The stache

Jean Segura is second in the American League with a .340 batting average. Oh, the humanity.

So, a BS scoring call cheats Ryan Braun of his 200th stolen base. Nice.

Somebody explain to me why Guerra was pulled after six? He'd given up one run, and had thrown only 72 pitches.

Great, next door neighbor is a Cubs fan, and he's going to point to his "W" flag flying every day.

Can we get Jean Segura back, then take him and Arcia to some mad scientist, and have him create a half Arcia half Segura monster? Wait. With our luck, we'd get Arcia's bat and Segura's defense.

One hit through three innings against a guy with a 6.60 ERA. Brewers hitting. It's fantastic.

Our offensive ineptitude is sad, considering we've held the Cubs to ten runs scored in four games. A 2.50 ERA from your staff should earn you at least a split in the series. But not with the bunch of Nancies we're sending to the plate.

By the way, sure glad we let Jean Segura and Mitch Haniger go. Haniger just hit his 10th home run of the season, tied with Mike Trout for the league lead. He's hitting .309, 10 HR, 27 RBI. 1.085 OPS. Segura is hitting .298 with 21 runs scored, 9 doubles, 2 HR, 21 RBI, and is 5 out of 5 on stolen bases.

Who is our hitting coach? I could do a better job. Can his butt....now. Worthless, whoever he is. Five shutouts by one team in a month is pathetic.

We've scored nine runs in seven games against the Cubs. Are you freaking kidding me?

I'm so glad we don't have to worry about Braun getting DFA'd, at least for a few more days.

Our bullpen may be awesome, but you still need your starters to go deeper into games, or your bullpen will be gassed by the end of the season.

Brauny 2 for 3 tonight. Over the last seven games: 6 runs, 2 doubles, 2 home runs, 7 RBI, 2 walks, a .435 AVG (10 for 23), and a slash line of .480/.783/1.263. I'd say he's feeling it right now.

Nm, I see the other.

Parker I know. Simmons I thought was the other, but he's right behind Yount. Who is the other? Besides Aaron and the Shef, there are 2 other with more than Yount...

Braun starting to heat up. It's a small sample size, but over his last six games, dating back to April 13th, he's batting .357 (5 for 14) with a double and two home runs. Slash line of .357/.857/1.214. Time to DFA him, obviously.

The bolded part is pure speculation on your part. Or, do you claim some divine omniscience? The truth is, you have absolutely no idea what discussions Braun had with his legal team/PR people regarding what would be said, and the tone of his statement. None. You are fabricating a narrative. Do you think Braun just autonomously decided to get in front of the camera, brushing off the advice of the people that accomplished the first (known) victorious appeal against Major League Baseball, in order to satiate his ego? Logic would impart that Braun's words, body language, and tone, were worked out long before Braun ever stepped in front of a camera. I have no doubt, whatsoever, that he rehearsed his statement in front of his team the same way a witness would be prepped prior to taking the stand. And, this whole "Braun should have released a short statement and let it go" spiel sounds great now in hindsight because their strategy didn't ultimately have the desired outcome. But neither Braun or his team had the benefit of foresight. They certainly didn't know about the Biogenesis investigation that was simmering. What if he had just released a short statement? How would that have played with the media? ESPN would have jumped all over it. I can imagine that blowhard Buster Olney pontificating about Braun's actions: "Braun just won a major, unprecedented victory against Major League Baseball, a victory which came after his confidential information was leaked for all the world to scrutinize, irrevocably damaging his reputation in the process, and this is his reaction? Something seems amiss." And that Biogenesis investigation? Braun accepted a suspension, and admitted guilt. Yes. In his position, with identical circumstances, I would have done the same thing. It was clear that MLB was going to stop at nothing until they got Braun suspended. While Braun is hardly poor, he doesn't have the endless resources that Major League Baseball does. My memory is a bit fuzzy, but, to my recollection, the "smoking gun" revelation from Biogenesis was that Braun's name appeared on a few lists of players accused of using banned substances. But, didn't those other players have prescription information listed on the sheets (ie dollar amounts for x amount of PED), and Braun didn't? Wasn't, in fact, one of Braun's attorneys also on the list alongside Braun? Are we to believe that Braun's attorney was also getting banned substances? My recollection is that Braun hired the chief guy from Biogenesis to aid Braun's preparation for his 2011 appeal. I'll have to go back and look at the reporting germane to Braun's decision to accept his punishment, but I have to say, the whole Biogenesis investigation reeked of a witch hunt. This was not a court proceeding, but using a civil case as a parallel, once again, have not innocent persons accepted a plea deal from overzealous prosecutors in order to put legal proceedings, and the concurrent media circus, behind them? I watched the new episode of Billions last night. The Attorney General is forcing the District Attorney of New York to prosecute an innocent man in a capital case. History is rife with incidences of prosecutorial malfeasance. Are we to believe that baseball would never bully a player into bending to their will? Braun won his appeal. And what happened? Major League Baseball promptly fired Shyam Das, the well-respected independent arbitrator, and began working on their next attempt to nail Braun's butt to the Commissioner's door.

