adambr2

I don't think 1B has hurt at all, except for maybe depth purposes. But I think that with Aoki's emergence, him playing everyday in right and Hart at 1st is just as good if not better than Hart in RF, Gamel at 1st. SS has hurt, but I don't think anyone expected Alex Gonzalez to be anything more than a Betancourt with good defense. The dropoff between him and Izturis is pretty dramatic, though, which really hurts us. And this is where you have to look at Melvin a little bit. Going into the season with Izturis as your primary back at all of 2B, SS, and 3B is asking for disaster if any regular starter goes down, which obviously happened.

Brooks Conrad and Edwin Mayonset aren't regular starters, that's an exaggeration. I'm not saying Macha would be doing any better than this but I doubt that Roenicke could have gotten 80 wins out of a team that featured Braden Looper as the #2 starter. This team still has Greinke, Gallardo, Marcum, and Wolf at the front of the rotation. There is still too much talent on this team for the injury pass card to work for me.

No manager is capable of getting this lineup to be 2nd in OPS (although the pitching should be better), but the point is that Roenicke will lose you those 3-4 games that a manager can actually swing over the course of a season vs. the average manager. Something that you cannot prove. He may win you games other managers don't either. Not saying he's been perfect but he had a pretty great first season managing. You can give me the line LaRussa outmanaged him, well LaRussa out managed everyone everyone. RR has his faults, they all do, but hes got very little talent since the injuries depleted the team and he has vets underperforming so badly it hurts my eyes to watch. You can't lay that on him. He wasn't just outmanaged by LaRussa, he was outmanaged by Yost. No, I can't lay everything on him, but I can lay puzzling pinch-hitting moves, including putting in Brooks Conrad for position players in big RBI situations, while withholding other pinch hitting moves that make sense at the time, puzzling bullpen switches, among many other "managerial" moves.

Strange, the clubhouse seems real downtrodden these days, and the world was signing Roenicke's praises last year for being able to energize the clubhouse. Maybe researchers will one day be able to find a correlation between winning, and energy in the clubhouse. Macha was boring, but I bet he brought plenty of "energy" to the 2003 A's.

No manager is capable of getting this lineup to be 2nd in OPS (although the pitching should be better), but the point is that Roenicke will lose you those 3-4 games that a manager can actually swing over the course of a season vs. the average manager.

I agree. Bullpen arms are overpriced mid-season, and one bullpen arm isn't going to save this team.

Official theme song of the 2012 Milwaukee Brewers.

Are there are Brewer fans left here that still think this team is actually good?

Where was everyone expecting us to be offensively this year? We've lost Gonzalez, Gamel, and Lucroy -- all opening day starters, for some or all of the season. Yeah, Weeks is troubling, but I don't think we know enough of the situation to be able to speak to why. I'd be pretty shocked if he isn't doing everything in his power to try to correct it. I expected the offense to take a ding from the beginning, because I didn't buy into the whole Ramirez+Gonzalez+Gamel> McGehee+Betancourt+Fielder equation that was being tossed about all Winter long. Simply put, Fielder himself is greater than all of those guys. The injuries play some role, but not a huge one in my view. The major issue is that two guys counted on for the middle of the order in a big way have not come through. No explanation necessary for Weeks, and though you say Ramirez is 'revving' it up, I expected more than 5 homers by mid June.... we are roughly 3 weeks from the All-Star break. This doesn't mention that yet again, this team has problems getting clutch hits and scoring without homering. We are 7th in OPS and runs scored in the NL. All that I can say about this is there are some horrible offenses in baseball this year. Does that absolve the Brewers ineptitude? I did a quick check and the Brewer RPG output to this point is the lowest they've had since '04 and I believe the third lowest that they've had since joining the NL. You also have to consider that the explosion a few Sundays back against the Twins bumped the RPG total up a quarter of a point or so. They have failed to score 4 runs in half their games, not good. In the end, I'm not saying that firing Narron now would do any good, but I will say that the hitters have seemed to regress with the loss of Sveum. I won't shed any tears if he is gone at the end of the year though.... I hate nepotism at any rate. First, I would say that when considering the point that there are some horrible offenses in baseball this year, I would then ask if that's a product of everyone just being inept, us included, or a product of better pitching around the league. Secondly, I am not sure how you came up with that statistic for the Brewers RPG but I do not believe it to be true. The Brewers have scored 268 runs through 62 games this year -- an average of 4.33 RPG. Just last season on this very date, the Brewers had scored 290 runs through 68 games -- an average of 4.28 RPG. So with all this talk about how much worse the offense looks without Dale -- so far it seems to be perception, not reality. Statistically at this very point last season, we had less RPG than at this point this year -- with very little injuries, Prince in the lineup, and a productive Weeks. As I've mentioned I believe the difference to be the pitching this year, not the hitting, as to why we are not contending. The pitching at this point last year had allowed 3.85 RPG -- this year? Almost a full run higher so far at 4.68.

