Thurston Fluff

I know this is the standard line but I have always questioned how valid it is to think full grown men need a manager with multiple years on his contract to listen to him. The players also know that along with their performance attitude plays into how much money they make and how long they got to play. Being labeled as a clubhouse cancer effect their future earnings.

When can he be returned to the 60 day DL? I assume it can't happen before opening day but I really don't know.

I'm not sure why you're taking offense and having such an attitude about the topic. [sarcasm]You're probably Eddy trying to defend himself against those meanies on the internets.[/sarcasm] When you make bad arguments and innuendo you should expect to be called out on it. When you say you hope Stearns uses actual evidence and not just an old maxim about make the defense work in his decision that is innuendo that contradicts everything we know of Stearns. When I pointed that out you resorted to a claim that it was Running Ron that started it. To suggest what RRR did at one time has some sort of impact on what Stearns and Counsell do now is pretty far fetched. That is the bad argument part.

Do you seriously think Stearns and company would not have data it up? Being an analytics guy is pretty much why he was hired to begin with. Stearns didn't start this. It was Runnin' Ron. So what you are saying is they fired RRR, "Retired" Doug Melvin, turned over the majority of the 40 man roster and changed several coaches last season but keep the third base coach/philosophy this year because Running Ron started it? No offense but that is pretty far fetched.

Do you seriously think Stearns and company would not have data it up? Being an analytics guy is pretty much why he was hired to begin with.

Selective memory is not the same as reality. Look a few post up and you will see this "It happened last night in the Dodgers/Nats game. Werth was out at the plate by at least 30 feet. He was one step around third when the relay man got the ball." Dale Sveum got the moniker send um Sveum in Boston. Those are just two examples I came up with in 2 seconds. I am willing to bet if we actually did a search of comments from other teams we'd find virtually every team's fans have the exact same belief their third base coach is the worst ever. It really should just be part of the job description.

If that happens the odds we are having the same conversation about Subero a year from now is probably 99%. The only way to avoid it is to have such a conservative approach that no runner ever gets thrown out. While that might make the third base coach look good I doubt it produces more runs. I agree that seeing someone thrown out by ten steps looks bad. It is bad. But I have also seen plenty of times when a runner should be thrown out but the throw is so off target he's safe. I think at times the ones that look bad are times when the coach/runner knows the person throwing the ball is not very accurate. It can look bad if he does get a good throw off but the odds are he won't. The new management seems to know what it's doing and have far more knowledge of the situation than I do so I'll just assume Cedar really isn't the worst third base coach of all time.

Being a 3rd base coach, yes, that's all they do. Being a coach in general, he has other responsibilities. He doesn't have to be canned to not coach 3rd anymore. Which coach do you think needs to be removed to make room for him to take over? If you don't plan on firing one of them then which coach do you think would be better at third to make the switch? If there was a single team anywhere ever that fans thought the third base coach did a good job of sending players I'd be more concerned about how good or bad ours is.

If all being a third base coach consisted of was whether to send a player or not Cedar wouldn't have survived multiple managers and GM's. Which means it might be time to reconsider how we evaluate that position.

I think Scooter can get us a couple lottery tickets because he is major league caliber and has a few years of team control. At this point I have to think the real question is if he has more value now or at the trade deadline next summer. I think a half season of juggling the lineup would be acceptable but only if nobody is willing to give up anything of value this winter. One way that might maximize his value is to trade him for a major league reliever in the winter. It seems like relievers don't get much attention the winter but come July everyone is willing to give a king's ransom for late inning help. Trading for an established one now might not cost more than Gennett and return quite a bit more next summer if he is any good at all.

