TheCrew07

What a weird play, why go to second? Was he making a play to his left and just flip the ball to Justis for an easier throw/force? Being a lefty myself it's pretty easy to make throws going left... I hope the play gets described in the post game story. edit. Typical me I go right to the pitching lines and fail to notice that Huntsville is being no hit through 6.

That wasn't really the point of my post JJ, people are continually posting that Gamel won't hit enough to play 1B, which I just can't get behind. I don't think anyone in this thread wouldn't agree that the best case for the Brewers would be Gamel playing 3B, but there is a statistical argument to be made that he'd be more valuable as player *this year* at a different position. I'm on record repeatedly as hoping he'll become at least average at 3B, but it's very difficult to hold a bat of Mat's quality back for very long. It's fine for people to want Gamel to spend an entire season in AAA working on his D. I just don't think the issue is that black and white and I've previously posted my reasons as why. A single roving infield instructor isn't going to get the results with our players, it's been proven time after time. There just aren't enough coaches and maybe not enough time to work through these defensive issues with the players. It shouldn't start at AA like it did with Mat, it should start at R or R+, where ever the kids start playing and carry through to MLB. Defensive development hasn't been enough of an organizational priority to this point, and I don't mean to impoy anything against the roving instructors who do a heck of job with the cards stacked against them, it's much deeper issue than that. The kids need constant perfect repetition change a bad habit into a positive one. A recent study that was presented at the football clinic in Madison the last week in March suggested it takes 15,000 repetitions to relearn a movement (I really wish I would have written down which College completed the study so I could reference it but I was taking bullet point notes for my personal use). That number seems/seemed awful high to me, but even if it's half that number are the kids getting 7,500 perfect repetitions in by the time they get to AAA? Or are they just doing what they do and reinforcing the negative? I think responsibility falls both ways here... Mat is ultimately responsible for his play on the field, but has the organization really done all it could for players like Gamel, Fielder, Weeks, and Braun? Part of me has a real hard time holding Gamel down in AAA because of his defense when it appears he never really got the support he needed until recently.

I dont' know that Milwaukee has the pitching that SD would want in return. If they'd take position prospects with an A ball pitcher it might work, but Peavy isn't a rental, and his salary escalates up over 20 million, so there are financial ramifications in that move as well.

Have we become so spoiled that we don't consider a guy who will likely hit .290ish/.360ish/.500ish from the left side an impact player? He could easily have 30+ HR seasons which would put him in the general neighborhood of Braun power wise and he's already a more disciplined hitter than Ryan. Again he hit 20 HRs last season while playing through an injury most of the second half, I have a very hard time understanding the comments about a lack of power. What's our benchmark for an impact bat power wise? 50 HRs? 40? For me personally once I player gets over the 20 mark I'm pretty happy, over 30 and I'm excited, anything beyond is gravy. Is it because if he ends up at 1B he replaces Fielder whom we've become attached to so his offensive numbers look pedestrian? I don't understand that line of thinking because his line would as productive as Fielder (unless Prince starts hitting 50 HRs a year) while playing much better defense. Gamel has the potential to be a 3.5+ WAR player at 1B, what would be wrong with that? I also think 3.5 is erroring on the conservative side. At this moment in time, 3B is probably his least effective alternative because his defense would limit his value. Moving him off of 3B would probably increase his WAR because he'd be moving from negative defensive value to positive value. Is it because we don't like him batting in the 6 hole? Why couldn't he bat in the 2 hole? Money did not hesitate a second when asked to compare Gamel to Boggs last season, and then Money went on to drive home the point that Mat will hit for much better power than Wade did in his career. His potential is that vast, he's not a second tier prospect regardless of where BA has him ranked, he's an elite prospect and should be in the top 25. He's not a roleplayer.

Not only does Buck Rogers have the coolest name in the business, he's one of the best promoters I've had the pleasure of following from afar. Minor league promotions have always been "creative", but he takes it to a whole new level.

