danzig6767

I said the same thing in an earlier post about that same floater in the lane that McNeal missed, game is likely over if he makes that. With that said, if you were allowed to make trades in college ball, i really would love to have been able to remove either an Acker or Cubillan and add say Stiemsma to the roster. With Barro leaving, Burke at 6'8 will be the biggest guy on the roster next year and i'm just not a fan at all of such a small front court. Sure it's true that there aren't many 6'10-7' foot guys that are good defenders and skilled offensively, the ones that can do both get recruited by everyone. Still though, i'd rather that Crean at least recruited a few that could at least defend the paint even if they aren't much on offense. For me, i'd like that better size balance than having six guards, even if the guards might all be better skilled overall than the big/bigs he would bring in.

All teams have players taller than 6-8. Not all of them contribute equally. Barro is a very good defender but a suspect offensive player. What I'm saying is having "big-ish" guys (6-8, 6-9) that can move, jump, rebound, defend and score is better than having a bunch of Stiemsma's in my opinion. It's great if you can recruit two athletic 7-footers but that is not realistic. Depends on the system a team runs. I look at Barro and think he did a great job developing over the four years from what he started out as. With that said, Barro is a type of big that Bo Ryan likely would never recruit. I watched nearly every Marquette game and don't agree that their lack of size and post up scoring wasn't a problem. There are a lot of games in college ball where teams can get away with not have much at the center position, but often in a few critical games you'll run into teams where the lack of size causes a real problem and Stanford was one of those games. If Marquette had anyone that could handle Lopez better defensively, they are in the Sweet 16 right now and IMO would have been a legit Final Four contender. Just having a couple 6'11-7' foot guy around that can defend the paint when needed is something i hope Crean finally brings into the program. I love all the guard/swingman depth, but at some point it gets a bit redundant compared to having such little size.

McNeal was outstanding in that game and the whole latter half of the season. With that said, he had three critical misses thatcould have either won the game for sure or nearly locked it up. I was very bothered by that three point shot he took at he end of regulation, it hocked me that he didn't attack the paint. He also missed two close shots that could have given MU a three point lead and forced Stanford to tie with a three. There is luck involved at the end of many close games. McNeal had an easier shot in the paint than Lopez had for the win, but McNeal missed a shot he usually makes and Lopez his from behind the backboard. The bad luck play everyone has forgot was the rebound that allowed the other Lopez to hit the game tying free throw. That Stanford guy who got the rebound and passed to Lopez only got the board because the shot missed so bad that it hit the bottom of the backboard. Lastly, i had one beef on that final shot. I told my buddy during the timeout, MU should double Lopez almost instantly after the ball was inbounded and if Stanford drilled a long open jumper because of that, so be it, just don't let Lopez get a look no matter what.

I really feel bad for Capuano. Whenever i hear him interviewed, he comes off as not only a great guy, but a great teammate. All i can offer is my best wishes he comes back healthy and can continue his career whether it's as a Brewer or elsewhere. As for the rotation, i hope Parra makes the team. Like others have noted, being the 5th starter would allow for skipping a few starts. Plus, i feel to some degree the number off innings a pitcher throws are overrated compared to pitch counts. If he pitches well, hopefully the pitch counts can be reasonable and keep him relatively fresh. Parra could struggle and pitch six innings in a game while throwing 108 pitches or say throw 7 2/3 with 98 pitches thrown. If we could avoid to many of those games with Parra starting where he throws a ton of pitches in 5-6 inning starts, i see that being the best way to protect his arm more than focusing almost solely on innings pitched.