I agree for the most part. My only objection is we should never assume it is just luck. I understand random variance but I don't believe it is that huge. Lets take the coin flip for example if I flipped the coin 100 times I'd expect it to land on heads about 50% of the time. I wouldn't necessarily expect it to be exactly 50% but the further away from 50% I get the more I would question why. Random variance means it could in theory turn up heads 100% of the time but if it did I would be very skeptical it was just random variance. Which leads me back to the idea that we should view what the record is as a very good indicator of the talent level of the team even if the projections don't agree. I don't expect a 72 win team to win exactly 72 games but I sure as hell wouldn't expect them to win 50 or 90 either. When it starts to get in to double digits off of projections I would start to wonder if maybe something was missing in the projections. Basically I think the record should be used as the baseline of the talent level. If the projection doesn't come close question the projections instead of chalking it up to random variance. I also get that teams spend a lot of time filtering the numbers to find solid relationships between stats and wins. I also know that they continue to do so which tells me it has yet to be perfected. This is just my guess but I think teams looking to perfect their projections start by using wins and losses as the baseline for assessing how much talent any given team has. Then look at numbers that show why the record was what it was. I highly doubt they just assume their numbers are right and it was all just luck. I also doubt they just chalk up large discrepancies to random variance. If they do I sure do not want them running my team.

I don't think I have ever found a fan who felt the third base coach was good at sending/holding players. Every out is seen and few good calls are ever noticed. Making it even harder to assess is if the coach never has anyone thrown out it might look ok but very well could mean he was too conservative. That said he was pretty brutal in September. My guess is in game stuff is a fairly minor part of his overall job description.

I think that says more about the relationship of run differential and winning than it does talent level. A few years back the Diamondbacks had a very good record and a negative run differential. It was also a year where the team had a couple real good relievers and the rest pretty much sucked. So the manager would use the bad ones in games that were essentially our of reach, let them get hammered and saved the good ones for the close games. The end result was the team scored fewer runs than they allowed. The same dynamic can be applied to how many runs scored compared to other teams. Simply put runs scored isn't as close to a one to one relationship to wins as you seem to be suggesting.

That's exactly the way it works. There is a lot of luck that goes into determining a team's final record. http://www.baseballprospectus.com/standings/ I was pretty alone last spring when I said your record is what should ultimately determine how much talent you had. I don't think i ever explained why I think we should look at records to determine talent levels very well. I think part of my problem with just writing it off as luck is the danger of assuming the metrics we used to determine talent level is right even when the record says it isn't. People have an idea that certain metrics determine player value and the culmination of all those metrics determine the relative talent level of the team. When the team's actual performance level doesn't match the predetermined talent level it is just written off as luck. Maybe it is but isn't predetermining talent levels and ignoring what actually happens in the only stat that matters a dangerous precedent to set? Especially when we are talking about a game that evolves over time. By the time we get enough stats to know something the dynamics of why it was so important to begin with may very well have changed. Shouldn't we start by assuming how many wins a team has is it's actual talent level and then go about determining why our metrics didn't predict the end result? Shouldn't the metrics we use be the first thing we question instead of just writing it off as luck? it just seems backwards to me to say we know what makes a good team and the fact that it didn't turn out that way was just random luck. Isn't that essentially saying our numbers were right and reality got it wrong?

Because it doesn't really work that way. In reality to lose you must be worse not "lucky". 5 games is a pretty notable difference in the grand scheme of things. To lose you must sacrifice something. And cherry picking one run wins doesn't exactly work in reality because you win some of those and lose some. I agree your record is dictated by your talent level. If we had a worse record then we'd have seen less talent on the field. On the flip side players like Villar, Broxton and Guerra could have done as well but the rest of the team suck worse and lost five more games. I think that did not happen because we had enough talent in the system that our worst players were good enough to help win as many games as we did. I am totally on board with the idea that luck does not play as large a part in the record as many, perhaps most, people think. If your team is one run better than the other team you should expect to win by one run. That isn't luck that is just being slightly better that day.

I find no joy in them missing the playoff for one stinking year. The only positive thing I feel is hope. Hope that this is the first of many small steps to becoming a lost, abysmal franchise. Flailing hopelessly for years, nay generations, of futility and waste. That this provokes them into firing everyone and employing Dave Stewart as GM with Tony La Russa as team president. My hope is they feel the pain I have felt doubled. When I see every shred of dignity any Cardinal fan ever had completely stripped away. When their sports stations have one segment dedicated to them as an afterthought on a slow day. When newspapers have them on page 4 of the sports section right under the high school rundown section. When they are reduced to glowing embers in the twilight of a dying sun. Then I will know joy.

