istanbultaye

I would just like to point out that the video linked in the opening post was clearly heavily cut to the parts where Nyjer was laughing and showing off the beast mode, etc etc, losing all of the actual talking in the interview. Of course he's going to seem like a bigger spaz than normal when someone does a stupid thing like that.

Here's a link: http://blogs.sun-sentinel...-lomo-ready-to-play.html

Gamel to the Royals for... Alcides Escobar?

Perhaps I am mistaken, but, wasn't Lawrie playing 2nd base? And if he was playing 2nd base, then he likely would have continued to do so, while Taylor Green played 3rd, and so Lawrie would have been stuck behind Weeks. And, if Green had to hit to the tune of a 1.000 OPS at AAA for basically the whole year, I presume that Lawrie would have had to do the same, even if he had been playing 3rd base, since even if the brewers had traded McGehee for a 'stopgap' the stopgap would likely have played as well as Casey did during the first half, if not better, and they would have preferred to keep the gritty veteran instead of calling up a rookie.

The Brewers are 10 games up. Someone said without Marcum we'd not be headed for the playoffs. I replaced Marcum's innings with a 5.25 ERA, and that's 40 more runs allowed. I'm not going to try to figure out who replaces who, what, where, why, when and how. There's no way you can measure the Brewers expected W/L based on that, seeing as we're already pretty far ahead of the pythagorean. I'm simply replacing Marcum's innings with 170 replacement innings, regardless if it's 130 from Dave Bush and 40 from a replacement level reliever, doesn't matter. ALL ELSE being equal, if you replace Marcum with crap, the Brewers would still be 6 games up. Of course the problem would be that it would be impossible to say "All else remaing equal" because not having Marcum would have other unknown ramifications on the team (Bullpen usage, salary used elsewhere, etc). I feel comfortable that without Marcum that we would still be in the race; I just have no idea how close the race would be. The offseason could have progressed so much differently it really doesn't pay to speculate where the Brewers would be if they had never completed that trade. In hindsight if they could have found a different starter similar to Marcum that didn't require giving up Lawrie that would have been the best of both worlds; not sure that was possible though. Plugging in Lawrie at 3rd instead of McGehee would be amazing. And it could be argued that without acquiring Marcum, or an equivalent pitcher, we would not have been able to pick up Greinke, though who knows for certain.

There was definitely some photoshop work done though, it just wasn't to put random images of the players together.

In other T-Plush news, I thought this video was pretty awesome:

Well, if you go with the theory that anything that happens prior to Roenicke seeing the player first hand, and what they do their first 1-2 weeks will form his opinion of their skills permanently, then what happened with Felipe Lopez makes perfect sense. He came in, Roenicke gave him a shot (because he's a veteran), he sucked for 2 weeks, and Roenicke therefore stopped using him, and ultimately Melvin DFAed him.

Actually, it accompanied all of his at bats tonight.

I actually think that the most likely position to see improvement offensively is 3B. Whether that is from Casey going back to '09-'10 form, or one of the young guys coming up, there are multiple options with potential for a significant increase in production. Offensively, I think SS can't really get any worse, and a boost in OBP would be a boost in production even if all other offensive things stay about the same as SS, but the real win at SS is actually a defensive improvement.

the Baseline Roenicke Experiment Winning Every Regular Series

The fact of the matter is, that with roughly equal OPS (and JHJ's has in fact been higher in the range you selected), OBP is the more important number. Especially if you consider that slugging is not the issue with the team, anything to shore up the On Base Percent in any spot in the lineup can only help.

The answer is yes, unless something changed since Ryan Braun's ROY campaign. He lead the league in slugging through that mechanism.

I don't think you're understanding the statistics very well, or looking them up yourself. One could call rluzinski the most knowledgeable person on statistics on this board. I've learned more about statistics from reading his posts over the past several years than you could get from some statistics classes. Perhaps you should research the amount of fluctuation year to year in such stats as RISP. However, let's look at the numbers you posted from last year. Fielders OB% with RISP was .216 higher than his batting average. He was walked over 20% of the times he came to the plate with RISP. This led to Casey McGehee having increased chances to drive in runs. We certainly can't take away that he did do a good job of hitting with RISP last year, but you also have to realize that he would have never been in position to drive those runs in if Prince hadn't done his job and taken the walks that were given him. By and large, getting on base, no matter the situation, outweighs any short term RBI benefits that could come from chasing non-strike pitches that you might get a hit on. Also, Prince has clearly not suffered from low batting/HR totals with RISP his whole career, so drawing a conclusion based on just last years data does not seem to me to be the best selection of data possible. Edit: Just as another example. Using RBIs as any serious proof of hitting prowess could lead you to conclude that Yuniesky Betancourt was the best hitter on the Royals last year, since he did tie for the team lead in RBIs. He did this with a .692 OPS. What is quite surprising is that his RISP OPS was in fact even lower than his total OPS, so it is safe to assume that his RBI total was almost completely a function of opportunity. Interestingly enough, some of the Royal's best OBP guys spent a lot of time batting 5, 6, and 7.