Is the distribution of fastballs different though? Will the hitter "see" the pitch they are looking for instead of getting fooled sitting fastball and getting a curve? Do they get fastballs earlier in the count or later in the count? I know it's convenient to knock convention wisdom in certain circles, but when I'm having a beer with a former MLB pitcher and he tells me that they'll more aggressively go after someone who's hitting in front an elite hitter, am I supposed to believe you or him? Also, when you're dealing with averages, the crappy pitchers who can't locate worth a darn are going to bring the numbers back down, the difference in that one fastball for a hitter against an elite pitcher can be the difference in the outcome of that AB. In some respects advanced scouting and computer generated statistical analysis of batters has done away with some of the old school mentality. Instead of pitching to a spot in the order, the pitcher and catcher are working a defined gameplan for each individual hitter trying to exploit their individual weaknesses. It's impossible to measure what's going on in a pitcher's head when he's on the mound, is he putting more pressure on himself to keep the bases clear ahead of an elite hitter? We really don't know, but based on my conversations with the one player I know, I don't think it's all that uncommon for pitchers to have said mind set. In the end it doesn't matter what we believe just like the batting order issue, it matters what the players believe. If they believe it makes a difference then it absolutely has an impact on the game, regardless if it can be measured or not. It's not unique to Hardy and the 8 spot, it's much more common than that.

He's not helping his cause with the walks though.

In the latest bullpen article on JSOnline Hoffman will close but it will be a fluid situation in front of him, or at least I'm hoping so.

He gave up 8 hits, 5 of which were for extra bases, 3 2B, and 2 3B. I have a hard time saying he "pitched well" when he's giving up so many rockets. He didn't give up many runs which was a plus, and he managed to spread the extra base hits around some to limit the damage, instead of giving them up in a single inning or 2 with BBs in front of them for good measure. I just don't get a warm and fuzzy from him when he's giving up so many line drive hits, extra base hits, and so many "loud" outs. I felt he was more lucky than good yesterday... I'm on record that I expect his downward trend from the 3 seasons to continue, I just don't feel good about him and I admit to some bias. He did do a better job limiting walks which was a definite plus and a big reason why he only gave up the 2 runs getting hit as hard as he did. If he's going to have success this season BBs will be the key for him, if he puts people on in front of those hits he's going to give up runs. He won't have many clean innings, but he can limit the damage if he limits the BBs.

Rivera did catch Parra's perfect game at AAA, but other than getting Rivera ABs I'm not sure that Rivera would make a difference for Manny. Parra will break out when he learns to trust his stuff and get after people. If he doesn't, then he'll be adequate to above average, but not the pitcher could be, sort of an Oliver Perez career path. Getting back to the offense, is 4 PAs a week going to be the difference in the offense? I don't see how 4 extra PAs for River is going to make up a for Braun, Fielder, and Hardy not getting the job done. Once those 3 start hitting, we'll feel much better about the offense. I'm not against the idea of Rivera getting more PAs, I just think the impact would be minimal.

Rivas had an eventful 3 innings for only giving up 1 run. Miranda got the start at SS today, Brewer was heating up with a 4 game hitting streak. The SS situation between A+ and AA seems pretty crowded, but with Perez hitting well to start the season I'm unsure what to do about it. Our resident Sox fan insisted Miranda was more than an organizational soldier, but playing once a week behind Brewer isn't going to help his development if that's true. I don't know enough about the guy to comment either way, except to say that he's not getting enough ABs if he's a prospect. Gamel... darn you. Next to Rogers having success, my next biggest wish would have been for Mat to play solid defense on the corner. Not so much because the big team could use a cornerstone 3B, although that figures into it, but to shut up everyone who's said he wouldn't stick at 3B. It's awful hard to ignore 5 errors in 2 weeks but it seems that Gamel does everything in spurts... he'll be clean for 3 weeks, then pile on the errors for a short time, then be clean again. The potential is there, but the lack of consistency is going to be an issue at the MLB level. He's a difference maker the plate, it's too bad it looks like his glove is going to keep him at AAA for the time being. Maybe if he cleans it up he'll get that call in June, but he's going to have to turn it around soon. Gulin has had a disappointing start to the season, I was hoping he would impress and perform well enough to earn at least a cup of coffee this season.

