monty57

Invader, is that based on something or just a guess? I don't know anything about players who've had two TJ surgeries, but all I've heard is that he was coming back to start. If he is able to come back and compete for a starting spot it's huge news for the Brewers. Having him or Parra at AAA to be called up when an injury occurs would be a wonderful change from last season. This could be the poor person's equivalent of the "Bedard-type signing" many have been pining for... or it could reduce the risk of our doing a separate "Bedard-type signing."

I'd guess that not all intentional walks are the same, as Topper mentioned. There are times when it's probably a good idea to walk someone. However, some managers (not mentioning names) seem to intentionally walk someone every time first base is open.

Davis and Capuano both pitched well for the Brewers. Who cares if they threw hard? I'd love to have someone who could go out there every five days and be reasonably likely to pitch 6-8 decent innings. Not counting the playoffs, Wolf pitched 7+ innings 12 times last year, and pitched less than 6 innings 5 times. That can really help the bullpen, and is one of the big things we missed last year. As TheCrew said, Gallardo's got good stuff, but cannot be counted on to go late into games. Giving the 'pen a night off here and there is huge. Hopefully Wolf can help with this. One thing that seems to be forgotten is that we need five starters, and we will need five starters in 2011 and 2012. Signing Wolf may stop us from signing someone like Myers, but it will not preclude us from making a trade for a young "high upside" starter, if that trade exists. Wolf will hopefully provide some stability to this year's rotation, and be a veteran part of the rotation while the young pitchers fill in over the next few years. Continually signing one-year deals is continually trying to catch lightning in a bottle, and while you limit some risk, you eliminate payroll certainty and open yourself up to market risk. This is the ultimate "plug hole A" strategy. Trading for high upside guys who've worn out their welcome somewhere can pay off big, but it can also lead to Capellan / de la Rosa situations. I guess I'm not too upset that Melvin tends to build a core from a conservative strategy, and takes some shots with the likes of Capellan, Turnbow and de la Rosa, and "scrap heap" guys like Davis. I guess I'd liken it to building a stock portfolio around blue chips, and only using "money you don't mind losing" betting on penny stocks. The bottom line for me is that very few teams are willing to trade away a "can't miss" pitching prospect (unless it's for someone like Prince), so we need to get our top-line starters through the draft. It seems that lesson has sunk in with the Brewers' brass, as we've got a good core of young pitching talent coming up, and spent a lot of high picks last year on "big pitchers with good stuff." We just need a bridge to get us there, and I think Wolf is probably the best Melvin could do, as he seems to be the best mix of good pitcher with limited chance of blowing up that we could get.

considering Beltre is a Boras client, I don't think anyone (including the Red Sox) is expecting him exercise the player option unless the market is even worse next winter. Or if he gets seriously hurt and can't play, in which case the Sox will have to pay him. Or, if he plays very poorly this season. Player options really are not something teams should want. They're only exercised if it's going to hurt the team.

Maybe they think they can trade him for Carlos Lee at the deadline. As a fan, I'd really, really hate to be going into the season knowing that's going to be the lineup thrown out there everyday. Of course, if it were the Brewers, I'm stubborn enough that I'd still watch them every night hoping for a miracle.

I took a couple of months off, trying to purge my disgust with Macha. I just went back and re-read some of my posts from the end of the season, and I'm going to try to stay level-headed and not do a bunch of Macha-bashing. Therefore, I will not focus on the Brewers here and just make a general statement: If OBP is one of, if not the most important offensive stat, how can it be a good idea to give away a lot of free bases to the opposing team? A team that intentionally walks a lot of batters would seemingly give up more runs than they otherwise might.

No doubt about that Logan. Although Mike Burns probably pitched above his expectations, since his expectations to start the season were "Who the bleep's this guy?"

