jerichoholicninja

I believe he had "conditioning" or weight issues going in to last year that led to either an injury or the Braves just starting him in the minors to get in shape. It doesn't look like he's pitched at all this year. I'd assume that means his shoulder is pretty messed up and no one wanted to waste a 40 man spot on him.

Having him around will at least certainly save the team money on cups in the dugout.

If a player is waived and not claimed wouldn't he be a free agent and therefore it will be news?

I totally agree with that last part. Guys will miss calls here and there and sometimes miss the same spot multiple times in a game but other than the geezers that are still around like Joe West, etc., overall the strkezone called in pretty darn close to what the strikezone is/should be. Hence my general feeling that batters should go up there with the idea that they will decide the at bat and leave nothing to the umpire. There aren't any Eric Gregg's out there anymore giving one pitcher 6 inches off the plate and squeezing the other.

Which would be, what, a handful of innings? Arcia gets hurt and one of Saladino/Perez is packing his bags and heading to the airport immediately. Ya, I never understand when teams hurt their roster every game because they might be in a situation for a coupe innings for one game. Like when teams carry 3 catchers so that they can pinch hit one of them and still have another on the bench. You're wasting a roster spot when you do that.

I'm not one of those guys who's constantly yelling for an automated strikezone but I do like the idea and look forward to it's eventual implementation. There are way too many obvious ball/strike calls missed that change the direction of an at bat and possibly a game and the automated strikezone should at least fix that. What is really annoying to me, however, is when hitters throw fits over those "50/50" pitches that are about 1/4 inch off the plate. Especially with two strikes. Too many guys let the umpire decide their at bat on pitches a hair off the plate. As a batter, your goal should be to hit the ball. Take a walk if it's given to you but go up there looking to put the ball in play. But I digress. My real question is what should be a strike? Take Baez's homerun today for example. The pitch was well off the plate and he hit a line drive over the fence. Had he not swung, it was an obvious ball. But if a guy can hit a pitch in that location so well why should he be rewarded with a ball if he takes it? I know this is an extreme example but we see it all the time where a guy hits a line drive or at least squares up a pitch well out of the strikezone. Obviously the width of the zone always has and almost certainly always will be determined by the width of the plate as it's an easy fixed point to use for reference. However, strikezone width seems to in no way be based on a hitters ability to hit the ball in that location. I've only been able to find that home plate was changed from 12 inches wide to 17 in 1900 but I'm sure it's not like someone at the time said, "Looks like guys can only hit a ball in an area that's about 17 inches wide. Let's make that the strikezone." On the other hand, the top and bottom of the zone has been adjusted a few times in baseball's history based on how the current game was being played. In my opinion, a strike should be a pitch a batter can hit hard without major effort of adjusting their swing. I would widen the plate by an inch on either side to 19 inches. As I've posted elsewhere, I think this would lead to more swinging and more balls in play with an undramatic drop in quality of batted balls. Guys are already hitting those pitches on the edges of the zone hard, let's at least call it a strike if they don't swing. To "even it out" for the batters I would raise the bottom of the zone to the top of the kneecap. Give it some width and take away some height. What say you?

Bigger strikezone. Most strikes, more swinging, more balls in play.

Good enough for me. So he was told it was for Smith but wasn't confident enough to actually say it was Dubon for Smith? If you can't confirm the significant piece is coming back, either wait until you can confirm or don't say it's a significant trade and just say Dubon has been traded and am working on the details for who. I wouldn't even consider Dubon for Smith to be a significant trade either. The explanation is crap. "Journalism"

How often does Arcia play traditional SS anyway. I don't think not having a "legit" backup SS is really a big deal at all. Shaw or Moose can handle their own for a few innings if need be with all the shifts the Brewers do.

I think the most significant part of this is Hurdle's suspension as he was suspended for things his team had done in prior games as well. If MLB really wants to do something about beanball wars they need to do this more often. Instead of just punishing the guys immediately involved in whatever the incident is they need to punish those that were involved in the events that led up to it as well.

gross. more puking. Huh? Not sure what you're getting at here. Also, and it's been a huge pet peeve of mine with all your posts for awhile, but can you please, please hit the shift key to form capitalized letters once in a while? I believe a reference to him literally throwing up on the mound last year.

The networks decide they want more money for a provider to have their channel and the provider balks. It happens to all of them and it's going to continue to happen to all of the providers at some point. You can say use this service or that service but you'll run in to the same problem at some point with some channel you want.

I'm not sure when the Dubon hype train hit the tracks. I just happened to turn on WTMJ as they were reporting the trade and Jeff Wagner referred to Dubon as the Brewers "top prospect". He could be a nice player but what is his ceiling, utility infielder?

This trade means Dubon isn't worth much and I doubt Arcia would be worth much more.

That Stearns didn't make this deal is a fireable offense.

This Pirates/Reds brawl is the greatest thing in baseball this season. And you're a liar if you disagree. Usually everyone brushes off what happens and give non-answers after these kinds of things but the Reds flat out said we're glad we did and we'll do it again. I don't think I've ever seen a manger fully condone what his players did after a brawl but David Bell was all for it. Heck, he was right in there with them. He tried to take out Clint Hurdle and he was on the bottom of the pile for awhile himself. Nice to see guys totally own up to what they did and why they did it for a change.

Watch the Brewers on TV and the team is a borderline disaster. Look at the Brewers in the standings and they are very much in the thick of it. Who knows what to do.

Has any team with "young, stud" pitching done anything since the mid to late 90's Braves? Maybe the early 2000's A's. Otherwise seems like all the teams with hyped pitching get nothing out of it.

Says they're looking for a LHB CF if they trade Margot. Sounds an awful lot like Gamel.

At what park did he hit that double that went further than all but 2 of his homeruns?

Seems like he could be a decent player.

I fully expected the Brewer not to score because they are the Brewers and they excel at failing in those situations.

How valuable a LOOGY will be over two months is totally unpredictable. Look at Xavier Cedeno last year. Guy could be lights out all year and then give up a hit or two at really bad times and the trade looks like a failure.

Not sure when going out of the windup with runners on became a balk. Stupid, yes. But balk, no.

Do the Brewers have any say in security personnel, procedures, etc. or is this something that is sourced out to another company like just about everything else at the stadium?