Baldkin

The other thing is, the current team has the option to offer an extra 5th year guaranteed, which other teams cannot do. There is no reason to believe that Giannis or Parker won't be a Buck for the next 7 years, at least.

Just because a choice didn't end up with a 7-run home run doesn't mean it didn't effect the game, or A GAME over the course of 162 games. These are simple things that managers consistently get wrong (like hitting the pitcher 9th, hitting a low OBP guy who happens to be fast leadoff, hitting a veteran 4th because he's a veteran, etc) which are amazingly simple and managers mess up constantly. It's about the long play, it's about those 1,000 decisions, and it's about playing the 52% instead of the 48% odds. About putting your players and your team in the best position to succeed on a game-by-game and play-by-play basis. Decisions like bringing in the righty in the 8th to face two lefties in the line up, instead of the lefty because he's the 8th inning guy. Even if he gets them out, it was still the wrong decision.

The manager makes ~1000 decisions (say, 6 a game, which is probably an underestimate when you include the daily lineup) over the course of a season. If he plays the odds correctly he's the casino in Vegas over the course of a season. If he doesn't, then he's the poor sap hoping to get lucky at the craps table.

April 26 and May 7 he started. Pinch hit on May 8th. 0 for 9. http://www.baseball-reference.com/players/gl.cgi?id=centeju01&t=b&year=2015

http://sports.cbsimg.net/images/visual/whatshot/Colonjiggle040914.gif http://i.kinja-img.com/gawker-media/image/upload/s--E4KrahUp--/c_fit,fl_progressive,q_80,w_636/789812449644415267.gif

Gasp. Free Agent interested in one of the few teams with a ton of money to spend under the cap! No desire for Lopez. Bucks don't need an offensive C. They are about to get a better Giannis back next year, and a guy who should be taking 10+ shots per game in Jabari Parker as well. There are reasons NOT to do this, but saying you don't want a center that can score 20 a game isn't a very good reason. There are only so many shots to go around in a basketball game. I would prefer those shots not go to a 15 foot jumper shooting C who doesn't rebound well and doesn't play very good defense. I'd prefer they go to the 2 21 year olds, and 2 23 year olds who make up the core of the team going forward.

Gasp. Free Agent interested in one of the few teams with a ton of money to spend under the cap! No desire for Lopez. Bucks don't need an offensive C. They are about to get a better Giannis back next year, and a guy who should be taking 10+ shots per game in Jabari Parker as well.

He has a legitimate gripe. I couldn't believe no one offered him a deal to DH that season.

It's been, what, 5 days for Ramirez now? Why isn't he on the DL?

Before last night he had the 2nd highest BB% on the team....

Wow, empty there tonight.

A link for those who want to listen to the DM interview: http://www.thebig920.com/onair/the-mike-heller-show-26319/listen-brewers-gm-doug-melvin-13564451

Melvin was on the big 920 yesterday (1070 for those Hawings of you in Madison) and basically refused to use the word rebuild. Stating, among other things (and I'm paraphrasing here) "As a franchise we cannot afford to rebuild, our revenue stream is mostly driven by our fanbase coming to the ballpark, unlike other teams who's revenue is driven by television deals. We can retool, but we can't afford to do what the Cubs did and have a multiple year rebuilding process"

The police were there, there is a police report and (I'm going to assume) cel phone pictures. These thing will easily determine who hit what and how hard things were hit. If a car is on it's brakes and gets hit from behind (without any damage, as you say -- if I read this right) then there is virtually no way it could have run into the car in front of it and cause any real damage to that car.

If we follow that line of thinking I guess baseball should have separate players for defense and offense for every position. After all why should we have to watch Kotsay play center just to get his bat in the lineup? Why did we have to watch Rickie Weeks or Prince on defense? It would have been a hell of a lot more fun watching prince hit and Ishikawa field. I can just imagine how great it would be to see nothing but pure hitters hit and pure fielders field. It would have made it a heck of a lot easier to find a first baseman the past two years as well. Maybe also get rid of that rule that says once you leave the game you can't come back. Yes, that's exactly what I was saying. Pitchers don't hit for YEARS going through the minor leagues. They are awful, awful hitters. They have no business swinging a bat, and I have no desire to watch the Ben Sheets of the world hit. If you want to DH for everyone and keep 25 man rosters, that's perfectly fine by me. You honestly think teams could find a way to do that? That all of these great hitters are just sitting out there unsigned waiting for their chance? Pretty sure those guys would be on the bench for a team already if they were out there.

