rluzinski

All I judge is what he's done as a professional hitter. Which, so far, has basically been diddley-squat. He has had a .765 OPS with an OBP north of .350 over the last 1.5 seasons, at age 23 and 24. For a 2B, that isn't bad at all, unless you are judging him using your draft day expectations as the measuring stick. Obviously, you can have whatever expectations you want but taken in a vacuum, I think he has performed a lot better than "diddley-squat".

In June (98 AB), same amount of walks, same amount of Ks and same amount of HRs. His BABIP was just silly low for June. Unless he's hiding a nagging injury, I'd think he's likely to bounce back any day.

I often wonder if the Brewer's recent success are causing Brewer fans to raise their expectations beyond what might be considered reasonable to some (OK, at least myself). Had the Brewers lost yesterday's game 5-4, would it be unreasonable to hope that us fans might simply tip our caps to an inferior team and accept that they were just better for that one game? Do we now expect to sweep every bad team on the road, just as other teams' fans assumed they should go to Miller Park and sweep us earlier this decade?

As long as you just ask Hall to go into the gaps, he can make spectacular plays. No going back! http://forum.brewerfan.net/images/smilies/smile.gif

Miller now has a higher OPS than Estrada. It was .572 to starts ago. Peavy, one of the things I love about Yost is his almost complete refusal to give free base runners to the opposition. Managers are usually too busy trying not to let player "x" beat them to have the huevos to do the right thing.

What Miller has done his last 2 starts is just insane. There's no explanation. http://forum.brewerfan.net/images/smilies/smile.gif EDIT: The Brewers score 7 runs in an inning where the pitcher makes 2 outs. Crazy.

Young had one less start and 12 less innings in June (29.2 vs. 41.2), so I can kind of understand that. Webb gave up 2 less earned runs than Sheets (8 vs. 10) but 5 extra runs total. Groundball pitchers can actually have an advantage in the ERA department, since they have a more unearned runs on balance. Penny... uhhh.... had less wins. http://forum.brewerfan.net/images/smilies/smile.gif LINK

I drove myself crazy trying to judge every ball in play from Sheets earlier in the year. "That was hit hard but right at someone! That was a blooper that should have been caught!" I just gave up and focused on strikes and walks (and still drove myself crazy small sampling myself to death). Judging balls in play is just a tough deal any way you look at it. When the difference between a good and bad BABIP is 2-3%, it takes a heck of a lot of balls to see what is what. How many times would you need to roll a dice to know if you had the 27% one or the 30% one?

So what you are saying is that out of the 4 teams handing it to the Yankees, 3 of them are below .500 baseball teams. What I'm saying is that a simple, dirty way to judge the relative strengths of each division is to compare their out of division records and run differentials. And people who think run differentials and extreme records in 1 run games don't belong in a thread about team talent should take note of the "crappy Cubs."

Studies have been done looking for correlation between runs scored and given up. There is a small amount of correlation but much of that probably has to do with personnel changes (putting your weaker pitchers into a game you already have a huge lead in). I wouldn't be surprised if starting pitchers are a bit more aggressive with an early lead but I suspect the result is pretty slight. Generally speaking, pitchers are going to do what they think gives them the best chance to get a batter out, no matter what the score is.

Well, if that's true, the guy was just completely insane. I just feel sadness over the whole situation. I wonder if the toxicology report will show a cocktail of drugs in his system?

Can you do an MLB game cast over the iPhone? It depends how robust their browser is but I assume it supports adobe flash. And would you be able to use the audio subscription to MLB.com with it? I doubt it's fast enough and that's the number one complaint. Is it even dial up speeds?

I must not fall into this category then because I have always been on the Sheets bandwagon, but never have been on the Capuano bandwagon. Again, all fans do this to some degree but it's hard to be completely objective when judging a player's actual ability and actual game-by-game performance. It's human nature to make a sometimes quick assessment of a player's ability and it's also human nature then to want to see that judgment be the correct one. So, sometimes, we fudge a bit, since there's always some wiggle room with regard to performance analysis. I find myself constantly questioning my own subjectiveness and I'd be an blind fool if I said I always succeed. If I'm making a one sentence comment in the chat room or an IGT, I don't worry as much about making a completely objective comment. We've all used the "it seems that" disclaimer from time to time, after all. I do try to dig deep into the objectively pool and check my facts before arguing a point in a dedicated thread, however. If I am going to make a response disputing someone else's claim, I feel I should make sure I've given it a reasonable amount of unbiased thought. I would want to make sure it's just not me wanting Bush to friggin' pitch the way I know he should be friggin' pitching! http://forum.brewerfan.net/images/smilies/wink.gif But if Bush had started off with those 5 nice starts and a 3.03 ERA, I would have known that he was most likely playing over his head and not automatically adjusted my expectations. As a wanna-be analyst at least. As a fan...

The only factor that I see missing in fan perception is contract size. That's another very good one. As for my definition of fan, I am referring to anyone who takes a more casual approach to judging a starting pitcher's in-season performance. If everyone just watched the games and only saw the pitcher's current ERA and record, the rules would be followed almost universally. It's how we are all hardwired to process information. I would certainly fall under that category for football. I love watching the sport, so I wouldn't necessarily call myself a casual fan. I just don't get into the game-by-game performance analysis side of it, like many others do. We all enjoy our sports in different ways.

