Bucky Rules

According to the TV guys, Mota was indeed up earlier. But, they said he really didn't do much and sat down pretty quickly. I didn't get the impression that he actually got anywhere near warmed up to enter the game.

So will every manager who puts on the uniform. That's part of the game. Managers make decisions and the whole world questions why they do it. Tony LaRussa is generally regarded as one of the best at in-game management (or just pick your favorite guy). Do you really believe that we wouldn't have 100 people (probably you included) sniping about his decisions, if he were here? On the other hand... Mike Scoscia is a guy that - I would think - many of you would despise as a game manager. He loves the hit and run, over-uses the bunt, probably runs into more outs than a Yost team, etc. Yet his players love playing for him, they play the game as hard as any team out there, they're not overly talented (IMO), and they still win 90 games every year. I was not attempting to "pre-emptively make your argument less valid". By singling out that one sentence and ignoring the rest of the paragraph, you manage to lose all context to my comment. I was merely saying that we're going round and round with this. Each side has valid arguments. One side says he makes far too many in-game mistakes. The other says he doesn't make more (and probably actually makes fewer) than most managers, and he's got other qualities that more than make up for mistakes that he has made. It's all a matter of opinion. And it's very difficult to change someone's opinion. The reality is this... if the Brewers don't win at least 85 games (or make the playoffs), my guess is that Ned will be gone. If that happens, I'm not going to cry the blues for him - because that's the way it works, and that's why they make a lot of money while they have the job. I'll welcome the new guy in, give him a chance, and won't scrutinize his every game decision. And we'll see if he can make a difference. If DM decides to keep him on, I'll be perfectly content with that as well because Ned Yost is not going to be the reason that this team does/doesn't win.

I don't want to get into a long, drawn out discussion on this again. Suffice it to say that I think there are other important aspects of managing a baseball time besides in-game management. Areas where he is better than "halfway-decent". I've detailed that before, though, and I'm not going to get back into that diatribe. But even in in-game management, Yost detractors should at least be honest enough to admit that he is making far fewer decisions that angered many of you in the past. His use of the bullpen this season is noticably different. You can argue that during all of the close games early in '07 he burned up the bullpen in an effort to "win today" and worry about the rest tomorrow. He has seemingly gone thru great efforts this season to avoid that. He makes a point to attempt to rest guys for multiple days after pitching in back-to-back games (with the exception of the closer who he has still pitched whenever the situation warrants). We'll see if that leads to better results from a rested pen in August/Sept. I'm sure you'll still find plenty of things to fire back about, so this discussion is pointless. Nobody is going to change anybody else's mind. You guys think he sucks. Some of us think he's a good manager. You think he constantly makes idiotic decisions. Some of us think he makes mostly sound decisions. You think game management is the most important aspect of being a manager. Some of us think it's over-rated. If/when the team is no longer willing to follow his leadership, that's when I'll get off the Ned bus. Until then, I'm more than fine with him driving it.

you're asking for a lot there, BC. You're preaching to a crowd that believes that Daffy Duck would look like a mensa member next to Ned.

Well... Hoffpauir would be a start. It might require more than that though. I'm not sure.

If Prince has an attitude problem, I don't see it in the way he plays. And it looks to me like he gets along fine with his teammates. The fact that he doesn't yap it up with every opponent that reaches first base (except Pujols for some reason), or every yahoo with a press pass that enters the locker room is of no concern to me. Frankly, if I had to answer some of the questions that Prince gets asked (or Ned for that matter) day after day, I'd be more than a bit surly. If Prince's attitude were a problem, we'd have heard some rumblings by now, I would think.

What is since last Friday? Mota's sucking? or my supposed short leash? Mota pretty much started the season off pretty bad, but got lucky in April. He allowe 22 base runners in 13 innings, yet still had an ERA under 3. He had a decent May, but since the end of May and so far early in June he has stunk. Since the stinking is pretty much the career norm for Guillermo, my guess - and it's only a guess - is that the leash will be short. Especially when we add another option when Riske returns (not that he's great, but it's another option). Vote of confidence in his "8th inning guy" or not. We'll see. The vote of confidence in Turnbow resulted in him almost never being used in tight situations -- and ultimately a demotion to AAA. And this would all be very consistent with Ned's resistance to bashing his players publicly. And by the way... this trait - which I consider a good one - causes him an enormous amount of grief. Because one day he'll support a player in a press conference and two days later the player's role will be reduced. And then he gets bashed for being a waffler. The guy isn't necessarily waffling, he just isn't going to air his every thought to the press if it means publicly criticizing a player. I'm not sure when that characteristic became a bad one. But, it certainly hasn't worked in favor of Ned's public perception.

