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Any bullpen that walks Eric Sogard twice is, by definition, the worst bullpen in baseball.

How can these guys spend 5 weeks in spring training and not be able to lay down a bunt...

Sogard is rubbing off on Arcia...

some unnamed player might be heating up...

Pirates maximizing their opportunities, Brewers not so much....

Hader's command just not the greatest tonight. Maybe because he hasn't pitched in 5 days...

Hader's bringing the heat tonight. 95-97 with the fastball, as if it wasn't hard enough to hit already. 93-94 is much better when it's unhittable. The extra MPH seem to be at the expense of movement as the batters seem to be able to foul it off or launch a HR...

Crick's stuff is so nasty even his catcher can't handle his pitches. Even the strike zone can't contain it...

There's why CC is such a Sogard fan... He wills pitchers to throw him balls...

I was thinking something along these lines. I would scoring efficiency would involve run expectancy. Take run expectancy and compare to runs scored, and you get a sense for efficiency, though luck would play a big role there too. I agree. Runner on third and second are different as is number of outs. Run expectancy should capture that, and even 1B... RussL, among others, knew where those numbers are available...

RISP is such a useless stat. They should have something like scoring efficiency: Pirates had 1 RISP and scored 1 run = 100% Brewers had 4 RISP and 1 run = 25% That's what's so frustrating about this team, they just can't convert scoring opportunities at a high enough rate...

A league average C at this point would be great for this offense as we need to turn some of the bottom of the order trips into run scoring opportunities... It would be great if we could get league average from our SP because as a group they are making the case for a perfect image of "automatic out"...

He's still on pace for over 300 plate appearances as well. However, yesterday was the first game he's been in this past week (3 straight games where he didn't even PH - which is the longest streak of inaction so far this season). DS/CC may have already made the decision to reduce his playing time. So that pace could change very quickly if he's now only a spot starter and the last PH bat off the bench. The whole point of having "depth" is to not have to play guys who suck. If you do it's kind of pointless. Depth implies that the players are close in their overall quality. Unfortunately, both Arcia and Villar are weak bats, and while there's a history of good defense from Arcia, Villar not so, there is an appearance of Depth given last years contributions from Perez/Sogard. But depth when all the options are crappy isn't good depth. And depth driven by outliers (and not the Gladwell type) isn't the way to build a roster you want to be competitive. Right now the Brewers have depth at MIF that is horrible... I feel like Stearns had little to do with Sogard but he was a guy who Counsell just had to have back and Stearns obliged to let him fill out his bench the way he wanted. I realize this is just a theory and can't be proven right or wrong but if it is true hopefully it's a good lesson for Counsell to do the things he does best and leave the personnel decisions to DS. At this point it's hard to tell who is the driver and who is the passenger. I hope it wasn't Stearns because he is the bigger investment as we can always replace CC with another bad bat, played forever, former Brewer (there's tons of them). If it was Stearns at the wheel on this, then he needs to learn a lot more about differentiating a real breakout vs. Luck. It was clear from Sogard's history that the blip last year was luck, and if they have a metric that 'thinks' it was breakout, they need to discard that now. I don't see a quick solution, although, I would gladly jump on the Neil Walker bandwagon if he became available, as his recent production screams luck (as in bad) and not a sudden dropoff in production. Other than that, I don't see a viable addition at this point to repair the MIF. As long as they start Sogard at most once a week (really, a 24 YO SS and a 27 YO 2B don't need a lot of days "off") and Perez at most once a week then that's the best case scenario for now. I am not a Villar fan, but he needs to be on the field as much as possible so we can move on from him if he truly can't approach the 2016 Villar, or benefit from him if he does show glimpses of 2016. And please no Brandon Phillips - if you told him you would shoot him in the head if he swung at ball 4, he'd be dead the first game - the guy has no ability to take a walk...

Whenever I read your posts, I really wonder why you even follow this team. And I don't say that rudely. I say it because you seem to hate just about everything about them. It is rather odd to me. Yes I am critical of the Brewers. As an organization they've been almost a constant failure. I started out as a Brewers fan in the early 1970's and have been a fan for over 45 years. During that time they have put a crappy product on the filed for more than 35 of those years. I will continue to be critical of the Brewers until they put a winning product on the field for multiple years and go deep into the playoffs multiple times. I'm a Packer fan and started watching them at the same time as the Brewers (about the same time they spent 20 years in the desert playing embarrassing football) and saw the same organizational failings with them as I have for the Brewers. The Packers finally figured it out and stopped hiring former Packers and brought in the right people to run the team and develop the players and guess what, they became successful. Even with almost 25 years of abysmal football they have been mostly a successful organization. So I give the Packers plenty of slack and haven't been critical until recently with the failures of Ted Thompson to use all opportunities to improve the team. The point is, the Packers have earned my giving them the benefit of the doubt because they actually have been very successful for many years. When the Brewers stop hiring former Brewer players as managers (CC = NY) and start becoming a successful organization then I won't be as critical, but they have a long way to go. David Sterns is looking like a very good GM although he still has some learning and growing to do. Mark Attaturk says the right things, but draws huge profits from the team, and has only claimed to be willing to invest more if the investment was necessary to put the team over the top. Granted that time may not have come, but I'm much older than many of you guys and when I was growing up I was taught actions speak louder than words. Pretty much the opposite of the world we now live in. As a fan, a vast majority of our information is the equivalent of words. So I put little value in most of that information because the actions of this team are 35+ years of futility. I would love for the Brewers to become successful to shut me up because we all win...

