TheCrew07

It's a naughty word TLB!... which is why I wonder how he gets along with Davis, who tends to pitch from behind and issue a free pass instead of challenge a particular hitter. DD has said repeatedly that he'd rather walk a guy than serve up a meatball, which I never really understood, why does the pitch have to catch too much of the plate or be a ball? There's no in-between here? Whatever works for him I guess.

I hope the Brewers do not make any deadline deals unless we're the team giving up the MLB piece for top prospects, hopefully 1 of them being of the starting pitching variety.

If I'm not careful I'm going to get way too excited about young Mr. Lasker. edit. It's to be expected I guess in the low minors but it would be better if the T-Rats didn't pile all their horrible defensive plays into 1 inning like they did in the 6th tonight. The hit that tied the game shouldn't have been hit, Marseco went to cover 2B for a pick off and Heckathorn went home anyway, of course the ball went right to where Marseco would have been standing. Heckathorn is hitting 94 on the stadium gun according to Chris.

I was looking at Chris' game notes on the blog and it occurred to me that Lasker being 30 on BA's list struck me as too low. Then I was looking at my top 20 list and the power 50, unfortunately for him that placing is just about right, the system sure has come along way depth wise in the last 4 years, it's not nearly as top heavy as it used to be. If nothing else I still think he has the best name in the system.

If he ends up in WI this season then Nichols needs a good beating... Let him get his feet wet in short season ball. There's absolutely no reason to push this young man with all of the pitching the organization has in front of him.

We'll see how the season plays out. While I agree that it's too early to cast dispersions on the rotation, nor will Zaun go 0 for the season, many people legitimately questioned the moves made this off season and if the net effect would be positive for 2010. The only move where we got younger or more athletic was in CF, and it will be a huge step down in Offensive production. I for one was terribly disheartened by the last 2 off seasons, and my feelings on the matter aren't likely to change. At the very least I'd hope that people would be willing to have a more open mindset about how to manage the roster rather than trying to solve problems through FA with established players. Making timely trades for key pieces would have made all the difference last season, and maybe this season as well, and I'm not talking about deadline deals, I'm not into short term solutions. I still believe Melvin needed to be more aggressive, I think true weakness of the MLB team continues to be ignored, and I still think trading Hardy for a bat at his lowest possible value is laughable. I'm not rooting for Gomez to fail, quite the opposite, it's just that DM has burned through a ton of expendable assets making deals in season and out of season without addressing the 1 true weakness of the organization, top of the rotation talent. We can win in the post season with average position players around a couple of starts, but we aren't going to win anything with an average rotation. Lcbj6c's take isn't necessarily reactionary nor is it revisionist, he's shared many of the same concerns that I have and he's repeatedly voiced them over the last year, I took it as more of an "I told you so" type rant directed at Melvin, not anyone here on the site. We need a GM who's going to look to set market trends, who will aggressively think outside the box with trades and acquisitions, not someone who's going to stick to a set formula because that's what he's always done, that's what baseball teams have traditionally done, or follow the swings in market trends like a sheep. We're the smallest market in baseball, we can't afford to operate like other teams regardless of how much money we have to spend. I remember people talking about "If we could only spend X we'd be so much better off" for years. We're way past all those numbers now, the team has already stretched every revenue stream as far as it can go, and yet we ended up with a below .500 season for a 90 million dollar payroll. It's not about spending money, it's about value on the dollar, and the only move Melvin has made that carried any significant value was signing a 4 WAR player in Cameron for far below market value. Even with Sabathia and Cameron I wonder how much combined WAR all of Melvin's moves have generated vs the money that was spent. I'm guessing it would be positive over all, but the amount of money spent for so few wins will surprise people. In the end I just can't get past the feeling that the moves DM made and didn't make cost the team multiple playoff appearances, I hope I'm wrong but there is a very real possibility that 2008 will be only the playoff appearance out of this first wave of talent. It would be a shame, but Melvin hasn't made a significant trade for a top of the rotation starter since JDLR, he's only acquired high floor/low ceiling type players since through both trades and FA. We aren't going to compete for the division having the 4th best rotation, it's just not realistic, it doesn't matter what the offense is or isn't if our pitching doesn't match up.

