Jim French Stepstool
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Everything posted by Jim French Stepstool
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Agree 100% with the bolded.
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I wonder if part of this is his added strength during the off-season leading to a little bit of a mind shift. I see him being, at times, a little more aggressive on 2-0 or 3-1 at inopportune times than I would personally like. Lessening the things you can impact a game with (speed, reaching base any way that you can, going oppo, the occasional bunt) in exchange for hitting 10-12 dingers instead of 5 isn't my idea of Turang at his best. His K total is almost half of last years' & we're only a third of the way through. Also IIRC his slump sort of coincided with the upper-respiratory thing he picked up, and he only sat one game. Might've sapped him for a week or two.
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............And in the same division as NYY. If there was such a thing as Redsoxfanatic.com they would've called for DFAs quite a while ago. I didn't see Saturdays' game & only saw a little over half of Yesterdays, but checking the boxes & highlights it looks like whatever corner Durbin & Ortiz are capable of turning, they might be heading around the bend. The bottom of the order getting on base for the top has often been a recipe for good offensive runs in the past. We can always hope. I won't spend much effort on defending Pat Murphy. His getting Ashby up Friday & then not using him was ugly. But I'll maintain he wouldn't look nearly as clueless if this rotation would give him 6 innings a little more often (and yes, he needs to trust some of these guys more often when they're at 70-80 pitches instead of bringing the hook. That's part of it). And I don't think being w/o Mitchell & Perkins at the same time can be stressed enough. Just one of them available & you're probably not knocking on the door, but you're most likely over .500 & you don't get so many people wanting to jump off a bridge.
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This looks like the most likely scenario to me. If the organization can finally get smiled upon regarding health, there's enough depth especially in starting pitching to feel pretty good moving forward. If that health is realized there will be interesting decisions coming up before the deadline, even if they're still looking to make a push. You can always find teams looking to add to the rotation, and we might be sitting pretty in that regard.
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If that becomes chronic, then you have a problem. If it's just on occasion, hell, teams usually have 17, 18 man staffs if you count the shuttle. Another ass-covering move is to have a starter or two that's immune to the system, like a Woodruff pre-injury. It isn't foolproof, nothing is. But I wouldn't be surprised if someone semi-commits to it one year. Another intriguing idea is the 'opener' that can go once through the order as opposed to one inning (Dan Plesac might've been terrific in such a role if it existed then. Today, maybe a Yoho). Try to take a starter that goes sour after 90-95 pitches through the 8th. Thirteen-man staffs give you some possible options. Mad scientist stuff.😉
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I looked at it yesterday & don't remember the exact placing, but they're somewhere like 26th in MLB in # of innings per start. Combine that with a reluctance to throw relievers more than an inning--or lack of people capable of doing it well--and this is the result. It's to the point where you could justify arguing for full piggyback. Five starters, four or five people to come in halfway through---and go 3 innings or more---, and your 3 or 4 "late" guys if needed. Honestly, you could see them being able to do it if enough people could get & stay healthy.
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I was all for him getting the call. And no, he wasn't given any kind of a consistent run but IMO he looked pretty bad at the plate. Collins' #s aren't good vs LHP but It's a low bar, & I guess with him being more of a contact guy from both sides this is what they've chosen to do until people get healthy. I'm guessing they gave Cam a few games to see if what he did in Nashville would continue here, and when it didn't made him a placeholder on the roster until an OF comes back or someone (Seigler? Dalbeck? Rosario?) appears to be a better option. Is only a few games fair? Not totally.
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If this continues, they'll sell. But don't expect young players with big-league experience.
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Yep. Bottom line, you're sorta screwed when you're missing two OFs who happen to be your top 2 CFs, your 3rd best CF is far & away your best RF, your former mainstay in LF doesn't seem to be trusted out there & the others are pretty much relegated to LF. Oh, and Cameron hits .370 in AAA, comes up here & does next to nothing, and your best OF prospects are nowhere near ready.
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This place was a house of horrors for Milwaukee years ago. Despite winning yesterday it looks like that go-around might be coming around again. There's no way Pittsburgh puts up the quality of ABs against everybody else that they have the last two days. Loved the 0-2 swing on a slider at the ankles from a guy who looked pretty bad all night at the plate--and looked pretty bad THAT AB, up until the last pitch. Then throw in Reynolds & Frazier putting on their George Brett & Pete Rose costumes whenever it's a clutch moment. Just unbelievable. Not that we were good, but geez.......... I feel for Murphy, BP decisions notwithstanding. The pen is getting overworked, so OF COURSE you have to cover extras twice in three days. And when we needed length, our anointed ace needs to burn 18 pitches to retire Henry Davis twice. Ugh. Bauers vs the LH looked ugly, twice. Hindsight, I guess you use Collins & leave Monasterio in the game. To me this is more frustrating than the Megill meltdown in Arizona due to the way this team just seems to elevate at the plate when they play us.
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I never would've implemented the leg kick OR closed his stance. Being a little further back in the box, sure. But that's quite a few changes for someone after their 1st full year facing MLB pitching. So in that vein, you can place some blame on the hitting coaches assuming they're the ones behind the adjustments.
