NievesNoNO

Why are we running out the back end of our bullpen in a 2-1 game??!!

Boooo!!! Well, at least they're back at it tomorrow with a winnable match up. C'mon boys lets get this series behind us with a new win streak.

At least we're not in danger of getting swept by the Nationals?! Oh....

We went to St. Louis last year and had a blast. Stayed downtown. Where?, I don't remember and we did go out after the game and didn't have a problem and at no time felt threatened. We wore all our Brewer gear and were in the middle of the bleachers. We cheered (not obnoxiously and didn't taunt anybody around us), but we never were harassed at all or even told to sit down. People around us were great. They even didn't mind snapping some pictures of me and my buddies. Brewers won 1-0, and it was the same story after the game. We were only told to go home once (it actually felt really weird to have nobody talk any crap to us). People were friendly, game was great, city was fun, and the food was tasty. I'd definitely go back. There really is no parking lot though. So, likely if you're partying before the game it will be at a local pub. The fact that the stadium is smack in the middle of the city really took me by surprise for some reason. You turn the corner and there it is with no parking lot to walk through just the stadium entrance. Have fun!! Go Crew!

Please Hart come back soon so we don't have to see Kotsay in the starting lineup. I'm not really sure why Morgan isn't starting every game out there regardless of the pitcher. It just doesn't make sense to me to not have your best players in the lineup. It's amazing how much better I'd feel about the lineup with just one change.

As for the green part, I totally disagree with you but I am an acknowledged Hardy guy. Injuries are difficult to predict and there is no way you can say that Hardy's injuries in 2010 and 2011 would have occurred had he been in Milwaukee. As for Hardy v. Gomez when the deal was made, I can't argue that we had better coverage at SS (Escobar) than CF (Cameron was a FA) but that still doesn't make this a good trade. Gomez was a toolsy CF who hadn't put it together and a season later still hasn't. Hardy was an injury prone SS, a year removed from hitting .283 at age 25/26. Give me the latter everyday if we are speaking Hardy v. Gomez. Hardy was dealt at the worst possible time and when his value was the lowest. The difficult thing is knowing where we are at today versus where we were when we made the Gomez-Hardy deal, meaning who would have thought we would have traded Escobar a year later. My biggest issue with this past offseason was after Escobar was dealt in December, we still had time to make another deal to acquire another SS instead of rolling with YuBet. Hardy was acquired by the Orioles for a bag of balls and I think we could have very easily matched the package. And even if you aren't a Hardy guy, I think most would rather have had him than YuBet. I'm not a Yuni fan and I will agree no matter how you look at him he's still one of the worst shortstops in the game. I think Hardy was underrated when he was here and would much rather have him than a lot of SS in the league. At the time he was traded the Brewers (and many fans) were looking to get Escobar on the field. I think that some are still upset that Hardy didn't bring back the stud pitcher they believed we could've gotten and won't let it go. I'm just of the opinion that we probably got the best of what was available at the time for him. Player for player, Hardy was the better player but he is hurt now and hasn't done anything since he left. People continue to talk about him like he's a top 10 type shortstop. Anyway, I don't think we should or need to deal Gomez to get an upgrade at shortstop. I'll take a stud defense only, no hit type over Betancourt. However, I will say to this point Yuni has held his own so I don't think there's a rush to replace him.

We'll said. If your feelings get hurt in a 5 run game then perhaps you should find another line of work. Perhaps the Cubs can give out trophies at the end of the year to their entire team because they all did a good job and tried hard. That way nobody has to feel bad for themselves.

Gomez is still more valuable to the Brewers than what he could bring back in a trade. People can continue to rip our GM for trading Hardy for him but the truth is the Brewers have gotten the better end of the deal thus far.

I don't know why MLB, or professional sports in general for that matter(although I believe MLB is the worst), insist on making it more difficult for people to become fans of the sport. I get that they want people to go the games and all but sometimes it's not an option. Has there actually been any research done that proves local blackouts increase team revenue? I would guess in the long run they lose potential fans. Even if they started selling pay per view games at least the option would be there.

Was thinking the same thing. You really could make a legitimate case for Gallardo batting 6th in that lineup! Anyway, here we go!! Hopefully one of many wins starting today!

