strawbossisevil

I guess I'm surprised at the Escobar comment, as he followed up a near homerun two days ago (one Uecker still claims was gone), with a solid basehit again yesterday. His bat isn't his strong point, but with that said, he hasn't been all that bad with the bat so far in his limited Spring Training appearances.

They need a "race the sausages" minigame http://forum.brewerfan.net/images/smilies/smile.gif.

I stumbled upon it by chance when I was over on the ESPN boards. I was reading the "conversation" for the Tigers game and someone posted the link there. It is strange that MLB doesn't have it posted.

http://mlb.mlb.com/mlb/gameday/index.jsp?gid=2009_02_25_oakmlb_milmlb_1&ist=t For those who want to watch gameday.

I think Provus sounds pretty good so far, solid at describing the game, very detail orientated.

Right, Logan, because Hart is likely to be a downgrade in CF (from his defensive statistics he put up in RF). So having Cameron on the team versus Abreu is probably worth 2 wins minimum. It's hard to think of too many players that we could get for $4-5 million that would be a two win improvement over what we already have.

Even if Abreu is only 10 runs below average, going from Cameron to him would be a drop of about 25 runs. Abreu might get on around 20 times more, but even if he scores half of those times, he'd still be a win and a half below what we could get from Cameron. Also, all of this theorizing suggests that Abreu and Edmonds would even want to play here in Milwaukee, which is something we can't be sure about.

MLB gameday is being used FWIW, at least for the Atlanta/Detroit game.

But here's the thing Paul. Abreu was 23 runs below average in the outfield last season. So even if he does get on 22 more times, he would have to score all 22 times just to make up for the runs his defense would allow. This doesn't even include the fact that moving Hart to center will also be a step down defensively. This is what people are trying to explain to you. That even though Abreu may be better offensively, his defense is so much worse than Cameron's that it more than offsets the value he'd bring the team. Like some have pointed out, Cameron is 4-5 wins better defensively (meaning he saves 40-50 runs per season just with his defense in comparison to Abreu). Abreu would have to be 40-50 runs better than Cameron on offense in order to offset the difference, and I just don't see him doing that. Cameron's combination of solid offensive ability and top of the line defense makes him one of the more valuable players out there, and IMHO worth 9.25 million (I don't see it as a 10 million, because if we turned down our option he was going to get .75 million from us this year).

Yahoo has this team ranking thing where it compares two teams and you pick the better of the two. Cubs fans have gotten ahold of it, and have moved the Cubbies up to first. We must not let this happen. So, let's all vote against the Cubs (in any matchup that gets brought up). And vote Brewers. It isn't like such a tool has any scientific value anyway. http://sports.yahoo.com/mlb/teamranker?wid=35521&lid=35525&t1=1&n1=1 Come join me in dragging them out of 1st place (and hopefully out of the top 10) http://forum.brewerfan.net/images/smilies/smile.gif. Edit: The Cubs have dropped down to #5. The Brewers are up to #10. If we want the Brewers to "make the playoffs" we have to get them past St. Louis and the NY Mets. So vote them down as well.

Does anyone know if Gameday Audio carries a pregame show? Or does it just start in time for the first pitch?

If he can match his second half, he'll be a very solid option for us. I wonder if this ends the Brewer's interest in Chad Cordero though. I actually hope they still pursue Cordero, as it's never a bad thing to have bullpen depth (and by all accounts, Cordero won't be ready until mid-year), and having depth is always good at the trade deadline. We do have quite a few arms to choose from though even without a Cordero. Hoffman, Villenueva, McClung, Riske, Julio, Coffey, Stetter, DeFelice, Dillard, Morlan, Swindle, Gagne. That's 12 guys for 7 spots. It seems that there should be no excuse for our team to not have a top level bullpen next season. (It's also kinda fun to think about how we would have reacted to having this bullpen 5 years ago).

His son plays baseball in Georgia, I believe. So I don't see it as far fetched as you. I think it's refreshing when a person chooses family over contract.

Wow, I really like the idea of a bullpen that has: Hoffman, Cruz, Villenueva, Riske, McClung, and Stetter. Cruz's numbers and Francisco Cordero's numbers are not all that different over the past three seasons (Cordero gives up more hits, Cruz gives up more walks). All three of the major projections actually think that Cruz will be the better pitcher (FIP) than Marmol next year. Even if that isn't the case, adding Cruz would likely give us the top two or three bullpens in the league. Especially if Riske can revert to pitching the way he did before his injury (he's been a mid 3 ERA guy almost his entire career).

Mendoza is no longer in the plans, he failed his physical FWIW.

Can anyone believe that this guy still isn't signed? I wonder how much he would cost, at this point, he has to be getting pretty desperate. I'm sure he wouldn't be in our price range, but the thought of having a Cruz, Hoffman 8th/9th would be absolutely incredible (although losing our only first round pick would be pretty costly).

Two reasons. 1) I like having the phone handset that rings whenever I get a call, and which has far better range than any bluetooth headset would have. I can take my phone into any room in my apartment, and I could sit out on my porch without any trouble. 2) My computer, while very new, did not come with bluetooth, and with me only planning on staying here in Mexico another 6 months, it probably isn't worth it for me to spend money on getting a USB bluetooth stick, plus the headset.

