Thurston Fluff

LaRussa sticks with his closer who leads the league in blown saves along with being one of the league leaders in saves with an usightly ERA until his closer publicly says he shouldn't be closing anymore. Ned Yost sticks with his closer who leads the league in blown saves along with one of the league leaders in saves with an usightly ERA until his closer publicly says he souldn't be closing anymore. Yep completely differant. You know this how? If the Braun Fielder switch is the other example that switch really didn't do much to help either of them so Ned appears to have been right about that one.

Mom and Pops business owner. My wife is a balloon artist and I was into comedy so we combined our somewhat limited talents and managed to stay open for 25 years and counting. She has a BA in Sociaology and I have one in Philosophy so that was pretty much all we were qualified to do.

Interesting how La Russa and Yost handled the same situation in the same manner yet Yost is an idiot and LaRussa isn't. Somehow I thought maybe some would give him a bit of credit for handling similar situations in a similar fashion as a "winning" manager does. I think this was a situation that was handled properly. He was given a long leash based on his past but not so long as to unduely harm the team. Before anyone says the obvious that he has already harmed the team Gagne, like Isringhausen, had enough of a history that they very well could have worked their way out of it and been the best option. The fact that it didn't work out that way isn't the fault of either manager since they played the odds/cards dealt them. Even going with the odds sometimes doesn't pay off. In both situations that seems to be the case.

I think the Brewers are in the auditioning stage right now. We may see several pitcehrs get one or two chances to show what they have until someone shows they can handle the job. I guess it makes some amount of sense to put the long man in the audition.

I do have to wonder if Yost's patience with the payers as they were learing to play makes him less able to all of a sudden turn around and really get on guys for poor play. I'm as big a fan of Yost as any but sometimes players get so used to one way of being treated by a person that makes them less receptive to the same person treating them differantly when the situation calls for it. I think perhaps what might do some good is if those veterans Doug brought aboard to help the younger guys started to get on them a little for poor play.

And if pitching to contact simply entails throwing more of your off speed stuff as oppossed to your fastball, doing that when behind in the count will just mean more walks. Unless you're pitching against the Brewers. They have pretty much been fed a steady diet of changeups, many out of the zone, this whole series so far. Didn't mean to step on your toes there. Just didn't read all the posts here before posting my own. you didn't at all it's nice to know I'm not the only one who thinks that way. P.s. welcome JJlong19.

But I think you do see other managers who are better at deciding which games to "go for it" and which ones to just let play out however it happens. Piniella and Bob Melvin come to mind here. If the Brewers hadn't played so many extra innings and rarely ever play in a blowout I think there would be more of a case for that. The problem seems to be there are never blowouts to do what Melvin does in AZ. As far as the Marlins go that was what Giradi did a couple years ago play for today and it got them the same thing as the Brewers last year and injuires to young pitchers to boot. I think there is a balancing act that needs to come into play and you may well be right that more emphasis needs to be placed on today. Maybe somewhere in the middle the truth doth lay. While Florida did pull the pitcher last night they also got 8 2/3 from the starter the night before. That helps make those decisions. Bush didn't seem tired as much as failed to locate his pitch properly. Those are instances where one would think he could get out of the inning as well as anybody else if he just pitches the way he should. Not really the time to pull the pitcher with an already heavy workload on the pen IMO.

I'd like to see Yost manage to win today's game a little bit more and worry about tomorrow's when tomorrow comes. He did that last year when he played Villy so often and pulled his starters out in the fifth more often. Seems to me that was one of the main things that had brewer fans up in arms about him. Kind of falls int o the damned if you do damned if you don't catergory. What last year showed is worrying about tomorrow when tomorrow comes gets you a fast start and a slow death in August.

I do think they expected too much out of Villy and Parra. Neither has ever pitched more than 150 innings, or gone thru an entire season as a starter. Maybe we did expect too much out of them but I think we can expect more than they have given us so far though. I believe they will be better than they have been so far. Like you said they have yet to go through an entire season. Maybe we just expected too much out of all the players. Some of us, myself included sort of had visions of every one of them being allstars. Maybe some of them are just average players who looked so much better due to how crappy a players they replaced But, it is hard to pitch when you feel you have to be perfect all the time, because you're not getting support from your offense. Why is it when others say the same thing as I do it sounds so much clearer than I did? Time for more writting classes I guess.

I would expect there to be some privacy issues the landlord would be obligated to honor even if it's his sister/tennat. She has the right to have her medical condition kept private. If she did come into your house without permission that is a police matter. If you called the cops and have a record of that then maybe it will help with the implied warranty of habitability thing. If you and your ex both signed the lease then just go after her. Sounds like she sort of deserves it anyway. She is the one who owes it after all.

