Thurston Fluff

probably getting depressed because the catch would drop her to third place. Or she was listening to the Brewers.

Thought this was a pretty cool dog action shot.http://i684.photobucket.com/albums/vv208/ThurstonFluff/Coolcatch.jpg

The problem is it's baseball and every team goes through tough stretches. The Brewers happen to have started the season in one of those. That sucks but on the bright side if the team is better than it's shown so far at some point in the season it will play better than it should as well. To determine a player is so bad that he should be paid to go away is something that takes at least a half season's worth of information to even come close to making sure it's a good move. You'd hate to release DD and have him go to the Cubs and pitch like Carlos Silva so far this season the next four or five starts. DFAing a player means you give your opponents the shot at getting him for no cost and no risk. If we were right and he is toast no big deal. If we were wrong they not only get a useful player but get him on our dime.

Some very good points Flood Pants. I agree to an extent that mid level teams need managers to make better choices overall than large market teams do. I disagree that those moves make all that much difference. Most managers, including Yost and Macha do play their guys to match ups to a large extent unless there is some sort of reason not to. Playing Hart against a tough righty might seem silly unless Hart is in one of his hot modes. Then it really doesn't matter. In substitutions it's really a crap shoot. Is Counsell a better option cold off the bench to replace Hart against a righty? Statistically yes but on a given day maybe not. How good was his BP? Who's swinging the bat with confidence at the moment? Is the a minor lingering injury or illness? While all those things seem trivial it is as big a deal to the outcome of a particular instance as long term numbers IMHO. So, yes, Counsell should be in for the most part against a righty but at times Hart may give you as good or better a chance.

Their sports fans might suck, but I love visiting the history in that city and area. Ditto. Any history buff has to visit. Just borrow a barf bag from the plane. Looks like Eric Cartman. A sociopath of questionable gender who looks like a cartoon. Dude's got a good life ahead of him. In a weird way I feel sorry for him. Just not as sorry as I do for the kid wearing barf.

So we can replace him with another manager that fans will complain about? There are few managers that fans are overly pleased with. And their overall impact on the game gets blown out of proportion sometimes.Two posts in and you're already my favorite.http://forum.brewerfan.net/images/smilies/wink.gif I was a much bigger fan of Yost than I am of Macha but still think this team would go as far as it's talent will take it regardless of who is managing it. If the manager does a few things like make their players acountable work ethic wise and not blow out their pitchers by overuse how they manage a game is largely irrelevant to the overall record. I think sometimes the grass is not greener on the other side. Thinking so usually gets you another manager, sometimes worse, somethimes better, but rarely closer to solving the real problem.

I think it was Dean Taylor that brought in Jack Z. but the point is the same. Since Melvin kept him instead of replacing him with his own guy he deserves credit for knowing he had a good Scouting director and keeping him. He also had to make sure those great draft picks got the proper instruction along the way. Sometimes I think we gave Jack a little too much credit for how good some of those guys are and not enough to the people who actually taught them along the way. Not a single one of them got to the majors straight from the draft so there has to be more than just drafting involved. I judge Melvin on the whole organization and how he's adjusted along the way. He used to not worry too much about defense as witnessed by Matt Stairs but he learned managers value defense so he started to look more at it. He saw a problem with our organizational approach to pitching and addressed it by implementing a system that addresses pitcher health. He found a pitching coach who was like minded and has him looking to implement that system in the entire system. Melvin does not rest on his past achievements and always looks to improve himself. That to me is his strongest trait and why i think he should stay right where he is. Seems to me some of the most successful organizations are also the most stable ones. The Twins pretty much never fire people who have shown themselves to be competent. Same with the Braves and Cardinals.

The Brewers really need to get this resolved by the all star break or so. Either get him signed or trade him. I would hate to see us wind up with 2 draft picks for a player of Prince's caliber. He has a year after this one under our control. There is no need to trade him at the deadline this season. I think this sort of thing is better left to the off season roster building phase than mid-season get what you can for him phase. Let him play out the year then shop him around for as good a return as you can. With no real deadline you can allow him to negotiate a long term contract with another team to maximize the return. That is harder to do in July with a hard deadline to deal with.

