brewerguy71

The Cy Young is Webb or Lincecum's to win. Sabathia may get some votes, may even finish in the top 5, but if he wins it there is something wrong, especially if Webb wins 20 and Lincecum continues at the pace he is on. The BBWAA would never give the Cy to a player that missed the first 2.5 months of a season. Which for all intensive purposes in voting for the NL Cy Young Award, he did. The AL numbers have no bearing on the award. As for Braun and the MVP, he has to finish the year right now, he may be headed for the DL, and last year the exact same thing happened to Chase Utley, and he had no chance of winning it by years end. If he doesnt go on the DL and things remain as they are now statistically standing, it has to be Berkman or Pujols.

Back to the original question... Yes, the Brewers are too cocky. If there were a harder throwing pitcher on the mound last night, Prince would have been drilled, rightfully so, after hitting the HR. The Brewers are headed for the playoffs. Its a nice accomplishment for the franchise after 26 years. But the way they admire and strut and watch HR's, if they dont win the World Series this year, it makes them look like amateurs. Total Bush League.

I think he should get some consideration for the award, but its Lincecum or Webb's at this point. You can throw Haren in there too. Those three guys, as well as Zambrano have been pitching all year long in the league and they are the most deserving of the award.no matter how Sabathia finishes. If any of those 4 finish the way they have pitched all year long without major slumps, they should be first in line for the award. The guy has pitched great but has had 7 starts. How many pitchers out there have had great April and Mays and cooled down once they get through the league the second time? And with the time he spent in the AL, you would have to think of that as something like injury time when it came to the NL. Since those AL stats mean nothing for the award. How many pitchers out of the league for the first 2 1/2 months would get serious consideration for an award like that? The closest comparison comes from the year Randy Johnson was traded from Seattle to Houston in mid year and did such a great job. He was 7th in the league in Cy Young voting.

I say you root Cubs. The Brewers have such a small chance of catching the Cubs for the division, so why worry about them or their lead. If the Cubs can knock off the Cardinals, thats one less team to worry about in the playoff chase.

To answer your question 2live, just guesses, nothing mathematical. Looking at each teams schedule and figuring how many games each team should win in each series and then adding them up. Generally its 2 of 3 at home and 1 of 3 on the road, unless there is a special circumstance such as playing a last place team, or having a very tough series at home (such as the Mets series for us in September). After yesterday I have the Brewers/Mets tying for the Wild Card, Cards dropping off a game, and the Marlins gaining. I think the issue for the Brewers will be winning the games on the road this month. They have looked nice so far, but the end of August is a long way off, and that road starts to take a toll this late in the season. Talent sometimes takes a back seat in August as baseball history has shown. I think the other big issue will be the adding of innings to Sheets and Parra's arms. They are both starting to tire and if you cant rely on both of them like you did earlier in the year it will be another disappointing late September for the Brewers. On offense I like the Reyes/Wright/Beltran trio over Braun/Fielder/Hart, Delgado/Hardy cancel each other out, imo, because of their streakiness, but they could tip the scales with a hot streak. The Marlins and Cards just dont want to get out of it yet, and if they keep it up, its going to make it very difficult for the Brewers and Mets down the stretch. After 26 years of Brewer baseball, its kind of hard to believe they have what it takes to pull it off this year. One of these teams will get bumped and they wont have any control over it.

http://www.hardballtimes.com/main/article/powering-up/

Ive got them at 88 as of now. Tied with the Mets and Cardinals for the Wild Card (depending on how each team plays today). Phillies and Cubs both 93 wins.

The Brewers have to worry about making the playoffs first. Period. They have the Cardinals, Marlins and Mets all on their heels at this point for that Wild Card spot and there is no guarantee that they will make the playoffs at all. I think that messing with the rotation at this point in the season would be folly. If you start to move things around now and alter players work out routines on off days and switch number of days between starts, Sheets and Parra start to suffer (more than they have in the past month even). Its just way too early to talk about this yet. If we get to mid September and are still in the same situation, then we can talk about this. Even then, I say dont touch a thing because once you do youre fubar. You cant save your best pitchers for certain spots, if you dont make it to those spots.

