pebadger

Silver lining in all of this for the fans: Unless the Cards really tank, or the Brewers dominate the Phils this weekend, there is a chance the Brewers clinch at home against the Marlins rather than in Wrigley.

Enjoy October golf, Cards. I'll be thinking of you.

Carpenter's ERA this season is actually better than his career average and his WHIP is just about the same as his career average. Shame on the Brewers for getting shut out by a CY winner on a night where guys are just catching the ball for the Cards. I guess they'll just have to find a way to win 11 games against a fairly weak schedule the rest of the way and not sweat the Cards winning every game on their slate the rest of the year.

So barring a comeback tonight, the Brewer will be 8-12 after the break against teams with winning records and 28-5 against everyone else.

How is that at all, in any possible way, relevant to this situation? It has to do with the fact that no matter what RR does, unless it is EXACTLY the move the certain folks think must be made, he is criticized. If he were just "riding the hot hand" he would be criticized for ignoring the big picture in favor of a small sample size. If he were to keep Green on the bench he would be critisized for not playing the best player. I'm happy Green is playing. I wanted him to play a long time ago. But it just seems like in what is looking like the best regular season in the history of the franchise, that folks have to complain about something every single day.

If this weren't Green, and just some non-descript journeyman, would we be railing against RR for just "riding the hot hand"? Another question for those of you who downplay the significance of psychology: For those of you old enough to remember the 1980 U.S. Olympic Hockey team (and those who aren't should just go watch the HBO documentary about them or the movie 'Miracle' right now), how many of the guys on that team, two games into the Olympics, would have traded a single guy on that team for one of the much better players on the Soviet roster? I'm guessing not a single guy would make that trade, no matter how much better the Russian was. And I'm guessing there isn't a single guy on that team that would have at that point traded one of his teammates for an American NHLer either. That is what it's like to be part of something bigger than yourself. Now, if in training camp or the pre-Olympics exhibitions they could have made that trade, they liely would have and they would have adapted. They had to deal with that sort of thing right up until the roster was finalized. But when the games start being played, and you band together behind your teammates and the success you are having, that's a very powerful combination. That US team, underestimated as their talent was, was still not better than the Soviets, or the Swedes or the Finns and probably even the Czechs. They won anyway. Sure, baseball is different. The season is longer. Changes need to be made for a whole lot of reasons. But the dynamics of how teams come together are much the same. It doesn't always happen, or even happen all that often. Sports are full of egos and agendas and all sorts of other individual preferences and conflicts that make teams like that a rare and beautiful thing. But when it does happen, messing with something like that in any way is just not something to be taken lightly. Not because the players themselves are fragile, but because the situation itself is fragile. I agree that overwhelmingly often "chemistry" is an effect of success rather than a cause of success. Most often teams are successful simply because they are overwhelmingly better than most everyone else, and just fortunate enough to beat their closest competitors on a given day or days. It's hard to tell the diference between the two. Often it doesn't matter. But for guys who have been involved in sports long enough, as these guys with this years Brewers have, they usually know when they have something special going. The managers and coaches know when they have something special going. If that makes them a bit more conservative in their approach than we might like them to be, I think that can be both understood and forgiven. I posted a whole bunch in the Green thread that he should have been brought up long ago. I still think that. I wouldn't have object to a move to upgrade the SS position earlier in the year either, though I didn't make that big a deal about it because I didn't think (and still don't think) that there was really all that much out there to go after at a reasonable price. I quibble and flat out disagree with a whole bunch of RR's game decision-making. All that said, I think the man deserves a heck of a lot of credit for how he has managed the team as a collection of individual players who are trying to accomplish something as a group. To me that outweighs all the other mistakes; mistakes which RR would not be alone in making.

