sveumrules

i agree that the idea that sheets somehow wasn't there when his team needed him is pretty off base. so they didn't need him for those 198 innings that he put up a top 5 era in the league? how meaningful are those september games if sheets hadn't pitched like the top end starter he is for the first five months?

jack z and prince for king felix? ok, fine. i'll settle for a corey hart/brandon morrow swap.

it's a stat they track over at fangraphs.com, win probability added. their explanation... "WPA is the difference in win expectancy (WE) between the start of the play and the end of the play. That difference is then credited/debited to the batter and the pitcher. Over the course of the season, each players' WPA for individual plays is added up to get his season total WPA." the difference is marginal, and utley is clearly the superior player at this point, i just thought it was interesting to note. it also does not factor in defense. i also agree with thatsfreakinsweet that the largest obstacle to overcome is the bat waggle. if weeks could quiet down his swing i think it would allow his best gifts as a hitter, his good eye and crazy fast hands, to really take over.

not sure if this was mentioned already in the thread, but rickie weeks did have a higher WPA than chase utley this year, 1.74 to 1.47. that mark was sixth amongst second basemen and fourth amongst brewers.

that fifth year option would need to be about 55 million dollars for CC and his agent to even respond to an offer that low ball. santana got 6 and 137.5 so i can't see CC taking anything less than 5 and 125, and even that will surely be a mere starting point to negotiations.

there's no way you offer arby to gagne. his minimum deal would be one year and 8 million. i'd be surprised if anyone offered him three years and that amount. i'd also be surprised if anyone offered a multi year deal in any capacity.

they talked to cappy on fsn when the crew was in arizona and he made it sound like he'd be willing to accept a minor league deal and start the year out in nashville to pitch his way back to the bigs for milwaukee.

apparently all it takes is one shaky mets bullpen to make wes look downright kapler-esque.

i have the exact opposite inclination, personally. i have a great feeling about today, especially with cc on the hill. and i think the pack will be 3-1 at the end of the day (move to lambeauleap if necessary). also, very well put jflick1215.

R L U Z I N S K I (hopefully)

i've got it at home right now from netflix, i'll let you know after i watch it.

Exhibit A Brewers' bullpen +0.89 wins above average. (blue)yeah, but those are just numbers. they leave no room for emotion!(/blue)

remember when no cardinals fans showed up at any postseason games after they backed in with only 83 wins a few years back?

donmoney, who are some of the general managers you feel melvin could emulate next year in putting together his bullpen? what strategy do you think he should employ as opposed to his current methodology? gange was boom or bust all the way. and i'll still take him plus the picks over cordero at 4/46. mota was acquired for estrada. so we essentially traded one unwanted, overpaid player for another. at this point mota has an era lower than league average and an era+ of 106. so he has been slightly above average this year. as for riske he was given a fair contract for the bloated middle reliever market and has underperformed this season. given his past track record in the al i hardly feel the contract was a stretch and would imagine he should bounce back nicely next year. balfour was traded for mcclung. how many effective starts do you think grant balfour could have provided this year? garrison and inman have yet to throw a single mlb inning and could not have helped us during the second half of 07. adams was mainly let go for personal/attitude reasons if i recall correctly. then you look at his home road splits (small sample but hey we're talking about relievers so it's all one big small sample) and that 4.15 road era isn't quite as impressive as the 1.59 home mark. i guess the way i see it is bullpen performance is the biggest turdshoot in the whole game. even bigger than the postseason in fact. there are a small percentage of relievers who year in and year out put up great numbers, but most of them aren't going anywhere because they're already locked up for big bucks or require a premium return in trade. i feel melvin's approach has primarily been a scrapheap approach throughout his time in milwaukee. which was acceptable and yielded some impressive returns early in his tenure. as the team has ascended to contention he tried to supplant that with some veteran arms. some of them overachieved and some of them undereachieved. you'll find this trend throughout major league bullpens. with lower expectaions and salaries this is more palatable. if melvin had instead trusted gagne, mota and riske's roles to unproven mlbers the results would have most likely been worse and people's outrage would be even greater.

rickie's offense barely stacks up at 2b, a postion manned by some of the weakest bats in the bigs. you want to put him in left where most of the big sluggers patrol? i guess he could tun out to be carlos lee with footspeed, minus above average hitting ability.

dadofandy/kramnoj, what do all these numbers mean? they must be wrong because i can remember at least five or six times where men were on base and cameron not only didn't get a hit, but struck out to boot. i think the elias sports bureau is surely just playing a trick on you with all these "statistics" that dispute my selective memory

my instinct would be that hardy gets traded and escobar becomes the ss in milwaukee. i don't think this will happen until the offseason between 09/10, however. the reasoning being that hardy is a somewhat proven mlb commodity, so even though he will be more expensive salarywise to the acquiring team, it would seem that he would have a higher trade value. after the 09 season he will still have two years of arby as well which is pretty much the ideal spot to trade a guy. i have a feeling that with the youth (brantey/escobar) and defensive work needed (gamel/salome) that the next wave will be spending almost the entire 09 campaign in nashville, barring catastrophic injury to a starter

nate, did you lose it more after you saw hardy's name in the lineup or after he went 2 for 5 with a run scored?

it seemed like a really big deal during the top of the 8th tonight when (after bush had been pinch hit for by kapler) braun and bush were throwing a hand towel at prince and all three were laughing pretty hard about it.

as dumb as the hit and run was with parra up, it only changes a 7-2 game into a 7-3 game. obviously that call cost us the game, division, wild card and anyshot of ever signing sheets, sabathia or fielder long term.

2/3rds of the way through the year and we're only on pace for 90 wins. sheesh, talk about underperforming.

it's not your fault...it's your ASPHALT

i don't have a problem with people venting, but at least vent about the right thing. mota and gagne posts after last night? after the first inning they had three runs. at the end of the game we had two. how exactly did gagne contribute to the loss?

my vent is that this thread is misnamed. it should be called the knee jerk, emotional overreaction thread. boo hoo, we've had a rough stretch and we've only got the third best record in the nl.

looks like a young k fed