Thurston Fluff

Those same people who voted for him also booed him. Even they would chose someone else at this point. No middle reliever with an ERA over 4 should be anywhere near the allstar game. As far as what happened to him he's been used a lot and isn't used to that type of workload. Lou makes Ned look like a genius with the bullpen.

I have a huge amount of respect for Loretta. He got a pretty raw deal in Milwaukee. The people in charge at the time that be seemed to be the only ones who didn't realize he was one of their top players. When he left he didn't really rip the team or say anything negative. A true professional and a class act all around.

However, he will revert back to it in situations where you have to 'bunt the runner over' (think '8th Inning Guy'). This is just me thinking out loud so take it for what it's worth. I think this type of rigid thinking is a way of taking emotion and gut feeling out of certain situations. If a person has a set way of handling certain situations, things he thought about and principals he believes in then he should stick to it vs just going with his instinct at the moment. I could see a lot more problems if he managed by the seat of his pants vs just going with his favored strategy in certain situations regardless of who is doing what at the moment. Maybe that rigidness does limit him or hurt on occasion. If he isn't very good at spontaneous decision making it may be better than the alternative. If he actually does realize his weakness in that area that would double the reasons for being so rigid. Just speculative thinking on my part.

so i guess it can go both ways. i just don't like seeing 120 pitches every start for both of them. CC was under 100 and only six inning last time out so your wish is Ned's command. I also read a quote from Ned in the paper today about how Ned is really nervous letting pitchers go more than 120 pitches. So your fears are shared by Ned.

I think that many of the times he dodges questions or gives lame answers that don't even make sense, it's indicative of the fact that often times he doesn't have a good logical answer for things that happened, or the decisions he made. To assume someone who has been around baseball this long doesn't really have a logical reason for something is less likely IMO than he doesn't want to give the real reason. As a hypothetical example he used Mota in a close game and Mota predictably blew up. When asked Ned says Mota is my eight inning guy. That may not be the reason at all. His real reason may be Mota has several players who really like him and would feel a few bad outings cost him his role on the team. The quick hook on a friend of theirs gets them grumbling about unfair treatment. (See the Mets and Randolph as an example) So he gave Mota enough rope to hang himself. Sure it cost us this game but now he can be replaced and no one complains. We keep the team all working together for the greater good. That in turn wins a few more games than the one that was lost. That is not something he is going to tell anyone. But that doesn't make the decision a bad one simply because he didn't share it with us. Not trying to say that's what happened by any means. Just saying it's more likely that he does have valid reason for doing something and not wanting to tell us what it is than him simply not having any logical reasoning behind why he did what he did.

Does he think he's infallible? Is he that unsure of his decisions? Does he think his position is that precarious that anyone pointing out mistakes is going to cause problems for him? Or is he just a "not nice" person? What is is that makes him think that he's above being questioned? I think any leader has to have an air of infallibility. He's the one who has to make the decisions and those decisions cannot be second guessed by those who need to carry out those orders. Right or wrong they have to be followed exactly and to the best of the players ability to have any chance of success. Second guessing is not conducive to that end. Thus acting like he's perfect may not be as bad an approach as you might think IMO. Admitting mistakes may make fans feel good but I don't know if it's the best approach to keeping the team working it's hardest to implement said strategies. I think he could d o a better job of explaining why he made certain moves than he does but I'm not overly worried about him refusing to admit he made a mistake. I think he does that to himself but admitting it to anyone else is not going to help anything and may, in fact, hurt. It's interesting to see how many people vote based on his talent. If we had the 2003 roster, and were way out of the playoff chase -- with crappy players -- would Yost get a D? I can't speak for anyone else but I have always liked Yost because he always gets his teams to play hard and won games that others before him couldn't with similar or better talent. The grade I gave him had always been about the same. He's always been a B student IMO. He has done some things better this year, in game, but I've always felt that type of stuff was secondary to the main job of getting his players to play the proverbial right way. It would be hypocritical of me to all of a sudden boost his grade for what I consider minor improvements. An A would be garnered if, and only if, he did everything well. There are very few managers who do that IMO. When people give him a D or F personally I think they are overrating our talent. This team has flaws. Yet here they sit second best record in the league in position once again for a playoff berth. I don't think this team has the second best talent in the NL but they are playing that way. Some may say it's luck. I think it's preparation. That starts from the manager and works it's way down.

