windiv07

Hammer meets nail head dead center.

I am curious as to your rationale for that position...Why do you believe they should be in first place by several games? If you could turn back the clock, what would you go back and change to make that reality? Okay. I'll take the bait. Let's turn the clock back to last night. I am Ned now, right? Okay (duh).... 1) Leave McClung in the pen. 2) Trot Turnbow out there with the same order to plunk Pujols. 3) Tell Miller to extend one finger prior to the pitch and don't take no for an answer. 4) Tell Skaalen to holler out "THIS ONE'S FOR PRINCE!!!" just as Turnbow begins his windup. 5) Leave Sveum instructions to bring Cordero in after Skaalen, Turnbow, and I are ejected. That would have probably kept us within a run and greatly enhanced our chances of being within a game of the Cubs today.

http://static.yuku.com//domainskins/bypass/img/smileys/wink.gif Cut Turnbow loose on me for all I care. Your chances will be just as good. And no...I will not sit still...hit this... http://static.yuku.com//domainskins/bypass/img/smileys/roll.gif ....which gives me an idea... (see next post)

Hey Brian, Just wanted to let you know that I tested chat just now and my identity issues are resolved. I first saw that old defunct identity as the room opened up, but when your "AST" entry appeared, my correct identity popped up and everything now works. Don't know what you did but if you made the fix, Thanks!

I'll have to agree with you both except for one thing (and I don't want to put words in anybody's mouth), in my opinion, he's fatter than joey. http://static.yuku.com//domainskins/bypass/img/smileys/roll.gif

Count me as a #3 who sees more of 1 than 2 to be the cause on a game-by-game basis throughout the year. It seems as though the #2s are playing the Potawatomie hat/ball scoreboard game here trying to take our eye off the the manager's hat under which the loss ball is hidden on this issue. In the midst of all this bickering and diversion stemming from the completely unnecessary decision to wait until the 8th to transparently plunk Pujols, yours is perhaps the most salient and cojent comment I have read in this entire thread. A reasonable and well said appraisal of a team that should at this moment definitely be in first place by several games.

You want to turn the clock back? Okay. Actually, I want Villy plunking Pujols in the 4th (before he hit that that double & scored) which was the next time Pujols is up after the Fielder plunking. Then I would replace Villy (ejected) with Parra, drop Cappy (the jinx) out of the rotation and pitch Villy on 3 days rest after this short outing. What I want is for a manager to do the smart thing, not the stupid thing. That is asking too much in this case.

I think we all know and clearly understand the rationale behind the plunking. This is why the majority here feel that to wait until the 8th inning in the situation you describe (as opposed to just doing it and getting it over with) was not only juvenile, but downright suicidal.

Who exactly is "the rest of the league"?

Oh good grief...Did you see where those pitches were? It had nothing to do with the size of the strike zone, unless of course I missed some sort of rules change and strike zone now extends into the batters box. Our pitchers weren't getting squeezed, they weren't even close. I accept your point as I was in the loge last night. Do you assert that in a contentious stretch between a manager and the umpires that (after being defied) the umpires would never massage the strike zone because of 'the rules'? Do you deny that LaRussa understands gamesmanship and easily rubbed Ned's nose in it last night? I would've had Parra (a lefty) ready and told Villy to do it the very next Pujols at-bat after the Fielder plunking. This would've shook up LaRussa's lineup card early in the game. But NO...Ned waits until we are behind and rolls the dice later with a shaky pen in a bad situation late in the game. If revenge is a dish better served cold, it will have to wait until next year now anyway. In the postgame interviews, Pujols said that it was funny how stupid plunking him was. He was right.

Don't think for one second that when you plunk the offensive backbone of last year's World Champions (after a warning innings earlier) that it does not affect the size of the strike zone your pitchers must deal with after that.

You win. You have one of the other dozen reasons nailed. That said, others are blaming Maddux & Sveum for this even though we all know Yost most likely laid out his plan before heading up the tunnel (since we all have seen him do exactly that with Turnbow time & again). If it were up to me, Yost would be fined $10.00 & suspended (by the club, not the league) for the remainder of the year for the Pujols plunking incident. I'll voluneer to pay that fine if Mark Attanasio allows me to pick his replacement. I doubt this will happen because afterall, we are just stoopid fayunz. However, if it does, I'll be in touch...You take it through Sunday and I'll take the post season. It will take the intellect of a chimpanzee to get us out of this mess Ned has put us in.

