SoCalBrewfan

Just thinking ahead here...like I'm sure Yost will be. Shouse would be best-suited for an inning facing Roberts, Velez, and Winn...probably the 8th? Gagne should be good for an inning. Mota for the seventh and part of the sixth today?

Just looking at the Giants lineup. Wow. Tough start for them with only one extra base hit in the first three games...but what's truly amazing is how old they are...usually bad teams have opportunities for young players. Aurilia at first? Molina cleanup? None of this is news, of course...and yet I'm still surprised at the extent of things. Fielder drives in Weeks...that's the way to start, fellas. I feel lucky to have this team...wish I could watch up close today.

What bugs some people I think is the suggestion that anyone is less of a fan if they accept a loss and dont start throwing office furniture when the team doesn't sweep.

Bush was disappointing, and I would have been tempted to yank him earlier...it is a common issue with Bush and Yost IMO. But there's truth in the statement above, that innings from your starting pitchers are a crucial thing over the course of the season. Yost has to play for the whole season, and has surely been read the riot act by Melvin after burning his pen early last year. Now the pen is pretty well-rested at this point, with Turnbow, Shouse, and McClung having yet to appear this season...you could easily get four innings out of those guys I would think and it's almost to the point where they need the work one way or the other. And the schedule is pretty forgiving early. So I might have pulled Bush no matter what, but you can certainly argue the opposite case. Hey, some life!

It's possible to be disappointed in the loss, and specific performances, and yet not write off the team (or its fans) as having no killer instinct, insisting they are losers if they don't sweep. Of course everyone is starved for games that count. Still, winning 2 of 3 on the road against your chief rivals is still nice. JMO of course...

A lot of over-reaction from the board today. Is this your first IGT? In the IGT, every pitch is do or die, and failure means the end times are nigh. http://forum.brewerfan.net/images/smilies/wink.gif

I think suppan gets PH for, if they get that far. I hope it happens this inning, because he was due 7th...I'd feel pretty safe with Turnbow and a 7 run lead. Oouch...my eyes.

Not to get ahead of things too much, but who would be surprised if a slow start and some defensive glitches mean that management turns on Soto, as they have with so many young players...put him on the Corey Patterson track?

Suppan at 79 pitches, Lee leading off the inning....I say he goes one more inning but could be two. Another run wouldn't hurt since three-run leads make me nervous now...two or four, just not three. (Incidentally, gotta love a couple of .330 obp guys batting ahead of DLee...44% of the time that's back to back outs.)

They would of pitched around Kendall and faced Suppan. True, but then you wouldn't have the pitcher leading off the inning in any event. Still, I'm more than willing to chalk one up for the Kendall 9th thing. Tho it will look a lot prettier with Cameron hitting second instead of (ugh) Kapler...thank you Braun for picking this one up and making Yost look all smart and all.

Well there's the first example of the pitcher batting 9th working. It is going to go both ways but it has worked here. Except don't forget that Suppan batted with a runner on second and two out last inning...a Kendall double there (admittedly a big assumption) would have been purty neat. Still, Kendall leading off an inning is better than the pitcher any day, and I'm glad Ned has shown a willingness to learn and try new things.

Me, I like doubles and home runs. Heavy manufacturing, rust-belt style. Machine tools and foundries, baby... http://forum.brewerfan.net/images/smilies/wink.gif

Just looking at the rate stats will lead you to overrate Vargas...for a starting pitcher, innings are an extremely important number. Suppan or Bush (or Doug Davis) is an excellent bet to put up something like 200 innings with an ERA around league average. Vargas is a little worse as far as the rate stats, so he'd be a little less valuable for an equal number of innings. But there's little reason to believe that he's a good bet for 200 innings...he's only topped 135 once...and history shows those missing innings will end up going to somebody worse...often a lot worse. The reason that league average inning eaters get multiyear deals for big bucks is not their pedestrian ERA...it's the innings they pitch that keep a truly awful pitcher off the mound...every inning Suppan (or whoever) can't take is a good bet to go to another Winkelsas type, or a prospect who isn't quite ready for prime time, and may never be. Speaking of which, guess who's just been cut loose by Kansas City? http://www.kansascity.com/sports/story/547373.html

