danzig6767

No kidding As dumb as it is for Roenicke to be playing Wilson in LF, i blame Doug for the horrible bench he's assembled. Just because Braun is out for the game doesn't mean we should be putting a lineup like this out there.

This is probably nothing given that Adams would be in massive demand by countless teams if the Padres actually made him available, but a rumors area of a sports forum are for rumors, even if extremely unlikely and this wasn't made up by me. http://www.mlbtraderumors.com/2011/07/brewers-among-clubs-with-interest-in-padres-relievers.html I looked at the stats for Mike Adams this year since he was included in the rumor. Wow are his numbers ridiculous, now that's a guy deserving of lots of deference from his manager. 1.21 ERA 0.64 WHIP (Wow) 41/5 K/BB ratio .146 BAA Adams does pitch in the ultimate pitchers park, but his numbers are really good on the road also and last year his great numbers were even better on the road. Since Doug let Adams go and looking at his stats with San Diego, over those four seasons he has to have been a top 3 most productive relief pitcher in all of baseball. I knew that Adams has been good for the Padres, but i didn't realize that he'd been that ridiculously dominant. In the last four years he has a K/BB ratio that's an insane 233/55, and his WHIP has been 1.04 0.59 1.07 0.64 What a beast. Adams would look very nice in our bullpen, but with how great he's been and his dirt cheap contract of him only being owed about 1.2 million the rest of the season, every playoff contender in the league would be heavily interested if the Padres shopped Adams. Given the state of our farm system, we likely would lose out in a bidding war for him and as much as i'd like Adams on the team, i probably would cringe heavily at the cost if we actually got him.

What excuses could he try making? Everyone watching can see what's consistently happening to him in starts. He'll be striking out lots of batters and then he allows some baserunners, boom, Zack makes a bad pitch or two that gets smoked and in come those baserunners across the plate.

Almost a black hole? After a terrible month of May where McGehee posted a .593 OPS, he's followed that up in June with an absolutely abysmal .214OBP/.208SLG/.422OPS. If that isn't the total definition of a black hole in the lineup, what would be? I understand that Green has never done anything at the big league level, but it would be literally almost impossible for Green to not hit better and he can't have less range at third than the statue that is McGehee. It would be one thing if Casey was just in some 15-20 game slump, that happens to a lot of players and thus you can't just go benching everyone it happens to. We are talking about 55 games here though with McGehee and not just a slump, we are talking about utter ineptitude here at the plate along with terrible defense with zero signs that he's possibly going to snap out of this anytime soon. The vast majority of his at bats are flat out ugly.

Sadly that isn't even true, he has been every bit as bad as McGehee. And sadly both Melvin and Roenicke seem content to just keep trotting Yuni and Casey out there everyday, regardless of how poorly they both continue playing. Absolutely brutal offense and defense from both of them on a nearly nightly basis, yet come the next day/night, there they are in the lineup as if we are just playing out the string of a bad season instead of being in a close playoff race. How worse can each guy possibly play both offensively and defensively over a long stretch of games before Doug and/or Roenicke at least tries someone else? Betancourt hasn't walked a single time this month and McGehee is sporting an almost hard to fathom .422 OPS for June, to go along with his statue like defense and Molina like speed on the bases in the rare instances he actually manages to not make an out.

So with Kotsay getting his 100,000 dollar bonus today, odds look to be that his washed up bat will be with us the rest of the season?

Besides wanting to switch Kotsay for Boggs as everyone else does, i don't see the point of having all three of Betancourt, Counsell, and Wilson. Three shortstops and none of them can hit a lick anyways. Dump any of the three and i won't care to bring up Green to platoon with McGehee. One utility infielder would be fine to handle the backup secondbase and shortstop job, it's not like Counsell or Wilson play much at all. Obviously a problem could arise if say Betancourt got hurt because then if Wilson was let go, Counsell likely is to old to play everyday. Whether it's Wilson or Counsell, i'd roll the dice on waiving one and only having a single utility infielder by bring up Green.

Yea, even with his limited at bats, his numbers are ugly and he is 38 years old, the end comes for all players where they simply just can't play anymore. We have Kotsay on our bench as a prime example of that. My best case/dream scenario is Gamel sent down, Kotsay let go, and any one of Wilson/Betancourt/Counsell let go. Boggs and Green brought up, along with Saito added.

I'd also like to add Thornton, but no way at the full MLE. If you look through basketball over say the last 5-7 years or so, teams/GM's in the vast majority of cases have gotten burned after giving out these type of 4-5 year 25-35ish million dollar deals to largely nothing special at all players and/or career vagabonds. Often the GM's end up regretting the contracts barely after the ink is dry on them and then end up trying to pray some other team will take on the deal, but instead all that ends up happening is teams trading their overpaid spare parts on long term deals for other teams spare parts on long term deals. It's been the likes of Dan Gadzuric, Drew Gooden, John Salmons, Al Harrington, Josh Childress, Travis Outlaw, Trevor Ariza, Beno Udrih, James Posey, Charlie Villanueva, Mo Peterson, Tyrus Thomas, DeSagana Diop, Marvin Williams, Etan Thomas, Vlad Radmanovic, etc etc. The list just goes on and on of GM's who regret these type of contracts compared to those who saw those contracts work out at least close to what they hoped for. Hammond just spent the offseason trying to pawn off the mistakes he made in trading for Maggette/his contract and signing aging nothing special players in Salmons and Gooden to 4-5 year deals worth over 30 million dollars. If he does the same in signing Thornton and that type of contract doesn't end up working out as Hammond hoped, he be back at it yet again trying to unload another anchor off the Bucks cap.

