danzig6767

That Wells contract by Ricciardi is truly mind boggling in stupidity. Imagine you own a baseball team and your GM basically lit over a 100 million dollars of your money on fire? Ricciardi has done some solid things for the Jays and they play in just a brutal division, but wow, the guy has given out multiple ugly contracts.

Yea Jim, that's why i haven't moved yet. As much as i would love to be in warm weather most of a year, spending say holidays away from friends/family along with at other times seems like it would be hard. I'll likely just have to suck it up and deal with what i find to be a miserable climate here in Wisconsin. It's so hard for me though when it's 30 degrees or less here and i know that in other places it's sunny and warm, knowing that i could be there. It actually depresses me somewhat once summer ends and i know that it won't be back for about nine months because feeling the warm/hot sun is almost like a drug for me. One thing that would be odd though is to spend Christmas someone and have it be hot outside, that's about the only time i like the winter feel.

Not me, i love it hot outside. Obviously i'd prefer it to be say about 80-85 and dry, but i'm fine with it being in the 90's. I'm different from most folks who live in Wisconsin though. I think most people who live here are so used to the weather being cool to downright cold for so much of each year that they just don't feel comfortable when it gets hot outside. I'm the reverse, once the temperature gets under 70 degrees, i'm not pleased. If i had my way, it would be 80-85 almost every day with no clouds to block the delicious hot sun. This puts me in a real dilemma. I badly want to move somewhere warmer, but pretty much everyone i know lives here in Wisconsin, including my daughter. Moving somewhere and not knowing anyone along with my family all being here in Wisconsin except for my brother makes moving hard for me to actually do. Stay here and face weather i find miserable for 9 months each year or move somewhere warm, but not be near my family and friends. Each option sucks big time. http://forum.brewerfan.net/images/smilies/mad.gif

This weather is bugging me big time It's supposed to be summer, the few decent months of weather in Wisconsin's miserable climate and yet, it's been damn near freezing out the last two nights. It was colder in Wisconsin yesterday than anywhere else in the country. Ugggggg!! Maybe my frustration over how terrible the weather has been during this socalled "summer" that it has my memory off, but it seems like there have been more days with highs in the 60's than 80's since summer began? Now the hell of about six months or longer of fall and especially winter are right around the corner, about nine months of not being able to put on shorts. Just the thought of it is already bringing down my mood.http://forum.brewerfan.net/images/smilies/mad.gif

100 dollars a month? Wow, i spend at least 300 a month for me and my daughter and she is a light eater Then again i'm a picky eater type. There are a lot of foods i just don't like, so i'd rather pay more and eat what tastes good to me. I'm envious of people like my dad who will eat pretty much anything. One thing i'm blessed with though is good genetics when it comes to weight/blood pressure. I have acid reflux and for whatever strange reason, when i eat low fat meals my heartburn is out of control. So i have to eat lots of high fat/calories meals, but i never gain weight and my blood pressure is pretty much perfect. Price wise i eat lots of fresh fruit, various ice creams, cereal, and higher end meats like steak/ribs/pork tenderloin so that's a big reason i spend more.

Maybe so, but Jack also gave Melvin Braun/Fielder/Gallardo/Hardy/Weeks/Hart, he couldn't be expected to draft the whole 25 man roster for Doug.

We had a very shaky rotation going into the season and zero depth in the upper minors. So once any of the starters got hurt, which should almost be expected in a 162 game schedule and/or a starter or two performed worse than you hoped for, there was nothing there rotation wise to turn to. This is where the inability to develop young starting pitching and Melvin not being able to acquire young starting pitching has bit the team in the butt. The starting five pitchers for a major league team at the start of a season rarely go through a year without injuries and it's common for one of the starters or two to struggle enough so that the team has to look at using someone else. Thus, to make the playoffs, you usually have to have an option or two that can come and fill in, we don't. Guys like Mike Burns types aren't going to get it done if any injury hits or a starter performs poorly.

I think all of the players that you named. Pretty much everyone except for Gallardo and Braun. You don't have to trade them, but at least put them on the market. If you didn't like the offer, don't trade them, but I have a hard time believing they even considered that option due to this "win now" trade.I'm glad the team didn't trade any valuable prospects for anyone not named Halladay and Lee. That said, i can understand why the owner didn't want to sell off guys like Hoffman and Cameron. He has a lot of tickets sold and doesn't want to have the impression of giving up right now and he doesn't want the team potentially becoming really bad for the rest of the season if we went on a fire sale. Given all of that, unless i got a really top notch prospect for any of those three, i wouldn't have pawned them off either. No harm in just riding out the season and hoping for the best.

