HiAndTight

I thought that was Svuem. That's been the story. RR I think is all about Gomez being aggressive and attacking the ball and less worried about walks, but has worked with him on being more selective. Personally...I think Gomez was just such an incredible talent that eventually he was going to be a star and...eventually happened.

http://scores.espn.go.com/mlb/recap?gameId=340424118 Maybe he is...maybe this was the result of Springer being hit by a pitch. Paul Clemens isn't exactly Roger. Then again could just be teaching your team to stand up for itself. Anyone buying my devils advocate routine here? That there is a chance that the same pitcher didn't hit the same batter on purpose a week later because he missed him the first time?

Well, they likely have Brian McCann watching the game from MLB's "decorum," headquarters in case they need a review to time how long someone watched a ball, and the entire Atlanta Braves team is likely available to consult.

I like Porter. And I also think what he did was kinda stupid and childish(which of course is nothing like most MLB "measuring contests." It's Houston though. They need a manager to give them a chip on their shoulder and light a fire under them, and to help the young guys develop some confidence. Edit-Had this been Tony LaRussa, I would be advocating a 162 game ban! Yes they do need that...but is this the right way to do it? Frankly if I'm a Houston player I'm wondering why our manager thinks we have no shot at coming back down 7 in the first inning and why the unwritten 'mercy' rules apply already. You're not wrong and I'm not advocating Porter's actions in this particular case, I'm just saying that I like Porter in general and his attitude. Clearly here he was a bit of a clown, but [expletive deleted by moderator]...the Astro's need something to wake that franchise up. Sure, guys like Springer and Appel and Corriea are the ones who will have the biggest impact, but when you're as bad as they've been for as long as they've been, sometimes just getting pissed is helpful. For the record, based on how they've been hitting, I doubt the Astro players were real confident they were going to come back from 7-0 to win anyway, but we're just guessing at the players responses.

Crew, you've constantly bashed the organization for having Lee Tunnell as the bullpen coach at the major league level instead of keeping him on the minor league side to help develop young arms on the farm. But now that Wang is in the bullpen, and presumably working closely with Tunnell during his plentiful off time, he isn't going to develop at all? Those two stances seem to be at the very least somewhat contradictory. You could have just stopped after the part in bold. Crew has some really solid takes but his dislike for Melvin as a GM and how the organization is run in general leads him to make comments that seem the organization cannot do anything right. You bring up a good example. Wang will have to pitch at some point and it will probably be in games when we are done by 5 runs. I dont see why putting him in when the game is close is necessary. Does anyone really think we are going to be in 3 run games the rest of the year? We will have a few games where we get blown out and a few where we blow other teams out. If it starts costing us games I will complain more I'm fairly certain if we'd have had started the season with Wooten over Wang and given Wang back to the Pirates, we'd have heard how the Brewers are so inept at scouting that they'd rather have a 28 year old AAAA reliever than a 21 year old left hander with a high upside. Everyone has their as to how the team could be run better, but when it's almost literally every single thing they do... I agree with you on Wang as well. I'm sure he's getting a lot of individual work right now, and as the season progresses, things will balance out, they can get by a big chunk of time with some phantom injury in which he has to go and rehab in the minors, and the roster expand. So you could end up really only having to have to worry about it for another 2 months. This problem is being blown up into such a bigger deal than it is. It's a minor inconvenience to acquire a talented young pitcher.

Right! His stuff will improve and he'll learn to repeat his delivery through osmosis and progress as a pitcher by not actually pitching, because that theory has worked for whom in the past? Yeah, I'm sure the only time he picks up a baseball in order to "learn to repeat his delivery," will be during the games that we see televised. I doubt he's getting ANY work on the side or any one on one attention.

