TheCrew07

He runs like Estrada, I fail to see how that qualifies him to play the outfield. There's below average speed, then there is dragging a plow behind you slow... I'm as big of a Salome fan as there is, but I'm still trying to realistic about his projections.

I don't think it's fair to charaterize X's opinion as he doesn't like him, I think he's been very consistent in his opinion that Salome's defensive issues limit his prospect status. I've beat the Salome drum pretty loudly, and I'd even agree that Lucroy is the better catching prospect at this time. Money didn't compare him to Estrada, what he's said over the course of the summer is that Angel doesn't call a good game... meaning he doesn't setup hitters well. After 4 years of professional baseball, I find that notion somewhat troubling... If he doesn't "get it" by now, he might never get it, like Hall running the bases. In my opinion the game calling issue can be easily overcome by coaches calling pitches from the dugout. It's far from ideal, but it's a solution. The 2 bigger issues in my opinion are the passed balls and poor caught stealing percentage relative to his arm strength. I feel very strongly that those 2 skills have to be addressed before he can ever catch a MLB baseball game. Battlekow already nailed the Gamel "pass", he can play either corner outfield spot or 1B if he doesn't stick at 3B... while we all want him to succeed at 3B, there are other options for him. Angel's arm would play anywhere, but he runs so poorly (he's rated as a 30 from what I've seen, Estradaesque) and is short enough that his only 2 positions would be C or DH.

That is still my quote of year, I was really hoping the Brewers would draft him. I'm not sure how it can get better than "Rocket Armed Monster"... I was watching my QBs throw this evening and that quote popped into my head when one of my more talented kids let one go. The quote is so good it transcends Baseball to other sports!

I'd still like to see the leagues and divisions evened out. Steriods and performance enchancers aside, he's done a decent job. Every commish had turned a blind eye drug use, so I'm not going to get overly excited about it in his case. I do think though that steriods cheapened some of the most hallowed records in the game, and that's not something we'll ever get back.

Fermaint showed one flash of brilliance thus far in his career, he's old for the league and putting up not so good numbers. I wonder if EDR is still following him... With the young OFs at Helena and WV, it would appear the writing is on the wall for Chuck.

If any deal in the offseason would be to aquire mediocre starting pitching in the free agent at the going rate for 4 years.. count me out. It makes absolutely no sense to me have your highest paid players on your roster be in the bottom half of your talent pool. In a very simplistic sense, for a team like Milwaukee they have to be dilligent enough to pay their best players the most money... otherwise there isn't money left for the best players as they progress up the pay scale. We're already locked into Suppan for 2 more years, why add another Suppanesque arm for another 4? There is so much good starting pitching in the system that's legitimately 2-3 years away that I'd much rather spend the money elsewhere. I'd rather not see DM spend market value on pitching of any kind, relievers or starters, I don't believe free agent pitching is a sensible market for the Brewers to attempt to play in. I've long stood bye my opinion that defined roles in the bullpen aren't a good idea, it makes it harder to balance the load and leads to over use of the "key contributors" out there. Also as has been discussed the highest leverage situation in a game is rarely the 9th inning, and it makes the most sense to me to have your best pitchers pitching in the most important situations. Even if the Brewers would change their bullpen makeup, paying established relievers market value for 80 innings isn't good value for the dollar. Of course I'd still love to aquire a younger pitcher via trade of Fielder or Hardy and if necessary sign a bat to plug the hole. I'm typically not into plugging a hole by creating another, but aquiring Sabathia limited our future options trade wise, we don't have the expendable ammunition to make another high profile prospect deal. I'd love to have Yo, Parra, (young pitcher), Bush, Suppan next year, but again I care little about name recognition and I'm into maximizing value so I realize that my opinions are not going to be the norm.

A very interesting pitching day for the organization.

