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Hopefully Sean is moving closer to entering this game with every pitch Marquis throws. At least the bullpen is active.

Thats a bit much.... Besides Z, who do we have near as good as Rich once he is figured out? Gallagher is as good as Dempster and Marquis. I am betting Hart isn't too far from them. Once Hill figures things out, he'll be back in Chicago. We hope. Yea, it's not like he was in the majors all of last year.

Thats a bit much.... Besides Z, who do we have near as good as Rich once he is figured out? Gallagher is as good as Dempster and Marquis. I am betting Hart isn't too far from them. Once Hill figures things out, he'll be back in Chicago.

Marquis has actually been excellent against Pujols. It's Izturis we need to worry about.... Or dumb walks like these. Man its become really popular to draw conclusions after 20 ABs here hasn't it. I'm not drawing any conclusions. The post was more tongue in cheek than anything. He has been successful in limited ABs against Pujols, though.

Great play by DLee!!!

Marquis has actually been excellent against Pujols. It's Izturis we need to worry about.... Or dumb walks like these.

Please continue to talk crap about him. Hopefully he'll shut you up again. He'll do his usual 1 good AB where he hits a HR, then strike out on 7 total pitches in his next 3 ABs. I'm really tired of watching him swing at everything. That's remarkable, striking out three times on seven pitches. Don't you mean nine total pitches? :D

Oops, you're right. He was a setup man for a few seasons before that. So he turned to crap simply as a result of switching teams, not switching roles. I was so excited when we signed Rojas. I thought for sure we had the closer spot sealed up for years after getting him. Thinking about his collapse still makes me sad...

Tom Glavine, Bronson Arroyo, and Dontrelle Willis thank you for throwing them out of the league :D Seriously though, it is a problem. Marquis can maintain being a league average pitcher and stay ok, but he's certainly not earning himself any points with Piniella. I don't think he's on thin ice as long as he remains that way (unless he starts losing his control or having really short outings), but knowing Piniella, he could slide there pretty quickly. So far, he's done exactly what they signed him to do though. Put up league average production, and take the ball every time out. You just always have the feeling with Marquis though that the cliff is one or two starts away, even though he hasn't fallen so far. I think that's why he's so frustrating. You just never know what to expect out of him from game to game or even inning to inning. He was above average for 2 months last year and was below average for 3 months. Average for 1 month. Which put him right around average production over the course of the year. I'm not happy at all that he's a Cub, but he's been a decent enough fourth/fifth type starter for us so far. I just pray he doesn't regress at all.

Tom Glavine, Bronson Arroyo, and Dontrelle Willis thank you for throwing them out of the league :D Marquis has also held Pujols to a .698 OPS. That means he's an ace! :wink:

Yeah, LaRussa's the best. Without one of the best managers in the history of the game, though, Lou would be the best. Just pointing out he's pretty clearly not the worst manager in the Central and is, in fact, quite a bit ahead of everybody else.

Bad as that decision was, Lou is still light years better than either Yost or Dusty and could still be the best manager in the Central - not that the competition is stout, though.

A point to consider against Dusty, though, is that Dusty can completely ruin an offense as well as a pitching staff. Yost definitely was horrible with his dealings with Gallardo, Sheets and Gagne this year - but Dusty has also wrecked (or at least played a part in wrecking) Prior, Chad Fox and LaTroy Hawkins (mentally, at least). Unlike Yost, though, Dusty has also made a terrible mark on offenses. His preaching of overaggression has likely severely damaged multiple Cubs prospects (CPatt, Cedeno, etc) and has the potential to do the same to multiple Reds prospects (Votto's aggresiveness, Jay Bruce, etc). Yost, at least, hasn't done much damage to the approach of young guys like Weeks, Braun, Hart, etc.

Ned seems like a guy who makes decisions based off a mix of very little information and gut feelings. I have a prediction that at some point Ted Simmons will take over for Ned within the next year. Interesting. That does sound like how Bobby makes his decisions, except Cox does it with as much info as possible and his gut is much better.

I didn't want to start a new thread on this, since there are only so many Brewer threads we can take here. Anyway, I wonder how Ned Yost makes such dumb decisions after coaching under Bobby Cox for years. Seems like some kind of intelligent baseball knowledge would have leaked off Cox and onto Yost.

DirecTV EI is only offering the Brewer telecast, so I'll go with Steve Phillips and whoever is doing the game with him on ESPN. Plus, the ESPN broadcast has Erin Andrews. =P~

Reminiscing on the horrible players of old actually makes me feel more positive about this team. Even Theriot isn't as bad as, for instance, Kevin Orie. I did just realize, though, Matt Mieske had some nice numbers in 98 (.299/.373/.402). But yes, I can agree that we need to win today. :D

I'm with you. I'm not close yet. Lou does some very odd things, but to this point he hasn't done anything that will definitely hurt our young players. Pie, Cedeno, Marshall, etc. should be playing more but they're not getting stuck at the end of the bench and ignored, at least. The thing that is keeping me from wanting him to get fired is, almost every manager (at least any manager we'll hire because we seem to like guys who have name recognition)is going to have that stupid old school mentality so it won't make a difference who the manager is. Exactly. We're going to have some old school element no matter who our manager is. Lou is pushing OBP on offense and getting pitchers to limit their walks. So long as he doesn't crush the future of our young guys, I'm fine with him. Just to give you an idea, even Bobby Cox - probably the best manager in the game today - has old school elements to his philosophy.