Well put Ennder. On the offensive side... How bad were JJ & Kendall? According to ESPN's stats, there were 103 players in MLB last year with 400 ABs. By OPS, JJ was # 96 & Kendall #100. There were 143 players with 300 ABs. Hardy was #131 and Kendall #139. They were among the worst hitters in all of baseball!! Now, I don't think many people expected too much out of Kendall, although a .636 OPS may have been at the low end of expectations, but Hardy was expected to be a cornerstone of our offense, and he was off the charts bad. Corey Hart was in the bottom third of all MLB RF. Maybe that's what was to be expected, but it's not good. Then there's the bench, which was almost entirely turned over last year. And finally, there is our opening day full-time starting 3B. The guy this thread is about, the one and only Bill Hall. Somehow, there was a player to hit worse for Milwaukee than Kendall and Hardy, and that player is Billy, with an astounding .606 OPS for the Brewers in 2009. Yes, Prince and Braun has wonderful years. McGehee, Counsell and Lopez all played well when given time and Cameron probably played up to expectations (although a little below 2008). Overall, our offense wasn't bad last year, but without phenominal seasons by Prince and Braun, we probably would have been pretty pedestrian.

First off, thank you, JoePepsi. Logan, Hardy probably did need more rest. I am certainly not a Macha fan. His methods of playing certain players every day without rest while letting others rot on the bench is only one of the reasons I hoped he would only be around one season. However, JJ seemed to need three days off at a time. Earlier in the season, Macha sat JJ for three days to get his head together. Then, when he was sent down, Hardy said something to the effect of "I just needed 2 or three days off, not to be sent to AAA." I can see someone needing a day off now and then, and I agree Macha is bad at things like this, but why would JJ need or ask for three days off in a row, unless he was injured, which has never been brought up as being the case. Agreed. It's not going to be fun watching Hardy have a good year next year for the Twins. We can only hope that Gomez can step up and play to his potential. RockCoCougars, while I definitely share your sentiment that I want Gomez to play to his potential, I hope Hardy does well. I've cheered for him for a long time now (since Beloit), so it would be hard for me to root against him. The Twins got a player with a lot of potential to bounce back and be a very good SS, which they needed. They are also paying his full salary, so they'll look bad if Hardy has another down year. The trade gave the Brewers needed salary relief in addition to a young player with huge upside potential, which he currently has not lived up to. Looking at Adam McCalvy's recent article, it appears this salary relief was more necessary than I had originally thought. The Hardy trade essentially saved the Brewers Hardy and Cameron's salary, so it did save the Brewers a lot of money. Whether the money has been used wisely has been the topic of many posts, but to bring this back to the topic of this thread, Bill Hall is a big part of the reason the Brewers needed to dump this salary. If he'd have continued to hit around .280 with 30-35 HRs a year for the past few years, things would have been a lot different.

One of the first decisions Macha made after being announced as manager was to name Bill Hall as the everyday 3B. This was before ST last year. Hall was given every chance to shine, and he blew it, just like he has ever since signing his contract. Melvin essentially traded him for around $1.5MM (IIRC) in salary relief and to open up a 25-man spot for someone more useful. The $1.5MM he saved could probably be looked at as what we're using to pay Counsell this season. As for Hardy, I have to agree with the poster that agrued that we couldn't have screwed his progression up too much, if he was able to become an All-Star. We may have cost ourselves some "cheap" years, but it's hard to argue that bringing him up early is what hurt him last season. He had a really bad year, and that's on him. The fact that he whined that he needed more rest probably expidited his trip to AAA. I think that some of the people who complain that we didn't trade him prior to last year would have been complaining just as loud if we had traded him, and Escobar came up and sucked, and Hardy tore it up with the team he was traded to. As has been stated, Suppan wasn't/isn't useless. He is probably an average 5th starter. He is overpaid, but not useless. Our biggest problem with pitching is lack of de. pth. If Bush and Suppan had sat out with injuries last year (and the previous year for Suppan), their numbers would likely be better. However, the team needed someone to pitch, so they toed the mound, even though they clearly weren't 100%. Melvin and Jack Z both deserve blame for lack of depth, but so do Jeffress, Rogers, Jones, etc. Maybe there's an element of bad luck in things other than BABIP and HR%. It's hard to be perfect. Melvin took over a horrid franchise (not just at the MLB level). He has turned it into a respectable franchise. We used to long for a .500 season. Now we go 80-82 with a team that had a fair share of injuries and players playing well below their projections, and we're upset about it. I went into last year hoping fro playoffs as well, and wish we had a better season than we did, but to the anit-Melvin crowd, please stop bashing Melvin on every single thread. I understand you're upset at some of the things he's done, but he has had a LOT to do with Brewers fans being able to be proud of their franchise for the first time in 20+ years.

