valpocrewsader

If it has songs as good as "Civil War" and "November Rain", count me in.

Leiter and Mae, meh. I'm happier the fewer connections MLB Network has to New York and Boston. We already have ESPN. (Mae's Google image results calm my concerns a bit, though.)

Pretty sure they're going down December 20th. I hope somehow they're a huge disappointment this year. I don't root for the Yankees in college basketball, either.

Grrr, there goes my dream of a Weeks for Swisher deal. (Swisher has a spot here when Hart or Fiedler -- hopefully both -- are traded this off-season.)

Is that really a complete list? I looked up Jeff Suppan and it seems like he should be on that list, around 1600 IP. If he's missing from the list, who else? Or maybe I'm missing something....

Haha. That makes for a good Onion-style article. "In baseball news, the Marlins today traded star shortstop Hanley Ramirez to the Yankees for a player to be named later. That player's proud parents-to-be are expected to have a name picked out any day now."

My first reaction was that "Drown the Baby" was an odd choice for a babysitting sing-along.

http://forum.brewerfan.net/viewtopic.php?t=14224

Couldn't the White Sox use Weeks? Cabrera won't be back at SS and they want to move Alexi there. Opens up 2B for Weeks. I'd rather get Swisher back in return, but maybe we could work out Suppan+Weeks for Vazquez+Swisher? Saves the Sox money, gets rid of under-performing players for them that fill needs for us (SP, LH 1B/OF), gets rid of under-performing players for us that fill needs for them (replacement SP, tons of upside/change of scenery 2B).

But Varitek has like no protection in that lineup. Wait until he joins a team with a few good hitters, his numbers will surely bounce!

You might want to adjust your thread title to say "...Jersey Numbers", otherwise it sounds like the topic is his historic stats.

But if Batter A strikes out on 5 pitches, that could be worse than Batter A getting a hit on 3 pitches, extending the inning, and letting Batter B strike out on 5 pitches.

In a state of shock and guarded glee, I had to check this out. Found the web site for WMMM, is that what you're referring to? They listed Sheryl Crow and OAR on their recently played list. It was pretty much anti-progressive rock. (??)

I'm sure it would. A strikeout is about 4 times as useful as a first pitch groundout with nobody on though so that makes sense. The same reason you hear pitchers talk about pitching to contact, the idea is to get players out using fewer pitches so you can go deeper into games. But what about the hitters who excel at hitting 2-0, get-me-over fastballs into the gap or out of the park? They're penalized. It just doesn't seem complete to ignore stuff like that or to assume that every first pitch ball in play is an out, or unproductive one. Seems like pretty massive analysis would be necessary could get the complete picture on what pitchers per PA really means.

Anyone know what the number is for average pitches per strikeout? (ie, across the entire league for a season, plate appearances that resulted in a strikeout took X pitches on average.) Seems like it would be 4.5 or above. In that case, wouldn't the pitchers per plate appearance stat reward players for striking out?

This video and article get posted yet? http://sports.yahoo.com/m...gaJWaFCLcF?urn=mlb,118879 (Geoff Jenkins 'salutes' Lou Piniella while Scott Eyre 'objects')

No chance the attitude could be more civil? An intelligent, friendly discussion would probably start more like, "Well, you might think he's a contact hitter, but actually...." Maybe I don't know the definition of contact hitter, but I was putting him in direct comparison to Weeks, Cam, and Hall. In TGJ's time in Milwaukee, his K/AB rate has been about around 18% or so. Weeks? ~25% in those three years. Cam? ~27%. Hall? ~30%. And TGJ in the minors? low teens? Maybe that 14%-18% rate doesn't fit the definition of contact hitter, but 55 less strike outs in a full season sounds like more contact hitting to me. And TGJ can still improve on it....