Is this sarcasm? It has still only happened 22 times in MLB history. Yes it has happened more recently in the last few years, because we are currently in an era of really good pitching. I never thought I would hear a perfect game referred to as disgusting. It almost seems like you think these guys should be ashamed of themselves for accomplishing this.

"We’ve got Kameron Loe and we’ve got Veras down there," he said. "We shouldn’t have to put Manny back in the ballgame. He did his job." So the explanation from the Skip is to name off two other relievers in our bullpen, and say that Manny's job was done after 1 inning. So let me get inside RR's brain here (buckle up). The 3 for 39 Brooks Conrad should PH for Maldanado the other day, and George Kottaras in the 8th with RISP, even though George may at least get you a walk even against a lefty. But same situation in the 10th against a tough righty with Mayonset up, no Taylor Green, even though they could easily double switch him in and move Ransom to SS. Parra can't pitch a 2nd inning tonight with 2 lefties coming up in the inning because "he did his job", even though 9 times already this year he's come in to throw at least 2 innings. (On nights when he had not done his job after one inning, apparently). I'm so confused. Does anyone really know what he's thinking? Does he?

Yeah, Roenicke has been outmanaged by Ned Yost this series. That's pretty telling. There have been numerous times this year where I've thought to myself, "Hey, he's learning. I think he's really starting to figure it out." Those are usually the times when he will quickly prove me wrong.

I have to agree with this. We are 7th in OPS and runs scored in the NL. Where was everyone expecting us to be offensively this year? We've lost Gonzalez, Gamel, and Lucroy -- all opening day starters, for some or all of the season. Yeah, Weeks is troubling, but I don't think we know enough of the situation to be able to speak to why. I'd be pretty shocked if he isn't doing everything in his power to try to correct it.

Are we going to start calling for Kranitz's then, too? We are 7th in the NL in runs scored and OPS, but near the bottom in almost every pitching category. The pitching has been the main problem, not the bats. Although I do find it somewhat shocking that he can't figure out a way to break someone as talented as Weeks out of one of the worst stretches hitting you'll ever see by a professional hitter.

Yes and no. I agree K-Rod has been disappointing, but what are the alternatives? Veras has been hit and miss. Loe setting up Axford last year was a disaster. This entire pen is atrocious.

Good: Emptying out your bench when necessary to go for the win and not being afraid to use your catchers out of fear of injury. Bad: Overthinking PH moves and thus making unnecessary or even downgrading moves. Conrad is batting .079 and hits around .200 vs RHP for his entire career. He should never be used as a last resort for any non-position player with the game on the line unless a HR is your absolute only hope and your position player is Cezar Izturis. Just leave Maldanado in.

No, it's not. No one is forgetting that. It's a hypothetical question gauging Brewer fan's value of Braun vs. some of the other greats in the league right now, with the intent of stimulating conversation on the board. Don't be the guy that thinks that I am actually suggesting we put Ryan Braun on the block.

