Darnell Junior

anyone know what radio station if any broadcasts the game in the madison area? i'm dying here...

Just got back from the game, it was crazy. 2nd largest crowd in Miller history. Surprisingly, there weren't as many Cubs fans as one would expect. Crowd got taken out of it a little bit with all of sweet Lou's slow walks to the mound but once Duffy got on it was nuts. Great game.

If memory serves we seem to hit Randy pretty well. I'm optimistic. It's good to see all those walks yesterday, and Bush was actually pitching pretty well in my opinion, despite getting rocked. Let's go out and get a W. My roommate called this one a "must win" http://forum.brewerfan.net/images/smilies/smile.gif

I love it. I watched as many games as I could in 2006. It's much better than just watching spring training games with AA players playing huge chunks of the game. I almost like it more than the first few weeks of the MLB season just because every game matters that much more. If the US doesn't win I don't really care, it's just nice to see some baseball played where everyone on the field is playing as hard as they can to win, instead of going through the motions for a paycheck.

Another solid arm for essentially nothing. I have nothing bad to say about this pickup.

Stole the concept from RU Rah Rah... The idea is that we all give our predictions for our record, and somebody could make a spreadsheet with them all. We could get a mean, max, min, and all that other good stuff. I don't know, it sounds like fun to me. I'll do it if there are no other volunteers, as I'm okay with Excel, but I know for a fact I'm not the most qualified person on the site. I'll go with 87-75, Wild Card. I know it's a little optimistic but I'm high on Weeks and Parra, and I sense we'll make another move at the break. Also, why not two years in a row?

I would go with: 1) Gallardo 2) Bush 3) Parra 4) Looper 5) Suppan Seems to be a pretty popular 5... By the 2nd or 3rd week it's usually irrelevant anyways due to skipped starts or an injury, but that's what I would go with. Side Note: I'm VERY excited to see that all five of our projected starters can swing the stick a little bit. It's a nice little bonus.

Strawboss, I wasn't trying to imply that Suppan is our sixth best pitcher, it's just that last year he was being outpitched at times and it really had no bearing as to whether or not he was going to be starting. He pitched very well for long stretches last year, I just want it to be an open competition. If he wins the job, great. I wasn't trying to imply he should be in the pen automatically. What I do like in having 6 viable starters is that it does enable us to "ride the hot hand" between Looper, McClung, and Suppan if we choose to do so. Those three collectively might not be that great of a trio, but if you get to choose the two that are pitching best at the time, all of a sudden those 4th and 5th pitchers are looking pretty good. edited: (sp)

I like the signing, but obviously it's not overwhelming. Another 3-5 starter is always a good thing, whether or not you wanted a 2. Let's just hope that Macha has the sense to start the 5 best pitchers, instead of Suppan and the 4 best. I suspect we're done for the offseason but you never know. As we stand I like our chances, with a slightly above average and deep rotation plus a lineup full of young hitters bound to improve. I'd say our team is about the same as last year pre-Sabathia. I'll hope for another addition but I won't be dissapointed if this is it.

You can call me a pessimist but I simply don't believe Hart will have a better season than Griffey (unless he goes unsigned, of course). A .300 OBP is downright terrible. His BB/AB has regressed every year he's been in the majors, and I can't see that drastic of an improvement happening. Griffey, even in his down years, is going to put up an OBP of about .360 and slug .420 at least. He has one year of less than .350 OBP in his last 19 seasons, where Hart has just one season over it, which was mostly driven by batting nearly .300. As for backup outfielders, I would say Hall or Lamb could fill in if someone got injured for a significant period of time, or even Gamel. This discussion is basically irrelevant in my opinion with the signing of Looper, however. That was about the peak caliber of starting pitcher I think we were going to get in return for Hart. I hope Hart rebounds, I really do. It would be great to have a player worth keeping for awhile at both corner outfield spots, or even just raise his value for a potential offseason move. I just think it's more likely he plays slightly better, and shows himself to have Francoeur-esque discipline, than that he had a down year.

Another reason steroids in football is sort of glossed over is that there isn't really any tangible results of doing it in football. In baseball you see the home runs and the change in physique. In football, the guys who take them are offensive and defensive lineman for the most part, whose main stats are nothing, and sacks, respectively. Plus wearing pads and helmets, it's pretty hard to say "Wow, that guy has really beefed up since his younger days.." When a guy goes out and gets 15 sacks nobody is going to ask whether he did it clean, but if somebody hits 50 the question will be asked non-stop. As far as A-Rod goes I was actually pretty surprised he was named. He was mashing from the second he came up when he was wire-thin. No sympathy for the guy, but it is a little bogus how it was found out. A supposed confidential test where his name among hundreds is found out? Pretty fishy to me. The guy is a scumbag, though, so I guess I'm not that upset.