I don't want to single you out for this Brewizard many have said this before but it always made me wonder. If the problem is the players firing anyone but the players doesn't really do anything does it? I suppose there is an arguement to be made to shake things up. If that's the case I'd think players would get a lot more shook up if one of them was the sacrifical lamb instead. At least then they would realize the buck stops at the one not producing. To me that would send a far better message than firing people who don't matter.It should also be pointed out they can fire Weeks, Braun, Hall, Hardy, Bush, Parra, Hart, Gagne and Fielder. They could be DFA'ed, benched, in some cases sent outright to the minors. They can also be traded them if they aren't getting the production needed from them. These may be extreme measures but if the players aren't playing up to the standards they are supposed to the only thing that will help is to get players that will. Anything else is just cosmetic and not likely to help at all.

Changing the order in which they don't hit won't help. So true. Interesting how right Yost was that Prince batting in front of Braun wasn't their problem. I'm starting to wonder about the job Skaalen is doing. I'm usually the last one to think coaching or managing haas much to do with it but they really are taking bad approaches and he has been in charge of that for more than a year now. I think prolonged hitting slumps end up harming the pitching. If pitchers always have to be perfect it has to effect their approach. Being afrains to give up any runs has to make a pitcher pitch differantly after a while. Maybe get the offense going and the ptiching will follow. What we need is for someone to no hit us I guess.

I don't think we'd be talking about how the managerial change would have won the Brewers the divison that year if Dalton didn't trade for Sutton. I think that had more to do with the Brewers getting to the post season tahn the manager did.

If memory serves Garners first year when they finished 2nd to Toronto was the last year without a wildcard. They finished with the second best record in the AL and the Twins, who ended up winning the WS, would have finished fourth in the AL East. As far as Molitor goes Bando should have offered him more but to be fair Molitor spent quite a few years on the DL as much as on the field. If Sheets injury history is too risky to pay the money he's worth now then there certainly was an arguement to be made that Molly was to injury prone to be worth the gamble as well. Molitor's first injury free year in a while also coincided with his contract year. He also had a little coke problem early in his career so there was some questions about him overall. The real problem I had with Bando that season wasn't letting Molitor go as much as letting all the others go. Chris Bosio, Scott Fletcher and a couple guys I can't think of off the top of my head at the moment. So maybe an arguement could have been made not to resign Molitor but that wasn't the only bad move he made that season.

Sure. Just as long as you're not going back half a decade when recent past shows that a half decade ago is ancient past. Or the first 2/3 of last year. If I was Ned at this point I would be worried but in no way would I be letting that concern be known publicly. Phil Garner just did it three years ago in Houston. Just sayin'. It hardly ever happens because the majority of teams that replace their managers during the season are bad. That Houston team had more in common with the 82 Brewers than the 08 Brewers do. Forget the Cards have been missing their #1 and #2 pitchers all season, and the Cubs went 9-4 or something close without Soriano. The Brewers have suffered one real injury, and that was to a good but young pitcher. Saying the Brewers have been hit harder with injuries than the Cubs or Cards is not true in my opinion. If you mean the two pitchers who they knew coming into the season are injured then we have two pitchers as well with Cappy and YoGa. Soriano was lost about a week more than Sheets was asn the Brewers won without Sheets during that time as well. The Brewers also won without YoGa to begin the season. Neither the Cubs or the Cards have suffered a seaosn ending injury to a player they expected to be playing so this season. They still strikeout way to much. That's all in spite of bringing in far more talented players, many of whom didn't carry these warts in the minors. Oh, and Yost's team is 6-6 vs. sub .500 teams. If they can't be over .500 vs. sub .500 teams, how can you possibly think the Brewers can be above .500 at all? Yost will not have this team above .500 at the end of this year (easily fathomable, even for the hardest core optimistic Brewers fan), so the only way the Brewers finish above the Cards is if the Cards are further below .500 than the Brewers. I have much doubt the Brewers can finish above the Cards, simply based on the facts that Ned Yost is the manager of the Brewers and Budweiser sells more beer than Miller. I guess the counter to that arguement is they are 10-10 against teams with a winning record playing mostly on the road. You say Yost will not have this team above .500 at the end of the year yet he has yet to be below .500 in a very tough stretch of the season. When they do get to play more at home than the road and against the teams the Cards and Cubs have been beating up on I see no reason why they would be a sub .500 team (event he most hard core pessimist should be able to imagine this). Isn't it telling that Yost's ejection inspires absolutely no signs of life from his team. What is it supposed to be telling? Is an ejection supposed to somehow get the team to concentrate more or play harder? If he's been doing his job all along playing harder wouldn't be an option since they are already doing that. Overall player performance is not improving. Yes, the talent level has definitely increased, but the same poor overall fundamental play is the same as when Ned arrived in Milwaukee. Every aspect of this team is either flat-lining or regressing. The still run the bases poorly. They still play poor defense. They still have no obvious approach at the plate. The pitchers still walk far too many hitters. They still don't know how to move a runner over. They still grossly lack in situation hitting. They still try and pull every outside pitch. They still strikeout way to much. That's all in spite of bringing in far more talented players, many of whom didn't carry these warts in the minors. New faces, same mistakes and same poor results. The one constant...Ned Yost. They are playng much better defense this year. They are not great but far improved from last season. They are better at running the bases. I think maybe your view of this was overly influenced by two runners getting trown out at home. They may not be hitting very well right now but since they have all hit better under the same manager maybe it's a bit to early to blame the slow start hitting wise on the manager. Unless of course you wish to also give him credit for getting more out of those very same players in the past. As far as the players who didn't carry the same warts as they now have just which player didn't have those warts in the minors? JJ never hit in the minors like he did the first half of last year. Prince and Weeks were most definately poor defenders in the minors. When Prince was struggling in the minors it was when he wouldn't take his walks when teams pitched around him. He seems to have improved on that. Weeks is far better defensively than when he came up. Bill Hall put up better numbers and is vaslty improved on defense from what he was in the minors. I think you over rated how good they were when they came up. Maybe we all did. Every one of them had things they needed to work on and still do. But it doesn't take a very in depth look to see they have improved since they've come up. Unless of course you chose not to remember how they were then.

