Owen Murphy of 1070 ESPN radio in Madison rips Brewerfan.net

[Thurston Fluff]

Seems to me that the average Packer fan generally requires better, more objective analysis. Is that an inaccurate generalization? I don't really listen to sports radio at all, so perhaps I'm off base there.

 

I think it's a fair assessment. The average Packer fan is more knowledgable than the average Brewer fan. The Packer fans are the football equivelant of the Cardinal fans in baseball. The reason I found this site to begin with is I wanted a more knowledgable group of Brewer fans.

[ESPNOwen]

Wow - I'm certainly not worth all of this. As one of our listeners said a while back, "Owen is a bonehead." He was right.
Let me start here - I was wrong. Brewersfan.net is obviously a quality site. So forgive me if I stepped on any toes. Secondly, there is no question that the lot of you probably know more about the Brewers now than I ever will, so kudos to y'all. My co-host Mike, on the other hand, really knows his stuff on the Brewers, so if you're a Brewer fan, I think his opinions are worth listening to.
Now, to explain my rant: We were getting a number of e-mails to our show critiquing the job Doug Melvin has done, e-mails with categorically wrong information. So I pointed this out...loudly...that they were wrong. What can I say; I'm kind of a spaz. For example, one guy said Calix Crabbe was part of the trade. Another listener complained about the "Kevin Mensch" trade. Umm, that one got the team Francisco Cordero, who, as I recall, was pretty good. One guy talked about the prospects given up for Linebrink as if there were gold. Mike Lucas of the Cap' Times has a great line, "Prospects are suspects." I agree with this thought. But I took exception when "Andy from Portgage" felt it necessary to say I hadn't done my homework; well, I had done my homework. He added. "Inman is in his first year ever in the majors and frankly, 4.17 as an era in the bullpen would be an improvement." Yes, a reliever who essentially gives up one run ever other outing would be an improvement...or not. Inman's single A stats do nothing for me, regardless of what Bill James has to say (BTW - I'm a fan of James as well as the Pro Football Prospectus cats). I like the Linebrink trade and would have given up those prospects for him, too. I could go into a longwinded explanation about all of this, but no one cares what I think about this trade.

I hope you'll give our show a shot as at least half of the hosts have a clue.

Owen

 

 

[sgtcluels]

Owen,

 

Hey thanks for coming and clearing things up. Especially since you are willing to face the music of 10000 penicl pushing nerds with the fury of 10,000 suns. My hats off to you! But nothing beats a Brewer Fan rage, look at the poison we have at Yost (Even though he deserves it)

 

Clue

[burniebrewer]

I agree with Clue.

 

I'm glad Owen came in and did something he did not have to do.

 

 

Edit-Speaking of traffic and publicity, this thread is linked over on ESPN 1070's website on Heller&Murphy's page.

[trwi7]

You know this guy is looking at the site right now.

 

My powers amaze me sometimes. http://forum.brewerfan.net/images/smilies/tongue.gif

 

 

[Brian the Automator]

Thanks for coming out, Owen. If you really wanted to rebut the trade, I would have mentioned that the Brewers got 2 comp picks out of the Linebrink deal, which buffered the loss of losing Inman.

 

Altho, Inman is tearing up the Texas League (AA) right now (a notorious hitter's league), so we still may regret that trade. Time will tell, as it does for all MLBers-for-prospect deals.

[ESPNOwen]

Thanks for welcoming me. I love message boards. Even one full of a bunch of "pencil protector" geeks. Ugh, I wish I had said that correctly. Again, I'm a tad spazzy.

As for the Linebrink trade, the team may very well regret it, but it was one I think they had to make. Their bullpen was in shambles last summer. Doug Melvin has a really tough job as they have no payroll to speak of, so when folks take shots at him, I expect them to be fair. Fans are rarely fair.

[berniebrewer4life]

i retract my previous statements. BTW, nice avatar.

 

EDIT: BTW, what made you want to check the website out?

[Thats Freakin Sweet]

Kudos Owen, to joining and facing the music. It's just too bad that you had to trash the site and those that frequent it.

 

You hadn't mentioned it on the air, but did the emailer that inspired your rant against the site trash Melvin?

[ESPNOwen]

Aw hell, there was so many e-mails...it's all a blur...all I remember is teeth...and claws...and the alamo...

 

But it's over now, but alas, the guy who hipped me to this site says he will no longer listen to our show...so, with the help of Babs Streisand, I will wish him farewell.