Dan Uggla played for a Marlins team in 2006 that won 78 games. Johan Santana pitched for a Twins team in 2000 that won 69 games. Carrying a Rule 5 guy for a season is OK for a non-contending team that is building for the future. It is not OK for a playoff contending team to carry a Rule 5 guy on the MLB roster all season (especially someone who pitched in Rookie ball last season). I don't blame the Brewers for taking a flier on a guy like Wang but as a playoff contending team they need the roster spot for someone who can pitch at the MLB level. So if the Twins were projected to win 90 games that year, they'd have been wrong to select Johan Santana? Because the difference between the production they would have gotten out of Santana and the 25th best guy on their roster was such a huge one it would have been worth giving up about 1200 innings pitched at a 2.92 ERA over a 6 year period and a 9.8 K/9 rate? It's not a "cute idea," that's time is over, it's a smart, logical way to get a young, talented left handed pitcher on a team that desperately needs to develop it's own talent. And those were the 1st two rule 5 guys who came to my mind. How many wins do you really believe keeping Wang on our roster is going to cost us? We're 16-6 right now. Would we be 18-4.

Just for the record, I know that Matt Lepay has gotten some things wrong, he's made some mistakes regarding players, or on just some small things. But by & large I think he's done an awesome job. He kinda brings that collegiate enthusiasm to the game that just makes it a lot more fun. Perhaps it's because just hearing him reminds you of fall football games, or march madness or whatever. Just a personal thing, but I like Brain Andersen and I love the energy that Lepay brings.

I have an accountant friend who used the "if they only play .500 ball" logic back in what was is 2006 or '07 when they started out really hot. I kept telling him that teams have hot and cold streaks. I figured they were around a .500 team, and a hot start doesn't change that... it really only makes it more likely that they'll trade for a player mid-season rather than trading away players. Because he started thinking playoffs early in the season, he got really mad when the team played under .500 ball the rest of the way and missed the playoffs. I feel the same about this year's team. I felt before the season that if everyone stays healthy and some things fall their way, they could fight for a Wild Card spot. I still feel the same way. They will have some losing streaks that will even out this hot start, and at the end of the year if they continue to stay healthy and the very young and very old players don't wear down as the season progresses, they will probably be in the Wild Card race. The one outlier is whether this hot start means they will trade away some of their few decent prospects for a rental player. I guess I'm just saying to enjoy the team and the success they're having, but don't get too high on the good times, as it can lead to frustration (borderline depression) when they have their inevitable cold streaks. Your friend was right. You are falling prey to the gambler's fallacy. Its the idea that after an event a random occurance has to lean the other direction to make up for it. For example, if you have a fair coin (that you know is fair) and you are going to flip it 10 times. You expect to get 5 heads and 5 tails. You then flip 5 heads in a row. The gambler's fallacy says the next flip is likely to be tails to even things out so you get 5 tails. But it isn't more likely to be tails, the probability hasn't changed: 1/2 heads, 1/2 tails. So that said, if you expected the Brewers to be a .500 team coming into the year, after the start there is no reason to expect the Brewers to be a below .500 over the remaining games. You may say that the start doesn't change your opinion of the Brewers, but that means you should expect them to win 50% of theri remaining games, not less. I don't think he's falling prey to any fallacy here. You're trying to equate pure chance(ie, the flipping of a coin and statistical probability) with the collective performances of 25 individuals through ebbs and flows of a 162 game season. This isn't about statistical probability, this is about an opinion of a baseball team's big picture ability. I hoped the Brewers would contend for a WC spot, but I'm still hardly convinced. They've played well so far, but if I believed they were a .500 team, I don't see how that would mean I SHOULD think that they'll be a .500 team from here on out. This isn't pure chance. Unless Monty's opinion has changed based on the performances he's seen from the players on the field, ie, Thornburg, Gomez, Aram's start, K-rod, then his opinion of them being a .500 team would be valid and would then include a regression to the mean, meaning they'd likely have a month in which they'd played equally poor as compared to a month in which they played as well as they have in April.