Put me in the "had to do it" camp, however, I like hearing some of the dissenting opinions. We're still talking about a single player making more than 10% of the payroll. It kinda feels like the Gagne deal and the numbers being thrown around for CC might've altered everyone's perspectives quite suddenly -- for better or for worse. I also never like seeing such hate for TGJ. He'll never slug, but he offers more than just being left-handed and fast. He plays great defense, at worst he's on par with 2009 Cameron, better than Hart would handle CF, much better than Hall did. He'd probably be the best situational hitter in the lineup, including but not limited to bunting abilities that probably supass the rest of our roster. I know admitting an appreciation for contact hitting gives you an automatic dunce cap avatar around here, but I'm not sure I can take anymore of watching the Weekses and Halls and Camerons saunter up to the plate with runners in scoring position and K before they even dig in. And TGJ, isn't just fast, but he's smart on the basepaths as well. Might be the smartest player we'd have in all aspects of the game. And he still has some upside and room to improve. A strong argument can be made for keeping him out of our lineup, but I don't think it's preposterous to throw it out there -- it's a $9 million difference! And it's sad to see TGJ ripped unfairly. All that said, most of the positives that TGJ has, Cameron has them and more. And it's not my money and I want this team to be as good as it can possibly be. And looking at the contracts given to Andruw Jones and Gary Matthews Jr, this seems like a bargain. And while I don't like the notion I'm sensing that a $10 million salary can be treated like it's not $10 million anymore just because it's only a 1 year deal, it's hard not to like the short term commitment. So I'm down with DM's decision. There are other ways to get left handers in the lineup. 3B is open, and I'd love for them to open up 2B and RF to anyone else out there (and 1B, for that matter, but that's not helping our LH bat situation....).

That's unfair. Local enthusiasm for Brewers baseball was in a different dimension 4 years ago. Jamie's point is right on. The "marquee" pricing approach to Cubs games in MP plays right into the hands of the Cubs fanbase -- no way to argue it. Milwaukee-area folk can choose 65-70 other games to go to for less money. And those 65-70 other games won't be fraught with dealing with a stadium full of completely insufferable Cubs fans. (Cubs fans that MP ushers and personnel tend to side with more than Brewers fans from what I've seen and heard.) Meanwhile, the increased pricing means nothing to the northside Bueller's who aren't going to let a couple extra dollars get in the way of seeing a team that would cost more to see in Wrigley, in a undeniably crappier stadium, with no parking or tailgating atmosphere. Every price increase for a Cubs game is basically another foot of red carpet down I-94 saying, "Come watch your team for relative pittance while we do all we can to encourage Brewers fans to skip this series wait for the Pirates to come to town."

Ouch. Talk about your old boys' club. "We'll keep you on, we'll pay you some handsome salary, you can have the title of 'hitting coach' or something." If the position of Hitting Coach is so unskilled that just anyone can step in and do it, just eliminate the coaching spot and make it part of someone else's duties. Or give it to an intern or something. This smacks of favoritism and unprofessionalism. Very unimpressed. Very disappointed. Just like that, all the strides we've taken to be more "mid-market" are turned about on us. This is small market, bush league, laughable, silly, embarassing.

Very surprised that everyone is praising last night's episode; I thought it was about as awful as the Office can get. The Cornell stuff was pretty great, but that was only 1/3 of the show. The other 2/3 -- the Michael/Holly/Darrell trip and the Pam/Jim/brothers lunch -- were absolutely awful. Especially the Pam/Jim/brothers scenes, I don't think there was a single joke anywhere in there -- brutal. The Michael/Holly/Darrell scenes had a moment or two, but were largely wastes of time and/or overly soap opera-ish. I expected to come here and see a lot of comments about how lame and terrible it was.

Anyone else think "...Go to White Castle" when they read the thread title?

A minor point, but that ain't right. .160 was the OBP. 4 hits, not 9, in 24 at bats for a .167 BA. I'm assuming the 9 came from the number of games he played in.

The umpiring tonight has been a joke. Third base ump gave the Phillies a free run early on, and the home plate ump has been giving Blanton an obviously wider and lower zone than Rays' pitchers for most of the game. Just makes me hate the Phillies more. Especially Blanton and his fat, fratty jerkstore punk look.

YES. I'm in Chicago for business Friday, but I should be back by 7:00. Count me in for both days. Let me know if you need anything. Rock on.