xisxisxis

Last year was really the story of 2 different teams driven by 2 different performance profiles. The first Brewers team started the first month+ with a 31-19 record and finished the last 35 games with a 26-9 record. The second Brewers team was a 0.500 ballclub for 3 months. The early outstanding record and the end were driven by an excellent run by the bullpen and the 26-9 run was a combination of lights out bullpen and a much better offense. The 0.500 team was mostly a function of an extended offensive drought mostly driven by 3-4 black holes at the bottom of the lineup. When the offense got better from the addition of Mouse and improved performance from Pina, Braun and Yelich, the bullpen was struggling. Once the bullpen stabilized and Yelich became a God then the team went on an absolute tear. What's different this year is those black holes are gone from day 1 and Yelich seems to have retained his super powers. Those factors make it less of a crisis to panic about the current makeup of the bullplen. In addition, the SP will likely outperform last years group making the reliance on the bullpen less. If Albers continues to be good Albers (and there's some data to support his struggles were injury related last year), a bullpen with Albers, Jeffress and Hader handling 6+ thru 9 on many days with Claudio in LH heavy situations, I don't have a problem relying on Junior, Chase, Jacob, and Taylor to fill roles for the team. Will they have bad stretches? of course, but we have a better rotation and a much better offense. Relax. We're the first dominant performance from Jeffress away from having a very good team and we're 4-1! Yeah!

It always seems like DeSclafani pitches well against the Brewers... Hope the Offense can either get to him or get him out early with a high pitch count. Chacin's about an average pitcher in Great America Park, hopefully with the early season climate Chacin can induce a lot of ground ball outs tonight...

I think if you added Giles, you would immediately make everyone else in the bullpen look better...

And the Cubbies soil themselves in Atlanta... Couldn't be a better April Fools day...

I wonder what's the fastest a player has gotten to -1.0 WAR at the start of a season. Arcia sits at -0.3 after 3 games... After tonight -0.4 (the GIDP countering the BB)? by the end of the week he could have already cost the brewers a win...

Jose Iglesias would have been a nice replacement for Arcia, but that ship obviously sailed... Arcia is to Mendoza as Mendoza is to __________ (my guess Barry Bonds)... what a piece of crap...

Why isn't Arcia bunting? Can he bunt? There's no rule only Pitchers are allowed to bunt...

can arcia just bunt

Could you be more specific... I think about 30% of his pitches match "awful"...

how do you get hit by a pitch when its on the edge of the strike zone?

Too bad we didn't sign Jose Iglesias and just released Arcia...

Ok, so was I the only one who saw "In Play, No out" during Grandal's PA and thought the Reds committed their first error?

Cubs down 4 after 1 .....

Zach Davies, first start of the year, Cincinnati.... we'll be lucky to end the first with the lead....

I hope he's just pressing because he looks like he couldn't back up Kratz so far...

I was fooled by this one completely... I thought the joke was that he had a friend!.... JK

But why can't the brewers have SP prospects that are fantastic from the first game, just like every other team [/whine]

Thanks BSC and Louis. Don't have the info needed for my county to pull up the payment history (long story/short = records are in storage 2000 miles away). I don't include my property taxes in my mortgage so that won't help. It just always seemed shady how the real estate taxes are tracked by the IRS since there are no forms. Seems like you could make any number up and the IRS couldn't verify and if it was in an acceptable range wouldn't trigger an audit. Not that I am advocating "cheating" on your taxes, but there seems to be quite a few untraceable deductions - like how do they possibly track foreign tax payments? And yes I am completely screwed by the $10,000 cap. Fortunately, it's a one year deal for me as I sold my house in CA so no more property tax (or mortgage interest). I changed my residence to WI (have been traveling back/forth for >1.5 years). At some point I will purchase a retirement property and have property tax again, but at the moment I work in CA, live in WI and have to pay taxes in both states! Technically both, but CA taxes are so high, my credits wipe out any WI tax.

I am by no means an expert on Federal and State income taxes, but while working on my 2018 tax returns I realized (and remembered from previous years), that there seems to be a huge hole in the code with respect to real estate taxes. While there are forms for almost all other transactions, I don't know of any mechanism for the IRS to know what is the exact amount you have paid on property taxes. Do any tax experts know if the IRS gets real estate reports from Local/state entities? My question relates to 2018 as I can't find 1 of my payments, but recall a general dollar amount and thought I would just guess. But if there is reporting back, missing that amount may set off red flags. Anyone know?

Oh, he'll give the Cardinals length. 400 feet at a time. As long as it's to dead center we're just fine...

Well in his playing day he was know by his full nickname:

I blame Freddy Peralta... [/blue]

well I was wrong... After the Goldschmidt PA I thought it would take 40 pitches for Freddy to get out of the inning...

I heard from a friend of an enemy whose brother knows someone who lives near Miller Park that the Brewers are going to forfeit tonight's game because too many players are stuck in the fetal position. A decision on cancelling the rest of the season will be made tomorrow...

I'm not advocating that he's worth a lot of money - I agree that paying a lot for 65-70IP isn't valuable. My take (which may not have been clear) was more as to why Kimbrel and his representation would not take/like that offer. The likely thinking by Kimbrel is that there will be a contending team that during the season loses several bullpen arms and will be desperate for his services (and I don't think the Brewers are that desperate team unless both Jeffress and Knebel miss significant time). I think that's a "Greg Holland" strategy for Kimbrel to take and we see how well that worked out for both sides. I really doubt that Kimbrel sits out the season. I think some team will come up with a one year deal at high AAV to get him signed. Kimbrel may still want some team to fork over $100M, but that ship has sailed. I don't think it's insulting for them to expect that, just really stupid given the current market. It took me 4+ months to sell my house in a very good area in the SoCal market because nobody was willing to pay close to what I wanted. But I reduced my expectations slightly and waited for the right buyer and they came. It remains to be seen if Kimbrel has reduced his expectations...