Thurston Fluff

For the most part I haven't had as many head shaking reactions to his moves as I generally had with Yost. Yost made some moves that weren't just bad but so bad that it was almost like he wanted to lose the game. I was as big a Ned fan as there was on this site but I agree Macha seems to be a better in game manager so far. It is way to soon to know for sure since he has already had one hard to understand move and he has only been at the helm for a couple weeks. While Ned was not the greatest strategist ever he was not as bad as it was made out to be. People tended to nitpick and blow many of his moves way out of proportion which made some of his moves seem a lot worse than they were. Or, at the very least, so many more boneheaded moves than the average manger made. I remember plenty of times someone would scream about how stupid a certain move was and see a page or two of debate on whether or not it was as idiotic as the person thought. Anything that can be debated that long cannot be all that stupid IMO. That said, yes, he did make a few too many head scratchers to be hailed as a strategic genius. With Macha we will see. This thread already has one hard to defend move and he's only managed for a couple weeks. How long did Ned go before he made one?

I don't know how I feel about the helpfulness of an "eruption"; I'm more upset that Doug and/or Mark A thought this staff as presently constituted was worthy of making a run in these precious few years we're gonna have the majority of our young offensive guns (I know, I know...). I think they thought this staff could be as good or better than the one in 07 who had Sheets, Cappuano, Soup, Bush and Vargas as a rotation. One that helped the Brewers win 84 games with an offense and defense inferior to what this one should be. I think they all knew it wouldn't be a great staff but, combined with the offensive and defensive improvement of their every day lineup, it should be able to win more than the 84 in 07. If they can't I'd have to start to question how much of an improvement it was to change the coaching staff. All in all I suspect Ennder is right and this is just an early season anomaly. This is a serviceable pitching staff that is going through a rough stretch. In the end it is a mid to upper 80's win type of team and,barring injuries will have 85ish wins. As far as blowing up I don't think anyone in any profession responds well to getting yelled at in public. Any short term gain it might induce is mitigated by long term resentment.

In a way it is more impressive because of how well they sold last year. I've seen several articles that said the attendance boost for teams typically comes the year after a playoff run. Had the Brewers attendance been average for them last year it wouldn't be as surprising to see the traditional boost teams get prior to a playoff run. They are building on an already high level which makes it all the better.

It's hard to compare pitchers in general and relievers even more so. Even stats are less trustworthy for predicting future success in part because of the limited sample sizes. Not to mention they can learn a new pitch or finally get some control of one they could throw for strikes in the past. According to the JS today Coffey seems to have been with a team that didn't like sinking fastballs and preferred him to throw his 4 seemer more. I don't know if that is just Coffey trying to explain his lack of success or if the Reds can really be that stuck on certain pitches that they fail to allow the pitcher to use his best stuff. Seems silly to me if that is true but so far Coffey has found something he hadn't in the past. I'm kind of hoping it was the Reds not using him right since that would mean he has a better chance of continued success if it was just the wrong fit there.

you must not have tried dill pickle potato chips then MSF.

Fast starts are good but the title of this thread makes me think of the one from NSBB a couple years ago when they were questioning whether the Brewers were going to run away with the division or not after they got off to a hot start. Fast starts are better than slow ones but not all that telling overall.

It would always tick me to have 1 reliever breeze through an inning in 10 pitches and Yost go to the next guy even though the pitcher's spot didn't come up in the order. I don't remember him doing this without reason all that often. In fact he always wanted pitchers who could go more than one inning and wanted Melvin to find more relievers who could do that. Yost's desire to have multiple inning relievers was one of the reasons cited by Melvin for getting guys like Torres and Mota and not keeping guys like Wise who couldn't.

If all the quirks had backfired today, we'd not be reading a thread entitled "Kudos to Macha". I think for many, Macha will get credit for lots of questionable moves by the sheer fact of not being Yost. I agree with this. If that liner Hall caught went through it is a totally different game. If it gets through the base runners Coffey put on base score. Same goes for the ball dropping in his hand instead of going slightly to the left or right and becoming an infield single or run scoring ground ball. It's hard to call luck good managerial strategy. Before I call Macha good or bad I think I'd like to see how well this team does all year. Hard to call a manager good when he has a quality team and a 4-8 record. Yost might not have been a strategic genius but he did win with less talent than this team has. Macha better be able to do the same or it's hard to say he's an upgrade.

I'm sort of going back and forth on Freeway. I know that he's definitely a recognizable fan, but given his particular mannerisms and why he's famous, I'm not sure I want to list him... Basically, if he has medical or mental conditions, I don't want to appear like we're making fun of that. I know who you are talking about and think it admirable why you might not want to include him but consider the alternative. Do you want to exclude someone just because if that? Many time people with certain conditions are excluded because of it and many times it is the exact opposite of what they really want from others. Recognition as an unusual fan is not such a bad thing and I really do not think keeping certain people because of some type of disability hidden is all that great for them. I can't speak for everybody but am sensitive to this type of issue. As long as it is done with the usual BF class I for one don't see why Freeway shouldn't be included.