The other long term issue is whether an offense can succeed with a pair of star players and a bunch of average/below average players elsewhere. The Brewers need to pay attention before they split up Braun/Fielder. That was my first thought as well. This could show whether a strategy of locking up Fielder, going "cheap" with the rest of the offense and spending on pitching is a viable strategy for the Brewers.

My take is that Hart has little trade value whatsoever as there are comparable free agents that will be costing similar money as Hart will cost after his arby negotiations. If the Brewers trade him, he would have to be packaged with a very attractive prospect to get any return. Either that or the Brewers trade him for the salary relief. I agree with that. When I mentioned trading Hart earlier it was only in the unlikely situation that we would be able to sign someone like Holliday. Then I'd give Hart away simply for the salary relief if that allowed us to sign Holliday. Almost certainly not going to happen. As it stands, we don't have much OF depth at the major league level, so the best we can do is to hope for a bounceback. I kind of expect a Hart/Gerut "soft" platoon as they are similar players in that they've both put up big years in the past. If one of them breaks out, play him and let the other be the 4th OF. I think Hart is given the benefit of the doubt because he came up through the system and Brewers fans witnessed his good season first hand. I'd say Gerut has just as good a chance of having a good year as Hart, and they should complete for PT. I guess our new CF could be thrown in there as well, but my guess is that if Melvin has any control of the team, he will undoubtedly be the full time CF at least to start the season.

Wasn't Smoltz tipping his pitches with Boson last year? Duncan/LaRussa noticed it and he pitched better after that.

They absolutely have to get Suppan out of the rotation, wouldn't Davis be an upgrade over Suppan? I'd like to see another pitcher signed or traded for, but my guess is that if/when that happens, Parra will start in AAA, with Suppan in the rotation. If he doesn't cut it, and we have some healthy bodies to replace him, I think he'll be let go mid-season, but I think he'll be given an opportunity to sink or swim. He's getting paid one way or the other, and he is probably better than most #5's out there. Might as well see if he can be productive and cut him if you can't. At the very least, it would give some of the AA guys, and guys like Capuano time to see if they're ready to pitch in the majors and provide injury depth. It has a snowball's chance at best, but I'd love to see Mark A. steal Holliday away from the Cardinals. It would make OF defense a daily adventure if Hart were starting in CF over Gomez, but the offensive oomph added would more than offset that. **Snap** Now I woke up. I share your feelings on Holliday, but if somehow we were able to sign him, Hart would almost certainly be traded.

I'd guess that Melvin saying he wants to wait until he sees what's happening in FA means that he's taking a shot at someone like Lackey. If he signs Lackey to a 4-5 year deal, or if he takes someone like Lowe in a trade, he probably won't be able to tie up money in Fielder. If he instead signs someone like Davis/Washburn for 1-2 years, he could still sign Prince. In 1-2 years, our pitching staff and many of our position players will be filled with pre-arby guys unless we go out and sign a FA pitcher this year to a big-money deal or trade for a big money pitcher with a longer term deal. Then it gets back to Russ' earlier thought on our time fram. In my opinion, if we are looking at going for it all in the next two years, signing Lackey might be a good idea. If we are we looking longer term, it might be better to lock up Prince and sign some lesser (and cheaper) pitchers to 1-2 year deals to hold the fort and hopefully keep us competitive until the next crop of prospects is ready.

TheCrew07, isn't it kind of normal for a player on their first year back from TJ to lose velocity, which they get back after about a year? I'm definitely no expert on this, but Cappy was only a high-80's guy before the surgery, so it wouldn't be too hard to believe he could get back there. They do add needed depth, plus it may help some of the young guys at AAA to have a couple of guys with some major league success in the rotation with them.

This is a tough call, and Russ is correct that there isn't a clear-cut answer. That said, I'd like to see the Brewers build from a core, as others have mentioned. Braun and Prince are the cream of the last crop, so do what you can to retain them. The next crop is coming up, with 2B (Lawrie), 3B (Gamel/McGehee), SS (Escobar), C (Salome/Lucroy), CF (Cain/Schafer/Gomez) RF (lots of players in low minors). Some of these players will falter, some will be average, some will be good, and hopefully some will be great. Try to lock up the great ones. If we didn't have so much offensive talent coming up (at every position but 1B), I may look at things differently and think that we should trade Prince for the best offer we can get. However, with the young, cheap talent coming up, building around Prince and Braun seems to be the best way to build an offense. As long as those two are anchoring the offense, it will be good. If some of the prospects live up to the hype, the offense should be very good. This move would also open the door to signing as good of pitchers as you can get for the next year or two, and allowing a good offense anchored by Braun / Prince and the youngsters mentioned above to be in place when the high-cieling prospects currently in the low minors finally make it to the majors. Play the game to be good now and in the years to come.

