monty57

I remember this as well. After this statement was made I was more okay with CC not signing with the Brewers. I am more comfortable when my team's stud players have "the man" mentality. Yeah, but being "the man" while he was here certainly didn't bother him much. I have no opinion on a guys feelings about being the guy if he can be historically good during a playoff run. I was looking at it more from the light of why a superstar player would choose to sign or extend with one team over another. People in Wisconsin will likely be still be reminiscing about Braun when my now-seven-month-old is ready to retire. Not only did CC say he didn't want to be "the guy" in Milwaukee, it appeared he didn't really want the bright lights of New York City... he didn't sign until they offered such a ridiculous deal he couldn't refuse. Even if they can play under pressure, not every player relishes being in the spotlight. I think Grienke may be that type of player, which is why I'm cautiously optimistic that he will sign an extension to stay in Milwaukee. Wouldn't that be something, Braun, Weeks, Gallardo, Grienke... all signed long term.

Maybe Melvin just wants to boost Yuni's spirits. No one can say Yuni's the worst player in the league as long as Nieves is still on someone's roster :-)

I expect guys like Braun, Fielder, etc. to push him if he does starts to dog it. Maybe that's why he's playing better defense. Someone showed him the footage of Prince pinning Parra to the wall and said "this will be you if you dog it in the field."

This makes some sense. A player can be one of many great Yankees, who will always be overshadowed by others, or they can be a folk hero in Wisconsin for the next 100 years. When CC left, he made a statement insinuating that he was more comfortable where he wouldn't be the one superstar with the spotlight shining on him, and would rather have teammates getting the attention. I think Braun is happy to be "the man" in Milwaukee.

The day Roenicke was hired, he said he liked having a veteran backup catcher. The next day, Nieves was signed. While I dislike keeping Nieves over Kottaras, I am not surprised by the decision. It is interesting that they made the move now, since Marcum has to be on the bereivement list for three days, and they could leave him there until his next start. It does seem like another move may be coming. I'm assuming that Farris is playing SS in AAA so that he will eventually take Almonte's spot. Has he "proven" he can play SS well enough for the Brewers to bring him up as a utility IF / RH bat off the bench? Then we could dump Almonte or place Morgan on the DL when Marcum's back. Hart should be ready shortly, so Almonte really isn't needed anymore if someone like Farris is on the team.

I think Braun is a little more financially savvy than most players. He understands that what he's now guaranteed is an insanely large amount of money. Why risk playing the lottery and potentially gaining more money, but knowing that any day an injury can cause you to never get another dime? I'm happy for Braun and the Brewers, and like that this will most likely send a message out to other players (including but not limited to Marcum & Grienke) that Milwaukee is a place to make a long-term home. I also feel for the Brewerfan.net editor who now has to extend the Salary page out to 2020 :-)

But he's also had some positions with runners on 3rd, so with this small # of ABs, a few purposeful fly balls could account for the seemingly drastic increase in FB%. My guess is his offensive #'s will improve, while his defensive #'s will fall, and he'll end the year somewhere around where most people expected going into the season.

I've given up trying to think of "reasonable" excuses for criminals. He apparently committed a crime. Let him serve his penance. No reason to try to justify it.

Is there any word on what, if anything caused Braun to leave last night's game? Bill & Brian made a big deal about it, since he was replaced by Counsell (who had never played OF), but I didn't hear if there was an injury, and I don't see anything on the Brewers' website today.

Thanks for the clarification guys. And Stevo, I was purposely going over the top in my example, so please don't take offense in my tongue-in-cheek post about your fomer job. It was nice to hear how it's actually done, and it is good to have something other than the "eyeball test" we had to use up until a few years ago to judge defense. My guess is that, as with most new technologies/innovations, while there are some flaws in the early stages, most of the kinks will be worked out.

Russ, to say you know more about these stats than I is a tremendous understatement, so could you please alleviate my fears about the flaws in the data? From a couple of earlier posts, I'm now worried that the plays are being monitored by some drunk college kid while he's chatting up the ladies at the game. "Hey, I wasn't watching. How did Prince get on 1B? Oh, it says a single, so I'll just say he shot a line drive by the second baseman. No one will know the difference." If the data is indeed flawed, then the numbers have to be taken with a huge grain of salt.

