Ball And Glove

Who is saying this in bold? AP has an ego, that much is true. Of course, it's a general rule (not my rule) that the greater player you are, the more you get away with. Let me know when Bill Hall and great make a sentence together. The rest of this post. . . 1) Yost hitting AP probably started the downfall which led to the Brewers choking themselves out of the wild card. Yost is playing beanball in a pennant race? If anybody would be mad, it would be that the Cards had a big hand in spoiling the Brewers last year. 2) The Brewers have been given at least 3 games vs. the Cards. If you want to claim dominance, fine. The run differentials of the teams would disagree. http://sports.espn.go.com/mlb/standings I should've clarified -- it's mostly been the Cards fans that were upset about the go-ahead HR's..."Kill Bill" photoshop jobs, calling for LaRussa to drill both Braun and Hall, etc. The players on the field didn't seem too happy about it, either, so I wouldn't be surprised to see either get conveniently plunked (for the record, I really don't care what players do to celebrate -- if pitchers can jump around and pump their fists after a strikeout, hitters should be able to watch their go-ahead home runs, regardless of how good they are). I never claimed dominance, either. True, the Brewers are 9-4 against the Cards this year, but they could just as easily be 4-9...it's probably fair to say that the Brewers have effectively played like garbage against the Cards this year but were able to hang around long enough to steal a few wins. It's been a frustrating year against the Brewers for the Cards, which is why I wouldn't be surprised to see them take this series a hell of a lot more seriously than the Brewers.

It would take the Brewers winning 5 of 6 against the Cubs down the stretch to even having a prayer of winning the division...the Cubs aren't going to do them any favors by struggling down the stretch, IMO. Like brewersbrewers, I think that Philly-Cincy-Chicago road trip will be what's going to trip the Brewers up down the road, but I don't think it'll cost them a shot at the wildcard. Since they already have a decent-sized lead over everyone else in the wildcard, all they have to do is tread water to get into the playoffs -- if they got 5-4 in that September road trip, they'll be in very good shape, assuming the Cards don't win 9 in a row or something. As far as this two-game set against the Cards goes, I'll agree it's much more important for St. Louis than it is for Milwaukee. They've spent the past month complaining about Bill Hall and Ryan Braun watching their 9th inning home runs (kind of ridiculous to complain when Pujols poses halfway down the first base line when he hits his solo HR with the Cards already winning 10-4), they're 4-9 against the Brewers this year, and I think they're still pissed off about Yost hitting Pujols at the end of last year. I wouldn't rule out the Cards winning both games, but I'm hoping for at least a split, with Sheets winning this first game. He really needs a solid performance soon to shut up all the amateur psychologists calling into talkshows with theories that Sheets is pitching poorly because he's jealous of Sabathia and can't handle being the #2 guy (because it can't possibly be the fact that he's pitching more innings than he has the past 3 years and his numbers were bound to regress to the mean eventually, right?)

Yeah, Turnbow did have 41 walks and 28 strikeouts in only 18 innings at AAA. He was left out there for a lot of "sink or swim" innings and pretty much drowned. I seem to remember a few outings where he had 6 or 8 walks in just over 2 innings of work. He was already a mental midget...getting sent down to AAA was probably too much of a blow to his confidence to overcome.

Turnbow actually went down with an injury a little while ago...I think it was something with the rotator cuff, so he's probably done pitching. Stetter was sent down when Suppan came back from the DL. I was personally hoping Mota would get DFA'd, but for some reason the Brewers are determined to keep him on the roster. Stetter will be back September 1st, though. bukie, I don't think Villanueva hasn't been that bad since his move to the bullpen. His ERA is still pretty ugly due to his plethora of bad starts at the beginning of the year, but since moving to the bullpen he has an ERA of 2.14 and he's cut down on the walks (only 7 walks compared to 43 strikeouts in 42 innings). I'd add Villanueva into that "solid relievers" group with Shouse and Torres, but you're pretty much spot on.

It helps that the Brewers are among the league leaders in IP by starters (meaning their bullpen has thrown fewer innings than just about everyone else), but I agree that it seems to be pretty unsustainable. There's something to be said about winning close games, but 24 of their 74 wins being by 1 run is pretty ridiculous. And maybe I'm being a bit of a homer here (and feel free to call me out on it if this is silly), but I don't think the Brewers' bullpen is as bad as it's been made out to be. Everyone looks at Gagne's problems and thinks it's indicative of the entire bullpen struggling, but the bullpen ERA is right around league average. ESPN.com has their current team ERA ("as reliever" split) at 3.88, good enough for 6th in the NL. The Cubs are 5th at 3.86. Again, it probably helps that they pitch so few innings lately, but they're far from atrocious.

