danzig6767

I don't worry about ticket prices since i only attend 5-8ish games a year.Plus,it's not so much the ticket prices that get me,it's what i pend inside.I'm not the conservative type when it comes to money even though i'm far from wealthy.When i'm out places i buy whatever i want and at 6.50 a beer and buying brats/nachos etc,i generally spend more inside than my ticket price. If though i was a 20-30 game a year or more fan,i can see why ticket/concession/parking increases can add up quick.

Dunn would have been an ideal fit offensively at least given his on base skills.Bat him second and a Dunn/Braun/Fielder/Hart grouping would have silly amounts of power potential.It would be adding yet another bad defender,but his offense would more than offset his poor defense.

If the Brewers bring back largely all the same position players at the same positions and want much better defense,it will remind me of another local pro team,the Milwaukee Bucks.Have a bunch of bad defenders that was the second worst defensive team in the NBA the last two years and brought back most of the bad defenders from last years team. The Bucks plan for better defense this year compared to last years horrid defense seems to be the hope and pray plan.Get on their knees and pray a bunch of very bad defenders are only kinda bad this year.At this point at least,that looks like it very well could be the Brewers plan also to cure the defensive woes.

I've been annoyed by the defense as you are,but looking at the most likely makeup of the team next year,where is the fix for the defense? If our infield stays intact,which odds look high will be the case,that leaves everything on that area of the field to improve simply via Braun/Weeks/Prince being a year older/experience.Maybe that does the trick and they improve quite a bit defensively,i'm just not overly confident that they will improve all that much. I like Hart's improvement defensively and think he'll only get better in the field.Hall in center got better,but i question if he'll be better than average next year if left to play there.Hard to know who fills the last outfield spot.If Estrada is back at catcher,that's more bad defense. Unless say Braun gets moved to the outfield next year and Hall put at third,barring some other big trade,the team will likely have the majority of the same bad defense back playing the same positions.Then it's left to hope and pray the guys improve alot in one offseason,i wish i felt strongly that will work out as well as they plan it to.

Last time i checked,teams final records aren't adjusted at the end of the season based on stat formulas of what some feel the record should have been.If you finish .500,you did actually win half your games. If this is how you are going to judge teams then you can continue to be clueless year after year. Teams do not always end up with the records they deserve and if you honestly think the 2005 team was a .500 quality team you are not a very good judge of talent. This is like judging how good a pitcher is by his win totals. Where did i say that team had the same promise as this team?In the end though,both are going to win roughly the same amount of games and that's what matters when you play a sport.Bud Selig isn't going to hand out a Pythagorean Theorem trophy out this year. Obviously i like the future more of this team going forward than that 2005 team,anyone with a pea sized brain can see that.The fact though that the 2005 team will have roughly the same record as this year means they accomplished the same thing,winning half their games,whether one may have under or overachieved doesn't matter squat for that given season.If we win 81-82 games again next season,am i supposed to feel swell because we'll have likely unachieved instead of supposedly overachieving like the 2005 Brewers did? At some point soon the excuses for finishing around .500 at best have to end,next year being a good starting point for it.Some here might be fine next year if we win say 82 games,but the Pythagorean Theorem or some other abbreviated stat says we should have won 88.Just don't count me in that camp.

If we bring back mostly all the same position players who play the same positions,the pitching staff better be pretty damn good if we want to prevent runs given the odds look high that the defense would be a weakness again.

Last time i checked,teams final records aren't adjusted at the end of the season based on stat formulas of what some feel the record should have been.If you finish .500,you did actually win half your games.

