BillScottCanRake

I think if the bucks loose this draft pick, and he re-enters the draft, teams like Minnesota will have to think hard before taking him. If I were a team like Minnesota, and I still wanted him after he sat out an entire year, I'd pick him. If Yi truly wants to play in the NBA, would he really risk sitting out a second year so he can be a FA and go where he wants? Missing two years of basketball would have a huge affect on his game, and he's got to know that.

No images in your signatures, please.

But since they got a little lucky on Friday and took the series from our Crew, they have a little momentum going here. And with the break coming up, Cappy coming off the DL and starting tonight, since they each play the same teams this week... Yes, the Cubs have closed to 6.5, and they have been hot lately. But hot and cold streaks come and go, and as well as the Cubs have played, they aren't going to win at a .750 clip the rest of the year any more than the Brewers will. I wouldn't, however, be shocked if Milwaukee continued to win at a .585 clip, and that would mean 95 wins. There isn't any reason to believe that if the Cubs close to between three and five games that the Brewers won't have another stretch where the win 12-out-of-15 or something. I feel confident in saying that because good teams have stretches like that, and Milwaukee is a good team. This team is different than any Brewer team since '92. They are actually good enough that I expect them to win more than they lose from here on out. Even if they have 3-7 or 2-8 stretches, they can more than make up for them. And last weekend illustrated just how hard it is to make up games in the standings. Its not impossible... but its really hard. Will I worry a bit, and have some creeping doubts? Of course, I am a Brewer fan. http://forum.brewerfan.net/images/smilies/smile.gif But this team is different...

Anyone else think this is a big week for our Crew? Normally I would have answered "yes", but given how Milwaukee responded to going 10-20 from mid-May thru mid-June, I don't think it's "big". Obviously it would be nice to enter the break with a 6-8 game lead, but I really think this team is the best team in the division. While anything is possible, I like the best teams chances to win the division most years. Will I worry a bit if the lead drops to three or four games? I will, because even tho this team is so vastly different than any we have seen since 1992, 15 years of mediocrity tends to make a person wonder "are they really as good as I think?" I guess my answer is "It's no bigger than last week, and no bigger than next week. They are all equally big."

I think Rogers (note it's Rogers without the 'd') has a future. Whether or not that is in the rotation or as a reliever, and how long his career might be is up for debate. He's too young and has too much raw talent to be written off just yet. One thing I'd caution is expecting the rotation to contain purely home-grown pitchers. While I would love Inman, Rogers and Jeffress to join Gallardo, I expect that at least one, possibly two of those will not make Milwaukee's rotation. Past experience has taught us that. I hope they all make it, but I am not expecting it.

pretty sure quiz had a specialty pitch. Villanueva's change is approaching Wise-esque status. It's not there yet, but it's getting closer, and it's a very good pitch. And, as Joe said, his velocity tops out at about 92. If he becomes exclusively a single inning guy, I think he'd work more in the 92 range as opposed to topping out there.

I think that was a joke...

I don't have time to dig thru this now, but here is a section from the NBAPA. www.nbpa.com/cba_articles/article-X.php

Someone e-mailed the D-List this morning about that rule and they didn't seem to know anything about it either. I've seen it referred to in various places, however. That's the same rule that allowed the Bucks to keep the rights to Rashard Griffith. Because he was being paid to play basketball, the Buck retained his rights. Whether or not Yi signs seems to boil down to a few things. - Just how badly Yi wants to play in the NBA this year. If he really, really wants to play this year, he's gonna have to suck it up and play in Milwaukee. - If he really doesn't want to play for the Bucks, he'll need to weigh playing in Milwaukee for four years and becoming a FA against not playing this year and how that affects his draft stock. And he'll also need to consider he may re-enter next years draft and get picked by another team that he doesn't want to play for. I don't think Yi wants to play in Milwaukee, but I suspect that he'll sign so that he can be a FA four years from now rather than five, six or seven years from now.

It seems to me that if this injury continues to be a nagging one, then it will really be difficult for him to put together a productive year. I don't think Weeks can have a what most consider a productive year, when year is defined as game 1 thru 162. Injuries and a lack of production to date have seen to that. That said, Weeks can still have a "successful" season. If he manages to make it thru the rest of the year without doing any sort of additional structural damage to his wrist (and he doesn't need any additional surgery), that's huge for next year. As much as anything, he needs to be healthy. Whether or not he ever turns out to be the player he was hoped to be is open for debate, but he'll almost certainly never be that player as long as he's hurt. With regard to this year, the best one can hope for, I think, is for him to have an August and September this year like his April and May of 2006. If he's able to do that, he'll help this team a lot down the stretch, even though his overall season will likely be considered pedestrian.