The guy's right -- it does tell me something about the two teams that the Cubs are only 4.5 games ahead of the Brewers. It tells me that the Brewers have been incredibly lucky in one-run and extra-inning games and we really don't have a leg to stand on when it comes to smack in that regard. Acting like the Brewers are overcoming a bunch of underachievers this year is pretty ridiculous, too, considering Bill Hall and Rickie Weeks are really the only guys who are disappointing. Everyone else is producing close to where you would expect them to be. I'd be interested to hear who the players are that are having worse seasons than last year. Fielder, maybe, but you'd have to be stupid to expect someone to hit 50 home runs every year, especially a guy who's like 24. Hardy and Hart are pretty much on pace to match what they did last season, Cameron's playing up to his career averages, Braun has pretty much played up to what he's capable of, we knew Kendall was going to be a .240 hitter, and Hall's just as bad as he was last year. On the pitching end, Sheets is actually putting together a healthy season, Dave Bush is putting together the best year he's ever had in Milwaukee, they unexpectedly got a few solid starts from Seth McClung, Manny Parra has pitched well for his first full year in the Majors, and we all knew Suppan would be like the 6th or 7th best starting option and he's pitching like it. Mota and Gagne have been the main offenders in the bullpen, but both were basically chased out of their previous towns.

Not much to really argue about with the Top 25. I might flip Jay Bruce and Ryan Braun, but that's about it.

If the guy wanted to make a quick buck, he could at least make the logo on the shirt less generic.

Yeah, Sabathia got roughed up in the playoffs, but it's hard to tell if he was overworked or just lost his control because he was so amped up. He admitted that he gets a little nervous for big games, and he can't locate his pitches as well when he's nervous. RedFlash, are you sure those pitch count numbers for Sabathia are correct? I have a hard time believing he's averaged 126 pitches per start when he's only hit 120 twice (this game and the Cubs game), IIRC. Your main point is right on, though...it's eventually going to catch up to him. Unfortunately for Sabathia, he's on such a ridiculous pace right now that he can't possibly keep it up. Once he starts to falter, a lot of people will point to the overuse, but it could just as easily be him regressing back to the mean. If/when he does start regressing, the key will be looking at his velocity...if it's down a notch across the board, I'd say it's pretty obvious it was from overuse. If the velocity is fine and he's just getting hit, it's likely just him regressing back to the mean.

http://sports.espn.go.com/mlb/news/story?id=3541810 As long as they've got CC on the hill, they don't need anyone else. Not Braun, and especially not the bullpen. The problem is the other 4 days, when they don't have Sabathia on the hill and they still have Gabe Kapler starting every day and inexplicably hitting third.

130 is a career high for a single game, and the guy's thrown over 20 complete games in his career before tonight. Not even Eric Wedge was stupid enough to leave him in that long. Between Yost's idiocy (when STEVE FREAKING PHILLIPS is calling you out, you know you're a moron) and Braun re-injuring himself on a wild hack, this is the first time in awhile I've been genuinely pissed off after a win. Absolutely inexcusable and irresponsible. I don't care if Sabathia is a "battler" or a "gamer" -- at some point you need to step in and think long-term, otherwise you're going to have to sit through him getting shellacked by the Mets, Phillies, and Cubs in September. Sabathia said he didn't mind going that long because he has an extra off-day before his next start, but Ned's really going to hear it from the fans if Sabathia's even less sharp in his next start. If Tom Haudricourt wasn't too busy personally attacking his readers in his blog and printing their full names and e-mail addresses, he could ask Yost why the hell he decided to keep Sabathia in with an 8-2 lead in the 8th and a 9-2 lead in the ninth. I realize the Brewers' bullpen is bad, but even Guillermo Mota could hold a 9-2 lead in the 9th.

SSR just meant he lost his prospect (rookie) eligibility. I don't believe he was making any type of judgement on LaRoche's future. You're probably right. ;) I thought he meant he wasn't a prospect in that he was no longer a player with high upside, which wouldn't be the first time someone said that about LaRoche.