Yes, the team is accepting and supportive of other guys. That's part of the great chemistry they have. But it's easier to have that chemistry within the framework they are working in, and RR has promoted that framework. Guys become part of the roster when Melvin puts them there. They become part of the team by earning the respect of the guys around them. SOmetimes that respect is earned by simply overwhelmingly good play. Other times that respect is earned by doing your job and fitting in. I don't think this team is fragile mentally. Quite the opposite. They're very solid, they have a good idea of themselves, of their own strengths and their own weaknesses. They know what to expect of themselves, their teammates, their manager and the coaches. That is a powerful thing. Because they are strong they aren't going to implode when setbacks happen. What WILL gradually undermine all that is to introduce doubts about their roles, their strengths, their weaknessed ans their expectations. It's fine to bring in new guys, but you don't just do it and make wholesale changes that disrupt the routine. JHJ didn't disrupt the routine when he came in. CC and Wilson knew what they were in the big scheme of things: reserve infielders. JHJ was brought in to do the job that he is doing right now and he had s track record of success; he wasn't given something for free and he didn't step on toes to make it happen. He earned his keep by performing. Felipe Lopez came in and didn't earn his keep. He's gone. TGreen is working through that process right now, and rather quickly. His performance this season in Nashville helped to speed up the process, but until he came up and proved not to be overwhelmed, he simply wasn't going to be handed a big spot in the player rotation. The major leagues, and the Brewer roster, is full of guys who were not overly blessed with talent and who carved out an MLB career for themselves ahead of guys who were more talented and who did not capitalize on those talents. That's why established guys want to see performance from the new guys they don't really know as players; front office projections and minor league numbers just aren't enough. Especially when a special season is on the line. We can *%%%% about the unfairness of a guy having to prove himself in a small sample size, but life in general is full of that challenge: often you get one or two opportunites at something you really want. If you fail, that dream is gone (or at least deferred). RR has shown himself willing to tinker with the lineup when he feels confident in doing so. The players seem to have his back. They know their roles and are comfortable with them. That's all I'm really saying. This season has the potential to fulfill the lifelong dream of a whole lot of guys who have worked their whole lives to be in this position. It's easy to say somebody else should gamble with that when it's not your dream on the line.

Find me some evidence that there are guys who feel that somebody isn't pulling his weight to the extent that a change needs to be made. On the other hand, find me evidence that this team seems to be very comfortable with itself and how things are going. Of course things can be disrupted if it feels like some folks are holding you back. That simply doesn't seem to be the case given all the evidence presented. In fact, this is a team that seems to be very satisfied with its construction and roles. It seems to be a team that is very open to everyone contributing, rather than worrying about who to throw under the bus in the quest for one more win. It seems to be a team that understands that it's not the Yankees, but is going to win anyway. THAT is what chemistry is. It's not about saying, well guys MIGHT feel this way or MIGHT feel that way. They're winning, they're satisfied with how they are winning and they are confident that they will keep on winning. It's an awesome yet potentially fragile thing. It's funny how folks think that somehow the players being human beings shouldn't make any difference at all as to how they perform. Psychology matters in every form of human endeavor. Why WOULDN'T it matter here? We see these guys 3 hours per day about 6 days a week in game situations. They are together 24 hours a day on road trips and about 10 hours a day during homestands. I'm guessing how they interact, their workplace routine and the immense pressures to perform is probably MORE important to them than to the regular guy on the street. Yet somehow we can pooh-pooh all this stuff as if these guys are robots. We know that in virtually every form of human performance change is disruptive. Yet somehow we're just suuposed ot ignore that here. We wonder how it can matter to Corey Hart whether he hits in the 5-hole or not. Guess what. It matters. Maybe there is a means by which someone can make it not matter to him, but until that happens it matters. It's not rational, but most of this stuff isn't rational. When a person commits a heinous criminal act, we often struggle to understand why it happened, when at its heart you often never can. It's very difficult to rationally analyze stuff that isn't based in cold, hard, objective logic (at least to the extent that we understand cold, hard objective logic). This season belongs to the 2011 Brewers. The 2011 Brewers know who they are. You don't get to be a 2011 Brewer until the 2011 Brewers decide you are one of them. You earn that distinction. You earn that trust and respect. Different guys will earn it in different ways, by adhereing to different standards, and at different speeds. Taylor Green is earning that distinction every game he plays. Yuni has earned it by showing up every day, playing SS through the good and bad, and being a good teammate. You usually can't simply impose changes to a group by proclamation and make them immediately work to their greatest effect. The new kid in town doesn't just get to pick his friends and become "one of the guys" in the middle of a school year, even if the group is a really good group who are happy to have a new friend and who view the new guy with zero hostility. In the end it's about trust and expectations. Both of these take time to develop. Everyone on the roster knows there are better shortstops in baseball than Yuni. The difference between them and us is that they are willing to see what Yuni brings to the table and are happy for his successes, rather than unceasingly wishing they had somebody else and fretting over the things he can't do. It's that kind of support of your teammates that makes a differnce, not only to your teammate, but to yourself and to those around you. As soon as you collectively throw one guy under the bus, everyone else knows that they can also be thrown under the bus. When you feel like you will never be left behind if you do what is asked of you, that's a great feeling to have.

