TheCrew07

Gamel needs to be getting the majority of the PT at 3B, this is getting silly.

I think it's time to start stretching out both Braddock and Rogers, between the time left in the season and the AFL they could both get up around 100 innings this season. Rogers' peripherals don't exactly excite me, he's still walking too many batter, but I'm curious if that will improve with the more work he gets.

Apparently Brewer has no use for April and May. Luetge with his best outing of the season.

No sound for this one, I said something hateful on the last out at 2B.

He has some serious pitch recognition issues as well as the previously discussed pull happy swing.

Chris Dennis

Brett Lawrie

Jose Duran (I missed some of his 3rd AB, I had the camera on between pitches..)

Juan Sanchez

Efrain Nieves

Brandon Ritchie

Cody Scarpetta

I'll start with the pitchers, then the position players in the order that they batted. I'll be at the games all week so I'll grab video on all of the pitchers that I can, and the rest of the hitters that I missed on Tuesday. If anyone has any special requests just drop me a PM and I'll see what I can do for you. Each player with his own reply.

Scarpetta's 4th Inning (Stadium Gun - Stalker Gun) 77 91 91 74 Was busy watching the HR and missed velocity (fastball) 86-91 85-90 71 86-92 85 K Swinging (Missed Stalker reading) 91 91 91 91 93 Line Out to 2B 87 Ground Out 1-2 (missed stalker reading) Scarpetta's 5th Inning 89 90 90 75 90 PopOut 2B 91 91 76 73 75 K Swinging 86 - Missed Stalker 84 - 90 76 91 90 BB 89 88-92 90 77 91 Hit to RF 91 84 - Missed Stalker 76 85 - Missed Stalker 91 - 92 Ground Out 1-2 My seats are right behind the Rattler kids charting pitches so I didn't need to find a scout. Cody worked 90-93, mostly 91 with his FB. His curve has real nice break, sometimes sharper than others, but he doesn't consistently locate it yet as you'll see in the video. He only had 3 balls hit hard against him all night... An F7 right up against the wall, the HR, and a line drive single to RF. I was surprised that Ritchie was topping out around 91 as I didn't know he threw that hard, he only pitched the one inning which I took video of. Nieves seemed to throw his 2 seam fastball exclusively but the Cedar Rapids kids couldn't solve it as it moves real well. He was very slow off the mound on the first infield single against him, Trejo (playing 1B) actually fielded the ball near the pitcher's mound but the batter had Nieves by 3 or 4 steps getting to the bag so Trejo ate the ball. He pitched 3 innings, I took video of all 3, he worked mostly 84-85 on the stadium gun but did hit 87 on occasion. I haven't watched the video yet myself but I was left wondering if he had a second pitch, it's hard to be impressed by someone getting by on 1 pitch. BK made a nice catch against the wall in LF to end the top of the first, I thought it was a HR off the bat. Delaney's error was such a horrible throw had it not hit the back and then the side wall in the Cedar Rapids bullpen and came back towards Trejo the runner might have actually gotten to 3rd. It was high and wide by a good 7-8 feet. Trejo has nice size and is a nice looking athlete but he didn't come close to the ball. The steal attempt early was bad... I forget who the runner was but they were out by 2 full steps, it was that bad. Same same for the play the game ended on, you'll see that in Kemp's video. Lawrie did alright, everything was hit right to him or pop ups, tough to gage his defensive prowess on those kind of chances. edit. I forgot to mention that Nieves made a real nice play on a bunt to get the lead runner at 3rd when everyone was telling to go to first. You'll see it in the video if you're paying attention to that part.

I was at the T-Rats game, observations and lots of video will be available in the morning. I will say though that 2 of the 3 pitchers from Cedar Rapids brought gas, Chatwood has an impressive fastball sitting 93-95. Kohn was similar with his fast ball, most of his that I noticed were 93-94 but I thought he did a better job mixing his pitches. I REALLY like Chris Dennis. More in the AM.

Smith is probably next if DiFelice is truly hurt.

How many prospects does the team have for goodness sake? LA has played 2 more game than everyone else at the top and the Brewers just went through a horrible cold stretch and still have a commanding lead on the rest of the NL Central. The NL East is going to score runs, I'd think the Brewers are right about where they should be in the NL. The only surprise above them is Washington... last year they finished 7th overall in runs scored and the year before 5th. They only went to the post season the year they finished 2nd overall in ERA... that's much more telling than how the offense is performing, the offense continues to do what it has for the past 3 seasons.. The staff has been solid yet unspectacular outside of a couple of outings from Bush and Yo in general, they are currently 5th.. St. Louis is actually leading the NL in ERA, I just don't see that trend continuing, outside of Carpenter they are pretty average. Either way, it's way too early to be comparing runs scored and worried about NL rankings. As far as the post season goes, if the plan is to outscore Pilly, LA, NYM... whomever... 8-6, 7-5, etc... then we need a new plan.

eww, not a good night pitching wise for the stars.

