danzig6767

Man, is he fun to watch pitch. I can't remember watching a Brewers pitcher who could induce so many ugly swings even though Marcum often tops out at 86-87mph. The guy flat out knows how to pitch and can command such a wide variety of pitches and at so many different speeds.

No kidding. I've been watching baseball for a long time and can't remember seeing a Brewers team make so many outs on the bases over such a small frame of games, and we don't even try to steal a lot. It's painful to watch.

I love watching him pitch because he can often make some of the best hitters in the world look terrible even while not touching higher than 86mph on the gun. He throws so many different pitches at different speeds that Marcum regularly has hitters befuddled. While Marcum is a starter, Doug Jones was a relief pitcher, and they pitched differently, i get the same pleasure watching Marcum that i got when watching Jones mow down hitters with a 78mph fastball and deadly changeup.

Bradley doesn't seem the type who would be willing to be largely just a pinch hitter.

The only balls i see him struggle with off the bat are ones hit straight at him. When the ball is hit to the left or right of him, i think he does a fabulous job reading the ball right away and taking good angles. I know playing baseball at that level is vastly vastly different than playing softball, but i played a quasi-CF spot for a couple of years and for whatever reason, i found balls hit straight at me, be it shallow or over my head the hardest to judge immediately off the bat as to whether i should run in or go back. Watch other centerfielders, you'll also see guys struggle more with misjudging balls right off the bat when it's hit pretty much straight in line with them. I don't know why that is.

Roenicke is a hard guy to figure out. He obviously is very into data when it comes to defense given the shifts used on nearly every batter is at a level i don't see anywhere else. I give him credit for that. Then on the flip side, he decides to bat Gomez 2nd for nearly a month based on some meaningless spring training games where Carlos barely ever walked. Loves Kotsay even though his stats the last few years shows a guy in real decline at the plate and in the field he's clearly lost foot speed, yet as vision of him in CF. So frustrating. Plus, why the hell do so many baseball managers and often team announcers put a Y at at the end of the names of multiple players on their team? Yost did it. Macha did it. Rock does it. Now Roenicke is doing it. The Brauny or Wolfy type of adding a Y to any name with a single syllable. It sounds so stupid and pretty much only is done with baseball players.

Others have said the same things about Gomez that i feel. Just an incredibly good defensive CF. The weird thing is he has great instincts on defense when it comes to reading the ball off the bat and generally taking near perfect angles. That mixed with his speed allows him to run down balls that few others can. On the flip side, he runs the bases like Dan Gadzuric played basketball, 100mph with no thinking while he's running around. Carlos can't lay off the slider off the plate regardless how often he flails at it. Speaking of Gomez on the bases. If every player in the bigs was timed running from home plate, around all the bases, and back to home plate, is anyone beating Gomez? Once he gets a head of steam going, man does he cover ground in a blink. It's just a shame that he has no clue how to hit. His failure to approach hitting in a more selective way will be the difference between Gomez getting getting a very moderate contract from someone once he hits free agency instead of becoming a very rich man.

We already make to many outs at the plate, they don't need to add to it by making extra outs on the bases.

For as flawed as defensive metrics are, especially in small samples like 31 games is, i have no problem with using my eyes to deduce that this is a below average defensive team at best. I can look at the guys who play everyday or nearly everyday and see that the only very clear plus defender out there is Gomez. On the infield, Prince, Yuni, and Casey are all below average defensively. Braun is below average. Hart is better than Braun at judging balls off the bat, but his arm is very inaccurate. So there is no way that a team can be so lacking in plus defenders while having multiple below average defenders, and somewhere be an average defensive team. I do think though that all the shifts we use has helped the defense overall by preventing more would be hits than the shifts have turned would be outs into hits. As for fixing or helping the defense, i don't see much that Doug can do at this point. None of Prince, Weeks, Braun, and Hart have any chance of being traded. McGehee is only making about 550,000 dollars, good luck trying to find a better overall option for thirdbase at that price. Gomez is easily our best defensive player. Maybe at some point Melvin could try trading for a better shortstop, but we have few trade chips left in the minors and odds are nobody is going to consider trading players until around the deadline. We'll likely be shuffling some pitchers up and down from the minors during the year, but until the deadline at least, odds are high that from a position player stance, this is the team that the Brewers will sink or swim with.

Can Boggs even play CF decently? For as brutal of a hitter as Gomez is, he's the only plus defender left on the roster. I'd assume that he'll have to play everyday that Morgan is out unless Boggs has CF abilities that i've never heard about.

At least we'll get to hear another month of Rock talking about the new approach of Gomez and for the 100,000th time about the aggressive attitude under Running Ron as Gomez repeatedly gets thrown out on the basepaths.