As for a grade...B. This team could have folded up in the first month or two when things weren't going well, and they did just the opposite, despite Neds' failures to hold people accountable, or use his etiquette school training during post-games. I was going to post something similar to this but you did a better job than I could have. Ned's loyalty is a two edged sword. It can and probably does cost a couple games. But what it does for other players who see such loyalty is keep them from pressing out of fear of being replaced and making a short cold streak into a prolonged slump. It isn't easy to see how allowing someone to right themselves wins more games than the loss which are so visible. But that doesn't mean there isn't a net gain. On occasions the player isn't good enough and they end up costing more games than they should. That is offset by others who struggle less due to the loyalty factor. Really if the manager did replace players quicker I wouldn't have a problem with it. Just like I don't have a problem sticking with them. It's a matter of opinion of which is better. As long as they are consistent with it I'm willing to allow the manager to manage his charges the way he sees fit. As long as the team is playing up to their abilities. No complaints on that front this year.

Harden has the stuff to overcome that, but pitchers who pitch to contact like Gaudin are going to suffer a bit. My thought exactly. If Harden does get hurt the backup plan was to insert Gauden but he's not likely to put up as good of numbers as he did pitching in Oakland. All in all they gambled their depth on Harden staying healthy enough to help them more than Gallagher would have. For a team that relies more on press than winning for their revenue it's not a bad gamble financially. Competitively speaking I think the risk is more than reward is worth.

Just took a quick look at the home away splits of both Harden and Gauden. Both have benefited from playing in Oakland. Harden was pretty good all around but Gauden gives up his fair share of hits on the road. He doesn't walk many but he gives up more than a hit/inning for a .296 BAA away from Oakland.

In the life's little lessons department When attending a party where you don't know anyone if they ask what you do for a living don't tell them you run a little red wagon chop shop. If you do make that mistake and they ask you what that means don't compound the mistake by telling them you chop up stolen little red wagons and sell the parts. It's just a waste of a good joke.

I tried to pitch earlier this summer and stunk up the field. It was a sad day when I realized that I had to move my last remaining "sport" to the past glory column. Getting old and fat stinks... you and me both. I used to throw a wicked pitch that broke sideways and up for strikes practically anywhere I wanted. Now not only can't i throw that pitch but when i do play I need three days before my hammy's don't feel like they're about to explode. Age sucks but it is better than the alternative.

Opps my bad I didn't read your post close enough Wallus. Yes Appleton is about 30 minutes away but they are working on the HWY 15 road and it will eventually bypass Hortonville and that should shorten the trip from Appleton to New London by a few minutes. Greenville is growing a lot and there isn't rally any bad places to live there. If you want to live in the city of Appleton then you will have about 30 minutes no matter where you live. Hortonville is closer yet but according to an article in the Post Cresent today they may not have an access to the new highway 15 bypass. In any event I hope you enjoy the new job and city. If you see a gorilla at the school someday be nice to him. He's a brewer fan through and through.

I wouldn't be that surprised if they gave Villanueva a spot start or two both to keep Parra's innings down and see if Villy has straightened himself out enough to be considered for starting in the future.

There most certainly are valid ways to estimate a players impact. This is where we disagree. There are ways to give a general indication of what a move of this sort would do. there is not a way to quatify a specific move to a specific team. The Sabathia trade could mean more wins to one team vs another simply because the makeup of one team is so different than the other. Maybe it is, but there's no reason that they couldn't use Escobar as a reserve. He'd be a terrific defensive replacement, and decent middle infield insurance. Maybe but I think they want him to get regular work in so he develops his hitting more and be a gold glove caliber player who can also hit at a major league level. I think they most certainly view him as the starting shortstop of the future so I don't think they want to inhibit his development in any way.

I wouldn't surprise me at all if Villy got sent down to get regular work. We have a long man with Bush or McClung and there are better options for setup roles than Villy. I'd have to think McClung is the one who goes to the pen. Not only is Bush more of a known commodity who is pitching well at the moment but McClung is also more accustomed to the pen than Bush. Suppan is struggling but I think he gets the ball every fifth day regardless. His biggest asset is his ability to do just that. He may have struggled a few starts now but I don't see a veteran like him just falling apart. I don't think what he did his last couple starts has any merit in predicting what he'll do his next start.

If you avoid the area between Wisconsin and College north and south and Mason and Lawe east and west you'll be better served. That is the area a lot of halfway houses and low rent old housed are. Richmond Terrace is ok in that area but other than that one condo avoid the area. What school you going to?

If it isn't crack it's some other highly toxic chemical. Maybe watching the Cubs or something equally unhealthy. Hardy would have been enough on his own to get 3 months of CC. I see this deal as one that helps now without harming our future that much at all. LaPorta is a guy that we could most afford to lose. The positions he covers are covered for a few more years. There are other players like Gamel who fit the Brewers better going forward anyway. If there was one thing this team could afford to lose is a RH power hitting OF/!st baseman. Gamel hits LH and may be able to play one more position than LaPorta. Zach Jackson looked to be another one of those JDLR type of lefties with great stuff who someday will figure it out but really frustrate five or six teams before he does. As far as CC only being worth 2 wins. I don't know how anyone can believe there is a valid way to quantify something like that. There is just too much variance in both the ripple effect and the very unique circumstances each player goes to that make each case different. I just don't think quantifying type of analysis is useful when the circumstances change every time a measurement is taken.