Exactly Rluz, so then how you can definitively say what Sheets is worth? Because Fangraphs and/or Tango says so it must be true? Just looking at it very quickly a player's true value is roughly 50-60% of their max value in their career. In the past you've made the argument that Sheets earned his money because he pitched X IP of Y ERA making him exactly worth his contract based on what FanGraphs said his performance was worth. I just don't see how it's possibly that nice and tidy. Coming off of his previous seasons when he signed his contract it's probably a safe guess that both the Sheets' camp and the Brewers were expecting an average IP pitched above the 150.66 IP he averaged over the course of his contract. In that context he absolutely got paid more than he deserved.. The perspective here is totally dependent on the context in which someone chooses to frame their point of view. Contracts aren't based on only 160 IP, it wouldn't be fair to the player if they were, I'm curious if there is a standard IP that contracts are based on or if it's all just based on "gut" feel. The point is, if a contract is signed for 12 million, and the pitcher only pitches until the end of the June due to injury, fans are going to be upset about the dead 6 million, but usually forgiving the first 1 or 2 times. Once a player has a track record, regardless of the severity, the fans are going to be on his case. I don't really feel strongly either way on that, I'm truly indifferent, mostly I'll just caution that using FanGraphs dollar value is a slippery slope when evaluating someone's contract. Did Sheets earn his money in 2008? Absolutely. If he would have been hurt early in the season, he would have already had surgery, maybe would be back on the mound, and the Brewers might have a comp pick coming... either way he wasn't going to be available for the playoffs. I'm not sure what the backwards logic about being able to pitch in the playoffs proves, when it wasn't even a possibility given his injury. If you want to make a hypothetical argument about a minor injury at the start of the season then it's unfair to dismiss someone else's hypothetical argument, how can one be more valid than the other? When a player signs the big contract for a team, he's perceived as "the guy". Predictably every Sheets injury coincided with Brewer woes on the field... It's tough to win games without your best player. When "the guy" on the most popular professional team in the state is somehow always ready to go we tend to carry that expectation to the other teams and players we root for. I think that's the unfortunate side of the story with Sheets, but in the end he was injury prone, not to an extreme like Pavano who never pitched, but he missed significant time 4 straight seasons and missed the single most important series for many fans on the site which was the playoff series against the Phillies. What makes a mathematical representation of value more valid than a perceived notion of value? Especially considering the sliding economic scale in MLB? A players value to one team is different than if that player was playing for another team in the league... there's no direct correlation based solely on a players performance as teams like Milwaukee are looking for or should be looking for production from players who aren't eligible for Free Agency, which changes the economy of scale greatly. This is we ended up with a pitcher like Suppan who's making the most money on the team, but he's in the bottom 3rd of the 25 man roster talent wise. The Brewers need to be paying their best players the most amount of money. If I were a GM I'd be using both... I'd try to come up with a mathematical base that would be based on the current FA market, then adjust for the more intangible aspects like injuries and home team discounts to come up with a best guess at a particular contract.

Anundsen hasn't given up more than 3 earned runs in any 1 start this season.

I think the point mkm13 is trying to make and that many are overlooking is that if you look at the number of $20 million dollar players there are according to Fan Graphs, then look at the actual number of $20 million dollar players there are around MLB... something doesn't quite add up. There's 20 million dollars from a paper formula, then there's 20 million dollars when you actually to pay a guy, and there is a very select number of teams that will actually pay a player 20 million dollars. Just like a 20 mil contract to the Yankees is a much different issue than a 20 mil contract to the Brewers.. The values, both in $ and WAR on fangraphs should be used more for comparison sake, than actually applied to a contract situation. Sheets is a good pitcher, but no one was going to give him 20 mil after 4 straight years of significant DL time and/or injury outside of the Yankees, and they signed Burnett. He was worth 25 million last year according to Fan Graphs and the contract he got was widely criticized by the same people defending Sheets, and he's only making 16.5 mil annually compared to his supposed best of value of 25. edit. For the sake of a contract, should we be considering the last 3 or 4 years worth of data as an average, instead of his best season?