That's the thing i just don't get in Melvin's thinking here? McGehee hasn't just gone through some 15-25 game very rough stretch which isn't all that uncommon, this is about a 55 game stretch of utter ineptitude, that's over 1/3 of a season. In 29 games in May, Casey posted a Yuni like .593 OPS and in 24 June games so far, it's been a shockingly bad .437 OPS. Mix in the also dreadful defense and near Molina brothers sloth like speed on the bases when he actually manages to get on base, he's been the definition of a liability in all phases of the game. All the while this is happening, Green is raking in AAA and we inexplicably have three shortstops on the roster, none of whom can hit a lick either. Waive one of Wilson or Betancourt, and then call up Green to platoon at third with McGehee. What am i missing about why this hasn't happened? Afraid of hurting McGehee's feelings? We are in first place in a division that very likely could be decided by 1-3 games. Each game is so important. Green is in house so a trade wouldn't be needed. What exactly could be the harm to the team in it? That Green might possibly hit for a sub-.400 OPS and be worse in the field than McGehee who has to be playing the worst or right near the worst thirdbase in all of baseball?

I'd certainly rather have Dickerson on the roster than Kotsay, but i'd rather see Boggs on our bench than either of Dickerson/Kotsay. Dickerson put up only a .724 OPS in a 135 AAA at bats this year. Boggs not only has a .911 OPS in Nashville, he would offer the ability to switch hit off the bench and offer some extra base hit ability, something very lacking on the bench.

Yea, i just looked at his game log from last season and surprisingly in 33 starts, he only had one start where he went at least seven innings and gave up no runs. Besides April where he had a 2.56 ERA/1.11WHIP, he didn't have any stretches where his numbers were special/dominant like most aces generally have. Watching him pitch this year has been bizarre to me, i can't recall anything like it with another Brewers starting pitcher. The high strikeout/low walk numbers in most of his starts, yet way to many lapses where he leaves pitches right over the heart of the plate that then get hit hard, especially with RISP. Plus, maybe it's just me noticing this and i could be seeing something that isn't there, but even with his fabulous 80 K's in only 60 innings, it's seemed like in multiple starts that he gotten really hurt in situations where he had a batter/batters with 2 strikes and Zack just couldn't put the guy away because of multiple foul balls or tips. Then finally he leaves a pitch to far over the plate instead of a walk that the batter in turns hits a bullet somewhere. Just puzzling overall to watch a pitcher with such amazing K/9 and K/BB ratios that at the same time looks so non-dominant.

Wow

He was out, but that ump was in bad position to make the call. If Casey had got his hand in first, the ump never would have saw it.

I'm a fan of anyone playing the Red Sox and Yankees. Other than that, i don't care much about the AL at all except for Tampa who i can't help but greatly respect for winning as they have with payrolls often less than 3-4 guys on the Sox and Yankees.

Roenicke was obviously a moron there for not using Kottaras instead of Kotsay (aka) lefthanded Jason Kendall, regardless of it being unlikely Kottaras would go yard. That said, Melvin should also be getting some heat. It's Doug who foolishly signed Kotsay to a guaranteed contract and it's Doug who has refused to cut ties with the washed up Kotsay while Brandon Boggs has a .936 OPS in Nashville. If Melvin wouldn't be foolishly overvaluing experience yet again with his Kotsay signing, he wouldn't be in the dugout to tempt Ronny with his veteran grittiness.

While i blame Melvin entirely for the horrible hitting bench and Betancourt, unless Roenicke has unlikely resisted overtures by Doug to replace Kotsay, i can't blame Melvin as much for the state of the bullpen. I think injuries have really hurt the pen. Yea Saito is old and thus potential injuries popping up with him were a legit concern, he did average though around 55-60 appearances since coming over from Japan, including 56 in each of the last two seasons. So even though i expected that he'd have to be used with some caution and might miss time here and there, i didn't expect him to not pitch for us at all. That's hurt a lot because he's been really good his whole career. Parra may have been helpful. I really liked what i saw from Kintzler and thought he could have ended up developing into a key cog in the pen who could pitch in an 8th inning set-up guy role along with also being a guy who could give multiple innings say the 6th/7th innings of a still close game where the starter leaves early. Braddock i hoped for big things this year and after he came back from the DL stint, he was back to throwing 93-95, and looking like the guy we saw last year. Now he's back off the team again. Put all or at least 2-3 of them in our pen instead of say Estrada, DiFelice, Dillard, and/or Mitre, i'd feel pretty damn good about the bullpen.

Nobody on the bench can hit at all besides maybe Kottaras and that goes way more on Doug Melvin than the manager. Brandon Boggs has a .960 OPS in AAA, but he continues to rot away there while Kotsay will barely be carrying an OPS above .600 after his 0-4 tonight. Between the horrible hitting bench Melvin put together and Betancourt, it's not like Roenicke has many options besides playing Counsell more, and it's not like he can hit much.

Plus, as moronic as it was for Melvin to acquire Betancourt, Roenicke insists on playing the scrub nearly everyday even as we have two other shortstops on the roster.

Boggs with a .960 OPS in AAA Kotsay not far from being under the .600 OPS mark

It's so frustrating watching a large percentage of umps call balls and strikes. He's been pinching both Marcum and Estrada on pitches right over the heart of the plate, then he rings up Ortiz on a pitch 3-4 inches off the plate.

Estrada is out of that inning with no runs scored if this ump didn't have a wallet sized strike zone. He has Youk struck out, but got ridiculously pinched.

+1 on that. I never understood why we kept him in the pen. I'm sure we'll start him anyway if we have to. He won't be able to go deep though.Yea, it seemed like they were trying to reward Estrada by keeping him up here, but it was better for the team to keep him stretched out in the minors.

It looked like he might have a groin strain or something with his left leg

That blown strike three could cost us multiple runs