Thurston Fluff

Maybe you should look at the whole lineup. The other four were Ramirez, Hart, Weeks and Maldonado. Hart and Weeks have a .309 OBP. Maldonodo has a pretty good one, relatively speaking, at .327. So does Ramirez at .341. I guess it would create more runs to have Ramirez leading off with Maldy and Hart hitting second and third ahead of Braun. Then, when one of them do get on base and Braun doesn't drive them in I'm sure Izturis would make a fine cleanup hitter to drive them in as would Gomez. Morgan looks like a prototypical five hole guy doesn't he? The problem we have right now is the guys who can actually drive in runs are also the only guys actually getting on base at all. I don't know how you pin that on RRR.

Good one Hawing. Very punny. I'll admit it was a gem of a breakfast.

He didn't last year. The players made the run last year, and RR was just along for the ride. He was bailed out of so many horrible decisions by the late inning rallies it was nuts. Yet this season it's his fault they aren't playing well. If the team does well it's the player who did it if they don't the manager sucks. Funny how that works. He isn't a manager, he is a buddy. When things are going good that works okay, but when the team needs a kick in the ass that doesn't work. He has zero balls. This is nothing more than conjecture. You have no way of knowing this is true in any way. While I think sometimes you have to be spell out what needs to be done I've never felt the proverbial kicking of butts was a good way to create better play. Adults do better being treated like adults than yelled at like little kids. I saw on the MLB network today Showalter chewing out a player for riding around on a little scooter thing pregame telling him "We are here to win games." RR would never due that he would be right next to the player joking around. Would this be the same guy who's team lost 93 games last season? There doesn't seem to be any correlation to winning and yelling at guys to me. Honestly I don't think any employer yelling at their employee really does much to improve production over the long haul.

I bought a couple Faberge eggs. Worst omelet I ever had.

I wonder what changed from last year when he did.

I respect that you do want to keep Green, but I believe that at this point Green just needs to play in the bigs. Whether he's hitting .300 right now or .200, imo he has nothing left to prove at AAA. We'll have to agree to disagree on this point. I think more ab's at AAA is better than less in general. But if he is going to be a super sub type his fielding various positions could be improved much more playing every day than twice a week. That is key if he's really going to be a super sub type. I wouldn't mind seeing him get some time in the outfield either. Anything that makes him more versatile later wold be good. That is best done in AAA IMHO.

Kudos to Dusty Baker for apologizing to the Brewers for Chapman's somersaults after Wednesday's win. http://sports.yahoo.com/news/reds-dusty-gets-crusty-chapmans-045015935--mlb.html So much better when two teams competing handle these things without bean ball wars. St Louis could take a few lessons of what being classy really means.

