DoubleSwitch

Juan Francisco is bad. Plus we have another Juan Francisco in AAA named Hunter Morris. Both strike out too much, walk too little, and don't play enough defense to ever make their power work for them, so don't get too bent out of shape just yet. Juan Francisco is not Edwin Encarnacion. Encarnacion was always a good hitter, and Juan has always been a bad hitter. Other than being overweight Dominicans there isn't much similar about them.

At some point soon Fiers just absolutely forces his way back to Milwaukee, right? Striking guys out like he did with his control is no fluke, or merely a deceptive arm angle. It would be nice to see him re-establish himself as Marco Estrada V2.0.

http://i.imgur.com/ZLcLoFR.jpg Frustrating. I guess we've stole a couple this year ourselves, only fair.

Figaro walk off. I believe.

Time for some 3TO heroism

Players that see more pitches strike out more often. 'Waiting for your pitch' inevitably means letting some borderline stuff go that gets called a strike. Example 1A of this, Rickie Weeks, is at the plate right now.

Great to see Henderson looking dominant out there. Duke/Smith/Thorny/KRod has been working so well sometimes I forget he's out there. Not to mention a pretty darn good pitcher in Kintzler presumably ready to come back in a week or so.

When is it time to give Marcus Hanel his due?

Darn. He left a pitch up and Davis hit it hard, that's all you can ask for.

Yeah I expect Braun and Davis' patience to improve over the course of the season, but guys like Gennett, Segura, and Gomez are never going to be big walk guys, and you would probably do more harm than good to mess with their approach too much.

Lefties get strikes called more often on the outside corner. I'm not quite sure why this is, but it is a pretty consistently observed phenomenon. http://www.beyondtheboxscore.com/2013/6/7/4391656/investigating-the-lefty-strike-pitchfx-sabermetrics

Lyle Overbay coming through with that veteran leadership off the bench. Doug Melvin does it again, folks.

One thing Doug tended to do with Free Agent pitching was tend towards 'safer' guys rather than higher risk higher upside types. Of course some of those 'safe' guys ended up being awful. I'm impressed with the Pirates bringing in high upside guys three years straight now. Burnett and Liriano were great moves and Volquez is looking pretty good too. Starting pitching is so sought after that sometimes when you think you're sure you're 'getting what you paid for' you don't end up getting very much at all.

I'm really starting to believe in this kid. He just won't be denied.

Gotta be Hoffman. They always try to tie in the opposing team into the trivia.

Gotta give some credit to Segura for making that catch and tag and making it look easy.

Is there something wrong with Lucroy? He's been hitting for average, power and drawing walks this year. You can't crush em all.

Are the 2014 Brewers really working the count and actually drawing a couple real live walks? What is going on here?

Yeah for as much as I hear that Melvin doesn't let prospects play I can't think of anyone who was held down too long or screwed over. Gamel didn't have a spot to play and when he did his knees couldn't hold up. You can argue that Taylor Green should have been playing over McGehee in 2011, but Green hasn't shown himself to be anything too special. There was some wisdom in sticking with a guy who had put up two good seasons in the big leagues, even if it didn't end up working out too well.

Well Segura is a contact guy and he didn't fare any better.

Well at least Gallardo made him throw some pitches...

Wow. Looked like he was out to me.

Wow I just took a look at what the Padres gave up to get Ian Kennedy, and that was really an under the radar awful move from Kevin Towers. Has any GM ever given up so much for so little as Tower last 2+ years in Arizona? He gave up 2 1/2 seasons of a solid SP for a reliever and a relief prospect. Plus Kennedy's flyball style is a great fit for Petco. Whenever Doug does something that annoys you just remember it could be a lot worse.

I don't know if this bout could live up to the legendary Lucroy vs. Suitcase battle of 2012.

Drafting has been bad for a bit now, but even the best teams have their bad stretches. Take a look at the past 5 or so Rays drafts. They've extended their window of success with smart trades and signings and they always build a cheap quality bullpen, but they pipeline of homegrown talent has dried up since they started winning and stopped getting such good picks. Taylor Guerrieri might be their first big draft prospect in quite a bit and he hasn't played above A ball, and he's currently suspended for his second bad drug test+tommy john. Melvin has frustrated me at times like everyone else here, but I will say I think he's learned from some mistakes and gotten better as time goes on. I don't think he's made a completely indefensible trade since selling Carlos Lee, and really has done quite well. Really he's made quite a few great trades. You can say that it's only hindsight, but all the things that made those guys disappoint were evident when they were traded. Escobar's ability to hit was always his question mark. LaPorta didn't have a position, he stuck out to much and his discipline was a question. In many ways LaPorta was a prototypical 'Melvin player' so I give him even more credit for getting value for him when he could. The power Lawrie showed in 2011 hadn't showed up when he was with the Brewers and it hasn't come back to him since. His soft tossing veteran free agent has consistently upgraded from Suppan to Wolf to Lohse. Lots of people hated the Ramirez signing, but I think it's pretty clear by now it was a good move. The book is still out on Garza, but I am a bit worried about HRs and falling strikeout rate. The big thing is that none of these deals have been big enough or bad enough to totally tie our hands. Is this the best run team in baseball? Obviously not, but I think everyone should take a look around the league and count our blessings. If you told everyone prior to the 2012 season that Melvin wasn't going to tear things down and rebuild I don't think many would envision this team would be as good as it is right now. Plenty of other teams have gone for the traditional rebuild lately and ended up spinning their wheels.