mothershipconnection

Is anyone else getting real nervous about Turnbow, because I am. 5 runs today in the 9th? I know it's just spring training, but I also know last year was only one year. I just hope he's not a flash in the pan. I'm not worried since I don't know what he's been throwing. Dude was awesome last year in a much bigger sample. Maybe they have him working on something new: that's always my first guess when a guy had a great year and then gets lit in spring training. I'm also not sure how he traditionally gets going, is he a slow starter?

He's already been free for two seasons Brian, it's just that nobody notices.

I think the criteria for a MLB press pass is you have to have people paying for your product So Brian creates "brewerfan: uncut and uncensored", which is nothing more than a link to the cheese sandwhiches thread, and "sells" subscriptions to the guys who will use the press pass.

Or really? Most ground balls are pulled...that's good science. I'm not gonna dig into it, but I'm guessing that dude, being a stat nerd, had data to back this up, or more likely was referencing data well-known in the stat nerd community.

I can't see anything affecting the "mentality" of a pitcher nearly as much as a great hitter at the plate or even on deck. So while there may be some effect, I can't imagine Pierre on first making a guy shaky to nearly the extent of Pujols in the box or on deck circle. Further, I think that the simple "threat" of reaching the next base or scoring on a hit has to "shake" the guy, which seems to give validity to the theory that any baserunner affects pitching, though it's likely due largely to defensive positioning as mentioned.

I remember the thread entitled something like "we are now bigger than the 700 club", and it doesn't seem too long ago.

The reliever should be "blamed" somehow if runners already on base scores? So if 2 pitchers come in and get 3 outs, yet one of them comes in with 2 guys on and they score, he did a poorer job? Yeah, I think it's kinda bogus. If Wise comes in with no outs and nobody on and gives up a single before striking out the side, then Turnbow comes in the next inning with nobody out and the bases loaded, giving up one single before striking out the side, who did a better job? Though Turnbow allowed more runners to score, he did the exact same thing as Wise in a higher-pressure situation, so I can't see any way he's viewed as having pitched worse.

I'm totally cool with all rumors, be they trades or signings, being in a single forum. Perhaps the name could be changed to Trade/Free Agent Rumors & Proposals (which is really long), but that doesn't really matter. Under the current setup, when I see "Jenkins to the Mariners" or "Brewers to sign Lyle Mouton" in the MLB forum, I know it really happened and if it's in the rumors forum I know it's a proposal.

Explain yourself. His stats thus far indicate otherwise....do not make the attitude comment without backing it up either. A close friend of mine knows Eveland personally and has said that he's just an awesome guy. Of course, that has no bearing on his commitment to baseball, but she says that in his personal life he's really nice and energetic.

With his RBI numbers and "name recognition", Lee is almost certain to be overpaid next winter if he plays well this year. If we're in the hunt, keep him around until the end of the year and get a comp pick in the draft for him. If we're out of contention, I'd trade him at the deadline for the right offer and use the money to target a big free agent that winter. I do not think he should be traded this winter, as the team has come too far to let a productive player go before we know if we'll be in the playoff hunt or not. Trading him for anything less than major league talent while putting one of two young rookies in his place, IMO, is tantamount to mailing it in for 2006. It'd take an awesome prospect package that we just aren't gonna get to compel Melvin to trade him any sooner than July.

everyone should be blasting "the final countdown" today. Per your suggestion, I am switching back to using that as a ringer on my phone for the rest of the day.

Don't stop believing! Hold on to that FEE-LI-I-I-NG! (Where's mothership to feel the love for Journey?!) Sorry, I was out drinking. I was the only person at a bar in Texas pointing at random people and saying "Yeah, 81 B****! You know it!". http://www.coolforever.com/temp/journey_dontstopbelieving_45.jpg

Alright, the sample is now large enough for me to eat at least some of my words and say that I would have no problem with Helling receiving a league min deal for next year and remaining on the 40 man. If nothing else, he has earned the Dave Burba bullpen/#5 starter slot.

Every time Wayne Franklin gave up a run, I wanted to yell out how much he sucked, but I had already made the point that he was a bad pitcher, which most people knew and was backed up by numbers, just like everyone knows Branyan often fails to make contact. I think it's only worthwhile to point out how good or bad a player is based on stats that span more than one AB, one game, or even one month, though. We can't look at Branyan's one AB when he homered and say he's good and be any less foolish than looking at one AB where he K'd and saying he sucks as every player has many horrible games and most have at least one incredible game.

Man, do these guys suck in the clutch or what? And Branyan is especially crappy with the 1.195 OPS with RISP.

Maybe Brian will clarify, not that it's important beyond a curiosity, but I've been here for 2 1/2 years and have the "member" tag, which I do agree everyone should have in a classless, egalitarian community like this.

I'm pretty sure that it's 1,000, but then eventually you go back to "member" after a ridiculous number of posts, like 4,000 or something.

The old man comes through!

If I'm Wes Helms, there's no way I turn down the arby offer to stay with my buddy Ned on the bench and get paid more than I would elsewhere.