Braun was third in the MVP his second season, albeit with "only" a 4.6 WAR. His third year, he had a 6.2 WAR. He was an elite player before 2011. Say what you want, guys, but Braun is one of the premier power-speed guys in the last decade plus. If he rights the ship, and starts hitting, with six more stolen bases, he becomes a member of a very selective club. Players with lifetime averages of .300 or better, 300 home runs, and 200 stolen bases. The list currently? Hank Aaron Willie Mays Larry Walker George Brett That's some pretty good company. And, again, Braun's Hall of Fame metrics....one of the four he's reached Hall of Fame level. Gray Ink (top 10 finishes), he's at 121, with the average HoFer at 144. A decent season or two (like the one he had in 2016), and he reaches that. The other two, Hall of Fame Standard, he's at 34, with the average HoFer at 50. Black Ink he's at 16, with the average HoFer at 27. I don't see that one increasing, as he won't likely lead the league in any more metrics. What he has was leading the league in hits, home runs, OPS and SLG. The point? He's not as far off as some of you might think. He's got to stay healthy, though, and be productive. I think injury, more than the PED issue, is what's curtailed his chances thus far. That nerve issue in his thumb really hit him hard. As for the next Brewer to make the Hall? Ted Simmons is my bet, though he'll go in as a Cardinal. He only played 665 games in Milwaukee. Simba was like one vote short of making it with the last Veterans Committee vote. He gets in eventually. Too good a player at that position not to.

I wonder if they're doing the same thing in Arizona. "When do you DFA Paul Goldschmidt? He's hitting .118 with a 45 OPS +."

I think you might want to check Robin Yount's statistics again. Did he have the top-tier home run power that Braun had? No, but, then again, he was a shortstop, and later a center fielder in an era where eye popping home run totals were not commonplace, especially at those positions. Yount and Cal Ripken Jr were the exceptions to the norm at short (Alan Trammel had some power, too). The peak of Robin Yount's career was 1980-1989. He had more hits than anybody in baseball in the decade, 1,731. And he had a 135 OPS + during that span. Just remember, "power" is more than home runs. Here are Robin's 162 game averages between 1980-'89: .305 AVG, 108 runs scored, 194 hits, 38 double, 10 triples, 20 home runs, 92 RBI, 17 SB, slash line of .365/.485/.850. And, again, that's in an era where the home run was at a premium. Yount's peak was 29 in his 1982 A.L. MVP season. During the decade, only two players came close to hitting 50 home runs in a season, Mark McGwire's 49 in 1987, and Andre Dawson's 49 the same season. Mike Schmidt hit 48 in 1980. There were only thirteen 40 home run seasons in the Majors in the entire decade. What about Braun? His prime was 2007 to 2012. Braun's peak was a National League-leading 41 in 2012. Between 2007 and 2012, only six years, there were twenty-two 40 home run seasons in the Majors, including three 50 home run seasons. If you look at 2007 to 2016, there were forty-two 40 home run seasons in the Majors. Thirteen 40 home run seasons in the Majors between 1980 and 1989. Forty-two 40 home run seasons in the Majors between 2007 and 2016. More than three times as many. The point? Context is everything in baseball. And Robin Yount the hitter is a lot closer to Ryan Braun than you might first glean looking at their stats. Compare each player's peak OPS + seasons. Braun 166 (2011) 158 (2012) 154 (2007) 146 (2009) Yount 166 (1982) 152 (1989) 150 (1983) 133 (1988) Braun's OPS + 2007 to 2017: 139. Braun the "superior hitter" was 39% above average for his first decade. Yount's OPS + 1980 to 1989: 135. Yount was 35% above average for his peak decade, only 4% behind Braun. I think it's highly inaccurate to say that Yount was never the hitter Ryan Braun is.