But this happens every year...the analysis is often based on free agent signings and trades, with a healthy sprinkle of gut feeling, but little regard for the fundamentals like, say, runs scored and allowed. Brewers lost Cordero, Reds got him, so that overrides the hundred plus run gap between the teams last year. The Reds do have some nice young talent on board, so they'll get some buzz by writers trying to look ahead and guess the next big thing. Sadly for them, it seems that the new manager there is looking to crappy vets ahead of the youngsters...which might be fine in the long run unless and until they start to change the young guys' approach, bench them a few times, proclaim them the savior of the franchise, then bench them again, only to wonder why their youngsters aren't as good as advertised. The great irony of course is that this time Corey Patterson has switched roles... As a fan in the big picture, rather than just a Brewers fan, you have to like the collection of youngsters in Cincy...it's very much like the Brewers a year or three ago. Let the Reds have some love...maybe it'll get some young Brewers fired up.

Suddenly that Doug Davis trade last year doesn't seem as good. There's nothing sudden about it. Ennder may appear to say that Davis and Vargas are the same guy, but I think most everyone else would agree that the Brewers came out behind in the deal...releasing Vargas doesn't really change the analysis much, though it does eliminate any further chances of him saving the deal.

I don't understand the motivation here...it looks like you've decided that Weeks has to go, for no reason that I can really understand. It doesn't match Melvin's MO at all, nor does it match the team's current situation well IMO...you'd be selling low on Weeks, you'd be cutting a hole in the infield with no longterm (or even short-term) replacement in mind, before what looks to be a season or four of playoff contention, you'd be adding a reliever after the team blew a zillion dollars on relievers. Street is better and younger than any of the guys they've added, but right now they'd have to make another move or two with the staff...and honestly I think they're not likely to do that until they see what they have. If a Weeks deal were likely, it wouldn't come now and in this form...there would have to be a plan for the infield (and much as I like Joe Dillon, he's not a longterm solution at second), and the deal would provide longterm solutions that would address a clearcut need for the team. This coming offseason, such a deal might well be possible, but the team's needs (and the assets they have available to address those needs) will have evolved in the meantime...a replacement for Weeks might be clearer, and the veteran relievers will be coming off the books, but Luis Pena might well be ready to step in, and the Brewers might well have spent some high draft choices on college relievers.

there would have to be a train wreck (literally or figuratively) for Pena to be on the club before September. Pena on the club in any capacity? I think all it would take is a combination of two or three things...Pena pitches well in the first half down in Nashville, and one or two of the veteran RH relievers (Gagne, Turnbow, Torres, Mota, Riske) either get hurt or pitch badly. Sadly, I think the odds are pretty good that one or more of our $3M men in the pen will break down in some way.

hmm, there are waffle houses all over the south, and I believe you can get grits at them. Yes...apparently my reference didn't register there. I guess you are not familiar with the Waffle House - IHOP line? http://www.theonion.com/content/node/36622 grits are terrible, Heathen.

Grits are underrated. Not grit, mind you, but grits...I've lived south of the Waffle House line, so I've had some really good grits. I'd have to think hard about grits vs. a mashed potato. I gues what I'm saying is that it's not fair to grits to compare it (them?) to Gwynn's offense. Ned went with a Jenkins/Mench platoon last year until Dillon got hot in September, so he uses it nicely if that's the parts he has. I would not cite Mench as an example of Yost using a platoon nicely. Of Mench's 308 plate appearances, do you know how many came against RHP? Remember that he had an OPS of 564 vs. RHP, as opposed to 900 vs. LHP, and that the team had Jenkins and Gross to hit RHP...both were better defensively in addition to the platoon advantage, so there was little reason to have Mench in there vs. righties. Platooning would mean that the guy would never see a righty, right? Or almost never? How about 46% of his PA coming vs. RHP? Forty-six percent. FORTY SIX PERCENT? One of those plate appearances will stick in a lot of people's heads, of course. Ned Yost has many characteristics as a manager, but I don't think there's evidence to support the notion that adhering to strict platoon roles is one of them.

