danzig6767

If it wasn't for ESPN, half of these bowls wouldn't exist because there would be nobody else to broadcast the games.

They've abused them

And the Cubs pen got lit up. Bullpens have long mattered in the playoffs, but for about a decade now and increasing each year, a really good pen is as important as the starters.

Yea, every team in every pro sport does this. Attendance is announced based on tickets sold, regardless of how many actually show up. Given the Brewers are the smallest market in baseball, their attendance numbers for almost a decade now are pretty amazing and a credit to the fan base in the Milwaukee area.

You donn't have to have a designated 4th OF. No, you don't. However when all those guys are healthy someone is going to get the short end of the stick. Making Brinson/Phillips ride the bench for lengthy times or just not getting consistent playing time is questionable at best. Unless you instill a rotation between them where they all play consistently I wouldn't really want an inexperienced guy at #4. Brinson had injuries every year in the minors Braun will likely only start 100-110 games at most next year Santana will get days off Even if you exclude Santana days off, the team could split 324 starts between Braun, Phillips, and Brinson. That doesn't include PH chances and games with a DH. There would be plenty of playing time available for Phillips and Brinson where each avoids extended stretches not playing. Simply trade Broxton and roll with Santana/Braun/Phillips/Brinson.

I used to be anti-DH, but not anymore. Pitchers are pitchers, not hitters and baserunners.

Perez, for better or worse, has been the most consistent player the Brewers have had this year. His average has been stuck at .265 (give or take a few) since about the end of May. If Perez is in the lineup he is going 1-4 with a strikeout. 70-30 chance. Consistently great? No. Consistently gets on base at a high clip? No. But he does what he does and he does it every day. Broxton, on the other hand, is the example you are looking for. Perez treats taking a walk as if it comes with a case of herpes. In his last 45 at bats, he's drawn a grand total of one walk. Since the All-Star break in 108 at bats, Perez has drawn only two walks. I think he has talent as a hitter, but that dude flat out refuses to not just take walks, but even at least make pitchers throw him better pitches to hit. The problem for Broxton isn't that he constantly swings at garbage like Perez does, but instead it's almost as if he has a hole in his bat by consistently swinging and missing on pitches in the strike zone.

I am 100 pct with you on all accounts. I do enjoy watching Pujos spend the twilight of his career on a middling team that's not really going anywhere. Especially after Cards fans were so convinced he'd take this massive paycut to stay with them. But when the games best player never plays on the games biggest stage, it takes a bit of the shine off of him. And I also had no idea Upton was putting up a ~6 WAR type season. And i was surprised that he's only 29. I would have guessed around 32-33. Forgot he reached the majors at age 19.

I see this most likely happening. 1. Stearns trades Broxton for the best offer he gets. 2. Brinson is at least initially given the everyday job in CF. 3. Phillips is the 4th outfielder. Braun always needs days off and is a lock to miss stretches via various strains/pulls, this gives Phillips at bats. He also gets some starts in CF vs tough righties and in RF to rest Santana. So he'd get plenty of playing time, not just a random start here and there. Then it will be up to Brinson and Phillips to see who is most productive. If say Brinson struggles a lot for an extended stretch and Phillips plays well, maybe Brinson gets sent down and Phillips plays everyday in CF. That's why i don't want Phillips traded unless the return is really good. Brinson is a higher rated prospect, but no prospect is ever a sure thing. Phillips is a buffer in CF in case Brinson doesn't pan out as we hope or if say Santana or Braun was traded.

Blind optimism? The percentage of people here who think the Brewers will actually make the playoffs is likely 5% at best.

Barnes, Torres, Hughes, Drake, Jeffress. Pick your poison. None are reliable and Counsell has no choice but to use them from game to game. Agreed at this point go with who has sucked less...Counsell kinda handcuffed..but Barnes shouldnt sniff a game when its tied or up one or down one. None has really sucked less than the other. Counsell could pick names out of a hat when it comes to those guys and that would be as justified as picking them on merit.

I'd rather have Boston's pitching staff than their offense.

