danzig6767

12 I would have had no problem with using Kintzler had Thornburg thrown more pitches than 12. With so few pitches thrown though, i just don't get why so many managers in today's baseball have decided that late inning relief pitchers should only be allowed to pitch one inning, regardless of how effective and how few pitches that guy had thrown the previous inning. It's pretty amazing how nearly all managers have turned into robots when it comes to bullpen usage in close games from the 7th inning on if their team is ahead. A pitcher could come in the 7th inning and strike out the side on only 9 pitches, yet get pulled for the 8th inning because today's manager handbook says late inning relief pitchers are only allowed to throw one inning unless a game is in extra innings. This started around 8-10 years ago in baseball and now nearly all managers for whatever reason follow a very similar formula based more on a pretty rigid plan, without factoring in stuff like did a guy throw a low number of pitches in an effective previous inning.

I often used to read forums of other teams and it was funny how many fans of pretty much every forum i ever read thought their manager was an idiot. Well, after the Brewers hot start i took a peek at the Cardinals, Pirates, and Reds forums. A bunch of Pirates fans were ripping Hurdle and calling him a clueless idiot who had no idea how to use a bullpen, challenge calls, and various other things. The one one that surprised me a bit, but probably shouldn't have was the Cardinals forum. The level of hate for Matheny was incredible. One thread after another blaming him for losses, saying he was utterly incompetent, and the worst manager in baseball by far. So that's just how the vast majority of baseball forums are when it comes to managers. Regardless if a baseball team is winning or losing, bashing the manager a lot is much more the norm than a manager being reasonably like by more posters than disliked or hated. The same holds true for most football and basketball head coaches.

What does that even mean when you say if Davis is "seeing the ball well" his hitting will be good? All year long he's been swinging at garbage, especially early in the count and thus much more often than not he finds himself in a defensive position by being say 0-1, 0-2, 1-2, etc in the count. Pitchers aren't stupid. There is tons of both video to watch and analytical data out there for pitchers to study on hitters throughout baseball. If they can clearly see that a hitter will regularly hack at balls out of the strikezone, pitchers will keep throwing that hitter lots of pitches off the plate, especially early in the count until that hitter shows that he'll stop foolishly hacking at almost anything. FWIW, i'm not giving up on Davis over just 110 at bats, but it shouldn't be very hard for him to look back at last year where he was much more patient at the plate and in turn had much better production.

Marco Estrada has as many walks as Davis, let that one sink in. The baffling thing is last year he walked 11 times in 136 at bats, yet this year he's only drawn one walk in 109 at bats. In the minors he drew walks at an above average rate. So why the hell is he showing worse than Yuni like impatience so far this year? And why are there zero signs of this getting better at all? I gotta assume that the hitting coach Narron brings this up and Davis also sees this when watching video of his at bats, so i'm really at a loss to grasp why it still keeps happening in nearly every at bat.

If Estrada can make it through the whole year healthy and i'm a team looking for a veteran starter, i might rather have Maco than Gallardo unless my team played in a bandbox park like say Cincinnati plays in. Even with his good start so far this year, i'm very skeptical that Gallardo can keep pitching really well. He still throws a lot of pitches outside the zone leading to many deep counts and his K rate remains on the decline. Hopefully i'm wrong, but as the team gets deeper into the season, i have a feeling that he'll finish closer to his 4 plus ERA of last year than the sub-4 ERA numbers of the past.

I heard Hardricourt on the radio the other day and i believe it was Drew Olsen who brought up a scenario like that. Hardricourt responded by saying that the league likely would look very closely at medical validity of any supposed injury to Wang to be sure it really was legit so as to not allow teams to easily circumvent the Rule 5 provision of forcing teams to keep those players on a big league roster all season. I won't claim to know just how correct Hardricourt was on this point, but it would seem to make sense to me that MLB wouldn't want to allow teams to select young Rule 5 prospects and then easily stash those guys on a long term DL stint with dubious injuries because then it could become commonplace.

I don't think the argument is that Wang has cost the Brewers wins so far. Instead, the problem is the fear of using him in any non-blowout is forcing other relief pitches to tack on extra appearances. That can be ok over 30 games, but over a full 162 game season if the Brewers remain in playoff contention, it becomes more problematic. This is precisely why really young Rule 5 pitchers don't often stick with teams over a full season, especially on good teams compared to bad teams with no playoff aspirations.