Yep, and I think because the bull pen pitchers are so conditioned to this idiocy of the "closer", any attmpt to do it differently is not likely to work because they will all freak out about it. This remonds me of BillJmaes comment of batting the pitcher 8th. No direct quote but the basic idea is managers who have real good teams don't do out of the box things because htey don't want to screw up. Managers with real crappy teams don't do it becuase there is no reason to. So the only real innovation comes from the average teams trying to do all they can to squeeze out an extra couple wins. I think the same can be said of the closers role.

This is probably a stupid question, but these kind of comparisons always make me wonder: doesn't a team that loses a lot of games always end up 'having played' teams that have won a lot of games. Not really stupid at all. In football it really is more true but it does mean something early in the baseball season as well. The differance is, other than the Rockies, the Cards have played teams that were expected to be bad all year and are showing why. They played the giants 7 times, Washington 3, Pittsburgh and the Reds a combined 5. The Rockies are the one team that may end up better than they are currently playing but so far have been awful at 12-20. If the other teams were bad just because they played the Cards (and the Cards were really that good) one would suspect that would show up in their record agianst other teams.

Mitch Stetter is better than CoCo Cordero. Stetter 2.08 ERA, 0.95 WHIP and .178 BAA Cordero 2.08,1.46, .239 Glad we didn't blow all that money on him when we have a better option at league minimum.

Anyone else find it curious that all the older vets are the ones hitting well and the young guys are struggling? There are only two older vets in the everyday lineup and one has played 6 games. So that statement pretty much amounts to one guy and a bench player. Hart has done prety well so for every starting veteran postion player doing well there is a young guy to match. On the ptiching side Sheets is a vet but YoGa is/was young. Stetter as the only young reliever has done pretty well so far. Better than Gagne to this point anyway. I have no doubt that Gagne can do the job well once he comes out of this, but there's no reason to let him work through it like this. This is debateable. According to both Melvin and Yost there is reason to leave him, or any established player, work through it. If players start looking over their shoulder every time they go through a tough week or two they start to press and things can spiral from there. There is also no way of telling when someone will come out of a slump. I have no probelm with the idea of letting established players work their way through problems for a while. They have a history that shows what they can do and that history is probably more telling about what might happen next than a relatively short run of poor play. Playing the hot hand is something I think is useful when determineing who plays a particular game but I'm not a fan of replacing struggling players who have shown themselves to be useful over a long period of time over a couple weeks of poor play. What were the expectations for St Louis this year? Name their starting rotation without looking. Make Yost the manager there and they have 12 wins, not 21. What is Yost's record this year against sub .500 teams? That is pretty much all the Cards have played so far. It's easy to say things like Yost would only have half the wins in LaRussa's shoes but try backing it up with something tangible. You will find there is a reson for the Cards hot start other than the manager "getting more out of his players." After the season ends I have little doubt the Brewers will be ahead of the Cards in the standing. The little doubt I do have is due to the uncertainty of injuries. Something that has already hit the Brewers harder than either the Cubs or Cards.

Did he mention the Cubs palyed 14 games against teams with a winning record, 3 vs .500 and 16 aginst losing records? Or the Cards who played 19 games agsint losing teams, 6 aginst .500 and merley 8 vs winning teams? Compare that to the Brewers who played 18 games vs winning teams, 3 vs.500 club and only 9 vs losing teams. That while playing the most road games in the league. I knew the cubs didn't play all that tough a schedule but man the Cards really have played a cupcake schedule so far.

