Raw Biz

I think replacing McGehee and Fielder with Wright and Gamel wouldn't be too much of a falloff offensively and an upgrade defensively. However, the question is whether Wright can stay healthy and whether Gamel would be ready to take over 1st this year. Considering all that, I would have to think hard about pulling the trigger if it were offered. edit: A third team would probably have to get involved since the Mets seem set with Ike Davis who should be coming back at 1st soon.

Kazmir has officially been released. Like RoCo said, I probably wouldn't want him on the major league team at this point but if he wanted to go to Nashville and could get healthy and figure it out again, I'd be all for it.

I highly doubt there would be a situation like this (other than injury). If Kottaras was starting, Lucroy would probably come in. If Kottaras pinch-hit for the pitcher or someone other than Lucroy, Lucroy would still probably stay in the game. Although I guess you never know with Roenicke.

I know the point of this thread is to come up with ways to afford Prince. But I'm not sure if it's supposed to be funny (like the bake sale idea) or serious. If it's supposed to be funny, keep them coming. But if it's supposed to be serious, he doesn't deserve the money it would take and I wouldn't want to give him the money it would take so the thread is pointless (IMO).

I still don't understand why McGehee and Betancourt aren't at the bottom. I know Hart and Lucroy have been struggling a little as well but they at least put the ball in play and do so with some authority. Most of McGehee's and Betancourt's hits were groundballs that found holes.

I think this has more to do with him not liking to pitch to Lucroy than wanting to pitch to Nieves. He probably would've chosen to pitch to Marcus Hanel over Lucroy if it was possible.

I never really had a problem with Macha's actual in-game management. He wasn't given anything close to a competent pitching staff, yet he managed to get some results out of them. The thing that bugged me about him was he never seemed to be having fun and it seemed like he didn't really connect with the players. Roenicke seems to connect with the players but that's about all he does. If we could get a combo of the two, I'd be happy. Unfortunately, I don't think there's many of those types, at least none who we could get.

This is exactly my thinking. Bench him if he doesn't want to listen. A platoon of Wilson/Counsell couldn't do much worse. Maybe after some time on the bench and not playing, he'll change his approach. Probably not though.

Roenicke basically said in his post-game comments that while the bullpen gave up the lead, the lead should have been bigger. Another stupid statement. Sure they could have had a bigger lead but the score was 4-1 in the 8th inning. Not sure what the win probability is there but probably high enough to expect a win. Basically all he did was deflect the blame from himself onto the offense. On a related note, I thought this was amazing from Jim Breen. It's nice to see there are some writers who agree with those of us who think Roenicke doesn't know how to manage a bullpen.

Amazing. Actually made me laugh after the crap-fest we saw tonight.

Actually the manager can be blamed sometimes. If there are better pitchers to bring in, why not do it? Why not set up a double play to end the last inning? Yes the offense didn't hit with RISP but they still scored four runs and Yo gave up one run in 7 innings. They had a 4-1 lead in the 8th. Estrada blew it but he should never have been in. Dillard should not have been in there. It's not hindsight either. People called it before it happened.

From Schroeder: "Ron Roenicke is not a big believer in the intentional walk." If he doesn't IBB here, he deserves to be fired on the spot.

Dillard in, this could be another bad decision... Edit: Yes so far it is. He shouldn't be facing lefties with his delivery.

I have no problems when we straight up get beat by the other team. I have problems when our manager makes stupid decisions which attribute to losses. Especially in games like this where we were clearly the better team.

Fire Roenicke, promote Sveum. We got to the playoffs once already with that strategy. Or maybe Counsell could be a player/manager. Or maybe the kid who played Billy Heywood from Little Big League is available. Seriously, anybody but Roenicke would be fine with me at this point.

Braddock and Hawkins combine to pitch 1.2 innings with 2 strikeouts, no hits, no walks. Apparently neither are good enough for Roenicke in the 8th. Seriously, Haudricourt or somebody in the media needs to ask him why neither of those guys have been used in the key 8th inning situations when it is clear they are our two best pitchers in the pen other than Axford.