Jenkins is just a fading player,the birthdays have eroded some of his skills

That third run, like I said was scored in a garbage time situation where if the score was closer, I doubt we get it. The point isn't that the many boneheaded moves by Ned the last few weeks surely cost the team X number of wins,obviously we can't predict for sure what would have happened instead.The point is that these moves like last night for example,aren't putting the team in the best chance to win and MAY HAVE cost us some wins. If a football coach decides to go for it on 4th and 19 at their own 30 yard line and doesn't get the first down,even though it's a close game and 10 minutes are left.That may not be a sure fire game losing choice since the game isn't over,but it's still a dumb move that doesn't put the team in the best spot to win the game.Make head scratching choices like that to often,fans have every reason to question how competent that coach is even if an exact number of losses can't be put on his dumb moves. Odds are we would have lost yesterday regardless of Yost absolutely brainfarting by hitting Albert on purpose.Simple history shows that all teams lose the majority of games when trailing after seven innings,even if only down a run.That fact doesn't make it any less troubling that Ned still pulled that stunt during a vital game that was 3-2 at the time.You would like to think with 5 games left and during such a crucial game that our manager was thinking smart and rationally ,now stewing over a spat with another manager instead.I'll admit upfront that i don't like Ned,but i was still shocked by the stupidity of that stunt.I didn't think even Yost had a move in him that moronic.

I sat there watching the 8th inning absolutely stunned at what was going on Ned has some mind bending type of stupid things during this pennant race,but when he had a hitter plunked on purpose in the 8th inning of a VITAL game,even i didn't think he had that level of stupidity in him.Davey Lopes was a trainwreck of a manager and i doubt if he would have pulled a moronic stunt like that. How does this happen?How?What possibly could have crossed Ned's mind to think retaliation was more important than doing the best to win a game in a pennant race?How can Melvin/Attanasio not be appalled by that showing of utter incompetence in pulling a bush league stunt with so few games left and a chance to get within a game?

I'm not a fan of Yost,but if Melvin wants Ned to stay,the last thing i want to see is the owner telling his GM who should manage the team.That's the kind of stuff Herb Kohl does with the Bucks,see how good that's worked out there. The hiring/firing of the manager should be done by the GM IMO and then if the team doesn't meet the expectations of the owner,it's on the GM since he's making all the moves.Owners of sports teams have very right to do as they wish,but it's more rare than common where they know what they are doing in regards to moves that should be made by the more qualified GM they hired.

Does anyone else feel the Manager of the Year award somewhat similar to Gold Glove voting in how it seems many voters just guess given some of the guys who end up winning the Gold Glove? Normally i don't care one bit who wins Manager of the Year in either league,but i was paying some attention this year since Yost was at one time said to be a frontrunner.When i mentioned it to my buddy about two weeks ago who doesn't like Yost and who doesn't go online following stuff like this,his reaction was,that's insane and what are they basing this on? So it got me to think what criteria are national and local writers using to judge managers that they may only see some teams play a few or handful of times?Just see who wins their division and made the biggest turn around from the prior year,being a smaller market is an added bonus?He must be the guy,like i'm figuring Wedge is the winner in the AL.BTW,i'm not saying Wedge isn't good at his job,i don't follow the Indians much. When a manager sees his team make a sizable jump from the previous year and thus puts that manager in contention for MOY,are the voters are just assuming the manager found a fountain of managerial smarts in the offseason that was lacking the prior year while say their rotation sucked or their closer imploded?Did Ned do anything this year that made you feel we'd be worse or much worse without him or he did anything special vs what he did last year?Who has a tougher job,managing the 170 million dollar stacked Red Sox roster or the talent devoid Nationals who had a roster of guys who knew they had no playoff shot before the year started? Since so much happens with teams behind closed doors,a manager makes countless in game choices each year that a non-everyday follower of a team would never see,and basically 3/4 of the managers have zero shot even if they did an outstanding job,throwing a dart at managers faces almost seems as fair a method for picking the award as any.