YIKES...that is a VERY interesting question. Being competitive long term in this division may be a challenge for the Brewers with the Cardinals continually churning good young players through the system, the Baby Cubs getting closer and closer and the Pirates still young. So do you go for it in the event of an injury and in the process, sacrifice even more in the long term? I say no to trading Nelson and put him into the rotation as the answer to any injury. Honestly, if Gallardo continues to pitch like the Yo of old, Lohse/Garza (whichever one is not injured in your scenario) and Estrada remain the players they have been the past few seasons and Peralta continues his ascent, Nelson's role may be to come up and simply be a league average #5, which I think he would have little issue doing. In this scenario, would you object to throwing Thornburg into the rotation in the hopes that he could offer much more than a league average #5 and that perhaps Nelson could be a good late inning reliever throwing in the upper 90's and just using two pitches(FB, Slider?).

I honestly believe if that happened to the Brewers this year, they'd slide Thornburg into the starting rotation. Leading up to the broadcast last night they were talking to Melvin about Thornburg and where his future might be. Melvin started by kinda sidestepping the question and just offering basic platitudes. He talked about how great he's been, and when someone's having so much success in their current role and it's working it's really hard to move the guy...etc..etc..etc..basically not tipping his hand on anything. He was pushed a bit then, and asked about the dramatic improvement of Thornburg's change, and how that gives him a 3rd pitch that could make him a legit starter. Melvin agreed and talked about how there are a lot of things that can happen. When you have young starters, you never know when a trade might open up a spot for them and you can just slide them in there. To say I'm paraphrasing would be an understatement. He also talked about how he absolutely thinks TT CAN be a starter and how he sees some Lincecum in him in that he has that good velocity, a big curve, but really dominates now with that changeup. So what I took away from that was that if there's a need for a starting pitcher for more than 3-4 starts, that it'd be Thornburg. And when he mentioned a trade, it actually gave me hope that they'd make a trade if they were in contention. That they'd trade one of their starters in order to upgrade another position or add prospects if they thought they had an equal or superior starter in their system. The most value Estrada could give the Brewers IMO would be to continue to pitch extremely effectively as he has but to stay healthy in which case he actually would be comparable to Gallardo for ONE season allowing the Brewers to sell high on Yo and slot Thornburg into the rotation without losing anything and potentially gaining a kings ransom for Gallardo. Yo is the exact type of pitcher that I think teams could potentially compete for and overpay for. But that would take giant stones for the Brewers to do. The players would be up in arms, the fan base would be up in arms, there is a huge chance it could backfire. But I think there is an even better chance it could be a trade that helps to set up a foundation moving forward. A couple potential trade targets just for fun since the Brewers are highly unlikely trade their defacto "ace," while competing, but these are teams that could contend and may overvalue Gallardo. KC Royals-They have Zimmer and Ventura, either of which would be an awesome return, plus a whole farm system they could build a deal around. Atlanta-Sims as I mentioned. SF-Crick. Just a few teams off the top of my head that may have an incentive to make a trade for the short term and have some elite prospects. But this is getting way off topic. So I'll repeat myself again. The only move I'd make with Estrada right now assuming I'm correct and he's not going to net very much prospect wise would to keep him, go year to year with him as he offers the Brewers move value on their team than in terms of what he can bring back.

I wonder if the ESPN execs just order them to do it now just so they can sit back and laugh at all the, "ESPN hates us," whining people in the comments section. It's also just stupid, time and space filling fun. "Fun." Or at least mildly entertaining. I think every single fanbase thinks ESPN hates them(none more than the Braves though).

I absolutely agree with you here. Never going to happen, but I think with Gallardo's history and the fact that he's pitching so well, I think you're more likely to get a top 50 prospect, and perhaps another intriguing couple lower level prospects. He's under team control for this year and next, plus the team trading for him could obviously make him a qualifying offer. A team like the Angles or Braves would seem to be two good options. I wonder if we could even pull a Sims type prospect for him at this point. Perhaps something that may include Pastronicky who looks like a utility middle IF'er at this point? The Braves are a very talented team that's suffered some really bad luck on the mound. Gallardo would slot in nicely in that rotation, but of course they'd have to have Harang come back to earth. But I doubt with all the talent they've assembled they're eager to roll the dice with Hale and Harang making up 2/5ths of that rotation.

