Fatter than Joey

They're better off bringing back Mota Unless you mean Manny Mota -- Guillermo signed with the Dodgers...

Sheets fires his agent, comes back to Milwaukee, and claims to have "wanted to stay a Brewer the whole time." Sheets saves face and gets a job, the team saves face and gets a pitcher, the agent takes the fall and nobody cares. I don't think Sheet's agent really cares where Ben pitches as long as Ben gets paid the most he could make. My guess is that Ben closed the door on Milwaukee, and not his agent. If something happened where Ben feels he was mismanaged by the Brewers, why would he want to come back and play if he feels as if he could get Yosted again and end his career. It seems to me Ben wants to leave Milwaukee, even if it will ultimately cost him some coin. In either case, firing Ben's agent is probably not necessary to save face for Ben or the Brewers. Sheets will get a deal somewhere.

I'm in, and I don't imbibe, so you can get me a Minute Maid frozen lemonade at Miller Park this year. I will take Laura's beer. Might as well get a 30-pack of Bud Ice or something The Ned Yost of alcohol -- Bud Ice. I did my part. (And I didn't like the looks of Todd and Mandy, anyway.) I'll take this guy's beer as well.

(the number of double plays turned in his Brewer career) I will guess 396 The number of double plays JJ should have turned if Weeks wouldn't have 47-hopped the relay throw or Prince could bend over.

I was so going to vote for Andrew and Sara before I read this..., but I am in... I am going to need a beer as well. Good luck to them as well, not so much in their marriage but in this contest.

I watched a guy pee in the Wal-Mart parking lot in West Bend last week. Guys watching me pee.

181

The average for BABIP generally hovers around .300, .350 (what Theriot had last season) is generally not sustainable... Perhaps you can enlighten me, how do you see it being likely for him to repeat last year's numbers? You can't use BABIP for batters like you do for pitchers... Except for a few, most pitchers hover around that league average, they may be up or down from year to year but they all usually end up at the same place eventually. Basically -- there used to be a notion that pitchers controlled somehow balls hit in play -- but this is not the case -- generally when a ball is hit in play a pitcher has little to do whether the ball ends up being a hit or an out -- statistically speaking of course. The same is not true for batters. Some batters have the skill of putting the ball in play and getting a hit -- (and of course the opposite is true at well.) Now, you may be ultimately correct that Theriot can't sustain his BABIP -- but you could certainly be wrong as well. Furthermore your approach to "regression" to the mean is a bit simplistic -- If you treat ABs as coin flips, grouping the ABs in a season is entirely arbitrary -- I think people assume that if you are .300 hitter and you hit .200 in 2007 that you are due to hit .400 the next year. -- Things will eventually even out -- but they won't adhere to the nice cookie-cut season data samples. I think there are 2 things problematic with your approach. 1.) You are treating a batter's BABIP like a pitcher's BABIP 2.) You are assuming regression to happen in 2009, when it could happen in 2010, or somewhere else down the road. Gambler's fallacy sort of thing. Of course your arguments may end up happening, but I don't think they are solid.

Yeah but I want a ball signed. And by the time you pay the shipping to him and on a box back is it worth it when I can just pay $10 on Saturday? I'd rather go the mail route than fight through the crowds -- but that is just me.

Dave Bush signs well through the mail

That really puts into perspective how little defense means at the 1B position if he only costed our team 7 runs last year. I think all it puts into perspective is how lacking defensive stats are. There are a lot of throws Fielder should pick but doesn't for example that aren't measured. His bad defense costs us wins. If he keeps hitting 40 HRs a season we can live with it.

The other thing I have noticed is that the "retail price" that is quoted is (sometimes) really inflated -- as is generally the case with electronics. For example -- a 73" DLP TV was toted as being worth 2999.99 -- but sells for $1500-$1800 at many retailers. I would expect that is generally the case for TVs and probably laptops as well.

Com'on guys, look Atlanta once took Aaron, Mathews, Torre, Jones, Alou, Carty, Clonginger, Menke, and the rest of the Milwaukee roster down to Atlanta. They also took Ned Yost and then sent him back our way. That was worse as well.

