kramnoj

This certainly helps explain the lack of control this year. I don't think it's that certain. As posted earlier, I think it's more likely that the use is the response to the struggles, not the cause of the struggles.

Agent 39 is qouted in the linked JS piece that they are looking to get him into treatment. I too had wondered about loaning him out to an indy team so that he could keep pitching, as he will lose most of a season of development.

Do we have any actual evidence that the bridges are burned as bad as people seem to think? The biggest evidence would be that he turned down a guaranteed $10+mil in arbitration with a shoulder that didn't pass a physical. Either he really didn't know that he wasn't healthy (which was a huge mistake on the part of he and his agent), or he hated the thought of playing for the Brewers so much that he was willing to give up all that money. I used to think the bridge burning thing was basically gossip, but my opinion had to change with the results of the offseason.

could care less what Bill Hall has to say about being benched more. As a fan, you are certainly entitled to your opinion. For the people who are making decisions, they need to take Hall's feelings into account. If they thought that Hall could take a role where he is a defensive specialist and a bat off the bench against LHP, the Brewers could use him in that role, even though he would be vastly overpaid for it. But if he is going to be a malcontent, which could affect his performance, it would be better to just cut him lose and give Heether a chance, as he could provide similar performance at this point (hopefully better).

But why discard him and bring up a minor league player to super sub when Bill Hall himself can super sub. Hall complained when he was demoted into a platoon. I don't think we should expect him to react well to being completely benched. Besides, I don't think it makes sense to carry Hall only to play defense. His offense has severely declined. At least with Counsell we could get a decentish OBP with great defense. At this point I'm hoping that Hall gets dumped in a trade for a pitcher where we have to get a bigger contract than we would normally want, but can afford because they are absorbing Hall.

Don't know if this deserves it's own thread, but I didn't say it said anywhere definitively here yet. Seth gets the start on Saturday: http://www.jsonline.com/blogs/sports/49039581.html I am also wondering if Rivera will be assigned to one of the pitchers now, or if he will go back to starting once every 3 series or so.

The Brewers did the exact same thing. Yes, it's a completely different situation and it's not like they were filling County Stadium as the Yankees were filling the last Yankee Stadium, but I'm just sayin'. This isn't even apples and oranges. The Brewers highest attendance in County Stadium was just under 2.4 mil, and that was the only season it broke 2 mil. The Yankees attendance for the first game at their new stadium is listed at 48,271. They averaged over 50k the previous 4 seasons (over 52k the last 3). They had the demand to have a larger stadium and decreased supply to drive up prices. If the Yankees' smaller ballpark leads to higher ticket revenue that they can use to overpay players and not win a World Series, more power to them. I think baseball is the most family friendly of the major sports. It disappoints me that because of Yankee greed they have made it more difficult for families to have the opportunity to go to games. I also think it's short sighted of them to do this. Fewer families will be going to games, or they will be going to fewer games than they used to. That doesn't seem like a smart way to build fandom in the next generations.

Thanks for the response Brawndo. I first became aware of the league average platoon split a few years ago when MGL brought it up over at BTF. As MGL sometimes does, he overstated his case by saying that no player ever hits better than the league average platoon split. Some people brought up Frank Thomas, but MGL just dismissed it at the time. But as you pointed out with Jeter, Thomas had 2445 PA over his career, so he didn't cross the certainty line until late in his career.

With the NY metro area having about 20 million people, I'm surprised that they are not able to sell out every game. The sad thing is that the Yankees aren't interested in selling out the stadium. They are interested in getting the maximum ticket revenue they can, and if that means that prices are higher and fewer people attend, the Yankees are ok with that. I thought it was pathetic that they built a stadium with fewer seats. Personally, I would say that if the Yankees are interested in building a stadium that allows fewer people to go to a game, they shouldn't be able to get in the way of a 3rd team in NY (and this applies to the Mets as well).

Bill Hall is an upgrade over Nate McClouth? That's two mistakes for me in this thread. I was looking at the CF that had the most ABs for them this season.

If you think Bill Hall should get 100 more ABs against LHP going forward -- that certainly is a reasonable argument -- however, giving Gamel those ABs is an argument that has plenty of merit as well. It is true that Gamel has hit lefties better in his career so far, but is it reasonable to expect that going forward? I know the righty platoon advantage has been studied and it has been found that eventually if righty gets enough bats he will meet the level of historic RHB vs LHP split. What is the case with LHB vs RHP historically? Just going by what I see, Gamel has certainly handled himself well vs lefties. If Hall is on the roster, he needs to play against LHP. If the Brewers don't think he can do that anymore, there's no benefit to benching him, just release him and move on. I figure Hall has another month plus to get some good games against LHP. If he keeps trending towards flatline, the Brewers could easily replace him with Heether as super sub and let Gamel play every day. I'm perfectly fine with that, as I was happy with Hall being gone in the offseason. I just don't think less than 60 ABs should change anyone's mind. Edit. I made an obvious error with my platoon question. I meant to ask if there was anything to tell us that a lefty hitting lefties is a skill, or if Gamel has been "lucky" so far against southpaws to date. But since I bring up the platoon split skill question, I guess it's fair to say that counting on Hall to be a lefty killer doesn't jive with what I understand the research to be.

Morton was traded to Pittsburgh in the McLouth deal. Thanks, I should have reallized that. Well Medlen looks intriguing to me, but I don't know if he's ML ready yet.