For better or worse, the Brewers front office/management has come to a different conclusion. That concluson being reached, CC starting at second tonight was a foregone conclusion.

Green can play second in a pinch. They're not in a pinch. CC has been a backup middle infielder all season. If you're not going to use him in a situation like tonight, there is no reason to have him on the roster. It all comes back to guys having roles and being expected (and having expectations to) fill those roles. They aren't going to change that up now for no real reason.

So Wilson should have started? Not like there are a lot of great options with Hairston needing a day off. CC has played more recently and will probably be on the playoff 25. The numbers probably didn't really mean a whole lot.

The criticism of Yuni is over the top most of the time, but that doesn't change how ridiculous Brenly's statement about his range is/was.

The Cards 2 homers have for the most part been less impressive than 3 of the fly ball outs the Brewers have made. And while Yo doesn't seem to have good control, he's getting a number of pitches called balls that are being called as strikes for Lohse. Just the way it is so far. I very much appreciate what Wolf has done so far this season, but there is no way he should start ahead of Yo in the postseason. The Cards just seem to have Yo's number.

I had the same thought yesterday. It would be kind of cool if the fan base responded on Thursday night with a whole bunch of folks doing that when they return.

Dillard helps win the game that is played the day after he pitches.

Anybody find the right channel on DirecTV? It's 685. No HD.

I never said anyone would give up or not try. But when you don't know your situation, it can affect your performance. It just can. Some guys it helps. Some guys it hurts. It's the unknown that matters. JHJ knows he's just holding down the fort. That's his role. Everyone knows Weeks is the second baseman. He has been all season. With Yuni, eveeryone knows he's the starting SS. He has been all season. Hairston hasn't played a single game at short, even to give Yuni a break. You'd think if they were going to start going to some sort of a platoon they would have done so already. They haven't. But then you're just going to start up with that 2 weeks before the season ends, in teh middle of a pennat race? You can't see the difference between the two? I agree that spot starting certain guys and giveng guys rest is a good idea. That's the kind of situation that is very manageable. But you're also not going to see it happen in a series like they just finished with the Cards. Tonight was a perfect example of how to get the new guys involved, IMO. They were put in in situations where they could succeed and contribute in a big way, but without too much pressure on them. Green and Schaefer earned some stripes tonight. It paves the way to them playing more. The bottom line is that this is a team in which everyone seems to be involved, they like what they are doing and they don't see a reason to really make big changes. So why would you? What is there to gain?

Who are these better players? TG is better than Casey? We might THINK he is, but we don't know that. In the middle infield, if we look at the two positions together, is some combination of Hairston/CC/Wilson better than Yuni? If so, probably only marginally at best. Just because all us wise folks outside the team like to think that someone is better doesn't make it so. Just because some folks like to play things on the fly and make ad hoc decisions about everything at a moment's notice doesn't mean the Brewers front office operates in the same manner. It's pretty clear they had a plan for the season. They stuck with guys for the season. There were probably discussions had at various points about alternatives to some guys. But those discussions were held within context of the plan for the season. They made theri decisions and them lived with them. Next season there will be a new plan. I don't see how the idea that this is "just sports" negates the realities of interpersonal realtionships and performance in the workplace. If everything has been running well a certain way and then changes are made, it creates uncertainty. If changes are made at the expense of one person, and those changes are percieived to be unfair or unwarranted, it creates uncertainty and mistrust. Not just for the people directly involved in the change, but for everyone around them. If changes are made and they prove to make the situation worse, all these things are exacerbated by diminished confidence in the leadership that took a good thing and made it worse. Managing change is difficult. Why create a difficult situation for yourself by initiating changes that need to be managed if you don't have to, especially when you are dealing with a tough situation already? The time for experimentation and dabbling with change was in June and July. (I posted plenty on this issue in the TG thread.) It's water under the bridge at this point. I'm not completely advocating for what the Brewers have done this season, just saying I think I understand where they are coming from, and not without good reason. This isn't to say that there is only one way to handle this; there are plenty of "right" ways to manage the team, so long as you get results. What they are doing seems to have worked so far. If you are of the view that nobody this team has on the roster, or could have picked up along the way, was going to appreciably change their odds of winning a championship (as seems to be the view within the organization), then there is simply no point in stirring the pot at this late date. I'm expecting people to really lose it when Weeks get back and Hairston isn't playing at least half of the games at SS, despite all the evidence so far this season that such a change simply isn't going to happen.