Would've been nice to get that groundball from Pena last night.

Axford can only pitch in the 9th, Loe has pitched a bunch of days in a row, and Hawkins ... might be posting on twitter?Loe's name was not mentioned.

Is there a reason we weren't using one of our 3 best pitchers (Axford, Braddock, Hawkins) for the heart of their lineup?

Latin ballplayers don't touch the base when going back.

I was until 7:05.

I would've liked to have taken a flier on Brandon Wood. He's not doing that much better than Yuni but he's a few years younger and probably plays better defense, though I can't confirm that. At the time, he could've filled Josh Wilson's spot as the utility IF but Melvin said they already had one in Counsell. Then a couple of weeks later he picked up Wilson.

McGehee is 3 for 6 in his career against Wells with a HR. Hart is 4 for 15. That's why McGehee is still batting 5th. And no, that's not in blue because I firmly believe this is Roenicke's thinking. It might be nitpicking but McGehee should not be behind Prince now because teams will just walk him.

There are always going to be a call here or there that gets questioned because not everything works and not everything is as easy right/wrong as some make it out. I knew the squeeze play would set some off as some sort of validation that the squeeze is terrible, of course they still tried to justify hating it when it worked the previous 3 times. I said it was a stupid decision regardless of whether it worked or not. I also said the other times we've done it this season were stupid as well. The only one I actually liked was Lucroy's walk-off. I just think more often than not, the squeeze is a dumb play because it's all-or-nothing. I couldn't believe Kotsay started at CF on Sunday but sure enough he had 2 hits including a key double in the 6th. Just because he had a couple of hits doesn't mean it was smart to start him. What about all the other games he starts where he goes 0-4 (like yesterday's game)? More often than not, Kotsay will have a bad game offensively. His stats show it. He will also play terrible defense in CF. So yes, it is dumb to start him. Manager have more information about a player than is contained in a model or spreadsheet. If player X is slow with his bat all day they can see it, or the 3B is limping a bit, or is known to have trouble fieldinig a bunt, or the pitcher is coming off the mound funny, all of which can affect the decison to bunt, hit and run, PH, IBB. Back a few weeks when Kotsay started over Hart the game thread was non stop bashing, name calling, and arm chair managing then it came out that Hart was sick. Ooops, the manager actually has more information about the players than everyone at home when filling out the lineup. If that was the case, then Roenicke should come out and say why the normal starter didn't get the start. There's only one time that's happened this year that I remember and that was when Hart was sick. More often than not, Roenicke's reasoning is because some guy has had "success" in the past against a pitcher. That "success" is something like Kotsay's 3-10 against Dempster. The complaints about LuCroy not playing everyday get ridiculous as well, he just isn't going to play everyday so setting him up with every 5th day off gives him a routine, makes Wolf happy, seems smart enough, certainly not the dumbest decision ever as some make it out. I had to laugh as well yesterday that someone complained that LuCroy was used as a PH since he shouldn't be used so much. So RR gets bashed for giving LuCroy the day off every 5 days and using LuCroy too much all in the same game. The complaints aren't about Lucroy getting a day off. Everyone realizes he needs time off. The complaints are who is starting when he gets days off. Nieves should not be on the team and I would put that at 75% Roenicke, 25% Melvin. And yes, Lucroy pinch-hitting when he's supposed to get a day off are probably affecting him. He is basically getting 6 innings off a week. If we had a competent backup catcher, he could get be getting more time off which I think would be more beneficial. Bad baserunning by McGehee, Gomez, and Lucroy early in the year was somehow RR's fault. I don't think anyone was saying it was all his fault but he was the one preaching a more aggressive running style. He also was probably the one calling the contact play at home every time. So yes, part of the blame went to him, part went to Sedar, and part went to the players.

I just wanted to say it's Lucroy, not LuCroy. It may be dumb but it's hard for me to take posts seriously when the poster doesn't even know how to spell the name. To me, it just seems like that means the poster is not really a big Brewers fan since they don't even know the spelling of the player. Not saying this is true in your case, it's just what instantly comes to mind for me. I've seen it from other posters too.