The only way to cut out all the noise is to have such a large foundation of evidence that you can spot clear trends and for ERA or defensive stats that takes more than a year worth of data. ...and to have unflawed data. You just mentioned that data is scored differently depending on who scores it, and someone who actually worked for one of the companies posted earlier that he couldn't believe how flawed the data is. Yet, with all of this, some are still treating the "defensive metrics" as gospel, flawed data and all. Now, I'll agree that Yuni is severely lacking in range, but it is impossible to put an absolute value on a player's worth based on any "metric" which relies on admittedly flawed data, small sample or large. To just assume that all of the inaccuracies will even out over time isn't a sound premise. If this is indeed the case (I didn't say the data was flawed, others did), then these "defensive metrics" can be used to get an idea of a player's ability, or it could be grossly exaggerated one way or the other if the inaccuracies happen to be inaccurate in one direction instead of evening out. And, if that is the case, if I were a GM/owner, I would certainly want to look beyond these numbers if I were about to spend millions on a player.

But he said "What Betancourt has done so far this year has no meaning at all in the discussion," when the discussion is about what Betancourt has done so far this year. What he's done is what he's done. If you are talking about what he's done, then what he's done is pretty relevant.

Realistically, I think Gomez will still get a lot of starts in CF. I hope they go with a fairly strict platoon of Morgan/Gomez, but if Roenicke is going to play Kotsay over Morgan on a regular basis, I have to assume he's going to give Gomez a lot of starts over Morgan in CF. As for the final spot, it will likely be between Almonte and Nieves/Kottaras. They still haven't announced who will win the battle for the backup catcher position. I certainly hope they don't keep three catchers, and I hope it's Nieves who gets sent packing. Almonte can't be winning many friends with his play so far, but we really don't have anyone else to call up, and he's a better bench option than Nieves. Other than DH duty, I think Gamel's going to be at 1B in Nashville unless McGehee or Fielder gets hurt. Maybe after Farris gets some experience at SS, or Wheeler gets healthy, they'll be options. On a related note, I hope Counsell's just off to a slow start, and will heat up. If his age has finally caught up with him, then I think we need to bring another utility IF up, and we don't have many options. I certainly don't want to see many games with Almonte trotted out as a 3B/2B, even if he did play there this spring. To the topic of the thread, I'd like to see Boggs brought up to replace Kotsay, but I don't see it happening. Once Hart's back, we won't have any need for another OF.

3115 PA's .295 .390 .685 That looks like enough evidence to me to say that he sucks offensively. He basically had one horribly bad season in 2009, where he posted a .625 OPS. Other than that, he' spretty much been a .700ish OPS guy. That's pretty league average for a SS. He is tilted more heavily towards SLG than OBP, but considering that Escobar hit for a .614 OPS last season, Yuni will likely be a big improvement for us offensively this season. The problem is that his offense hasn't been good enough to make up for his poor range on defense. If you're a bad defensive SS, you should be better than "about average" on offense. Ennder wrote: -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- But again quoting stats of any type much less defensive stats over a small sample is just completely useless, it has no meaning. What Betancourt has done so far this year has no meaning at all in the discussion. Strawboss is trying to show that Betancourt hasn't been that bad defensively so far this year. He is not trying to predict the future. If you are trying to show what a player has done over a two-week period, it's more important to show what he has actually done over that two-week period than what he theoretically should have done over that two-week period. What I just wrote is so blatantly obvious it shouldn't need to be said. It's basically if A=A, then A=A. It seems that sometimes people get so engrained into the idea of "predictive stats" that they forget that players are actually playing in the here and now. The "predictive stats" show that Betancourt should suck on defense this year. For the past two weeks, he has not sucked on defense. Nothing more, nothing less.

I no more expect Betencourt to have an OPS over .700 in July than I would expect McGehee to have an OPS below .700 in July. Too much history to suggest he's going to suddenly become a viable offensive player. Actually, other than his horrifically pathetic 2009 (.625 OPS in 134 games between KC & SEA), he has posted OPS of .666 (half a rookie year), .713, .726, .692 & .693. Nothing earth-shattering, but I don't think it's unreasonable to expect him to have an OPS over .700 for one month (or even a year for that matter). Last year, there were 11 regular SS in the majors with an OPS of .700 or better, and Yuni was #12 with an OPS of .692. OPS in general isn't his problem, nor is batting average or SLG. His offensive deficiency lies solely in the lack of ability to let pitches out of the strike zone go by without swinging at them. I can't believe I'm sticking up for Betancourt, as I do wish we had an upgrade, but I do have to be somewhat objective and realize that there are some things at which he's decent. Otherwise, it's sort of like saying Turnbow was a bad reliver because he didn't have enough velocity. Turnbow had many problems, but velocity wasn't one of them.

But at least with Suppan we all knew it was that he was being paid a lot of money and the Brewers wanted to try to get some return for that money. It may not be the best way to run a roster, but at least on some level I can understand why they did it. I can't think of any reason for holding on to Reed other than a good spring, which all of his competition had as well. He has a terrible track record, he hits LH, we already had two better CFs on the roster and keeping him (and Kotsay) meant losing Boggs and Cruz.