Sure, it's not hard for those on the top half. The bottom half would disagree with you though. I know but I would think that we could have a decent defense at some point in my lifetime. I seriously cannot remember the last time we had an above average defensive team. Gotta have good defensive players to have a good defense. When Gomez is in the lineup, he's the only plus defender among the other guys out there.

For an added bonus, Lopez is a switch hitter with near identical career stats batting from either side. That said, he'd rarely play besides pinch hitting unless there were injury issues. I'd want to know first and be confident that Lopez would be 100 percent accepting of a very limited role like this and if he's not playing hard as was reported in the link, he would give his world that this would come to an immediate end.

Is there a place that tracks all pitches thrown by a pitcher during a season? I ask because to my naked eye and recollection at least, it has seemed to me that over his last 4-5 starts, he's been struggling to have any sort of consistent command of his curveball. When he's not able to throw it for strikes often enough, hitters are able to lay off it more. That's where Gallardo's lack of a third pitch that he can consistently count on hurts him. He can't go to a change or slider if he's not commanding his curve and it can lead him to largely being a one pitch pitcher in those situations. I thought i remembered hearing when Gallardo came up to the majors, it was said that he had very good command of a fastball, curve, and changeup. Well, watching him since he's been a Brewer, at most he'll throw a changeup a few times a game. Pretty much all he ever throws is a fastball and curve. I'm not one who thinks it's a requirement for a starter to have at least three pitches he can turn to so long as a starter has good command of two plus pitches like say Sheets did with his fastball and curve when he was in his prime. It does cause problems though if a starter loses command of his second pitch and thus is stuck mainly having to get outs with just top notch command of his fastball.

I know many fans wonder if Gallardo is hurt, but watching him pitch, it's hard to see any signs of him being injured. Usually when a pitcher is hurt, there is at least some loss of velocity to varying degrees, but he was throwing 94mph tonight. What i see is simply a command problem, especially with his curveball, which is clearly the second most important pitch to Gallardo after his fastball. To often he's struggling to throw it for strikes and when that happens, hitters will lay off it more often. Given that he doesn't really have a third pitch that he can consistently throw for strikes, when Yovani isn't getting strikes with his curveball, he largely becomes a one pitch pitcher. Mix in that he can also lose the ability at times to throw strikes with his fastball, when then happens he starts walking guys and really finds himself in trouble.

I flipped that channel, so why did Roenicke take out Kintzler and put in Braddock?

Come on and don't fret, Gomez runs fast and that's required in the two hole.

Way worse running the bases too. It's obvious there's a fine line between "agressiveness" and stupidity. Apparently not under Running Ron

I actually figured out my tabs issue with Firefox on my own. It was caused by the ASK toolbar was added with other updates and for whatever reason, that toolbar prevented the opening of new tabs. Once i removed the ASK program, problem was solved.

He made another good play today while ranging over to his right. I've noticed that for whatever reason, so far he seems to struggle more ranging over to his left on balls up the middle vs balls hit to the right of him. On a few of the plays he's made ranging far to his right where he has to make a long throw and do it quickly, i have been impressed with his arm.

Uggggg I knew Saito was a risk at his age, but i was so looking forward to him being a top tier setup guy for us.

I don't care if you want to boo or not, but do you honestly think that if you boo a pitcher for throwing to first base, it rattles the pitcher in the slightest or alters his thinking in the slightest? Why would it? We are talking about pitchers who at numerous times in a season face situations of guys on base while an elite hitter is at the plate during a close game, now that's pressure which could rattle a mentally weak pitcher. A few thousand fans booing a random throw/throws to first base i can't see effecting a pitchers mindset at all. If a pitcher was so mentally weak that a smattering of boos for throwing to first base actually bothered him at all, he'd never make it to the major leagues.

RockCo, Karl wasn't with the Bucks when Traylor was drafted, Chris Ford was still the coach.

Dallas drafted Traylor fully with the intention of trading him to the Bucks. This happens all the time in the NBA draft. Teams work out a trade before the draft and then pick for each other so long as certain guys are available.

No question the NBA is driven almost entirely by about 15 to 20 at most very good players and if your team doesn't have them, it's like being an NFL team without an upper tier QB. You're largely irrelevant. That said, smaller market teams can get lucky and land a star in the draft if they allow their team to be bad enough to draft really high. San Antonio got Duncan Cleveland had LeBron for seven years Oklahoma City drafted Durant and Westbrook Orlando drafted Howard Minnesota had Garnett for 12 years New Orleans got Chris Paul Four teams passed on Wade before Miami picked him Paul Piece lasted to the 10th pick when the Bucks drafted Tractor Traylor Point being, even though the deck is stacked against small market NBA franchises, if a team has smart management with an actual plan and catches some luck in the lottery, they can land one of those great players who are so important to winning. Then it's up to a savvy GM to surround that star with other good players, unlike Minnesota did with Garnett and Cleveland with LeBron.