Macha takes care of the one huge issue I had with Yost, which was defined bull pen roles. This guy gets the 7th, the next the 8th, and my closer the 9th. It would always tick me to have 1 reliever breeze through an inning in 10 pitches and Yost go to the next guy even though the pitcher's spot didn't come up in the order. If a guy has it going on, let him pitch another inning, if he doesn't then by all means move on to the next reliever. Suppan batting and pitching drew my ire and I realize that all managers are going to make moves the fans don't like so I'm okay it. The team needed a win, he probably over complicated the situation in the 7th, but a 2 pitch DP ball and all was right with the world.

Mike Ramlow

We're looking at web scouting system which would support not only football, but all of the sports for the high school as well. It's pretty cool technology and a couple of NFL teams are using the more robust version of it. When I was discussing and researching the product at the clinic I was most interested in FF and IE support (I use FF at home and IE at work and most families will have IE on their home computers), but the developer I was talking to mentioned Safari is supported as well. I'm pretty comfortable in FF, I thought it was significant step up from IE. I wasn't a big fan of Chrome, though it had some positives, maybe I jumped ship too early. My question would be, where does Safari fit in the grand scheme? Is it easier to use? Load faster? Similar to FF? Does it auto correct for size? For example above Brian posted the pic of the website, which screwed up this entire thread for me in FF as I now have to scroll it right and left to read the text, is that something Safari would correct? Is Safari something I should look into and push the other coaches and kids towards if we sign up? My original plan was to hang my hat on FF, as the easier the browser is to use the better, any insight would be appreciated.

thank goodness!

Rogers not Rodgers... http://forum.brewerfan.net/images/smilies/wink.gif

Someday soon these kids at WI are going to start hitting some, only 1 hit thus far tonight

I think what JJ is getting at is that best case scenario any draft pick is 3 years away from the time you acquire the pick, if they sign in that first summer and get some playing time in. Remember that the first 15 picks in the draft are protected so there's no grabbing college bats and arms that are close to MLB ready, those players will be long gone. However if the team acquires 2 top prospects instead of 2 picks, those prospects are likely at AA and a year a away from making an impact at the MLB level. Top prospects don't tend to spend much time in AAA but if they were in AAA well then they may be of immediate assistance. I think best case for the Brewers is too lock up core position players, lock up the young pitchers they have confidence in, and work diligently to keep recycling high quality arms through the system. The Brewers are not going to be in position to sign top of the rotation arms, it's not just going to happen, even if they had money, it doesn't make sense to have that high of a percentage of the payroll tied into one player. I don't want to say the team lied, but in a way they did, they made CC a competitive offer they knew he wasn't going to accept, in effect a savvy PR move to keep fans high on the team and shift blame onto the player. The length of contract, dollar amounts, and high injury risk just aren't worth the reward, the pitchers the Brewers can afford are your back of the rotation starters like Suppan and Looper. So in my opinion it's best for the team to stay away from FA pitching and if they have to make moves in FA stick to bats and position players. There's greater bang for the buck in position players. I hope the front office utilizes a good mix of trades and letting players walk, the key is to make the correct decisions about what players to do which with, and I know it's not as simple as it sounds. Right now I come down on the trade side of the fence because we don't have any viable alternatives to acquire top of the rotation talent and we have very solid position talent at AAA and AA. I hope in the future the team has better options and more depth all the way around. I REALLY like the staff at WI, there are some intriguing arms at BC, Jeffress at AA, and the younger kids like Odorizzi, Lasker, and Lintz are still in rookie ball. If the team can pull 1 arm from each starting pitcher group we'll be in a good shape, 2 arms from each group and the team will be in a position that I haven't witnessed in my lifetime with pitching depth. Whomever said Z and Melvin made the draft picks together I believe is in error. I couldn't find the article, and maybe it was audio, but I remember the draft room dynamic as Melvin being kept in the loop, but not a major decision maker. He certainly consulted with the scouts and Z before making trades, but how could he possibly offer an educated opinion in the draft room when hasn't seen the kids play or spoken with them? This isn't the NFL draft, it's a different animal with an entirely different dynamic. I may be entirely wrong here and crossing up different stories, but I'm pretty sure Melvin doesn't make draft day decisions.

