danzig6767

Yea, that generally has seemed to be the case. Sometimes there will be stories about random Boras clients who supposedly aren't drawing as much interest as expected, then the player ends up getting his big money. I have no idea who Prince will end up signing with and/or if Boras can get the 7-8 years he's trying to get for Fielder, but i have no doubt that eventually some team will pony up way more cash than the Brewers could ever he bother considering.

Tons of players get hurt every year for a wide variety of reasons. Just because a few pitchers each year miss some time while getting injured running the bases or at the plate doesn't mean baseball needs to further worsen the game by extending the DH to the NL also. Injuries are part of the game. As for most pitchers not being good hitters, to that i say so what. They can bunt then when a runner/runners are on base and besides my liking of NL managers often enough being forced to make decisions on whether to keep in a starter doing well when their team is behind, i also enjoy the fun or frustration when pitchers do manage to get hits, especially when it drives in runs. I'm old enough to remember watching quite a few years of the Brewers being in the AL and i don't regret one bit them switching to the NL. Ideally for me, the AL would drop the DH so both leagues played by the same rules, but the union clearly won't go for that. So while i'd prefer both leagues being uniform, i'll pass on that if it means bringing the DH to the NL. FWIW, this has zero to do with "tradition" for me. I simply watch games played by the two leagues and find myself being glad the Brewers are in the NL. Then again, the DH debate is often useless because i can't remember seeing someone change their mind.

Sanchez has very similar home/road splits actually. He's great at limiting hits per innings pitched, but obviously walks way to many batters and odds are against that changing. I like the trade better from the Royals side of things given how hard it can be to find competent starting pitching, but i don't think it was some rape of a trade either unless Sanchez somehow manages to walk less hitters going forward.

Sabean has made his share of head scratching moves and i thought i read that ownership drove the signing of Zito more than Sabean did, but either way the Giants have won a lot of games with him as GM, including a championship. I'd take that if i was a Giants fan, regardless if some of his moves were dumb. Bottom line W-L results matter above all else.

The other question is which teams besides the Brewers badly need a shortstop?

I'm all for trying to sign Barmes, but 10 million is to much IMO for Pena since he has to be platooned given he's absolutely atrocious vs lefthanders.

Not to mention, Braun has never called out another player for watching their HR. Thats the problem I think most people have with Pujols watching his. Bingo. I don't care much for players watching their HR but if you are going to call out other players for a certain behavior you cannot do the same behavior yourself.I don't get why so many baseball fans have an issue with hitters admiring home runs? This is professional baseball, not little league. If a hitter destroys a pitch, i have zero problem with that guy admiring his work. Hitting a bomb is hard to do. I understand why most baseball fans don't want to see the sport turning into some other sports where guys often dance or pose after doing things in a game that aren't even anything that special, but that doesn't mean the players all have to act like the same behave a certain way robots? That said, i think there can still be room in baseball for players to show some personality or staring at the ball after doing things like hitting a bomb. Manny for example would do it sometimes and i found it good entertainment. Same for the Brewers this year. I grew tired of the forced over the top type of interviews by Nyjer Morgan after games where he did something good, but i just didn't understand why so many non-Brewers baseball fans had such a big issue with our team/players having fun on the field in the fashion that they did?

Reading through some of that thread, kramnoj used A-Rod as a contract structure example and posted the contract with the Yankees It's not a rule that it be like that. Arod's deal is structured differently 08:$27M, 09:$32M, 10:$32M, 11:$31M, 12:$29M, 13:$28M, 14:$25M, 15:$21M, 16:$20M, 17:$20M Wow. I knew the Yankees stilled owed A-Rod a ton of cash and years, but actually seeing the figures broken down like that combined with the obvious decline in skills of Rodriguez, that's going to be interesting to see what happens with him/the Yankees if by say year 2014, Alex is near totally washed up? Would the Yanks just cut him or put him on the bench for three years and 60 million? Not only that, Jeter has two years and 30 million left. He could easily fall completely off the cliff as a hitter next year or in 2013, to combine with his Betancourt like range at shortstop. That said, Yankees obviously have massive resources, but it'll be interesting to watch what if/when money owed and the status of both players put the Yanks in a box by a massive decline in play.