As I recall Estrada was sat down for a period last year. They called it a hamstring injury. Yost has never been anything but supportive of his players publicly, other than to ocassionally say player X has to get it going. It is not unusual for these incidents to be pointed out "unofficially" by beat writers -- even in the case of Alex Sanchez, and the episode with Bill Hall a few years back. There were a couple of others where specific examples escape me. Furthermore... Estrada isn't with the team after one short season. It seems very consistent to me in comparison to how he dealt with Sanchez.

I'm glad somebody took a step back and said this. There is absolutely no reason to just cash in the division and start thinking about the wildcard at this point. The Cubs will come back to earth. Their schedule will see to it. And we have plenty of h2h matchups with them.

Maybe, maybe not. But, prior to Yost's arrival it was a problem with the Brewers. And it is one thing that he has singled players out for very consistently throughout his tenure here -- although not publicly, but instead with playing time.

Personally, I would consider Mota not being available today the upside. Especially, when you consider it saved an inning - and more importantly an appearance - for somebody else's arm that I'd much rather use if the game is close today. Furthermore, we got to use Mota in the 8th in a situation where it's unlikely he's going to blow the game. Another upside. I'm missing where the downside is in this situation. Mota's been playing with fire for much of the season. In spite of Yost's public defense of Mota, my guess is he's on a very short leash for meaningful situations. And if Riske comes back soon, the leash gets that much shorter.

If it requires trading Suppan to keep Sheets, I am 100% in favor of trading him. I never had a problem with the Soup signing except that I feared it might keep us from signing Sheets. Suppan is fine. Sheets is as good as just about anyone in the league. As for the earlier sentiment about "risking the future of the club" on re-signing Sheets -- well... without Sheets this pitching staff is putrid. It's pretty bad this year without Yo. It doesn't get any better if you lose Sheets and get Yo back. At best, that's a wash. There is no realistic "future" chance at big-time success without much better starting pitching. Suppan is very nice rotation filler. Sheets is a guy that makes it all work. Without Sheets you're hoping someone like Parra takes another big step forward. It's much more important to have Sheets than Soup.

Thanks uwis. I didn't think type B's got 1st round supplementals (thought it was 2nd round).

Here's another draft novice question... How is it that David Riske, Mike Cameron, and Eric Gagne all gave the teams that they left supplemental first round picks, yet the Brewers didn't lose their own picks to get them? I thought we picked up a supplemental AND the signing teams 2nd round pick for Linebrink and Cordero. Wouldn't we then have lost some picks for Riske, Cameron, and Gagne???

I'd be hard pressed to find anything bad about this deal from the Brewers perspective. It's a good day in Brewer land. The Crew gets Braun for two extra years, and probably only pay him about 18-20 mil (at the most, I figure) - maybe as little as $15M - for those extra two years. There's always the health risk, but this smells like a very reasonable deal from where I sit.

And the Cards exercised their option on Izzy for 8.8Mil this year, I believe. They must have done so because they feared he would get more from somebody else. Because that's would good -- not elite -- closers make in 2008. At the end of the season, I still believe we'll look back and view Gagne as a good closer.

From what I've seen of Melvin and Attanasio, they're not nearly as reactionary as the crowd here in this thread. Yost will get the vast majority of this season (until September at least, I would guess). If we revert to having a sub .500 record, he probably won't be back. If we finish with a winning record, but don't make the playoffs, I'd say it's about 70/30 he stays. If we make the playoffs, obviously he's back. Why is it that so many people believe that his demeanor in press conferences is the same as the way he is around the team? So the guy hates doing the press conferences. I'd get tired of hearing stupid questions day after day. Or even good questions, if they're the same questions day after day. It has nothing to do with how he acts/reacts to people outside of that setting. So, why choose the pressers as your basis for his demeanor? Why not his pre-game interviews with Uecker, where he's completely at ease and loose? It makes no sense to make that type of judgment. If he has lost the respect of the team, if they no longer want him around, then I would be on board with firing him tomorrow. I would think DM would have a reading on that. But, that has generally been one of Ned's strengths. If that's no longer the case, I would be on board with the rest of the Ned-haters in saying he should go. I don't believe that's the case. But, I've been wrong before... once.