I think Melvin believes that as a #6/7 hitter, Yuni has some value. Sure, he doesn't take walks, but he makes contact and hits line drives, which should drive in runs, as the guys in front of him get on base at a pretty good clip, and often put themselves into scoring position by hitting doubles. Offensively, he will be better than Escobar was for us last year, and will probably be better than Cruz would've been had we kept him or Counsell would be if he tried playing everyday. Defensively he's not good because he has no range, but at least he makes plays on the balls he gets to. I'm not a Yuni fan, and I wish we had at least held onto Cruz as a viable alternative, but there are some things Yuni is okay at. As it stands, we're kind of stuck with him, since we let Cruz walk, Counsell probably can't take playing everyday, and we have no one in the minors ready to step in. Maybe at trade deadline we'll be able to pick up a SS from a team who's out of it, but I really don't see us picking up a journeyman SS at this point.

When we had lengthy discussions during Spring Training regarding the last few guys on the bench, I assumed we would be able to forget about it once the season started. Then Hart's injury went from missing a week of ST to missing over a month of the season, and here we are still talking about it. The reasoning for keeping Reed as a 3rd string CF over Boggs seems to have no valid logic behind it. As it became reality that Hart would have to at least miss some of the season, it should have become clear that we needed a RH bat much more than another bad LH bat on the bench, but yet we still clung to Reed and Kotsay at the expense of Boggs. With the decision made that Counsell, Kotsay and Reed were making the team, we needed a RH bat on the bench. Since we already had a full allotment of OF on the roster, Boggs was the odd man out. As joepepsi stated, Almonte was used as an IF this spring, so the race was between Cruz and Almonte. Since Cruz's bat couldn't really be counted on to be the primary RH bat off the bench, Almonte got the spot. Our bench (and RF while Hart's out) would've been much better if we hadn't decided that we needed Kotsay and Reed on the team. Even if we make the assumption that Kotsay was a lock to make the roster, it seems very clear now (as it probably should have during ST) that it would have been much better to hold on to Boggs and Cruz over Reed and Kotsay/Almonte.

If shifts are ignored, then Weeks and Betancourt won't have any data at the end of the year... they seem to have a shift on every play.

Normally I'd agree, but assuming neither of the starters have a <3 inning start, our bullpen can probably use the work, especially if we're off on Saturday.

Lucroy probably isn't ready for #2 yet. Maybe in a year or two, but not yet. Hart should be a lock for the 2 spot when he returns. I do like Lucroy in the 8 hole, where an ability to take a walk can at least clear the pitcher, and you're not wasting Gomez/Morgan's speed when the pitcher's bunting anyway. Yuni's ability to make contact with the ball with some power, but lack of any ability to take a walk probably suits him best for the 6 hole where he can drive some runs in. Whether or not it makes sense, I don't see Roenicke as a guy who will bat the pitcher #8, so I see Weeks, Hart, Braun, Fielder, McGehee, Yuni, Gomez/Morgan, Lucroy, Pitcher. Assuming they go with a fairly straight platoon in CF, and assuming Lucroy improves on his rookie hitting, I think that' s a pretty good overall lineup that will score plenty of runs for our vastly improved pitching staff.

Pujols will sign a 10 year, $250MM contract, and Prince will use the Pujols and Gonzalez contracts to end up with a deal the Brewers shouldn't even attempt to match. Part of me hopes it's not the Cubs, as Prince is an elite player now, and it'd help the Cubs in the short term. Part of me wants to see the Cubs sign him to a 10-year deal so I can hear the Cubs fans complaining when they're paying a 380-pound 36 year old Fielder well over $20MM / year.

Same reason the Nats gave away Ohka to the Brewers. Someone got upset. Agree. I think the PR machine of the Nats didn't want him because of the fights he got into last season. Apparently, Ken Macha would make a good manager in Washington... I'll take the guy with a little fire in him.

Re: Wolf. Unless we're out of the race, there is no way we trade Wolf mid-season this year. Why would we trade a proven MLB pitcher when we're trying to make the playoffs or even the World Series? First, Wolf is much better than Mitre or Estrada, and second, there's too much chance of injury to any of the pitchers in the rotation. Mitre and Estrada are the insurance in case someone gets hurt. If Rogers, Rivas, etc prove themselves in the minors this year, I have no problem trading Wolf in the offseason, but not mid-season this year. Re: Cruz. Totally agree. For some reason, we had to keep Kotsay on the roster. This led to us cutting Boggs, and since we didn't have another RH bat, and Cruz's bat wasn't good enough to be the sole RH bat on the bench, we kept Almonte. So, if Yuni gets hurt, we can look at our insistance on keeping the washed-up Mark Kotsay as the reason we have no SS.