Why "should" a guy who has been your everyday player sit? Performance? Rest? Why? And why now? The Brewers are far from being alone in the philosophy that your starters play almost every day, and on those days when they don' t there is an easy explanation. If you're saying guys should sit for performance reasons, what is the message that is being sent? Is now the right time for that message? If you're saying it's for rest, why would yesterday have been a good day to rest any of your first line guys? And if it is "rest", then who needs rest and when? Who gets input? I really think there is a VAST underestimation of the importance of routine and security in your position here. Just take it in to your own work environment. Things are going well at your company and you have a chance to land a really big job/account. Everyone from management on down is doing their jobs and morale is high. Then, 4 days before the big meeting with the prospective client, the CEO call you and tell you that even though you've been the lead on the project he's going to let the guy you just hired yesterday make the final presentation? You're going to let the new associate at the firm make the closing argument in the big case you've been prepping and trying for 3 years? Happens all the time, right? I mean, the new associate really killed it in his law school mock trial program and he graduated near the top of his class. Even if everybody loves the new guy in the office, and hopes he will do well and contribute to the continued success of the organization, there is a method by which you're likely to bring the new guy along to increase the likelihood that he will in fact meet those expectations. Green isn't being blackballed. He's a new guy, who just got his first major league AB. The Brewers were playing the Cardinals. At what point in the series would have been a good time to tell Casey to sit down? The very first game of an important series when all you really need is one win? Or the second game, after you've already lost the first? Or when you're looking to avoid being swept? This isn't about the inmates running the asylum. It's about everyone in the clubhouse (players, coaches manager) feeling like they have a good thing going and seeing no reason to change that. And again, this isn't about sticking with a guy despite performance. It's about guys accepting the performance they are getting from a teammate they lke in a cluhouse that is working. If anybody really beleived that Yuni or Casey needed to go, they wouldn't have a problem with the change. They simply don't believe a change is necessary. They, unlike many outside the team, are willing to accept their teammates for what they can do, rather than worrying about what they can't. Do you really want to gamble with what you've got going right now by rocking the boat? This is may be the only shot some of these guys have at ever having a season like this again. CM and YB aren't great, but do you want to risk a change and then end up with the relacements not making the cut and the demoted guys now out of synch with what's going on? Look, I would love for TG to play some. I'd like for there to be an alternative to Yuni B. The team just isn't constructed that way right now.

Of course it doesn't mean guys can't ever be replaced. And it doesn't mean that guys shouldn't sit every now and then. Everything has a time and a place. There is an internal dynamic at work in these situations that unless you are there is hard to know about. Guys on a really tight team are usually very willing to give new guys their chance in that time and place and they'll be supportive of those efforts. But a lot of that comes back to folks feeling secure in their roles on the team. If you create insecurity by messing with people's roles (or their perception of their roles), you create trouble. This doesn't mean that the players are running the team when you as manager defer to those roles, if you are the one who has created those roles for the player in the first place. If you arbitratily deviate from the system you have developed, you not only created uncertainty for the players with respect to their place in the team, you create uncertainty with regard their expectations of you as manager. Take the Green situation as an example. Platoon situations work best when guys know they are platooning and they both understand their role in that platoon. If you take a guy out of an established everyday role and create a platoon (whether spoken or unspoken, "hard" or "soft"), you are demoting that player. For some guys this works to motivate them, or otherwise improve thier play. But then do you go back to giving that guy an everyday job if his performance picks up? If so, what effect does that have on his platoon partner? Will he feel used, and that you never really intended to give him a shot at the job? Will he feel demoted when he loses that platoon role? What if the new guy takes over the everyday job? Then you have a whole new set of issues to deal with, especially if the guy losing his job is one of the core players of the team. You have those issues regardless of how well the demoted player handles the demotion and his new role. Not least of these issues is how the other players perceive the situation. If one guy gets the axe, especially if the axe falls when the replacement is seen as only marginally better, or as not having paid his dues, or if the new guy is simply not liked, other guys will wonder if they are next. Some guys can perform under these conditions. Others simply can't. When you create roles for players, and then stick with those guys through good and bad, you create certainty. This doesn't mean you can't take guys out of jobs. Indeed, its imperative that performance DOES matter so the when changes are made it's very clear as to why. But there are different ways to make performance matter than simply jerking guys around in terms of playing time. In the end it all comes down to an intuitive calculation: is any personnel move you make going to create enough of a performance boost to offset the disruption caused while adjusting to those changes? It seems pretty clear to me that the Brewers simply did not, and do not, beleive that would be the case this season. It may have been easier to make changes early in the season, but this is a team that s pretty well set at the moment and it simply doesn't make sense to really change things up right now. Certianly not in a game where you are trying to avoid being swept by your closest divisional rival. This weekend's games are important, but it's quite likely we'll see some different things going on this weekend in terms of guys getting days off and the like. It's the right time and place for it to happen.