Royster was a lousy manager, but give Yost the talent that Royster had to work with and he doesn't win much either. He would have won more than that team did though. I don't think the first season Yost was here was nany better than that team. Yost did manage the lowest payroll team of the three to better results than Royster did. I have no doubt Yost would not have sat an allstar shortstop the last series of the season so he could avoid the strikeout record he so richly deserved for the second straight year. No, Yost would not have won much with the team Royster had but he certainly would have won more. if only because he would not let the team quit like Royster did. To this day it is the only season where I stopped watching before the final game. I didn't see why I should keep going when the team quit. I will never forgive any manager who lets that happen. Some Brewer fans seem so content on being decent and just .500 instead actually winning a division title. There is no reason we shouldn't win with what we have now even with Gallardo down. The Brewers have enough talent on offense to overcome that loss but are dropping the ball. We are winning aren't we? Even though the "talent" we have is ranked in the bottom half of pretty much every important category in both pitching and hitting. Once this team gets to the Pirates and Nationals of the league we will have the same sort of surge the Cubs had when they fed off them. BTW the Cubs just maanged to lose two of three to both the Brewers and Cards. Maybe now that they are done feeding on the sisters of the poor they will have all the same issues as the Brewers did. Lets see if their talent/manager does any better agianst the stiffer competition on the road as the Brewers did before we just hand them the division. Same with the Cards. Lets see if they can withstand the injury bug as well as the Brewers before we just give up on the season. Remember last season the hot team out of the gate stayed home in October. The team struggling far worse than the Brewers are this year won the division. The fact that the Brewers are winning desite their struggles might be something we look back on at the end of the season and realize how important it was to steal a few games now. This is probably not as much Yost related as it is Yost/Melvin being on the same page. But I thought it an interesting quote from Melvin in the JS. When we see Yost stick with a player too long it is an orginazational thing not just a Yost thing. Maybe the reason Melvin has not and will not fire Yost is because he believes Yost is doing the right thing with regard to struggling players.

Either Ned learned a lot from his in game mistakes last year or Simmons has had some effect on him in this regard. I like him in the role he's in though I'm not sure I'd want another 82 team member to manage if Ned got fired. The only thing i didn't like about Ned when the Brewers hired him was that connection. All I could think of was Bart starr and Forrest Gregg.

I don't mind team names like the "Indians" or named after certain tribes. The only team name I really don't like is the "Redskins" since it's a derogatory and could be likened to the "n-word," when it was in its most prevalent use. So true for the life of me I can't understand why that name is still in use today. The term was used in as derogatory a way as could be imagined. It was primarily used by those who hunted and killed native americans and was done as a way of dehumanizing them in order to clear the conscience of those doing the killing. We also have to remember in any issue like this, that the viewpoints of activists do not necessarily represent the views of the entire population in question. This is the flip side of the issue. Those who chose to be offended by everything end up making the case for such derogatory terms as redskins to be minimized.

I was referring to Gwynn hitting at an acceptable level at the age of 30.] you won't see me argueing that point. Then again I'm sure none of us would have thought Dillon would have been anything more than AAA filler at age 30. I see what you're saying now. But you also have to take into account that Gwynn's numbers are partially because of his speed. As I mentioned earlier, he seems to get a lot of infield hits and drag bunts for hits. Those kinds of things most likely won't work well when there's a force at any base and two outs. Dillon has a much better shot of driving the ball into the outfield, which, other than perhaps a walk, is what we needed. Point taken though I think we can both agree that differance is quite small. I understand the arguement that Ned should be putting the best possible player in every situation even when those differances are relatively minor. My thought is there comes a time when players need to make such minute differances irrelavant. If the only way a team can win is if the manager makes the perfect choice 100% of the time then it's time to get better players or find something no one has found yet... the perfect person.

This is ignoring the fact the Dillon did, in fact, have those numbers. If Gwynn can handle AAA pitching pretty well when he's 30, then perhaps he would be a good PH in that given situation when he's 30. But right now, he's not and Dillon is. True but misses the point somewhat. Gwynn was putting up those numbers as a maturing young player. Dillon did so as an older player sort of preying on younger pitchers who were still developing. To me those numbers are more than a bit misleading with regard to how well they compare this year at this level. I don't see where he is going to develop any power. As was mentioned before the stiuation we are talking about didn't necessarily call for power. It called for getting on base. If the game was tied or we had nobady on and two ouot Dillon would have been the better choice. That wasn't the situation though. To be honest I wouldn't have had a problem with either one of them in that situation. well actually I have a probelm that they are the choice but that's another discussion al together. It really was six of one half a dozen of the other. That is more or less the point. Just because Ned didn't chose the person one of us would have doesn't necessarily make it the wrong choice. There are plenty of situations were a choice is less about who is better than who gets their shot to show what they can do.