I am not sure that every/any time BF.net wants to discuss a slumping player, we need to ensure that all other "slumping threads" are up to date. Why not? If people are talking about how bad Hall is because he has been terrible in his 59 PA against LHP, then it's legitimate to say the same thing about Hardy. If people aren't doing that, why aren't they doing that? If it's just a reaction to a bad couple of games, then it's a vent, which this forum specifically doesn't want. The big difference is that Gamel is burning service time, Escobar is not -- If Escobar was rotting on our bench, I am sure people would be a little more anxious about Hardy's current struggles. Gamel isn't rotting on the bench.

trwi7, I'm not sure what your point is, beyond the obvious. The discussion isn't who is a better player between Escobar and Hardy. The decision will come down to subtract Hardy and his salary for whatever the Brewers get in return compared to Escobar and his total expected production for a minimum salary for 2-3 years.

The funny thing is that Hall would be an offensive upgrade over their CF. I have a hard time thinking they would give up Jurrgens. What about some of the guys they have in the minors, like Morton or Medlen? Morton doesn't look like much until last year, but has looked good since 2008. Medlen looks good on b-ref, but I don't pretend to be an expert on the minors. Given what little I know, I might do a Hall and Hart trade for Frenchy and one of those two pitchers.

Not in a Bill Hall thread -- it's two independent issues/thread topics. You are right. We shouldn't be talking about Hardy in a Hall thread. Was my point not clear? If people are upset with Hall because of his performance in his role, why aren't these same people resurrecting that Hardy thread from the last topic of page 2 to lodge similar complaints? Who do we replace Hardy with? -- Escobar isn't the slamdunk that Gamel is. I disagree. They have opposite profiles, Gamel with the big bat and some questions on defense, Escobar with the great glove and some questions on offense.

But looking at his numbers against lefties in a vacuum completely ignores the fact that he has gotten 117 at-bats against righties this season, which is more than double the amount of at-bats he has gotten against left-handed hitters. I'm ignoring it, because it doesn't tell us much of anything about how Hall will be used going forward. He's not going to get many future starts vs RHP, so pointing out how much he stinks against RHP isn't adding anything to the conversation. Hall's role going forward will be to hit LHP and be a defensive replacement. He's stunk against all pitching so far, but the sample size of how he's done against LHP this year isn't meaningful. Not sure why JJ's bad performance means we shouldn't be talking about Hall. We can talk about Hall, but there is more reason to talk about Hardy's poor performance than Hall's poor performance in their roles going forward. I'm asking the question, if Hall's performance is meaningful, why aren't people talking now about how poorly Hardy is performing? There was a thread about Hardy, but he had a hot May and so that went away. I advocated getting rid of Hall in the offseason, just giving him away to anyone who would take his contract. Some were hopeful that Lasik would completely turn him around (that didn't make sense to me, if that was the case, the Brewers should have given him 3 days off during the season last year to get it done). Some thought that he should still bring back value. Given that he remained on the team, I hoped that he could at least provide some value in the role that he will be assigned. But there is a chance that Hall won't adapt to being a platoon player, and so the one good thing he can do with a bat won't be there anymore. If that's the case, I'm certainly fine with him being DFAed. I just don't think we have enough evidence that's the case.

The biggest difference I can see is that JJ's last good year wasn't in 2006. This isn't a relevant comparison. Hall won't be asked to start against righties much anymore. His role is to hit lefties. He's done that for years. He's struggling mightily in that role this year, but Hardy is similarly struggling in his role (and in a more meaningful sample size).

I really haven't given it much attention since the end of last year, but Byrd was caught up in the PED whirlwind (HGH I believe?), which could be a major reason that teams have been scared off to a certain extent. It depends on if we believe what he said. I believe he said that he wanted to not pitch the first couple of months, and then go through his own training to get ready and sign with someone for a playoff push. With the draft passed and his type-B status no longer relevant I'm surprised no team has gambled on him yet. Signing teams don't lose anything when they get a type B FA, so that wouldn't have been a factor.

Sure there are ups and downs in seasons, but this team just doesn't have the starting pitching that either the Cardinals or the Cubs have. It doesn't make any sense to just look at 3 players and decide that this is the reason that the Brewers won't be able to compete. I started this thread for one reason. So that whenever what appears to me to be inevitable happens, that fans take it in stride. I doubt that's neccessary. Plenty of people had their own doubts before this thread started.

I'm not sure how the standings are as relevant as the actual state of the team. Because the Brewers are competing against other teams, not against whatever ideal we have for what their pitching staff should look like. The number of teams that should have better records than the Brewers isn't that large. The Brewers will presumably be in the playoff hunt in July and if a deal is available that will improve this team without giving away star players, it's a move that will make sense for the continuing business interests of the Brewers.

Hardy is OPSing .635. We don't have a thread talking about how he should be replaced. Hall looks awful, and there's no doubt that he's struggling. But the period during which he has stunk against LHP is much smaller than his period of success.

I didnt think we could win with it before the season started and now with Parra falling apart I really dont see how its nearly good enough to win. They are winning with his poor performances, and it's unlikely that his replacement will perform worse than he did. Before the season started I thought the Brewers were an 86ish win team, and that if they got lucky they could get a playoff spot because of the misfortunes of their competition. The Crew is on pace for that kind of record, and could get into the playoffs because teams like the Mets and Braves and Cubs are either underperforming or had their own misfortune (or both).

JB, if you were really looking at this honestly, you would mention the WC. The East doesn't look like they will be producing one, and who believes the Giants are a better team than the Brewers? The Central will probably produce the WC this year, which means the Brewers would only have to beat one of the Cards and Cubs, not both. If another major injury hits the team, I could maybe see the Brewers doing a sale, but I don't envision one otherwise.

This is pair of sentences that should strike fear into the heart of a radio producer. I don't know which pair of sentences you are referring to, but I would hope that any radio producer knows this. It maybe should strike fear into anyone who wants to get into radio and doesn't realize it. The producer is there to make a good show, even if that means that they play the foil to the host.