Baldkin

Uke is on tonight. I mean, he's on. I'm in stitches here.

Braddock and Saito.... Braddock and Saito.... Braddock and Saito.... keep saying it... and the baseball gods will make it happen....

The average manager leaves lots of runs and -- as a result -- games on the table by consistently doing the following: 1) Not optimizing the lineup -- this could be upwards of 20 runs in a season. 2) Not using his best relievers in the highest leverage situations 3) Not platooning and playing matchups nearly enough.

I really like it if we get him before interleague play....

Well, I lied, my numbers are off. They are 14 of 20 on Sac Bunting. So they've given up 20 outs so far this season. I'm getting this data from baseball-reference. The 20 only includes actual sac bunts attempted. Attempts made early in the count are not included. I went back through the play by play data (somehow I missed two games, I'm too lazy to go back through again) and found 12 successful and 1 unsuccessful -- those dates aren't logged. April 4th: (2nd inning) Morgan bunts Yuni to 3B with 0 outs. With Nieves and Narveson following. No runs score. April 8th: (2nd inning) Morgan bunts runners to 2B and 3B in front of Kottaras and Wolf. Kottaras grounds out, scoring a run. Wolf makes an out. April 9th: (1st inning) Morgan bunts Weeks to 2B. Both Bruan and Fielder follow with doubles. Run scores. April 18th: (Top 12th) Gomez bunts Weeks over. This is one of the few I agree with. Run scores. April 23rd: (Bot 7, down 6-3) Gomez bunts Counsell over. Run scores on a Braun HR. April 27th (bot 5, down 4-3) Gomez bunts Weeks over. Braun walks. Weeks scores on a groundout and an error. May 2nd: (Top 1st) Gomez bunts Weeks over. No run scores. May 5th: (Top 6, tied) Morgan fouls out on a bunt. May 5th: (Top 8, tied) Morgan bunts Weeks over. No run scores. May 17th: (Top 3rd, down 2) Weeks bunts Wolf over. No run scores. May 20th: (Bot 1st, tied) Hart bunts Weeks over. Weeks scores. May 20th: (Bot 13th, tied) Gomez, bunts Rivera over. No run scores. So, out of the 12 successful I found, we scored a run 5 times. I do not like those odds. Bunting in front of Braun and Prince is just not smart. Bunting in the first 5 innings is not smart. Buunting in the 7th when you're down 3 runs is a horrible idea. Gomez and Morgan are not the type who get doubled up, and Weeks scores on almost any double they hit from first. Giving away that out, unless it's tied and very late in the game, is just foolhardy.

Hart was sac bunting in the first inning in one of his first games back.I don't recall Hart bunting since. I don't get the small ball lover label being put on Roenicke, at least from the bunting aspect. Some people were predicting that we'd be bunting all the time when he got hired and i just don't see it happening. My issues have been his seeming to be ok with the often incredibly reckless baserunning, hm keeping Gomez in the two hole to long, he loves Kotsay to much for my liking, and that stretch where he used Loe nearly everyday. His amount of calling for bunts hasn't struck me as excessive at all. They have 14 sac bunts not including the #9 spot in the order. 14. That's 14 outs they have given away. That's more than half a games worth of outs. Personally, I find that to be excessive.

But we've got two of 'em!

He throws to the wrong base way too often, he never adjusts his position based on who's up or the game situation, and, on more than one occasion this season, I've watched him running towards the dugout on a ball to the left-center gap with two outs, just assuming Gomez was going to get there, well before the ball was caught. He's better than he was, but it just seems like he doesn't care to be a good defender. You'd think the little mental things would've caught up to him by now. That he would know that whenever he dives for a ball he misses it by about 8 feet.

Don't forget Braddock, too.

I have completely unrealistic optimism for the month of June. 20-7.

I use Media Monkey, and love it.

If he's the one who insisted on having 13 pitchers, despite basically never using 2 of them, then he gets a D in my book. If that isn't his fault, I'll move it up to a C. He's thrown Loe too much, has used the wrong guys on his bench too often (lots of Kotsay, no Boggs, almost no Counsell) and as far as I remember, he hasn't subbed defensively for Betancourt once this year.

Kotsay has a .640 OPS. Boggs' is .746. Boggs has hit better so far this year, and he's been amazingly unlucky (.111 babip). He also predicts to hit better than Kotsay the rest of the season.

I would to, but when Morgan was out who else should have started in center? Boggs and his sub .200 avg? Yes, Defense matters too. Kotsay runs slower than.... well... maybe anyone on the team, other than McGehee. I don't know why Boggs wasn't a viable option in CF.

No, it's absolutely not dead on. The Record companies are what happened. They decided what they can make money off of (attractive people and auto-tuned cheaply made quickly produced albums), and that's what gets pushed onto the public via the vast majority of radio stations. The switch was made way before the internet and downloading became popular (late 90's). There's just more music produced now than ever before, and it's more easily available, so there are not 3 bands that people would argue are the current "greatest rock band" or whatever, like there were in the 60's and 70's. Radiohead seems to be plugging along just fine, even though they offered an album for COMPLETELY FREE download to anyone who wanted it.

This year is random because of the huge number of shifts the Brewers have incorporated early in the year, and the completely tiny numbers of plays Yuni has had to make. You see, it's like Nyjer hitting .400. That won't happen for the whole season, but it has happened over 45 ABs. Random. Noise. But, to answer your question, his UZR/150 so far this season is -7.7. So, for a full season if he keeps up this pace he'd be worth almost a win less than an average SS with his glove.

P-L-U-S-H PLUSH-PLUSH-PLUSH!

Yep. You don't want to get run over, don't block the plate. The catcher could easily stand... not in the baseline and try to swipe tag a runner as he goes by. If I were the Brewers, I'd be telling Lucroy never to block the plate again.

I approve. "He's a natural born world-shaker." Great, now every time I see Wolf shake him off I'll think... "What we have here, is a failure to communicate."

If you haven't tried it, pick up some Fixed Gear (about $4 for a 22oz bottle) by Lakefront. It's definitely a favorite of mine.

You cleaned it out recently? It could very well be a dusty fan...

The question is, if Jennings will ever be good as well as exciting. Watching him dribble around in circles while he tries to figure out what to do as a point guard on a pick and roll has gotten old fast. Also, Hammond basically said he called whomever wrote the article and chastised her for even writing it, that he has no real intention of trading Jennings.

Firefox tends to have vastly superior addons for extra browsing features, as well as being less suceptible to virus attacks and scams (also because it it much less targeted)

I don't know what you can do. Some players would rather go to college (or finish college) before singing. If you have them locked up for one team, most players will start being drafted before entering college. Then a player will be property of a team during their college years. How soon before teams start giving orders to colleges about playing time, positions, etc.?It's simple, really. You allow players to declare for the draft. Once they are drafted they are ineligible to play college baseball. I don't understand why the same rules the NFL and NBA use can't be used for the MLB draft.

Sadly that would require inter-league play every day of the season (or two teams having a day off every day).