I'm not sure how or if the arbitrators can take into account the current economic climate since they can't really look at unsigned players like Dunn and say the market is down. They need to look at the comparables like Ryan Howard and actual contracts. I know that they can't look at team's finances -- or the economy in general -- I think that they can compare Prince to the service class a year ahead of him and that's it -- I don't think they can look at what Teixeira recently was paid for example, or what Adam Dunn is not getting paid.

Fielder has been just as valuable as Howard over the past two seasons. In the past 2 seasons, Howard has a 5th place and 2nd place finish in the MVP race, Fielder has 3rd and a 20th. Howard has played on 2 playoff teams, one that won the World Series (in which he hit 3 HRs), Fielder of course has only one post-season appearance. The Phillies also have a better record over the last 2 years. If you go back 3 years, it gets even more skewed towards Howard with his MVP win. Fielder should not expect to get what Howard got.

late inning defensive replacement for Prince? I don't think that would go over very well.

1B (Fielder-Dunn) CF (Cameron-Hart) LF (Braun-Dunn) RF (Hart-Dunn) I think that Cameron doesn't need to play 150 games, because he is getting older -- Hart doesn't need to play 157 games based on what he did last year, however, I don't see where Dunn would get enough games/ABs -- to justify this --- I think getting Dunn only makes sense if Cameron/Hart/Fielder are traded.

For cost certainty. If Fielder hits 50 homers this year, that contract would look pretty darn good for next year. I think with Fielder you can count on 35 HRs and crappy defense. He shouldn't expect to be paid what Ryan Howard is paid. Given the fact he is out of shape, and could get worse, I don't see the advantage of locking him up long-term.

Interesting. I was born in November and fall is my favorite season. I always just assumed that fall was everybody's favorite season. ditto

Not to mention keeping Sheets away from the NYM is probably a good thing for our WC hopes.

So, because runners underestimated Kendall's arm strength he should not get credit for the runners he threw out? I'm not sure I'm understading the logic. I clearly said "to his credit he did well". How has Kendall faced any weaker runners than Molina has and how would Molina do any better in a Brewer uniform? Managers are going to send more runners against weaker throwing catchers. Up until 2008, Kendall had struggled throwing out runners, so more runners are going to be sent when Kendall is catching than Molina -- as more runners run, they are most likely to be slower runners. In 2007, Kendall gave up 111 SBs and only threw out 20 dudes. Only 50 guys ran on Molina in 2007. I am certain going into 2008, a number of managers saw Kendall as an opportunity to get some cheap bases. In 2008 Kendall only gave up 51 SBs and threw out 41. Only 52 guys ran on Molina. Going into 2008, Kendall needed to prove that he could throw out runners, and he did. Managers knew that running on Molina (with the exception of elite baserunners) was a bad gamble. That said, if the same 92 guys ran on Molina that did on Kendall, I am certain that Molina would have converted more of them into outs than Kendall did. The same thing goes for OFers... not a lot of coaches are going to run on a guy like Francoeur -- but they are probably going to be willing to test out Hart's arm out quite a bit more, and until Hart starts gunning out runners, he will get more attempts than Francoeur, and probably rack up more assists -- it hardly means though that Hart has the better arm.

What do you make of Kendall getting 12 win shares for defense? I think Kendall benefited largely from coaches "testing his arm" -- Catchers (or OFs) with known cannons do not get run on, therefore they probably do not get the chances to rack up the CS's (or assists) -- and the basestealers that do run on a good arm, are probably the guys that are high % SB guys as well and harder to convert into outs. I also think Kendall got the chance do throw out a lot of borderline basestealers laast year, and to his credit, he did well. -- but I don't think that this means Molina has an inferior arm... my guess is that if Molina was in a Brewer's uni last year and had the exact same chances, he would have done as well as Kendall did, if not much better. I suspect Kendall's defensive contributions will slip next year.

I watch every episode twice. I missed the first time... When Andy is canceling his wedding plans, Dwight is watching Andy make the call in a soup spoon taped to his monitor. That was hilarious.

Who is John Barnes? Scott Bartell's manicurist.

Kendall is a stopgap, rarely are stopgaps assets beyond the gaps they are stopping. I think he will be well served to catch about 100 games with Rivera catching the other 60...