Barnes, Torres, Hughes, Drake, Jeffress. Pick your poison. None are reliable and Counsell has no choice but to use them from game to game.

Did you watch those two starts? Nelson got singled to death in both games vs him serving up a bunch of hard hit balls. The start against the Reds had a six run inning where the Reds with two outs had two softly hit grounders which found holes entirely because of the shift and an infield hit, all of which drove in runs instead of ending the inning. Against the Pirates he only allowed three earned runs and every hit he allowed was a single. Against the Reds, 9 of the 11 hits were singles. So 17 of those 19 hits were singles. That's not to say some singles aren't hit hard and off poor pitches, but a lot of those 17 singles were also seeing eye grounders and flares which just happened to end up where defenders weren't.

They get the close pitches wrong a lot more than 1 out of 10 times and the close pitches are what matters more than the clearly obvious balls and strikes which they get right probably 98-99 percent of the time. If they got the close pitches correct 90% of the time, there would be less complaints.

I enjoy that aspect of the game also, but i'm more concerned with the chance that the Brewers at some point in the future are in a key game for a playoff berth or actually in the playoffs and say in the 9th inning down a run with guys on base, one of our hitters wrongly gets rung up on a pitch two inches off the plate to end the game because baseball and some fans wanted to protect this socalled human element. Or in reverse, our closer has a key two strike pitch wrongly called a ball and that leads to us losing.

No, i want more consistency. What really annoys me is there will be games when an ump decides on his own that he just won't call most pitches at the knees a strike because well, that's what he thinks a strike should be. Or he'll randomly call half of the pitches at the knees a strike and the exact same pitch a ball, sometimes with the same batter at the plate. Then the next game, the ump that day will decide that most pitches on the inside edge of the plate will be called balls or balls off the plate strikes. So basically, from game to game batters and pitchers have to get a feel for what each given home plate umpire is likely going to decide what a strike is or have games where that umpire is wildly inconsistent on whether say a low strike will be called a ball or strike. Batter is at the plate in a key moment and pitches hit nearly identical spots, yet it's pure guessing as to whether a ball or strike will be called. This is what drives both pitchers and batters crazy. Hitters and pitchers could adjust much easier over time to an automated system because it would be consistent instead of every game having a different umpire decide his own interpretation of what a strike or ball is.

Plus, this 90% number needs some nuance to it. There are a sizable percentage of pitches which end up being very obvious balls or strikes which pretty much any umpire can get correct about 98% to 99% of the time. Where the frustration lies with many fans is not the right down the middle strikes, balls clearly off the plate, in the dirt, or really high. It's instead the pitches on the edges of the plate or right around the knees where umpires aren't getting things correct 90% of the time. The percentage on those type of pitches is likely closer to 70%-75% when you just think about it statistically. Those are the pitches where the blown calls almost entirely reside and can tilt close game.

While i very much support replay in MLB, it does slow the game down. Technology though for machines calling pitches is at a point where it wouldn't slow down the game. So long as it could be evaluated to where we can be sure that it is correct in calling balls/strikes on every type of pitch, i can't fathom why any baseball fan wouldn't support it over umpires basically guessing on close pitches or creating their own strike zones from game to game? Especially in important situations of a game, whether the last few innings or with runners on earlier, the count a batter is in can be huge. An ump blowing a strike/ball which say changes the count from 2-1 to 1-2 or 3-1 to 2-2 can be huge in deciding what kind of pitch a pitcher throws next and a batter faces. Add in blown calls in these situations which can wrongly turn a 3-2 should be walk into an out or the reverse, i've had it with yelling at the TV regularly because an ump guessed wrongly. It's only a matter of when stubbornness loses out and this technology is implemented for balls and strikes, just as was the case with replay. Once it is, we'll be watching games and saying, i can't believe it took so long to do this.

