TheCrew07

Kottaras has 16 hits on the season, 12 of them are for XBHs, my gut tells me it's a fluke but he does sport an impressive OBP and OPS at this time.

Ha then Kottaras says "take that TheCrew07, and don't ever suggest Lucroy is the better option again!"

After I give Rogers some love he walks the pitcher, he's out now with 1 out in the 5th and a runner on 1st. He did throw a ton of strikes until the 4th.

If Gallardo comes out for the 8th already over 110 pitches I will be extremely pissed off with Mr. Macha.

Rogers takes his hacks, I like that from my pitchers, he just singled for his 1st AAA hit.

Have I mentioned Yo is very difficult not to like?

I've been thinking about something quite a bit today, why is Kottaras a better option than Lucroy? Please understand that this has nothing to do with Kottaras striking out just now other than it reminded to post this. I didn't realize how poorly he's been hitting as he always seems to do well when I'm watching. However today I was just bouncing around looking at stats because I was bored and saw that he's hitting .217 for the season and .195 over the last 28 days. How exactly does that make him the better option if Macha is basing the decision on production? And no I'm not taking Lucroy's 4 for 10 into consideration, pitchers don't have a book on him yet. I'm talking philosophically... why is Kottaras playing every day over one of our top prospects when he's not performing very well. McGehee I could understand though I thought he should have been playing 2nd with Gamel at 3rd since our defense was going to take a hit anyway, but I don't understand this catching situation at all.

The Merk...wow. He gave up 4 unearned runs, Brett Lawrie with a huge 2 run error. However Merklinger had 3(!) errors of his own in the game, all throwing, and 2 on pick off attempts. I'm struggling to recall a box score where the pitcher had 3 errors in a game, this might be a first for me following the minors.

I really have a hard time with the mental errors this team makes.

I sure wish the Brewers could have picked up Galarraga for a player like Michael Hernadez when Daniels was being dumb early in his career as the GM in Texas. He sure had some horrible trades before he figured things out. I know Galarraga had a tough year in 2009 but I've always liked him for some reason.

Man, how do you live with yourself after blowing a call that bad in that kind of moment?

Ohh no, Bucci just threw a ball away into the runner and something happened with Dennis at 1B as he reached back into the runner for the ball. Chris hasn't said if it was a collision or not, but Dennis is down on the field right now. edit. It was a collision at 1B, he's up and going to stay in the game.

ohh my, down to his last out...

2 outs to go for Galarraga. I hope MLB.com didn't jinx him.

Lo Cain triples in the 1st... My feeling is that the organization has been waiting for Schafer to come back before bumping up Cain but he's gotten in over 400 ABs in AA now, he stats have been amazingly consistent between April and May. Bite the bullet and promote the young man, he's earned it.

Peter Fatse has hit his way all the way down to 7th in the T-Rats lineup. After hitting to a 1.165 OPS in April with a slash line of .348/.448/.717 he only to hit a .599 OPS in May. His slash line for the month .187/.291/.308...

Garfield throws out Galvez for the second time in 2 days. Prior to his encounter with Garfield the past 2 days, Galvez was 13/14 for stole base attempts on the season. I wonder if Garfield was working on the running game with his days off because he's been much better of late, which is nice. There have been games this season where it's been a merry-go-round on the base paths.

And they'd be wrong, just like Melvin has been wrong band aiding the symptoms instead of curing the disease. The simple truth is we aren't even playing .500 ball and for the 2nd year in a row Melvin's much debated pitching plan has come crashing down. He's not unlucky, he's made bad decisions... unlucky is a team like TB missing on Burrell, Melvin hasn't had hardly any success in FA outside of Cameron, that's a pretty disturbing trend. Yes it was. There are not guarantees we could have traded for anything other than a rental for LaPorta and the other guys we traded What exactly is guaranteed in sports? Just like 3 years of player data becomes predictive? No, it's simply descriptive... a reasonable conclusion may be drawn from that data, but that conclusion is not a factual representation of future performance. Furthermore, I grow weary of the phantom "we don't know what was available" defense. It's the most hollow justification of Melvin's actions that floats around the forum. How do you know there weren't other deals out there? How do you know he even looked for a young upside pitcher? Just so I understand this, it's okay for you to speculate that Melvin hasn't had any other opportunities except for the deals he made, but it's not okay for me speculate that Melvin sticks to conservative deals and could have gone a different route? Essentially the lack evidence of you have trumps the lack of evidence I have because you said so? At least I can point to his trade history and team building philosophy as the backbone of my hypothesis, what can you hang your hat on here? What's more likely? That in all these years no one offered a starter of at least Matt Cain quality to Melvin, or that Melvin just didn't want to give up what it would have taken to acquire said pitcher?