Who in the world is this guy, and what has he done with Rick Helling? 09/09/2005: 11 wins to 81. Don't stop believing. Obviously, that gets my nod for best brewerfan.net tagline.

isn't that a prime example of how unreliable stats can be? because they don't take things like this into account? that's an entire half-season worth of baseball that stats would have never predicted due to the "human element." Yeah, and that's why, like rluz pointed out, only an idiot will rely COMPLETELY on stats, as there is more to be said than just the raw numbers. Injuries happen, there are differences in age, platoons that allow for only favorable matchups, ability to play multiple/difficult positions, etc. But when it comes down to it, after looking at those other factors, stats will make the picture much clearer, or those factors will make the picture much clearer after looking at the stats. Look at Rick Helling, dude has one of the better ERA's on the team, so why aren't people getting excited about those numbers like they are about Eveland's, which aren't as good? Well, Helling is 35 versus 21 and has had injury problems, and thus doesn't factor into our long-term plans as he isn't expected to improve like Eveland. So there will always be a human component to compliment or clarify the stats. The thing that bothers me about this entire argument is when people point to the exceptions and say "See! Stats are totally unreliable". The point of statistical analysis isn't to predict everything with absolute certainty. It's too look at trends and say "what is the most likely thing to happen". Yeah, and stats, as a predictor can be somewhat shaky because they don't account for the things like injury, maturation, and declines. There are always unforeseen extraneous variables like the smokers getting hit by buses. They do, however, serve much better as a descriptor in looking back upon peformances and analyzing them. Hardy, for example, is easy to look back on and view the progression from bad to very solid numbers as he either became comfortable or recovered from injury, or both, while stats didn't accurately predict his performance this year because of those factors. They were, however, much more accurate once he appeared to be comfortable and healthy like the numbers he previously produced which led up to that prediction. Point is, it is very rare that we have a large enough sample to predict what will happen when an extraneous variable pops up. For example, if a guy was always a strict platoon player, it will be very hard to extrapolate those numbers to predict procuction in an everyday role. And if a guy is injured, it is next to impossible to accurately predict what will happen since you don't exactly have a mountain of data showing how he'll play with a right labrum that is at 79.8% of its full strength.

But observations are just a prone to being skewed, espeically with our memory being as selective as it can be. And I know from experience how selective memories can be! This is one of the contentions I have always made, as I can draw from my own experiences. When I was younger, my dad took us to a game, maybe 1988. Tom Filer was pitching for the crew that day, and I can't remember the opponent, but he absolutely had them locked down. From then on, I thought Filer was the bomb, and nobody could tell me otherwise: forget the career ERA+ of 92. To me, he was the best pitcher in the league, because I saw him one day when he was absolutely dominant. With my brother, it was Rick Dempsey. I think this was maybe 1991 or 1992 when we went down and saw a game, and it just happened to be maybe the only big offensive game Dempsey had as a Brewer. The rest of the games didn't matter though, as Dempsey became my brother's favorite based on that one game: the bad games were just a fluke,

Seems to me like the only situations he DOESN'T hit in is when he leads off an inning when there is....nobody on. I don't understand where people come up with this stuff. Because people, in general, are ignorant and stubborn. Someone will say "player X hits for crap late in the game", then you show them that his career avg. obp. and slg. all go up by 20% from the 6th inning on. Then, they say, well, I watch the games and I KNOW he doesn't hit well in those situations, and I don't need some stat to tell me. Or they'll just try to throw a red herring in there so you have to go out and prove something else to them: this is why I rarely bother getting too into stats on this site. To those who look at stats, presenting them is preaching to the choir while presenting stats to people who will never trust them more than their scattered observations is meaningless. Why oh why can the burden of proof never be on the guy who makes his claims based on casual observation? How come that dude never has to do any research or number crunching? Probably because there's nothing there to analyze, as he has taken the lazy position and says "I just know". The problem with relying on such "evidence" is that a) you are not intently watching every at-bat of every game all season and b) certain events will be more salient and stand out in your mind moreso than others. Sometimes we remember players for one event and base our opinion of them on that, like a guy who threw a no-hitter, or a crappy utilityman who happened to score a couple runs during the world series and parlayed that into being overpaid for several seasons.

Tomo Ohka is only 29. Should he have a future in Milwaukee??? I think everyone has thought of him simply as a stop-gap, but I can't see any reason to let him go unless we're gonna get a very nice return. This has looked like one of Melvin's finer moves, which is saying quite a bit. Especially when you consider that the move got rid of Spivey and started the Weeks era while bringing in a good starter, I think we haven't fully appreciated what a good move it was. Seriously, pitchers with ERAs under 4.00 don't grow on trees. Tonight the guy went 7 innings, while giving up just 3 hits and not walking a single batter: that's a great start. To put things in perspective, Ohka has been slightly better than Davis this year, and is the same age. Of course, Davis was thought of as a scrap-heap pickup who'd come in and be a stop-gap for part of a season just a few years ago, now he's a quality #3 starter. If Ohka is given the chance, we could be riding castoff #3 and 4 starters into a playoff run.

We have to stay 15 and under to not lose a first rounder if by some chance we go after Millwood, right? Yup, if we sign a type A free agent and draft in the first half, we give up a second rounder as compensation, while we'd lose a first rounder if we draft in the second half. Given the amount of love this organization has for the draft, I'm hoping we'd only be faced with the loss of a second rounder, since I have a feeling that potentially losing a first rounder would cause the team to hesitate much more in going after a FA who is type A but less than top-notch.