They do have a crappy lineup, and they do have a crappy pitching staff. But just like in 2006, it's not stopping them from outperforming those pesky little facts. How come we never have any years like that? 1998's about as close as we've come to something like that. I think the 98 team was a good bit better than this Cardinal team, though. Just looking at stats and Kevin Tapani went 19-9 with a 4.85 ERA. The classic example of old school vs new school. 19 wins is stellar, but a 4.85 ERA is very average. We also had Marc Pisciotta on that team, I believe. It's startling the poor baseball players who were on that team. 2001 our team was pretty bad (excepts Sosa and Lieber) and we were one of the best teams in the league until September Very true, very true. Am I the only one who had completely forgotten about Courtney Duncan and Mike Fyhrie? I completely forgot they even existed. Plus we had Ron Coomer starting....was that the year Mueller went down? Julio Zuleta, Roosevelt Brown,Damon Buford. This was also the year Z made his debut. I think he got rocked in the second game of a double header. I also think Juan Cruz made his debut the first game and dominated. Who knew who Z was going to be the ace? Zuleta was awesome, I don't care if he had crappy numbers (which he did). I liked his voodoo. But yeah, Rosey and Buford were truly horrible. I can top you on terrible names, though. Todd Dunwoody and Manny Aybar saw playing time with the team. And I actually preferred Z to Cruz. I was terribly worried about Cruz's miniscule frame. I wanted him in the pen and Z to start. At the time, though, I liked Scott Chiasson.

I'm with you. I'm not close yet. Lou does some very odd things, but to this point he hasn't done anything that will definitely hurt our young players. Pie, Cedeno, Marshall, etc. should be playing more but they're not getting stuck at the end of the bench and ignored, at least.

Wow. I just noticed while looking on baseball reference that, in 99, Shane Andrews had only 17 hits for us. The weird thing is, five of those were home runs and four were doubles. 17 hits with 9 going for extra bases. Oh yes, that was a truly terrible roster.

They do have a crappy lineup, and they do have a crappy pitching staff. But just like in 2006, it's not stopping them from outperforming those pesky little facts. How come we never have any years like that? 1998's about as close as we've come to something like that. I think the 98 team was a good bit better than this Cardinal team, though. In 2001, the Cubs basically rode Sammy, Lieber, Wood and a decent bullpen to playoff contention into September. That was another one. But you'll notice on neither occasion did we make it to the World Series. Or come close. Good thinking on 2001. And on that is exactly what infuriates me about the Cardinals. We have a miracle year and we either miss the playoffs barely (01) or we get swept in the first round (98). They have a miracle year and they win it all. I hate St. Louis. The thing with the Cardinals is the year they won the World Series they really didn't have a miracle year.(They won 83 freaking games) There was just no one in the division who was good at all. So it makes you even more angry. In a year when they are the definition of mediocre they win the freaking series. The miracle part was intended more for the playoff run. The division was terrible, but they had no business winning a single playoff game. Much less winning it all.

They do have a crappy lineup, and they do have a crappy pitching staff. But just like in 2006, it's not stopping them from outperforming those pesky little facts. How come we never have any years like that? 1998's about as close as we've come to something like that. I think the 98 team was a good bit better than this Cardinal team, though. Just looking at stats and Kevin Tapani went 19-9 with a 4.85 ERA. The classic example of old school vs new school. 19 wins is stellar, but a 4.85 ERA is very average. We also had Marc Pisciotta on that team, I believe. It's startling the poor baseball players who were on that team. 2001 our team was pretty bad (excepts Sosa and Lieber) and we were one of the best teams in the league until September Very true, very true. Am I the only one who had completely forgotten about Courtney Duncan and Mike Fyhrie? I completely forgot they even existed. Plus we had Ron Coomer starting....was that the year Mueller went down?

They do have a crappy lineup, and they do have a crappy pitching staff. But just like in 2006, it's not stopping them from outperforming those pesky little facts. How come we never have any years like that? 1998's about as close as we've come to something like that. I think the 98 team was a good bit better than this Cardinal team, though. In 2001, the Cubs basically rode Sammy, Lieber, Wood and a decent bullpen to playoff contention into September. That was another one. But you'll notice on neither occasion did we make it to the World Series. Or come close. Good thinking on 2001. And on that is exactly what infuriates me about the Cardinals. We have a miracle year and we either miss the playoffs barely (01) or we get swept in the first round (98). They have a miracle year and they win it all. I hate St. Louis.

They do have a crappy lineup, and they do have a crappy pitching staff. But just like in 2006, it's not stopping them from outperforming those pesky little facts. How come we never have any years like that? 1998's about as close as we've come to something like that. I think the 98 team was a good bit better than this Cardinal team, though. Just looking at stats and Kevin Tapani went 19-9 with a 4.85 ERA. The classic example of old school vs new school. 19 wins is stellar, but a 4.85 ERA is very average. We also had Marc Pisciotta on that team, I believe. It's startling the poor baseball players who were on that team.