rluzinski

Wow, an outfield of Gomez, Morgan and Aoki. My goodness.

Wait, are you saying Izturis is an above average player? Um, no My comment was just way late. Wolf and Weeks specifically, any player that struggles for a couple months in general. That's doubly true if it's the first 2 months. "Gomez hitting there against Romo is inexcusable with Morgan, Ishikawa, and Green all on the bench. Need a LHH there." Yes, that was a terrible move. RR is usually good about not saving guys in extra innings so I have no idea what that was all about. Of course, RR has always had a soft spot for Gomez so...

Im always amazed how quickly baseball fans turn on above average players. Its like personal.

I agree about giving Aoki a good look: Vs. LHP Aoki RF Hart 1B Ramirez 3B Braun LF Lucroy C Weeks 2B Gomez CF Whatever SS Vs. RHP Aoki CF Hart RF Ramirez 3B Braun LF Kotaras 1B Lucroy C Weeks 2B Whatever SS I'd would move Weeks back up as soon as he gets out of his funk, however.

I'd rather have Gomez than Conrad, sure but the whole makeup of this team is just off. Lot's of light hitting options in the outfield and nothing at SS, 1B or backup infielders. Best option is probably to start Gomez in CF, Aoki in RF and Hart at 1B against lefties. Then give Aoki most of the starts in CF against righties. Morgon had a great year with the stick last year but as expected, he's come back down to earth. I just continue to have concerns about Aoki's fielding and arm. I thought he wasn't even playing CF in Japan anymore?

Love his production so far, for sure. It's been a lot of fun to watch. But with respect to expectations going forward, I just never get that excited or worried about players this early in the season. I simply don't expect dramatic shifts in expected performance based on 100-150 PA. Lucroy has 132 PA and his updated ROS ZiPS projection stands at .268/.327/.404. He's young enough that that we can still hope for him to establish a new, much higher level of performance but the evidence isn't strong that he will. If he becomes a .340/.440/.780 guy, I would be very happy with that.

Hart might be the second best hitter on the team, so I am happy to see him batting higher in the lineup. As has been pointed out, his power is somewhat underutilized leading off, though. He HAS to bat 1st though, so RR can start sacrificing from the 2 hole again. Even now I would prefer Weeks over Aoki in the 2 hole but I don't think it will effect much either way.

I'm not sure what you are saying here. If a team puts a player on waivers and another team picks him up, the team that picked him up pays the rest of the contract in its entirety. There is no risk in putting him on waivers if your goal is to dump his salary. Sorry, I was thinking of a DFA for some reason.

4 years, $38 mil is a long, expensive contract? Is it 1994 again? I think some longtime baseball fans are struggling with the notion that average players get $10 mil/year these days. Right or wrong, that's the market. And the idea that there's any possibility that Weeks is put on waivers this year is pretty unbelievable, in my opinion. If Melvin wants salary relief, he can trade him for nothing and recoup over 50% of his current contract, easy. Putting him on waivers would result in a significant risk of recouping 0%.

Overreact much? With Gamel, Gonzalez, and a normal Weeks and Ramirez this is a playoff team. The injuries combined with a lack of depth combined with under-performing all-star caliber players has made for some ugly games recently, but it's not nearly as bad as what everybody is making it out to be right now. I know there was a lot of complaints about the bench even before the slow start, and those complaints are somewhat justified, but you can only do so much as a small market team. If there are going to be weak points on the roster, I want them to be on the bench. It just so happened that injuries have turned the bench into the starting lineup and made the bench that much worse. It'll get better. I agree mostly. I think Melvin could have done better than fill the bench with a bunch of no-hit lefties but that is a pretty minor criticism. The fact is that both Vegas and most major projection systems saw the Brewers as having a good chance for the playoffs. You can argue that a team with $100 mil payroll should be in that position but they but Melvin at least did it. For that reason, hard to heap too much criticism on Melvin, IMO. I don't like RR at all but I don't like most managers so whether they kept him or not long term is kind of irrelevant. They would just replace him with another RR anyway.

We are going to send Weeks to AAA to give Conrad or Maysonet some starts? Weeks would never agree to being sent down anyway but what would be the point?

Did you not see my post where I showed that an average offensive team scores 3 or less runs about 50% of the time? And calling the Brewers offense average at this point might be kind. Juggling a couple of batting order spots around is not going to make much of a difference. And it's not a small sample with Conrad, as he has been pretty worthless his whole major league career.

Damn, Aoki's single raised the Brewers odds of winning to .4%. Got really excited. Apathy creeping in and it's still May. Not good.

I really thought Izturis, Maysonet and Aoki was going to win this one. EDIT: Aoki really does seem like he doesn't mind hitting again LHP. He has such an unorthodox swing that I can believe it.

Having to watch all these pathetic hitters makes it not even worth tuning in.

Weeks batting 2nd or 6th has such a little effect on expected runs scored that it's not worth messing with Weeks' head. Again, there are so many other things that are much worse issues that I'm surprised how much people focus on where Weeks is batting. Conrad started at 1st today and we have a SS with a projected OPS under .600 starting every day! BTW, this game is just awful.