How do you explain someone like Craig Counsell having a good walk rate then? Or Daric Barton, or Nick Johnson, or Scott Hatteberg, or any other hitter with a good eye/low power combo? Having good plate discipline is definitely a skill, and it's one of the most important skills a player can have.I agree Stevo. While it's not an athletic skill per se, being able to recognize a pitch and realize it's not a strike or decide to swing AND square the ball up on the bat is definitely a skill and separates very good prospects from major leaguers, very good players from All-stars, etc. If it wasn't a skill Brandon Wood and Matt Clement would be All-Stars right now. I will agree with RockCo that the walk is overrated in that if you have the ability to hit the ball hard somewhere then you should probably swing more often than look to take the walk. It's really up to the batter to know his own ability with this. Guys like Vlad and Manny have/had the ability to hammer the ball no matter where it's pitched so for them walks are overrated IMO. A guy like Gomez or Yunesky who swing at everything, but hit it with much less authority the walk is underrated. On a side note, I shudder to think how many bombs Frank Thomas might have hit if he swung more. Um, oh yeah... opening day is only two days away!! Reason enough to be excited!!

Greinke, Marcum, and a returning top tier offense. I'm still holding out hope for Gomez, so I'll still include him in a reason to get excited for myself. Maybe I don't get out much or something, but it's almost worth the price of admission for me to watch him uncork a laserbeam from CF to home or 3rd base. I also have yet to feel anything like a playoff game a Miller Park, so I'm hoping to get that opportunity again.

Nothing is awful about that, but I was actually looking at the other 360 innings he's pitched in his career with a 1.5 whip. Like I said I really don't care either way that he's on the team as a 5-6th starter/ long reliever. In that capacity he's fine, however I'm just concerned that this is showing a little desperation on the Brewers part and that things on the injury front might be slightly worse than they appear.

Yuck, Mitre is awful. He doesn't qualify as depth in my book. You have to have some ability to qualify as depth of any sort. That said, I don't really care about the players traded one way or another because if we're relying on Dickerson or Mitre for any significant contribution the season is in trouble. The most troubling part to me is why the deal was made. I'm concerned that either or both Greinke and Marcum might have a bigger injury issues than we were lead to believe.

Estrada should be fine for a couple of starts. I actually like what I saw of him last year. You could worse than Slowey though. I'm actually not sure what the Twins are thinking; he's still a better option than Duensing and Blackburn.

Agreed. I don't feel sorry for anyone, but I do like watching him pitch so I do hope he comes back strong. As for the Gomes thing. I'll file it under "who cares". The guy is just expressing his excitement for probably becoming the favorites in the division. I'm sure he wouldn't wish an injury on somebody. To me it's just crappy journalism. Why even add that to your story? The guy is inside the clubhouse basically expressing the same thing that all the fans feel (and really think about it- he's actually playing so I'm going to guess he's probably even more excited about their situation than the fans are). It's not like he called a reporter over to talk about how much Wainwright deserves to be injured.

To me, baseball seems to have basically 3 unions. The player, the owners, the large market owners. The challenge is getting all the owners to agree on the same thing. The players will agree eventually if all the owners are together, they have no choice. Too often it's actually the owners amongst themselves that can't agree to be more competitive. I really used to think that a salary cap was the answer and I still think something to level the playing field should be done, but I'm just less sure on how black and white it really is. No amount of money will ever compensate for a poorly run franchise (see the Detroit Lions). The problem with the Royals and Pirates (and the Brewers for may years) was incompetent scouting and player development and/or an unwillingness to completely start over no matter what the public perception. Building a solid baseball organization is a much tougher and longer process than an NFL or NBA team. Players just take more development. I think the Royals might be in the right direction and maaayybee the Pirates too. It's kind of the chicken and the egg thing though. You need attendance to generate revenue, but you generally need a competitive team to generate attendance. I often wonder why teams struggling to pull attendance in their down years don't start running things more like a minor league team and drop the ticket prices and get some people into the stadium. That's another subject I suppose.

I get what your saying I just think Hockey isn't a good comparison to baseball. Let me start by saying I don't follow Hockey at all so I might be completely off base but I'm going to guess that all the owners had no problem agreeing on a salary cap structure. Hockey doesn't generate near the revenue baseball does and I would guess most hockey franchises have a lot of the same financial issues. Whereas, in baseball there's enough money being generated by the large market teams that they really have no desire to cap things. As soon as teams stop giving away massive deals, players will stop asking for them. I actually do believe some team would give Pujols 300 million, so why not ask for it? I do think there needs to be some tweaking to the baseball's system, but I don't think it's quite as broke as some think. A World draft would be a good start. Honestly, I'm not sure on the the rest. The individual TV deals are what's separating the large markets from the smaller ones. I think I'd like to see some sort of TV revenue sharing with any team accepting a portion of the TV revenue having to abide by a salary floor.

