topper09er

Seriously, when you are little kid getting something from a game, ball, autograph, whatever was really exciting and cool and you didnt even care if it came from the worst player on the team. I caught a ball from Sammy Sosa after he was warming up in RF in 98 during the HR chase and I thought it was the coolest thing ever even though he was on the cubs. I was also 13 years old. These losers need to grow up and realize getting a random batting practice ball is not exciting anymore and they are meant for kids. I can see trying catch someone 500th HR, but seriously these guys need to grow up. When you are in your 20s and above there are much more exciting things in life, such as women. I guess these ballhawks have not figured that out.

I mean I would rather make the playoffs 2 times in 17 seasons with 2 WS wins than make the playoffs 10 times in 17 season with 0 WS wins.

I would rather be the Marlins than the Twins. Come one guys, sure its fun for the 6 months of the regular season if you alwas have a competitive team, but its even more fun for the other 6 months of the year when you are the world series champs. I want a WS, when the Packers won the only championchip of any team I support it was so glorious I want it again with the brewers.

I think its pretty obvious Kendall is not good at hitting for average, getting on-base, slugging, driving in runs or scoring runs, when compared to Rivera.

First off it was just an example of a possible lineup, I specifically asked not get hung up on the names or positions, that's all way too murky yet.Im sorry, you cant list a bunch of players (independant of the batting order which no one is talking about by the way), say they make up the best team in franchise history including the Yount/Molitor and Braun/Fielder eras and then go back and say you still arent sure on the players and positions. How can you say a group of players will be better than Yount/Molitor/Cooper/Simmons/Thomas/Sutton/Vucovich/Fingers or Braun/Fielder/Hardy/Hart/Cameron/Sabathia/Sheets without even knowing exactly who this group of players is??

Obviously a different sample size, but as of the start of this game Suppan has a higher batting average, on-base % and slugging % than Jason Kendall and the same number of HRs.Suppan: 34 PA, .240/.321/.280. 0 GIDP Kendall: 280 PA, .232/.320 (including 5 IBB which he did not earn, only due to batting in front of pitcher)/.278. 10 GIDP

The Cat hitting 5? Look for Prince to either strike out, roll over on some pitches and ground out to the 2nd baseman playing in mid RF or walk. He is not going to get any pitches to hit tonight. Not sure why Hart is out as he has been hot lately.

Jason Kendall is finally the officially THE worst offensive player in ALL of major league baseball (among qualified players with enough PAs), at least according to fan graphs weighted on-base average. http://www.fangraphs.com/leaders.aspx?pos=all&stats=bat&lg=all&qual=y&type=1&season=2009&month=0 Comparitively Rivera's offensive upgrade outweighs his defensive downgrade from Kendall. Rivera should play at least more than Kendall, if not completely switch their current roles.

Out of those 3 teams only the Cardinals are consistent contenders, and they got to the WS using 15 IP with 1 ER from Jeff Suppan, not exactly something you can count on. The Rockies got so hot that they are huge outliers. In 07 as late as September 15 the rockies were under .500, in 4th place and 6.5 games back. They then won 13 of 14 to only tie for a playoff spot. The Padres went 8-6 over their last 14 games which allowed COL to catch them. Im not sure if we are in the same boat as the Astros, they are a team that was able to keep their expensive core (Bagwell, Biggio) for many years plus add other big contracts at the same time (Clemens, Berkmann). I dont think the Brewers can do that, we lost Sabathia, Sheets, we will lose Fielder and probably eventually Braun. And now we at our payroll limit and cannot afford to add anything extra unless we unload some salary first.

Which is better, that or Cousell (Weeks in 2010) McGehee Braun Fielder Cameron Hart Hardy Kendall Halladay Gallrdo Bush Suppan Looper Hoffman ?? Remember there is a big difference between prospects and guys with some experience where you know what you will get. You cant assume Cain, Gamel, Green, Lucroy/Salome, Escobar are not "outs," infact you should probably assume some of them will surely be busts. Our current lineup does have obvious problems, but we are still 2 games out. Adding Halladay to replace C. Mikegomery Burns easily makes up 2 games. You cant assume our future team is good enough to be in contention at the ASB, you just dont know.

Last night, as usual, Jason Kendall was allowed to bat in the 9th innings when we were losing, with 2 men on base, and he grounded into a game ending doubleplay. Seriously, KENDALL SHOULD NEVER BAT IN THE 9TH INNINGS WHEN WE ARE LOSING, UNLESS WE NEED A BUNT, EVER, IN ANY OTHER SITUATION, EVER, AT ALL.

what does the 2007 team have to do with anything? We go to SD on July 31 and they might not have peavy making them a AAA team when you walk adrian gonzalez plus we will be coming off a 4 game series against the Nats and hopefully a sweep or 3-1 record will give us a little momentum against SD and LAD.

Look at Post ASB to Sept. 1: @CIN, @PIT, ATL, WASH, @SD, @LAD, @HOU, SD, HOU, @PIT, @WASH, CIN, PIT. As of today CIN is exactly at .500, so we have a stretch of 42 games in 46 days with a total of 3 against +.500 teams (3 games at LAD) including 8 games against the nationals. That is 13 series of which we sould win 12.