Tonight on the Huntsville broadcast they mentioned multiple times that Cain has had numerous diving web gems over the past couple of games. I sincerely hope his offensive game picks up and gives us a young option other than Gomez by the end of the season going into 2011.

Apparently there is no Huntsville feed today? The Tom Sullivan show is on WTKI and I just thought now to check MiLB.com and it appears to be the Lookouts audio feed even though I clicked the Huntsville link. edit. Apparently it is Chad for the Stars, I wasn't prepared for color commentary, my mistake.

This news is surprising, yet not completely unexpected, too bad for Josh. I wonder if his injury turned out to be of the career ending variety? It's odd that he never appeared in a single game if not...

Chris, since you are reading the site... velocity reports are a very good thing, in fact a real pal would get the stalker gun reading the pitchers in the stands whenever possible!

Well we know Arnett was working around 94 in Helena last year per Steve Wendt, but if this is another 6-8 MPH drop in velocity I may have to quit following the minors.

I thought the book on Arnett was that he got stronger velocity wise as the game progressed? Unless something at Time Warner Field has changed the stadium gun is regularly 2-3 MPH slow as I highlighted in the link reports last year.

of course I'm in, should be fun.

Chad interviews starting pitcher Mark Rogers.? They discuss Mark's first start of the season, the team, and the bullpen. Stars 4-11-2010 sound bitehttp://www.entertonement.com/widgets/img/clip/kfsfgmzdkm/1/1_275300b2_45bb_11df_90fd_0019b9e56dac/blank.gif

Chris interviews 2B Scooter Gennett.? They discuss his game winning hit in the season opener and the snow among other things. Timber Rattlers 4-10-2010 sound bitehttp://www.entertonement.com/widgets/img/clip/hjzhklxvkr/1/1_aac31e4c_45ba_11df_8c59_0015c58957e5/blank.gif

Unfortunately I no longer have a consumer reports subscription. However if you're going to be shooting quite a bit of video then the weight and how the camcorder fits in your hard will be very important in the end. The more comfortable the camcorder is, the steadier you will be able to hold camera while shooting video, which will ultimately lead to better picture quality. While almost all modern camcorders correct for "sea sickness", there's only so much they can do, and there is nothing worse than watching video that doesn't stay relatively centered. This should be a good resource for you.

The Brewers really need to do something about the defensive issues up and down the minor league system. Huntsville has another error in the 1st, this time on Lo Cain, the Stars have yet to play a clean game this season.

Chad interviews Huntsville Manager Mike Guerrero Stars 4-9-2010 sound bitehttp://www.entertonement.com/widgets/img/clip/jylnnzgzqk/1/1_92e5fc58_4598_11df_85c9_0019b9e56dac/blank.gif

Chris interviews T-Rats President and General Manger Rob Zerjav Timber Rattlers (Game 2) 4-9-2010 sound bitehttp://www.entertonement.com/widgets/img/clip/czryvhcdjy/1/1_69a27db2_4598_11df_8636_0019b9e56dac/blank.gif

Thanks so much for efforting to capture pre-game interviews for us, TheCrew07.? This is also the thread we'll use to point to Nashville audio interviews and highlights once they clear up a technical issue next week. -- Mass Haas *** Chris interviews Wisconsin Manager Jeff Isom Timber Rattlers 4-9-2010 sound bitehttp://www.entertonement.com/widgets/img/clip/cccrtzmbxw/1/1_21b81ee4_4598_11df_9fd2_0015c58957e5/blank.gif

I saw Brett play 2B quite a bit last season, but I never saw him make a play as bad as this either. Lawrie is definitely athletic enough to play the position, but his defense isn't improving at the same rate as his offense and his defense started out way behind.