Gary Sheffield retires. Nice quote Sheff, you're obviously still as arrogant as when you started. Fine baseball player, but never really cared for his attitude. Glad to see him hang it up.

As many have stated the Rays to Portland makes a lot of sense. My second choice would be Honolulu. I don't think that would ever happen becasue of travel costs, but who knows. The Pirates could then shift to the A.L. East.

Not good. Such an immensely talented ball player in his prime willing to throw it all away. Not that there's an appropriate age to let these sorts of things slide, but it's not like the guy is 20 years old where I could maybe pass him by on a strong lapse of judgement. A grown man with an open bottle in his car that's so intoxicated he's willing to take a pull off it in front of the officer that just pulled him over appears to be a serious drinking problem. I hope he gets the help he needs. I think he's actually quite underrated as a ball player. He gets overshadowed by the like of Pujols and and some of the bigger market first basemen, but if not for Albert, Cabrera would be the best hitter in the game right now.

I hate to say the word, but when a previously below average hitter suddenly smashes more than 50 home runs...well let's just say I'm skeptical. Maybe he really did figure out something will his swing, but he'll have to make more adjustments this season as pitchers will have been studying more film on him. I'll predict he hits 26 bombs this year and regresses more towards his old self. Personally, I'd have made him prove it one more year. There's some weird stuff going on with those Blue Jay hitters Bautista goes from below avg. to stud, Aaron Hill and Adam Lind fall flat on thier face after monster years. I'd give Hill and Lind more of a chance to bounce back to their previous year than I give Bautista to come close to repeating last year. Not a smart deal IMO.

I don't think there's much disputing that Albert can be in the conversation for one of the best hitters all time. He's clearly the best hitter in baseball right now and therefore expects to be paid like the best hitter. I don't buy the idea that "he gave St. Louis a discount" on his previous deal. Some of those were bought out arbitration years, so absolutely he could've made more but that's the way HE chose to go. Unfortunately king Pujols will not be the best hitter for more than 4-5 years. That's just the laws of aging, unless of course he's pulling a Barry Bonds on us. So, he likely won't be earning that 30 million dollars a year on the field. Now whether you want to dispute if he's worth that money to the team off the field I guess is another story. Personally I think that's a ploy by the agents and players for leverage; the Cards will still sell plenty merchandise with or without him. My only thing with people critizing Pujols or any player seeking mega-dollars is the owners are the ones shelling out the money for these guys. So, until somebody stops paying out these massive contracts they will keep getting bigger. As long is someone will pay it somebody will ask for it. I do think this will set the bar higher for Fielder. He'll get to be the $200 million consolation prize.

1. The Pirates generate the talk of Spring Training with their Grapefruit League Championship and their young core of position players. (and proceed to be the same old Pirates once the season begins) 2. Mark Rogers pitches well enough the Brewers feel like they have a tough decision to make going into the season on the 5th starter spot.......Decision Made!!.... AJ Burnett goes down with an arm injury and the Yankees are pressed to look for a starter. Brewers trade Wolf to NY for Austine Romine giving Rogers and Narveson the 4th and 5th rotation spots. 3. The Brewers attempt the triple steal..........TWICE. 4. Greinke hits a home run and signs an extension a day later. I'm not sure why those two things should go together but it just seems right http://forum.brewerfan.net/images/smilies/smile.gif.

I completely agree. You have to take on some risk to have the chance at benefiting. I also think there's a little bit of a misconception by some that the reason to extend a player is to get that player at a 'discount' in their free agent years. To some extent that's a decent motivation, however, in the Brewers case I think that just being able to keep a good player is enough of a reason to even slightly overpay with an extension. If Greinke reaches free agency there's 0 chance we resign him, probably the same with Marcum. The Brewers have exclusive negotiating rights, so to speak, right now with these guys so I'm hoping they take advantage of it. Edit: I just realized I put nothing about Weeks in my post. It's really a tough call. I wish they'd have given Rickie the money they gave Hart, but that's in the past. I'm really hesitant because of the wrist injuries, but when Rickie plays he puts up elite numbers for a second baseman and he's just entering his prime. Then I think of all the effort that the team and Rickie has put in to improve defensively and I'm going to say yes, extend Rickie at 10 mil. per season and hope his wrists hold up.