I'll try to keep this as brief as i can I'm not good at all with computers. My extent of computer usage is turning it on and surfing the net, that's pretty much it since i quite playing poker online. I also know little about how computers work or how to fix problems when they arise. I'll have an issue and get told to do this or that, in most cases i won't understand what exactly i'm being told to do. Well about maybe a month ago my daughter clicked on something in one these ringtone sites, chat icon, addon stuff for Myspace, and/or from Limewire that got my our computer infected with spyware. Between running scans with Adware and my AVG virus scans, i thought the spyware was mostly gone because all the annoying popups stopped except for one mortgage popup that only popped up once while turning on the computer vs 10 different popups per minute. There were still programs in my program files that didn't belong and that wouldn't allow me to delete them, but i didn't care because the computer was no longer under attack it seemed. Well a few days ago i turn on the computer after my kid was on it earlier, it was spyware and popup hell. I try doing a system estore to an earlier date, but it never allows me to do one.In a few minutes, say 25-30 popups about various spyware removers, car adds, toolbar adds, etc would take over the computer. So ran Adware/AVG and it finds and removes all kinds of things, doesn't stop the popup attack. I download and run Spybot scans numerous times, it removes many bugs, still though popups everywhere. I get told to try Spyware Doctor, it finds way more than Spybot and the basic scans, but while it stops the popups, i get a message every few seconds saying Malicious Action Blocked Spyare Doctor has blocked an application firefox.exe attempting to access a file. Path: C:/WINDOWS/SYSTEM32/FTPDLL.DLL Threat: Trojan-Dropper.Small!sd5 Risk Level: High Everytime i ran a basic scan though, it would show that all the other bugs gone except for this one virus Trojan-Dropper.Small!sd5 was still there, anywhere from 5-9 pieces of it. Each times i'd delete it and scan again, there was Trojan-Dropper.Small!sd5. Finally i tried the full scan of everything, it finds 16 different medium to high risk threats and 149 infections. In fact under Trojan-Dropper.Small!sd5, there were 64 infections by that one virus. The frustrating thing is, whenever i click the button saying fix each clicked threat, it starts removing them and always freezes about half way through. Run the scan again, finds the same stuff, but freezes up or my computer restarts on it's own before the bugs gets deleted. I'm right about ready to either take a hammer to the computer or or take it in, but i fear getting raped by the fixer because i'll be like the lady who takes her car to the garage for a tune up and gets convinced she needs a 3000 dollar new transmission. Any ideas for what i could do or try next before taking the computer in and not having any idea when i get the bill if the charge was fair or i'm getting ripped off big time? Thanks in advance if anyone is kind enough to take time and respond.

It's like some people think there's no need for actual scouting, that you just look at what someone's projected to do and you sign players based on that. The problem is, if you do that, you're not going to have much success on reclamation projects such as Doug Davis, Derrick Turnbow, Matt Wise, Capuano, Overbay, ect..ect..ect.. Again, this isn't about Gabe Kapler per say, this is about the rationale behind how we look at players and bring them in. All those players you listed were still pretty young when Melvin snatched them up, Kapler is old. Plenty of extremely marginal vets through the years have been able to come into a spring training for teams and hit well, but stink up the joint once they have to face big league pitchers instead of camp arms quite a bit. I don't care at all that Melvin brought Kapler to camp, but he has hit like crap his last three seasons in the bigs, plus he's coming off a full season not playing. Odds likely are much higher that Kapler would continue his crappy hitting with us that he did the last three years he played than him magically finding some fountain of youth and hitting decent like he did when he was JJ Hardy's age. Then again, if Kapler manages to make the roster, it likely would only be for 25 games and hopefully most of that time would just consist of him watching from the dugout while eat sunflower seeds.

Simple, Jenkins is impatient at the plate and hacks at to many garbage pitches. Craig Counsell even with his fly swatter power managed to draw nine more walks than Jenkins in 140 less at bats. Geoff has an addiction to sliders low and inside along with a healthy appetite for high fastballs that he can't catch up with.

Watching him pitch the other day, Vargas threw more changeups in that game than i remember him throwing in five games combined last year. For the most part last season, Vargas was throwing just fastballs and sliders the vast majority of the time. Seeing him a few days ago throwing his change very often along with good location on it, i couldn't help but wonder if Claudio and Maddux worked on the pitch and he now has a better feel for it. The big problem i saw for him as a starter last season was since he threw so many just fastballs and sliders, nothing he was throwing was much of an offspeed pitch to keep hitters off balance. Even worse was his fastball is generally only in that 90-92 range and his slider isn't a special one, so he's quite hittable and thus Vargas nibbled so much. Him throwing that very effective change all the time the other day made him look much tougher to hit. Hopefully it wasn't just a fluke type day and Vargas is able to have an effective changeup most of the season.

