Eddiehitsthefoulpole

We need to make a decision. Either we play for the play-offs this year or we keep Wang. We really can't do both. We need that other arm.

I wonder if he doesn't have a bit of a dead arm. I have often wondered in recent years if by restricting the pitch counts of starters early in the season we don't tax our bullpen too much. We worry about our starters and then throw the same relievers out there day-after-day. It seems like every that by every Memorial Day we are talking about replacing our set-up men due to a mysterious velocity loss. I believe that we need to share the duties in our pen more in April. Trying to hide a rule 5 guy doesn't help either. I don't see how we can hide Wang and keep our pen functioning.

Ryan is on my team so I will support him. With A-Rod suspended for the season, it seems that Ryan is the face of the PED violators. St. Louis will rip Ryan but the Cardinals would have quickly tried to sign him had the Brewers released him for his indiscretions, and the Cardinal fans would have loved it. I will be amused when Braun gets booed in St.Louis and Jhonny Peralta gets cheered loudly.

In this year's Sporting News baseball preview, they had the Brewers farm system at 28. I think the Yankees and Dodgers were behind us. This gives me a chance to rant about our development program. We tend to send position players to the majors who swing at bad pitches, run the bases poorly, and are defensive liabilities. We tend to send pitches to the majors who don't have a change-up, have trouble controlling their breaking ball, and are not aggressive with their fast ball. It has been this way for so long that I think we are short-changing our prospects. We need stronger fundamentals.

My worry with our line-up is that we have a number of feast-or-famine guys without a lot of inning extenders. The Cardinals usually have 7, 8 , and 2 hitters who work the count, walk, bunt, or single to the opposite field to extend innings. This seemingly gets their middle of the the order more at bats, and RISP at bats. We tend to fill the 7 and 8 spots, and many years the 2 spot with low OBP guys who have some pop. They will hit some solo home runs but tend to kill rallies with strike outs. Often these players are overmatched against top notch pitching. I just wish we could get a line-up with more balance to it. I wish we had more of a team philosophy and less of the undisciplined, everyone-try-to-hit-a-home-run philosophy that we have now.

Lohse and Suppan were all Attanasio. I think he likes to have the Brewers in the news.

I don't like any of these options.

I am OK with adding a veteran arm as long as he is a clear improvement. I don't want to bring in a Brandon Looper-type who starts because he makes more and blocks the younger guys. Personally, I think Thornburg is ready. I would also wait a year before trading a starter. Most of our pitching prospects need more time in the minors. I like Burgos as a middle or long reliever. I think he can be effective one time through the order.

I would have waived Francisco before Gamel. Juan doesn't seem to play hard or learn. Gamel has hit for a high average at every level.

I am hoping someone can tell me why I am wrong on this. I am tired of watching us make outs at home plate because we put on the contact play against an infield playing in. With the infield playing in, if you hit the ball on the ground you will score unless it is hit right at an infielder. Putting on the contact play improves of odds of scoring in that situation infinitesimally. With the contact play on we may be able to take advantage of an occasional bobble, but that seems to happen far less than the number of runners we sacrifice at home plate during the course of the season. It seems to me that will kill a lot of runners this way.

I am not going to hate Braun. I feel disappointed in him. I don't blame anyone who feels what they feel about this, regardless of their position. Braun lost out on being the 21st century Yount. I will always root for the Brewers and as long as Braun is on the team I will want him to succeed.

I picked my current username to honor a former Brewer from my home town. I would like to change my username due to the fact he is back in the public eye. I don't want anyone to think that I am him, or even know him. I can't figure out how to change my username without setting up a new profile. It has to be easier than that. Help?

This team is going to have a hard time scoring points, and a hard time stopping teams from scoring points. I doubt that they will make the payoffs.

Most of the pitchers we bring up either are trick pitch pitchers or don't have a third pitch. Most of our position players that we bring up do not field their position well, do not run the bases well, and have no concept of how to work the count to their advantage as a hitter. We simply don't develop talent anywhere in our organization. Maybe instead of overpaying for role-playing veterans we should hire some minor league instructors who are capable of teaching the fundamentals of baseball to young players.