Are you suggesting that an Ervin Santana type would have cost more more than what we paid for Sabathia? I highly doubt that's true. Brantley never got much love around here but he's exactly what people have been talking about acquiring... he's a LH OBP machine with developing power. He may never hit 10 HRs in a season, but he'll bat .300ish and carry a .360 OBP. He's started off slow after raking in ST but he'll get there eventually, I have confidence he can keep his SLG 40ish points higher than his OBP. LaPorta had a bad slump the end of last year and all of sudden people started talking like he's over rated. He absolutely raked all spring and currently is sporting this line in the IL. He's not hitting like Gamel, but how many guys have ever SLG nearly 1.000 over a 2 week span in any league? I'm biased when it comes to Bryson, I really like him as a pitcher and it's just plain bad luck for Cleveland that he got injured. He had an excellent arm, 2 plus pitches, he's a solid pitching prospect. Obviously Zach Jack was a throw in for some depth. A top prospect in all of baseball, a solid top of the order hitter, and young pitcher with a live arm and stuff... without the recent rash of injuries for teams like Toronto that package could have easily pulled a Marcum type. I still think we matched up best with TB coming into this off season if the Sabathia deal doesn't eat up the depth. They were going to need an impact bat and had a surplus of excellent pitching. Maybe they sign a FA anyway but I would have liked our chances early as the 2 organizations have a history of dealings with each other.

Gamel is absolutely unreal right now, I didn't think he could start better than last year.

Anundsen with a pretty nice line, unearned runs aside.

Probably something to do with having so few top of the rotation SPs... same reason Jeffress will get every opportunity

That sir, made me laugh out loud, well played.

Absolutely, which is why I've repeatedly gone out of my way to point out that I understand that point of view and have no problem with the opinion. I do however have a problem with people who refuse to even consider the other side. If Yo gets hurt does Melvin even make a move for Sabathia? I don't believe so and believe he would have tried to make a deal for a more long term solution this off season. Can he move more prospects this season with holes looming on the horizon at C and CF in '10, SS and 3B in '11, and 2B and 1B in '12? I've been consistent in that I thought the team had 1, maybe 2 deals, if the players/prospects worked out to go after front of the rotation pitching. He made the 1 big deal, nothing much is left. If Gamel sticks at 3B then maybe Green and 1 of Salome/Lucroy become expendable, but those situations have yet to shake themselves out, there's no deal that's going to be made this year with those 3 players unless Gamel and Salome make a huge leap defensively before July... and it's been quite the opposite thus far. I was in the vast minority of posters here that didn't want to target Sabathia because I knew what it meant down the road. Now fans are overreacting about the rotation and why Melvin didn't do more to address the front of the rotation... there is no such thing as having it both ways as a Brewer fan. He burned up depth to acquire Sabathia, the system didn't produce enough pitching under Z, how is he realistically going to acquire meaningful talent for the rotation? Even if Hardy or Fielder get moved for pitching now it will likely be for prospects as most of the pitchers that we could have targeted recently signed long term deals with their clubs or got hurt. It appears that the window of opportunity to acquire MLB ready pitching has passed us bye.

Tough to comment really until you have a beta version up, I like the new layout though.