If it was the interview on Bill Michaels show, not exactly. Luc was asked if he would pitch Wang in a close game, to which he said - to his credit - 'no.' Lucroy noted that Wang's fastball velocity is great, and that his delivery makes it "sneaky fast" because it gets on the hitter so quickly; Wang's secondary pitches aren't major league ready yet, which makes it difficult to use him in high-leverage situations. (I don't usually listen to the show, but I happened to catch the interview on a drive back from the Courthouse.) Watching him pitch, nearly every hard hit ball has come on his fastball. Wang has a nice arm, but not electric type of arm where his fastball consistently sits in the say 94-97 range. So given he's still learning to command his secondary pitches, most MLB hitters are going to crush low 90's fastballs when they know they are coming. I really want to keep the kid, but the 20-8 start to the season certainly makes things more tricky. This is one of those situations where being a real GM brings really tough decisions. Wang's struggles make it really hard to use him in any situations except big deficits up or down, yet that makes it harder for him to be successful when actually used because he's rarely pitching. I don't know what i'd do if i was Melvin.

Is Weeks and Lucroy the extent of healthy guys on the bench tonight?

In defense of Schafer, he's yet to have a chance of any consistent playing time in the majors.

While everyone has focused mainly just on his hitting, Davis has played a very solid LF. With him, Gomez, and Braun, the team has a pretty athletic defensive outfield.

I was skeptical about keeping Duke on the roster, but he's been great and for a guy supposed to be mainly just a LOOGY, he's done a good job vs righthanded batters also.

Their pitching should keep them in contention all season, but last year for all of the gushing about just how "clutch" the Cardinals are because of their incredible stats with RISP, it should have been predictable that it couldn't be repeated. They have a good team, but it was fluke more than anything to hit so well lat year with RISP. If something like that was repeatable, we'd see other teams do it over multiple seasons. As i said though, if their rotation stays healthy along with their key position players, i'd be surprised to not see St. Louis in the playoff mix come September. Any rotation with a healthy Wainwright, Wacha, Miller, Lynn, and Kelly should end up winning at minimum 85 games.

The offense is going to struggle on a number of nights so long as the majority of the players swing way to often at pitches out of the strike zone and don't draw enough walks. Right now the Brewers sit 5th in batting average among all teams, but only 15th in OBP because they don't draw walks at a good enough rate. Wouldn't their BA drop if their approach was to draw more walks though? I would imagine 'trying to draw more walks' would cause an increase in strikeouts and decrease the amount of hits since batters deep in a count tend to take more of a defensive approach, whereas hitting a ball early in a count would have a better opportunity to be driven or put in play. Don't know if that's true, but I think it's probably more complicated that telling them "okay, be more patient" How would waiting for better pitches to hit cause the hitters to see a drop in their bating averages?

The offense is going to struggle on a number of nights so long as the majority of the players swing way to often at pitches out of the strike zone and don't draw enough walks. Right now the Brewers sit 5th in batting average among all teams, but only 15th in OBP because they don't draw walks at a good enough rate.

Segura's plate discipline is absolutely atrocious. He swings at anything.

In general i'd rather have Reynold starting vs Overbay, but whenever there is a runner on 3rd with less than two outs, i dread seeing him at the plate because he's such a K machine.

I don't really agree with that statement. For a team with a payroll in the 90-100 million range, i think you let the exact circumstances dictate where you spend the money. If the farm system had been better at drafting/developing starting pitchers, i'd rather pay say Wacha and Miller peanuts as the Cardinals are than pay Gallardo and Garza about 20 million per combined. Then use that saved money elsewhere. That wasn't the case though so money was spent on free agent starters.

Reynolds isn't ideal as a starting firstbaseman, but there didn't look to be many other options given we weren't the only team looking for a quality firstbaseman in the offseason and little happened. Multiple teams were interested in Ike Davis during the offseason, but the Mets were asking for to much, like wanting Thornburg from the Brewers. Loney i didn't want Melvin to give a pricey multi-year deal. I'd rather have Reynolds on a cheap one year deal than having caved to the Mets for Davis or given Loney a three year deal. As for relying to much on veterans over young prospects in the system, i think Doug has been ok on that front. He traded Aoki who was the leadoff hitter to allow Davis to start in left. Gennett is starting much more than Weeks. Segura was handed the starting job right away. Among the everyday players, i can't think of a single prospect in AAA or AA who i think should be starting instead. I'd probably rather see Morris on the team than Overbay though. On the pitching staff i can't see anyone in the minors who i think should currently be on the roster instead. Nelson likely is the guy who will be called up if/when a starter needs to go on the DL, so i'm fine with him being in AAA for now at least. Who am i missing?

The excessive bunting is annoying to me, but sometimes i do think it's somewhat of a close call. The incredible number of outs on the bases though has to be addressed by Roenicke. It's unacceptable, especially on a team who rarely ever walks and thus carries a poor OBP.