I would say that it is often used when a player's inning output exceeds what is expected from his place in the rotation. CC was an "innings eater" as he has pitched far beyond 200 innings every year. It is more often used in the discussion of bottom of the rotation guys, because most bottom of the rotation guys do not have the ability necessary to throw a high number of innings.

If by pitching more innings it means saving the bullpen, then I disagree with your opinion completely. For example, if your #5 pitcher only throws 150 innings (vs. a guy who throws 200), your bullpen now has to pitch an additional 50 innings over the course of the season. This makes them less effective. When all else is equal, being able to go longer into games, is a skill and does make you better than your counterpart. It is why CC Sabathia is a better pitcher than Rich Harden. The two may put up exactly the same numbers, but CC is an innings eater, Harden is not. Would you not say that makes CC the better pitcher? Really? And like I said in my previous post, Eckstein's "intangibles" are not able to be measured in any way. Pitchers being "innings eaters" or not is something that can be measured and assessed. Stop trying to make an apple into an orange.

McClung would not be an innings eater. Rich Harden is not an innings eater. However, it is true that most good pitchers generally pitch a lot of innings, mostly because good pitchers 1) know how to work their pitch count, and 2) generally pitch late into games because they aren't busy getting shellacked. It is much more expected out of the top pitchers in a team's rotation, if not mandatory for them to eat innings. Many back of the rotation pitchers are either 1) less experienced at working a pitch count, and therefore unable to eat a lot of innings (cf McClung last season), or 2) are so bad that they don't make it deep into games enough to pitch a significant amount of innings. The point is, if the player is going to be bringing up the rear of the rotation, it is a sizable advantage for a team if said person can pitch late into games by understanding how to work a pitch count and keeping his team in games (or being able to stay in and mop up innings when things do go badly by having an economic pitch count in bad innings). I wouldn't dismiss it as meaningless, or next to meaningless. A pitcher who can cover 200 innings rather than 170 innings saves a bullpen 30 innings of work, over the course of a season this can be significant. Not many teams have a #5 pitcher with the experience and ability to do so. I think comparing "being an innings eater" with David Eckstein's "intangibles" is comparing apples to oranges. The first is quantifiable, and does require some measure of skill to achieve. The second can not be defined and is not remotely tied to any known skill at all.

I bought an actual handset for Skype and absolutely love it. http://www.cnet.com.au/br...39035972,240091843,00.htm Living here in Mexico, calling back home would be pretty expensive. But with Skype, I was able to buy a US number (with unlimited call me minutes) and a calling plan where I can make unlimited calls to any phone in the US for about $5 per month combined. That's right, $5 for unlimited incoming and outgoing calls to any US phone. It's so neat because my friends back in the States can dial a Milwaukee number, and my phone rings down here. The only drawback, is that I either have to have my portable microphone or my handset attached to a USB port whenever I want to make and receive calls. Kinda a pain at times, but for $5 a month of unlimited calls, I don't mind. And if for some reason I don't have the handset or microphone connected, it takes voicemails for me. So I know someone tried to call. The only issue with Skype is that it can not call emergency numbers. 911 doesn't work for obvious reasons. But, if you have a cell phone, and are looking for a cheap home phone, Skype is great option. Edit: I should mention, that you can buy additional handsets to go with the base unit. So essentially, you could have a Skype handset anywhere you'd have a normal phone, assuming you aren't living in a huge mansion (as you would have to have your handsets in range of the base unit, which I believe is 200 meters).

I wouldn't go that far logan. Having a guy who can pitch a lot of innings is able to save the bullpen a lot of work over the course of a season. That definitely has an impact on a team over the course of a season.

So, if I'm understanding correctly, essentially a board that has a ton of categorized chat rooms.

http://images.yuku.com/image/jpeg/5bf25cb95989975fabaf95d70dba47369b8d7ed.jpg My work of art. So proud. http://forum.brewerfan.net/images/smilies/smile.gif

Ah, scoring decisions. So now he stinks because people committed errors behind him, got it. In that case, I say his July shouldn't count, because he was suffering from an injury throughout the innings he pitched that month. Seems fair if you can eliminate a good month on things that weren't in Suppan's control, I should be able to as well. The guy's ERA was in the high 4s, maybe a bit higher than we would have liked, but not much more than anyone ought to have expected, especially considering his injury. Does fangraphs value all pitchers who put up an era in the high 4s as having negative value? Because when we look back at what stat matters the most from last season, it isn't FIP, it isn't BABIP, it isn't any of those. It is the earned runs he gave up vs. the number of innings he pitched, and he was no where near "horrible" last season in that stat, even if he got to those "decent" numbers in a less than pretty way. Anyone who had expectations that he would be anything but a mid to high 4s ERA guy was being unrealistic of Suppan's abilities. So maybe if you were being unrealistic going into last season, then you could rightly call him horrible. If we want to talk about value for next season, yes his FIP and his BABIP and his K rate matter. But so then so should the fact that he pitched through an injury the previous season.