If you're working 90-91, you are exactly average, if you work anything below that then well... Furthermore FB velocity is absolutely relative when discussing pitchers. I don't really want to take the time to rehash the stuff vs results debate, if you can get pitchers with average FBs to out pitch their physical talent that's fantastic. However that doesn't mean we should ever get comfortable with that player. Pitchers that work with below average FBs are almost entirely reliant on their command, as such they aren't pitchers you want to bank on long-term. People will look at the ultimate results from someone like that and get excited and make all kinds of statistical arguments why they are better than they are. The, "Yes he's got an average to below average FB but..." type statements, remember the "Capuano is our true ace" thread? When those guys tank, they tank fast, so again moving Estrada doesn't have as much to do with what he is, but rather what he's not. He's not physically talented relative to his peers, he's never pitched more than 139.2 innings in any season in his career, he's over 30, and the team only controls him through 2015. While he's ultimately been successful at the big league level, those factors are going to work against the Brewers in a trade situation because they are obvious flaws. It doesn't really matter why Marco has never had even a 180 inning season when it comes to defining his trade value, if you're the GM on the other end of the phone that's a serious red flag. Those are actually all the same reasons why the Brewers should view him as expendable, even though he's been a good pitcher when he's been healthy. The Brewers should know it, we should know it, and the other teams certainly are going to know it when it comes to discussing his value. Our best case scenario would be he's the best pitcher available at the trade deadline and someone will overpay for him in a bidding war for a playoff push, then we can talk about getting a prospect in that 30-60 range from the top 100. The problem of course is that the Brewers would actually have to be willing to deal him, which I doubt they will. In which case I'd be looking for someone from A, R+, or R with some upside who the scouts liked over the winter, I don't know that he'd draw top 100 interest. If they'd even move him then... worst case the team rides him to FA and tries to get compensation by offering him a QO or actually trying to resign him to a FA contract. The Mets spent all off-season trying to trade Ike Davis to the Pirates for Nick Kingham who was #64 on the most recent 100. I think Kingham will ultimately be a #3, but there's no way I would have traded Kingham for Davis, nor would I trade a prospect like that for someone like Estrada who's yet to pitch a full season in the majors and I only control for 1 year. We're talking a pretty small number of teams who think they are in a window (I know I don't believe in the window philosophy but others do) to compete and are desperate enough for pitching they would make that kind of move. For what it's worth I don't think Gallardo is going to age all that well either unless he learns to attack more through the strike zone, he's always been a nibbler and at some point it's just not going to work for him anymore. First of all, I've stated a dozen times on this board that I don't believe Gallardo is going to age well(I agree with