Thurston Fluff

A mini version of Cory Hart. Mini C.

We should keep in mind if the city can pay for a stadium they can also use that money for other things that also attract tourists. While there are a lot of sports fans who will go to cities for the teams in those cities there are a lot more non-sport people that might prefer a museum, parks, zoos and what not. I think a city could build several of those things for the same money. But that still is investing in tourism which tends to be low paying jobs for the locals. Building things that boost an industrial based economy tends to provide better jobs. While that might not provide the tourist dollars of being a widely recognized city I think a lot of residents would prefer to have the extra income in an unknown city than living in a well known city with less income. What having a sports franchise does is give people in the city a quality of life boost that might not be financial in nature. Granted so would parks zoos and other things but sports tends to be an ever evolving thing where a park, zoo or museum is more or less static in nature. You may go once or twice but how many times are you going to look at the same exhibit? If I was to argue for a stadium I would talk about quality of life for the residents more than the economic benefits.

I think Capuano starts in AAA until we trade someone and need a warm body to fill the final bullpen spot.

It was in the locker room taking his game shoes off not at home so I don't think alcohol was involved. If it was he may have more problems than just an injured knee.

And Lind was a shining example of why you don't trade someone for less than you believe they are worth because of injury fears. I seriously doubt we could have got as much at the trade deadline last year for him than we got by waiting. I'm no doctor but I don't believe LCL's are as bad as ACL's or PCL's. I know all cl's are not created equal.

At least whoever had spring training for the freak injury pool is happy.

Bingo. So far we have one side of the story to go on and broad assumptions on how these things generally work. I am sure we will soon see Maricopa County say they have kept their side of the bargain or that they aren't because the team hasn't kept up it's side of the bargain. It will be a huge mess that eventually gets hashed out in court. This is what happens when pubic money is spent on private businesses ventures. To be fair there are also a lot of support staff that are both full time and well paid. Scouts, maintenance workers, secretaries, sales, marketing, coaches and trainers all get paid and work more than the day of the game. That was one of the arguments for the Lambeau field renovations. What actually happened was they started hosting events themselves with their new space. Events that used to go to hotels, banquet halls, restaurants, bars and such. So those places paid special taxes to help Lambeau take away their business. I get that some of these places also benefit from having the tourist attraction but it isn't the huge boost it appears to be when you factor in these new stadiums also become competition for the places that helped fund their construction. Really I think it ends up being a push if not a small loss when you calculate in the tax hike for other places.

Not to nitpick but his defense wasn't nearly as bad as it was made out to be. Certainly not worthless. His only real problem was his weakness was more visible than some others. If his weakness would have been getting slow starts on the ball or taking poor routes nobody would be saying he was worthless on defense. That doesn't make his weak arm more of a problem than the other two. Just easier to see.

People are entitled to their opinion but there is nothing but a prayer that says this is a 82 win team. I don't think many of us think it is. The point is it would take a lot more to go wrong to be a 100 loss team than go right to be an 82 win team.

Well there is the rub and why they are more likely to lose 100 than get anywhere near 500. If any of these veterans perform well they are likely gone and if they play poorly that leads to losing. Even then I think they would be closer to 82 wins than 100 loses. First the team would be doing pretty well if all those players bought enough back to trade so our record wouldn't be bad enough to get to 100. The second reason is the only player who doesn't have someone fairly competent to replace them is Lucroy. They are closer to a 500 club now than a 100 loss club and the loss of one significant player that doesn't have a viable replacement for half a season isn't going to make that much difference.

I wonder what people think is more likely, 82 wins or 100 losses. Not saying either are all that likely but I'd put my money on 82 wins.

I guess at least one person isn't buying into the Brewers tanking for draft pick mantra.