Catcher isnt the kind of position you "just pick up". He has limited experience at the position. A guy like Buster Posey became a catcher and was able to hone his skills defensively while still in college. Now that he is a professional baseball player, his main focus is going to be developing his best skills. His top skill right now is as an offensive player. Trying to become a major league catcher as well, while learning to hit really good pitching might be a major distraction to his development. I just think his place is at 3B or as a corner outfielder. LuCroy is the guy to develop as the major catcher for the system. He doesnt need to be switched around to all sorts of positions to distract his development.

To put Escobar at 2B would be a complete waste of his talents (kind of like hitting Weeks leadoff). If you need Hardy so much, why not put him at 2B? The more I think about it, though, maybe Hardy could be a decent 2B...I just dont want to give up on Weeks. He is a good hitting coach away from being a very good, Chase Utley type of hitter, to give up on that would be a shame. The reality here is that I think that Escobar and Weeks have upside, Hardy doesnt, imho. His offense is definitely ahead of Bill Hall, but would currently rank him as about the 10th best 3B in the NL. If Gamel is the heir apparent to the 3B job he should be much better than that. My opinion, when the time comes, is to trade Hardy for starting pitching. Hardy has a bat that has a record of success. He has been propped up this year at the SS position because of lapse years by Tulowtizki and Rollins. Escobar is barely a top 100 prospect, he wouldnt bring a great starting pitcher, Hardy would. (fixed code --1992)

I dont see him panning out as a catcher. 3B or OF is going to be my guess. His bat, if it continues to develop will land him a job somewhere in the organization.

I would trade Hardy in a second if Escobar were ready. But that decision is at least 2 years away. And that will be just in time for Hardy's time to enter free agency (one year short) and would be the perfect time to trade him for a prospect or two (if he is still that valuable. Escobar is a Jose Reyes type of shortstop defensively, a highlight reel play potential every night. And even if he only hits .270 or so with a lower obp, well they can just put him the bottom of the order, and still have a more valuable guy at SS. Hardy's defensive numbers are a bit misleading. He has the great fielding percentage, but that is because his range is limited. He has a nice OOZ number, but he repeatedly cheats up the middle and gets to balls that are outside of his zone. He does have the nice arm and the nice bat. I dont know if moving him to 2b works very well because he would have limited range there too, and he doesnt have the bat to play 3b. One option would be to make him a RF, but is his arm strong enough for that? Just like I felt with the preseason and trading Sheets for top quality prospects, so it will be with Hardy when that time comes. I think its always better to load up for the future, and be in a continual rebuilding and improving mode. If the Brewers made good decisions on that front when the time comes, they could land a boatload of premium prospects in trades involving Fielder and Hardy. When that time comes, the Brewer farm system will need a major boost. If they do it right, it could be reminiscient of the days when they had Weeks/Fielder/Braun in the system at the same time. You definitely move him when the time comes.

Atlanta 1-2 Cincinnati 1-2 Washington 2-2 San Diego 2-2 Los Angeles 1-2 Houston 2-1 Pittsburgh 2-1 St. Louis 1-1 Pittsburgh 1-2 I'm going with the slightly (just slightly) pessimistic 13-14. Unless the last 4 days were a dream of course.

It's probably overly optimistic to say that Brewer fans will have the "last laugh". After what happened this week against the Cubs, the Brewers have been exposed to have glaring deficiencies in both character and ability. (I dont mean personal character...more of a "makeup" kind of issue). I would predict, that in the end, the Brewers will have improved over last year, but finish third in the division, and out of the Wild Card spot. I'm going with Phillies, Mets (WC), Cubs, Diamondbacks. Brewers win 86 games. This road stretch could be brutal on the team. Suppan appears to not be getting better at all. The pitching platoon is not working well. And Sheets appears to be slowing into August. Fielder (apart from his childish outburst yesterday), Braun and Sabathia are the things to hang your hopes on. But without better defense and a reliable bullpen, I think its time to start thinking about next year. (And yes, I realize there are two months left to go in this season, I just dont see it happening for the Brewers this year).

Good move short term for the Brewers, bad move long term. Niemann has front of the rotation potential and Brignac is one of the Rays top ten prospects. A top 10 on that team is pretty dang good. Brignac might make Brewer fans long for the days of Jack Wilson. The guy has big upside on his bat and plays a nice defense.