you Crew07) BECAUSE he's losing velocity and I don't think his secondary stuff is good enough, nor is his command good enough to succeed with an average fastball under 90. But at least as of now, he's still throwing 91 as opposed to Estrada's 88. And while it may not be impacting his results this minute. He may be having some success, you're crazy if you don't think that other teams who are looking to trade him aren't going to take that into consideration. Someone actually said they'd much rather have Bud Norris and then used what Norris was traded for as a starting point for Estrada. Teams want power arms. Even if you're 30 years old, if you can throw 93 MPH(on average as Norris can and hit 95-96) there is at least the hope that something will click, you'll refine a 3rd pitch, their pitching coach can work with you, and you can improve. If you're maxing out around 88 MPH, what's your upside? This of course yet again setting aside the fact that one has several seasons of 170-190 innings pitched and Estrada has yet to have ONE yet. But back to Gallardo, I'm SO tired of these cherry picking stats. What do you want out of your starting pitchers? To be durable. Take the ball every 5th day, throw 200 innings and do so as effectively as you can. There is a reason why relievers with a 3.50 ERA over 70 innings aren't compared to starters with a similar ERA over 200 innings. Because they add significantly less value. Going back to the last two years and making an argument based on the fact that Estrada has a higher WAR is...invalid in my opinion. What would a team rather have, 138 IP with a 3.64, 3.35 FIP, 3.48 xFIP OR 204 IP with a 3.66 ERA, 3.94 FIP, 3.55 xFIP WAR is an interesting stat in comparing players, but it's flawed. There is absolutely no doubt the guy who took the mound for 33 starts and pitched 66 more innings giving up almost the exact same number of runs per inning was more valuable. But you're also ignoring that Estrada had a 3.1 WAR in 2012 and has a career TOTAL of 5.2 WAR vs Gallardo's 17.4 being 3 years younger. If you have to search so hard to try and prop up Estrada by picking and choosing what stats you're going to use to compare him to, or picking arbitrary start dates, that should probably tell you that you're not comparing equal pitchers(and again, I'm NOT a huge Gallardo fan anymore). Again, my point isn't to say that Estrada isn't a very nice pitcher for us, but I absolutely believe if ANYONE suggested that the Brewers take Jimmy Nelson, a young power pitcher who can throw in the mid to upper 90's, gets GB's, and whom we control for 6 years, and were offered an 31 year old pitcher who's NEVER proven he can be an effective big league starter from April to September, I think the entire board would scoff at such a suggestion. I just don't see talent evaluators out there actually recommending that they give up any top 100 or even top 150 prospect for such a guy with such a low ceiling. If fact, I think Estrada has pitched close to his ceiling the past couple years. Estrada throws strikes, he has a nice change. A team like Detroit I'm sure would love to add him if they lost their #5...but if they were going to give up someone like Thompson or Crawford, I'm guessing they'd want more. I also think that Estrada is an awful fit in the AL with the DH and extra hitter, but that's an extension of him being a soft tosser and fly ball pitcher.