Well, with all due respect, I believe that's ridiculous. Adam Dunn would have to struggle to be at 400 HR's by the end of this year and should EASILY be at about 410 HR's. He's 32 years old. Lets say he plays another 8 years and averages 25 Hr's a year(very low, but for the sake of argument). That would put him at about 610 HR's. And you're going to tell me that when not a single player who has hit 500 HR's without the stink of roids on him or has admitted to using them HASN'T made the HOF, this player who could EASILY surpass 600 HR's has "zero chance?" Sorry, this is a pet peeve for me. To me, he doesn't FEEL like a HOF'er, but to just blandly throw out there that he has ZERO chance of being a HOF'er...which...given the career he's had to this point at 32 years of age is ridiculous. He has ZERO chance. He is a career .243 hitter who has stuck out at a 34% clip over the course of his career. Never once in my life have I ever thought "Wow, Adam Dunn is absolutely dominant." The HOF is supposed to be for those WOW type players who were dominant MVP types while they played. Again, I personally think he should have zero chance to get it. Certainly many have that opinion but you used two statistics, batting average and strikeouts, that aren't very good measures of a player IMO. He has a career .374 on-base percentage. Just my opinion, but if you're getting on base at a .374 clip, and I'm a voter, I don't care what your batting average is. There are lots of players in the HOF with a lot lower OBP's and OPS'es. Our own Yount, for instance, at .342 and .772. And not that it changes the point (he does strike out a lot), but Dunn has struck out 27.9% of his plate appearances in his career, not 34%. That's a lot more fair measurement than the percentage of AB's that you used which doesn't give him credit for any of his walks.

Dunn is slow, but I can't agree with Dusty on that. In my opinion, any phrase that even insinuates that getting on base is a bad thing is absurd. Once you get on base, a living turtle could round the bases at his own pace on a home run, and unless you're talking about someone who literally cannot run at all, you can still go station to station on any hit. He offers you nothing in terms of stealing bases, going first to third on a single, etc, but IMO getting on base = good, regardless of who gets on base.

Could be worse...I had a buddy in 2007 who was detained, handcuffed to a bench in an office at MP, and then given a disorderly conduct citation all for yelling (from the outfield seats, mind you) "Rickie...pull your head out of your ...(you know what)." Someone nearby was offended and called security and that was it.

Kingman had a lifetime OPS of .780, Dunn's is .878. One thing that Dunn has that Kingman never did is the ability to get on base. IMO his strikeout totals, and lack of a silver slugger or gold glove, are irrelevant to his HOF case. I don't think he'll get in, but I think he's more than a one trick guy if you consider getting on base to be important, which I certainly do.

Yeah, Weeks' is pretty much a parallel to Dunn right now, except that, hopefully, Weeks' won't last all season -- though I am not nearly as confident about that as I was a month ago. Weeks actually has a slightly higher OPS right now than Dunn had all of last season, so if you want to get an idea of just how bad Dunn's 2011 somehow was, Weeks is giving us a pretty good idea. Hindsight is 20/20, but I wonder if 3 months ago, the White Sox would have let us take Dunn off their hands for nothing.

Kind of off topic, but I didn't think I should be starting another Adam Dunn thread, but.... What in the world happened last year?? Dunn has been a force his entire career. He's never, ever OPS'ed less than .818. Then, overnight, .569??? Over an entire season?? He basically had a slump that lasted an entire season. You can understand a guy like that having an off-year, maybe a .750 OPS, maybe even .700. But .569? He didn't just lose it, either, because this year he's back to being the same offensive beast he's been his entire career. So I can't even wrap my head around what happened with him last year. Something in his stance, his swing, that just never got corrected the whole season? Or just honestly one of those things that happened and there's really no explaining it? It's one of the most unlikely statistical things I've ever seen.

This bullpen is atrocious. One guy in the entire bullpen with an ERA under 4.18. Yikes. With the really up and down years that Axford and K-Rod are having this year, it's a minor miracle that the streak of winning games when leading after 7 has stood as long as it has.

Yeah not needed IMO. If we're going to give up something for an upgrade I think it needs to be at SS. There's nothing else that we can realistically upgrade for the price that it would be worth paying.