TheCrew07, I agree with everything you said. My concern (and the reason I said Gamel should be traded this offseason) is this: Macha has already said that McGehee is going to start at 3B next season. Melvin then gave Macha the vote of confidence by bringing him back next year and adding an option year to his contract. Therefore, McGehee will be the starting 3B next year. Macha seems to have a lot of control over the makeup of this team. He said signing a closer was more important last offseason than starting pitching, and Melvin made signing Hoffman priority #1. He wanted a veteran bench, and Melvin got it for him (get rid of guys like Nelson and Duffy, sign Cat, trade Gwynn for Gerut). He wanted veteran bullpen guys over the guys from AAA, so Melvin picked up Vargas and Weathers, busting the budget for the extra win or so we probably got from them. He could have run a platoon of Gamel/McGehee/Counsell for 2B/3B when Weeks went down, but he didn't want Gamel to play, so Melvin brought in Lopez. I hope I'm wrong, but I don't see much chance of McGehee being the one that's traded, and there's no chance of Gamel playing while they're both on the same roster. This being the case, we then have several options for Gamel. 1) Put him on the 25 man and let him rot like we did this year, eating up his service time and destroying his value. 2) Leave him in AAA. This is probably the likely scenario, but remember that he turns 25 next year. At some point, people are going to stop regarding him as a top prospect if he's still in AAA into his mid-to-late-20's. 3) Trade him. His trade value right now is still very high, but I could easily see it diminish in the scenarios listed above. I do not want to see Gamel traded, as it is very likely that he will be a very good player, and we will live to regret trading away such a good player. However, if he is not going to get a chance to shine with the Brewers, then I think we need to get the most value we can for him. Of course, Macha and Melvin will probably prefer one season of Halladay over 5-6 seasons of a solid (but "unproven") young pitcher, but that's another story.

bklyn, I've been agreeing with you a lot recently. Macha has already said 3B is McGehee's to start next season. Melvin has re-upped Macha, so I think Gamel has to be traded. Gamel's role with the Brewers next year would either be at AAA, or as a 2nd or 3rd LH option off the bench (as it was this year while he was up). He's getting to the age that other teams will stop seeing him as a prospect if he's still in AAA, and he'll lose all of his value if he's a rarely used bench player, so he probably needs to be traded, hopefully in a package that brings back a very good young pitcher. I just hope the return in trade makes up for the difference in production between Gamel and McGehee for the next 5-6 years. But at least Macha won't be in a zim-zam to start the season, and all will be well until another good young player makes the mistake of being drafted by the Brewers, works his way through the system and gets promoted to the big league team. Ahh, it will feel wonderful to see the 90's all over again.