With the bases loaded, it's a 50% of a run and the inning continuing, vs. about a 75% chance of the inning ending. But don't tell Bill Schroeder that! Not questioning the accuracy of the statement but I'm wondering how you got to the 75% chance of making an out. I see guys foul off a lot of borderline pitches all the time, especially on 2 strikes so it just seems high to me. Is there some sort of analysis tucked away in your mountain of empirical evidence you can share or was it more or less a general observation?

He struck this deal pre-maturely because so many loser brewer fans would do anything to make the post season. Hope you enjoyed those two games because that's all you're going to see for a while. Actually I did. I also enjoyed the drive to the playoffs and the excitement of watching CC pitch for half a season. I think more than I would LaPorta hitting homers on a losing team or in AAA. What ever good or bad trades Melvin made he managed to get the Brewers to a place they rarely ever have been. Considering how good this every day lineup is now and the depth of the farm I suspect I will enjoy watching them make another run in the very near future as well. If Melvin knew what he was doing, he would trade a lot of these position players while their value is high before their big pay day. And build up pitching depth in the system. (see Florida Marlins.) Maybe we should wait to see if that strategy pays off for them this year before we decide it's the best route. So far what we have to go off of is an 84 win season past year and a hot start this year. The Brewers got off to a fast start two years ago and that got them to the same 84 wins the Marlins had last year. He struck this deal pre-maturely because so many loser brewer fans would do anything to make the post season. Actually according to him he struck it when he did so he would get a few more starts out of him. Considering how things turned out it was a strategy that worked out quite well. But if he did do it for us loser Brewer fans we thank him. It's good to know the GM will do anything he can so us losers can enjoy a playoff run. Somehow I think anyone who posts on a brewer fan board might be in that loser fan category so described. Obviously someone has a low opinion of themselves. You shouldn't. The rest of us losers think better of you simply because you are a fan. Enough to over look an occasional vent.http://forum.brewerfan.net/images/smilies/wink.gif

You beat me to the website jjkoestler. Growing up we always went. Now my brother is way more into it than I am but went with him a couple times. I only get to go maybe once a year now. He takes a week off work every spring and camps out alone looking for them. Best way to find them is to look up not down. Find a dead elm and you will find morels. If someone wants to go in more urban settings look around train tracks. If someone has problems discerning dead elms form other dead trees best way I know to differentiate between a dead elm and others is to look for the knobs of branches that curl in kind of like a semi clenched fist. We still have a morel family feast every year. I smoke a pork shoulder and steaks and my bro brings in his usual obscene amount of morels I add my pound or two and we pig out. It's kind of a spring is here ritual for us. First cook out of the year type thing. Selling them almost seems sacrilegious to me. They are way to good to eat and way to rare to just give to someone for money. But to each his own.

At the time Nix was a decent prospect with some potential. He was a good fielding center fielder with some offense whose biggest problem was health related. He never panned out but that doesn't mean it was a bad gamble at the time. As far as Cruz goes lets see how well he does in extended playing time. He may just be late bloomer or he might just be hitting the balls that he will miss later. If he can make the adjustments he will have to make after the league sees him for a while and continue to hit like he is then it might be time to wonder what if.

Found this sheep herding clip to be kinda cool. Border collies are awesome. http://video.yahoo.com/watch/4744168?fr=yvmtf

Seth McClung, Jeff Suppan, Carlos Villanueva, etc.) who never threw this many balls, let alone with the bases loaded. McClung has always been walk prone. Villanueva lost his starters spot early last season for his slow start and Suppan is Suppan. He will have some games like his last two surrounded by a lot of six inning efforts and end the season with an ERA around five with 175+ innings and 10ish wins. None of these guys are all that far off from their usual selves at this point in the season. Coffey is playing better than he has or the Reds would have kept him. Bush is doing better than he did last seaosn at this time. Personal opinion is the pitchers are pressing now because each of them feels the need to pick up the slack for the losses of CC and Sheets. I'm not ready to blame this on Castro, but in the back of mind I've always wondered how a guy can be a bullpen coach for as long as he has, through numerous managers, without getting the full time pitching coach job somewhere in the bigs before (I know he was an interim back in the day). It's one of those things that makes you scratch your head and wonder if there something we don't know about him that has held him back all these years. He's been around through three GMs and even more managers. For him to stick around that long must mean each one of them saw him as a valuable asset. I would look at how long the organization has kept him around vs how no other ones didn't hire him. I think it was more his choice than lack of opportunity. Kind of like Sveum who left Boston to take the same job with the Brewers and stayed even after he lost the shot at his dream job. Sometimes familiarity and family concerns trump career advancement. Castro seems to be that type.