He's been significantly better than just, "meh." His WAR's since 2010; 2010-4.4 2011-2.3 2012-7.2 2013-3.5 That's an average of a 4.5 WAR player over the past 4 years. He's a good defender and if he didn't play half his home games at Petco, his offensive line would likely be far more impressive. Compare that to Aramis Ramirez 2010-0.0 2011-3.3 2012-5.7 2013-1.4 Total of 10.4 for an average WAR of 2.6 over the past 4 years. This isn't to say that I'd give up what it'd take to get him as Aram is doing just fine holding down the 3rd base position and making a move in the middle of the season would seem foolish. But I'm not sure with the dearth of 3rd basemen in baseball right now how you can be so down on a switch hitting, plus fielding, offensive threat like Headley.

The Japanese league is like AAA, hooray for being productive there? You seem to be drawn to players of limited talent (relative to their peers, not you or I) who overachieve, not just on the big league level, but in the minors as well. While Melvin is fond of continually recycling the same players, and I would guess that a big part of that is he becomes too attached to his players, I'm certainly not going to be excited about the same names coming back around just because a player was once productive and is a good guy. At least all of the TX guys were "new" to us, but unless McGehee is a serious upgrade over what we have at 1B, what's the point? It's no different than the K-Rod claim people like to make that he's "single handedly restocking the farm system" when he's not and in fact the player he was traded for isn't even playing baseball right now. Like many things discussed on this site people will favor the devil they know rather than the one they don't know and I don't think Melvin is any different. The bottom line here should be if a player's production will be *that* much better than the guys he's replacing to justify his cost? I firmly believe that for many of these issues being discussed the perceived marginal upgrades aren't worth the cost. I use the word "perceived" because in many cases I think the root issue is what I discussed in the paragraph above and the production may in fact be a wash if both players were given an equal opportunity. Who ever said seriously that K-Rod was "restocking the farm system?" And we did get a good prospect back for him. We paid ~1 million for a very good half a year from a player who we then traded for a much needed corner IF'er with power. If anyone said he's "single handedly restocking the farm system," I'm guessing they did so in jest and you missed it. In any event, that signing is looking like a fantastic one and he could net us an even better reliever this year should the Brewers find themselves in a position to deal him. As for McGehee, he's cooled off, but he was a good risk for the Marlins at 1 year and 1.1 million. He still might be an option later in the year if Reynolds or Ramirez have to deal with any issues. Of course the makeup of our team would have to change. But I'm with Briggs. I don't understand the disdain for this guy. A lot of people loved him on this board when he played way over his head. Then he came and played poorly and he's being put on the same level as Yuni? He could be a serviceable guy off the bench, but little more, and I doubt he'd be signed for much more. I also think the "Melvin retread," thing is a bit overblown. It's not like we've stocked our roster with these terrible Ranger players or former Brewers who've been terrible. We've brought a lot of guys in from a lot of teams as organizational filler. I think the former Rangers tend to stand out a bit more.

I don't really agree with that statement. For a team with a payroll in the 90-100 million range, i think you let the exact circumstances dictate where you spend the money. If the farm system had been better at drafting/developing starting pitchers, i'd rather pay say Wacha and Miller peanuts as the Cardinals are than pay Gallardo and Garza about 20 million per combined. Then use that saved money elsewhere. That wasn't the case though so money was spent on free agent starters. I completely agree with you. I can't imagine why you'd have a preference to spend money on pitching with by nature is more volatile than being an everyday player. I'm also not sure those numbers are correct, but even if they are, so what? I'd actually rather see the Brewers in a position to do the exact opposite. I'd rather see more of the Brewers money committed to position players as opposed to pitchers just due to the inherent risk. Of course that would entail the Brewers developing their own staff which is always harder said than done. If Thornburg, Nelson and Peralta all live up to their ceilings, perhaps an ace and a couple #2's(best case scenario of course) that's about 1.5 million dollars in your staff. Now usually to lock you FA pitchers you either have to overpay, get lucky(as we did with Lohse as his value was suppressed due to the qualifying offer) or take a risk and pay a guy like Garza 50 million dollars when he has some serious injury concerns. You get more certainty out of position players than pitchers. Danzig pointed this out, but the Cards are the epitome of what you'd like to do. Michael Wacha-510,000 Carlos Martinez-505,000 Adam Wainwright-19.5 Joe Kelly -523,000 Shelby Miller -521,000 Lance Lynn -535,000 That's a little over 22 million. That might be the ideal rotation in my opinion. You have your veteran ace who's definitely worth the big salary, but you have several great arms. It's a bit of an aberration in that you're not often going to produce that much young talent on the mound, but at the same time, the Brewers had several elite position players in 2009. The Rays are THEE team I'd like to model ours after. David Price 14 Million Chris Archer-511,000 Alex Cobb -516,000 Jake Odorizzi -503,000 Matt Moore -1 M Your dominant ace, Matt Moore in theory would have been your co-ace, but he has to have TJ surgery(furthering the idea that pitching is much riskier than position players) and in the middle, three good, strong young arms. Don't get me wrong, I'd LOVE to be able to spend 100 million on just our rotation like the Dodgers are going to do, but our entire payroll is not much more than that. Our salary for our starting pitchers could SOOO easily be a helluva lot lower had we selected Jose Fernandez and Sonny Gray rather than Jungman and Bradley in the draft. So with that being said, I'd prefer to let the needs of the team dictate where you spend your money, but ideally, build a staff from within so you're getting their strongest and cheapest years and spend money on the position players who aren't one pitch from spending 14 months recovering from Tommy John surgery.