He is getting a pass because he plays good defense at SS, but his offense is still horrible. Out of his 75 games played he has gone 0-4 or 0-5 22 times. He seriously needs to fix his swing, I am so sick of his hands starting out away from him below his shoulder. If you hit like that you will never be consistant because he can only be good when he is hot and seeing the ball extremely well. This is because it takes him too long to move his hands back to a hitting position and then take them quickly through the zone on a downward plane. Most of the time he is late and he starts his swing with his hands too low and he hits crappy pop-ups. He is also not using RF at all and has been a particularily horrible situational hitter. He never seems to move runner or get them in, just taking his same approach every single at bat no matter who is on base.

Since it is recent news how valuable would Roy Halladay be to the brewers, what is he worth giving up assuming he would come here? How good would we be if for the rest of this season plus next year we have a core of Braun/Fielder + Halladay/Gallardo? I think some people are losing sight of the goal of winning the world series. We are a small market team, we cannot assume that just because we have a dedicated owner we can become a team that competes every sinlge year. Since Billy Beane took over the A's have made the playoffs in 5 of his 12 seasons with 0 WS appearances, and the Twins have made the playoffs 4 times over the same span with 0 WS appearances. Every small market team wants to be like the A's/Twins, but I would rather have 1-2 playoff appearances and 1 WS appearance per decade, then just hovering around .500 every year and always having a chance at the wild card but never having enough depth to win in the playoffs. At some point we need to decide now is the time and dont worry about the future and assume we will be bad in the future. I thought that had finally come for the first time in my life when we traded prospects for Sabathia and went for it, and now it seems like some people dont want that anymore. We need to realize that between now (next 1-3 years) and later (3-5) years we can either try to win the WS in one of those times and be bad the other or just be competitive the whole time and maybe make the playoffs when other teams have down years but never be dominant enough to win it all. Then we need to decide which core is better, our current team with the addition of some key veterans (like Halladay for Gamel and Escobar) or our prospects + talent we can get by trading our current players (Fielder, Hart, Hardy). I think it is a close call, but if we could sell the farm for Halladay it is worth considering. I just get annoyed when people say I told you so about some trade, like Sabathia. Yes, if we kept Laporta we could trade him now but we also would not have made the playoffs last year. We cannot always think about the future, at some point we need to decide if now is our best shot and then take it.

Nice

Although I think Brad Fischer has done an overall terrible job this year it was the right call to send Soup there, bad throw he scroes, worth it with 2 outs

Counsells missed bunt cost us 2 runs. nice

I just think it is stupid to use career numbers for someone if they are from 10 years ago. I dont care if Kendall maybe hit Zambrano well when he was an all star in Pittsburgh, he is that player anymore and could not hit .300 against any pitcher anymore. Same thing when you try to use Bill Hall's stats from 2006, he is not that player anymore, those numbers dont apply.

I think this is another Joe Morgan answer, you shouldnt need to look at stats from the last week to determine if someone is hot, you should be able to tell by their approach and the swings they are taking and the pitches they are able to lay off of. A guy who walks 4 times and is able to lay off good 2 strikes breaking pitches is just as hot as someone who went 3-3.

Overall on the season I like Macha effort at changing the lineup to get the "hot" players hitting together and higher in the order. Hopefully Cam heats up and can go back to 5th and if McGehee starts to cool off we can get Gamel in there.

In general the rule of thumb for wrigley is on warm days (the summer day games) the wind is blowing out because it is coming from the warmer south to the lake, and on cooler days (spring and fall games) the wind is blowing in because it is coming from the lake.

I just think in general people rely on pitch counts too much like they are the end all be all and if the sacred 100 pitch limit is exceeded you are basically guaranteeing that your pitcher will be on the DL soon. Its like if a pitcher is sent out there with 120 pitches already we are just waiting for his arm to fall off. Or if some pitcher is struggling early in the 3rd inning or something but they only have 60 pitches managers never take them out because they need to get closer to 100 pitches before coming out. Or if some guy has 105 pitches after 6 innings due to a lot of strikeouts but is pitching well it is like the manager automatically has to take them out, and if they bullpen blows the game even though the starter was not struggling the manager can just cop out and say he couldnt risk sending the starter out. Whenever a manager sticks to the 100 pitch golden rule no ones questions their handling of the starting pitchers and if they dont it is the reason for every negative side effect but no one ever says "good decision to leave him in, he was effective late in the game." Also, I dont buy the whole once he looks tired he is already way too tired. Its simple, if someone is not loosing their velocity and command they are not tired and not risking injury.

Maybe they dont exist anymore, but I know from watching games I can tell when someones curve ball isnt breaking as much or the fastball has lost velocity or they are missing the cathers target more often.

I know I am starting to sound like Joe Morgan who everyone here hates, but I would rather have a manager like Joe Morgan who knows the game and knows how to tell when his pitcher is tired and never keeps a pitch count than someone who uses some equation based on averages to decide when to remove a pitcher from a game.