I agree that there is little to no chance Marco gets traded this year. Plus, that really should be no surprise when you look at the dwindling amount of trade deadline deals lately. It's been lots of rumors around the league before the deadline, but then the deadline passes with mostly a yawn as few notable deals actually happen. I think the main reason for that is teams more and more loathe the idea of trading cost controlled highly regarded prospects at the deadline. Hell, it's not just at the deadline anymore. In general we see less quality prospects being traded away than in the past. Come the offseason though, it certainly is possible that Estrada or Gallardo gets traded. That obviously would depend on what type of year the team ends up having and how each of those two produces. If the team say makes the playoffs this year, i see the odds being higher that if they traded Estrada, it would be for a veteran firstbaseman or one in AAA ready for the majors than some hard throwing pitcher a year or two away in the minors. Who knows though right now, way to many variables only 20 games into the season.

Yea, i was expecting Melvin haters to chime in, but i guess the good start makes it harder. One bad thing IMO of pretty much most forums whether it's about sports or say politics is a number of posters tend to go to the extremes and thus X person is either great or a bumbling idiot, when often there instead are varying shades of gray. Even for those here who like Melvin more than dislike him, the vast majority of them have still been annoyed by a variety of his decisions over the years, obviously his affinity for Yuni Betancourt being at or near the top of the list. I by no means believe that Doug is say a top 2 or 3 GM in baseball, but he's not the clueless idiot which some seem to think also. Plus, he has to work under the perimeters of an owner who clearly is not mainly just a silent partner who sets a budget and then allows his front office to do as they please, like how Ted Thompson of the Packers is allowed to do. While the current roster has it's flaws, what i do like is the nice mix of quality older veterans, in their prime vets, and youth. Teams that win generally have that sort of mix. My biggest concern is the lack of patient hitters. It would seem that any offense who draws so few walks will eventually start paying for it, even worse when they keep making dumb outs on the bases.

Yea, having a guy in the bullpen getting one appearance roughly every ten games is simply going to add appearances on to every other guy in the pen. That can't be sustained for months, much less a whole season. Plus, you have very young pitcher barely ever being used and while bullpen sessions are better than nothing, it's got to be very hard for him to do well in the rare spots he'll get used if his live game action is so limited. So how Wang is being used hurts everyone else in the bullpen and makes it harder on him to be productive.

I'm going to be way more generous than I should and assume Hunter could carry a 7% walk rate and a 22% K rate in the big leagues. These is about what he accomplished in in '12 and '13 in the high minors. In reality these numbers would almost certainly be worse in the minors, but this is a best case scenario. There is one player who has managed to put up an above replacement level value in the past ten years with those numbers or worse at 1B or DH, and that's Chris Davis in 08 and 12. That's a guy who has always graded out with ++ power that Morris doesn't have, and still he struggled through 5 years of mediocrity or worse. It's pretty simple really, if you're going to give up a greater than average number of outs to K's, and draw a below average number of walks than you either need to play a premium defensive position or have elite power. Hunter needs to take a huge step forward with his approach to be a major league player, and by all indications he hasn't done this. It would be one thing if he could mix in a bit in LF or 3b, but he can't even play average D at first. He hasn't earned to right to be even be in the discussion for a roster spot. He's a non-prospect in 25+ organizations, and the fact so many can squint and see a major leaguer is a testament to how awful our I doubt many want Morris being called up to be the everyday guy at firstbase, but it's not crazy to ask if he'd be a better backup option to Reynolds than Overbay currently is. Then again, as long as Weeks is kept and wasting a roster spot, maybe it would be best to dump Overbay and keep someone on the team with more position flexibility? How much longer can they keep both Weeks/Overbay on the roster given each can only play one position and neither can hit well anymore? In the case of Rickie it's even worse because he's such a defensive liability also.

Two of my favorite non-Brewers ever were Manny Ramirez and Ricky Henderson. Yea, i get that many fans didn't like the flair which both played with, but i simply found both to be very entertaining besides being great players. To me, baseball needs some big personalities to mix in with with the majority who are very humble and more stoic in their actions. I generally like the passion and flair which Gomez plays with given how hard he also plays, but i didn't care for him trotting to first on a ball which didn't land over the fence. He said that he wasn't admiring the ball and instead thought it was going to be an out. I'm skeptical of that. Either way, i never begrudge any hitter who admires a bomb hit for a second or two, but if you are going to do that, the hitter better be sure the ball really is gone because it looks bad admiring a ball which stays in the yard, especially if the ball isn't caught and the guy doesn't get as far on the bases as he should have.