I think if the brewers had not had an off day tomorrow, there is a chance things would have played out differently, and Axford may have been held out in favor of Rodriguez.

Is her slogan, "Friends don't let friends plead guilty"? (Literally heard this slogan in a radio ad for a lawyer out in California, when I was listening to the dodgers sweep the cardinals).

http://images.yuku.com/image/png/67415d9a7ffae2f879b1c4cd2a51d84bf897b68.png Looks to me like he barely gets the corner of the base with his right foot, though the view isn't completely conclusive.

JJ got to start in 2005 because there were 0 options at SS, and defensively he was ready. Offensively, it wasn't so much 'readiness' that was a concern as opposed to the fact that he had missed almost the entire prior year. Weeks then got called up in June after trading away Junior Spivey. The only reason Prince wasn't up more was because he was 'blocked' by Lyle Overbay, but he was up to DH. Braun wasn't even drafted until 2005, so there wasn't any realistic chance that he would have been called up. So, it doesn't seem to me that there was a particular plan of 'spacing' them out. In my opinion, offensively, the Brewers are currently more capable of handling a black hole or two in the lineup than the lineups 3-5 years ago, as evidenced by this season. That said, I don't think we want to get rid of half of our current lineup and go with all rookies either. However, if/when Prince leaves, the only legitimate alternative I see at 1B is Mat Gamel. It would be a drop back to something more along the lines of Lyle Overbay circa '04/'05, but I don't think any one can deny that Overbay was a solid producer back then. Defensively, he'd fall somewhere in between Prince and Lyle. Assuming we get some sort of solid veteran shortstop alternative to Yuniesky, I think the Brewers lineup could easily afford to take a 'chance' on Green platooning with McGehee at 3B. If Green isn't succeeding and McGehee is, then simply option Green back to AAA for more 'seasoning', and go with McGehee unless he starts playing like this year again. I would avoid messing with the outfield at this time, since it is, a bigger part of the lineup than the infield. (2 of 6 solid contributors in IF this year, 3 of 5 solid contributors in OF, counting bench players). /blueon Platoon Yovani and Gamel at 1B... or if Yo is pitching against a LHP, Greinke can take the platoon... ;-) (I still think Yo should bat 6th in the lineup of players we currently have, when he pitches).

I think the difference between 1B and LF so far as 'easiness' is mostly a function of athleticism. LF requires the player to be able to run competently. For someone like Prince Fielder, 1B would clearly be an easier position to play than left field. However, for someone like Ryan Braun, limiting their chances, and putting them in a place where, for the most part it is go catch a flyball, or go pick the ball up off the ground and throw it in the general direction of the infield, which is quite probably easier than playing first base, where there are bunt plays, ground balls, popups, relay throws and quite a few other situational things to keep track of.

I'm not sure what the average years spent in the minors are for most catchers, but Lucroy came out of college early, and only really spent about 3 seasons worth of time in the minors. He's 25 now, so I think his defense still has a good chance of improving.

20-12 is actually well within the realm of reason. Much more so than their recent hot streak (23-4?).

It appears that cars on fire is not an unheard of event at citi field (circa 2008): Without any other information, that is my guess as to the current fire. Edit: Well, so much for the car in parking lot theory. It might still be a car, since it is apparently a junkyard.

At first I thought that might have been where Prince's 'bomb' landed, then I realized the fire was out center field.

I agree that GMs are more important than Managers, since no manager is going to do well with a team full of scrubs. However, a great GM alone does not really make a great front office either, as there needs to be good scouting and statistical analysis going on to actually give that GM good information to work with. Doug Melvin without Gord Ash and Jack Z (in the early years) would probably not have the Brewers in the state they are in. As far as managers, their importance is more that someone has to be in charge of the daily activities of the team. Other than that, I think the pitching, hitting and fielding coaches probably have more to do with the performance of players than the manager, and even that isn't necessarily a huge impact. As to why the salaries between players and management is opposite of the regular world, it basically stems from the fact that baseball is an entertainment industry. People pay to watch the players, not the general manager, hence, even with a GM's importance in getting the players in the first place, it is the players who are what is in demand in the market, and they get the biggest cut (other than the owner).

http://milwaukee.brewers...._id=8879232&c_id=mil Not that it's really all that noteworthy, but this is really one of the first times a highlight of an ejection has had clear enough audio to hear word for word what both the ump and player were saying. Let's just say it is noticeable enough to be an FCC violation on Braun! I don't necessarily have a judgement either way. Braun obviously had a case that it wasn't a strike, via fox trak, but he was not exactly family friendly in arguing his case either. Ump actually let him argue longer than some would. (edit: put in direct link to video --1992)