I sure hope that wouldn't be the reason Ned is brought back or not.Would it have been wise to keep Lopes or Royster around for stability?A new manager if brought in couldn't figure out to insert Weeks/Hardy/Bruan/Prince/Hart into the lineup? Plus,baseball isn't like football where a new coach often comes with having to hire a new offensive/defensive coordinator,learn new systems on both sides of the ball,and learn all new terminology.Go from a say 3-4 defense to a 4-3 defense or maybe from a more passing coach to a more running type of coach which can take quite awhile for the players to learn. I trust Melvin in a manager search could find a guy who would be qualified enough to handle the clubhouse area part of managing this team,that would be my only concern though.I can't believe he could end up hiring someone who would be a worse baseball mind and one who would make more head scratching in game choices.That would take some real effort on Doug's part.

You keep repeating and assuming every manager in baseball would have sat on Cordero until a "save situation" came about,i just reject your assumption as being anywhere near a fact.There were 13-14 games left in the season at the time in a tie race and knowing the Cubs had just one,i don't buy all managers would have sat there like a sheep and used a guy who has been brutal to face Berkman/Lee/Pence,while his best pitcher sat in the bullpen eating sunflower seeds. I'll grant you that i'm sure a certain percentage of them still would be unable to think outside their handbook shell,but given the importance of that game,my assumption would be closer to 50% and maybe less.Now if we were talking about a game in May or if Cordero had pitched the day before,then the percentage i'd guess would rise quite a bit. As for if we hired a new manager next season and he'd automatically be like a robot and manage like Ned,i don't buy that either.If Melvin has issues with how Ned manages,i can't believe in the interview process that he wouldn't ask questions to the applicant about how they would go about things or study how a former manager did things.

At that point in the 10th inning there was Wise/King/Capuano/Aquino/Cordero available in the bullpen,Capuano likely only in case he was last resort and had to go multiple innings.So you actually think using Wise there made sense over 1.Using Cordero to face the heart of the Astros order in the 10th.If he gets them out,the Brewers bat in the 11th and keep in mind the Astros had already used both Qualls/Lidge,their two best relief pitchers. 2.So lets say we score in the 11th,Cordero gets to close out the game in the 11th vs the bottom of their order. 3.Lets say we scored in the 11th,but in an unlikely case Cordero threw to many pitches in the 10th,he shouldn't go another inning.Now any of those other three guys get to come in with some cushion of a lead,not a tie along with not having to face Berkman/Lee/Pence. 4.Let's say Cordero pitched the 10th and we didn't score in the 11th inning,but he still can go one more inning.If he gets out of the 11th and we score in the 12th,one of the three left relief pitchers comes in for the save with a lead for a cushion,not a tie game where one run ends it. If it reaches a 13th inning,then i couldn't find a single fault with anyone Yost would use,likely it's Capuano until a team wins.At that point he would have given the team it's best chance to win,the offense blew it and now the game is almost completely out of his hands.I just have a hard time seeing how using Wise to start the 10th inning vs the heart of their order makes more common sense than the above,screw manager handbooks,they aren't official and only exist in their own minds. BTW,i also don't agree with you that every manager would have sat on Cordero.No doubt some out there would also have allowed their dumb unwritten rules to not be bent by the common sense of the situation,but i do think a fair amount would have wisely used Cordero.

Then that other or other managers might be in over there head also.There are alot of tough call choices a manager has to make in games where he shouldn't be faulted regardless of the end result.This one along with others lately haven't fit in that tough call area and very well COULD HAVE cost us a few games. It's one thing if the Brewers were 14 games back,but when your team is in a tight race with limited games left and the manager is missing what seem to be fairly obvious moves to put the team in the best situation to win,i think it's fair to question if he's the guy you want to lead the team after this season. The scary thing for me is,hearing his rational after some of these boneheaded moves.It makes me believe he's not learning at all from his mistakes and i don't trust he won't do the same logic defying things again next year if the Brewers are again in another tight playoff race.The fact he still doesn't see in retrospect the common sense of why using Cordero in the 10th yesterday was the right thing to do,makes me think he's simply to set in some of his Yost manager handbook ways and he can't allow himself to question if they make sense in the first place.

