Thurston Fluff

Pretty much what I thought. Add in five came in Great American Ballpark while hitting against said pitching and it probably also explains why the team is leading the majors in homeruns. Or, to be fair to Bosio and Lackey, it could just mean something is head scratching about the whole Brewer team. The conspiracy might go all the way to the top. It always made me scratch my head as to how Mark Attanasio got so rich. I mean, we all know he was well into his 30's when it happened. Gotta wonder. Maybe he's at home right now injecting his $1 bills with some beef roids so they turn into $100 bills. Makes you scratch your head doesn't it? Guess there is nothing left to do but become Cub fans and help them celebrate the 25th anniversary of the great homerun race with a statue of Sammy Sosa in a few years.

Please back this up somehow. One of the perks of PEDs is recovery time so there is some merit to it. But that might be a better argument to use if he does this for an entire season. Like I said players get hot all the time. They just don't maintain it. Part of what was so amazing about Juice Bonds was not how hot he was but how long he stayed hot.

Look at Bonds, who was the king of walks. Thats why I am saying Thames isnt just good, he is Bonds good, at least so far. Getting Bonds level good for a couple weeks, or even a month, is common. Geoff Jenkins made a career out of streaks like that.

That's just not true about Thompson. He is always changing the bottom of the roster, especially the practice squad. I think stearns is pretty much exactly like Ted Thompson so far. He has used free agency judiciously by shopping the bargain basement isle and uses the bottom of the roster to cycle possible players through on a regular basis. He has not gone after players you have to pay a lot to because they are a recognized name like Lohse or Garza preferring instead to look for guys who are cheap with some potential like Guera or Thames. Most importantly I think they both have an eye for talent and are not afraid to trust their eye and make deals that others might not have seen. Thames to me is a perfect example of that. Setting aside the age factor- which to me is more about the differences in the systems in place in each sport than anything- he is the equivalent of all the NFL rookie free agents Ted is willing to give a roster spot to.

Koreana is closing in September. There is no longer a reason to live.

I looked at that link and it was spot on with Appleton being a car dependant city. Not only dependant but until recently not really interested in catering to bikes at all. It is changing slowly but still not where it needs to be. Very few bike lanes and places to park bikes are pretty much nonexistent. I love Appleton but that does bug me.

Hortonville is fairly large but it is in a small town setting. It gets a lot of students from rural areas. I have had many dealings with them through the years and they are quite friendly. The area west of Neenah is rural very quickly but growing. An area you might want to check out is the Sherwood area just east of Menasha. I don't know where the borderline is but Sherwood itself is part for the Hilbert or Brillion school district which are both small schools. So if you are looking for that sort of thing the areas east of the river are probably going to be more to your liking.

Count me in as one of the ose who were a bit confused with his call up last year. I really hoped they would stop rushing players to the majors before they were ready. It's one thing to do it when there is an obvious hole that needs to be filled on a competitive teams like when Luc came up. But why bring up your top prospect in the first year of a major rebuild when he isn't completely ready? The only explanation I could think of is Colorado Springs might be worse for developing hitters than pitchers. If they can get away with bad habits there it's a lot harder to correct after doing it for a year.

Kirk hasn't reached his full potential yet either. Another 3-4 years on the Brewers and he'll be one heck of a player. A fan favorite for sure. Whether it is to love or hate I don't know, but fan favorite none the less.

I live in what would probably be considered the worst neighborhood in Appleton on E Wisconsin ave. My original plan was to fix up a crappy house and sell it to move to a better neighborhood. We changed our minds because the neighborhood wasn't so bad, we really liked the house and being close to our shop (ten blocks away.) It also doesn't hurt to have some very good ethnic grocery stores within walking distance either since I love to cook. I would probably have moved if we had kids though. Mostly because of who they would be hanging out with as opposed to fear for their safety. If you avoid the area between College and Wisconsin north to south and Meade and Richmond east to west it's just fine for the city itself. Like others have said there are some very nice suburbs surrounding Appleton that is probably better suited for a young family. If you like biking around town Appleton is kind of behind the times on that but slowly catching up. They are working on doing a PBS show on Appleton that might help if you don't plan on moving too soon. I don't know when they plan to air it but they called us to set up a time to shoot some footage of our gorilla/shop in early June so it won't be for a while yet. When they come I'll ask if you're interested.

Either him or Marinez would be my guess.

What do you base such a claim on? Scooter Gennett would be a total joke at 3B on his noodle arm alone. Add in his range and we might as well sign Bartolo Colon to roam CF. Mark Kotsay thinks it's not such a bad idea.

I bet he also leaves it all on the field, is the first one in and last one out every day and is in the best shape of his life. Seriously though I was reading about Blazek saying he felt he was treated unfairly too. That he was told to work on his fastball in spring only to find out doing so meant a trip to the minors. I only bring it up because that is the second person feeling mistreated. One person can be overlooked as sour grapes or whatever but two is harder to explain away. I know they are both fringe guys with limited experience/ceilings but I really don't want this to be a trend. Especially when they talked about last season was how they hyped communication throughout the minors as a major factor in player development.

