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Jim French Stepstool

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Everything posted by Jim French Stepstool

  1. Jim French Stepstool
    It's a play Toronto put on, Murphy talked about it in postgame. You give the appearance of a throw going through to throw out the runner but a MINF cuts in front of the bag & quickly returns it to the catcher to nail the runner at 3rd. Same thing as letting the runner take 2nd except you may get an out at home if the runner at 3rd doesn't read it properly. It really isn't a tough throw for a catcher but Kirk really botched it. We ran the same play in fastpitch softball. It even worked a time or two.😁
  2. Jim French Stepstool
    Boy, has Hudson fallen off the page since his injury issues. I'd at least inquire about their thoughts re Quantrill and/or Gomber & find out if the ask is ridiculous. Neither one is a big strikeout guy & with our defense they might play well here.
  3. Jim French Stepstool
    With the day off tomorrow & the way the pen has performed I'm OK with Myers leaving after 6. He's also had what, half a dozen starts or so in the bigs? There's a 'leave well enough alone' component in play here, too. If it's a more experienced guy, or something like a six run lead, sure, let 'im go. Milner going back out there might seem a little weird but he has the rubber arm of the group, plus you can get Hudson out of there after a quick frame, day off tomorrow, good to go Friday. This whole late-inning thing was kind of a 'no-mans land'--not the typical deal of protecting a 1 or 2 run lead, but not a blowout either. What got the problem really rolling was Milner not getting Horwitz in the L vs L matchup. That kid is a pain in the butt w/some versatility. Would love to have him. Then we were stuck w/Megill having to enter with runners on base, which is far from ideal. But, survival. Frelick didn't do anything today to get him on the highlights, but seemed a little more about patience-contact-pressure. More, please.
  4. Jim French Stepstool
    After the offensive futility in Milwaukee tonite, it's nice to check in & see the video-game numbers being put up by Made, Pena & Anderson in the DSL.
  5. Jim French Stepstool
    No, not bad. But I was specifically referring to the walks--33 in 43 innings is a LOT. He's stayed away from that bugaboo until tonight, & it cost him. If he can stay around the zone like he has, he'll continue to be an asset.
  6. Jim French Stepstool
    My guess is they go to Milner if Horwitz came to the plate w/a RISP. He was hitting w/a runner on 1st & 2 down and Paredes needs to not issue a walk there. He did.
  7. Jim French Stepstool
    Looking at a couple of Peraltas' recent outings that's a pretty damn good call re Kikuchi.
  8. Jim French Stepstool
    Ok, that was pretty ugly. In addition to somehow stranding all the runners early, I guess you can say Kikuchi was a little fortunate in that his early troubles, two of the ABs that really could've turned things early he happened to face the only two LHH in the lineup, and Yelich & Turang put up two of the uglier ABs of the entire game. Turang really needed to get the bunt down in the 2nd, Levering & Schroeders' excuses about bunting vs a lefty notwithstanding. For the first time we saw the reasons Paredes has bounced around a little, rear its' ugly head. Walking Horwitz w/o a runner in scoring position, can't do it. Eh, take the series tomorrow.
  9. Jim French Stepstool
    Going out & getting someone NOW & having him for over half the season sounds attractive. But the other side of the coin is that you're paying a premium for that extra 6 or 7 weeks. That's why I always temper the idea of acquiring this or that guy with wanting to know what it would cost. They DO have some attractive prospect capital. I'm guessing someone will be picked up, it won't be imminent & the cost will involve mostly if not totally people in low-A and/or rookie ball.
  10. Jim French Stepstool
    In UWs' case I think you can be pretty sure the current roster is what they'll tee off with in November. AFA future years, yeah, it sucks. I admire Gard for adjusting quickly to a current reality that I'm sure he absolutely hates.
  11. Jim French Stepstool
    All great points. I was very skeptical when Weeks was given the bench coach position, but Murphy really wanted him & it's seemed to work out extremely well. Any mention given to Hook is very well-deserved. If he was in New York or Boston & their rotations were this riddled by injury and he still had them performing at a similar level, the pedestal the national media would have him on would make the Hoan Bridge look like a speed bump.
  12. Jim French Stepstool
    So if Hoff ever forms a battery with fellow countryman Yannic Walther, no pitch com needed? Just yell out to him in German from behind the dish?😛 Boy these middle INF at Carolina & rookie ball are intriguing.
  13. Jim French Stepstool
    Here's what I found a little frustrating tonite--by my very unofficial count we had about 10 ABs with a 3-ball count, and reached I think once. Not appropo of anything except maybe we need an ass't hitting coach in charge of fouling off 4 or 5 pitches, like opposing hitters seem to do to our guys way too often. It's just so throwback, and so much fun, to see a guy pitch effectively w/o getting a boatload of Ks. Obviously a great job by Rea. Damn, is Turang good w/the glove.