The Rays are more successful in every aspect of baseball that you can come up with. I don't think it really matters what your definition of "success is," by virtually every definition the Rays are THEE standard for a smaller market team. If the Rays have the resources the Brewers have had over the same time period, I have no doubt they'd have an even wider gap in terms of actual Major League success. They're absolutely loaded with young pitching talent. Of course some of that talent has deal with serious injuries as of late, it's hard to argue that's the result of poor management. They're the most proactive team in baseball. They have a healthy farm system right now(IMO) that could turn into an very good one real quickly if they decide to trade David Price. They just netted an elite middle of the order bat for a pitcher that was only still their property because they bought out some of his FA years as well as a very good middle of the rotation type pitcher. TJ has really decimated a couple of their top arms, yet they're still a contender in the NL East where they compete with the Yankees and Red Sox every year as well as the Jays and O's who are both very talented teams. I'm not a fan of the direction Melvin has taken the team in general. I think it's great we're off to a good start this year and that's a lot of fun, but I think this team should have been rebuilt a few years ago. The only question I have is how much of that is due to Attanasio and how much is Melvin? It sounds from comments made to the public that you can attribute the signings of Suppan, Gagne, Looper, Lohse and Garza all to Mark A. At least at the urging of Mark A. We're very early into the Garza era, but I'm not confident he's going to give us 4 strong years. So what I judge Melvin on are his trades and his under the radar type signings/extensions. That's just based on my beliefs. In just those area's, I think he's done well. The Marcum trade baffles me to this day, but I also believed that Lawrie would be an elite 3rd basemen. Hasn't developed into that yet. But Gomez has turned into a top 5 position player in baseball(at least since the start of last season he has). He's identified a lot of good young players and locked them up early. The Weeks signing looked like a good signing at the time. The reality is though that the Brewers are a team that has no margin for error, has a very poorly rated farm system(though I think a bit underrated) cannot add much salary to improve this team. So I'm not sure what to make of Melvin at this point in time. Without knowing for sure what moves have been driven by Melvin and what moves have been pushed upon him by Mark A, I can only evaluate where the team is right now, and right now is a whole lot more than 1st place about 20 games into the season.

I know you were NOT a fan of Roenicke early on, and I was of the impression that he was just an average manager(I just said that I think managers are pretty much the same across the league save for a handful of moves). But it has to be encouraging that he seems to be more proactive now and has learned from some of his mistakes. Usually I can play devils advocate because no matter how bad a move turns out, there is usually a sound reason for the manager making it. RR had one that was beyond even the most ardent attempts to do so. I think, "Mark Kotsay-Playoff start," sums that up well. But he seems to have really learned his lesson, and I'd take it a step further and say not only has he not cost the team any wins this year, but I think moving K-Rod into the closers role over Henderson is one of those few moves that not many managers would make until Henderson had blown a couple early in the year. I liked the signing of K-Rod, but not for the reason Melvin gave which was basically he gives us another closer. I didn't like that move at the time(I still question it, but with the luxury of having Henderson who looks to have figured it out, Smith, Thornburg and Kintzler coming back, we can get through jams to get to the 9th inning pretty well and still have a guy who may not have great stuff, but who certainly doesn't tighten up in save situations. But he's moved Segura down in the lineup. He's moved Gomez to the leadoff spot even though he's not a great fit for it. He's moved Gennett up in the lineup. He's kept Reynolds in rather than going with a straight platoon. ALMOST everything he's done with the pen has been brilliant. A lot of guys are getting a ton of appearances, but they're not throwing a lot of pitches and the matchup's have been great. Using Thornburg in higher leverage situations has been a huge plus for us as he's been absolutely filthy as opposed to the role they envisioned for him as the long man/6th/7th inning type guy. Etc..etc.. I do agree that you should look at a manager's body of work independent of his record as it's been the players who've come through, but RR's decisions have been a bit unique as compared to what a "normal manager," would do, so I'm not ready to say that because of this great start he's been doing a great job just like I wasn't saying he was a terrible manager after his first two years(again, with the absolutely baffling Kotsay move). But looking closely, he does seem to be getting better and he also seems to be placing a bigger emphasis on winning early in the season.