How many people here have actually seen him play? I ask because there is no defensive metric out here that is anywhere near reliable enough to use in the number of games he has played so any determination based on them is bound to be virtually useless. So I am curious if people are making their judgements on his defense on the equivalent of 50 or so ab's of offense or have some actually seen him play horrible defense?

When he gets through one game without costing his team a win with a bad defensively play, a mental lapse or a boneheaded baserunning mistake I see no reason to "take a breath". No game is ever lost on one play. Sure sometimes a bad play at a critical time amplifies the mistake but every game has dozens of mistakes in it that made that mistake look so critical. Pitchers fail to hit their spots, batters strike out on a meatball pitch down the middle or swing at pitches well out of the zone and catchers fail to properly frame a pitch turning strike three into ball four every game. The key is to reduce those mistakes so the cumulative effect doesn't cost the game. I don't think anyone thinks Villar is going to win us games with his defense but he was not brought in to. He was brought in to upgrade the team's overall talent. In that respect he did.

I never got that saying. The very best season in team history came with Fielder, Weeks, Yuni B and McGehee on the infield. Pitching and offense wins championships. Defense is a nice bonus that helps. I think players need to be better than Kotsay in center but frankly I think defense is a distant third in importance. Obviously up the middle defense is more important but I'll take a decent bat with some defensive versatility over a light bat and great defense or limited versatility for a bench player any day.

Neither am I but with our starting rotation I wonder if it isn't going to be necessary. Like others, I like the versatility and another lefty off the bench.

If memory serves the Braun play you are talking about MrTPlush was a great throw by Arcia to cut him down. But your point is well taken. As far as Villar goes I don't mind an occasional physical mistake like dropping the ball when transferring from hand to hand nearly as much as I mind the mental mistakes like forgetting to cover a base. I hope some of it is due to thinking like a SS instead of a 2nd basemen when it comes to who covers what. But he was never a smart baseball player so I am not holding out a lot of hope it changes dramatically. If he ends up being an offense first second baseman it's not the end of the world. Even though sometimes it might seem that way when seeing it happen time and time again.

Is Garza going to be healthy enough to come off the DL after 10 days? I thought I read something were they hoped he could get back later in the month.

I think it's a Jeter deal was well. It's something of a luxury that is only afforded to teams/players that have achieved a certain level of success. The Brewers are not in a position to afford such luxuries at this juncture.

This is what I worry about. I hope it was just a mistake made by a relatively inexperienced, young GM and manager. IF they learn from it fine. I expected some growing pains from both of them. But if they do this again it's a pattern that worries me.

The only thing that bothers me about this is why tell them it's an open competition if it isn't? Maybe they did keep telling Cravy his option year is a factor and he didn't want to hear it but from what I've read and heard all spring was it was an open competition. If that is the case then managment wasn't honest about factors like options and 40 man roster spots. Nobody would have blamed them if they said other factors play into it. Hell we all know they do. Why say something about an open competition when it isn't and you don't have to? Seems like a mistake made by a fairly new manager and GM. Hope they learn from this.

It all depends on what type if depth we are talking about. The farm is deep but that doesn't necessarily translate to depth on the major league roster. What we have is a lot of talented young players who need to play every day. That can help if we have an injury or someone struggles but it does not help to improve the bench. None of the prospects should be coming up to be part time players for an extended period of time. It also doesn't mean anyone in the minors are ready to come in and produce better than the current starters from day one. The guys who are almost ready or, in the case of Arcia, are already here will be talented young players learning how to play at the major league level not top producers right away.

It's 2 1/2 years into a rebuild where we traded almost every useful player. There isn't going to be much depth. The farm is deep but the active roster is what took the hit to get that depth.

The "we've got to go for it because our star QB isn't getting any younger," line has been around since the 90s. I don't think tailoring free agency around one person's age is a good way to build a team capable of winning every season. if we go for it while Rodgers is here and have to pay for it when he is done doesn't that take away the ability for the next guy to establish himself? Part of what helped Rodgers was having a young talented group of players surrounding him. They didn't have to go through a couple years of over the hill has beens making way too much money and contributing nothing because they can't afford to cut them while he was trying to gain some confidence. Why should the next guy's career suffer just so Rodgers can have more chances than the new guy will be afforded? I just never believed the QB is owed anything more than any other player when it comes to how you build your team. As far the defensive backs keep in mind they dealt with a lot of injuries. To see how that can hurt a player's performance look no further than Davante Adams playing through a significant injury vs when he isn't. Ditto for Montgomery. Would adams have broken out if we found some average veteran to take snaps away from him due to his rough sophomore season? I think we need more bodies at corner but I think the talent level isn't nearly as bad as it appears. I'm not really against all free agents. If there is one who would fill an hole that has no real option fine. If there was a few unanticipated losses at a position fine. The D-line is a prime example of that. They lost Raji unexpectedly then Pennel and Guion's issues left a larger than anticipated hole to be filled. No problem adding a lineman or two in those instances. I just don't beleive in older guys being added for losses that should have been anticipated. All that shows is managerial shortsightedness.