've been around to watch in my life, Bonds and Pujols are probably the only guys i'd rather have hitting 3rd or 4th in my lineup than Manny Ramirez. Besides Manny being the hitting machine that he is, i also greatly enjoy him being the wacky character that he is. Baseball is very conservative and pretty much goes out of it's way to suppress individualism and players showing personality, i love that Manny is a great player and also is entertaining beyond just outstanding production. To bad for me that he has to play on the Boston Red Sox, the team i hate most after the Cubs.

The interesting thing to see is what Yost does once Branyan likely goes into one of his slumps where his batting average plummets and the strikeouts rack up in huge bunches during that slump. Branyan is a career .229 hitter and i do wonder how Ned will react when/if Russell follows his career trend? Yea, even while in a pretty deep slump, Branyan likely will draw some walks and hit a few bombs, but history has shown that those are the times when managers/teams have then given up on him which then lead to either a severe reduction in playing time or his release. Obviously the best case would be that Branyan has somehow bucked the odds and matured as a hitter this late in his career, thus he doesn't plummet into that .220ish or lower batting average range so that Ned doesn't have to make a decision, but the odds are probably against that.

Yea that's the range i roughly see Braun sitting at in most years with his walk rate, 50-70ish depending a bit on who bats after him. One thing to consider with Vlad is the IBB balls he gets each year because for the most part, Vlad hasn't really had a great hitter following him. With Braun having Fielder batting after him, teams won't ever give him an intentional walk, but it's been a long time since Vlad had a guy hitting after him that was even anywhere near his equal as a hitter. If Braun had say Corey Hart batting after him this year instead of Prince, my guess is Ryan would get somewhere around 5-7 free passes. Braun has only taken 6 walks this month and just from watching nearly each game, i'd guess he could have drawn another 5-6 or more if he was more patient, but at least he's taking enough pitches now that he's not getting into so many 0-2/1-2 counts where the pitcher has a much better chance to get him out. Man though, when Braun gets locked in, that guy is such fun to watch hit. His skill and plate coverage is amazing and it must be so hard for pitchers when Ryan is grooving because almost anything near the plate he ends up ripping a laser beam to all different parts of the park. I do want him to walk more, but i gotta admit, there are times with runners on in close games with two outs where i hope he doesn't get walked because i trust in him most to drive the ball for a big hit to get those baserunners across the plate.

Branyan has such a pretty and effortless swing, it's somewhat surprising to me that he strikes out so much. Granted, part of the reason for that is all the pitches he takes, but just to the naked eye, he looks like he would hit for better averages. That bomb he hit to left today shows just how much power he has because it didn't even look like he swung very hard, yet he hit the ball nearly 400 feet the other way. It's going to take a terrible slump by Branyan to justify not keeping a strict platoon at third, regardless if Hall likes it or not.

I agree Braun is the closest thing to Vlad in baseball as a hitter. Both love to swing the bat and only take pitches when they are clearly out of the strike zone, but both also have amazing plate coverage which allows them to crush/drive pitches off the plate that the vast majority of hitters would hit weakly if they to swung at it. Like Vlad, i think Braun will eventually walk more and at an acceptable level as he matures as a hitter, but Ryan will likely never walk at a very high rate. I'm relatively fine with that because Braun is so incredibly skilled as a hitter that in most years he'll hit around .300 or higher with very good slugging percentages.