Except Capuano sucks I wouldn't go as far to say he sucks...he's a lefty who'll strike out 170 guys a year despite not having great stuff, but he'll give up a lot of HR's and give you a 4.25-ish ERA. He's basically your average soft-tossing lefty, like Doug Davis or Ted Lilly. He's not great by any means, but he is a pretty solid guy to have on your staff. Personally, I'd rather have him over Suppan this year (and longterm), but it looks like he's pitched his last game as a Brewer. He'll catch on somewhere, though, since lefties like him stick around forever.

I wouldn't give up hope on LaRoche. Sure, he hasn't looked good in his first 190-ish MLB at-bats, but he's always had solid minor league numbers (even considering the fact he played in a lot of extreme hitter's parks). He's still only 24...it's not like he's Rickie Weeks and still struggling to hit MLB pitching after 1500 ABs. If anything, Pittsburgh's the perfect place for us to find out if he can play every day in the majors...better than getting yanked around by Grady Little and Joe Torre and constantly getting blocked.

Yeah, Cirillo has been working on the Brewers Live pre/post-game shows for about a year and a half now. He definitely struggles with the in-studio stuff...reading off a teleprompter is obviously not his thing. When they just let him talk baseball, however, he's actually pretty fun to listen to. I'd love it if he would eventually replace Bill Schroeder as the Brewers' color analyst, because I feel like he has a lot more baseball knowledge than Schroeder, and he's less likely to say something stupid. Back when Cirillo was still playing, they let him in the booth when he was on the DL with a broken wrist, and he was great helping with commentary. Really, they need to get him out of the studio. Davey Nelson is another guy who knows a ton about the game, but struggles with the post-game shows because he has a hard time articulating what he's thinking.

Bummer. It's hard to get too upset when the Brewers really didn't deserve to still be in the game after Suppan's horrific start and leaving a small town on the bases. Kinda funny that Torre finally figured out that Ethier > Pierre in this series, though. That's something like his third HR of the series.

David Riske is allergic to 1-2-3 innings.

Doesn't Dodger Stadium have those all-you-can-eat bleacher sections?

When that left Martin's bat, I thought it was 5 or 6 rows back. That's about how far Kapler ended up in the stands. :lol: Ned trying to get too fancy with the LOOGY to start the inning. Said LOOGY proceeds to walk the leadoff man. I smell a walkoff shot by Kent or Manny.

Kemp's ball goes out in Miller Park...Gagne's lucky he's in Dodger Stadium. Hart caught that one with his back up against the wall, and it looked gone off the bat.

Ryan Braun is available to pinch hit (and strike out) for the Brewers tonight, but is not in the starting lineup.

Here's a list of the Brewers' expiring deals, including deals with options not likely to be picked up: Ben Sheets - $11M CC Sabathia - $9M (Brewers paid roughly half that) Eric Gagne - $10M Ray Durham - $7.5M (Brewers paying a little less than half) Mike Cameron - $7M ($10M club option for '09 that'll likely be declined) Chris Capuano - $3.75M (may be non-tendered after elbow surgery) Guillermo Mota - $3.2M Craig Counsell - $2.8M ($3.4M club option for '09) Gabe Kapler - $800K Russell Branyan - veteran minimum; was signed on a minor league deal Derrick Turnbow - $3.2M That's roughly $50 million coming off the books, but Fielder will likely suck up nearly $10 million in arby because Boras will refuse to avoid the arby hearing, Weeks will get somewhere between $1.5 and $2 million, Hardy close to $5 million, and Dave Bush around $3 or $4 million. The Brewers will also have to fill the bullpen holes left by Gagne and Mota with free agents, since they really don't have many MLB-caliber relief prospects in the minors, and they'll have to either sign a free agent starter or throw Carlos Villanueva back into the rotation. For that reason I could see them dealing Hardy while his value is high to create a little more payroll flexibility, but you'd be selling obscenely low on Weeks. A lot of people seem to think Weeks will eventually become a pretty good player in the Majors, but he's a late bloomer like Brandon Phillips and he needs a change of scenery (the problem being that Weeks is already as old as Phillips was when he turned it around in Cincy). Escobar's defense is supposed to be pretty good and would definitely be welcome on a team that needs it...the problem is that he's pretty much strictly a shortstop, so you'd have to displace one of the few guys on the team that can actually play decent defense at his current position. There's been some speculation that Hardy wouldn't be keen on moving to 3B or 2B, though..not to mention Hardy's offense would be pretty subpar for 3B. If you trade Hardy to put Escobar in the lineup, you're losing a lot of valuable offense from the SS position, and you have 3 automatic outs in Escobar, Kendall, and the pitcher (like the Brewers are throwing Counsell, Kendall, and the pitcher up there now). He's hitting .345 with an .834 OPS in AA this year as a 21 year old, so there's some hope that he'll develop into a good hitter, but his bat is still probably 2 or 3 years away from being MLB-ready. It'll be interesting to see what Doug Melvin does...I wouldn't be surprised if he floated Fielder out on the trade market a bit, just to see if he could get someone to give him a "Cabrera to the Tigers" type of deal.