Which lesson? About Turnbow with inherited runners, about leaving pitchers in until after it is too late, about putting in right-handed hitters against right handed pitching, about putting in left-handed hitters against left-handed pitching, about leaving pitchers in to bat in the top half of the inning and then replacing them in the bottom half, about giving hitters the green light with two outs and the bases loaded after the previous two hitters were walked by the same pitcher, about allowing contact hitters to bunt with 2 strikes (three nights in a row), or the dozen other bizzaare decisions he has repeatedly made costing the Brewers various ballgames this year?

How embarrassing. Imagine sitting in in the crossfire of that profane exchange between LaRussa & your own employee's shrill vulgar namecalling one night (on national TV), and the next watching helplessly as the same employee retaliates, gets ejected automatically after a warning, and watching the team you own get pounded into the ground as a result. Sorry you had to go through that, Mark. Welcome to our world. We didn't hire him, either.

http://www.spiegel.de/img/0,1020,644297,00.jpg Last Night's Quote from Ned: "There's no problem with the umpiring. We just argued balls & strikes." Brewers' Slogan for Crunch Week: http://www.darrenfrodsham.pwp.blueyonder.co.uk/images/terminator.jpg We'll Be Back..... Okay, I'm off to the game with a priest and a friar in tow. And Ned, we highly encourage the arguing of balls & strikes. Go get 'em. Oh and for those who feel this will affect the outcome of calls adversely to the Brewers, remember these instant replays are being played on major networks all over the world. No umpiring crew wants to be identified for its bias, no matter how confrontational the team they are ruling against may be on the field. Particularly down the stretch in such a high profile pennant race, the embarrasment of missed and wrong calls is only compounded by their frequency. All we ask for is an honest effort from the men in black, nothing more, and the arguing of balls & strikes would naturally subside. Well done last night Brewers. Keep it up. And keep this up on the wall... windiv07 wrote: Dear Ned: Please feel free to post this on the clubhouse door inside the tunnel facing the dugout... It is pretty clear to the league what happened AGAIN yesterday. It puts the Brewers in a heck of a position for this final homestand. Let's take full advantage. THIS IS YOUR HOUSE. Your Goal: Win out through Sunday. Your Method: Inspire you team. Your Mode of Operation: After yesterday's umpiring debacle, it is time to take the initiative. Send the message that bad calls will not be tolerated anymore. Your Strategy: Work out a bad/close-call signal from the squad. Tell every player not to hesitate to signal you immediately, but to not question or confront the ump himself. The moment the very first bad or close call occurs, question it. Not like you have in the past, but like LaRussa does. Call time, calmly walk to the ump in question, and ask for a clarification. If it was glaringly wrong, THEN be prepared to drag out the discussion with seemingly impertinent but civil questions, escalating (gradually) and (if necessary) getting tossed (but only after a creatively lengthy discussion). Remember, do not hesitate to take the initiative to interrupt the game by calling time and stay completely calm at all times. Then after getting tossed, stay on the field and behave with civility for as long as you possibly can (drag it out). Your Tactics: Plan A is to keep this up until the end of the season without getting tossed. Plan B is if you get tossed: You have six very capapble 1st tier coaches to back you up; Sveum, Maddux, Skaalen, Leyva, Sedar, & Castro. Review the M.O. & Strategy with them (behind closed doors) and get their vote of confidence so that if and when you get tossed early (for instance for calling time & questioning a pitch location or check swing [an automatic ejection] on signal from your catcher), get their pledge that they will follow your M.O. & Strategy exactly as you did (preceding you OWN ejection) even to the point where they are each in-turn ejected (in the same way for the same reasons) after moving up into your slot and carrying this plan out. Of course you'll need a rotation to fill each slot (see below) as tossed acting managers move out and coaches move up. The Brewers Fans' Role in This: The moment the acting manager calls time and exits the dugout for one of these discussions, Brewers fans are to begin to chant the first name of the acting manager (or nickname...no Edgars for Ned...just Ned). Here they are in suggested ejection rotational order... The Ejection Rotation: NED (Yost) DALE (Sveum) Bench Coach MIKE (Maddux) Pitching Coach EDDIE (Sedar) First Base Coach NICK (Leyva) Third Base Coach BILLY (Castro) Bullpen Coach (and if it turns out to be one ejection per inning...) MARCUS (Hanel) Bullpen Catcher JOE (Crawford) JIM (Skaalen) Hitting Coach (hold Skaalen until last and run without base coaches if necessary...Frankie Cordero can captain the bullpen right up to the end as long as Skaalen is still in the dugout) Four of us will be located not far from Uek's & Schroeder's mics for all 7 of these games. Trust me, the radio & TV audience will hear it when you step out of the dugout. The idea here is to chant (with as many fans as possible joining in) louder and louder as the discussion (hopefully lengthy) ensues down on the field so that as the homestand progresses, it becomes as customary as a rally-chant. Remember Ned (and all you Brewers), you are home now. We fans have your back. Players: Play well and leave the challenges of the umps to your acting manager. Do not give free space in your head for those who disrespect you (that includes LaRussa and his Cardinals). Coaches: Coach well, stick together, and be ready to move up. Ned (and all acting managers): Do not sit still for anything less than fair umpiring. BREWERS: TIME TO WIN OUT...ONE DOWN - SIX TO GO