Are you telling me that sliding Hart to CF and Dillon in RF against lefties is the inferior alternative? I'm not sure who the 'you' is here...Al, or me, or another poster, or Ned Yost and Doug Melvin? Honestly, I don't get Kapler either, except that he has ties to Melvin, bats RH, and can presumably play some good defense, in keeping with the Brewers' unofficial 2008 theme of 'hey, let's catch a few balls this year.' I hope that he's a short term fix while Cameron is suspended, at which time he will become a roving outfield instructor or something, but something tells me he'll endear himself to the 'brain' trust and stick all year. He did have some good numbers vs LHP a couple of years back, so if they confine themselves to using him in CF vs. LHP in the first month, he may well be a decent fit. But is it worth keeping the guy on the roster for that? Particularly given Yost's seeming reluctance to go with strict platoons...

But it's not like Vargas has consistently been a 200 inning guy except for last year....he pitched 167 innings in 2006, but last year (134) is his second highest in terms of IP. Davis has averaged over 200 IP for the last four years. Even if you accept the premise that the rate stats show that they are equally effective when they pitch, which is arguable, rate stats don't tell the whole story. In terms of single-year performance, I don't see much merit in the claim that Davis and Vargas are equally valuable, or that they are the same guy. Vargas was a bit cheaper, but he was also less valuable. And I think you'd have to project the same outcome next year...does anyone realistically project Vargas to pitch 200 innings of league-average ball? Vargas isn't worthless by any stretch of the imagination, and I'll root for the guy, of course. But I'd rather have Doug Davis, hands down.

Not only was Davis a bit better in terms of FIP, but he also pitched 192 innings vs. 134 for Vargas...and that is a significant issue for a starting pitcher. Davis would not have looked as good with the Milwaukee defense, but he was still more valuable than Vargas last year.

All this talk about 11. Why don't you just make 10 louder, and make that the largest number? Honestly, stats shouldn't be published for the month of April, much less spring training. The level of competition and effort in spring games is so uneven that it's almost a sheer coincidence if any of those numbers mirror full-season values. It's almost as pointless as noting that some hitter is 4 for his last 18...it's just noise to fill up otherwise dead air (or ink for filling otherwise blank sports pages). Suppan has a track record, as noted above, and his performance is more predictable than that of almost anyone on the team...until and unless he gets hurt or just loses it due to old age...and I'd trust a scout or pitching coach to spot that before relying on spring training statistics. I do think that it's very much not nice and not classy to wish for anyone to be injured.

Yeah, I realize that, but I don't see him getting a lot of time in an OF corner given the current makeup of the team...he's not a big step up offensively or defensively in either corner over Gross or Kapler, probably would outhit Gwynn but at the expense of D, and bats RH like both Braun and Hart. I would imagine that when a corner OF starter gets a day off, Gross or Gwynn would face a RHP, but also that neither Hart nor Braun would get a lot of time off barring injury given that they are important cogs in the offense. On the other hand, he naturally complements Prince for those rare occasions when Fielder doesn't play (RH vs. LH), and can play 2b or 3b adequately if Weeks or Hall is banged up, providing an alternative to Counsell who is the only backup at short. (Weeks in particular seems to get banged up.) Another way of saying this is that they have other backup OF options, who fit better given the makeup of the team....but only three or four backup infielders (Counsell, Nunez, Dillon, and maybe Rottino). So I don't see Dillon as competing directly with the OF pool, but rather fighting Nunez and maybe Rottino for the backup IF / jackofalltrades job. Dillon's ability to play corner OF slots might be a bonus for him in that competition, in much the same way as Rottino's catching experience helps him, or Nunez' ability to play SS helps him, but I doubt it's the primary role they envision for Dillon. I could certainly be wrong about this as they frequently construct the roster in ways that don't make sense to me.

From the summary (thanks for the summary!) it seemed to me that it was more a matter of Dillon vs. Nunez (possibly vs. a pitcher), rather than Dillon vs. an outfielder. That makes sense to me, with Dillon viewed as a backup for every infield position except SS, as well as the primary RH pinch hitting option. They almost have to start with five OF: Hart, Braun, Gross, Gwynn, Kapler. The Cameron comment (Dillon has a better chance to make the team with Cameron out) seems to be a matter of balancing the bench for defense vs. offense...with a bench OF in the starting lineup, the need for PH / bench bats means we don't have room to keep two defensive-minded infielders in Counsell and Nunez. They will have to make a decision when Cameron returns. At that point, it would make little sense (to me at least) to keep six outfielders and only one infield reserve.