Because Taylor Green actually has a chance to have a decent career & has more talent as a hitter than Ishikawa. Two points. 1- That is the exact reason why I think we let him play everyday in AAA. 2- What he has a chance to be and what he is now are two separate things. So far in the limited sample we have shows he isn't better than what we have. Given the limited ab's he likely to get going forward I doubt we will be able to tell. Again getting rid of a player who is no worse and lose the depth along with development time for a young player to boot seems like a stupid move as a franchise both now and for the future. and can defend positions aside from the easiest one on the field. WE have two other players who play more positions than he does so I don't see why we need a redundant player who is hitting about the same as the rest...which is to say he's not. If he was actually playing well I could see the argument but he isn't. If we want to get him to play well I think it better to get him ab's so he can continue to progress. Maybe then if someone like Ramirez or Weeks get hurt we have a guy playing well to take over. As it is I would hate to see him take a couple weeks to get up to speed before he hits. That would be the worst case scenario for this season. Green has more value than Ishikawa, period... and that's why you keep him. More value how? I'm not saying he doesn't have more potential. I'm also hot saying he couldn't be a better everyday player. But that is not what we need form him NOW. He is not a good pinch hitter so far, every position he plays is covered by two others and he is the only one who can't possibly be lost if we demote him. To keep him means losing depth on an already shallow team. He is not a better fit for what the team needs now. So while he may be a more valuable player in a vacuum he is not of more value to this team at this point in the season, period...That is why you put him in AAA and get the most value out of him as possible for the longest period of time possible. would you rather develop & retain a clone of Mike Fontenot, or keep a guy who can only play 1B & is a well-below avg. hitter at that spot. Those are not mutually exclusive. I would rather have both. Which was what I have been advocating for all along. Keep the guy who has done better so far this season and maintain our depth while simultaneously developing a Mike Fontenot clone. Perhaps he will even develop into more than that given regular playing time. Unless the minors are no longer where players develop I think you posed false options. You can literally find a guy like Ish for free every offseason. This isn't the offseason. There's nothing special about him & no reason to keep him over continuing Green's development at the big-league level. I think I've listed the reasons already but here goes once again. Ishikawa is playing better as a bench player right now. His stats show that. Now I realize the small sample issues but they are what we have with these two. Well Ishikawa has enough of a track record to know he's going to probably have a +700 OPS as a role player. He's done so for parts of five seasons now. But Green we don't know. All we know is he hasn't been over .700 yet in 111 ab's. Now add in the anecdotal evidence such as Ishikawa already knowing how to play irregularly and that veterans tend to do better as role players to begin with and I can't see a single argument that shows me Green will out perform Ishikawa as a part time player this season. If we were talking about a starting role then I would think otherwise. When it comes to the next season I really don't give two hoots because the future is not being harmed by having Green play everyday in AAA. In fact it could help more than hurt. I don't see anything about Green's development that will be better served playing part time vs playing everyday in AAA. He had one season of good play after some struggles coming back from an injury. He is an intriguing player but he is not a finished product. When he has learned all he can at AAA he may even be more than a bench player. So why limit his growth by rotting on the bench? Are you under the impression that keeping Ish over Green is going to be that push over the hump & into the postseason this year? No I'm just not under the impression that Green will get us there where Ish would not. Because if you don't, you let Ish walk & keep Green ten times out of ten. Our current season of injuries should be enough to tell you you never let a guy go who is no worse than the other guy if you can keep both. If anything will get us over the hump it is having depth to keep us afloat during injuries. Ten times out of ten you keep the most players of any value at all that you can. If there is no reason to think one is better than the other AT THIS TIME you keep both if possible. Part of that is having a guy get regular ab's so he can come in and hit right away if called upon. Why are you only using his ERA from this season alone? This was easily his worst ERA in the minors for his career. He had an ERA under 2 last year in a much larger sample. For the same reason someone would use what he did so far in the majors to show he's already a sub 4 ERA type pitcher. It was to point out some people are jumping the gun a little on where he is in his development. The new flavor phenoms takes center stage and people act like they are already proven, can't miss, players. Last season it was Peralta this season Thornburg and Fiers. I don't think that is a bad thing. It's cool to watch these guys develop and get excited about their potential. It's just not the same as being ready now to play at a high level in the majors. Like I said, if he keeps it up and Estrada falters I wouldn't have a problem with it down the road. It's just a little early to declare he's going to be a sub 4 ERA pitcher this season or that he has surpassed Estrada already. I think his future looks very bright. Nothing about his time in the minors or majors makes me believe he can't be an effective pitcher in the majors. I am not as inclined to think he is a sub 4 guy now. That is my only point.