Good lord! Check out some of the quotes from that article: Mind-boggling. This from the man that manages Albert Pujols-a man who has admired more 380 foot flyouts than most players hit in their careers. Mind-boggling indeed. Not mind boggling, LaRussa simply is a hypocrite. I'm not trying to defend LaRussa in saying this, but in watching sports for a long time, tons of fans and some players, coaches, or managers in sports often use very selective rationalization when trying to bash athletes on other teams for certain behavior, while being way more willing to defend certain types of behavior by an athlete if that guy plays on their team and is productive. This is largely why Morgan is loved by most Brewers fans, but disliked by most other baseball fans. It's why LaRussa and the vast majority of Cardinals fans will defend Carpenter, but then will complain about the behavior of other players. Generally, it takes a athlete to do something unseemly off the field before a local fan base will turn on a productive player, whereas certain type of antics can make that player disliked among most other baseball fans across the country. The reason for this is obvious. Above all else sports fans want their team to win and so long as a productive player isn't out there beating/groping random women, driving hammered, carrying guns, etc, most fans simply will be more willing to overlook or at least try to rationalize away antics on the field of that player compared to fans of other team. Same for many coaches and players.

Truth has hit my feelings on SS as well. However, I really like going to Barmes over Carroll. Carroll's going to be 38 next year - not the guy you want at SS for 130 or 140 games. And he's not a great fielder, so that will only get worse. I like Barmes' glove a lot, and the 23 HR he hit a few years ago makes him intriguing in the power department. I wouldn't expect a high OBP, but a .700 OPS with good fielding would be welcome.Baring a trade, Barmes is the number one shortstop that i hope Melvin targets. Carroll is just to old and isn't a good defensive player. Barmes kinda strikes me as Betancout offensively, but with a bit better OBP ability and vastly superior range at short. I'd be more than fine with that. Watching Furcal and Andrus especially play shortstop in the World Series, the range they have compared to Betancourt is such a wide gulf and Barmes would be a welcome site to start improving the Brewers team defense. If Barmes went elsewhere, i'd like Doug to look at Scutaro, but i don't watch AL baseball and thus i don't know how he is defensively. I could look up his defensive metrics, but unlike many here, i'm fairly skeptical of defensive metrics. Not that i think defensive metrics are worthless, just that they should be used in correlation with the eyeball test. As just a hitter though, Scutaro would top my list of wants this offseason at shortstop. If his range is at least just solid, he'd pass Barmes as my number one hope.

Fiers has almost no value. Schafer is a C prospect. This would be more like Peralta/Gindl/One of the first round pitchers from last year and maybe the Jays would listen. Escobar is one of the best SS in the league. I laugh at your Fiers comment. And a good handful of teams will prefer Schafer and his CF potential to that of a tiny corner OF (as long as we are in "putdown mode" for brewers prospects). Toronto isn't trading Escobar after stealing him from Atlanta, much less for guys you listed.

Good job of cherry picking one sentence and ignoring the larger point I was making. They got lucky this year, if you really believe that is some sort of "Magical Skill" RRR has, I expect it to be duplicated for as long as he is a manager. Also, 2nd, and 3rd order winning percentages show the team overperformed by a solid 4 wins.We had a great back end of the pen and thus won lots of close 1-2 run games, probably higher than the norm.

I was frustrated by the play in the Cardinals series as much as anyone else, but what this season brought for me the most is remembering again just how intense and exciting playoff baseball is. I had forgotten that after pretty much 25 plus years of futility. Unlike many here, i've always been a bigger Packers fan than Brewers fan. I never thought any other sporting event could cause the level of nerves i get for Packers playoff games, so i was a bit caught off guard by just how high the stress level had reached for me during this Brewers playoffs run. Obviously i knew they'd be intense, but i didn't quite expect to get that Packers playoff game level of nerves for pretty much all of these playoff games besides the blowout ones. Any game that was been close at times was excruciating to watch and with baseball playoffs being one game after another, unlike once a week for football, i'm had to get used to that level of tension night after night. Now that it's over, i already miss having that nervous tension to look forward to each night and i want it back again next year. The extreme high of like the Nyjer hit in Game 5 or the excruciating tension brought about in the 8th and 9th innings of that same game where each pitch was torture to watch. I finally have the playoff taste back after decades of forgetting completely just how much fun it is to be apart of.