Are you freaking kidding me? Cameron has been more consistently good over his career? By Fangraphs Cameron 50.7 WAR Braun 40.1 By Baseball Reference Cameron 46.7 Braun 45.3 Here's the difference in WAR Cameron 1,955 games played Braun 1,461 games played The WAR difference is fungible if you believe BBR, which places a little more emphasis on offense. Their WAR figures are quite close. But Cameron played 500 more games! Cameron was a much better fielder. Three Gold Gloves. But there's no comparison between he and Braun, offensively. Braun is a five time Silver Slugger winner. He won an MVP, was an MVP runner up, and had a third place MVP finish. In seventeen seasons, Cameron received any kind of MVP votes twice; 16th in 2001, and 21st in 2006. Cameron made one All Star team. Braun, despite playing in one of the smallest markets in baseball, has been to the All Star Game six times, and clearly should have been in 2016 when he was one of the top 5 hitters in baseball with a .312 AVG. And looking at the offensive numbers? Cameron has a career 106 OPS +, meaning he was 6% better than league average with the stick. Braun's career OPS + is 139, or 39% above league average. Look at their Hall of Fame statistics. Mike Cameron Hall of Fame Statistics Black Ink Batting - 0, Average HOFer ≈ 27 Gray Ink Batting - 11 (1415), Average HOFer ≈ 144 Hall of Fame Monitor Batting - 13 (1106), Likely HOFer ≈ 100 Hall of Fame Standards Batting - 24 (549), Average HOFer ≈ 50 JAWS Center Field (35th): 46.7 career WAR / 32.6 7yr-peak WAR / 39.6 JAWS Average HOF CF (out of 19): 71.2 career WAR / 44.6 7yr-peak WAR / 57.9 JAWS Ryan Braun Hall of Fame Statistics Black Ink Batting - 16 (150), Average HOFer ≈ 27 Gray Ink Batting - 121 (162), Average HOFer ≈ 144 Hall of Fame Monitor Batting - 114 (134), Likely HOFer ≈ 100 Hall of Fame Standards Batting - 34 (250), Average HOFer ≈ 50 JAWS Left Field (26th): 45.3 career WAR / 39.2 7yr-peak WAR / 42.2 JAWS Average HOF LF (out of 20): 65.4 career WAR / 41.6 7yr-peak WAR / 53.5 JAWS Cameron is nowhere near any of the HoF metrics. Not even close. He doesn't even score on the black ink metric, as he never led the league in any offensive category. His 7 year JAWS peak was 32.6, where the average HoF center fielder was 44.6. Braun's 7 year peak is 39.2 where the average HoF left fielder's 7 year peak is 41.6. Very close. Braun has surpassed the Hall of Fame monitor. He's close on Gray ink, and should surpass it. He will get very close to the Hall of Fame Standard. If Braun can stay healthy, which is a big if, I see no reason why he can't approach or surpass 60 WAR. He's shown early this season that he still has the long ball. Moving him to first, which I think will happen more as Thames fails to live up to our expectations, will only give him more playing time at a position that puts less wear and tear on his body. The bat speed is still there. The eye is still there. If his thumb issue is a thing of the past, I see no reason why he can't revert back to 2016 form where he hit .305 with 30 home runs. Regardless, comparing him to Mike Cameron is just plain silly. Cameron was never anywhere near the player Ryan Braun has been.