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- joey ortiz
- al leboeuf
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AFA the corresponding move if Blake was to be promoted, Wilken would be the first guess, although Warren could always step down from his role as mayor.
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Seigler is starting to look more & more like a guy that could fill a bench role nicely at the MLB level. Looking forward to seeing if it's realistic to add 3B to his versatility list. Also hope to see Boeve slip on the fielders' glove soon. I've heard Quero is heading back to Nashville soon. True?
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In closing..........with Frelick on 3rd base & less than two out and Turang facing a LHP, I'm fine with him being given license to bunt. And maybe even w/two outs. That's a good bunt-read duo. It's not going to work every time. Bart made a hell of a play.
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He stepped up today when we really needed him to, but boy Rodriguez left a bad taste in a lot of mouths by walking a pair to start the 9th up five. If it's lesson learned, at least it's nice to learn it & still come out on top. Nice confidence in the changeup, and throws hard enough to make it work when locating well. Obviously, great games from Yelich & Chourio. I'll be very interested in seeing what kind of ABs, whether resulting in hits or not, those two turn in vs Skenes tomorrow. I mentioned once that I could see Durbin one day being one of those guys w/o a huge OPS, but a .260-.270 hitter with an OBP around 90-100 pts above that. You still have to squint to see him being more than a mediocre to adequate 3B, but he's settling in at the plate. I thought Civale was very Civale-ish. Not surprised his feel & command were less than stellar after the layoff. If he can build on this, great.
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I like the BP guys that can go a couple innings or more but it seems like they're becoming scarcer, the exception being 5th inning or earlier if you're trailing. I know the Brewers seem to make a big deal about preventing a reliever from pitching, then sitting & pitching again. It seemed to make a big difference with Mears yesterday. But yeah, having at least one guy with a Seth McClung-type workload wouldn't be a bad thing. Closest to that is Anderson I suppose.
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Probably a low estimate. People complained about CC incessantly regarding the same thing. And Ken Macha. And Ned Yost. So very much of this would be drastically improved if our starters could average just a couple more outs per game. I say "just", but that would put us in the top 5 or 6 in starters' IP, and right now I believe we're around 25th. It's that important.
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That's a seven day window, correct?
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I mentioned Zamora a week or so ago. Apparently he has no extra-base pop, which wouldn't deter me as long as he put up #s even remotely similar to what he's doing AFA avg & OBP are concerned. But it looks like the FO has little to no confidence those numbers would translate. He makes contact. If he continues to reach base I personally wouldn't dismiss him but it seems unlikely. I think the Black-3B ship has long since left the harbor. And they're going slowly with Wilken, which I think is smart given his career path to this point.
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I was thinking more along the lines of him bringing at least a lottery ticket from someone later in the summer, provided he stayed on the same track as his last month or so. But his last few times out are putting a damper on that. In that event yeah, a DFA is certainly in the cards.
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Just my 2 cents re Levering-------of all the TV PBP guys we've had he's probably in the middle somewhere. What I'm finding entertaining about him these days is listening to his full-blown crusade to defend Yelichs' ABs. It's sometimes subtle, sometimes more blatant, but it's becoming a pretty consistent monologue. He's the Brewers' announcer, yeah, but there's such a thing as overdoing it. And Jeff, if you're out there..........no, the pitches that he's missing aren't THAT nasty.
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As for your first point, yeah. That needs to start happening. The trust has pretty much emerged with Peralta & it needs to expand to others. If Miz makes it up here this summer, whoo boy will there be complaining on BF when HE gets lifted because he'll probably be protected. Payamps was lousy his first 2-3 weeks, people clamored for the DFA, and he turned in 8 or 9 great outings. Now it seems to be going south again. When he's right he's a valuable asset. They really can't afford to jettison guys like that w/o giving them a chance to regain effectiveness and, therefore, value. If this is the start of another stretch like he had earlier, he'll probably go.
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If I could give you half a thumbs up, I would. 1st paragraph is golden. As for the second, LA, NY, CHI, PHA-----there are a lot of organizations that can afford to damn the service clock. We can't. A couple of the pitchers at N'Ville, I'll give you that. But pitching isn't the main problem. If there were people at AAA that could make a difference we wouldn't have signed Dalbeck & Rosario.
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A big part of the reason why we give up three runs or less might just be that we create favorable matchups by using multiple pitchers. Don't get me wrong; It frustrates me too when we constantly seem to be in 'overworked' mode in the BP. Somehow, someway we need to get beyond starters being pulled in the 5th & 6th innings. It would help if they had a margin for error (3-4 run lead) but that seldom happens, and if someone is available out of the pen then we're in "win today" mode. The other thing that can be exasperating is constantly using someone for only one inning. But today we saw why. Mears throws six pitches to get out of the 7th. I'd have run him back out there too. But being trained to warm up quickly, pitch, and sit doesn't seem to jibe with getting back up again. Some guys can do it but it looks like most of our 'winning BP' guys aren't in that mold. Or we don't want them to be because then you lose someone for 2-3 games. But IMO it all comes back to getting 6 or more out of your starter, a lot more often than what's happening now.