1-Not every major leaguer is going to be a regular, so sometimes players like Green are going to have to get used to playing 2-3 times a week. Why would you keep him over someone who has better numbers in that role than he has? Ishikawa has about the same number of ab's and has done better. What you seem to think is the way to go is to risk losing Ishikawa to keep Green. Yet Ishikawa has better numbers as a bench guy this season and we would probably lose him if he was DFA'ed. We can send down Green, keep them both in case of injury, and let Green play everyday so he might someday be more than just a bench guy. How is that not a better option? There is no reason at all to keep Green over Ishikawa at this point other than an infatuation with young players. 2-Beyond that, if they ARE going to be regulars like Fiers or Green, how much better would you like them to perform before moving them up? I'd say slightly better than a 4.42 ERA or a .759 OPS in AAA. Lets not also forget that Estrada was our long man to start the season and 30 year old big league pitchers lose their jobs routinely to younger prospects if said prospect performs a well or better. Lets also not forget RRR said publicly Estrada deserved a chance for what he did in the past. Setting that aside usually that happens when the minor leauger does really well in the minors and forces the team's hand and typically not done for guy three years his junior. I don't understand at all why it's a bad "precedent," to set? What, that a younger guy who's pitched VERY well in his first few starts, and his entire minor league career. He has done well but his minor league time shows he isn't as good right now as his major league level numbers suggest. He has a bright future but I think his 4.42 ERA and poorer peripherals in AAA than the majors shows he can still learn more there before we can expect continued production at the same level as he is now. While Estrada has a 5.00 FIP Fiers has a 2.67 FIP in 10 fewer innings pitched including two 7 inning outings to save our BP when they were desperately needed. So far those numbers suggest he is a better at getting out major league hitters than minor league ones. That should be enough to tell you all you need to know about them. Frankly his minor league numbers are too small a sample to be useful this season as well and there is more of them than there are major league ones right now. Simply put we don't know if past performance is indicative of future ones at this point. Now lets say Taylor Green was a 22 year old Rickie Weeks, fine. But he's not. He's a player who may start for a couple years, but his value for the most part will be in his ability to move around and play different positions and PH. So...I'm not seeing the problem. The problem is he hasn't shown he is as good at it as his replacement in that role and we would most likely lose said replacement if we kept him. We'd lose production and depth for no gain at all. I think the Brewers owe it to themselves to see what they have in Fiers, see if he can continue to give us that boost we so desperately need while Marcum's out, and maybe just as importantly when he comes back. I think the Brewer owe it to themselves to see what they have in both Estrada and Fiers. We can do that by moving Fiers down when Marcum comes back. If they believe Fiers can help in the pen I am all for that. He has shown enough to stay if needed. But I just don't think he has done enough to supplant Estrada at this point. Another couple outings like yesterday coupled with a few poor ones by Estrada and I may change my mind. But baseball is not about rushing things. It is about taking enough time to get as accurate a read on a player as you can get. I honestly believe Fiers will finish the season with an ERA below 4.00 if given the chance. What are you basing that on? He may very well be good but his ERA in AAA was 4.42 in more innings pitched. How does that translate to a sub 4 ERA in the majors over a season? I know it seems like I'm bashing the guy but I'm not. I'm just calling for some rational objective thinking about his start and what should, or more importantly shouldn't, be done in the future based on that.

The slight added ability to hit for NL pitchers is MORE than mitigated by the fact that the player who hits DH for the AL team is likely significantly better than the best bench player for the NL team. That right there is my biggest problem with having it in one league and not the other. It makes it unfair to the NL in interleague play and the World Series. I think having a having to pay for an additional starting caliber player makes it harder on small market AL teams so I like the pitcher hitting but that's just me. If they changed it to DH in both leagues I would be ok with it. I'd rather they go with pitchers hitting in both. They could add a player to the roster to make the players happy but that is unlikely to happen.

I think you're getting a little carried away. Dude is not the worst pitcher of all time or anything close. He's a pitcher at the end of his career who still has enough left to get enough outs to eat some innings when one team is four or so runs ahead. That is the role he is going to have here. Hernandez can eat innings in lopsided games to save the pen for more important ones. The team needed a long man and they got one. That was something we needed to get our relievers back to roles they can do well. Not directed at you LouisEly but it seems like so many people talk about a manager putting players in the right position to succeed then when the team does something that goes toward that end they complain about how it's being done. If this help the rest of the pen stay in roles they are best at then what's the problem?