Bah Chris, the Baby Faced Assassin is a much better nickname than Houdini... For reference Chris was talking about Bucci wiggling his way out of a 2nd and 3rd jam with 1 out after he threw a fastball over Garfield's head to the backstop allowing both runners to move up. This time he got a strike out and a dribbler back to the mound. edit. spelling.

So the Rattlers have tried to steal 2 bases and have been thrown out twice. The first was Richardson, the second was Dykstra and Chris said the ball was waiting for him, never a good thing.

Kris Davis just hit a ball over the Batter's Eye in CF, T-Rats up 1-0. edit. Sounds like it was at least a 440 foot shot, as it cleared the concession stand behind the eye, quite a charge in that ball.

You really think Beane would trade for Fielder after Moneyball? I don't see him ever trading for the player he thought was too fat even for the A's.

I still say no, he's 28 years old, he's not getting better, in fact he's only trending negatively and we still need to get Parra straightened out (if that's ever going to happen) before taking on another project. I don't fascination here with Perez at all, he's proven he stinks. I'll pick him on up on a DFA if I think he might magically turn it around letting him work out his issues in the minors, but not wasting another roster on a pitcher who won't throw strikes. His BB rate has only been under 4 once in his career and went from 4.9 to over 7 in the last 3 years. There's not nothing positive about his peripherals at all as his K rate has declined to 7.0... he actually has a negative K:BB ratio for the season. I might let him pitch in down in BC in the 4th or 5th spot in the rotation but that's as high as I place him in the system at this time.

You mean like under performing veterans riding out a paycheck into the sunset? People are worried that players like Braddock and Axford who are clearly superior will be sent back to the minors, or a player like Lucroy will ride the pine playing 1 or 2 times a week while the organization chases extra wins. I've been through these arguments literally 100s of times so I'll keep this short. I personally don't believe the Brewers will ever be in a position where they can "go for it" or "win at all costs". Macha didn't play Gamel last season because McGehee was productive out of the box and Macha needs to win now, Parra isn't in the rotation because Macha thinks Narveson is a better now. Macha rode Gallardo all last season because he had to win now. The problem with decisions like that are the future consequences that in most cases aren't readily apparent today... If Gamel turns out to be anything we've already burned a year of his service time that we'll have to buy back, it was completely unnecessary to waste his service time in that manner. I don't think it makes sense to burn up most of Lucroy's first year playing 1 or 2 times a week. Is Yo one of those special pitchers than can handle a massive increase in workload or has Macha already negatively impacted his career? The same is true of rental player deals, how do they help us build towards the future in any way? I mean seriously, Sabathia is the poster example of this. The Brewers were able to generate more revenue, which they spent in the poorest way possible, to take a step backwards on the field. Then Melvin recycles the exact same ideas this season with even worse results thus far. We'd be better served as an organization constantly trying to build towards a World Series than just trying to be good enough to get into the post season. It's 2 completely different mindsets. I'm not sure why winning and prospect development can't go hand in hand in Milwaukee? If you have a rookie on the roster expect to deal with the ups and downs, it's part of the process. Granted our pitching situation makes it more difficult as every mistake becomes magnified, but we're always going to have to play young players, that's just the way it is. When a season is going as poorly as this one has, I'd much rather watch a Cain, Escobar, Braddock, Axford, maybe a Rivas or Rogers than watch Edmonds, Counsell, Hoffman, Hawkins, and so on. If I'm going to lose, I'd rather lose with young players building towards the future than with old players trying to eek out a couple of extra wins this season.

I honestly don't recall exactly what I said, do you remember what thread that was in? I may have worded a response poorly but my opinions on players as assets hasn't ever changed nor has my opinion of LaPorta. Wasn't that thread from over the winter?