[splitterpfj]

Hello Owen-

 

I'm glad you're here, and I do listen to your show when I'm running the kids from place to place in the afternoon, I can tell you really enjoy doing what you do.

 

So Mike really knows his Brewers eh? Please tell him to get himself on here to have some fun with the masses....we're harmless until you misrepresent our pocket protectors.

 

Trust me on this one, Owen, show up here in June during the MLB draft - we'll turn you into a walking encyclopedia.

[uecker9]

Hey Owen - still waiting on that kid who'll go by his middle name- @. And about the name in the back hair, well...

 

oh yeah, Play some Husker! or more Clash!

 

sorry- inside joke

[1992casey]

Why isn't the Brewerfan store selling pocket protectors?

[MadisonBrewerBlue]

todays podcast

 

owen is about to talk about pissing off brewerfan.net

[jordanmuehl]

Owen, honestly, thanks for coming to BF and at least defending your position and clearing up your remarks -- as someone had pointed out earlier, it wasn't something you had to do, but you did it anyways, so thanks. I will agree with you that although the Linebrink trade may come back to bite us later, it certainly appeared as if we were making a trade to better our team for the "now" at the time we made it.

 

Once again, thanks for stopping by -- hopefully you'll make it a more regular occurrence.

[ESPNOwen]

Steve, do you make sense anywhere?

-Owen

 

uecker9 wrote:

---

Hey Owen - still waiting on that kid who'll go by his middle name- @. And about the name in the back hair, well...

 

oh yeah, Play some Husker! or more Clash!

 

sorry- inside joke

 

[samwise]

Thanks for coming on in Owen. I think you will find this website to be full of very passionate Brewer and Wisconsin sports fans who enjoy coming here to have informed and intelligent conversations. The people who post on this board tend to be very involved and passionate due to the quality of the website. The mods do a great job of keeping the threads from turning into individual mud fights, we have very active and informative posters and I think everyone who posts here really enjoys the online community that Brewerfan provides. This explains why people tend to get upset when Brewerfan gets made fun of. If you would have said something about the posters in the ESPN.com forums I pretty sure you would not have heard a peep.

 

Anyways, welcome aboard and I personally hope that you become a frequent poster. The more people who want intelligent baseball conversation the merrier.

[Brawndo the Thirst Mutilat]

He added. "Inman is in his first year ever in the majors and frankly, 4.17 as an era in the bullpen would be an improvement." Yes, a reliever who essentially gives up one run ever other outing would be an improvement...or not. Inman's single A stats do nothing for me, regardless of what Bill James has to say

 

This was what I couldn't get my head around listening to to clip...whichever e-mailer said that Inman was throwing out of the bullpen for the Padres at the big league level was dead wrong. He's still at AA, starting for San Antonio. I can totally understand being dismissive of condescending jerks who aren't even close to correct about anything they say. I do it all the time.

 

Bill James probably wouldn't really take you to task overmuch for not caring about single A stats. Most analysts agree that there is a pretty large make-or-break factor making the jump to the AA level, which is generally regarded as the hardest promotion a prospect will face. Personally, I'm very high on Inman, because he's always posted excellent to outstanding peripherals (strikeout and walk ratios, HR allowed) and he's always been very young for his leagues. I suspect that Melvin was willing to trade him because scouts are not that high on him. He's a short (6'0) RHP without a blazing fastball, so they see a guy with the ceiling of a #4 starter. None of that bothers me much, I don't really care how he misses bats, I just know that he does. So I still think it was a mistake to trade him for a third a season of Linebrink, who at this point is no better than an average middle reliever, and just wasn't likely to pitch well enough in enough innings after the trade deadline to make the difference between winning and losing the pennant.

 

It's worth noting as well that the Padres immediately called up Thatcher and he outpitched Linebrink down the stretch last year, though after his experience with Grant Balfour, I can understand Melvin's reluctance to call up another unproven veteran minor leaguer, regardless of how impressive his AAA performance.

 

Jack Z could still save this trade for Melvin, but he's going to need to do better with the two Linebrink comp picks than Inman and Garrison, which will be no easy task. Inman would be the clear-cut #1 pitching prospect in the system right now, and probably the first option to replace Bush, Villy, or Parra in the rotation right now should the team decide a move needs to be made. As it is, we're pretty likely to see the corpse of Jeff Weaver trot out to the mound to take a start at some point this season, and I think that's at least a little appalling. And even if Jack Z does strike gold in June, you also have to consider whether those players will be ready to help the team during the current contention cycle. I'm virtually positive that, barring injury, Inman would have been.