If he makes 80 errors this season (has there ever been a brewer prospect with that many?), he's certainly not going to be valued as a third base prospect. Regardless of how many errors he is making now, there isn't any need to make an in season move. What's the rush? If Mat makes 80 errors at third this season (which I don't think will happen), so what? He's making them in A+ ball, not Milwaukee. The minors are first and foremost about player development. He hasn't cost Milwaukee one game in the standings this year. He's still hitting well, so it doesn't appear he's taking any defensive issues to the plate with him. Maybe he'll never play third well enough to stick at the position. But maybe he will. Until there is a NEED to move him, the Brewers won't. And if they do, they'll do it in the off season so they can make sure Mat's ready to play the new position.

'83 was the last time the Brewers had four players make an All Star team.

The same is true in my mind about trading a copy of a MLB or NFL or NBA game. As long as there is no money changing hands, and the only thing that goes between the two trading parties is the CD, that really isn't a problem. The question that has to be answered is: - Is the copy of the game which is being given away available for sale? If so, while you are profiting from the fact you gave away a copy of a tape, the seller (MLB, NFL, etc) is not making a sale they should have made. With regard to baseball games specifically, since MLB.com sales copies of individual games, making a copy of a game for someone is taking potential revenue from MLB. So, while no money is changing hands... it still has a financial impact on MLB.

Doesn't a pitcher have to face at least one hitter once they are announced? If that is the case, and you listed the previous days starter, and your team did bat around, I think that the previous days starter would have to hit because they have to throw to at least one better.

And every time I'm at a game and he starts.. I talk mad smack about him and bam. He does something clutch. I think he's out to get me, so I have a personal vendetta against him. STOP MOCKING ME MENCH! Awesomeness.

It is completely unfair for a division to have 6 team competition when another has only 4. I think the bigger issue than having a 6 and 4 team division is that Texas has to play all their road division games two time zones away on the West Coast. I think that Texas is at a greater disadvantage because of that than any NL Central team is having an extra team to compete with. Adding Houston helps to the AL West helps in that Texas and Houston can both play some of their divisional games in Texas, but it hurts in that another team has to play a large number of divisional in California and Seattle. I think that until two more teams are added there isn't a good enough solution to the problem that baseball will mess with it.

Does anyone know what it takes to move a team from one league to another? I'll be honest, I wasn't paying a whole lot of attention to the Brewers when they moved to the NL, so I don't know if MLB had to offer anything to Milwaukee as an enticement to move. If I get some time I'll try to read up on that a bit. I suspect moving the Brewers was easier because Selig was commissioner and Wendy was the "owner". The other thing that might be hard is finding another team to play in the AL West that is willing to move. I suppose moving the Astros would work as adding another Texas team to the AL West might make scheduling a bit easier and it solves the issue of the NL Central having too many teams. But if Houston does't want to move, it would probably require multiple teams shuffling around, and that might be too much of a hassle. Interleague: 30 games Without getting to much into whether or not interleague play is good or not, that number seems to be a key (if the team moving issue is resolved). If the current number of games (15) is something that can't be easily changed (i.e. it's collectively bargained or something), I think that would make moving it tougher to create a good schedule. I think it's a given that MLB is probably going to expand to 32 teams eventually, much as I would hate that. I think only then are you going to see the leagues even again. That would solve things... eight four-team divisions with no wild card.

Is that Tornado's jersey for a league? Its really well designed and appealing Actually, it was something we did for fun. My daughter's hockey league is named Tornado Youth Hockey and they wear LA Kings jerseys with their own logo. My daughter likes her jerseys, but she thinks they are a bit ordinary. Patrick (colbyjack) was kind enough to come up with a new logo for us and I laid out the jersey. A company out of Canada made 12 sublimation (dyed) jerseys for us at a cost of 90.00, which I thought was a great deal. The hard part was finding 8 other people who wanted to purchase one... though I must say everyone who's seen one in person now seems to want one. The best one is from some russian league( I've been told) it's black, purple and red with a T and a backwards R inside a big gear-like thing. Sounds interesting! I really know nothing about Russian hockey, but they do have some really cool jerseys. One that I didn't take a picture of that I have is a 1980 Mark Johnson away jersey. It is my favorite jersey, even if it's not terribly unique. http://i93.photobucket.com/albums/l68/cthawkinson/Hockey%20Pictures/MarkJohnson.jpg

Said they would go to Manny as next call up if they had to make a move. Awesome news! I know lots of people wanted to see another lefty added, it would be great if they could do it without having to give up any talent.