I know that trading Corey now would be selling low given his fall-off in September, but I honestly think we could drastically improve our chances at the playoffs, without compromising our future too much. If we aim at getting a good young pitcher, our obvious need of starting pitching could be partially relieved. To fill the gap, I would suggest going with Adam Dunn, but seeing as we've stopped talking to him, I'll go with my second choice. Ken Griffey, who I know is old, declining, and brittle, could still offer an improvement over Hart, especially with reports coming out that the legs that sapped his power last year are back in good condition. If he could come anywhere near to his line of .277/.372/.496 in 2007 that would be huge. He's played over 140 games the last two years, even playing most of his games with the White Sox in Center. Even if his production doesn't match that line, it would still give us another lefthanded batter, and a huge improvement in OBP. I'd love to have three lefthanded batters against righties, and Griffey hitting 6th wouldn't be the worst thing in the world. If he's struggling, even his line last year of .249/.353/.424 would be an improvent over Hart's .268/.300/.459. Defensively, I think Corey is a little overrated as a fielder because of his speed, and is about the league average. Griffey is probably a little worse than that, but I don't think the gap is as large as most percieve. I can't see him costing us a fortune either with the little interest that's been shown in him this offseason. Also, we would sell about one billion jerseys. Pros: Pitching Help More Lefthanded More OBP Cons: Even more K's Defensive Regression Injury Risk Thoughts?

Must win. Get back to Milwaukee with the series tied 1-1. Hamels is tough so hope for a split at home and give the ball to CC again in game 5. Go Crew.

As bad as he pitched for a huge chunk of the year, Guillermo Mota had a few stretches where he essentially held a struggling bullpen together.

Packers and Badgers both choke and I still could not be happier. We had a dogpile in our living room when it ended, followed by group hugs. Awesome.

As for the outfield question, I would like to see the same outfield next season. Brantley in 2010 sounds about right to me, and who knows where Gamel will end up on defense. As far as 2009 goes I don't see an obvious outfield that's better than what we have. As for this run-expectancy tangent, I've always been curious as to a situation like this: Hart, Weeks, Cameron, or any other player with some speed gets on base to start the inning. It's first and 2nd nobody out. If you're playing for one run, should you bunt him over to second, or let him try to steal a bag, hoping you can bunt him over to third with one out? I'd check out the tangotiger.net but I've got a Physics exam coming up and NEEEEEED to get some work done before the game. My opinion was always try to steal the bag. If you have a guy who steals at a 80% success rate (high I know), and *assuming the bunt is successful 100% of the time, that means 100% of the time you'd have a guy on 2nd with 1 out (.689 runs expected, but I'm not sure the frequency of scoring 1 run) vs. 80% of the time with man on 3rd one out + 20% 2 out no one on. All you really need to figure out the rest of the answer is the frequency of scoring one run in those situations. thanks in advance.

Can anyone give me some Corey Hart post ASB stats? I can't find anything but I've been meaning to look it up. I can't imagine it's too pretty. Here's to getting back on track with a W today, though.

If you look at career splits the platoon should be Weeks against righties and Durham against lefties, but who cares about statistics these days? All I know is sitting your hottest hitter the last 3 weeks for 4 straight games is insanity.

Biggest game of the year let's go crew. Screw the lineup we just need to play baseball like we're supposed to. My only complaint is 3 games benched in a row for our best September hitter.

Brian Anderson has a very thin grasp on the game of baseball.

Mike Cameron is arguably the best centerfielder in the National League taking both offense and defense into consideration. It's just sad that it's taken a 5 for 5 game for people to stop calling for him to be benched. My dad is still calling for Kapler to be playing. It's 3 and I'm on Brewerfan.net lets go crew.

SS is no doubt a harder position than 2B, so people assume Hardy would transition well. However, Hardy's on the short end of the stick as far as range goes for SS, and he's got an upper-tier arm. Playing 2B de-emphasizes the importance of a strong arm and stresses good range. Moving JJ to 2nd would be playing to his weaknesses. Whoever made the point of playing on the same side as Fielder is dead on. Assuming he's about average defensively right now, he woud still be about average at 2B. Lack of range and a great arm sound a lot like a gold glove third baseman, though. I'm all for him moving over to 3rd. He's in the top 10 offensively for shortstops even in this renaissance of sorts of the position. His stick is good enough to play over there, assuming he doesn't regress. As far as Alcides goes, he will not be moved. When he's in the Majors he will be getting 100% of his time at SS. You don't hear comparisons to Everett and Ozzie and move that guy to 2B. I see him scuffling pretty bad with the stick his first couple years but you can deal with that with top-notch defense.

33 games left with 74 victories already. 20-13 isn't out of the realm of possibility with our schedule. It's very plausible that we win 6 or 7 out of our 8 against the Pirates, and 1 over .500 in the rest of the games puts us at 94 wins. *Assuming we go 20 and 13 to finish with 94 victories, the Cubs would have to go 15-18 to force the playoffs, which is possible considering how many games we have left with them, but I still doubt it. Cards would have to go 22-8 to catch us if we took care of business, so I think 92 will get you into the playoffs this year. I like our chances, especially with Kendall, Cameron, and Weeks all starting to hit at the right time and our pitching being lights out the last few weeks.

I think it's surprising to most to find out that Cameron's offensive production is superior to Hart's at this point in the season. I think if you asked 100 people who was having a better season more than 95 would say Hart. That just goes to show you how misleading batting average can be. Heck, most of my friends still think Kapler should be playing over Cameron.

Let me clarify. By no means do I think Braun is ready to play center field right now. I do think his arm and speed project well there. He's been playing outfield for less than a year. If he regresses or simply doesn't improve, keep him in left. I think by 2010, however, we'll have a better grasp on whether or not he can handle the move, which is when it actually matters. Also I was wondering about Cameron hitting 7 instead of Hall/Counsell the other day as well. I honestly believe Yost does it because Hall looks like he SHOULD hit with more power.