Not only is it funny but he also found use for a Night Ranger song. Pretty hard to do.

Ryan benefited from playing in the Astrodome, where nobody hit HRs. Jose Cruz led the Astros in HRs, in 1979 with 9. The Astros hit 15 HRs at home in 1979 -- Opponents hit about 30. This hurts as much as helps. His team didn't score very many run at home or on the road. Regardless of his era the innings he pitched should have been good enough to allow him to win more games simply by sticking around long enough for his team to score some runs. But I'm not sure his innings pitched would be useful without knowing the average IP of the era he pitched in. In all he's kind of unusual because he pitched so long during time where the pitching use changed so much he really ended up pitching in tow very different eras for a fairly long period of time in each. I don't know of many pitchers who did so in the complete game era and the specialist era. I wouldn't put him as the greatest or even top ten but he deserved his hall of fame induction. ERA+... adjusted to compare over ballparks & eras. 100 is considered league-avg., no matter the era. I was looking more for things like WHIP and inning pitched type stuff. The ERA is one good measure but for the purpose of determining if he had pitched to contact more he'd have been better served I'd think K:BB, BB/innings pitched and Whip would be more useful. I know I'm the one who brought ERA up but probably wasn't the best argument I've ever put forward.

If you have to find out Mota's true value it might as well come in a situation where the game was more or less icing on the cake for an already successful road trip. Parra is showing he's the pitcher we thought he'd be as opposed to the guy he was earlier this season. We picked up two games on the Cubs over the last ten and didn't lose any ground on the Cards in the process.

What was a typical ERA during that time? I am just wondering since it seemed to be an era where pitchers had an advantage. Good question I'm not sure. It'd be cool if anyone had league averages for different eras to share. His career WHIP was 1.247. He gave up 3923 hits in 5386 innings and walked about one hitter every 2.1 innings if that helps judge his true worth. Keep in mind he did pitch in 4 different decades. essentially form 68 - 93 (he played 2 games in 66) so I don't even know how to judge him considering the changes that went on with pitching through his career.

Yeah, Ryan refused to pitch to contact, which is why he had a ton of walks and losses as well. I actually think he's pretty overrated in general. I just looked at his career stats and don't really buy this. He usually logged 200 or more innings with and ERA under 3.80. The only times his ERA was over that was his rookie year and his last year. He had several seasons with more than 300 IP and an ERA well under 4 many times under 3. If a pitcher logged the innings and gave up that few runs it's hard to say he would have win more games pitching to contact. Some of his seasons include a 8-16, 2.76 ERA, 211 IP season - 11-10, 3.35 ERA, 233 IP - 10-13, 3.72 234 IP. Hard to see those type of numbers being a product of not pitching to contact. Easy to see them when you realize he played on some very offensively challenged teams in those years.

I tried to look up career minor league stats for him but didn't really get very far. So I went with what I had available. That was why I used the stats I did. I think ultimately this in one of those situations where maybe seeing is better than stats. DiFelice as TLB pointed out has the cutter now where he didn't before. Stats may be more useful predictors for hitters than pitchers for those reasons. We'd end up with either too small a sample or useless stats that didn't include the new pitch. I guess when lacking good predictors we should go with seeing is believing. In that aspect I'm woefully inadequate so I'll just trust Yost and Melvin. If it doesn't work out then it's time to blame those who are supposed to know more than I.

He seems to have a schedule of off days for guys after they've pitched (or warmed up) in consecutive outings -- three days on, needs two days off (or something to that effect). He implemented that during the year after he saw some of his pitchers perform poorly even when they said they were good to go. I think this situation is directly related to Yost adjusting his thinking on the run so to speak. I see it as a sign he isn't as stubborn as he many times is made out to be. Though I think he's made out to be that way by his own inability to handle the media very well. With Ned look at the action not the word. He's pitching guys more than one inning. He's using his closer to get more than three outs. It's just different than what he's done in the past. Yes, the personnel is different -- though I'm not convinced better -- but, there's more to it than that. He has wanted guys who could go for more than one inning ever since he's been here. This is really the first time he's had that type of pen to work with. Melvin stated he was looking for guys who could go more than one inning and he did that. The personnel may not be better but perhaps more suited to Ned's way of managing. That in turn makes them better because they are being used to their strengths. All in all the two biggest factors in his new approach are players that are more what Ned wants and he does have a different bench coach.

They may not all get together and decide not to score but they sure do it effectively. It's one of those odd statistical quirks that appear without any rational explanation. But Ned's smart butt responses do get annoying. I like him as a manager and think he'd be interesting and friendly to talk to one on one but he really does need to work on his media relations.