Good move short term for the Brewers, bad move long term. Niemann has front of the rotation potential and Brignac is one of the Rays top ten prospects. A top 10 on that team is pretty dang good. Brignac might make Brewer fans long for the days of Jack Wilson. The guy has big upside on his bat and plays a nice defense.

Left Fielders tend not to win the Gold Glove award. Great range CF's and Cannon Armed RF's tend to win it. That being said, I dont think Braun is all that great defensively, definitely not worthy of a Gold Glove. He takes bad routes on balls all the time, and only manages to make up for those reads because of his speed. At this point in the season, if I were a voter for the Gold Glove, I would vote for Aaron Rowand, Carlos Beltran and Hunter Pence.

I would put Dan Haren at about 14th right now. Not to say that I think he is the Cy Young Award winner to this point. I'll have to start on that one tomorrow. Edit: Took out unnecessary part of the quote. Please watch what you're quoting.

Dont forget the pitchers on that list. Harent is at 46.1, Lincecum 43.8, Zambrano 40.3, Sheets 39.9, Hudson 37.8 and Santana 37.5 Edit: Took out unnecessary part of the quote. Please watch what you're quoting.

I dont think there is a problem with watching it as you run or trotting. If the ball doesnt make it out of the park, the player winds up looking like a fool. I have no problem with that. But when a player stands at the plate and watches it, thats when it annoys me. It seems like Braun, lately, cannot go a HR or two without admiring himself. I am shocked that the Cards did not throw at him the next day. Hall as well for that matter. Last year when Prince Fielder got brushed back by Matt Capps, the next day he had a monster day, right up until he started boucing up and down with "What do you think of me now?" attitude and stare down. He did what you are supposed to do in those types of situations, he had a great performance. I understand that guys get excited. But some Brewers seem to take it too far. That self imposed curtain call last night by Braun was a joke. And it was done simply because he lost his head. Its all unnecessary. Its all just pomp and circumstance and makes the game look bad. imo.

So far? There are about 12 guys up for consideration at this point. Do you think the MVP should come from a winning or contending team? Do you think the MVP should come from a team that makes the playoffs? As of right now, statistically, Lance Berkman is by far the most productive offensive player in the NL. Does he have a chance to be the MVP? Maybe. Other players in that class would include Chipper Jones and Matt Holliday. Among the teams that could fall off, Pujols, Hanler Ramirez and Dan Uggla are all considerations as well. As of right now, including guys who arent on winning teams, my vote would go 1. Berkman, 2. Pujols, 3. C. Jones, 4. Holliday, 5. Burrell, 6. H. Ramirez, 7. Ludwick, 8. Utley, 9. Braun, 10. Uggla. I would expect Berkman, C. Jones, Burrell and Ludwick to have no shot at all, much less consideration. As of now....

I think your intent here is to say "no Bandwagon Brewer fan" actually says something like this. This thread was started by a Brewer fan for the same reasons that I stated above. Robin Yount and Paul Molitor never did that kind of garbage. I dont even recall Geoff Jenkins doing things like this either in his long career with the Brewers. He has had quite a few instances of showboat type of behavior in the last two years. I just think its a little much. I dont see it as swagger at all, I see it as showing up the other guy. Sooner or later, someone is going to take him to task for it.

This is a problem at every baseball park in Major League Baseball. Although no where near the extent of rampant nationalism during the 1930's in Europe, there are parallels. I was at the Cub Brewer game at Wrigley last year when Aramis Ramirez hit the walk off home run, and there were many Brewer fans in attendance that seemed to be just looking for a fight, and acting like drunken buffoons. Cub fans are just as guilty. Its just sad that you cant take your kids to a game anymore and not run into this obnoxious type of behavior. I think that the teams almost encourage it. Does anyone remember the video they used to show at the start of games where Bernie the Brewer would hit an HR and blow up the rest of the stadiums in the NL Central? Is it any surprise now that fans will go the extent they do to "support" their team?

Jeter, ARod, Damon (if he can stay healthy) and Guerrero should be the next players to get to 3000.

Ryan Braun is fast becoming the leading jag in baseball. He's never hit a HR he didnt like watching leave the park. And then that self imposed curtain call. He's acting like an amateur. The really sad thing is that if Brewer fans think he is arrogant now, just think of how "helpful" he will be in the clubhouse 2 years from now when he realizes he got jobbed in the contract he signed. I see another Gary Sheffield coming....