xisxisxis

Any GM who trades for Yuniesky Betancourt and then follows that up by signing him as a free agent 2 years later needs to be punched in the face...

He pled guilty, the story got out and now he's denying that he did it. In case facts actually matter to you, I will point out that he has denied doing it since the beginning. The court appointed counselor had him in individual counseling because they specifically don't have people who deny the crime they have pled to in group counseling. It is in the counselors notes from the BEGINNING that he has denied doing anything like what he has been accused/pled guilty to. So, no he didn't start changing his story, at all, once the information got out. He has denied it from the beginning. but it isnt black and white I don't find anything in life that is black and white and I am amazed people can treat so many things as bits. Heck 32 bit color doesn't have enough shades to represent the complexity of some issues...

I agree. Wouldn't it be great if we had the same reputation for batters that the Braves had with pitching in the 90's. The Braves always seemed to keep their best pitching prospects and trade the ones who weren't very good. They were so successful it actually started to impact the view of the prospect if they were willing to trade them. I understand the need at times to trade prospects to add complementary players to the organization/ML team, but not at the expense of the players that actually develop into above average major league talent. We should be trading the prospects we don't see a future when they have value. I know much of this occurred on the Melvin watch, so we may see a completely different result with Stearns. yes it is impossible to tell how his trajectory changed due to the trade to Cleveland. My main concern is that we were taking on a rental for several months with Sabbathia and even with a legendary performance by him we only just made the playoffs, yet we gave up a prospect who developed into an above average OF, while the prospects we held onto fizzled (or as you state we traded - Cain) and we had zero other OF prospects develop and contribute since then (except of course trading Hanigar as part of the Parra trade that ended with ZD). Man if I ever meet Doug Melvin I'm gonna punch him in the face....

His two best years of the last six+ have been in 2014 and 2018. Both years he was in the last year of his contract.... Coincidence? Markakis put up 2 really great years when he was 24/25 YO and expectations were high that he would be be a perennial All-Star, but it looks like those were his peak years as he's been mostly a 2 WAR player since. Not horrible, not great. Maybe if he just signs one year contracts he will easily make it to 3,000 hits...

Pretty simple to me. He served his punishment and has shown no signs that the behavior (whether he did or didn't do it) would be repeated. I wouldn't hesitate to take him if I was a GM and would be ready to justify the decision. I understand the frustration that victims and their families feel about the system, but from all indications Luke and his circumstances aren't the type of case you make an example of and try to ruin someones life. He served his punishment. He should be treated as such, not vilified forever. Whether he did it or didn't. period. We either have a legal system with punishment we agree upon as a society or we have mob rule and punishment that is proportionate to the victims/families outrage. Grabbing pitch forks and storming the castle hasn't really worked for... ever...

Segura and Shaw are similar situations to me. Both had a big improvement from a change of scenery. Gennet and Gomez are similar. Both showed some hints of there "breakouts", but consistently underperformed. Both saw "power" spikes that came out of nowhere. What bothers me is the prospects that we don't see a return. Where's our Hanigar? Where's our Brantley? We considered both of them expendable for short term rentals, yet we haven't developed anyone near their quality. Where's our Nelson Cruz? Khris Davis, I guess, and yet we traded him away too. So where's our Khris Davis? Surely not Michael Reed. Surely not .... (insert failed prospect here). What OF have we developed in ages? Yet we trade away two who were not considered to be definite major league contributers. Sure not all prospects evolve to be major league players, but it appears that the Brewers have an excellent track record of trading away the only ones in their system that will. Or, they wouldn't have evolved while with the Brewers. Either option means the Brewers are doing something wrong. Either in their own talent evaluation or in their development pipeline. I don't think it's only one or the other, but a combination of both and it isn't just poor drafting either. Based on track record, Lewis Brinson will become an All-star and Isan Diaz a long-term starter. Hopefully, based on early returns the Stearns Collective looks like they may be much better at talent evaluation. Which means we might learn some as to whether our prospect development pipeline has the right people in place, but being a small market team that relies on developing from within we NEED both to be working well.