I miss those tours that American major leaguers made to Japan. Back when I was at UWO I remember coming home at 2 AM after a long night of "studying" and finding these November baseball games on Sportschannel America. I used to love finding baseball after I thought the season had finished. I like that better than the WBC. I wish that if the WBC had to be played that it would be done in November. I worry about the potential injuries that could come from it.

I keep thinking that Gamel is going to get a chance and show he can hit. Hunter Morris needs nore minor league time. He hasn't hit at every level.

It would also be difficult to establish a means of getting teams toward the limits. What would the cap figure be? Minimum cap figures are usually set at 75% of the upper figure. When the NBA first put its cap in place teams like the Lakers and Celtics were way over it while the Bucks (who were very good at the time) were underneath it. The original plan was to have the teams over the cap get down to the cap by reducing the percentage by which those were over the cap on a yearly basis. They also allowed teams to resign their own free agents even if it put them over the cap. Because of a rapid growth in league revenue during the 80s, the Lakers, Celtics, and 76ers added big contracts every year and still got closer to the cap limit while the Bucks were handcuffed most of that time. Even today the NBA has all sorts of exceptions to prevent teams from having to completely dismantle in order to stay under the cap, and to allow weak teams to try and improve. Basketball is similar to baseball because of the guaranteed contracts. Football does not have those guaranteed contracts which allows for restructuring of contracts so that the good teams can hang on to more of their established players. I think that the best we are going to get is a luxury tax. I think that the best we can hope for is a higher tax rate. An irony in the union's stance against salary caps is that they usually end up in an increase in salaries. I remember listening to Robert Smith talking once on ESPN radio, and he said that the year before the cap in the NFL was adopted the players received about 35% of total league revenue, now they are at about 55-60% (I can't remember any more) of the total league revenue for salaries.

He has an option left. Why not take a look?

To me, it seemed like every division game was a rivalry game when we were in the AL. I remember hating the Yanks, Tigers, and Orioles more than the others. I lways thought the White Sox were more of a rival than the Twins. I think it has a lot to do with where you live. When I was living in Clark County I was surprised to find out that the Packer-Viking rivalry was bigger there than the Packer-Bear rivalry.

People are going to rip Wolf. I agree that he isn't the pitcher he was with the Phillies. I also agree that he has no place in our future. However, I thought he competed the best he could with the stuff he has. He was much more valuable than Suppan and his contract wasn't nearly as big of albatross. He won a play-off game for us and I wish him luck.

Why do you "take a chance" like that with a guy's first career win? It is mystifying.

Now lets hope Segura plays. I don't want to see him get the Taylor Green treatment. I would think that with us all but out of the playoffs that he is coming up to start.

I am listing things as I think of them, it is not in any rank order. 1. I saw Henry Aaron bat. 2. I saw lots of people puke in the left field bleachers at County Stadium. 3. I saw Jose Canseco's 40-40 night. 4. The Brewers came from 5 down in the 8th in about 1991 to come back and beat the beat the Blue Jays in extras on a Robin Yount single. 5. Robin's 3000th hit. 6. Eddie Perez hitting the foul poll to beat the Reds in 2003. 7. I saw Brooks Kieschnick strike out both Ken Griffey, Jr. and Albert Pujols in games. 8. I was in the club level bathroom when Rickie Weeks got his first career hit. 9. the free game

It was a mistake by DM and RR to think that our bullpen was OK with Kameron Loe and Jose Veras going in the 7th. That being said, I think just by changing the calendar that they will pitch better next year. I think that RR lets his pitchers get into too much trouble, and our lack of lefties hurts us as well. I think that our bullpen problems are starting to become mental. Like a basketball team that misses its free throws at the end of a game and blows it, and then misses its free throws at the end of every game. It also seems like relief pitchers who throw a lot of innings one season seem to have a hard time coming back the next year. I don't know if Kranitz is to blame or not but I expect him to be sacrificed. I have also wondered if we don't overuse our relievers early in the season. It seems that by limiting our starters innings that we use our relievers in consecutive days (3 or more) a lot early in the season. Ax, KRod, and Loe were used in a lot of games early this year. I remember that we did that a lot with closers in the past with and it seems we have had to make a lot of surprise changes in the past.

It was a good idea to send Thornburg down. I just don't think he is ready yet. He needs to do more with his fastball.