I'm just saying that you should compare him to all starting pitchers and then adjust for playing time. Here again falls my dislike for aggregate stats. What good does it do to compare Yo with Mike Burns? If he is an "A" player, he should be compared to other pitchers who's teams felt they were actually good enough to pitch all season. Sure you may miss some injured pitchers, or late call-ups, but if I'm trying to determine if someone is good or bad, I don't want to compare them with someone who really shouldn't even be in the league. There appear to be 80 starting pitchers who compiled 160 or more innings. Therefore, only 2-3 pitchers should get an A+ (97% or above), 3-4 pitchers should get an A (93-97%), 2-3 an A- (90-93%), etc. The question, then, would be if Yo (this year only) was one of the 10 best starting pitchers in all of MLB. The top 10 by ERA are: Zach Grienke 229.1 IP, 2.16 ERA, 242 K, 51 BB, 16-8 W/L, Chris Carpenter 192.2 ERA, 2.24 ERA, 144 K, 38 BB, 17-4 W/L Tim Lincecum 225.1 ERA, 2.48 ERA, 261 K, 68 BB, 15-7 W/L Felix Hernandez 215 IP, 2.49 ERA, 217 K, 71 BB, 19-5 W/L Jair Jurrjens 215 IP, 2.60 ERA, 152 K, 75 BB, 14-10 W/L Adam Wainwright 233 IP, 2.63 ERA, 212 K, 66 BB, 19-8 W/L Roy Halladay 239 IP, 2.79 ERA, 208 K, 35 BB, 17-10 W/L Clayton Kershaw 171.0 IP, 2.79 ERA, 185 K, 91 BB, 8-8 W/L Javier Vazquez 219.1 IP, 2.87 ERA, 238 K, 44 BB, 15-10 W/L Matt Cain 217.2 IP, 2.89 ERA, 171 K, 73, BB 14-8 W/L #'s 11 through 20 include: J.A. Happ, Wandy Rodruguez, Randy Wells, Ted Lilly, Johan Santana, Dan Haren, Cliff Lee, Josh Johnson, Randy Wolf, CC Sabathia #'s 21-30 include: Jon Lester, Justin Verlander, Ubaldo Jimenez, Joel Pinerio, Edwin Jackson, Ryan Dempster, Kevin Millwood, Yo Gallardo, Jared Weaver, Carlos Zambrano Now, I just used "basic" stats, and ranking by ERA probably isn't the best way to rate pitchers, but when compared to other pitchers in the league who started all year, a "B/B-" grade is probably fair. There were 484 pitchers who threw at least 20 innings. If you want to judge Yo by comparing him to Lenny DiNardo's 10.13 ERA in 5 starts for Kansas City, I guess that's okay. Yo looks really good in that comparison. If the only D's and F's handed out are to Lenny and Carlos Carrasco (8.87 ERA in 5 starts for Cleveland). "C's" would go to guys like Ricky Romero for Toronto (4.30 ERA in 29 starts for Toronto). In other words, if you give "A's" to elite pitchers who had elite years, I think Yo probably falls a little short this season. If you broaden the pool to contain every scrub who started a game, Yo could deserve an "A." To me, that's sort of like saying everyone in AP Math gets an A because they're smarter than the kids in the remedial class, but I don't know exactly how to quantify that, so some subjective judgement may have to be applied to any list created. On that, I think Louis did a good job.

monty, what exactly did McClung say about Macha? Did he come right out and say, "I don't like Ken Macha." Not that I don't believe you, but just wondering if your friend told you any specific quotes. It's interesting that we keep getting these rumblings about players not being happy with Macha. Obviously Melvin has heard these rumblings, but I wonder if he'll just brush them aside or take them seriously when deciding if Macha comes back or not. Basically (and remember, this is second hand), somone asked McClung when he was coming off the DL, to which he replied "I've been back for a week" and something about only pitching once. The fan said "why haven't you pitched more," and McClung replied "because Macha hates me." When asked if the feeling was reciprocal, I won't say the exact quote my fried told me, but it could be nicely summed up as "yes." When asked if he was coming back next year, he said something to the effect of "I love Milwaukee, and would love to be back, but there is no chance I'm coming back if Macha's here." It does appear that he is arby eligible, so he doesn't have full say in the matter, but he obviously won't want to be here now that Macha is definitely back. I agree with many that McClung isn't a world beater, but he does have value as a middle reliever, and definitely has "plus stuff." I would bet that he will be pitching on a major league staff next season. This seems a case of burning a bridge simply because you happen to have a match. Hoffman, Cameron and even Kendall saying they'd love to come back likely has more weight to other potential FAs than McClung saying he hates Macha, but you hate to have anyone out there telling potential Brewers that they do not want to sign here. On to what I believe to be more important now that Macha's back: I really hope that Gamel is traded for pitching this offseason. If he were going to be moved to the OF, he would have been told already, as Bill Hall was a couple of years ago. Macha has already said 3B is McGehee's to start next season, which means that barring injury Gamel will not see any playing time for at least the first two months of next season. If McGehee is playing even moderately well for these two months, Gamel will not play all of next year. In the not-too-distant future, Gamel is going to be seen as too old to be a prospect anymore. If we want to trade while value is still high, I think a package including Gamel this offseason should be able to bring back a good young pitcher. To a lesser degree, I also think that if Melvin believes any of his young relievers are major league capable, he should not bring Weathers back. Since Hoffman is the closer, under Macha Vargas, Coffee and Weathers would each pitch 75-80 games and the young pitchers would each get about one appearance per week, leading to poor control, leading to stat disciples saying they all stink, leading to us bringing in another high priced veteran that won't be any better than the player he replaced... just older and more expensive, which is what Macha wants. Weathers should only be brought back (for $3.7MM if I'm correct) if Melvin doesn't believe that players like Axford, Dillard, Smith, etc. are capable ML relievers.