I can't go back in retrospect and bash Melvin for the Hall signing, i supported it and thought it was a fair contract. Suppan's signing i didn't like then and obviously don't like it now. Giving big long term money to socalled savy veteran pitchers with very mediocre stuff strikes me as the highest chance for that contract ending up being an albatross.

I don't have any really major issues with Macha outside of letting Gallardo throw more pitches in a few games than i'm comfortable with. Overall i think Macha has done a good job handling the bullpen. Go to any baseball forum and fans complain about how the manager uses the bullpen, most fans IMO always think they would do better and that all managers are clueless in that regard. Find a forum of a MLB baseball team where the fans aren't complaining about how the manager uses the bullpen? His lineup choices here and there i haven't always agreed with, especially batting Kendall leadoff, but many fans put to much importance in where hitters bat in the order compared to who the hitters are. The by far and away reason that the Brewers are worse this year is that the starting rotation has pitched poorly overall and teams almost never play playoff caliber baseball when their starting rotation performs like crap, regardless who the manager is. This is why Toronto is asking for the moon for Hallady, you need good starting pitching to be a good baseball team unless you have just some silly good offense to cover for the poor pitching. Plus, bad starting pitching burns out bullpens, it's a plague with ripple effects.

I hope the health luck reverses Al, all three injuries were kinda fluke. A bee sting, his leg getting tangled in a leash while bolting after a rabbit, and now jumping out of my kids arms from excitement for a walk. His breed though is some factor, the little guy is very active and needs a ton of exercise. He can run forever, like a mini Greyhound and can jump high.Plus, in his genes he's a hunter of small game and there are tons of rabbits and squirrels where i live. Now i face the task of him not doing something that ruins the surgery, it would help if he instead was an old or lazy dog. As for your dog, sounds like my mom. Her 14 year old dog got very sick recently and she had to put him down because it didn't make sense to spend a bunch of money on a very old dog with little time left. He can't be easy though when you've had a pet that long.

Well , once i went to the vet today and picked up my dog, the excitement he had and love in his eyes of seeing me and my daughter made me realize just how much i love the little guy. If i had let him go over cash, i'd probably be feeling big time guilty. That said, i do understand that once a pet gets older, why it can be a tougher call. BTW DB, i didn't know you posted here? I thought you stuck to RealGM.

Haha, nice picture Puddy Looks like i caught a bit of a break on the actual surgery, it was 950 dollars, but i also had to pay nearly 700 to the emergency pet center who stabilized to leg and took the X-Rays. I'm guessing that it won't be cheap for the multiple follow up visits though, he has to have the cast taken off after after two weeks and four weeks i believe and then recasted. Any tips for things you came across that might cause issues with a dog who is getting used to a leg in a cast. Well, i brought Tyson home today. The vet unfortunately found a second fracture during the surgery which he said could slow the recovery and potentially cause a limp if it doesn't heal perfectly. My dog being young should help some. The biggest concern for me is that i've always allowed Tyson to take his daily naps on the couch and he often sleeps in my bed or my daughters bed. We were home roughly 10 minutes and to my surprise he was able to still jump on the couch even with his cast on. I'll probably have to train him to not go on the couch anymore in case he tried to jump off when i'm not around, but that won't be easy given he naps there nearly every day. How is this for bad timing. I had one of those dog beds for a long time, but Tyson always slept on the couch or one of our beds so i threw the dog bed out roughly 9-10 days ago when i had my carpet cleaned. Oh well. http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v638/danzig6767/tyson.jpg

Great picture nottso As for your post hawing, you're the second person who brought up pet insurance to me today, i had never heard of it before. Maybe that's because Tyson is my first dog. I've had a bearded dragon for many years, but it has never been a high cost pet and i never got close to the level of feelings for it like i have for my dog. I did about a 15 minute research of pet insurance via Google and offhand it seems a bit pricey, but then again i've found out quickly that problems or accidents involving dogs can be extremely expensive. It's just that this last 12 months or so with Tyson has been a real financial gut punch and an unplanned for gut punch to boot. From my brief searching of insurance, it looks like any policy worth having will cost at least 250-350 a year. The bummer for me is nearly everyone i've known who has a dog or had one went the whole lives of their dogs until the very end expenses without racking up 4 grand in vet costs while i got hit with that in one year. I guess like many things in life, you can't control good or bad luck. These events though made me see firsthand the tough and potentially heart wrenching decisions some pet owners have had to or will face in the future where they have to weigh finances with their love for their pet.