Gamel and Brantley are both left handed.. one will play a corner, the other profiles best as a CF... just saying

Earlier in his career Prince would stretch at the guy throwing the ball, before he let the ball go, which caused many problems with the more inaccurate arms on the team. I thought he's improved that aspect of his game in last 2 years, he actually streches at the throw now instead of the guy fielding the ball. However, he still can't dig balls out of dirt and it boggles my mind how often he's makes the force out at 1B into a tag. I stayed pretty quiet about the play at the time because I didn't see any resolution to that debate (matter of opinion more than fact) and focused more on discussing the ACL injury to Yo, but I feel strongly that Prince had no business diving on that play in Chicago. That play may have cost the team a top of the rotation starter next year, as LaPorta and PTBNL could have been moved in a deal for younger stud pitcher, or LaPorta could have been an adequate replacement for Prince at 1B if he would have been moved for pitching. Normally I'm not a woulda, coulda, shoulda kind of guy, but I have a hard time getting past that one play. The one thing for me personally that makes the play tolerable in a way was that Prince was selling out to make something happen, he was giving max effort. It just wasn't a good idea, I was actually yelling at him (because you know he can hear me through the TV) until Yo landed, then I got quiet in a hurry. In my opinion it's not a smart play and Prince's effort has nothing to do with it, in the same way that Billy's efforts on the bases having nothing to do with his poor base running instincts when he's making outs. Too often those plays around 1B turn into an adventure and I find myself holding my breath waiting for something else bad to happen. I should add that Prince has made some real nice plays this year, he's just too inconsistent defensively for my taste.

I didn't post it here, but I posted it on the minor league side earlier this season that I still thought Balfour would have success, his stuff was just too good. I pimped him very hard last year, along with some others, and it didn't work out too well. He got squeezed horribly, it got in his head, and the team certainly didn't stick with him as long as they did Spurling and Aquino... I was pretty unhappy at the time. I'm glad he's doing well, I've been following him all year because I think TB is a good trade partner. The way things worked out I'm okay with McClung though, we needed him as starter, a role Grant wasn't going to fullfill. There was an article I came across recently about relief pitching and how unwise it is to drop large amounts of money on so few innings given the unpredictable nature of a given reliever's stats from year to year. It went through a large number of relievers that were locked up way too early, and while no Brewers mentioned, they should have been. Melvin has been overly aggressive in my opinion locking up mediocre to below average talent all over the field, including the bullpen, he's repeatedly fallen into that trap. I'm unable to locate it now, maybe it was a BBTN, Costas Now, Real Sports, or similar video piece? It wasn't all that long ago. edit. I just saw TLB's post about closers, that's the not piece I'm referring to either.

I have the super 180... or whatever it's called on HD side, I'd recommend going that route. It's still cheaper than I was paying for digital cable, and there are times when I actually chose not to watch something in HD. For whatever reason the HD channels are much quieter than the SD, so when I'm flipping between games it's a pain in the rear to constantly be adjusting the volume from 60 to 45 and back again+. I route all my sound through the TV and back to the reciever because the audio system down stairs is still a cheapy with only 1 digital input. While the TV has smart sound, the reciever doesn't, and the smart sound feature doesn't work with audio out.

I think you misplaced a post. which I do occassionally as well, you posted the same thing in the P50 thread?

I'm not exactly "with it" at the moment, but this whole situation is just sad and reflects poorly on Nashville in general. How about they get past the "he said, she said" and actually get something done. I don't know if this situation is comical or sad... maybe it's just both. I'm very fond of Nashville, they do many things correctly in my point of view from a fan standpoint, but this whole crappy stadium thing is nonsense to me. Either make the commitment or don't. and move on... The Brewers have been pretty patient, but from all indications the Sounds play in the worst park in the league. Admittedly I haven't listened to any Sounds baseball this year, which is rare for me as I've always preferred Nashville and Helena in the past so I haven't heard any local commentary on the issues. but this situation has reached the point where it's basically absurd in every way.

He probably wouldn't like it, but how bout giving Gamel a day off?