  14. Jim French Stepstool
    After the chuckling & sad head-shaking subsided, I tried to think of a parallel to GB hiring Doug Gottlieb. The closest I could come up with was in the mid-80s when the White Sox in their infinite wisdom brought Ken Harrelson from the broadcast booth to exec VP, and then made him GM. While in charge he fired Tony LaRussa, who went on to Oakland & led them to three WS, Traded a young Bobby Bonilla who accumulated over 2000 hits & almost 300 HRs, and canned a young exec named Dave Dombrowski. Now, I hold no ill will toward the Phoenix & hope things work out well for them. I just find it hard to see how that can happen when you hire someone who isn't immersed in the program up to his eyelids & I can't imagine how he could be. And if they succeed due to some stroke of mercenary luck, then as Patrickgpe alluded to, in the immortal words of The Hawk, he gone. His dad coached at UWM years ago & was a hard worker. Used to see him in our HS gym all the time recruiting a few of our players. Actually got a couple.
  15. Jim French Stepstool
    Andrija Vukovic. Thanks for the info. I was watching that development the last few days, but while it seemed like mutual interest there appeared to be a little heel-dragging. Good to hear it finally happened. I was never a believer in Nolan Winter & Crowl on the floor together, but you'd think between he & Vukovic someone may pickup minutes at the 4 behind Xavier Amos. The only thing I know about Vukovic is that in the leagues he competed in he usually "played up", vs older competition and put up solid but not eye-popping numbers.
  16. Jim French Stepstool
    I have a feeling they may be leaning towards Turang staying put & Ortiz moving to SS. While Turang can easily be a solid SS, at 2B he could turn out to be the best in the game. He's in a comfort level that I'd hate to disrupt. And Ortiz can make the move to SS w/o problem. I'm with you about the difficulty of finding a 3B. And looking into the crystal ball, I think of Wilkin as a possibility on both corners. But they really, really want him to work out at third & I think that's the way it's going to go, at least initially. At the end of the day I love Ortiz at third, and I'm pretty sure I'd love him at SS. And I'd be on board with Wilkin playing 1B with others staying put If EBJ or Freddy Zamora hit their marks on the farm but that hasn't happened, at least not yet.
  17. Jim French Stepstool
    That's funny because I used McMullen for Texas/LA & was trying to decide btwn Hovley & Comer. Thought Comer would be the rarer pick but turns out they were both 0.2.
  18. Jim French Stepstool
    I mused about this last week, that Yoho may wind up being the answer to the "We need to add a bullpen arm" hue & cry that we seem to hear every deadline. Plus he's 24. Hard to imagine what more he needs to prove. I see they've been giving him outings of more than one inning. Perhaps thinking about using him in an extended 'closer for the starter' role we sometimes saw from Milner in the 5th-6th innings? Betcha his name will come up in trade talks in the weeks to come. JUST SAY NO.
  19. Jim French Stepstool
    All of the ones mentioned above (Turang is probably a personal favorite), But I just have to put an extra star next to Perkins due to Wiemer being in AAA & Mitchell not able to stay healthy. So, so valuable. And the baserunning skills to go along with the speed---the game on Saturday when he scored on the Chourio double, I know there were two outs but that ball never even got to the track & he scored from 1st. Just exemplary.
  20. Jim French Stepstool
    Can't tell you how many times I've done that. Frustrating. Yet I remember the girl a couple blocks down the street in HS......nevermind. My three Brewers today L to R were Rick Auerbach, Wayne Comer & Tommy Harper.
  21. Jim French Stepstool
    So we come home w/a 6.5 game lead after entering the road trip up, IIRC, 7. Three other teams in the NL Central are separated by ONE percentage point, with Pittsburgh a half-game behind those three. Crazy stuff.
  22. Jim French Stepstool
    It's tough to get a rhythm going when you don't get regular trips to the plate, so let's throw a crumb or two at Monasterio today for a few really good ABs. And Chourio. Frelick certainly has some things to figure out re consistency from at-bat to at-bat. I expected more from him these last couple months but let's not forget he was still awaiting his MLB debut at this time last year. Some never figure it out but he's nowhere near there yet. Turang, on occasion, gets balls he can pull. It's due mostly to his approach of using the entire diamond. If Sal wants to occasionally get pitches he can unload on, he needs to understand the same type of approach will give him the best chance at that.
  23. Jim French Stepstool
    Agree with all except last year being an anomaly. It might've been. Or it might've been simply a case of him being used in the role most appropriate for him. We really don't know. Still hoping (against hope, maybe) that he can return to that role.
  24. Jim French Stepstool
    I guess it depends on your definition of 'quality'. In the role he was asked to fill last year he was a godsend. For obvious reasons he's been asked to fill a different one this year & IMO is miscast (through no fault of the organization, just not a lot of options). Despite that I believe he's more-or-less held his own. Today, yeah, he was poor.
  25. Jim French Stepstool
    Yep. And then buh-bye.
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