Eddiehitsthefoulpole

It is difficult to forecast the Brewers roster next year because we don't know our bullpen. I think that we would likely make a couple of trades involving an OF or 2 and a starting pitcher. I think Bush's dependability might make him more valuable to other teams than he is to us. I wouldn't be surprised if Gwynn and/or Nix are moved as well. I would guess that Nix is out of options (I forgot to check before I started this). I think we need to overpay for bullpen help, so I would guess that we would basically leave the line-up alone. If we can make multiple deals for bullpen help Turnbow may get a change of scenery. Here is my guess on the roster. 1b Fielder 2b Weeks SS Hardy 3b Braun C Estrada. rf Hart cf Hall (I expect a bounce back from him) lf Gross/Mench BENCH: Counsell, Dillon, Rottino, and hopefully Damian. If not Damian, we may look outside the organization. Really, a guy like Bad Chad wouldn't be the worst complement to Johnny. I could see us send Vinny down for another of catching experience and then we would add another lefty bat. That could be Nix or TGJ. The way Johnny plays D, I wouldn't mind a 3rd catcher. ROTATION: Sheets, Gallardo, Villanueva, Suppan, and Capuano. BULLPEN: Closer? Set-up man? Shose and another lefty (King? Stetter?) Vargas, McClung, and maybe Turnbow.

I am ready to toss aside Matt Wise. He has always done well in the past when pitching in blowouts, but he has never been a dependable pitcher in tight games.

I agree with Ennder. While we were really let down by some of our relievers this year, many who pitched well were not used right and that hurt us just as much. If we could get a bullpen with a few more guys who could throw strike one it would really help. The way I see it we have to overpay for bullpen help at the possible expense of not adding any position help.

If Brewerfan.net did in-game play-by-play wouldn't it have to pay a royalty to MLB?

I went to my first Brewer game in 1975, so I consider myself to have been a fan for a long time. I think I can speak for a lot of Brewer fans when I say that we are frustrated. We may be worried that these opportunities won't be there again for awhile. I remember the Brewers being picked by some publications to finish first in 1979, 1980, 1988, 1989, and 1990. We hung around but never seriously challenged in most of those years. In 1983 we had an incredible amount of injuries. Who knows what will happen next year? Maybe Mark Cuban will double the Cubs payroll next year and create a situation where we can't compete with them. Prince may tear up his knee in Spring training. We need to make the most of this situation this year. In the last 3 months we have seen this team blow 16 games after having a 3 run lead. We could blame it on Cordero. However I expected him to have some stuggles because I felt he was overused early in the season. I posted that. I said the same thing last year about Turnbow. I was right there too. It is not just about innings. It is about innings or appearances over a brief period of time. We could say yesterday was Turnbow's fault. However Turmbow has shown that he struggles with command in the second of back-to-back outings. Yet I still feel more comfortable with Derrick trying to get two outs than with Aquino trying to get one. He has demonstrated a history of meltdowns when used in these situations. Is that his fault? Yes. But shouldn't we know that? Often times in these meltdowns we have seen the match-ups consistently skewed in the favor of the opposition. They change pitchers, we don't pinch-hit when stats indicate we should. They pinch-hit, we don't change pitchers when stats indicate that we should. Many times in these opposition rallies we see the Brewers squander many chances to tack on runs, usually because they change pitchers and take advantage of the match-ups. Usually in the meltdowns the other teams inch closer because we don't want to take a pitcher out due to the fact that his turn to bat is coming up. We lost a game to the Cubs earlier this year after being up 5-0 when they never had a pitcher bat. It was as if they used a DH. Last week they did a similar thing to us in a blow-out. We have never played like that. It is like their manager is trying harder to win than ours. Those and many other reasons are why we are frustrated with our manager.

I think that just about anybody with a good baseball background could do this better than Ned. One more thing, if Mike Maddux is such a genius then why are we down to about 2 dependable pitchers?

The Brewers recent play has diminished my will to live.

Where the 'It's still all Yost's fault' crowd goes astray is to bash him for crappy defensive play like last night. He benched Hart, what do you want him to do - bench Braun & Gross, too, for throwaways? Or Braun for striking out a bunch & looking lost at the plate? Who do you suggest he play? Throw Counsell out there? A manager has only so many choices, and to be bluntly honest, Yost is simply not getting a fair shake from these latest critics. As I said before, if you have a tangible gripe (as in, matchups created, or something for which a manager is actually responsible), blast away, and I won't do anything but agree, most likely. But the notion that it's his fault that his players are slumping is ludicrous. Benching isn't the only influence that a coaching staff has. The concern is that the play is getting shoddier as the season goes along. Are the players listening to the coaches? Did we work on the fundamentals enough in Spring training? When we work in-season on the fundamentals, are we holding them to high enough standards? Are the coaches doing a good enough job of communicating their expectations? I just don't think the players are excited to be at the ballpark. I have seen this before. What needed to be emphasized in the clubhouse is that we are in a pennant race, not that we are blowing one. I am not sure what we did there. What I do know is that it seems that every time we have this thing back on course, the bullpen gives one away. Our coaching staff has to except some of the blame for that. I knew back in May that our bullpen was throwing too many innings. I posted that. We looked like some of the Reds teams that got off to good starts in the last 10 years. If I can see it then they should see it. Also, why would we use Cordero this year exactly like how we used Turnbow last year, when Derrick gave out? We should have put Carlos in the rotation back in May or June. We should have brought up another lefty reliever during that time. We could play situations and maybe keep some of those early leads out of the save situation so that we didn't have to go to CV-DT-FC to finish. Managers do have to except blame for bad play. They are responsible for creating the environment that leads to it.

My biggest disappointment of this season has been that while we are quick to make line-up changes, we made very few changes in our pitching staff. Our starters did not give us enough innings after April. We never did anything to rectify that problem. Now our bullpen is dead. Our starters (other than Gallardo) never really earned their spot in the rotation. I am anti-Ned for all of our late season collapses. It always followed the same formula. The bullpen burned out and the offense quit hitting. The latter suggests that our offense wasn't good enough, the former is due to abuse.

I feel privileged to be able to post here. I am having a difficult time getting the Yuku board to load on my computer. Plus I lost my username (password too short). Someone needs to explain to me why we didn't make a roster move in order to give us a long reliever for tonight. Claudio is usually only good for only about 80 pitches anyway. I have ranted about Claudio all season. Just because we score a lot of runs for him doesn't make him a good pitcher. I won't rehash all my complaints. I dream of a Brewer rotation that gets at least 20 outs a game with some consistency. I think we have the guys, we just don't use them as starters.