Sorry for your loss. If your pets are like mine they are full members of the household. Losing them leaves a hole for a while. I've had both the extremes you mentioned. We had a dog die and the other one didn't eat, moped around for weeks and didn't even want to go for walks or play in the back yard. That last go around our akita passed away and my border collie actually seemed happier. It wasn't like they didn't get along. They slept together and played together all the time. Both dogs passed away suddenly and without warning (apparently Akitas have a propensity for brain aneurysms.) The first one died in our back porch sometime during the day when we were at work. I came home and he was already cold. The last one passed away outside in the morning and we found him outside still warm. I'm not even sure the other dog was aware he died. I am sure the first one knew. I was always curious if she knew he was dead and didn't care or thought he was just gone for a while and never realized he was dead and was simply waiting for him to come back then got used to being alone. Then again my border has always been sort of a sociopath. I sometime wonder if she views me as anything more than a disk throwing machine. I think if I died and she was stuck in the house she might not even wait until she was hungry to start eating me. Might just have be waiting for me to die because she was curious what I taste like for all I know. Odd thing is, setting aside from not being all that affectionate, she is the most fun dog I have ever had.

I thought well of his time here. I think he was unfairly compared to Suppan and that kind of overshadowed the fact he was pretty decent pitcher for us those first couple seasons. His last season sucked but that could be said of a lot of players.

I'm right there with you, having turned 50 myself this year... I think it is a generational thing for sure. Can we start a BF.net "50 in 2016" club? Because I'm in it too - two weeks ago yesterday - and Jimbo also got in earlier this week. Oh, right...this is about Gossage. Dude needs to cuss less if he wants me to take him seriously. I would like to take a moment to say I hate all of you who think turning 50 this year old. I would shake my fist in your general direction if it wasn't for the phlebitis. I used to be more against that sort of thing but have mellowed on it. Age does that I guess. I would much rather have players act up a little and have some fun than watch a bunch of tight arsed (I'm old I can use that word) gentlemen play the dry emotionless game people Like Gossage pine for.

I think pitchers have more of a gripe that hitters with those first three years. They have so much more injury risk than hitters that those first three years are more important to their financial well being than hitters.

I kind of agree but those players are pain next to nothing until they are on the 40-man roster or have some time in the majors. I would like to see the players get paid more earlier on but if the system wasn't set up the way it is teams like the Brewers would not be able to keep any players at all. Fielder refused to sign at least once. I really don't think it is a big deal. That's a fair point. I wouldn't mind at all if they raised the wages of minor league players across the board but neither the league nor the players are going to share their revenue to pay for the lower level players. Maybe it's time for a minor league union.

Considering the team spends a lot of money/years developing players it seems fair to get a few years of cheap pay for a few years. He didn't get where he is without their help.

Except Cardinals "unofficial rule book" clearly states any baseball dog must maintain same appearance throughout the season. And poop Cardinal red.

Memo to people who live in Appleton. If you haven't been to Java Warnug's on N Richmond yet you really should try it. I recommend going for the lunch buffet. It's only $8 and there are so many interesting things to try it makes sense to do that route the first time you go. There are so many interesting choices you might take all night trying to figure out which dish you should try otherwise.

And all everyone wants to discuss is his power, even though he's averaging 29HR per 500AB with 64% being SOLO. Every run matters but if a decent majority of your power doesn't produce runs than its not as great as it appears on the surface. And he doesn't produce a lot of runs outside of HRs either. Santana, using last years stint with us, would have hit 25HR in 500AB. Back to Davis' arm, id be curious to see the numbers comparing his run production vs how many runs he's essentially giving up because of his arm, which allows so many extra bases to be taken putting much more pressure on the pitcher and defense. No doubt this year it would have been worse given what the Cubs, etc were doing vs him 2nd half last year. 78mph on competitive throws is literally comical If only they had defensive metrics to show runs saved... oh wait... He's pretty much graded out as an average to slightly below average fielder in LF, which includes his arm, which each of the last two years was worth about -5 runs, or 1/2 a win in WAR. http://www.fangraphs.com/statss.aspx?playerid=9112&position=OF I really think you're overrating how many 'extra bases' and 'extra runs' his arm gives up. It's the same as people who complain about a C's throw to 2nd. It just doesn't happen as often as you think. Thank you. I was going to post that a while back and forgot to. He was not nearly as bad as people made him out to be. It's similar to when people thought Lucroy's fairly poor ability to throw base runners out meant he was a terrible defensive catcher. Dig a little deeper and you find out they compensated for that by doing other things very well. In a way it's kind of impressive to be so bad at one thing but work hard enough at the things he could control to make up for it.