This whole discussion has moved beyond the realm of hyperbole. The endless list of terrible things he did? Please. He had a calf injury. He played the entire season with it, and deservedly won the MVP because he performed at a high level (and yes, I think he deserved it over Kemp. Braun performed at a high level in a pennant race. Kemp had no pressure to perform, as the Dodgers were out of the race before the All Star break). The Brewers went to the playoffs for the second time in a quarter century, and had one chance to make a run at the World Series, as many key players were not going to return. Braun made a decision to use a banned substance to expedite healing on that calf injury. He made a mistake, but given the circumstances, anybody here who says they wouldn't do the same thing, or, at the very least, consider it, is being a hypocrite. By the way, I've seen nothing that conclusively proves that the substance he used, while banned by MLB, was, in fact, a PED. Somewhere, the whole "Braun used a PED" thing has been milled about in the echochamber that is the internet, and it's stuck-just like the "fact" that Braun called Dino Laurenzi Jr an anti-semite, when not one, but two of the players he "called to back his claim up", Joey Votto and Troy Tulowitzki, have both gone on record as saying that the calls never happened. A leaked test showed that he failed a steroid test. That should have never happened, and it's easy to dismiss that as irrelevant. But is it? At the very least, it shows that somebody was out to besmirch Ryan Braun. The source of the information is irrelevant. We know it wasn't MLB, but somebody connected with the investigation. Braun has PR people, and a legal defense team. He read a statement claiming his innocence, and his words came across as defiant. Do any of you really think he wrote that speech by himself? That he wasn't heavily coached by his defense team as to what he should say? So, what "terrible things" has Braun done? He rubbed some cream on his calf, and, when the results of his confidential test and appeal were leaked, he read a statement calling the process, and the collector, into question. How awful! Cast him into the seventh circle of hell next to Hitler (saving a spot for Justin Bieber). How, exactly, did he throw Dino Laurenzi Jr under the bus? This is a completely untenable position to take, in my eyes. "We learned some things about how the sample was stored, how it was collected, we learned things about the collector." Well, Holy Jesus Christ, Braun created reasonable doubt in his statement. No lawyer has ever done that before. Had it been a lawyer appearing before a court, or in MLB's case, an independent arbitrator like Shyam Das (who sided with Braun knowing all the facts....wonder why?), and these comments were made, nobody would have batted an eye. But Ryan Braun reads this prepared speech before reporters, and suddenly he's the bad guy. He's vilified as a millionaire that "threw the little guy under the bus." No, going back to the statement made earlier, the sample was not handled properly. Major League Baseball did immediately amend the wording of the Joint Drug Prevention and Treatment Program after the Braun overturn, yes. But the chain of custody was still compromised. There's not a forensics lab anywhere in the United States that would accept a sample like Braun's, and enter it into evidence in a legal case. There was a FedEx 24 hour center frequently used by collectors just a few miles from Miller Park, and not out of Laurenzi Jr's way home from the stadium. He could have, and was indeed required to drop the sample off at the facility, just as Braun read in his statement. When he was unable to do so, he was to store it in a very specific way, secured within his home. He didn't secure the package. It was not refrigerated. In fact, it was shoved into a Tupperware container, and left out on a desk in his basement--for two days. And the chaperone that accompanied Laurenzi Jr to the ballpark, the one that was supposed to attest to the integrity of the collection process? It was the collector's son. If I were the defense attorney in a civil case, and my client's sample had been handled in this manner, the case would be thrown out with an apology from the bench. Are we really going to assess that Ryan Braun has perpetrated "an endless list of terrible things?" If that's indeed the case, I think a few people here need to reassess what constitutes a "terrible thing." A woman that walked into the Youtube HQ today and opened fire with a handgun. That is a terrible thing. A professional athlete breaking a rule to heal an injury, and then saying some inflammatory things that got the self-righteous social media-verse in a tizzy hardly constitutes a crime against humanity. A little perspective, people, my God. It's been six plus years. Life is too short to cling to hate, especially over something so utterly meaningless. If you dislike Ryan Braun, fine. More power to you. I don't now, nor have I ever, because I know how quickly things can get distorted today, and how few people actually seek to confirm the veracity of what's being reported. But if you "hate" Ryan Braun, you really need to look inward, because you have some deeper issues.

I don't know what's better. Seeing the Brewers hit back to back bombs to tie and win the game, beating the dreaded "classy" Cardinals in the process, or reading the hand-wringing on Cardinals forums. Glorious!

Let's not forget that through the first 22 games of the season, Braun was mashing when his BAbip was closer to his career norm. He started the season off healthy. Over 92 PA, he was hitting .309 with 16 runs, 5 doubles, 7 HR and 18 RBI. He walked 11 times for a .391 OBP, and his SLG was .630 for a 1.021 OPS. His BAbip was .333. He was hitting .295 with a .918 OPS on August 13th. In 265 PAs, he had 19 doubles, 13 HR, a .370 OBP, and a .549 SLG. His BAbip in those 65 games was .326. After that, the last 39 games of the season, 160 PAs, his BAbip was only .241. Braun is still a .300 30 HR guy. His numbers through August 13th, projected over 162 games: 591 PAs, 48 doubles, 33 HR, 93 RBI, and, again, a .370 OBP and a .549 SLG. Compare that to his career averages through 2012, when he was MVP runner up: 2007-2012: .374 OBP, .568 SLG August 13th, 2017: .370 OBP, .549 SLG To suggest that he's not nearly the player he was is simply inaccurate. The guy hit .305 last year with 30 home runs. He hits 28 doubles vs 25 last year, 3 more in 139 fewer plate appearances. If he can play 125 games next year, I fully expect he'll hit .290-.300 with 30 + doubles and 27-30 HR.

108 years, Cubs fans. Never forget.