Ennder

I'm sure guys like Sabean probably are.

It matters enough to make a difference since we seem to be just good enough to be in the wild card race so even 1 or 2 games can make all the difference.

Here is a link to the firemacha site for those interested. http://firemacha.blogspot...m/2005/07/idiom-wind.html Of course they think Macha cost them at least 15 games on the season so they are pretty clueless posters. I guess at this point I'm just numb to the whole situation. I know I didn't want Yost back and I guess I just hope the replacement is a game or two better. I don't imagine they could be much worse.

With some people at least. I'm not a huge Valentine or Johnson fan either so no big loss to me. For all the complaints about Macha rubbing his team wrong you have Valentine who ripped his own players to Wharton students and Johnson who had personal problems with players and the owner for Baltimore.

If those are the options give me Macha all day long. Never heard a bad thing said about his in game management.

Considering he has never had such a low BB rate at any other point in his career I'd assume it was more of an outlier than anything.

I tried to stay up for it but it has been a long week and the game just started too late after the rain delay. Pretty funny to see a world series game end on a infield single by a pretty slow footed catcher.

Not 9 wins, that is for sure. There will likely be other improvements in the team as well even if it is only young players gaining a little OBP and a little fielding experience here and there.

Everyone is entitled to their own opinion but this paragraph more or less sums up everything I dislike about the Joe Morgan side of baseball. The only pitcher ont he team that was there when 'we needed them' was Dave Bush. Parra tanked the last month+, Sabathia tanked in the playoffs, Suppan tanked the last month+. Going into the season I expected 180 IP or so out of Sheets given his recent years. Yost decided to use him such that he was in the top 5 in PAP going into Sept and the team payed the price for a bad manager yet again. Sheets was hardly the problem with the team. You seem to suffer from unrealistic expectations for pitchers. Only 9 pitchers in all of baseball have gone 200+ IP the last 3 years. Only 15 went 200+ IP each of the last 2 seasons. If you go to 4 years it is something like 5 pitchers in all of baseball. 200+ IP is the exception with pitchers and not the rule. You should expect 150-180 IP from most pitchers each year and you can't count on any pitcher 'being there' come the playoffs. It is why teams build around offense and play for depth in pitching. It is the reality of baseball. Sheets is not some loser who has gone out of his way to get hurt and is a freak of nature. He is a pitcher and at least 90% of them go through major injuries every 5-6 years and a good 10-15% of them lose their seasons/careers to injury every year. Over 33% of all pitchers end up on the DL every single year and pitchers slated for a job in the starting rotation is more like 40%. You should expect 2 of your 5 starters to end up on the DL and probably at least 2 of your pitchers who start the year on the roster to end the year on the DL. Taking it a step forward Sheets is the classic example of a pitcher mishandled by an organization. He had a bad back in 2004 but they still decided to increase his pitch count by 250 pitches that season. He had surgery in the off season and developed his shoulder issues the next year. They tried to bring him back about 4 months early for no good reason and he aggravated the injury. Then after 156, 106 and 141 IP Yost pushes him hard all year putting him in the league leaders in PAP, he starts to have arm soreness in September and Yost proceeds to stick him out there for 120 pitches on Sept 6th and then 113 pitches in just 6 innings on Sept 11th. If you really have to lash out at someone for Sheets failure to finish the season stick a big red bullseye on Yost who completely misused him during his career and especially this year. Five years from now when Sabathia and/or Lincecum have had major arm surgery and missed significant playtime we'll hear the same tripe about them, that they just can't stay healthy and aren't tough and blah blah blah but the reality will be they were mismanaged and got hurt and it is just part of baseball. It is revisionist history without a care for the reality of the situations.

But we didn't really 'lose' Sabathia when you are talking about the start of last year because we didn't have him. The same people who thought we were an 85-90 win team last year suddenly think we are a .500 team and the only major player not returning from last years opening roster is Sheets. I think the rest of the roster improves enough to offset a good part of losing Sheets.