It's that time of year were the team is basically done with off season moves but the players have yet to start playing games. With nothing new happening and everything about this team has been thoroughly covered 50 times over it tends to lead to arguing over very minor things. At least for hardcore fans looking for their spring fix. Things will change when we get to see players actually play. Then we'll argue over important things like how much spring training really matters, how much playing time veterans need to prepare for the season, how we can't learn much from small samples and things of that nature.

I think you run into problems by making statements like someone is nothing of value unless someone is a blue chip prospect. Yet the ability to be a 4th outfielder is has value. So is being a C level prospect. I think a lot of it is based on the notion a larger target saves a lot of errant throws. There is probably some truth to it but I doubt it's all that important. Certainly less than the ability to move laterally and scoop balls out of the dirt. Finding other middle infielders who can accurately throws to first mitigates the problem far more than finding a tall person to snag high throws.

Yes the team's talent level is always in a stat of flux. I said so myself in the last post. Talent is not static. Which seems to me only reinforces the idea that the best way to evaluate past performance would be through the record. All other things would depend on everything staying the same. Let me be clear I am not saying a team's record has anything to do with how good the talent will be in the future. Only that it tells us what it was in the past. Predictive measurements should never be mistaken for ones that show past events. As far as a tool a GM would use that is an entirely different story. A GM would probably tell you the same thing I have. There is a difference between predicting future potential and analyzing what happened in the past. Every GM looks at the team"s record to decide where to go from where it is. Why? Because it tells them what level of talent they had at their disposal so they can plan accordingly for the future. If the injury bug drove down their talent level then they can look for better depth. If a lack of front line talent was the problem then they look to boost their star power. You don't do that by looking at runs scored, WAR, or whatever and say no problem we just had a tough schedule or were unlucky.

Kind of funny how these conversations come up and go on for way longer than they should at this time of year. The itch for real baseball is so strong this time of year I'll sit and cover pages on purely the academic and abstract. But what the hell, nothing better to talk about now. That doesn't mean you can't use it as a measurement of talent. You just use it in relative terms. Team A is X more talented than Team B because team A won Y more games than team B. You're making out the differences between the schedules as so extreme that it renders wins useless in comparing two teams abilities. While i am all for balancing the schedules to take the little effect it has completely away I don't think it's nearly as significant to wins as you re making it out to be. If it did then what's the point of a small market team spending money to acquire better talent? Just sit around and wait for the dynamics to favor you and reap the rewards. The goal should be to maintain an average team and wait for the baseball gods to bless us. I think maybe we are defining talent differently. I say it is by definition production not potential. The problem is when people put so much stock in the predictive model that when it fails they look for excuses to why reality got it wrong. The tools used to find a definition of something should never superseded the actual definition. Interchanging predictive tools as reporting tools is a misuse of them. The definition of how good a team is by how many games they win. That's not me saying it. It's the game that says wins is what matters. You get to the playoffs by winning more games than the other teams in your division. How many strikeouts, runs, errors a team has is completely irrelevant to wins when it comes to judging success. They may be useful tools to judge potential or explain past events but they have no intrinsic value on their own. Wins is the only factor used to determine how good a season a team had. As far as explaining why some teams may have a down year when they were not predicted to is simple. Talent is not static. Players ability changes every year. What doesn't change is the only result that matters is wins and losses. While they may not predict future events it certainly told us what actually happened. It know it seems silly to define talent level this way but it isn't. Accepting where we are instead of where we feel our projections said we would be has value. It allows us to use what happened as a way of determining what can be changed to make the predictions meet the results. To refuse to accept the reality of the situation means you continue down that path of failure. To say we got it right because our predictive models says we were leads to never improving the model. To say wins don't show talent would just lead to sitting around and waiting for all these other supposedly significant factors to help them win. Teams don't do that because all those other factors really don't effect wins all that much. The team's talent level is the single biggest factor in how many wins a team gets. So it stands to reason it should be the single most important indicator of a team's true talent level for that given year.