Wow, thought Hart would be up there. Here are the updated projections: http://www.fangraphs.com/projections.aspx?pos=all&stats=bat&type=rzips&team=23&players=0&sort=16,d Apparently we have to hope that Lucroys great start represents some kind of epic change in expected performance and Weeks' and Ramirez's poor starts... don't. Looking at those projections, this is what I might do: ..... OK, anything I put down looks terrible. I have no idea what the Brewers should do. They have a million lefties and Izturis, Conrad and Maysonet are just worthless. Start Kotaras against righties at 1B. Replace Maysonet with a scrub 3rd catcher.

What sucks is he drove a ball about 450 ft but it was foul by perhaps 10 ft. Not suggesting he got unlucky but... damn.

Melvin never sees things as flukes or opportunities to sell high. He always operates under assumptions guys will repeat their prior seasons. Its hard to say how much value Wolf might have had, but it's likely they could have dumped his salary. Wolf had two nice years in a row and had a preseason ZiPS projection of a 4.0 ERA4. Of course, he is getting paid like he's about a 4.0 ERA pitcher, had one year left on his contract and was 35 years old, so his trade value was basically zero. Or is it that Melvin should have known Wolf had simply fluked his way to 2 decent seasons in a row and was destined to drop off considerably in 2012?

If you want to get people on base in front of Braun you put the players with the highest projected OBP in front of him. Without looking, I doubt Aoki, Morgan or Lucroy have the highest projected OBP among the possibilities. If anyone cares about them, can just go to fangraphs.com and look up the rest-of-season ZiPS OBP projections for those guys. Not the end all be all but better than over-weighting 2012 production.

Over a full season, an MLB team averages 50-60 HBP's. The Brewers have on their roster one everyday player who averages nearly 20 HBP's over 162 games (98 HBP, 794 games played). It's less about protection, and more about Rickie Weeks' willingness to take one for the team. Exactly. It's not a statistical fluke, it's one player.

Even if it was not intentional, it isn't going to take long for the catcher to figure out that the situation suggested otherwise. I don't think his reaction is evidence, either way.

I couldn't possibly disagree more. I'm not any more encouraged about Kottaras as a catcher as I was coming into the season. And it has nothing to do with him being on my team, it has to do with a fundamental change in a short period of time as to how he approaches the ball. I do appreciate your definitive declaration that he can't possibly turn into a 5 war player. [sarcasm]I'm quite certain a 26 year old player with incredible pure tools has never been a late bloomer and put it together later on than expected.[/sarcasm] The, "sorry," part is beyond condescending. I'm guessing a few years ago you'd have "informed me," with the same condescension that Nelson Cruz(after being put on waivers) would never become a 5 WAR player. Which he did in just 108 games. And it wouldn't take much for Gomez. Again, I'm guessing if he was an everyday player and put up a .285/.330 line with his power potential and SB ability to go on top of his elite CF play, that would place him at a 4-5 WAR player....sorry. I honestly wasn't trying to be condescending nor was I suggesting it is absolutely impossible that Gomez develops into a 5 WAR guy. Almost nothing has a 0% chance of occurring, after all. Despite his young age, it simply remains extremely unlikely. Again, around mid May, we read SO many stories about how previously bad hitters have made a fundamental change in their approach, only to find most go right back to being bad. I hope Gomez is the exception but I doubt it. You can search for anecdotal evidence to the contrary but that doesn't make it any more likely. And your example of Cruz isn't a very good example, anyway (IMO, of course). He put up a 5 WAR season in 2010, sure. It was a great year. But there is a big difference between putting up a 5 WAR season and being a 5 WAR player. He followed that up his great 2010 season with an average 2011 season and hasn't done a whole lot this year, yet, either. He's an above average player no doubt but I don't know if anyone is projecting him to be a 5 WAR guy going forward. There simply aren't that many players out there that do. I've always felt that Gomez had value to the Brewers but it has never had anything to do with his bat. This is the third year in a row that I've heard he may have turned the corner offensively, though. I just don't think pure athleticism translates into good hitting as much as people think it should.

Whether a player looks good in 54 PA or has had good results in 54 PA, there is no real difference. I have seen many terrible hitters look pretty good for the first month of the season, as has anyone who watches a lot of baseball. The instinct is to get pretty excited if he plays for your team, but the majority of the time, reality hits soon enough, Gomez is a great defender and a decent base runner... that is it right now. He has value but it has nothing to do with his stick. I agree that he is young enough to still make some strides offensively but the notion he could be a 5 WAR player... sorry.

As long as guys like Aoki, Morgan and Gomez get starts in the top 5 of the batting order, the notion that Weeks shouldn't is laughable. The suggestion that Conrad might be a better start right now is also laughable. I get that it's understandable to think 150 AB is a lot. Any baseball fan did at some point in their fandom. Anyone who has been watching baseball for years should know better, though.