 

Oh, and hey Owen, sorry about the "least objectionable" quip earlier in the thread. I actually like Weasel radio quite a bit. Hopefully me pimping the show and providing the link gets you one or two extra listeners - though I wouldn't count on it (who knows whether anybody takes anything I say here seriously). Here it is again just in case:

 

http://www.espn1070.com/pages/weaselradio.html?_show

[ESPNOwen]

I love you guys...even though you're a bunch of nerds.

 

I kid.

 

I'm a total dork.

[ELCABALLO45]

I take back my comment about you being a tool. I was wrong. Im sorry.

[jazzytrav]

I love you guys...even though you're a bunch of nerds.

 

I kid.

 

I'm a total dork.

 

Man, I hate when I rip into someone I don't know and then they turn out to be nice. I apologize as well. Why couldn't you just come in here and freak out on us, Owen! http://forum.brewerfan.net/images/smilies/smile.gif

[RU Rah Rah]

Props for Owen.

[brewerjamie15]

Well Owen, I gotta say it took some guts to come in and check out the site. I will also add that after a listener was condescending to you (which I had stated in my previous post) you did what ya had to do. I'd have done the same. I didn't attack you for that, only stated that mentioning Baseball America was kind of funny because they actually liked our site.

I also went out and said that you banned 2/3 of your audience that day. If you find that in poor taste, I apologize. I suppose that we as a whole who posted in this thread kind of did what you did. Defended ourselves. I don't really listen to Madison radio on the internet, but I will make an effort to do so since you were mature enough to venture here.

I guess we don't often see things from your point of view. It seems rather obvious that radio hosts no matter what format, have to deal with many off the beaten path or narrow sighted views. For that, I can see you getting tired of the same old thing. When finally an issue gets put to rest, some caller rehashes things and probably in a manner which does not entirely support or prove a point.

I am in no way saying the caller Andy was wrong, and I truly appreciate his efforts to have pride in brewerfan.net.

You handled things how you did, and oddly enough, my earlier thoughts seem to be ringing true. You have added a member to our site, and you will surely pick up listeners from us. Perhaps you will double your audience to 6? http://forum.brewerfan.net/images/smilies/wink.gif

[ESPNOwen]

Well Owen, I gotta say it took some guts to come in and check out the site. I will also add that after a listener was condescending to you (which I had stated in my previous post) you did what ya had to do. I'd have done the same. I didn't attack you for that, only stated that mentioning Baseball America was kind of funny because they actually liked our site.

I also went out and said that you banned 2/3 of your audience that day. If you find that in poor taste, I apologize. I suppose that we as a whole who posted in this thread kind of did what you did. Defended ourselves. I don't really listen to Madison radio on the internet, but I will make an effort to do so since you were mature enough to venture here.

I guess we don't often see things from your point of view. It seems rather obvious that radio hosts no matter what format, have to deal with many off the beaten path or narrow sighted views. For that, I can see you getting tired of the same old thing. When finally an issue gets put to rest, some caller rehashes things and probably in a manner which does not entirely support or prove a point.

I am in no way saying the caller Andy was wrong, and I truly appreciate his efforts to have pride in brewerfan.net.

You handled things how you did, and oddly enough, my earlier thoughts seem to be ringing true. You have added a member to our site, and you will surely pick up listeners from us. Perhaps you will double your audience to 6? http://forum.brewerfan.net/images/smilies/wink.gif

Well, I don't think it took all that much in the way of intestinal fortitude to come here. It's a message board for chrissakes. You guys aren't going to give my avatar a swirly or something...are you?

 

And in terms of the size of our audience, don't let your wife lie to you; size matters. We're # 1 (Men 18-54) in our time slot...over every other show in the market. So make all the jokes you want about our audience size, but we is # 1 with dudes! INYOURFACESTATSNERDS! Boo yah, and all that.

 

With all that said, I sure hope our show becomes a place you all feel welcome to participate on...in...around. We are VERY into the Brewers and welcome your opinions. I mean c'mon, Ned Yost is the gift that keeps on giving. Even tonight, he actually goes to Gagne to save the game. I, for one, did not see that coming.

 

[brewerjamie15]

I don't think any of us did. Yost-ie truly is one to make things interesting.