Plus Hart was homegrown and seemed to be the higher rated prospect at the time. In hindsight, I wouldn't have traded Cruz. But I can't call for his firing because of something like that. While I agree in hindsight we shouldn't have traded Cruz I still think Hart is the better player. He's two years younger plays in a harder park to hit in and has a career .797 OPS to Cruz's .818. Not much of a difference in my mind. I think Hart's off season arbitration win has made him look a lot worse in people's eyes than he really is.

I think his overall philosophy will be a good thing for the entire franchise long term. The thing that I liked the most about him was he brought a philosophy with him that the team wanted to implement throughout the organization anyway. If his way increases the pitching ability for the entire organization while simultaneously reducing injuries I'd even be ok if some of the current pitchers would do better with someone else though I doubt that will be the case. This was a hire with an eye to the long term future.

There were plenty of people that saw Escobar as the future SS, and thought trading Hardy in the off-season of 2008, would have been "selling high" on Hardy's stock. A lot of people correctly predicted that DM would drive Hardy's stock down handling him the way he was handled... I think criticism of DM, here is more than fair That assumes Escobar's development wouldn't have been hurt by having him learn on the job in the majors. Would you rather have 6years of a major league ready Escobar or 2 years of him trying to learn on the fly and 4 of him playing at the level he will now? It also assumes Melvin should have known Hardy would tank it like he did. If he did then it stands to reason others would have as well. If that's the case then he wouldn't have got us any more of a return than he did. I think he played the Hardy situation as well as he could have given the information he had to work with at the time. furthermore even if he knew what Hardy would turn out to be he may still have done the best thing for the teams future by keeping him and letting Escobar progress at his natural pace instead of forcing him into a role he was not ready to fill. I agree with the assessment that if the team finishes under .500 this year, it's probably time to move on from Melvin. Sometimes a franchise just needs a change in direction. While I can certainly respect this line of thinking I usually go with the philosophy that once you get competent people in place you keep them in place. The idea of change of direction is fine but if the team is going in the right direction changing it is not wise. There is something to be said for continuity/stability. Obviously you think if we are below .500 the direction isn't right. I sort of agree but think a guy who has proven he can rebuild 2 terrible franchises into playoff teams has shown he knows what he is doing. That doesn't just go away. I would look else where for the problem.

when he was playing for LaRussa he slept in his care and used a bottle of wine for a pillow.

I had to pepper spray a dog once. essentially the same situation as described but it was the first time I ever passed by there vs a recurring event. The owner called the cops and he got a ticket for having an unleashed dog. The officer told him he would have done the same thing. I really wouldn't worry about the police or getting sued. You are in the right and she is wrong. In fact if she did try to sue I wouldn't be surprised if her lawyer would tell her not only don't sue but don't let her insurance company know her dog had to be pepper sprayed. They frown on dogs who need that sort of thing done to them. p.s. I know it's not a pleasant thing to do. I didn't like doing it either but sometimes a little pain now prevents more later. Especially if that dog would hurt someone else's dog who didn't know it was there and have to be put down. I bet any dog would rather take a painful but harmless shot in the eye than a painless but lethal shot in the leg.

If I have to hear the words Tiger Woods one more time I'm going to reach down my own throat and use my intestines to strangle myself.

I don't want to really pepper spray the dog and I don't want to cause trouble with a neighbor, but I feel like I need to do something. Otherwise, it seems I have to get in the car and drive to another area to take my dog on a walk. I think your neighbor has already caused trouble. You have done your part by talking to her and her reply was "yea what you gonna do about it." As far as peppering the dog I think it's not only ok but the right thing to do. The growl is a sign the dog is being territorial which is not good. It will also be a valuable lesson to the owner that their dog is not the only one who has a right to the sidewalk. The owner will no doubt get pissed so be prepared. It may be wise to have a response to her tirade about hurting her dog ready. Something along the lines of it's not your sidewalk and I am sick of being afraid your dog is going to hurt mine. It will be unpleasant but I bet it only happens once. Bad dog owners suck.

