Bucky Rules

In the pool of post-arby (or free agent eligible) pitchers, my guess is he very well could be better than average. I still hope that his contract isn't the reason that we don't re-sign Sheets, though. That was my biggest (and really only) fear when we signed Suppan.

Does anyone find it ironic, that our version of Nuke Laloosh (million dollar arm and a 10 cent head) has a blow up of his own on the 20th anniversary of the release of Bull Durham? I guess we should've seen that coming. As for what to do with him... I'd send him down. If somebody claims him, so be it. I really don't think he's going to help the club this year unless he can get straightened out. And I don't think he'll get enough opps to get straightened out in the big leagues. I doubt that he'd refuse the assignment and forfeit the 3.2 million.

They're a good young team with a ton of talent. But, I don't think that they can realistically expect to hang with Boston/NYY. They're actually a lot like the Brewers, but I think the Brewers have a much better chance of winning their division.

When Prince had similar service time, he spent the bulk of that service time as a PH off the bench. I don't think he had quite the production that Braun has had, so I would guess it really wasn't his place to make controversial statements. Braun on the other hand, you could argue would have had some justification. Braun said the right things, Prince didn't. But Prince hasn't made a beef (no pun intended) since then, so it's no big deal.

Rollie often times pitched more than one inning in a game. Probably not the best guy for comparison's sake.

In spite of the blown saves, I think he's pitched pretty well with the exception of his first game and then again earlier this week in his 4th game in 4 days. The blown save to Cincy was a pop fly to Patterson that made it into the Mercedes pit. And yesterday was a routine double play ball to get him out of it. He's not the Gagne of old that was simply untouchable, but he's still good enough to be a pretty darn good closer. I think he'll be fine as long as he's mentally tough enough to deal with this rough stretch of bad results. I think he is.

I've found that's the only option. It's too bad, but it's a fact.

David Ortiz -- 83 AB; .181 BA, .292 OBP, .277 SLG, .569 OPS Do you think he's going to hit like that all year? It's 80 ABs. Hall will come around.

He didn't treat me with respect by ignorantly and condescendingly stating that 3 pitchers have accounted for all 60 innings pitched, when that wasn't even remotely accurate. I feel that is more disrespectful than what I said back. Really? His comment may be inaccurate - and maybe even ignorant as you suggest, but it certainly wasn't condescending and disrespectful. There was plenty of condescension in this thread, but it wasn't coming from him.

The only thing that concerns me is that Gross was our only LH stick with any power on the team (besides Prince of course). Other than that, I don't have any problem with trading him. If DM thinks this kid has an arm that can help at some point, I'm all for it. Some seem concerned that now our only option off the bench for PH or for long term injury replacement is TGJ. Personally, I think it very well could be Joe Dillon unless it's Cameron that gets hurt. I don't think he'll be in the minors very long once the roster gets settled. We're not going to carry 176 pitchers all year. I see TGJ as a defensive replacement (double-switch type) and a PR. I'm sure he'll get some5th, 6th and 7th inning PH opportunities, but he's likely to be a rung lower on the PH chain than Counsell, Dillon, and Kapler. The marginal difference that Gross could make as a PH in exchange for some clearing up of the roster and a potential future arm seems like a reasonable exchange to me. I don't think it's a big deal one way or the other.

Did Trenni really just ask -- "Was I the only one that had my bed shaking early this morning?"

Personally, I think Yost outmanaged LaRussa today. He walked Pujols in the 9th, where LaRussa pitched to Prince in the 8th(bloop double or not). That proved costly in the 10th when he didn't have Flores left to pitch to Prince. While I'm not a big proponent of the bunt, he used it well in the 8th (Hardy), and I think LaRussa probably should've bunted with Miles in the 10th.

WISN dumped Homer and lost the rights to Marquette. They've all but eliminated sports from their programming. Although they picked up UWM basketball - which seems sort of strange considering every other move they've made.

You sure it's free?

Don't we usually hear complaints that Yost bunts too much? I agree with orca that he rarely bunts with anybody but the pitchers, but I think that's a good thing for many of the reasons stated above.

i think the Reds are the most serious competition for the division. With Harang, Cueto, Arroyo, and Volquez... that's not bad. And they've never had a problem scoring runs. I'm not sure about their pen, but it's better than last year.