Not me,i've begged for Yost to stop worrying so much about the silly save stat for awhile now.If Cordero was brought in to face the Astros best hitters and we then scored later,but say Capuano blew it in the bottom of the inning,i'd praise Yost for having at least put the team in the best situation to win,but it didn't work out.You had Berkman,Lee,and quite possibly Pence due up.I sure as hell would rather see Cordero vs those guys and if we scored the next inning,having Capuano/Wise or whoever he brought in to face the crappy bats that would follow to close the game.Instead he used Wise to face their best bats and hoped we scored in the 11th so Cordero could face their garbage hitters. Explain the logic in that?Is worrying about a silly save stat above common sense in who should face who?

Why does this get used so often?What do preseason predictions that often are wrong have to do with anything?Did they predict Prince would hit around 50 bombs or Braun would be a stud right off the bat? No preseason prediction matters at this point in the season one bit.What does matter is the Brewers were tied for first going into tonights game and our manager is yanking Braun in a 2-1 game in the 7th inning,putting Turnbow in a game in a position he typically has been bad at,and has his best pitcher sitting in the bullpen while Berkman/Lee are due up and instead decides to use a pitcher that has been miserable for the last month or longer. His job is to put the team in the best position to win games,particularly now.Not making multiple moves likes that.The guy is so wrapped up in the save stat,common sense flew out the door and he sent out arguably his worst pitcher instead of his best in a vital game to face the Astros heart of the order.Pure insanity and the scary thing is i bet he thought his move made sense even in retrospect.

Yep I don't post much anymore,but tonights game and his refusal to use Cordero with the Stros 2-3-4 hitters due up drove me insane,i literally can't stand the site of Yost.I feel myself getting angry sometimes just when the camera pans on him.It really baffles me how a guy who has been in the game for so many years can make so many flat out poor choices. How does this stuff happen with a manager in nearly his 5th year?Does Melvin ever watch these games and yell at the TV saying,what the hell are you doing Ned?Don't you know the season is on the line,it's not an exhibition game?

Yost is one of those by his book guys almost all the time.In his book,Linebrink is the 7th inning guy so he had to come in there no matter that the lefties were looming and Shouse shuts them down.

If nothing the manager does controls the outcome of a game or how a team performs over a season,it's all on the players,why would you care if he's replaced?We can't find another person to do his job and be meaningless like Yost?What harm could come from it,we might lose games?

I saw it,there wasn't much said by Yost.Lots of very short yes/no answers to questions asked,with very little added on except for he brought up that he thought the wind played a factor in Hart not catching that deep ball in left center.Ned then just got up and said the interview was over.

Whatever is done with Yost,i hope that choice is left up to Doug Melvin,not the owner deciding to overrule the GM.One of the best things the Packers ever did was hire a strong GM and let that person choose the players and head coach.That way the GM has nothing standing in his way to whether the team succeeds or fails except for his own decisions.If Yost is part of the problem and waits to long to act this year or next year,then Melvin only has himself to blame. An owner hires a GM because that man is supposed to know more about the game than the owner.If the owner starts not believing enough in his GM that he makes important moves like who manages the team instead of the GM deciding it,that's usually not a good sign IMO.

I haven't watched a single non-Brewers baseball game this year besides the All-Star game.I do love watching Brewers baseball,but can't get interested in any other team unless i have money riding on them.I've tried watching a few non-Brewers games and get bored after a few minutes,end up changing the channel unless it's a close Cubs game. I'll watch the playoffs because i'll place some wagers,other than that though,i don't care what teams make the playoffs or not.I can't get into watching other baseball teams like i can sit and watch pro/college football that doesn't involve the Packers/Badgers or college basketball.

That's a little unfair. There are a number of teams which would like to have Wickman close for them, this year and next. He'll also get picked up by someone, without question. I hope it is us, and I hope for little cost. Yep Borowski is closing in Cleveland with an ERA over five,Wickman should be able to help a number of contending teams as a setup man at the very least.