Votto, doesn't have much motivation to change his approach and obviously probably shouldn't as he's one of the best in the game. There are plenty of marginal guys who get shifted because they are pull hitters. I get it's not easy but I'm also making the assumption it's not necessarily something that guys really care about or practice. It used to be pretty routine part of the game that guys would and could hit the ball the other way when they wanted to. Some better than others obviously. I'm not even sure it would be beneficial for most players to do it but I have no doubt that Joey Votto could start hitting more balls the other way if he wanted. So maybe stubborn isn't the right word but it's certainly a choice. If you are a marginal player in the majors, that means your career length is far from guaranteed to be long, as so will be your earning power. To think those type of players don't care about the fact that pulled hard hit grounders turn from hits to outs because of shifting and that they wouldn't instead rather hit a ball to a place with no infielders strikes me as not realistic at all. This lessens their stats and in turn lessens their value in a highly competitive pro sport where teams are constantly looking to replace non-productive or mediocre players with someone better. As for in the past, shifting rarely existed, especially the extreme shifting we see today, not because there weren't plenty of dead pull hitters, but instead because data like today didn't exist for teams to analyze. Had that same data been available, we'd have seen lots of the same shifting as we do today and pull hitters regularly hitting into those shifts. Hell, even guys today who are only a little pull heavy get shifted. The immense amount of data available for every facet of the game is incredible and only increases.

These hitters aren't blind. They can see infielders shifted to one side of the infield. If it was easy for them to just hit the ball away from where fielders are shifted, they would do it nearly every time and bat .500 plus. It's far from easy. Take Joey Votto for example. He's as professional of a hitter as anyone in the game, yet when he's at the plate there is a dramatic shift for him because he's a pull hitter. I'm sure it annoys Votto that hits on the right side get stolen away from him because it's flooded with defenders, but it is what it is. He's a pull hitter and not out of being stubborn.

Yea, i don't think Broxton K's so much just because he's swinging for the fences all of the time or he has terrible plate discipline given he walks at a decent rate. His problem is simply making contact on pitches in the strike zone, regardless of the count. I watch him batting sometimes as he'll swing right through say a 2-0 fastball right down the heart of the plate and it's almost as if he has a hole in his bat. Not sure what can be done about that since he's always struck out a ton in the minors also. People need to keep in mind also that guys who do work the count tend to K a lot because they lay off strikes on the edges of the plate, leading to many 2-2/3-2 type of counts. On the flip side there are bad plate discipline hitters like Perez who K less because they don't lay off pitchers strikes and thus end up in less two strike counts, but they also tend to walk at a poor rate and get themselves out by making contact on hard pitches to square up on.

Interesting read about his throwing problems and the mental side of the game https://www.theplayerstribune.com/khris-davis-oakland-the-creature/

I see no possible chance that Counsell is gone after this year. He is like royalty in this organization (for whatever reason) and my thinking is he gets a loooooooong leash. He really is no different than Roenicke to be honest. I was one that wanted RRR gone long before we finally cut that chord. I have been giving Craig a chance since he was hired, but it just feels so much like RRR that I am running out of patience. Oh, and he can take Sedar with him... When was the last Brewers manager that a bunch of fans didn't want fired? I can't think of one since coming of Brewers forums. Then again plenty of fans of most teams want to fire their manager unless their team is far in first place or it's a first year manager early in that first season. I think it was last year or the year before and i was checking out a Cardinals forum during a series against them, and they literally had a pretty long thread questioning if Matheney was not just a bad manager, but if he was the worst manager in the history of baseball.

Get out f here with that nonsense about appeasing bf.net posters. It has nothing to do with that. He was fortunate to get out of that jam, but it took him 40 pitches and loading the bases because he couldn't put hitters away with two strikes because he threw almost nothing but fastballs. If he had any confidence at all in his slider, he'd have thrown them more and struck out batters sitting entirely on his fastball. Pitchers with confidence in secondary pitches often use them in 2-2 and 3-2 counts, but Hader doesn't or else he'd thrown his slider more. I have no idea at this point if eventually Hader can cut it as a starter or if he ends up with a career as a relief pitcher, both roles have value in today's baseball with an increased importance of relief pitching. At some point though he's not going to keep getting away with throwing entirely just fastballs, especially to righthanded hitters.