I've said several times that a fanbase almost always has a problem with it's manager. I recall hearing so many Cards fans bashing TLR for doing things like hitting the pitcher 8th or other unconventional things, Gardenhire for playing a boring style of baseball, Dusty Baker for..well...take your pick(mine incidentally would be complaining about walks and clogging up the base paths). But I think ultimately the more a fan follows advanced metrics or things that would seem to make sense on paper but is unconventional(ie, when to pitch your closer/best reliever, hitting a guy like Braun 2nd, etc...) the more they're going to critique a manager because they don't follow what they believe is the best way to run a team. Obviously there are a lot of people on this board who subscribe to the "newage," metrics more than normal managers. Which is why I think he's been bashed a little bit on here. I've always maintained that managers make the same move 9 times out of 10 at least. If not more. I think if you brought in Yost, just in the moves he makes, they'd be VERY similar throughout the season with those of Roenicke and the same can be said of Macha. That said, I think you're absolutely right in that Roenicke deserves a lot of credit. It SOUNDS like(emphasis on sounds like as I'm not in the clubhouse) that he really has his pulse on the team, he's great with the players, they respect him, he understands what it's like to struggle, and he is very positive when it comes to dealing with the players. And he stands up for them. I don't know how to quantify that in terms of wins and losses. I also think that at least compared with the previous managers of the Brewers, he's been pretty popular on this board. Especially now. But of course when you're winning, you're going to get a longer leash from the fan base.

Because he made the team? What indication is there that they "love Overbay," and that they would consider not bringing up Morris or anyone else because of their affinity for a guy that they only picked up after sifting through ALL the other garbage for to find a 1st basemen?

No problem. Scooter's looking great so far. His D has been better than advertised thus far. He's still hitting the ball well. It'd be nice to see him hit with the power he did last year or get his walks up a little bit, but it's early not only in the year, but his career. And I don't believe Weeks should be getting more at bats, but I do think he NEEDS more at bats as a player to be successful. He's probably got through May to prove me wrong or the Brewers are just going to have to eat it and use someone else vs tough lefties. Bianchi as I just saw someone else mention would be a really nice platoon option IMO. Without looking at his stats or splits, he has a good approach and is solid with the glove. Still, holding out hope that Rickie can still be a productive player on this team in his limited role.

Bradley's last two starts. 11 IP, 1 ER, 6 H, 1 BB, 11 K. Just when I had given up on Bradley he sucked me back in. http://i.imgur.com/awj0PYi.gif LOL...good old Al. Sometimes I think the only difference was the team that drafted him. We came out of that 1st round with two of the top 10 overall draft prospects and now both are finally starting to show why. Any indication as to what his velocity is like? For that matter where he and Jungman are hitting right now on the guns?

Man I hope Jungman can get it figured out. It's one thing to miss on a pitcher in the draft. It's another to miss on two early-mid 1st round picks and have 2 guys become stars when they were available. It's foolish, but I can't help but wonder what this team would look like had they picked Fernandez, Gray and then had the Yankees not signed Tex and we drafted Trout with what should have been our pick at #27 for Sabathia. About 40 million less in salary, the best young pitcher in baseball, another #2 pitcher, and perhaps the best young position player we've seen since Arod....or...ever. Back to reality. Lets hope Jungman can develop.

I'm asking this out of curiosity and not trying to be difficult, but why was the other thread locked so quickly? I enjoy some of these conversations that begin kinda organically and lead to a deeper conversation or spout into a different discussion than exactly what the title of the thread discussed. The Jeffress signing. How much is there to say about it? The debate between WTP and Crew07 on the value of the trades we made involving Jeffress was a pretty interesting debate, but it fizzled out quickly because the other thread was locked so quickly.