danzig6767

While it is nice to know that it's a lock that the Brewers will be in the playoffs this year, St. Louis tailing off so much has taken some of that nervous tension out of watching these Brewer games for me. That 2008 playoff run was more fun to watch for me because each game in September felt so intense knowing that each win or loss had serious impact on making the playoffs. I'm not saying at all that it's no fun to watch this current Brewers team be so dominant since the start of August, it's been great fun and we still have to stay ahead of Arizona for home field in the first round. There is just something special though about following a team in a heated chase for a playoff berth all through Sptember as each game feels so incredibly important.

I'm sure that's what Roenicke (and maybe Melvin) are thinking. But I don't think it really matters. I highly doubt Gamel would come up and start complaining and become a cancer. He would probably love the chance to just be part of this playoff clinching stretch. And it's not like he's some kid or something. He's only a year younger than Fielder and older than Lucroy/Yo. Yea, i can't envision any chance that Gamel would be some unhappy grouch if he came up and rarely got in games except for some random pinch hitting opportunities. Pretty much any guy toiling around in the minors would be thrilled at the chance to travel around with the big league club, even more so with a team 10 games ahead in first place. Plus, even though the division race is over, being able to stay ahead of Arizona is far from being decided. If Gamel was able to get a key pinch hit or two which helped decide a game instead of say Counsell being forced to hit and in turn it helped keep the Brewers away from opening the playoffs in Philadelphia, his being up would be well worth it. I guess i can understand not wanting to call up an extremely excessive number of guys, but Gamel and one more pitcher wouldn't be that excessive. The roster would only be at 30 players. I have to assume that Gamel is very disappointed over this. He moved positions yet again for the organization and had a fine season in AAA, i'd guess he thought it was fairly certain he'd be one of those called up.

Hopefully better production both at the plate and in the field at the shortstop position, instead of the mostly bad production from Yuni except for one hot stretch at the plate after the All-Star break. While i'd like to see Green get at least 2-3 starts week in place of Casey vs righthanded starters, i no longer feel total dread when McGehee comes up with runners on base and am reasonably confident that he can continue this roughly .800 OPS pace through the rest of the year as he's done since August 1st. Betancourt on the other hand was near certain to regress big time from his hot stretch at the plate and his range at SS was certain to remain non-existent. We are only a month away from the playoffs starting and Arizona is only three games back for the second best record in the NL. Not only don't i want Arizona catching the Brewers, i definitely don't want to be in a playoff series and say in a close game with runners on base, see a ball sneak past Betancourt into an outfield for a crucial "hit" that Hairston or 95% of other shortstops very well could have the range instead to get to. Every play in a close game in the playoffs gets magnified, and all these balls that Yuni is barely unable to get to which result in hits could instead be a killer when talking about 5 or 7 games series.

What i don't get is why anyone would care in the slightest what type of Brewers jersey that some fans prefer buying over other ones? I don't think those early to mid-80's Brewers uniforms and hat logo were as cool looking as many others do, but big deal. People like what they like and enough love those 80's jerseys to fork down cash to buy them. I see no reason to believe that this in turn cuts into over jersey/merchandise sales at all. Whenever i go to games, i see 80's merchandise all over the place, which is only a positive financially for the team.

I suspect that the Brewers are simply subjectively deciding which plays would have been outs with normal positioning. I would be surprised if a Brewer employee could be unbiased doing so and it would be hard to determine even if bias isn't a concern. Of course, I am just speculating. As for my personal opinion just from watching? I have absolutely no idea. I can remember many, many plays going both ways. How can anyone claim to keep track of the results of thousands of balls in play?I would sure hope and assume that the coaching staff working with the numbers crunchers and/or video staff which break down film of everything would be unbiased among themselves at least when it comes to evaluating all the shifting they do among the infielders. Without questioning themselves, they would be harming themselves in regards to deciding whether to continue doing all the shifting that they do. Of course on many of these type of plays, it won't be near as black or white as other plays in trying to decide whether the shift on a given play likely helped create an out or a hit, or had no impact. Still, even with many ground balls on defensive shifts being vague to varying degrees as to the impact of the shift, i would think that they could determine with quite a bit of certainty as to whether the shifts have helped more, harmed more, or was fairly neutral.

Except of course that no one actually said we gave up great prospects; a lot of us just expressed the hope that we hadn't. You know what they say about people who live in glass asylums? No, you probably don't. What an amazing freaking trade. Of course the Mets did what they had to, but this is classic DM at his best -- seeing opportunity and taking advantage. I could be wrong about this, but it seems to me that Melvin pulls off more trades than the majority of other GM's in the league. I recall listening to a podcast somewhere with a former GM who's name i forget and Melvin was brought up. This guy said something to the effect that Doug is well respected and liked among the GM fraternity when it comes to making trades because i guess unlike many other GM's, Doug rarely tries playing games in prolonging talks between teams by making one or multiple really stupid/insulting type of offers which have a very little realistic chance of completing the trade. He said that generally if Melvin wants to trade for a player, he'll make initial offers which are close to his set limit and then if a team isn't interested, he'll move on unless they call him back.

Come to think of it, now i do recall Homer asking about the baserunning and no way has it lead to more positives than negatives except for Roenicke giving Braun pretty much the green light to steal bases. On trying to take an extra base after hits though, it's definitely resulted in to many outs to justify all the attempts. At least that has mostly come to a halt compared to the first 40-50 games or so where i've never seen a team run into more outs on the bases. That said, it sure has seemed to me that the aggressive shifting of the infielders has helped cover for shortcomings defensively among the infielders. There have been countless times where after a ball was initially hit that i was quite sure it would be getting into the outfield, but instead one of our infielders was standing right there to field the ball because of a shift. Much more so than times where a ball ending up getting through, mainly because say the shortstop or secondbaseman had vacated their typical spot because of a shift.

Yea, most of the hype over what Melvin did this year was getting Greinke/Marcum, but getting both of Morgan and K-Rod for basically nothing were absolutely fabulous moves. While Doug certainly has made his share of mistakes over the years by way overpaying for some bullpen veterans, our pen this year is fabulous and not overly expensive. Some fans IMO don't think about and then give Melvin enough credit for bringing in Axford off the bartender scrap heap, now Ax is a top 5 closer and paid pocket change. A sizable reason that we lead St. Louis by so many games is that Axford never blows saves while the Cardinals having been blowing late leads all year long. Loe was used wrong early in the season, but overall i think he's a solid relief pitcher and Doug got him for nothing. Saito has been a solid pickup given he's not paid much. Estrada was grabbed off waivers and overall has been more an asset than liability. No question that starting pitching is more important than the bullpen, but that said, it's pretty rare to see any team make the playoffs without a solid bullpen at the very least and Doug has assembled a good one this year. In fact, Melvin has had a knack for acquiring quality relievers over the years who either were out of baseball or languishing elsewhere. It's mainly been his giving multi-year deals to veteran relievers where he's faltered.

For the very stat minded folks here, has anyone/any site looked into the effects of Roenicke's very aggressive approach at shifting his infielders per each batter? I ask because Roenicke was on Homer about a week ago and he was asked about his aggressive defensive shifting compared to most other teams. Homer later asked Roenicke if the team tracked the estimated number of outs saved vs outs given up based on whether the defense was instead in a traditional alignment on the infield. Roenicke stated that the team was way ahead in outs saved and just watching the games over this season i'd be inclined to believe that he was correct, but with the insane amount of data out there today, i was curious if anything tracked what Roenicke does by shifting defenders on pretty much every hitter? More so than i notice other teams doing.

Just because the Brewers win doesn't mean he's making good decisions. They are winning in spite of his decisions (i.e. they are getting great pitching) Roenicke has made numerous decisions like yesterday which left me really scratching my head questioning what the hell he was thinking. That said, for as many outs as many here believe Roenicke wastes by bunting so much, especially with Morgan, i have no doubt that his very aggressive defensive shifts have saved more outs than it contributed to hits, maybe by a fairly significant amount. During an in game thread, if say a bunt happens many posters will often be very upset and talking about wasting an out. In a fair number of instances, i'll agree with that views of others. Then again, if the bunt helps lead to a run/runs or multiples squeeze plays ended up being a walk off win, Roenicke won't be given credit. Also, on the very numerous plays on the infield where the heavy shifting allowed for a base hit to turn into an out or double play instead, it's not like there will be posters saying great job RR for that shift which likely created an out/outs and may have also saved a run or runs. In fact, if someone charted this enough to try and gauge the number of outs saved by Roenicke's willingness to shift his defenders more aggressively than all to nearly all other managers, it may have ended up saving more outs than all bunting outs combined, discounting pitchers. This wouldn't include the many times where bunting has lead to positive things be it Morgan also getting getting base from a great bunt, not just moving the runner over which also sometimes allowed Weeks or Hart to score on a single. The multiple successful squeeze plays. Again, i agree that Roenicke has made to many really head scratching moves which made little sense, but at the same time i don't think he gets anywhere near the same amount of credit for things he's done well or that worked out better than many here disagreed with, compared to the venom he gets when he does dumb things which make little sense and deserve some strong questioning.

I think that there is little question that Roenicke has avoided using Green earlier because he didn't want to put a rookie right away into roles that have been almost entirely filled by veterans who have been there all year, except for Hairston. That said, this is major league baseball, not little league and doing the best things to win game has to be priority number one over certain players feelings. I've obviously never been a player in a professional locker room though, thus i don't have any clue how that type of dynamic effects truly does impact a locker room when a new guy comes up from the minors, then pretty quickly bites into the playing time of a well liked veteran who isn't playing up to his career norms? If say Roenicke had inserted Green into the lineup right away at third whenever a righthander was on the mound and had some success, i wonder if Taylor would feel at least a bit uncomfortable? I still remember many years ago when George Karl was coaching the Bucks and they had that unexpected year where the team made it to the ECF's, but lost to Philly. Karl was asked about what he felt that he had improved on most as coach compared to his earlier days and he said that his biggest improvement was understanding the importance of managing egos. He said that he learned that many coaches in the NBA, be it head coaches or assistant coaches, they all had a fairly equal grasp of the XXX's and OOO's of the game, but the best coaches knew how to read a locker room, manage egos, and get them to function as a team instead mostly individuals. Granted though, basketball takes much more teamwork for a team to have success compared to baseball which is more a one on one type of game. So as fans who have never been in the locker room of a professional sports team, it's near impossible to know just how much impact a coach or manager has, negative or positive by how they handle the 13, 25, or 53 different personalities and egos in a locker room. This could very well be overrated or underrated to a degree by many fans. I think it matters quite a bit in the NBA especially, but in baseball, i have no idea. Last year, many of the players seemed to despise Macha, yet i don't feel the team underachieved given the miserable pitching staff.

Same. It's super fast and so few people use Canal. Bingo That said, when you have a sellout game in which the game is close until the very end, thus very few people leave early, being stuck in traffic is often inevitable. Unless someone has somewhere to go after the game, being stuck in traffic and extra 15-20 minutes isn't something people should overly stress over IMO. I went to Six Flags on Saturday and had to leave later than normal, about 20 after one. On the way there my buddy and i had to pick my daughter/her boyfriend who live right off highway G by Seven Mile Fair. I got on the expressway by Loomis and Layton and instead of it taking about 10-15 minutes to get to my daughter, it took about an hour and fifteen minutes because the mix of construction and a semi died right before the airport exit which forced countless cars to merge back into the chaos. Now that was frustrating and there was nowhere to get off the expressway. Then my buddies car starts overheating, we left my place at 1:20 and got to Six Flags at a 3:45 on what normally is a 45 minute ride. It's unexpected traffic jams that really bother me, especially if i'm going somewhere and kinda pressed for time. I rarely ever though stress about excessive causing it to take longer to get home after a Brewers game.

Of all the options Roenicke had with Betancourt at the plate there, letting Yuni bunt instead of Counsell while Freese/Pujols stood right on top of the plate made about as much sense as it would be to pinch hit Wilson for Braun with the game on the line. With Freese and especially Pujols playing right on the plate, even if Roenicke had put the great bunter Counsell in to bunt for Betancourt, he's have to be perfect to get Prince over. Asking Yuni to get a perfect bunt down given the guy seems to have worse than little league bunting fundamentals with the wrap your whole hand around the bat stance, it would have taken a minor miracle to get Prince over. Plus, given the Cardinals defensive alignment, the odds of them being able to turn a double play on a ground ball were significantly diminished, while at the same time holes were opened up for a ground ball to get through.

One of Fielder's biggest weaknesses at first IMO is consistently digging out poor throws in the dirt. Does anyone know how Gamel is doing at that? A firstbaseman never gets an error for failing to dig out a poor throw in the dirt and they shouldn't get an error, but some guys at that position certainly do it better than others. Speaking of firstbase, the guy i'd like to see playing first next year is Hart and Gamel in RF if he can play there decently. Not only would Hart's height and length be a bonus on various different poor throws from infielders, his defense in RF is really going downhill as his speed diminishes. He has always struggled a lot at reading balls hit over his head, just look at a few fly balls he butchered in this current series with the Pirates. His arm is also terrible and inaccurate. The one strength he used to have in the outfield though was his speed to run down balls hit in the gap or to the left of him, but with his speed noticeably diminishing, there isn't much left to like about his defense in RF.

Were all three of these deals roughly 5yrs/80-85 million tacked on to start after their final arbitration year is over, so basically the teams own that pitcher for 6 years? Either way, i'm not understanding your math here because all three would have likely received at least 15 million in their final arbitration year without the extensions, so how are you turning their deals from 5yrs/80 million to 5yrs/100 million? Keep in mind, people here are saying that Melvin should offer a similar deal this offseason while Greinke has one year left, jest as Weaver, Felix, and Verlander had. All the deals, other than Weavers, were signed with two years left before FA. So, if you sign a deal, buying out 3 years of FA and 2 years of Arby, it's really (by the 40-60-80 rule), like signing a 4.4 year deal, so 85/4.4 = 19.3M.Thanks Sounds like Boras/Weaver took a pretty team friendly deal then which is surprising.

Well, if say they give an extension to Greinke and/or Marcum in the offseason, it could put more pressure on Melvin to at least let Gamel start the year at first because if he was productive, Gamel then would be both productive and very cheap. Gamel becoming at least a solid hitting firstbaseman next year and going forward would be huge for the Brewers from a financial perspective. Let's not forget that Weeks and Gallardo will now be making quite a bit more money as their contracts kick in. Braun will make more next year. Replacing Fielder's salary with a minimum wage one would be great for financial flexibility.

So if say Green is called up September 1st and hit great off the bench, he couldn't be added to the playoff roster because he was added after August 31st? The only exception to that rule is if say McGehee got hurt middle of September and put on the DL, thus Green could replace Casey on the playoff roster even though he was called up in September? Sorry for asking, i just never paid attention to these rules. As for Braddock, is he still dealing with that sleep disorder?

Were all three of these deals roughly 5yrs/80-85 million tacked on to start after their final arbitration year is over, so basically the teams own that pitcher for 6 years? Either way, i'm not understanding your math here because all three would have likely received at least 15 million in their final arbitration year without the extensions, so how are you turning their deals from 5yrs/80 million to 5yrs/100 million? Keep in mind, people here are saying that Melvin should offer a similar deal this offseason while Greinke has one year left, jest as Weaver, Felix, and Verlander had.

We already have two lefty bat options in the minors

My dog is obsessed with going on walks and absolutely loves to just go sniffing around new areas which i generally allow him to do, and i use a 25 foot leash so it allows him length to go sniffing around. That said, when people or cars are around i obviously want him closer to me, but in his younger days he wouldn't come at my command, i had to yank him to me. So what i did was simply shorten the amount of leash i gave him to sniff around if he didn't come at my command, to the point that sometimes he only had maybe 2-4 feet of leash to move with. Basically, he'd have no option except to walk right next to me which he doesn't like because he then can't go sniffing around grass and in bushes. After awhile, Tyson finally learned that he had to listen to me if he wanted to be able to have a lot of leash to sniff around places instead of walking right next to me. It didn't happen overnight, but now when i take him for walks i initially keep him right next to me and after a bit i let most of the long leash hit the ground. He'll almost always then just stop and look up at me for my ok to say that he can go sniff around, instead of in the past he'd be pulling so hard to go that he'd nearly be choking himself.

It's annoying because if Wolf could just learn to work with Lucroy, they wouldn't have to start Kottaras against lefties/give Lucroy days off against them. It doesn't seem to have anything to do with liking Kottaras specifically. He used Nieves when he was up. It's just not liking Lucroy for some stupid reason.Obviously it's just some issue that Wolf has throwing to Lucroy and it may seem stupid to us, but if it really does negatively effect Wolf mentally when Lucroy is catching him, so be it. Wolf's ERA is probably misleading to a degree, but the bottom line his that him being so productive overall this year has been huge in the success of the team, so i'm not going to sweat Kottaras having to take some at bats here and there vs a lefthander. Plus, Roenicke has ended up being able to effectively use Lucroy late in a few games as a pinch hitter once Wolf exited, like tonight for example. Hopefully next year though Wolf and Lucroy can work through whatever seems to bother Wolf so much.

Hey, i was as down as anyone on the decision by Doug to make Betancourt the Brewers everyday shortstop this year and his defense is poor, but until his hitting slows down, i actually have no problem with Roenicke putting Yuni out there each game. Obviously he won't keep hitting at this ridiculously good clip, but until that time comes where Betancourt crashes back to earth that the plate, i would keep putting his name on the lineup card because his offense is more than covering for his defensive shortcomings.

I agree in wanting Hairston out in CF when a lefty is on the mound, but in those games i'd rather have Wilson playing 2nd instead of Lopez. Neither guy can hit, but i trust Wilson more defensively than Lopez. When a righty is on the mound, i agree in preferring Hairston at 2nd over Lopez. I can see why Doug gave Lopez a shot after Weeks got hurt, but he's not hitting, he's not good defensively, and he doesn't hustle out there. I know it won't happen, but i wish Melvin would just DFA Lopez and call up Green. Lopez serves no purpose on the roster with all three of Counsell, Wilson, and Hairston being able to cover infield spots, but at least Green would provide a better bench bat even if Roenicke would start Green at third vs some righthanders. Plus, if Green was productive, it would allow him to be on the playoff roster, assuming we made the playoffs.

Not just the rotation, the bullpen has also been fabulous. Ever since Melvin got K-Rod and Saito being healthy has also been key, the bullpen has been lights out for the most part. The rotation almost every night is going at least six innings and if a starter leaves the game with a lead or the score tied, our bullpen puts up mostly zeros and the end result is a win. Plus, because the rotation has been so effective and almost never melts down early in games, it's allowed the key bullpen arms to avoid being used in garbage situations simply to finish nine innings. Look how often last year starters either had to be yanked before the 5th inning and/or had to be pulled before finishing at least six innings, forcing the bullpen to regularly cover close to four innings or more. This year, we've had guys in the pen like Dillard currently who rarely even get into games and older veterans like Saito and Hawkins can be rested unless for when needed in close game situations. The team doesn't ever have to carry 13 pitchers and continually call arms up from the minors because the pen is gassed. When you think about the overall state of the pitching staff last season and where it is right now, it's been a pretty incredible reversal in just one season. Kudos to Doug for that.

Oddly enough there was a ton of venting about Gamel being called up and only being a bench player a couple years back. The idea was that a prospect should not sit the bench but should get consistent playing time in AAA. Gamel has been a bench player a couple times and the last time he had very little successI can only speak for myself, but when it comes to using legit prospects as bench players in the majors, a big factor would be the state of the team. On a team with only a slim or zero shot at the playoffs, i'd prefer keeping prospects in the minors playing everyday. On a team like this year's current Brewers though where a chance to make the playoffs hasn't been a longshot at all, then i'd be much more willing to use a prospect, even if that guy won't play everyday. Plus, if Green was brought up, he should start at least a couple times a week at 3rd vs righthanders, even if Roenicke didn't use a strict platoon like as he does in CF. Green also could be used fairly often as a pinch hitter since he'd pretty much be the only bench bat with extra base hit power on days where none of the regular players were given a day off. It would be nice to finally have someone on the bench with some pop for situations late in games with a runner or two on where a double or homer obviously would have more impact than a single. Say there are two outs in the 7th inning and we are down 4-2, with guys on 1st and 2nd, and a pinch hitter due up next. It would be nice to have a kid like Green to throw in there with at least some hope that he could get an extra base hit instead of our bench full of basically singles hitters at best.