I think the Brewers would be giddy at the thought of signing a Tulo-type deal.

I agree with those that say Bush is better than we've seen thus far. But, even if he were pitching like he normally pitches, he'd probably still by the odd man out in my book. I think the other five are just better than him right now. I'd put him in the pen - as opposed to exposing him to waivers - and do something with McClung or Turnbow. If one of the youngsters falters or someone gets hurt, he can get another chance.

To me most of any over-use of the bullpen was a direct result of the starters not being able to get deep enough into games. If you would like to spread some of that blame to the defense, I guess I'd have to consider that to have some validity. To hear now that some in the Yost-nay camp are saying that he pulled his starters too early flies directly in the face of the numerous times during the season that Yost was accused of leaving the SPs in too long in games (Dave Bush after the 6th being the prime example of that complaint). I think the guy played the hand that he was dealt. And he did it reasonably well - not perfectly, but reasonably well. Now, in hindsight, we can all go back and identify those games where we know the results and can say he should have done this or that differently -- (in some cases I know it wasn't hindsight). But, I honestly don't remember a clamoring at any point in this season that Capuano should've been left in longer than he was. To cite three Capuano starts in May as examples of how Yost abused the pen, reeks of hindsight-ism to me. In addition... I'm definitely not in favor of giving up on a four run deficit in the 4th inning with this team - even if Cy Young is on the mound against us.

I really don't see how that's going to be the case. The main - if not only - gripe against Ned is some of his game time decisions. For the sake of argument, let's say he is a terrible game manager. If he's the worst game manager in baseball, he's only going to cost his team a handful of games and probably less. I think that even his worst critics on this board would have a hard time pushing the thought that he's the worst game manager in baseball. SO... I don't think there is much risk of Ned being the cause of the end being extraodinarily ugly. The only way the end would get really ugly for Ned is if he completely loses the team - ala Jerry Royster and maybe Buck Rodgers. I don't see that happening. In general, people give way too much credence to a manager's game decisions influencing the outcome of the game.

Did you intend for that to be in blue? I'm pretty sure he would take the job. I know I'm going wayyyyyyyyy out on a limb here, but I'm sticking to my guns on this one.

So, we can't pitch Turnbow on back to back days. We can't pitch Wise on back to back days. We don't want guys like Aquino, Spurling, etc. put into high leverage situations. What's the alternative? Pitch Cordero every night until his arm falls off?

Boston over LA Cleveland over NY Philly over Colorado Chicago over AZ Cleveland over Boston Philly over Chicago Cleveland over Philly Travis Hafner WS MVP -- making up for a pretty bad year.

I would say he's speaking of the talk show blow-hards, and the bloggers that hide behind their phones and keyboards to pound the same point over and over and over again - often times contradicting themselves. If Yost hears what I've heard, how is supposed to take some of these people seriously? One minute he's ripped for not keeping a set lineup, and the next guy rips him for leaving someone in the lineup too long. That's a pretty arrogant and naive statement. I guarantee you that most of "biggest fans" of this team rarely - if ever - visit this site. No disrespect to this site -- which is awesome -- but, how many people do you actually believe spend a lot of time on this site? This statement just goes to show how much of a sheltered view that some here have. Take for example, my mother. She's definitely one of the biggest Brewer fans alive. She 70 years old and doesn't even know how to turn a computer on, much less visit and contribute to this site. There are TONS of people just like her. The people that visit this site are people that enjoy blogging and the Brewers. To categorically call those people the "biggest fans the team has" simply because you're here, is blatantly arrogant. If all you know about Brewer fans views of Yost is from the blogs and talk-radio, you'd think that 95% of the fans want him out. JSonline ran a poll a few days back, and it turns out that only about 35% say he shouldn't be back. And if you know anything about marketing, you'll know that these types of polls are much likelier to elicit responses from the negative/angry fans, than the supporters. So my guess is that it could be somewhere closer to a loud 25% minority. But, no worries... I'm sure that 25% is the group that has really watched a lot of baseball and knows the difference between good strategies and bad. I suggest that some here should read this comment and look in the mirror.

I don't think that they can afford to do that. I think they're going to end up taking their chances. I'm not positive of this, but I think his pitch counts have been relatively low in his starts. He can't have many that have hit 100. That's probably how they're going to go about limiting him.