I was looking through Team USA's boxscores... thus far LaPorta is 5 for 16 in tune-up games including 3 HRs in the 4 games.

I was checking on him off and on because I really wanted to him sign, but last I saw he was hitting low .200s... that was a while ago already, early to mid July. I see his average up around .300 and his OPS is nice in the mid 800s. He hasn't played since the 29th... is he on the Olympic team? edit. Nope he's not.

I agree with that as well, but to my point about FTJ, why is his educated guess a worse projection because it wasn't based on a projection system? It's simply a matter of taste, prefference, persepctive, point of view... whatever. In the grand scheme it's no better or no worse. In the same sense that quite often BA or OBP will give the exact same information as OPS+. I have no statistical preferrence, I'll go with the flow of the original poster, the meaning of the post is more important to me personally than what statistic was chosen. Truth be told I prefer more advanced stats, but I'm not going to crack on someone because they choose to use BA or OBP instead of OPS+ for a given player. For people that aren't overly net savvy or educated in advanced statistics it's easier for them to use and formulate their opinions around what they know and understand. If people want to educate themselves as they spend more time here then great, if not that doesn't mean they shouldn't have a place in this community. I still remember the first time I saw OPS and thought "what the hell is that?", that's the great thing about this site, there's a wealth of information and opportunity to gain a more in depth knowledge of baseball if one so chooses. The catch is that people have to make that choice, and in most cases I think all of are going to make own choices at our own pace. edit. TLB to your most recent point, it happens all the time... side by side comparisons of projections with a definitive answer who the better player is based on the projection. Brian said exactly what I've been trying to say, only better.

Once again, yes I've educated myself on marcel... hence the "how many millions of times you run a simulation" comment. I wasn't talking about coaching football, I was actually talking about any sport. It's an eye opening experience to try to impart wisdom and make someone a better player, at least in my case it gives a greater appreciation for athletics of any kind. It's the difference between actually getting dirty and building something as opposed to drafting a set of a plans as engineer, it always looks easier on paper. I've never said projections don't have a place, in fact I've repeatedly said that my only problem with projections with they way they are used... someone is presenting them as fact, as representation of true talent. That's a very slippery slope to me... Just because player X has a better projection than player Y doesn't mean that player X is in fact the best choice for the team or the situation. Or that player Xhas a better VORP than Y player that he's a better baseball player. While it's true what marcel projects, or VORP says about the players, neither is necessarily the truth when it comes to the players or a given situation. I used pitch location as an example... a guy who's missing his spots by 18 inches just doesn't have good stuff that day, and probably isn't going to pitch very well, you can call it statistical noise if you want, but to me that's an oversimplification of the outcome of that particular game or AB. Again I just don't think sports are that black and white, I believe the games are more artistic in nature than advanced metrics give them credit for, there isn't much black/white in any sport, and as you agreed with me on it's impossible to measure the human element. Teams in any sport aren't trying to assemble an automobile with replaceable parts, they are trying to paint the Sistine Chapel and accomplish something truly memorable for one moment in time.

Is Brantley definately not the PTBNL then? Or am I reading too much into this since the Brewers are already working on the AFL roster slots?

A sweep for the organization! Is this the first sweep of the year? Though I guess it's a mini sweep, like sweeping a 2 game series.