I don't doubt that it'll eventually come, since he put up some decent walk numbers in the minors. It seems to me like he was over-anxious to produce once he got to the Big League level, but he was producing, so he fell into some bad habits. Until he starts improving that OBP, though, he's closer to Carlos Lee than Albert Pujols...still a very good player, but not the kind of guy that can carry a team, which he's going to have to do once Fielder is gone.

yeah, i believe their payroll expanded past $90M with the acquisition of sabathia. they've spent like a mid-market team, not far from the phillies, astros and blue jays. That's why Mark Attanasio is a hero in Milwaukee...the guy could probably run for mayor. Unfortunately, the cap seems to be $80-85 million...much more than that, and the team loses money on the year, barring a deep playoff run (and even then, MLB gets most of that revenue). Attanasio is willing to take a loss on the bottom line this year to make a run, but I wouldn't expect the Brewers to consistently operate at $90 million. There's a lot of money coming off the books this offseason (including Gagne's contract, which I still don't think is that bad when you consider it's only a one-year deal...better to give him 1 year at $10M than 2 years at $7.5M per year, IMO..it was low risk in that regard), but I know for sure that Weeks, Hardy, and Fielder are arby-eligible this offseason, and Hart is eligible next year, I think. If it wasn't 1:30 AM, I'd look up all the contracts expiring myself. ;) There's been rumors swirling that Hart will sign a long-term extension in the offseason once he has a full season of stats to negotiate with, but he'll still get a significant pay raise. The Brewers can probably afford to hang onto Fielder for one more year (I'd expect his first arby decision to be around the $10M Ryan Howard got), but after that it's pretty clear they have to move him. Hardy would probably be more valuable to more teams in a trade, but trading Fielder would give them greater payroll flexibility, and they could hide Gamel's glove at 1B (ironically, it'd probably be a defensive upgrade from Fielder).

It kinda is...Over at brewerfan.net they seemed resigned to the fact that their beloved Brewers are not catching the Cubs, and are banking on the Wild Card to get into the playoffs. I think most Brewer fans realize it's going to take a borderline miracle for Milwaukee to pull out the division (since I'm not one of those idiots that automatically thinks "Come on, it's the Cubs..."). I fit into that category of just worrying about the wildcard...the division title would be nice, but when you haven't been to the playoffs in 26 years, it doesn't matter much how you get there, you know? I think the best-case scenario for the Brewers would be going into September being 3 or 4 games behind the Cubs, considering the schedules of the two teams. Still, the Brewers would probably have to win both remaining series against the Cubs, and that's just not going to happen. I just hope that the Brewers wrap up a playoff spot before that last Cubs series, otherwise I don't think the Brewers get the necessary win or two to get into the playoffs without some help. I'm not necessarily thinking this because I think the Brewers are a bad team -- it's just that the Cubs are pretty obviously the best team in the league, and the Brewers have been getting a lot more one-run wins than what's comfortable. It's probably not as bad as I'm making it out to be, but being a Brewer fan, my brain can't compute how to deal with a team that could go .500 the rest of the way and still finish around 90 wins. Part of me thinks that the Brewers should play over .500 the rest of the way fairly easily given the schedule, the other part of me is still unsure about the next homestand against Houston and Pittsburgh because the Brewers are bound to screw it up. Getting Braun back in a couple days should help, but I really don't think he's that dangerous of a hitter. Sure, he slugs the crap out of the ball, but Rickie freaking Weeks had a better OBP until recently, and Braun strikes out even more than Weeks. I'm still finding myself somewhat surprised when he comes through with an RBI hit, because the guy swings at anything that moves when there's a runner on. The Cubs had him figured out in that 4-game sweep -- don't give him anything even close to the plate and he'll just get himself out. Compared to last year, his K/BB rate is actually improved, but it's still pretty bad. And I just realized how long this post is. I'll be surprised if anyone reads it all. :lol: