danzig6767

I've long ago accepted that keeping Fielder beyond this season just wasn't going to happened simply because we can't afford to pay Prince both in dollars per season and contract length that someone else will give him. That said, i think you're making to big of assumptions about how easily Prince can be replaced. A huge bat in a lineup like Fielder is will be sorely missed unless Gamel is really productive next year and that's far from a given. I like Gamel and have reasonably high hopes for him as an everyday player in the bigs, but just as i could easily see him post an OPS in the .850-.875 range, i could just as easily see him only put up something in the .750 range. Of course Gamel likely would be an upgrade defensively, but the offense could take a significant hit if Gamel doesn't hit as well next year as we hope for. We aren't talking about just losing a high quality hitter in Prince, we are talking about losing arguably one of the top 5 best best hitters in the game. The play of the Brewers since the All-Star break though compared to last season has shown clearly how incredibly important it is to have quality pitching and so long as Melvin can replace adequately guys like K-Rod, Saito, and Hawkins in the bullpen, the pitching staff should be good again next year. It's gonna suck though for me to not have that Braun/Fielder duo in there every game in the middle of the order. They've been one of the best 3-4 combos in all of baseball for a few years now and probably the best in Brewers history. We may never see a pair of hitters like that again on a Brewers team. As for resigning Greinke and Marcum, i see very little chance that both could be extended at some point. I love watching Marcum pitch and maybe he can manage to both stay healthy and effective for another 3-4 years, but i'd rather let someone else take that risk than the Brewers unless he accepted a pretty team friendly deal, which is unlikely given he hasn't struck it rich yet in his career.

Lopez only jogged to first in the Cardinals series on a double play ball that wasn't your typical easy 6-4-3 DP. If there had been even the slightest bobble, a hustling player could beat out the play at first, but Lopez wouldn't have because with his jogging to first, he ended up being out by a ton. It's pretty amazing that a guy (Lopez) was rescued from the minors by a team in first place, yet he still has the gall to regularly not hustle to his fullest. I won't rag to harshly on Melvin since he put together this team which is 70-51 and playing as well as any Brewers team in a long time, but i've thought for awhile now that one of Doug's weaknesses as a GM is an overly stubborn belief that bench players must have MLB experience, regardless if certain veteran bench players are very unproductive, while a young player or players is being very productive in AAA. The odd thing about this is that Melvin rarely has seemed to have any qualms about calling up unproven pitchers to the big league roster, but when it comes to position players for the bench, Doug would almost always prefer using a veteran, even if that guy has little to nothing left.

That's the whole point, Hairston, Lopez, Counsell, and Wilson together on the bench are redundant, especially Wilson. The team could easily get by with Wilson no longer being on the roster, especially since acquiring Hairston. All three of Hairston, Lopez, and Counsell can play secondbase, and Hairston/Counsell could play shortstop if something happened to Betancourt. As for you're utterly absurd comment, the only thing utterly absurd is that comment of yours. The fact that Green hasn't played yet in the majors is largely irrelevant because you nor i can know with any level of certainty at all about how Green would perform if called up tonight. Hell, Craig Counsell has seen major league pitches for 15 years and just went 45 straight at bats without getting a hit. Casey McGehee has 1400 big league at bats under his belt, but this year for whatever reason he's been miserable to the tune of a .635 OPS. Nyger Morgan had a brutal .633 OPS last year, this season he has a .811 OPS. Baseball is both fairly predictable and fairly unpredictable, we see countless examples either way in every season. Green if called up to platoon with McGehee could easily outproduce Casey, but he also could come up and have rookie struggles as evidenced by how numerous rookies perform either good, poorly, or mediocre each year. It's all up to whether a GM is willing to take a chance that a rookie performing well in AA/AAA will outproduce a veteran struggling on the big league roster, but it's very far from an absurd decision because it's worked out successfully countless times in baseball history.What would be absurd though is thinking that just because a baseball player is a rookie, that he couldn't play at a higher level than the guy he'd be replacing, just look at our closer. Axford pitched in a couple of big league games in 2009, but in 2010 as basically a rookie, he gets called up to the majors in May and manages to dominate big league hitters all the while having to deal with replacing a HOF legend in Hoffman. Rookies having success is far from rare.

You can make a horrible decision and have a good result as well as make a good decision and have a bad result. I don't think you understand that by your statement. By hitting Kotsay 3rd or playing Kotsay over, well, anyone on our bench who can play the OF, RRR is making a horrible decision, meaning that over time, his results will be worse than anyone else who can play the OF. Ummm, yes i do. I wouldn't ever bat Kotsay third in the order and would be mad if RR did it a lot. In the end though, Kotsay did have a very good game that day when so many went crazy of the decision by Roenicke. So bottom line is it didn't cost the team at all, it helped. Obviously though if RR did this often, it would hurt the team a lot, but he won't because Braun will be in the lineup pretty much everyday going forward. One last thing on the lineup. This forum is full of people who are heavily into sabermetrics and i recall reading quite a few times from them about how saber studies have shown that many fans way overrate the importance of lineup composition, to the point that if you pulled names out of a hat each day, over 162 games the impact on runs scored would be fairly minimal. Yet, Roenicke bats Kotsay 3rd in the order one time and multiple people here go crazy, acting like he was sabotaging the season, even though Kotsay had a great game. Same thing sometimes with bunts. Say Hart gets a double to leadoff the inning and Morgan bunts Hart over to third. There inevitably will be some screaming in the game thread about what a moron Roenicke is, but if then Braun hits a sac fly and Fielder grounds out to end the inning which results in a run, he's given no credit. Now if Morgan constantly bunted with someone on base, i'd have a problem also, but between times it helped lead to a run along with other times where Nyjer actually got a hit on the bunt also or forced an error via his speed on a bunt, i have very few issues with the amount of times he bunts. Yet, some here consistently rail about almost any bunting regardless if it works out and also don't give credit that we've won at least 2 games on walk off squeeze plays, along with 1-2 other successful squeeze plays. Some here though hating bunting so much that even these multiple successful squeeze plays seem to bother them just because the squeezes could have backfired, even though they didn't. FWIW, i get why Roenicke really got on peoples nerves the first few months of the season because i was in that camp. His rationale for thinking Gomez had changed as a hitter based on spring training was simply ridiculous. His rationale regarding Loe before Melvin got K-Rod and Loe facing good lefthanded hitters in the 8th inning of close games was also stupid. His continued defending of his "aggressive baserunning" policy as it lead to numerous dreadful outs on the bases was silly. Well, Roenicke at least accepted he was wrong on Gomez. We've been making fewer dumb outs on the bases. Since getting K-Rod, i very much like how Roenicke is handling the bullpen. His risky decision to move Hart to the top of the order has worked out wonderfully, even though many fans ripped him for doing it. So to me, he seems to be growing on the job and the continued loud nitpicking by some goes overboard, especially on issues which are minor in the grand scheme of things, like batting Kotsay 3rd in one game instead of 6th or 7th. It's more an issue of Melvin that if Braun or Hart needs a day off, Kotsay is all that's left with Gomez on the DL.

I'd be all for bringing up Green to at least split some at bats with McGehee, but if Green isn't a quality defensive secondbaseman and it doesn't seem like he is, i'd pass on having him play there. Not only is more range needed to play 2nd than 3rd, turning double plays is huge in baseball and often it's a bang bang play where the out at first is close. What makes bringing up Green ideal to at least split at bats with Casey is not only is McGehee struggling at the plate, he also has range shortcomings at thirdbase. For me though, secondbase is a different animal and if Green isn't good defensively there, i'd rather just play Hairston there until Weeks got back.

How could Roenicke platoon a player with McGehee that was in Nashville? Besides the fact that bringing up a player from the minors is the call of the GM, not the manager, no way was anyone going to even consider bringing up Green in late May. By that point Casey looked to be in a slump and no GM benches an everyday player during a slump which happens a lot in the big leagues. It wasn't until about mid-June where i think any GM would start getting really concerned that this wasn't a common slump and when i think some would have strongly started considering options for thirdbase. As for platooning Morgan/Gomez from the get go, there weren't that many games which went by before RR went to the platoon. It was injuries to Morgan that were a by far a bigger factor in why Gomez had to play everyday for awhile, especially after Nyjer missed a few weeks after getting hit on the bunt attempt. Batting Carlos second is where i had a much bigger issue. The Kotsay playing in CF issue was dumb, but it was only nine games and in those nine games. Like many others here, Roenicke did things the first few months of the year that really troubled me like batting Carlos second, being ok with the "aggressive baserunning" which lead to a ton of outs, and especially his use of Loe in the pen. There were very legit criticisms. That said, i think he's been growing as a manager as the season has gone along, yet some go way overboard in trying to pick apart every move he makes, even when it works out well. He could say start Kotsay in a game and many fans will be calling Roenicke an idiot before the game starts, and then even if Kotsay ends up having a good game, they still criticize him. There have been plenty of other times the last month or so where i'll see people calling Roenicke a clown, idiot, buffoon, etc before a game starts for the lineup he puts out there and since those certain fans made these assertions, they'll still rip him even when those moves he made worked out well and contributed to a win. It's ridiculous. Same with if he calls for some bunts or a squeeze plays that work out great for the team, but Roenicke will still get called stupid or lucky for making those calls simply because they don't believe in bunting or squeeze plays. Basically, it gets to be an attitude for some here of Roenicke only should do what i think should be done, and if he doesn't, he's an idiot regardless of if those moves work out well for the team.

Cubs would do cartwheels

I guess it's possible a team could still value Rogers to a degree, but we're talking about a guy with already two shoulder surgeries under his belt, he doesn't throw as hard as he used to, and even when healthy, his results on the mound have mostly been mediocre at best because he still can't throw strikes. Every single year that Rogers has been in the minors except for a 64 inning stretch at Brevard County, his walk rates have not just been bad, they've been atrocious. Even that is being generous given Rogers did walk 29 batters in those 64 innings. I'm by no means trying to imply that Kintzler is some high ceiling guy, but i definitely think the odds are significantly more in his favor of being able to at least contribute for a major league team compared to Rogers who has to manage to somehow stay healthy and show that he can throw strikes, both of which he's shown no ability to do.

No doubt Lawrie is a damn good prospect. If he hadn't been the prospect he is, Alex Anthopoulos wouldn't have traded us a high quality starting pitcher with two years before reaching free agency. Starting pitchers of Marcum's quality and two full years before free agency are very rarely traded before a season starts. Plus, Greinke very well could have vetoed our trade for him had Marcum not been acquired previously. Are you saying you still wish the trades for Marcum/Greinke hadn't been made or no? Obviously making the playoffs will be important in justifying the trades, it still bums me out that Lee signed with Philly instead of NY. It would be nice to make the playoffs and not having to face a team so good as the Phillies are. One thing though that i really hope Brewers fans don't forget if we do make the playoffs, but say lose in the first round is the enjoyment of following a quality baseball team over such a long season. Unlike football which is only played once a week, with baseball being a sport played near everyday, the season can often end up being such great fun to follow or torture when your team sucks. By acquiring Marcum/Greinke, it first allowed Brewers fans to have legit hope and expectations for the season. Then, even with all the inconsistent play by the team before the All-Star break, they've at least been right near the top of the division. Now with this awesome 13 out of 14 game hot stretch, it's allowed Brewers fans to watch all these games with a level of intensity that only fans of a legit playoff contender can. These last five games with St. Louis for example have had a near playoff game level of intensity and tension for me. We as fans still also have 40 plus games to watch, all of which pretty much will feel very important, whether it's to finish off the Cardinals or get the two seed to avoid Philly in the first round of the playoffs if we make there. So yea, obviously making and then having success in the playoffs is important, but fans should also never forget to really really enjoy the journey to those playoffs, especially with a so many games to watch in baseball. As a Brewers fan who recently turned 40 and thus has watched countless very mediocre to very miserable Brewers seasons prior to the last few years, i make sure to greatly enjoy seasons like this one where it's August 10th, and instead of being largely bored silly by the Brewer games a month or two ago, i'm instead excited during the day waiting for the Brewers game to start. I'm full of tension during key situations in games. I actually get really mad or frustrated when we lose a close game instead of yawning. That's a damn refreshing change for me after about 20 years of mostly having little or sometimes no interest in the outcome of an August Brewers game besides maybe what a young kid did that game. Hell, my beloved Packers are coming off a Super Bowl winning season and right now at least, i'm more focused on the Brewers. Never thought that would have been possible.

That's why the game tomorrow is so huge for both teams. For the Cardinals, i'm sure they wanted to win more than just one game in this series, but they could stomach having the Brewers leave being down four games. To get swept though and be down six games, that would be a pretty big difference, a two game swing. Of course being back six games with 40 plus left isn't a death sentence, but that's a deep hole at this point in the year. For the Brewers, even if they lose tomorrow, they still can be happy with a 5-1 road trip and leaving with a four game lead. Win though and being up six games simply leaves more margin for error if they have some say 2-6 or worse stretch over the next 40 plus games. So there will be a lot of pressure on the Cardinal tomorrow because they know the math involved with a loss, that this game for them will be as close to a must win game as any game in early August can be.

Can't be Braddock since he pitched for the Brewers after the trade (rule that PTBNL can't play in same league from time trade is announced until it is completed). Also probably not Rogers because I would assume he is still considered a "top prospect" by Melvin, despite his injuries.I'd actually prefer seeing Rodgers included in the trade than someone like say Kintzler as another poster brought up. K-Rod, Hawkins, and Saito likely will be gone next year, so we'll need to fill some spots in the pen. Kintzler really impressed me before getting hurt and i could envision him becoming a key cog in the pen next year, while i've reached a point with Rodgers where it's hard to see him ever staying healthy enough to be a big league pitcher, much less staying healthy and being effective in the bigs.

http://www.fangraphs.com/statss.aspx?playerid=1943&position=P#pitchtypeYou can look at it on a "per start" basis here: http://brooksbaseball.net/pfxVB/pfx.php Keep in mind that categorizing pitch types is not an exact science. Some types of pitches are very similar to each other in terms of velocity and spin. Slider/slurve/curve, for instance Also, when Sheets was around, people were always calling on him to throw more change ups as well. It might have been in his best interest to do it but there's a reason when a pitcher is resistant to throwing a certain pitch; he knows it's not a particularly good one of his. On that fangraphs link, if you look at the value of his changeups, you can see that it has not performed well for him over the years. That probably doesn't mean he should never throw it but probably not very often. Data from Greinke's last start: http://www.brooksbaseball.net/pfxVB/pfx.php?month=8&day=7&year=2011&game=gid_2011_08_07_milmlb_houmlb_1%2F&pitchSel=425844&prevGame=gid_2011_08_07_milmlb_houmlb_1%2F&prevDate=87 Says he threw 4 changeups, Thanks Wow, it amazes me sometimes the amount of data now available in regards to baseball since i only have a minor interest in the really advanced stuff out there. That brooksbaseball link being a prime example. Do they pay someone to watch every single game and chart each pitch thrown? If so, how do they get their money back for providing this data? As for Greinke and the fangraphs data on his pitch value, i see they try calculating runs above average per 100 pitches and i'm assuming anything a minus is negative? Oh well, regardless of the exact calculations, it does look like over his career, the changeup has resulted in more negative outcomes than positive. This year though for whatever reason, the changeup has been more effective for Greinke and thus i wasn't really wrong in my observation of him as a Brewer throwing the change for positive results, but the career numbers likely explain why he doesn't feature the pitch more often even as this year the results have been better?

O, I agree completely. It's easy to point to a HR and say it was hit because the pitch location was poor but pitchers throw pitches in the meat of the strike zone all the time. Estimating how good or bad a pitch is incredibly hard since much of the effectiveness of a pitch is dependent on the full repertoire of the pitcher. It wouldn't surprise me if Greinke's fastball command hasn't changed at all. Maybe he's just throwing his off speed stuff with better command, making his fastball more effective. Who knows.One thing i've wondered about when watching Greinke pitch this year is his use of the changeup. There are starts where be barely throws it and other starts where he throws it a lot. It has seemed to me that when he's used his changeup more extensively, he's been more effective. Obviously i could be wrong though in my observation about this. Since you're so into stats, is there a site that tracks every pitch a pitcher throws and including fastball, curve, change, etc?

No kidding. It would be like asking someone why they seem in a better mood lately if that person went from a minimum wage job to making 20 bucks an hour.

Exactly, the Brewers pay an equipment guy for a myriad of activities, one being to fix anything a player needs fixed.

Incredible

There's no question that Betancourt was under performing offensively in the first half. Now, there is no question is is over performing. I'm skeptical that he even HAS a new approach, much less that it is the cause of his offensive explosion as of late. I know he was working with Svuem but what exactly is he doing differently now, approach-wise? Line since all-star break: .373/.392/.560 (75 AB). He still isn't walking, although that doesn't necessarily mean he isn't being more patient early in the count. He isn't taking walks and maybe the stats would prove me wrong, but Yuni does seem to be hacking a little less often on those instances where a pitcher on the 1st/2nd pitch purposely throws a pitch just outside of the zone in hopes Betancourt will hack and almost assuredly get himself out. He's always been a guy who made a lot of contact and it's so frustrating because he has a solid swing, but he was consistently getting himself out by swinging at pitchers pitches early in the count. Over those last 75 at bats, he's making so much better contact instead of the countless shallow fly balls to right field. That said, i agree with you that it's way to early to make any assumption that Yuni has turned some corner which should last the rest of the year. We'll see. He was so bad that every game in this hot streak of his, it almost feels like gravy to me and the old Yuni could come back. It is so great to see him contributing at the plate though because with him finally hitting, McGehee showing signs of life, and Hart consistently hitting well, the lineup is so much more balanced and deadly compared to when if the first four guys in the order didn't have a good game, we were lucky to score two or three runs at most. In fact, it had been so bad for so long after Prince in the order, i almost forgot what it felt like to have some confidence that guys batters 5-8 can actually be productive more than once a week. As for picking up Betancourt's option, there isn't be a single scenario i can envision where that would make sense.

Of course it counts, but I thought it was a really funny juxtaposition to give a small sample alert of 28 days when the sample alert should have been for 8 days with the one huge day having a massive impact. I'm not sure why he picked 28 days (I'm assuming he means games). In the last 8 games he has an OPS of 1.286. In the 7 games prior to the 3 HR game, he had an OPS of .899 (very encouraging). In the 20 games prior to the 8 game hot streak, he had an OPS of .588. Why 28 days? I have no clue.In defense of McGehee, i do think that over the last few weeks since the All-Star break, he has hit into an abnormal amount of bad luck outs. That's why even though his numbers weren't fully showing that Casey was hitting noticeably better, i did think he was hitting the ball better overall.

Let's not forget either that in his last start vs St. Louis, that five run inning should have never happened if three different times in the inning our defense didn't botch opportunities to get Pujols out.

I was asking more an in general question, not just tonight because once in awhile i'll see a team play their OF significantly more shallow in these type of situations, but more times than not the outfielders end up being to deep to have a pretty realistic chance to throw out a runner at the plate on a ground ball single or to prevent flare singles from falling. As for just tonight, looking at how deep Braun was playing, unless a groundball single which got through the infield was hit like a rocket and directly at him, i think Holliday scores fairly easily because Braun was to far back to to charge a grounder and get a throw off to the plate before Holliday scores. Same with say a grounder that got through the middle. With Morgan not having a plus arm, in the time that it would have taken him to long to charge a single up the middle and then get a throw off which would have any sort of legit chance to throw out Holliday. Hart may have had a chance on a single, but with his inaccurate arm, it's likely futile either way.

I'm not posting this as blame for the loss tonight, but as an observation as a whole and it came to play tonight. On that Berkman flare, there were two outs and Holliday on secondbase. I know some wanted him walked to face Schumaker instead with firstbase open and i was wanting to see it even with two strikes on him, but that's a different question. So Berkman makes contact on a quality changeup by Estrada which falls perfectly in between Yuni/Braun and that ended up winning the game. My question there though was why wasn't Braun and all three outfielders playing more shallow? I also wonder the same thing when this often arises in other similar situations whether it's the Brewers or another team. Once you hit the 9th inning with a tie game through extra innings, in the vast majority of cases, the next run wins the game. Well, with a runner on secondbase, he's going to end up scoring way more times on a single than an extra base hit. If outfielders though aren't playing shallow, it not only increases the chances of a flare/bloop hit falling in for the winning run as happened tonight, it significantly reduces the odds of an outfielder having any chance to throw the runner out at the plate on say a harder hit grounder which simply finds some hole through the infield. Sure, the flip side to playing pretty shallow is that a well hit ball will end up going over an outfielders head for a run scoring double and it makes it tougher to run down a ball hit in the gaps, but the odds of that happening strike me as a noticeably less than a flare or ground ball single getting to the outfield. Once a baserunner reached second like Holliday did in that tie game situation, it seems to me that the best odds for preventing that baserunner from scoring would be to always play the outfielders a lot more shallow than in any other situation, even if a power bat is up. Am i alone in thinking this and/or often wondering why when seeing highlights of a game winning flare or groundball single to the outfield, that the outfielder wasn't playing more shallow to at least have a chance to throw the runner out at the plate or to get to the flare before it dropped?

Defense still is clearly our biggest weakness and games like this being a prime example of that.

Let's be fair, a 3B with decent speed could have also gotten that as well as a speedy LFer if Braun didn't run like he was trying to swim he might have got there I wonder most why Braun was playing so deep with a guy on second because then any single would likely score the run?

Here we go. I almost don't want to watch.

I'll be shocked to come out of this tied