Nothing againgst Hernandez, but this is just another way to keep a potentially useful young player in AAA. Hernandez will take the long reliever role, Estrada to the rotation, Fiers to the minors when Marcum's ready. Then Green (who's behind Random in Roenicke's book) will head back when Ishikawa returns. I see nothing wrong with that. Those potentially useful players haven't shown themselves to be more useful now than their replacements and can be more useful by getting better in AAA. None of them are finished learning at that level so why rush them to make a lateral move production wise? Fiers looks good for a rookie but not better than Estrada or Marcum. I can see the argument of leaving Fires in the rotation to help the pen but that cheats Estrada out of a job he kind of deserves. I think that is a bad precedent to set. We can let Hernandez pitch in low leverage situations as an innings eater and save our pen a lot of wear and tear without losing any games by doing so. It would put the rest of the pen back to their normal roles to boot. Green should be getting regular time in AAA since he's not going to get much time anyway with Weeks, Ramirez and Hart ahead of him. Why let him sit on the bench when Ishikawa has done better in that role this season so far? Add in the maintenance of depth keeping those veterans provides and every one of those moves seems to me to be obvious.

This has nothing to do with the Brewers needs. It was just their turn to have him on the team.

I see him the same as I did prior to the start. A young player with potential to be very good. He just needs time to polish his overall game. That is why I hope he spends at least a season's worth of time in AAA. No need to rush him.

Do you have a problem with BA as a result as well? I have a problem with using it to say someone is a great hitter because I define a great hitter as someone who does more than just get base hits. I don't have a problem using it to show someone can get hits 30% of the time. Frankly I think saying someone gets hits at such and such a rate pretty insignificant overall so I don't have much use for BA. Which, not coincidentally, is the same argument I make with WAR. Your concerns with how people misuse WAR should be kept separate from your criticisms of how WAR is constructed. It is one of two arguments I make in criticizing WAR. I do keep both of them separate. Which is why I only addressed the misuse part in my last post. It was directly related to a misuse of it. Personally, I think the foundation of WAR is solid. If we can agree on that, then we can argue about the pros and cons of the particulars. We most certainly do not agree on how solid it's foundation is. I think it is fatally flawed and have stated my reasons many times. Nobody has yet given me any reason what so ever to dissuade me from that thought. You cannot use equally weighted measurements of unequal quantities and think it has any relationship to reality. Furthermore you cannot use measurements of questionable accuracy and assume accurate results. One would think Lawrie's WAR is evidence enough of that. I'm glad there are two popular websites with different implementations of WAR (Fangraphs and BR.com). It's an ongoing science experiment. I absolutely agree on this. I do not have a problem with the ongoing experiment. Only the acceptance of any current incarnation of it's current results as accurate.

He is going to be a very good player but he is nowhere what his WAR says. WAR isn't supposed to tell you that. Which is one of my major problems with it. It's supposed to tell you how well he did over a certain period of time not how good he is as a player. I don't think it does a particularly good job of even that but I'll let that be for now. I suppose a number of WARs over a long period of time should get you closer to actual ability simply because a player's numbers over a long period is going to be close to his ability. But that is not the case here. A single season of WAR will never tell you much about any players true ability though. It was not designed to.

Do I sense more allies in my war against WAR? It is not a good stat because it uses incomplete stats. It uses some form of UZR. UZR needs three years for every one of offensive stats to be as accurate. Yet it uses them in a one to one ratio. It is useless...almost. I'll give the likes of RLuz their due. What it should do is cause you to question the validity of defensive metrics based on small samples. WAR is trying to estimate the value of a player's performance over a certain period of time. It is NOT trying to estimate the true level of talent of a player. You've just summed up both of my primary arguments in my war on WAR. I question why anyone should believe a stat that incorporates a questionable stat is somehow accurate? I fully understand what they are trying to do and applaud the effort. But at this point using one season of defensive stats is like using leaches to cure a fever. The second reason for my war on WAR is how it is used. If everyone used it like you do fine. You tend to say so and so had a WAR of such and such over this period of time therefore was/n't a value. I'm ok with that. I think there are better measures but I can see it useful as part of an overall argument. But it often gets used as a predictive, stand alone, stat when it should not be used that way. It is particularly useless when looking at young players. Overall if the questionable numbers being put in aren't bad enough the way it is used makes it essentially worthless. Be a sabre hippie. Join the stop the WAR movement today.