I know it won't happen here, but i'm curious what kind of line Dillon would put up if he had pretty much an everyday role and got 500 at bats at third. I wouldn't be surprised if he hit around .290-.300 with an OBP at .365 or higher, maybe 20 homers, and a good amount of doubles.

Even if they made the same amount of money, i'd rather have Dillon than Inge

There are plenty of teams that would be willing to take a guy for 12.5 a year I don't know if i'd just assume that plenty of teams would be willing to take on Suppan's contract after this season. If he has a 190-200 inning year with an ERA somewhere between 4.50-4.75, he might be harder to move than you think with a 12.5 million per year salary. If his ERA ends up closer to four than five, then i'm sure he'd be fairly easy to move, but that's only if we'd want to move him.

I caught for a pretty long time and got run over, the equipment doesn't really help at all. The reason it usually is quite painful when getting run over at the plate is you usually aren't able to brace yourself for the hit and a fairly thin pad on your chest does little when a person running full speed smashes into you.. Take two different situations. Have someone crash into you without being braced for it an another time brace yourself, the difference is sizable in that not being braced hurts more and opens you up more to injury. Once in awhile the ball arrives early enough to brace yourself, more often it's a bang bang play and you have to follow the baseball which doesn't allow enough time to set yourself before impact. I got hit so hard once it seemed like i couldn't breathe for like three minutes, it really sucked.

Off the top of my head, that was the most brutal collison i've ever seen in baseball where two defenders are going for a ball.

That is their biggest weakness and what will eventually cause them to lose in the big dance. Their jump shooting is very erratic, especially in the case of James. When they aren't making jumpers, they have to get out and run or they struggle badly to score given they have no post game.

I think Loshe only got one year because GM's finally learned their lesson a bit after all those offseasons where they gave big money deals to pitchers who just weren't worth the risk of living up to the contract they received. Giving out these 3-4-5 year deals to the Jeff Weaver, Eric Milton, and Odalis Perez types and getting burned because of it.

JD Drew and Mike Hampton make about the same as Selig I think Bud just might have a little more impact on the game than Drew or Mike Hampton does

I'd rather it wasn't Gwynn, but i do think he's clearly the best defensive CF when Cameron isn't playing, so i don't agree that he offers nothing. If say Ned was choosing between Gross/Gwynn in CF against righthanders, i think Gwynn would clearly be the better defensive player and Gross clearly the better hitter. My guess is Gross overall would be a slight advantage, but not all that much unless Gwynn was brutal at the plate. If instead Yost played Hart in center and Gross/Dillon in RF, that would probably be my first choice. Come the season, i think Gwynn will end up starting in CF when a righthander is on the mound and when a lefty starts, Hart will play CF and Dillon with be in RF.

Braun reminds me somewhat of Manny except without the goofy behavior like wearing headphones on the field. Both guys just were natural born hitters and they know they can rake. So long as Braun is a good teammate, his high confidence level is a good thing. Deion Sanders had a cocky reputation, yet he backed it up on the field and every teammate of Sanders i ever heard get interviewed had only positive things to say about him.

I'm sure clients of Boras heard about the rough offseason he had between Arod and Rogers. If he was my agent, i know that i'd let Boras know that he better not pull that kind of crap with me or he'd be losing another high profile client. Boras also had Sheffield ripping him in the press, that's three big time players in one offseason. It would take some giant sized nads by Boras to to hide a large long term offer from the Brewers to Prince and risk losing yet another client, especially given how likely it would be that Fielder would at some point find out a long term offer was made and hidden from him. Prince is a guy set to start making huge huge cash and is very high profile. If Boras pulled crap with Prince and Fielder found out and then canned Boras, his already dented reputation among players would take another big hit. Boras is a guy that has shown that he has no problem taking verbal shots from owners or media types over the years, hell, he seems to enjoy the back and forth. Angering clients though is bad for business, Boras has to be more careful after the Arod/Rogers debacles. I by no means would say it's impossible that Boras would hide a large offer from Prince, just that i find it pretty unlikely. All it would take is one media leak from the Brewers or Melvin/Attanasio bring up the offer to Prince and Boras has some questions to answer with his client.