I don't he's arbitration eligible; I think he's a free agent. He's already had his 3 arby years, '07, '08, '09, according to Cot's. Wait, that must be wrong, he'll have just a little over 5 years service time after this year. Clarification, please? At any rate I wouldn't just cut him loose. He's worth keeping around if he'll agree to something in the $2.5 million range. That's cheaper than Weathers, who really hasn't been any good. I though McClung was arby eligible, but one of the things he told my friend was that he loves Milwaukee, but will not come back if Macha is still here. That and hearing BA say that McClung will be a free agent leads me to believe he'll be a FA, and will only be back if Macha is gone. Monty, you have Macha pegged to a T and that is why bringing him back next year will be a huge mistake. His communication skills are beyond horrible and its clear that most of the players cant stand him yet Melvin will bring him back. Thanks, bklyn, and I unenthusiastically agree with you that there is a good chance Macha will be back. Not sticking up for Yost here, but he was terrible with the media, so they hated him. If the media hates someone, it doesn't take long for the mass populace to hate them. Macha was in the media, and is a media darling. Whenever he's on Brewers 360, no matter what he says, the hosts chuckle on about how much they love Macha. Therefore, the mass populace still like the guy. For me (and I may change my mind as the offseason progresses) holding onto Macha will mean that I will probably do a lot more fishing and golfing next year, as I will not subject myself to the frustraion I've had with Macha for another season. Here's to holding out hope that Moday's press release is about Macha's dismissal.

A friend was at a game a few weeks ago and sat near the bullpen. McClung was talking with the fans and was not at all happy with Macha. Macha has players he likes and those he doesn't. The players he likes play all the time, and the ones he doesn't like never play. This would be why guys llike Kendall play every day, while Gamel rode the bench with extremely sporadic play until he became psychologically ruined and had to be sent down. IIRC, he's had one AB in the past two weeks, and that was a home run. Counsell was given nearly every day duty until Macha decided he didnt want to ruin his stat line by playing him while he was in a slump, so he's sat lately. Braun was sat twice in a week whie he was chasing history, until he complained publically, and he's too good not to play. Butler sat the bench until after not pitching forever he was finally brought in and was unable to throw a strike so he was sent packing. I think Axford's still on the team, but there's no way to tell. Hart got hurt, so Macha decided to play "his guy" Cat instead of our likely CF of the future Gerut. His reasoning for finally playing Gerut was "I think he's ready to have a hot streak." I'd guess Melvin whipped a hot streak across Macha's behind for not playing him, because Melvin wants to see what he has before he makes a decision on Cameron. I'll stop ranting, but Macha seems to have the Milton Bradley aproach to clubhouse harmony. If you don't personaly like a guy, get him completely out of his rhythm and then put him in a position to fail. That will get the fans upset with the player and cause the player to be dealt from the team (or at least give him justification to never play that player).

Good article. As far as Lopez, it's a win-win for the Brewers to offer him arby. The likely scenario will be that he'll decline and get offered a multi-year deal. In the off chance he accepts, we have an above average talent coming back for below market pay. I'd guess if this occurs, the chance of Gamel or McGehee getting traded would go up substantially. An infield of Fielder, Weeks, Hardy or Escobar (whichever isn't traded), and Gamel or McGehee (whichever isn't traded) with Lopez and Counsell as backups would be pretty solid. I totally agree with you on Kendall. If he is a Type B, Melvin may offer him arby in hopes of getting a draft pick. I think you're correct that the likely scenario would be Kendall accepting arby, in which case we'd have a below average player receiving above average pay, since he'd probably get a pay raise in arby. Hopefully, Melvin will let Kendall wander off into the sunset as he now seems to be below average both offensively and defensively.

Well, JJ could start next season super hot, and Jeter could go down for the season. Now, through depletion, JJ's value has shot up dramatically, as the Yankees will be willing to overpay greatly for a replacement for Jeter. Just an example of how it's hard to ever use absolutes.