I know there are lots of rules related scheduling games, some of which I think have been negotiated into the CBA. There are rules about travel, how far you can travel between games and how it relates to when you can play your game, etc. Those things have to be considered when creating a schedule. I also believe the season has to be completed (under normal circumstances) in 180 calendar days, which amounts to 18 off days per team in a season. I don't know if this is part of the CBA or just a ML rule, but either way I don't think you could start the season any earlier or end it any later due to weather concerns. I won't try to crunch the numbers at 3am, but if that 180-day rule is hard and fast, and the number of interleague games is set to 15 per team, it might be possible that you can't create a 162 game schedule that abides by all the rules, even when you don't consider other rules that restrict the how the schedule is built. I suspect that Major League Baseball doesn't think it's too big a deal that two divisions don't have five teams like everyone else. It doesn't seem to be a competitive advantage or disadvantage for those teams, and it's probably easier on the schedulers to make sure each league has an even number of teams than trying to work out all the logistics involved in two 15-team leagues.

Ever since my daughter started playing hockey a few years ago I have started to get into collecting hockey jerseys. I thought I'd post a couple of mine and see if anyone else has any interesting jerseys they can post. The first is a custom jersey that Brewerfan's own Colbyjack help design. He did all the hard work in designing the logo. The pictures don't do justice to how well they turned out. http://i93.photobucket.com/albums/l68/cthawkinson/Hockey%20Pictures/TornadoFront.jpg Back The second is a Stars of Russia jersey. http://i93.photobucket.com/albums/l68/cthawkinson/Hockey%20Pictures/StarsOfRussiaFront.jpg Back Anyone else out there have any cool jerseys?

Are they just going to wait until next spring to move him to corner OF (not like that is a rare commodity in the organization). I don't think there is really any need to make this sort of a move in the middle of the season. I know that playing OF is generally easier than 3b, but there is still a transition. There is no need to do now what could easily be done next spring or the spring after if necessary. Beyond that, you never know what will happen during the second half of the season. Something might change, click, whatever and he might only make 10-15 second half errors. If something like that happens, the Brewers might be inclined to keep him at third and see what happens. I think the Brewers are better of being patient, especially with Mat in A+ ball, as opposed to rushing him to a new position.

Someone is going to plunk him up high to send a message at some point. Awesome... free base runners!

Who actually dials numbers on a cell phone? I don't even know almost anyone's phone number anymore. I just use the contacts list. I have everyone's information in there and I have it backed up on a card for when my phone blows up. Since my contact list doesn't include every number in the universe, and since we routinely call people who aren't in our contact list (i.e. potential new customers, third party vendors, etc), I dial all sorts of numbers of people that I could never call if I had to rely exclusively on a contact list. True, those that I dial most are already in my contact list, but in our business we always try to get new customers. I can't seriously take as an argument that the UI is bad because a user can't dial a number by touch. How often are you dialing numbers on your cell phone? I can't remember the last time I did. Now you don't have to click to your contacts, you can just touch the one you want in the list displayed. That's cool... Everyone has different requirements for a phone. Mine are different than yours. I love knowing exactly where the keys on my phone are, and being able to call or text without having to look. I also like the reliability offered by a phone that has a physical keypad. I've had two cellphone displays go bad on me in the past. I couldn't see my contacts, and I couldn't see who was calling me, or read text messages, but I was able to answer the phone and make out-going calls until I got a replacement. It was inconvenient to be sure, but at least I wasn't dead-in-the water. You might not need or like those things, but I find them invaluable.

I believe someone did it and it came out to about the 175 total that we are looking for, so yeah its an option. That was 175 regular season innings, right? I'd hate to use up all his innings during the regular season when there are innings to be had in October. http://forum.brewerfan.net/images/smilies/smile.gif I don't know what the answers are, but I want Gallardo to be able to pitch during the post season without exceeding his innings ceiling. I suspect that to do that he'll need to spend some time in the pen.