I'm waiting for the He's only a pitch or two away line for Soup to come. It has to be one bad start away. I must say as much as I liked Yost Macha does make me scratch my head during games less so far. FTJ I don't want to get too far into questionable areas with your last line so I took it outside.

With McGahee on the roster there is no reason why Rivera shouldn't get some pinch hitting opportunities and/or Kendall shouldn't be getting pinch hit for in late big spots.. Why pinch hit for someone likely to be little or no better than the one he's pinch hitting for? I agree with pinch hitting for him more late in games but I'd rather they use someone actually capable of doing better.

Macha will have the team playing much better in August and September than they are now. You can say "That wouldn't take much" and not be totally wrong, but the reality is that his predecessor was not good at getting good teams to play better ball down the stretch. How does Yost not getting good teams to play better down the stretch make Macha able to? I think he can do so simply because he isn't getting them to play very well now. I do think it takes some time for the players and coaches to jell like it did for the Cubs a couple years ago but that has nothing to do with Yost. Actually, Bush was in fact put on waivers to be able to accept his minor league assignment. IIRC he had an option left and didn't need to clear waivers. He gives this team NOTHING positive right now. We can have some AAA scrub come up and pitch mop up duty...don't need soup to do that. If we release Soup and call up a scrub for mop up duty then we pay for Soup and the extra salary of said mop up AAA scrub. Not to mention a team we are competing against might need him to cover an injury. He may not be good but, like Jim Edmunds last year, he could get released by us and get picked up by the Cubs after an injury or two for instance and we then pay for them to have a better alternative than they could find on their own. It hardly makes economic sense to pay $12.75ish million to do the same job that could be done at $12.5 million. All releasing a player does is guarantee he will not make any contributions at all for the team and may even help a competitor on our dime. Granted it makes fans feels better but it is a very poor way to manage a payroll. The only time it makes any sense at all to release a player whose salary has to be paid is if he is blocking a decidedly better player from playing. Okay, but he needs to at least eat a full meal of 6-7 innings every 5 days...the 4-5 inning snacks have got to end. Of course he does. Two starts of sub par innings is not good but he has done that in the past as does every pitcher including Cy Young winners like CC and Lincecum. I think there is a better chance he will go 8 innings a couple times this year to make up for his shortfall so far as there is he will never get to 6 innings again. You missed the qualifier for 160 IP. While it is certainly arguable that Suppan has historically had value -- it certainly isn't at the #3 spot in recent years. When you got paid specifically for being able to go over 160 pitchers per year it should be noted in accessing his value. He is not a #3 now but he still has value as a starter for this team specifically because of his reliability. He is not worth the money but he still has value for this team because he is still capable of doing the very thing he was brought in to do. As any fan of the Brewers knows all too well with Ben Sheets stability has value. Not $12.5 million in today's market but still enough to warrant more of a leash than three or four games. The Tigers released Sheffield and his $12 million salary. I don't think we would ever do that. I think our team would play the big salary guy until they had absolutely no other choice. If the Brewers under the Seligs released Hammonds and Berry with significant money left on their deals I think Mark A will now if Doug told him he thought Soup was done as a major league pitcher.

The whole Suppan situation has been rather frustrating. What if we had an additional 12.5 million to spend the last two offseasons, think of the extensions and/or trades Melvin could have pulled off! Suppan was far from the missing link to last years playoff team and the Brewers probably would have found a way to make the playoffs anyways with a different SP in the rotation. Melvin has said many times he got Soup to go every 5th day and eat up innings. The biggest reason the Brewers missed the playoffs the year before Soup came aboard was because the pitching staff had too many guys get injured. Melvin did what he should have in that situation IMO. He found a player who could be relied upon to start every 5th game and eat innings. That is exaclty what Soup has done since he's been here. That Melvin overpaid for it is a matter of how free agency works more than a poor choice on who to get. All free agents prior to 08 were overpriced. Doesn't mean that sometimes it isn't necessary. I don't think I'm alone in thinking he was going to be way over payed by the end of his contract when he signed it. That fact doesn't mean it was a bad choice at the time. If it helped us get over the hump short term and he still had some value at the end of the contract I think mortgaging the future payroll for the present team was the right thing to do for the Brewers at that time. Not always the right thing to do but sometimes. When he signed, like trading three prospects for 1/2 a season of CC, it was the right move.