I honestly don't understand how anybody can have a problem with RR saying that the player prefer to play with their guys unless they have never been part of a team in a competitive situation. That what being part of a real, successful, cohesive team is all about. If you've ever been a part of something like that you never forget it. If you haven't, you simply wouldn't understand this situation or the situation in many other team sports. This ain't Strat-o-matic. There is a lot of game management decision-making not to like with RR. He may even have cost them some games in the aggregate when you look at teh statistical estimators. At teh same time though, all the fudge factors, including luck, chemistry and whatever else you want to call it, seem to be working in the Brewers favor this season. Isn't it just a little bit possible that RR managing people, as opposed to managing a game, has something to do with that? Managing people over the long term, and being a leader, is what every big-time business is looking for in its top management folks. You can hire bean counters and math whizzes to make sense of the back-office stuff and to help formulate organizational goals and strategies, but without good personnel management and leadership even that stuff becomes a bit less that it might otherwise be. Everyone will make mistakes. RR has made mistakes. The difference is that this team seems to believe in what he is doing, and because of that they are as willing to forgive his mistakes as he is willing to forgive thiers. In short, there is trust in this clubhouse. Call me old-fashioned, but I think that matters.

I'm not saying that's the only way to handle things, but it's the way things are being handled. Yes, maybe the young guys get upset if they're not playing. But then they are the ones (in this worldview) with the problem in that they aren't accepting their roles. The other guys, who have been around longer, have shown no problem (that we know of) accepting their roles. It very well could be that maybe worrying about whether they would mope might be the reason the young guys don't come up sooner. There are only so many spots on the team and only so many ABs to go around. The Brewers decided at some point in the season that the guys they have are their guys. Right or wrong, they didn't feel that anybody was forcing their way into the lineup or forcing their way out of the lineup. It seems like they also didn't want to put themselves into the position of creating a controversy at a position. If you bring in Green earlier, but don't commit to him and ship out Casey, you create tension and controversy. With things going as well as they have, I think they figured that was the real enemy.

Players (and people) like regularity. They usually don't like arbitrary changes to the routine. As much as people here like to rip on some players, those guys usually aren't the reason the Brewers win when they win and they aren't the reason the Brewers lose when they lose. They show up, are good teammates, accept their roles and do what they can to help the team given their limitations. Most people can accept those around them in their own lives who do those things, so long as they aren't causing other problems. It works the same way in a clubhouse. As much as some like to mercilessly hammer Yuni B, for example, I 'd bet a fair amount that he simply isn't viewed that same way in the clubhouse. Guys know he isn't great, but he puts in an honest effort and he's one of the guys. The second you start just changing things to change things, and create the appearance of scapegoating somebody, especially when that change isn't likely to make any real difference on the field, some people tend to be turned off. The Brewers don't have any saviors waiting in the wings. There is no shot of nitro for this engine. They have 81 wins right now playing in one of the smallest markets in baseball. This doesn't mean you don't try to get better, but you have to look at whether making incremental changes at this point makes any sense at all.

I wasn't complaining about Prince. Just stating the facts. He's been cold lately, and yet other than this series the team was more than survivng anyway. SOme of that is the competition, some of that is pitching and some of it is other guys getting the job done. I don't think they will have any success in the playoffs if Prince gets in a similar funk, but even if he's just average they should have a shot so long as the pitching doesn't fall off a cliff.

Prince is now something like 5 for his last 40.