I've tried all of the above, Casey, and to no avail. The room shows me as a defunct ez-board identity (along with the 'wrong password' message) I have not used in over 5 years (with the same email address as I use now) with a '.e' tacked on the end of it. I suppose that if there were some way for me to go to Yuku and completely wipe the old identity out, that might help. But I don't have a clue how to do even that. In the meantime, I'm locked out too and have been since Thursday.

Well, after another 2-out 7th inning meltdown over the bad call at second by ump Chris Guccione resulting in an extended inning and Brewers loss in Atlanta yesterday, I almost changed my mind when Ned was ejected for arguing the call. After sleeping on it and giving it some thought about how (for instance) Ned handles the pen and selects pinch hitters, the phrase 'too little too late' comes to mind as a common theme. Here is what I mean...As this game unfolded, 1st base ump Jerry Layne made several bad calls all in Atlanta's favor on close plays. Two of those bad calls (when Tivo'd in slow-motion) were actually initiated by Layne before the outcome of the play could have been determined (twice Layne began the motion to call a runner safe before he even reached the bag). It was as if he anticipated the runner being safe and on one of these bang-bang plays the ball was actually in Fielder's glove (ump had a perfect angle on this) before the runner's foot was down on the bag and Layne (poised to call him safe) clearly began the safe motion as the ball was being caught. Granted these 1st base calls (by Layne) happened earlier in the game and the call at second base (by Guccione) was the straw that broke the camel's back, but I ask myself if Ned would've gone out & challenged Layne (at 1st base) on the second of 3 bad calls there, would that have made a difference with Guccione at second base after that or would Guccione have had the nerve to hand Atlanta the game anyway with his only bad call of the game? We'll never know. So the question then becomes, why did Ned not go out sooner? So I ask myself that and the only answer I can come up with is that Ned will go out to keep a player from being ejected (Rickie Weeks was on the verge at the moment Yost came out of the dugout), but not to actually question a call on his own. Ned's post-game 'these-kids-play-their-#$$#$-off-and-this-is-not-fair-to-them interview makes that pretty evident. Knowing this, I begin to ask myself, if a manager is going to stay in the dugout while his team is being repeatedly reamed by bad calls from the ump crew until one of his players cannot take it anymore, is it reasonable to expect wins in close games with a hostile umpire crew. No it is not. Yet we have seen other managers around the league accomplish this. Take for instance Bobby Cox or Tony LaRussa who are regularly ejected for having taken the initiative rather than waiting for their players to. Hmmmm, let's see...what is the Brewers' record against the Braves & the Cards this year? Is 'outmanaged' a word? >

Dillon played 3B in the minors, its his natural position. Then why did Yost have him playing right field Thursday? Remember what happened then? <> The Brewers are as good or better (man-for-man) than any roster in the NL. IMO, no team is good enough to overcome poor management. In reading another thread it just occurred to me (I am a slow thinker) why the home record is so good and the road record is so bad even though Yost is just as bad at home is he is on the road. This 2007 team gets enough of a boost to overcome the incompetence a greater percentage of the time simply because of the good old home cookin' at Miller Park. It is infinitely tougher to overcome Ned's numerous shortcomings on the road.