A few thoughts Geno 1. If you think Fielder will never stay here past his six seasons so he can sign in a bigger market, why should we give him 900,000 or 1.2 million this year even though it's above what most or all other teams would have given Prince at this time? If just he's destined to leave when he gets his chance, there is no reason to try and butter Prince up now by paying him more than than what's needed. 2. As for players above that you mentioned choosing not to take our money, i think each case should be evaluated on it's own merits. Lee was offered 4yrs/48 million, which obviously wasn't enough given what he signed for in Houston. Four years was the max that Melvin felt comfortable with giving Lee and i agree with him on that, no way in hell would i have given Lee six years and 100 million. In retrospect, i'm glad Lee didn't take our offer, it kept open LF for Braun to slide over to vs forcing him to stay at third and be an error machine. Plus, it allowed for Hart to play everyday last season instead of riding the pine quite a bit. I'm more than happy with our corner OF situation. Cordero bolted over a few million dollars. We offered to make him the second highest paid closer in the game, 4 million over four season was enough for him to leave a franchise on the cusp to one in not as good shape. I certainly don't feel the Brewers gave Cordero some fake low ball offer just to appease fans, the offer was plenty fair. Can't comment on Prince since we have zero details. 3. Like you, i'm not a fan of Boras, no baseball fans like the guy. With that said, Prince is and should be the boss. He should be in charge of where he wants to spend his time playing baseball. Boras has a reputation, it's up to Fielder to let Boras know that he wants to always be informed of any contract offers, or he'll find another agent. I sure know that i'd demand that out of any agent i hired if i was a big time athlete. It would take me about 10 seconds to say, hide anything from me and i find out, you're fired. Prince is a huge part of this franchise, i think it's extremely likely that both Melvin/Attansio talk the Fielder enough that if we made him a big contract offer, it would at some point come up in conversation and/or it would come out an offer was made. The odds strike me a very remote that the Brewers could make some very sizable offer long term offer that Boras first rejects without asking Prince, then on top of that Boras hides that offer completely and Prince manages for who know how long to never hear an offer even was made? The media never catches wind either that we made a large offer? Agents no doubt can be slimy, Boras oozing it from every pore of his body. The players though hire that agent, not the other way around. Any big time athlete that wants to control his destiny over where he spends his career playing a sport can do so. If Prince reaches a point where he really want to stay in Milwaukee long term, he can instruct Boras to get a deal done for the most cash he can get. If instead Prince wants to go where the biggest contract offer is, he'll leave Milwaukee. (pared back long quote --1992)

I have little to no doubt that Rickie will get on base well this year, the thing i don't know what to expect is the number of extra base hits he'll rack up. I expected Weeks to become a guy who on a yearly basis hit 20-30 homers with lots of doubles and triples, along with having great eye at the plate. Hopefully the wrist issues were the biggest reason that Weeks hasn't been able to rip laser beams all over the diamond like i had expected.

The comments by Attanasio about trying hard to resign Prince at some point struck me as a non issue, what else was he going to say? Attanasio wasn't going to say to the media, enjoy Prince the next few years because we aren't going to even bother trying to keep him long term. I'm sure a time will come that the Brewers will offer Prince a large contract that would leave him an extremely wealthy man, but odds are it won't be enough to keep Fielder/Boras from shopping the slugger around the the rest of the league and that likely will end his stay here.

I used to be a coffee addict/fiend, i'd down anywhere from 6-12 cups a day. Then i got acid reflux and coffee/reflux don't go well together in the slightest, had to stop drinking coffee or deal with the pain it brought me. That's when i found out just how addicted to coffee i was. For a few weeks after quitting coffee, i felt almost like some crackhead, i couldn't believe just how badly i wanted to have a few glasses of coffee. I didn't have a single cup of coffee then for around five years, but finally decided to have one on the way to a Packer game this year. Oh my lord did that taste good.

I love their bread and subs. In fact i ate a Philly and a meatball sub today, damn they were tasty.

Small point guards that can't shoot generally won't have much luck making it in the NBA