Come on now. There is always a start here or there where I would have stuck with the starter another batter or two, and in general I don't like seeing Logan at all right now, but with these results you're STILL not buying into how the pitching staff is managed? Really?! Yep. I put 95% of the success on the talent/players and 5% on the management. All data points to the minimal impact a manager has on the teams OVERALL success. There was a link in one of the major league forum threads that the best managers have maybe a 4 WAR effect on the teams overall performance. That's over a season, so even if you assume CC is one of those elite managers, his impact so far is 1.33 WAR. Given that we missed the playoffs by 1 win last year, it is important to have a manager who is getting us a positive WAR and Counsell just seems to be another ex-player manager who manages by the same old cliches. WRT pulling pitchers, Counsell's own comments are relevant - earlier in the year when questioned about taking Chacin out after 1 hitter in the 6th inning Counsell made a comment about he had determined going into the game, how many outs he would give Chacin. How does that comment have any relation to an approach or analytics that take into account what has happened during the game. As I pointed out earlier, Chacin had over 20 quality starts last year. He clearly has a track record that he can routinely go 6 IP and give up 3 or fewer runs. That is counter to the very way he has been treated this year. We have this lights out bullpen, but maybe they're only lights out because they can't take the stress of coming in with more than one runner on base... I do hope I am wrong on the bullpen being overworked come August and September and if it works out this year, hopefully we go deep into the playoffs, because there is some data that RP who are overworked usually have off years the next...

I'm not sure it's just for the sake of short starts. I'm guessing Chacin has issues when he gets to the third/fourth time through the lineup. The thing that doesn't make any sense to me is why 3/4 times through a lineup is some magic point. I think it has a lot more to do with how many pitches a typical hitter sees against a pitcher and when the pitcher begins to tire. I can't see how a player who jumps on a pitcher early in the count the first three times through and only sees 7 total pitches from a specific pitcher has any better chance on the 8th, 9th or 10th pitch (lets say the hypothetical 4th time through). It's likely that pitches seen by a batter is a much more likely determinant of how effective he will be the next time he sees the pitcher. It's partly why I always whine about our hitters that don't work a count and go up and hack away early in the count. The more pitches a batter sees, the more likely he will be effective the next AB, and the next... It would be nice to see data on how a batter performs each pitch against a pitcher to see how their performance (and the pitchers) tracks over "time"... I think that would be a clear way to evaluate when a pitcher is "done". The biggest reason this pisses me off is that I have Chacin on several fantasy BBall teams all of which have QS as a stat...!!!!

Congrats to them. I'll take our overall body of work over theirs. If you think that's management and not talent, good luck... Point being, short starts are clearly an organizational philosophy, we can see that by now. And it's worked very well. And I will continue to point out that short starts for the sake of short starts is absolutely stupid. Counsell always errs on the side of yanking a starter even when he is pitching just fine. Chacin had a boatload of quality starts last year (i.e. >= 6IP and 3 or less runs), but he gets yanked first baserunner in the sixth, repeatedly. Absolutely silly... And when the bullpen is shot in August and September, I won't be hear to say I told you so, because that's not allowed here... heaven forbid....

If only we could manage our pen more like the White Sox. Glad you could catch up on last nights game... yep they shut the brewers down... Today, I agree that Shields should have been pulled after 7 innings, but what do I know, I don't have magic hands...

some managers let their SP actually get past 80 pitches. It saves having to have 15 RP a year to make up all the innings...

why don't they just leave him in extended spring training pitching every 5 days in a minor league game and bring him to the majors the first or second week of May when he's fine tuned his mechanics. Throwing BP for several games in April/May doesn't help the Brewers... Or have him report middle of January and get him started a full month before the rest of the team if it takes him so long to be effective...

Good point about the weather. You can probably chart the game temp by inning and there would be a perfect correlation to offensive production... That's the problem with having a "domed" stadium and a decent weather environment on the road so far - the team is soft in cold weather...

Maybe CC left his magic hands in Milwaukee...

Glad we had the DH slot tonight to add extra offense...

The only real defensive lapse I can't excuse is the easy throw that Shaw completely botched... Yelich got caught in between, Santana lost the ball, but Cain just kept going and it didn't cost us...

12-14... rough first half of the month then bounce back second half...

Cubs are rolling again. Playing well lately. Yeah and not just beating up on a punchless Brewers team...

Braun needs to start soaking his hands in super glue before the game. Not sure anyone in baseball loses their bat more. That's what happens when you get old...

White Sox: 6 runs on 10 base runners Brewers: 3 runs on 11 base runners I guess the advance scouts for the White Sox got it right, put the Brewers on base and watch them fall apart...

Well that's great BP management by Clouseau

Boone Logan needs to be Draked....

Maybe Braun can hit it right at a sox player and he can throw it into the stands....

Whenever I see Arcia hit, I am amaze he can get a ball out of the infield, let alone hit a HR...

clown car showed up tonight