I think Gagne is being paid like a good closer who happened to be in free agency last year. Elite closers who were free (or re-done) coming into this season got much more. Cordero - 4yr/$46M; Rivera - 3yr/$45M; Joe Nathan - 4yr/47M.

You can't seriously be making this point to demonstrate Yost's ineffectiveness. Yost DID manage that team the following year. You're right, though. Yost couldn't muster just 66 wins with that team. He won 68 games with virtually the same roster that Royster/Lopes won 56 games with. In fact, Yost won 68 games with a payroll that was almost 20% LOWER than the Royster/Lopes roster. And 67 games the following year after an additional 30+% cut in payroll. Now, being better than Lopes/Royster proves nothing. But, that argument shows just how misguided and blinded some people are in their hatred for Ned. (edit: long nested quote --1992)

I guess what this tells me is that the team is underperforming and somehow winning games. If they actually had someone that could help them perform, perhaps they would win more games. Also, those numbers can sometimes reflect the manager. Not pulling someone at the right time affects ERA. Putting TGJ in any situation affects SLG. I guess I just don't understand sitting here saying that nothing is Ned's fault and that it's all on the players. What the hell does Ned do then? These players have performed in the past, so there's no reason to think they don't have the ability. It's the manager that needs to get the most out of his players. You can point to some string of luck that has us barely above .500 and say that Ned is somehow the reason for this, or you can watch his decisions in-game and decide for yourself. If your argument is that the team numbers suffer because of Ned playing his guys in bad situations, then certainly you can point to several individual players outperforming their expectations, but simply haven't been used enough in said situations. You'd be hard pressed to find any hitter on the team matching reasonable expectations with the exceptions of Kapler and Kendall. Everyone else has underperformed - some to a great degree. And that's Yost's fault, how??? Same with the pitchers except Sheets. ... and yet they're still a game over .500. Yes, by all means, let's fire the manager.

I'd go so far as to say that Gagne has pitched pretty darn well so far this year. Not like the unhittable Goggles of his Dodgers days, but pretty darn good, nonetheless. He got squeezed yesterday, and he's been squeezed in other games this season as well. He's only been hit hard in a couple of games -- and one of those was his 4th appearance in four days. As far as him being worth $10M or not. I wouldn't say he isn't worth 10M, necessarily. If he continues to pitch like he has (and gets the results you would expect from him pitching like he has), then I think he'll end up being worth it. Closers with a resume get 7-8 million a year in free agency. Elite guys get more. We had to pay a little extra for the one-year deal, or else he probably might've been in the 3-yr 20-25 Mil range - just a guess. Here's a sampling of some other closer contracts: Isringhausen $8.8M '08 option exercised Percival - 2-yr $8M (with $4M in incentives) Nathan - 4-yr $47 M Cordero - 4-yr $46M Hoffman - $7.5M '08 option excercised -- he's 40 years old Kerry Wood - $4.2 M plus $3.5 M in incentives for finishing games for a guy who can't stay healthy -- ever It seems to me that if you want an established closer via free agency you're going to have pay somewhere a bit below what we're paying Gagne. And to mitigate the risk, you pay more for the 1-year deal. It seems to fall in line to me. The only contract in that group that is considerably cheaper is Percival's.

Braun went into 2nd spikes high earlier in the series. That was probably dirtier than anything Johnson did there. It sucks to lose Gallardo, but the season is far from over. We only got 41 starts from Sheets and Gallardo last year. We can still get reasonably close to that number this year, if Sheets stays healthy. A substantial injury to Sheets now would be really tough to overcome, though.

Absolutely agree 100%. I was on a fantasy baseball message board at the time with guys who were watching the game, and they said that Rickie ran thru a stop sign (but they admittedly didn't know if it was a late sign or not). If I had to guess, I would say that Sveum was holding him, and Uke just assumed that he sent him.

And except for the Marlins game where he gave up a home run and walked a man. And the latest Cubs game where he walked 4 in 3 innings By that logic every relief pitcher on the Brewers staff - short of Mitch Stetter - is not suitable for anything. And is pitching poorly. My guess is 80% of the relief pitchers on any staff would be deemed as such.

I'm wondering if you still think Marmol pitched the most crucial part of the game? I think he pitched the most important part of the game. The game was set up perfectly for Wood to come in and face the bottom of the order. Just because Wood failed doesn't mean Marmol wasn't thrown in the right spot. Maybe Howry should be pitching the 9th. Or maybe Wood will be fine in that role. Who knows?