I don't think Suppan carries the same veteran mystic in the Macha clubhouse than he did in the Yost clubhouse. The reason he was the opening day starter was because he was a veteran. One of the reasons given for the rotation set that way was it lined up the veteran right handers for the Cubs series. I know it was popular to blame Yost for everything and so far it seems many are justifying Macha's mistakes by saying at least it's not Yost. Many seem to give him a pass for an obviously poor choice for opening day and, by extension, the worst possible options to win the Cub series just because they hated the last manager. Had Ned done exactly the same things as Macha has so far he would have been hammered for them by many of the same people. That said I think the fact that both starting pitchers struggled with control last night as did most of the relievers it might have been early season/cold weather issues as much as Soup just losing it forever. That he had two bad outings already makes the next one more important but not deciding. He has been hot and cold throughout his time with the Brewers and we knew coming in he would be the worst of the five starters. I think his paycheck combined with his nominal top of the rotation status make him look worse even though he is the same as he ever was. Which is an inconsistent bottom of the rotation guy who will eat up innings over the year while making every start and winning around ten games. Two poor outings to start the year isn't going to change my thinking on that. Suppan was also lucjy at that point because he gave up a ton on unearned runs. He had 11 unearned runs in the first half of the season[/i] How is poor defense lucky for a pitcher? I kind of think getting out of those innings without giving up the runs would have been preferable. Probably would have made some of his other stats look better as well. Things like wins and innings pitched seem to go down when the errors behind the pitcher goes up.

I would just call your boss and warn him that I have a second interview for a full time job that's two days after the deadline. I'll get back to you as soon as I can to say if I got the job. If he doesn't understand, that's his problem. I wouldn't do that. If he doesn't understand it's actually your problem since you've already mentioned he can fill that job fairly easy. I wouldn't wait for you past a deadline when I have options and he may not either. He's going to be more worried about getting his staff in order than he would holding the job open for you just in case. All that can do is make it harder for you if you don't get the full time job. It's your job to look out for yourself. When your best interests conflict with his expect him to do the same. I have been on the wrong end of that plenty of times and I feel bad when it happens to other employers but I also know business owners have to look out for their best interests even if it isn't to their employees advantage. So do/should employees. Yeah I should have phrased that better, definitely didn't mean it in that sense. I didn't mean to preach. What I was trying to say is don't feel bad or less of yourself if you do have to go that route. Any person doing any job is worthy of respect.

It's always annoying to an employer when someone abruptly leaves. It's also something any employer who has a lot of part time help knows will happen repeatedly. We have plenty of that happen and, while it sucks to be us, it certainly isn't something we hold against the person. All you're trying to do is get ahead. Anyone who faults you for improving yourself is someone that needs to take along look in the mirror. In the real world one should never apologize for looking out for themselves. Nobody else is going to. If you really do feel an obligation to him then see if you can work out a schedule that would allow him more time to find an adequate replacement. Many employers who have part time help view past employees as allies to help them out in a pinch later on and most find it a waste of resources to needlessly burn bridges. P.s. never look down on a job delivering pizzas or any other menial labor. Anyone who works deserves respect and every job has dignity. With the exception of having to be the Easter bunny. Speaking from experience it's hard to have any self respect in a bunny costume.

I just read a very nice article about living with a disabled sibling. I'm sure I'm not the only one who takes care of a special needs sibling so thought I'd share. http://www.postcrescent.c...101/904100457/1003/APC01 It is so true about the siblings of the disabled not getting any sort of help. We had kids, many of which had some sort of disability go through our house all the time while growing up. To the tune of 60ish total and though every one of them got all the counseling they needed not once did anyone actually think it might be useful to help the kids sharing their house and parents with total strangers or help them deal with the disabled. Not complaining about it and wouldn't change those experiences for the world but just always seemed like such an obvious oversight. Anyway for those who have to deal with it as well you are not alone.

Furthermore, you know that the pitches a player gets is completely different depending on where he bats in the order. I think the pitches a player gets depends far more on what the hitters history tells them he can and can't hit than where he bats in the order. Hart will not see any fewer sliders off the plate hitting ahead of Braun and Fielder than he would after them. Throwing sliders off the plate to him is the best way for pitchers to make sure they don't have to pitch to those next two guys with a runner on base.

He may get more time as a member of the Brewers because of his contract but that doesn't mean he will get it as a starter. The money is already spent. The only real question is in what capacity is that money best used. If all he's worth is mop up that is still a better way to spend the money than just getting rid of him. Just a random thought, and yes I know it's only been 3 games, but the pitching issues this team has are probably greater than what anyone would have guessed before the season started. It's going to be an awfully long season if something doesn't change, which leaves the sad reality of the fact DM dropped the ball Grande style on this one. You can't make something out of nothing so I find it hard to believe Doug could drop the ball. After three games it is hard to say the staff is going to be worse than anyone predicted. Of the five starters the only two without much of a history of success in the majors happen to be the two most talented pitchers on the staff. The pen less so but even there we have enough guys with enough time in to think it can be at least serviceable. It won't be great but we already knew that going in. This team is supposed to win with offense and adequate pitching. So far it is the offense that has let us down. The 8 position players combined for two runs in two games.