I think we can fix this. All that needs to be done is allow any team who is on a small market to move to NY. Lets see how well the Yankees do when they have to compete with six or seven teams in their market. One for each borough and maybe New Jersey could have one as well. Oh wait. They can't because the Yankees/Mets have territorial rights to the city. IF they want to say they made the right choice of what franchise to buy so too bad for us then others should be able to tap that market. After all it isn't a business it's a sport. Congress says so. Every team should have the right to move wherever they feel is the biggest market for them. I guess a sense of entitlement is natural when you inherit what you have vs work for it.

While nothing can be learned from two game if the premise is you can know something then we know this. If we assume the Rockies are a playoff caliber team and the Brewers are .500 against them it stands to reason the Brewers are as good as the Rockies. Thus the Brewers are a playoff caliber team so far.

I think the pitching staff will be fun to watch as a whole. The rotation is underrated especially Bush and Wolf. It seems like every time I hear something about Bush it's about his 6+era last season while completely ignoring how good he was prior to the injury or his career mid 4 era. The bullpen has a very good mixture of established veterans and talent. Combined with a pretty good looking defense I think the pitching is going to surprise many people.

Over the past 7 years my dog and I have created a pretty cool game called skip dog. I want to start leagues in more areas to promote it and now need to find people who either have a dog who catches frisbees or like to disk golf. Everyone who disk golfs and tried skip dog really likes it plus it helps in their golf game, especially putting. I'm in the process of setting up the website and such. This is as far as I've got. I am not selling anything to BF.neters just trying to get more people involved and naturally thought of BF.netters. I live in Appleton and anyone who wants to check out the game PM me and I'll set up a time when we can get together to show you the game. If enough are interested we'll make a day of it. Anyone who doesn't want to come that far you can check out the site for some basic information and I can help you get started on your own. The video on the site is very vanilla and not nearly as fun to watch as it is to do. I am working on a much better video than we currently have on the site. The rules are fairly straight forward and easy to learn but, like any good game, takes forever to master. The difference between this and other disk dog things like freestyle frisbee is most of them are less sport more choreographed shows. Great fun to watch but more like watching icecapades than sports. There is relatively little training needed for the dog. It needs to be able to catch and retrieve to get started. The game can be played in backyards, parks, tennis courts, dog parks...pretty much anywhere. For those who are really interested and want to really get into it the cost of all the equipment disks, ramps, hoops every thing is less than $100 which is way less than most dog activities. Easy to learn for both you and the dog fun to play, good exercise and addicting.

Backupcatchers, I hope you gave your wife the wrong answer or pretended not to know at all. I told her September something. It's really June 8th.

Last night my wife asked me when my dog's birthday is. I told her. Then she asked me when her's was...I should have known the first question was a trap.

But for a guy that signed a minor-league contract, and did so that late in the off-season, it should've been incredibly obvious that he had no inside track on anything. I think that was more or less his complaint. He thought he shouldn't have been a late off season, non roster invitee type of guy. Obviously he was pretty busy in his own world so perhaps that is why he didn't notice it wasn't his wife's death that made him such. 38 year old loogys with a career 4.97 ERA are non roster invitees these past couple years. In years past he would have been an automatic guaranteed 3 year contract type.

dude has had a tough year or so. It took my sister in law more than a year to think clearly after my brother died. After a year of basically revolving around a tragedy it's not all that easy to just move on without letting it effect the daily thought process more than it should. I'm pretty willing to give him a pass on this. I think it's less entitlement than it is being forced to think/deal about something day in day out every hour of the day for a year then not being able to shut that thought process out all at once. Good luck Scott I hope you catch on somewhere else. More than that I hope you reach a sense of normalcy sometime soon so you can truly move on as well.

While I get why they say we will be that low I think what is missed is the depth of the pitching vs last season. We may not be all that much better talent wise but the options to cover injuries or ineffectiveness are much better than they were a year ago.

I think sports in particular is one in which the players know full well, as a group, they are more or less treated as cattle. There is no other business where you trade your employee for moeny or someone else. You get dumped as soon as someone else can do your job either cheaper, better or is younger with more potential. At that time you get booted to the curb or moved like a piece of meat. Then you go from place to place having people examine you both physically and mentally then, at their leisure, tell you if they have any interest in you. In exchange for that dehumanizing treatment they get a chance to get rich playing a game. I would assume when talking to them individually on the job Macha treats them like a person but as a group could very well take a step back and look at them as the commodity they are.