when all I'm claiming is that the likelihood of us making the playoffs this year is probably not strong enough to make going for it more desirable than setting ourselves up for 2013 and beyond. The season is far from over. In football it would be like giving up on the season at 3-4. Nobody ever suggests that as a time to give up in football. Why is it so easy to do in baseball? I know apples and oranges but the point is teams can and often do produce far different results from one end of the season to the other. Last season St Louis was far worse than Atlanta for the first part of the season. Remember when Houston went from terrible below .500 to playoff team two consecutive years? One of which went to the WS. How does selling a completely redundant piece in Morgan equal constant rebuilding? How is a player playing the same role on the same team somehow now redundant? He has a similar style as Aoki but they both play side by side not one for the other. To me saying Morgan is redundant because we have similar style players would be like saying we didn't need Prince because he was redundant to Braun.

You trade Morgan because has more value if traded than he would if we keep him. He is redundantly redundant for us. He s actually the kind of guy Melvin usually does well with in trades. What value does a guy with a .546 OPS, can't hit a lefty to save his life, with less than a year on his contract worth? Cutter Dykstra? As far as redundancy goes with Hart at first he is no more redundant than he was last year. He's the same guy playing the same role. While the minors have a couple guys who look promising I think it too early bring them up yet, barring injury. I think letting the AAA guys play more than one season there is better for us and them. If we are going to get back in it I don't think we need more Taylor Green types.* We need more Morgan types to play the way the always have. *Not saying Green is not going to be alright down the road. Just saying he fits the mold of a guy who had one good season in AAA and we all wanted him to play right away at the majors instead of letting him prove the season was legit. I also think guys like Hart or Gamel who had more time there come in more prepared to help a team right away.

Melvin was apparently offered Daniel Hudson for one year of Prince. If I recall correctly, Beckham's name was being thrown around as well, but he insisted on getting two top-of-the-rotation guys with some MLB experience, which is a steep price for anyone, and there aren't many teams who want to pick up a one-year player who can also trade away 2/5 of their starting rotation. I also believe he was offered one of the Braves' young pitchers (Beachy?) for Hart when he was going to be a free agent before signing him to the extension, and I don't remember which one (Fielder or Hart) was involved in when Matt Cain was rumored to be dangled to the Brewers. Rumors of trades are not trades. There are all kinds of rumors that never amount to anything. What we see in actual trades seem to show good young players cost more than one season of above average veterans. IF I am wrong please show me an actual trade where someone of Hart's caliber is traded for the likes of players you mentioned. I'd like to believe it is possible but so far can't think of any trade that actually was made that compares.

A team trading for Hart might also be able to work out a contract extension with him, if they were so inclined. Sure they can. But they can also wait a year or sign a free agent of the same caliber as Hart without giving up the good young player. I like Hart but there are always players of his caliber to be had in free agency without giving up good, cost controlled young talent. I just think we have to be realistic in what we can get for one year of Cory Hart. Six years of a similar quality player is not realistic.

I would take six years of a good young player (starting at league minimum) for one year of Hart. So would every other team. Problem is there are few if any teams willing to give up a good young player for one season of a player of any caliber. It took two years of Marcum to trade a good young player and one year of Prince couldn't get us enough in return to make it feasible.

That the Pirates are in first place and it's June must be a sure sign of the Apocalypse.

I don't know why but when I read the last couple posts I have this picture in my head of a National Geographic documentary with the narrator saying "For the first time ever we captured the rare Hawing in her natural habitat. Watching her check out books and sort out past due notices one can get the feeling of how this rare animal interacts with her surroundings. We now have a better understanding of her role in the ecosystem" along with proper footage of the rare sighting and the usual mention of how her habitat is threatened. P.S. Hawing I was going to say rare bird but thought I would leave it up to you to choose the animal you want to be.

http://sphotos.xx.fbcdn.net/hphotos-prn1/c0.0.843.403/p843x403/601765_10150904963663512_1865352292_n.jpg The new dog e-z carry system.