Without a doubt he is a much bigger risk. His injuries are a lot scarier and in areas that are much more likely to repeat. Sheets isn't even in the top 20% of starting pitchers in injury risk if you are talking 'expected' days lost for the season. What he needs is a team that will try not to push him too much instead of Yost who abused him more than almost any other pitcher in baseball this year. I still blame Yost as much as Sheets for the problems in September.

who are we going to sign for the 90 games Kotsay is hurt for http://forum.brewerfan.net/images/smilies/smile.gif. Yeah of course we can trade for a different alignment in the OF but I doubt we'll find something better overall than just keeping Cameron for a year. He is a bargain at that price so even if we just extend him and trade him I'm fine with that. I would also add that Hart is an average at best fielder in RF, I think he would really struggle as a CF though his offense might offset that issue in CF as opposed to corner OF position.

hauser42 has an unnatural hatred of Sheets so I wouldn't bother with it. Sheets biggest flaw is that he is a flyball pitcher, I think he'd probably be better off going to a pitcher park. He could do ok anywhere because he is just that good but to play to his strength he should be in a non HR hitting park.

That projection did include 11 starts though. It is assuming a repeat of his last two seasons in usage.

The difference between Hart and Hall is that Hall stunk in the minors so was a surprise when he actually hit well for a year and a half. Hart was very good in the minors so most people are forgiving about a bad half a year. Hart had 213 BB in 2655 PA in the minors which isn't great but it isn't completely ugly either. The end of last year was the exception with him more than the rule. I just hope he turns it around this year.

My wife sent me a news clip from the AP that said Yost is one of the candidates for the managerial job.

going into last year people thought we had an 85-90 win team. We lost Sheets and that is it and probably will have a few upgrades here and there and now we are going to struggle to reach .500? The offense underperformed last year almost across the board and I expect us to score more runs, give up more runs and still be in that 85-90 win range even without Sheets and Sabathia as long as Gallardo/Parra/Bush stay healthy.

The eye-test is why guys like Darrin Erstad and Jack Wilson get raved about all the time even though they are well below average players. The eye-test is meaningless to me~. Weeks has a lot of raw talent and not a lot of baseball smarts, in the end it makes him about an average 2B overall.

I dunno his splits scare me as a starter. The samples are a bit low of course but for his career he has a .671 OPS against first time through the order, .784 second time and 1.037 the third time (141 PA). Pitch 1-25 he has a .669 OPS against, 26-50 a .769, 51-75 a .671, 75-100 a 1.123 and 101+ a 1.538. From watching him it just seems like he doesn't have the stuff to get guys out after they have seen it a couple times in a game. Bush actually gets better deeper in games because his control seems to improve as the game goes on.

Villaneuva has been terrible as a starter and great in the bullpen, I don't see any reason to mess with that. I'd rather see McClung move to starter than CV at this point. CV really struggles that 3rd time through the lineup.

For what it is worth here is what ZiPs thinks of him for next year. .246/.333/.446/.779

It bases it on how much they pitched the last 3 seasons to some degree. Gallardo missed most of the year and Parra has an extensive injury history. It also kind of cheats and just assumes low IP in general since pitchers get hurt so much.

The entire system is messed up if Cameron is a type B in the first place~.

I'm not 100% sure how it works but wouldn't we get a draft pick for Cameron leaving the team as well?

Super bowl winners vs world series winners seems like an odd way to prove balance. I mean you have to make the playoffs and win 3-4 games to win a super bowl and any team that loses 1 game has no shot. In baseball you have to win a best of 5 and two best of 7's and you could lose as many as 8 games and still make it. WIth the longer schedule and deeper playoff schedule it is much harder for the bad teams to luck into a world series victory than an NFL team doing it for a super bowl. Of course then there is the 83 win STL team that shows that you still can luck into it~.