I think is some ways seasons like this are easier to enjoy because there is no angst about winning. The biggest stress was seeing who was traded and or what. I think the downside to doing better than expected is it's hard not to expect better next season. I doubt we will be. In fact we may even be worse because we won't have half a season of Lucroy or the bullpen and maybe not even Braun, Gennett or some of our pitchers. Instead we'll have young guys getting their feet wet and more reclamation projects. This is a bit off subject but for all the talk of teams purposely tanking it's kind of surprising how well all the supposed tanking teams did. Some of the supposed tanking teams actually did better than teams who were supposed to be good.

The brewers traditionally have a hard enough time finding 5 starters let alone 6. If we had 6 really good starters that pitch 7-8 innings on a regular basis then I would be all for it. As it is now I'd probably be more inclined to go with 4 starters who go 5-6 innings and add a reliever than the other way around.

The idea that a soft tossing pitcher would benefit from a pitcher throwing gas the next night is false. You might try to throw the opposition off by having heat-soft tosser-heat so the third pitcher benefits from the speed differential from the soft tosser the night before. Not the other way around. Regardless, the Brewers have Davies in that role. Get guys that are good pitchers. The better strategy is getting talented guys who can pitch and have arm talent. It's takes perseverance, good eye for drafting, and player development. Then you have a rotation that can win big. Davies? 89-90mph isn't soft-tossing. Cubs/Braves must have had Maddux in that soft-tossing role forever too, right? Suter is 83-85 on fastball - that's somewhat common in HS. He should never have a rotation role. If Suter's fastball is 83-85 that means he throws harder than Jamie Moyer did. You can't earn a spot if you aren't given a chance. If you don't give people a chance based on how hard they throw you risk losing out on a viable starter. This team cannot afford to miss out on any starting option. Given we are not likely to be competitive next season anyway there is no reason to eliminate anyone from competing for a starting role.

Update: Turns out the upstairs room in question has one outlet that is linked to the room directly below while all the other upstairs outlets are not linked to anything downstairs. That room is usually the one the downstairs tenants plug their AC into. My guess is they overloaded that circuit when the air was on and turned the tv off while everything else stayed on. Since it was two different tenants they probably never compared notes. If the downstairs person just flipped the breaker on the upstairs person would never really know when or why their tv suddenly went on again. So I think the mystery is solved. Our ghost turned out to be just messed up wiring. Which, come to think of it, was what our old neighbor had so in a way it is his ghost I guess. Only other question is who the heck wired it like that?

I would hate to be the one who has to clean those trash cans.

I agree with you on the first part. As for the second part, given the number of good prospects that fail, I don't think you can ever have too many in any position. Put as many talented players on the field as possible and it will work itself out. If we have the good fortune to have too many good players ready for the majors at any given time I don't think that is really a problem. Ditto goes for 40 man roster spaces. If we lose someone in the rule five it's just a sign of how far we've come.

How long does the manager carousel have to go around before people figure out the manager was never the problem? Here's a thought, lets change things up and let a single system in place for more than two years. It doesn't even make sense in the motivational "kick some arse" perspective. Anyone who isn't self motivated is going to get motivated by any revolving door manager. By continuously firing the manger you actually create an atmosphere where the manager can't kick some arse.

I used to watch the Olympics for the wrestling but the last couple have had very little coverage of wrestling. Then the IOC thought about getting rid of it decided I could do better things with my time than watch a nearly wrestling free Olympiad. Like watch paint dry or give my eyebrows a perm or something.

Whether Nottingham sticks at catcher or not his offense is going to be as good or better than what we traded him for so that was far from a bust even if he can't stick at catcher. Especially considering our lack of first base options in the upper minors. As far an Maldy goes I think he can be a legit starter in this league if given a chance. He did so when he was the everyday catcher a few years back and given regular playing time may be able to do that again. He isn't going to be Luc but he could be close to league average at a position where the average is fairly low. Add in his well above average defense and one of the better throwing arms in the game if he can hit for a little power or do something on offense he will be serviceable.