This is the Brewers. Miley will be good enough in a few starts that CC cements him into the rotation and then when he falls apart for months we leave him in place because of those few starts where he looked good...

Cmon Chacin, 2 more outs and your done for the night - CC picked 15 out of his hat before the game and that's your out limit. We have a rested bullpen and once the beatup on crappy teams mojo fully returns we will easily win this one....

Well its been nice knowing you guys... with a Villar walk, that must mean the end of the world is coming tonight...

I think these guys are coachable, but when CC keeps telling them he wants to see them play like he did they are delivering...

What was the exit velocity on that popup? 10mph? Finnegan came into the game having given up 11 runs in 12.33 IP. He's been a pitching pinata so far and of course tonight against the Brewers he looks like a TOR starter. Sterns better be looking for some solutions because there aren't many on this roster...

I just want to see the Brewers score a run, anything beyond that would be gravy...

And even with that surge of offense his OPS is only .752 which makes last year the new norm and he is taking walks at a career worst rate. I've been waiting all season (29 games = 18%) for him to adjust his approach at the plate and I don't see any improvement. And Braun doesn't even have an injury as an excuse. He's in his age 34 year, off roids or avoiding anything detectable and he's aging. Injuries can be worked around as long as hes producing 3-4 WAR, but right now he's on pace for 0.8 WAR. At his salary the Brewers need the 3-4 WAR and at this point they are washing 20-25% of their payroll down the drain. I wouldn't be on his case at all if he actually took some walks instead of swinging at balls down and in, away, over, up.... on Gameday I wouldn't be able to tell his AB from Villars if they didn't show the players info.

Do they raise concession pricing, parking, etc. at Cubs games in MP? If not, they should. Cubs fans are traveling 1-1.5 hours each way to attend a game so they are very likely eating in the area and/or at Miller Park. Jack up the concessions for the traveling circus and make some additional money.

We have a manager who tied the record for consecutive futility when he went 7 weeks without a hit in 2011, so I doubt he views any of the issues these guys are having as critical. King of setting the bar as low as possible won't be the one to pull the plug on our latest set of underachievers...

We have limited resources, and this offseason the Brewers spent them on Yelich, Cain and bullpen help. Those guys have been fine, but we're 23rd in offense in ISO, 24th in OBP and 23rd in Runs scored. We need some of the guys who weren't upgraded to play better, or it's going to be time to give up on them. Take away Cain and Yellich and we would likely be in last place for OBP. Just looking at OBP-BA (sorted, descending) and OPS we have: [pre]Player OBP-BA OPS Lorenzo Cain 0.113 0.864 Eric Thames 0.101 0.976 Travis Shaw 0.090 0.818 Domingo Santana 0.088 0.582 Christian Yelich 0.085 0.762 Jett Bandy 0.081 0.538 Manny Pina 0.078 0.546 Eric Sogard 0.062 0.345 Jesus Aguilar 0.048 0.934 ---------------------------------- Orlando Arcia 0.037 0.532 Jonathan Villar 0.034 0.619 Ryan Braun 0.033 0.766 Hernan Perez 0.030 0.530[/pre] Just looking at the Mendoza line for OBP-BA we see the familiar names. We are getting absolutely nothing out of those 4 except for a few HR from Braun. Those are not good numbers for long-term success and these are the players that are killing the Brewers offense. While still less than 100PA for most, those numbers are disturbing for the next few years of Ryan Braun production. While Sogards abysmal BA and OPS negate any positive his ability to take a walk brings, there may be upside especially if CC uses him in the right way (almost the opposite of now - chances CC pulls his head out of his ass 1/100,000). Arcia is young and might show some improvements (although his approach this year is reflected in his numbers) so he should get most of the playing time at SS. Villar is just not a good hitter. Sure, if he can get his average up to over 300 he isn't an OBP hole, but his OPS is leaning toward 2016 being a total fluke. We should look for a replacement ASAP and use any hot streak as an opportunity to sell, sell, sell. Perez is crap, But he can play crap at so many positions he's considered valuable... Pass, pass, replace, replace... Braun is untradeable and likely not worth a fraction of his paycheck the next few years. He should be strictly platooning once Thames returns. At least we can get some bump from him facing only left handers. 4 OBP failures (Arcia, Braun, Villar, Perez), 6 OPS failures (Santana, Sogard, Arcia, Perez, C and P) and its pretty clear why this offense is offensive. The other black hole in this lineup is pitchers. We are 39 games into the season and we have 2 hits from our starting pitchers! That is abysmal and another contribution to a woeful offense. Sure the pitching has been lights out, but if the starters wonder why the offense can't score any runs in support there should be at least one mirror in the clubhouse for them...Sure, nobody expects anything from the pitchers, but that's hyperbole, we expect league average from the pitchers, not league WORST.

The problem is this organization puts zero emphasis on the importance of not making out. In player development and their selection of players. You can watch a guy just up from the minors and you can tell which organization “developed” him. It’s not a coincidence brewer players go up trying to hit 3 run HR leading off innings...