KeithStone53151

The Mets are spiraling under Stearns. Hard to judge a GM based on their first year with a club, but the Mets don't really have much reason for optimism in the short term or the long term. All that money to buy players, but it's quite critical to buy the right ones. It's hard to know which players are going to get fat and not give a crap about winning once they get the big contract. Are you signing Albert Pujols/Jordan Zimmerman, or Bryce Harper/Max Scherzer?

To add to your argument, Chourio and Weimer are much more likely to improve than Taylor at this point(especially Chourio). Fwiw, I think Houser still hangs on for a bit longer as a reliever...relief is so volatile that I think he'll put together enough good stretches to stay in the league a bit longer. It should have been quite obvious that these guys would be fringe roster players going forward.

The amount of variety you can throw is significantly less with a 2 pitch mix than a 3 or more pitch mix. Even if they sequence/tunnel their pitches very well, it's still only 2 pitches and the combinations of what they can see is less and should be easier to hit. There's a reason most starters throw 3+ pitches.

The Cubs have 3 effective starting pitchers than that are basically 2 pitch pitchers...reeeeally.

Please start Turang in the leadoff spot...🙏

This is extremely dramatic, and also wouldn't be an issue if umpires didn't abuse their power. It's one thing when Kyle Schwarber slams his helmet down and starts screaming at an umpire, it's quite another when a guy scoffs or calmly says "that was not a strike". Imagine if instead of getting ejected, the umpire issued a warning(yellow card, first technical, etc). It gives the player a chance to chill and walk away, rather than getting kicked out. More players/managers get ejected in MLB than any other major sport, probably all of them combined(i'm talking ejections, not 6 fouls in basketball). That tells you the problem is these overcompensating umpires who get so many calls wrong and their biggest mistakes are usually where ejections happen. They've proven they don't deserve the power, have NY make these decisions. Fwiw, ABS was tested at MLB ballparks in 2022 and has been tested in the minors the last few years. Even if your dramatic response is actually correct, the problem should disappear quickly.

This year I've seen a manager thrown out for literally nothing, because a fan said something to the umpire and the umpire thought the manager said it. The umpires don't deserve the power to throw people out of games. They clearly aren't applying it correctly even by the currently ridiculously low threshold for players/managers getting thrown out of games. If I had my way, 95+ percent of ejections wouldn't happen. In addition, add a warning system to avoid an ejection. Every other major sport has one.

MLB is not the same as other sports. I can be perfectly happy watching an NFL game for whatever teams on Amazon prime. For baseball, I only want to watch the Brewers. I would think this is quite common. Adding a stupid paywall is not a good idea for the long term health of the game. I also generally find this practice by Apple to be quite predatory. Hoping the old people that actually want to watch all the games will subscribe to their mediocre product and forget to unsubscribe after the game they want to watch is over. Quite the business model.

Feel free to be annoyed with their whining, it's not cause to get thrown out of a game. Whether a call was correct or not is only relevant in that it's slightly less pathetic when they are actually right for a change. In no other sport do players get thrown out of the game for disagreeing with a ref. Try watching an NFL game and watch how the coaches interact with the refs, and it's quite rare for them to even get an unsportsmanlike conduct penalty...much less get tossed for giving a ref an earful.

Another entry into the hill I will die on. Every time an umpire ejects a player for no reason, MLB should refund every single paying fan. Just take away the right of umpires to eject players already. Every ejection should be reviewed by NY at this point. Clearly these nimrods can't be trusted with the power.

By the letter of the law, maybe. But considering it was unintentional and didn't impact the fielder really at all, and was just completely irrelevant to the play...use some common sense judgement...call the infield fly...and move on

Bro.....

In 2022, in over 600 PA in the minors, Turang posted a 781 OPS vs LHP and 767 vs RHP. In 2021, in around 500 PA, he posted a 705 OPS vs LHP and 711 vs RHP. These numbers certainly aren't great, but it shows 1100 PA of him hitting LHP roughly equally as well as RHP. And the point regarding Harper is, you don't just platoon your best prospects. Turang was a first round pick, a top prospect in our system, clearly we thought enough of him to bring him to the major league level. And now we're platooning a guy in the midst of a breakout year despite the fact that he hasn't shown a specific inability to hit lefties. It's checkers for simpletons, and is a disservice to the player and the organization long term. The team will be better off next year if Turang sees 150 PA against LHP and continues to maintain that skill or improve it. If he never starts against LHP, he'll inevitably see LH relievers and be less likely to be good against them as he doesn't see LHP nearly as often.