Good question, I guess saying any coach is close to "perfect" is probably a set-up for criticism so I will just say I think Joe Maddon is a very good baseball mind and teacher. Maddon's early Rays teams lost nearly 200 games in two seasons, followed by winning more than 90 games in 5 of his past 7 seasons. He also maintained success with a fair amount of roster turnover from year-to-year. I have no idea what percentage of those wins can be attributed to Maddon as I typically tend to think a manager has only a very small influence over wins and losses. I will say that in my opinion Joe Maddon has many of the traits that I believe help make the grind of a baseball season a little less monotonous. Some of these things are impossible to quantify, but here are some attributes I appreciate in Maddon: - He does not get set into any particular line of thinking (i.e. player X must be a number 4 hitter), and he is constantly adjusting his line-ups and defensive shift strategies - He fosters team activities as a way to strengthen camaraderie. - He understands that pitching is paramount to anything else that happens on the baseball field. - He has years of experience, but seems to embrace learning new or evolving concepts. - He isn't afraid to stand up for his players or team publicly (or on social media) - His players seemingly both like him and respect him - He is quirky, witty, and fun. Those are some of the things I believe make Maddon a good baseball coach and mentor of young people. I think he has the type of personality and managerial style that transcends some of the potentially divisive issues in a clubhouse such as egos, diverse backgrounds and beliefs, language barriers, etc. He seems like the kind of guy that connects well with all of the players on the roster regardless of their levels of talent and experience. And while he does that, he also explains these expectations and communicates them to his players. It's also an organizational philosophy so the players know of these expectations all through the minor leagues -- similar to the A's and the Cardinals. Funny how that works. When you have guys preaching one thing in the minors (walks, working the count) and something else in the majors (swing, swing, swing and swing s'more!) then it's no wonder players struggle when forced to change their approach.

Funny, while we were watching the game yesterday, we were so shocked RRR let Segura stay in the game that we said "That in and of itself is a fire-able offense."

You do realize this is exactly what Ken Macha did, and the clubhouse hated him a result and he was fired as a result of that, right?

I don't think it is about hurting each other, I think it is more about protecting your teammates, and sending messages... I don't want guys getting head hunted, but I do want guys getting hit in the leg or butt to send a message that if you come after my guy, I'm coming after yours. This has nothing to do with macho nonsense, it has to do with how the game has been played since its inception. "It's always been that way" is a terrible reason to keep doing anything. Baseball would still be played with all white players if you held up that logic.

I liked Joe Posnanski's line on it. The added strategy of watching an awful player hit would be like making a 5'9, 120lb guy play offensive and defensive line in the NFL. Make that a rule. Sure, it adds strategy, but I don't want to see it.

i can't see if that will ever be the case, would make the mlb extra innings obsolete then. Not really, the idea behind Fox Sports Go is that if you subscribe to a cable company/package (tied to your username) you can watch those games you subscribe to on a mobile device. You'd still need to subscribe to MLB Extra Innings.

I think the fact it was a cereal helped a lot. And the fact majority dislike hank or don't want Hank stuff. if the majority of brewer fans disliked Hank, he wouldn't have his own merchandise stand or his 2nd bobblehead day. you need to separate what hardcore brewers fans think and the span of the fanbase think. I'd argue that Hank's market isn't Brewers fans. It's Hank fans. Also, last Saturday, I witnessed the Hank mascot (do we really need that?) walking onto the elevator while waiting onboard was a family with 3 4-6 year old children. They saw him, and all immediately began to cry. Hank makes children cry.

What a game. Zaza with two ridiculous circus shots. MCW and Middleton carrying the team, as Giannis and Ersan struggle. Pau Gasol intentionally fouling, then complaining about the foul being called.

And Escobar.

I think that map would look pretty similar for the NFL too. Another thing to consider regarding this map and baseball is that California, Texas, and Florida also have large hispanic immigrant populations. And, y'know, weather you can play baseball in year-round.