Starting off good leaves a much stronger impression on a fan than ending good.I think it's differant for teams in a pennant race though. Good point. You'll have to excuse me for not thinking about that. My team hasn't been in that situation since I was about 7. http://forum.brewerfan.net/images/smilies/smile.gif

Very important to get off to good start in this series. Snell and Gorzelanny loom in games 3 and 4. Both had strong cases for All Star selection and have been tough on Brewers. The Brewers have their own all star pitcher going Wed, so that certainly helps their chances.

This is long and kind of silly, so you've been warned. http://forum.brewerfan.net/images/smilies/smile.gif It seems to me that fans aren't always very good at judging starting pitcher talent while the season is ongoing and I'll use the Brewers rotation this year to illustrate: * When Suppan was playing way over his head to start the season, fans seemed very confident about the Brewers' chances in games he started. Now that he's played below his ability for about the last month and inflated his ERA to near 5, it appears that fans now expect that level of performance to continue. * Sheets is a former all star and has had a very good ERA for several years now but a couple bad starts and a blister later, some were acting like he might be a true 4.5 ERA pitcher. Now he's pitched very well (and gotten great run support) and fans feel he can't be beat. * After a terrible start for Bush (6.13 ERA over his first 10 starts), he had a pretty nice, month-long run (3.03 ERA over 5 starts and a relief appearance). Despite this recent success, the moment he gave up a couple of early runs in his last start, the "same old Bush" comments started right back up. He ends up giving up 4 ER in 6 IP, which really isn't bad for your #4 pitcher but I don't think anyone even noticed. * Capuano started out on fire; 5-0 record, with a 2.31 ERA. Since then, he has a 6.89 ERA over his last 6 starts. He still has a decent 4.35 ERA though, so not much has been made of that bad run. * Vargas had a great start (2.65 ERA over first 6 starts). Since then, he's cooled off considerably (5.56 ERA over next 8 starts). Again, his overall ERA is still good, so no one seems to notice, especially since the Brewers keep winning most of the games that he starts. Here are some of the rules I think I've figured out: 1. What the pitcher has done in past seasons is only relevant if his current production matches it. A good pitcher doing bad in the current season is expected to continue doing bad. A bad pitcher doing good should continue to do well. 2. Starting off good leaves a much stronger impression on a fan than ending good. Take two pitchers with identical 4.5 ERAs and the pitcher who had the better start will probably win out. Of course, the opposite is true as well. A bad start has the potential of scaring the reputation of a starting pitcher for the rest of the season. 3. The exception to rule 2: The moment that the pitcher's overall numbers (ERA or wins-loss record) shifts past some threshold (good or bad), first impressions are seemingly completely wiped away. A pitcher might have 5 great starts to start off the season and than have one horrible start that inflates his ERA to over 5.0. Bad season so far. 4. The final and most important rule: The outcome of the game you start in is more important than anything else. 4 ER in 5 IP but your team won? Good start for the pitcher. 3 ER over 6 IP but your team loses? Didn't get the job done. Did I botch any? Miss any altogether?

Boston is very good. The Yankees still have a run differential of +47 and have a record outside the East of 29 - 24. They are a good (not great) team that has gotten their but handed to them in the East. Toronto also has a positive run differential but look like nothing much more than mediocre. Baltimore is a little below average. Tampa stinks as usual. I would think that they still have more overall talent than the NL Central.

Many players lately have had a poor second half after participating in the HR Derby, which is why i'm nervous about him participating. Many players get into the All Star game by playing over their heads for a few months. Hardy might be a good example of that (I think he's a good player but he's probably not a true .900+ OPS hitter at this point). It would be probably be expected that the average production from the home run derby participants actually goes down in the second half.

We may be getting a little spoiled by just how ridiculously successful our other young players have been. I agree. When I look at any prospect, I really see: x chance of being HOF x chance of being all star x chance of being solid x chance of being mediocre x chance of being a bust The better the prospect. the higher the probability for greater success but it guarantees nothing. All those uber prospects flaming out across the league should make that very clear. I f Weeks ends up "only" peaking at about a .800 OPS with mediocre defense at 2B, I just can't bring myself to be too disappointed. And at this point, he's shown me enough to suggest that's a very conservative estimate. I'm only really disappointed with the the lost playing time due to injuries, not really the production.

You could just have the first game at a neutral site, with the remaining games going 2, 2, 1, 1. It would do away with the silly All-Star/home field advantage thing. Of course, like the Superbowl, there may not be very many actual fans of the two teams at that first game. They would have to make available15-20k tickets to each team to make it palatable to me.

Is "The Sun" a respected news source? That article seems like pure bologna.

Any message board that isn't moderated is going to fall victim to trolls and personal attacks.

I don't think the Miller Brewery tie in has anything to do with not going back to the old logo full time. Heck, the team gets the best of both worlds right now. They can sell merchandise with their official logo and their not-so-retro, retro logo.

Hardy just finished putting up a .685 OPS in June, so he hasn't exactly been the model of consistency, himself.