It's Bowman time finally! I'm also interested to see how Scarpetta fairs today. I'm going to be honest about Cody, I like his CB but I'm still hoping he adds some velocity to his fastball as he matures at least getting to where he's consistently hitting 91,92 MPH, where Yo usually works. I'd feel better about him as a prospect if he could consistently stay over 90 MPH, his FB velocity is the main reason I think some around here are a tad too high on his potential, and it's why I listed him as a back of the rotation starter when I answered that pitching projection question earlier in the year. He's not a power arm like Rogers, Arnett, Heckathorn, or Peralta, his velocity is very average for a MLB pitcher at this point in time, and every extra tick will help.

I think we're progressing in the proper direction. Pitching is power. Period. We don't need an impact bat at every position to compete, and in fact having a very good offense last year meant nothing because the pitching was so bad. I'd much rather build one of the best if not the best rotation in the NL than one of the best offenses. In fact, the Phillies had a great offense for years, top in the NL, but they never won anything in the post season until they got great pitching, the Brewers have had one of the top offenses in the NL since 2007 but only got to the post season when the pitching peaked. I'm not sure why we focus so much on the position players around here, maybe because the advanced metrics looked at that side of baseball first, and many of the pitching metrics like PAP are just dumb so we end up debating the validity of the metric more than the players being measured. If we get to a point where we have some surplus pitching we can always move some pitching for an impact offensive player. We won't be able to replace Fielder 1 for 1, but if we can get better production out of spots that have traditionally been weak like C, we'll still be in the top half of offenses in the NL. I still believe Gamel is a .900+ OPS player in his peak, I think a guy like Salome is an .850ish OPS guy if he can figure out how to play defense (oddly he was drafted for his defensive tools), I believe Cain and possibly Schafer will be more productive than Gomez, and I believe Weeks is starting to peak. So as far as offensive production goes, if we lose Fielder's 45 HR potential and replace it with Gamel's 30 HR potential, but then we pickup 5 to 6 more HRs from 2B and 20ish more from C then the IF offensive production is a wash. Lucroy has already hit 20 HR in a season in the minors, he's a 15-20 HR guy as well, so I think either way our C position is about get a major boost production wise. In the OF Braun will be Braun in LF for a long time. I think down the road we'll be able to do better than what Gomez will give the team this season, and for RF we a have bunch of options that should yield better numbers than Hart put up last season. Davis, Gindl, Cain, maybe Gamel or Lawrie move out there as well now that Dennis has shifted from RF to 1B. In short, I think the team's future hinges much more on what happens with the pitching than it does on what happens to the hitting regardless if Fielder walks or not.

Part of the problem with all of the studies is that they don't measure pitch distribution. Is the hitter seeing more fastballs early in the count? Late in the count? From a hitting perspective they only have to get the pitch they are looking for 1 time in an AB to be successful. They might still swing through it, but they got the pitch they were looking for, which is a huge advantage to the batter. Personally I'm not sold on protection, but if the player thinks the spot in the lineup matters, then it does, because we get exactly what we expect. Take Hardy and all the drama that came with batting in front of the pitcher, it never worked out well for him because he was convinced he wouldn't see enough pitches to hit, things like that become self fulfilling prophecies. Gomez should never have been batting #2 and Escobar should be not be batting #8, at least move Esky back and bat him 9th if you insist on batting him at the bottom of the order Ken. I realize it's been popular to pigeon hole Escobar as the light hitting Hardy replacement but he just keeps getting better each season. He's the kid who skipped school to field grounders, he never worked much on his hitting, he's come so far since the Brewers signed him that it's truly remarkable.

Most posters on the MLB side are going to assume that Peterson is fixing everyone in the system and I just wanted to point out the Lee Tunnell shouldn't be overlooked. He's the reason why Axford added 5 MPH to his fastball prior to last season, and he knows the pitching in the system better than anyone. I hope he ends up getting interviewed quite a bit again this season because they are always insightful and entertaining.