So now Yost ois leaving it up to players to decide when to bunt with 2 strikes??? This gets curiouser and curiouser all the time. Yost had no problem with Counsell's call? Did Yost have a problem with Hall's call or did Yost call for the bunt with 2 strikes? And what about the 2 strike bunt the day before that?

Maybe I missed it in reading all these posts on Saturday's loss, but I didn't see any comments on Hall's third strike bunt foul-out in the inning previous to the Counsell third strike bunt foul-out. Two innings in a row bunting 2 strikes. My friends, that is something that even a little league manager knows better than to do. My anger with the defiance of basic baseball common sense only increases as this season slips away.

I couldn't agree more, but if he duid work out, it would breathe even more excitement into an already intersting roster. BTW, I think this it is spelled: Fukudodme. I don't think he would want to be confused with a building in Minneapolis.

I know. It seems every game down the stretch there is a roster move or two like this resulting in a critical inadequacy. The day prior it was starting Joe Dillon in right for the first time in Joe's MLB career and on the road in a strange stadium. Result again did not hit the stat page (a muffed pop fly by Joe with 2 outs that sustained the Braves rally scoring what turned out to be the winning run). It was ruled a base hit because Joe misjudged & over-ran it, then fell before he could reach for it. I felt bad for him and wonder how the players in the dugout must've reacted both to the lineup when it was posted and then to that moment when it happened. They cannot have much confidence in a manager who regularly makes such decisions under these pressure situations. It is almost a clinic in how not to manage.

Brian Anderson is adequate. I think he and Bill Schroeder have learned each other pretty well and will make a good team more and more. Early in the year the timing was a little off between them and Anderson seemed to lack confidence and was apprehensive while Schroeder taunted him mercilessly at every quirk and foible. As the season progressed, this subsided, particularly with the steady stream idiotic decisions from the dugout every other game that they have witnessed together which tend to take the focus off interpersonal conflict in the booth where announcers have had to collectively bite their tongues. It is like two adversaries watching a trainwreck together...such regular moments can bond anything...even opposites.

This is an excellent thread. Please allow me to rank these in terms of their overall effect on the outcome: First and foremost - Which came first? The tall chicken or the eggs it laid? I watch, listen to, or attend every game (except the weekday games). Stats do not always reveal the game situations addressed by pitching moves. I believe I am being generous in saying that with regard to loss due to pitching, in my opinion, well more than half the time, an avoidable wrong decision was made with regard to relief pitching (either leaving a starter in too long, not long enough, or watching a reliever in trouble clearly in over his head without getting someone up and ready in the bullpen until it was too late) more than half the time. While the pen produced the runs, the onus for those decisions are on the manager. The same holds true for pinch hitting decisions and play-by-play decisions & signals. One only needs examine the W-L record since the All-Star break to see how manager competence shakes out over a 162 game schedule. I think so.. His W-L percentage far exceeds that of the current combined staff. That is a plus. Great question & observation. This man could be next year's ace and long-term staff leader if he stays healthy (unlike Sheets). Are we asking for another Sheets situation by doing this is the question I ask. Time will tell. What this tells me is that Melvin is not throwing in the towel on this season just yet. Frankly, I already have for the aforementioned reasons which I fell will not change. So if I were the mind of Melvin right now today (and forced to keep Yost), I would save Gallardo for next year. Yes & No. To win the division in 2007? Yes. For the future of the franchise? No. Statisically? None whatsoever. As a team, the Brewers were playing almost 100% to their potential the first two months of the season. The offense was clicking & the infield was solid with Graffanino in the platoon right up to the moment of Braun's arrival. Weeks' & Hall's combined offensive woes (since mid-June) had more of a negative impact on the lineup than Braun's positive impact over the same timeline. Had Graffanino not been injured, Gross might still be in Nashville. This too had a significant effect on the defense we have seen on the field since. Thank you for providing the opportunity for a preliminary autopsy of the 2007 season. The Brewers roster will have to play like they did in May to overcome the day-to-day fundamental mistakes made from the dugout and win this division and . I hope they have it in them, but I am trying to be realistic now.

While has possibly the shortest legs in MLB, it is clear he has gained weight and lost a step or two since Spring. He clearly does not know how to catch Aquino. Breaking from first on contact of a gap double to center, a decent throw would have gotten him by 3 steps at home from the warning track. About a dozen pitches got by him today, too. Other than that, he is a great catcher.