I understand why many baseball fans don't want to see baseball turn into football where baseball players start doing a dance after nearly any nice play. That said, i liked that the Brewers played with some personality compared to the robotic nature most players and teams in baseball play with. For me at least, i like seeing some personalities in baseball like say Manny did, even though sometimes he did things i didn't care for. Since the Brewers players weren't showing up the other team, i don't get why some people on other teams had an issue with the flare/fun the Brewers played with? Also, fans enjoy watching their team play with some emotion, so long as it's not silly or doing it a lot if the team is playing really poorly. Being 18 games under .500 and doing antics would probably come off bad. One change though i'd like to see is if Nyjer is back, tone down the whole Tony Plush stuff in interviews. I found it amusing at first, but then it struck me as to planned and forced as he started receiving so much media attention, to the point sometimes his interviews made me cringe.

I agree I never felt that the Beast mode stuff this year was forced or phony bravado, it just kinda happened initially in a spontaneous fashion and the team ran with it. Enjoyed it in a team bonding fashion and it also ended up helping bring more energy to the ballpark after the fans embraced the Beast Mode. Come next year though, i'm fairly certain that it will be retired and should be. It was fun for a one year deal on a certain team, but i do think it would look dumb to me if any players tried bringing it back again next year.

Or 1B. Hart is a below average outfielder, at least in my view. Braun surpassed him as a defender a few years ago. I would hope the Brewers at least try it in spring training. Maybe ask Gamel to play RF in Winter Ball? Hart has always lacked instincts as an outfielder, but until recently, he at least had the speed to sometimes run down balls in his area. For whatever reason though, his speed fell off the cliff over the last year or so and now it's painful to watch him in RF. Plus, his arm isn't strong and never has been accurate. Gamel would at least bring more speed to RF and a much better arm. At firstbase, Hart would offer much more height/length compared to Prince. SS-- As others have mentioned, Barmes is the guy i really really hope that Melvin targets and can get signed. Big upgrade defensively and tolerable at the plate. 3rd-- Hopefully Green gets all the at bats vs righthanders and platoons with either Hairston or McGehee vs lefthanders depending on who returns. 1st-- Move Hart there please, it was painful watching him in RF fail repeatedly to make any important plays. RF-- Gamel and in case he struggles vs lefties, maybe add a Cody Ross or Reed Johnson type as a RH bench player that hits lefties pretty good and could platoon with Gamel if needed. Plus, at the way his speed declined so noticeably, it could decline even more next year. SP-- Leave it alone RP-- See if Saito will come back on a similar one year deal with incentives. Shop McGehee and see if a team might give up a RP if that team feels Casey would rebound while still being cheap? Hope Kitzler becomes a key cog. Relief pitchers can often be unpredictable, hopefully in whatever way Doug finds a power arm to become a reliable 7th/8th inning guy. In today's baseball where starters don't go past 7 innings very often, those 7th/8th/9th inning guys are so much more important today. Good luck trying to get in the playoffs and have success there when your main back-end relievers are way to often blowing should be win games. Look at St. Louis before their pen stabilized and even the Brewers when Loe was the main setup guy, lots of very frustrating late game blown leads. Braddock coming back and effective would also help immensely.

I'll admit that i don't know what the defensive metrics say, partially because IMO defensive metrics are something to lacking in the kind of reliability that many offensive stats have. To just my eyes when watching Braun out there, he does sometimes take poor angles or misjudge balls, but i think there has been noticeable improvement in that aspect. Ryan does have nice speed though which allows him to run down balls that lesser that lesser athletes in LF can't, and his strong arm has become more accurate. I'd compare Braun a bit to Hart in the outfield early in his career when Hart could really run, but now his speed has totally nosedived. It's been kinda shocking to me at times this year when watching Hart try to run down balls and seeing him running like he's at the end of a 100 yard sprint the whole time.