Both turang and bauers had been on a bit of a roll too. Can't sit these guys 3 days in a row right now. It's horrendous management.

4-18. Yup, permanent platoon. Last year turang wasn't good against either handed pitchers. He was generally lost. Check his minor league splits. He's also not going to improve against lefties if he doesn't face them. Benching turang against lefties is short sighted checkers for simpletons

This is flawed. Check his AAA and aa splits. Also, we should want turang facing lefties to get better as an all around hitter. Not giving the chance is just stupid and a disservice to the player and the Brewers long term. Imagine if the Nationals didn't let Bryce Harper bat against lefties...

Chourio should be counting the days until he only plays against lefties. Apparently every top prospect in our system automatically becomes a platoon bat...Turang is 6 for his last 13 and has been one of our best hitters this season, but yes we should definitely platoon him.......

I was generally wrong about the bullpen, to this point. Going in, they were always going to be worse than last year. Being 10% worse than last year is probably a top 3 bullpen in baseball. I expected the pen to be significantly worse and had a pretty good chance at being worse than middle of the pack. I thought we were so used to being good there, and counted on a lot of breakout guys to maintain...which bullpen arms fluctuate a ton year to year. I was right to a degree in that the breakout guys from last year as a whole are a fair amount worse this year. Peguero, Payamps, Milner, Megill, and Uribe are the 5 I think of from last that really made the bullpen special. Williams was expected to be good, these guys weren't. Milner and Megill are better than last year to this point, Peguero probably slightly worse than last year, Uribe/Payamps significantly worse than last year. I also didn't think the Brewers would again find guys like Hudson and Koenig out of nowhere to make up the production and fill in at the back of the bullpen. I am a bit nervous about bullpen overuse. The Brewers are dead last in the league in innings covered by a SP at 213 in 43 games. Less than 5 innings per start on average. Milner is on pace to pitch in 75+ games. Hudson on pace to throw close to 100 innings. Counsell was the absolute gold standard in pacing his bullpen for a full season, hopefully Murphy/Arnold are able to find ways to do it almost as good.

The Brewers are problematically obsessed with platooning players. I'm quite annoyed that turang is sitting today(unless he's banged up). And Ortiz is clearly also being heavily platooned. I feel like brewers management doesn't understand, or doesn't care, that turning all your best hitters into platoon bats without giving them a fair chance is detrimental to long term development.

https://www.mlb.com/news/2023-mlb-manager-of-the-year-voting-totals 7th of 15 teams in the NL. But he only got 1 vote(probably from a Cubs beat writer...yes this is an assumption), so it's really not relevant at all while the other 6 getting at least 5 votes in the top 3 is actually relevant.

Nor should it. This is such a soft line of thinking, and the logic is so incredibly flawed. Poor David Ross...the guy has made $30 million over his career and is at best a below average manager at this level. The Cubs clearly didn't think highly enough of Ross to NOT reach out to Counsell when the opportunity presented itself. What is Counsell supposed to do when the Cubs reach out? "Nah, I can't, poor David Ross"...give me a break.

You don't know that he'd have kept his job otherwise, for all we know they had other options in mind if Counsell didn't pan out. And it doesn't matter regardless. It's not counsells responsibility to defend David Ross's career. The cubs were willing to move on for the right candidate, Ross losing his job is on the cubs...but really it's on Ross for not doing more during the seasons he had. I said it earlier, but this narrative is soft and reeks of participation trophy mentality.

In 2023 he was 7th in the NL for manager of the year, getting a second place vote, probably from the cubs beat writer which means zero. Ross was brought in as a last ditch attempt to help the Bryant/Rizzo/Baez core make one last magical run. He had no other managerial experience at any stop and the cubs have been mediocre during his tenure. Ross was always a placeholder until an opportunity presented itself for them to overpay.

I drafted up a longer response, but it's not worth it. This argument is just so soft and reeks of the participation trophy mentality. David Ross was a bottom 10 manager in mlb at best. There are only 30 jobs. Counsell taking more money will have a positive impact on manager salaries going forward. David Ross losing his job as collateral damage was not Counsell's fault, it was a decision by Cubs management. Any negativity towards Counsell regarding the impact to Ross is completely irrational. You may have the last word if you'd like.

I've seen this narrative alot in here. Blaming Counsell for Ross losing his job is probably the most silly part of the discussion. Blaming Counsell for a decision by Cubs management to offer him the job makes absolutely no sense. Imagine sitting here and giving every single MLB free agent grief because a team signed them, which led to a different player losing his job. There's really no other way to say it, this argument is ridiculous and should stop being pushed...