Straw man arguement because I don't agree? That's typical of you... someone posts a contrary opinion and you get snippy over nothing. I post about the nuances of the game, yet I don't grasp the concept of human error? How about you actually take some time for once and consider what I'm trying to say, instead of dismissing it off the cuff because you think the concepts are out of my reach. The math isn't beyond me, the concepts aren't beyond me, you've never taken the time to consider/accept the simple point that while projections are based on facts, they are not facts in themselves, yet you continually present them like they are. They are an educated guess, nothing more, it's that simple. It doesn't matter how good the projection, how many millions of times you run the simulations, and the end of the day it's just an educated guess about how a player will perform over X number of games. A great example of this is the Cameron thread. FTJ made it clear that he didn't base his opinions on Cameron's production on any projection, rather that he thought Cameron's numbers would jump up more in line with his away splits from SD. A very simple concept, yet 40 posts later people are still telling him how wrong he is because he didn't base his opinion off of a projection. That's the whole problem people specifically ignore... It's great that you and many others are into statistical analysis, I enjoy most of your work, and I take the time to read your posts even though I don't necessarily agree with your angle. However you go off deep end if someone doesn't use the Metric that you approve of or base their opinion off of a projection. Heaven forbid they use ERA to point out how bad a pitcher has been over his last 5 starts... what doesn't ERA tell you for that sample of games that FIP, ERA+, or any other metric will? He's been poor... regression to the mean has nothing to do with how bad someone has been playing, yet that's the standard response. It may very well be an indicator of future success or lack there of, but the games have already been played and someone is trying to make a statement about that finite set of games. In some discussions sample size is irrelevant, because the size of the sample is the point of the discussion. I doesn't take a rocket scientist to understand that there are going to be peaks and valleys in performance over 162 games. Do I get tired of the "this player sucks" comments? Ya sometimes I do, especially when it's a knee jerk reaction to a single game. However there's little point in discussing the current season at all if people aren't able to make observations based on small samples. My point is, and always has been that just because people choose to look at baseball in a different way than you doesn't mean their opinions are flawed, invalid, or unworthy of your time. Like I said, the closer you are the game, the more you believe in the concepts that aren't easily quantified. I've never been overly self confident, so I guess I've always been willing to learn, and I steal little bits from every source and eventually end up with my own point of view. I believe that talent is relative from year to year, it's always in motion... somtimes players improve, sometimes they don't... talent can change from play to play in some cases. I've seen the most amazing plays made by the least athletic player and I've seen the most talent player on the team get worked all game long. How horrible does Braun look striking out on 3 pitches out of the zone, only to come to back against the same pitcher and crank one out of the park? That's the beauty of the game for me, the unpredictable nature of every single AB. The simple truth is that until you get out there and coach at a level where winning matters and care about passionately about the game and kids, you'll probably never believe in or understand what I'm talking about. I understand I'm nobody to you, and you disregard pretty much everything I say because it doesn't jive with your perception of baseball. That's fine, I'm certainly not perfect, I have as many if not more flaws than most, the difference is that I don't hold myself over the rest the fanbase... the point of the site is to be part of a community that passionately and intelligently discusses our team, the Brewers. Believing in Sabermetrics is not a prerequisite of membership to the site, and I believe it's entirely possible to have intelligent conversation that's devoid of advanced stats. If people care enough to understand what you're talking about they'll google the stats, find the websites, and do the research just like I did. It's not anyone's job to force statistical analysis down everyone's throat, nor should it be, because every fan is going to be into a different aspect of the team and the game. If you wish to discuss this further I'd rather we did it in PMs, there's no reason to further derail a quality thread like this with petty bickering.

Not just IMDB or YouTube, pretty much any internet forum... it was way worse in the original Everquest game... you'd get some kid who was just griefing people and /shout or /ooc some nonsense and the server would lag and you'd get 4 comments in a row from the dork, all same content, but all different... followed by something I can't repeat here about lag. I haven't laughed that hard in a long time, the Onion is great comedy.

Stocker has no business being in A+ right now, but I have no idea where you get him playing time otherwise, he's in a tough spot. edit. It's possible that Escobar and Gamel will finish the game tonight with the same BA... who would have thought that would be the case in August?

Frederickson in the mid 80s... what? If he was running up the ball up there in the low to mid 90s like Z said he threw on draft dayI wouldn't have anything to say as he irons out his control... but how can you only throw 12 strikes throwing in the mid 80s? He must have some serious mechanical issues, he's almost a real life Wild Thing at this point.

Off topic alert, but you must have like the 9th inning today with Gross and Pena coming through with big HRs.