What? The first error went through the legs of Hairston. That Weeks throw was atrocious and no fault to Prince. Betancourt gagged a ball weakly hit to him. Hart yet again misjudged a ball hit over his head, even though RR has Hart playing deep. Weeks dropped that flare which hit right on his glove that also lead to a run. We've been hurt badly multiple times in the series on hit balls that were hits, but either could have been outs or should have been outs, besides the errors tonight. Game 2-- In that 3rd inning, the pitcher Jackson gets on after Morgan gets a bad jump on a blooper that falls in. Plus, why was Nyjer playing so deep for Jackson? After a should be DP grounder to third by Jay gets through because of a hit and run, Pujols hits a rocket to center. Certainly not an easy play, but Morgan struggled yet again tracking a ball hit over his head, looking ugly in the process, and it became a 2-run double. Making a fairly tough play in key spots is often huge in the playoffs. Let's not forget either that earlier in the at bat Hart failed to catch that foul ball flare by Pujols where Hart looked like he was running in mud. Man his speed has fallen off a cliff. Game 3-- Kotsay who shouldn't have been in CF fails to catch a sinking liner/bloop by Jay that both Morgan/Gomez get to. Pujols comes up next and hits a double in the gap that at first i thought neither of Morgan/Gomez get to. Seeing that hit multiple times on highlights, the ball hung up longer than i initially thought and landed only about 5 feet from Kotsay. I'm near 100 percent certain that Gomez tracks that ball down. Morgan it's about 50/50. If he gets a good jump off the bat, Morgan catches it given he's so much faster. Finally, Hart fails to catch that fly which hits his glove. Not an easy play, but needed to be made. Instead of the score being either 0-0 or 1-0 after the first inning, we were down 4-0 in a game we lost 4-3. Game 5-- Hart fails yet again to make kinda a tough catch where he again tracks it wrong. Two run error by Hairston. Weeks drops a flare not called an error, but it hit his glove and needed to be caught. Leads to another run. This stuff has three times put the team down in a sizable hole, not just a single run and all three were a loss. One bummer is that Holliday/Berkman are below average defensively, but probably some by pure fluke, no balls which would be tougher plays have been hit in their direction while Hart keeps having important balls hit by him where the team badly needs him to make a play and instead he just keeps failing to do so on any of them.

With their bullpen in such better shape compared to the first half of the year along with trade additions made, i think they are better overall. Better lineup and defense. The pens are probably a push and with how LaRussa can use his pen like this because of days off, it negates weaknesses in their rotation.

I believe the whole point of those wanting to start Narveson or Marcum was so that Greinke would be able to pitch at home. Now, this game is looking like it will most likely be a loss and Marcum is up next ..who on top of being a much better pitcher on the road this year, has been pitching terribly as of late. And the whole point of those against it was because home/road splits aren't some magical thing. You pitch your best pitchers on normal rest whenever possible. This was Greinke's time due up so you pitch him. He even said he hates pitching on longer rest.Plus, even though Greinke hasn't been great tonight, he could have still been in the game with the score 1-1 had his defense behind him not been atrocious.

It could even be 1-0 Brewers had Hart caught that ball in the first inning. But either way, we should be sitting here in a close 1-1 or 2-1 game at worst.

I'd play someone else at second in Game 6 for Weeks if we had an alternative

That hanging curve was anything but. Braun obviously was looking fastball

Weeks for the most part has looked awful at the plate since coming off the DL.

It didn't work because we didn't score. It really isn't about Wolf, it is about maximizing your offense and trusting your very deep bullpen. I agree, a 5-2 lead vs 4-2 would be huge. Bring in Lucroy and Gomez to try and scratch at least one more run. Now we still are in that danger zone of one guy gets on and a homer ties it.