I ask this question because man, i love my two year old dog, but events of this last year and going forward have caused me to ponder this question. Yesterday, my daughter was going to take our dog for a walk which he gets very excited about. She was holding Tyson in her arms and he jumped out while i watched, he landed wrong on his front feet and crashed his head into the ground. For a brief moment, i thought he broke his neck and was paralyzed by how he looked laying on the ground. Then i saw his leg bent and stuck in a disgusting looking fashion, it was obvious to me that it was badly broken. So i took him to an emergency center where they had to put Tyson under so they could take X-Rays and straighten the leg to put it in a cast. He then had to spend the night and the emergency center sent all the pictures to my vet so he could do an operation early today. There was a fracture and dislocation, between the surgery and stay in the emergency center, it's going to cost me almost 2000 dollars. Well, last spring Tyson also got bit by a bee, but neither my daughter or myself saw it happen. He had an allergic reaction and nearly died. We thought he ate something bad. The first vet couldn't figure out why my dog looked like he was dying and between his bill and the next vet who got Tyson better, my bill was about 1100 dollars. A few months before that, Tyson bolted after a rabbit if i remember correctly with his leash on which tangled in his legs and caused a minor dislocation. That set me back about 500 bucks by the time i was done. A few months ago a had to have Tyson get his yearly shots, a checkup, and a test on a growth that was growing on him. That was over 200 bucks combined. Unfortunately i'm not a lawyer or doctor, i'm far from wealthy and had medical issues of my own that left me in debt. So because of some bad luck, i've spent about 4000 dollars on my dog in the last year, it's hurting my finances big time. I'll be picking up Tyson tomorrow and love the little guy very much, but if something pretty bad happened to him again anytime in the near future that i knew would be expensive, i'm questioning in my mind what i'd do? He's still very young so i'm not spending a ton of cash on dog who only has a few years left. Has anyone else here though faced the dilema of a huge vet bill you can't afford, but you don't want to have to give up your pet either? I forked over the cash for the third time in a only year, but if he say broke his leg again next year or got sick that needed very expensive care, i don't know what i'd do. BTW, my daughter took this picture at the vet, the poor guy was stoned out of his mind on painkillers, i couldn't help but laugh a bit how wasted he looked at us. His eyes were huge and staring like he was on mushrooms. http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v638/danzig6767/0722091627.jpg

Uggg 1tst and 3rd nobody out and Braun/Prince up

My biggest concern or frustration with Gerut isn't as much his actual results as it is how generally poor he's looked at the plate. Sometimes hitters go through rough stretches with little production, but there is some bad luck mixed in with hard hit balls finding gloves. Gerut though has looked as lost as Nelson did. Lots of swinging at bad pitches and weekly hit balls.

Given Macha just wasn't going to let Gamel start everyday at 3rd, i'm fine with the trade so long as i'm later quite surprised that either guy we traded amounts to much of anything in the majors. Unless Mercedes becomes a really good relief pitcher,i think we pretty much got Lopez for nothing.

I'm with you, keeping Sessions will be huge in how i evaluate the offseason.

I hate rodents and cats. My brother had a guinea pig when he was younger and it just reminded me of a fluffy rat. It's silly that i'd get nervous holding a guinea pigs, but could let a python wrap around my neck or arm with zero fear. My soft spot is seeing anything like kids meeting heros of theirs when say in Make a Wish Foundation. Seeing some poor sick or disabled child just tears at my soul.

I'm just trying to figure out who the demographics are that this movie expects to attract? I love baseball and likely there is no way i'd pay 9-10 bucks to go to a theater to go and see it. I might watch it when it came on cable. Most of the guys i know are sports fans and i highly doubt any would be interested in going to see it. In fact, when around every male friend or relative i know, i don't remember ever hearing any of them bring up that they read Moneyball. Brad Pitt being in the movie would be an attraction to some females who like him, but my guess is the storyline though would turn them off given the number of females who even know Oakland has a baseball team are small. About the only demographic offhand that i could see being strongly interested in the movie would be hardcore baseball fans that are really into stats. That's a pretty small demographic. Now maybe the movie could be made in a fashion to have a much broader appeal, but the premise of the book itself seems to mainly just appeal to those stat loving hardcore baseball fans. I should add that i've never had a desire to get Moneyball, so maybe there is more to the book than i imagine which could with good production and acting appeal to a larger movie audience than i'm assuming. To those who have read the book, what about it do you think could draw an audience if made into a movie?

Salim might make the team if and only if he can shoot like he was projected to out of college because he has no other real attributes

As just a fan, it's my one beef with Miller Park. I've really been annoyed during the times i was at day games on a nice beautiful sunny day and the damn roof blocks out the sun for a large chunk of the game. Being sun drenched for 2-4 hours in the bleachers at County Stadium is the one thing i miss. As for the players, it's hard for me as a fan to comment given i'm not in the box trying to hit, but the safety aspect strikes me as a possible real legit concern.

Worst song ever= Love Song by The Cure Only song that actually gets my stomach a bit nauseous

IMO that was key given their pen sucks and now Wood is out of the game, this inning at least favors us.